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      Europe’s Far Right Fails to Capitalize on COVID-19

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      Europe’s radical-right parties have quickly understood the benefit they can derive from criticizing their respective governments in managing the COVID-19 health crisis. Their communication focuses on three main areas. First, they question the animal origin of the epidemic through the use of several conspiracy theories. Second comes the criticism of globalization presented as the root cause of the pandemic. And, finally, they criticize the threats that lockdowns and other measures, such as the wearing of face masks, impose on the individual freedoms of European citizens.

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      The conspiratorial mindset of the European radical right is evident in the current COVID-19 moment. Like other extremist milieus, the idea of a ​​hidden cause according to which any historical event occurs is prevalent. The search for mysterious reasons that the powerful media and political elites would like to hide from the people is never far away in the far-right diagnosis of the origins of the pandemic. In particular, as the origin of the virus is still disputed in public discourse, the pandemic is the ideal issue for those who are prone to such conspiratorial thinking.

      Orwellian Society

      We shouldn’t get too carried away with ourselves here, however. Not all radical-right actors have reacted to the pandemic with conspiracy theories. One of the most interesting issues is that some of them have reactivated the theme of the West having to fight communism, embodied no longer by the USSR but by China as a new bête noire. Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers, for example, accused China of using opacity and lies to downplay the scale of the epidemic, an attitude which he says stems from the command-and-control nature of communism itself.

      Other parties or figures on the European radical right have raised questions not only about the responsibility of the Chinese government for a late and inappropriate response to the pandemic, but also put forward the idea that the virus escaped from a virology laboratory in Wuhan. This theory, propagated in mid-April by Professor Luc Montagnier, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine, was relayed in France by the elected representatives of the National Rally (RN), Julien Odoul and Gilbert Collard. The RN, however, did not fully follow in the footsteps of Professor Montagnier and calls for the creation of an international commission of inquiry into the origins of the epidemic.

      Added to this, the pandemic has allowed the European radical right to develop the notion that “elites” are using the health crisis to hasten in an authoritarian form of government. For example, Spain’s Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé accused President Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing government of authoritarianism when it withdrew from parliamentary control lockdown measures limiting freedom of movement. The RN, which published “The Black Book of the Coronavirus: From the fiasco to the abyss,” a brochure criticizing the French government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, accused the authorities of using “guilt, infantilization and threats” against the French people in order to enforce a lockdown.

      Other more marginal movements, which do not have to worry about achieving political credibility, have protested against outright “dictatorship,” such as the Italian fundamentalist neo-fascist and Catholic New Force party. In Hungary, the nationalist Jobbik party, which now seeks to defeat Viktor Orban by allying itself, if necessary, with the center-left opposition, decided to denounce government attacks on media freedom during the pandemic.

      The European radical right everywhere has fired bullets at incumbent governments, accusing them of failing to meet the challenges of dealing with the epidemic. In March, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, accused President Emmanuel Macron of ordering the state to lie and cover up the extent of the pandemic by giving the French people incomplete or false information in order to hide his incompetence. It was the only French political party to absolutely refuse any policy of national unity in response to the pandemic and to support the hydroxychloroquine-based treatment recommended by Professor Didier Raoult.

      The Spanish Vox party also issued very strong words against the government, using such phrases as “criminal management,” “obscurantism,” “loss of all credibility” and “insulting” (in respect to the people of Spain). The situation in Italy also prompted the far-right League party to attack the coalition formed by the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the center-left Democratic Party. On the night of April 29, for example, the League’s leader Matteo Salvini showed his contempt of parliament by occupying the senate hemicycle with a dozen other elected officials to denounce economic restrictions, delayed aid to Italian citizens and small businesses, the limitations on freedom of movement and the side-lining of parliamentary powers by the Conte government.

      But a poll carried out on May 8 shows that even if the League remains in the lead, with 26.7%, when it comes to voting intentions, its popularity has been declining since the start of the health crisis while another nationalist party, the Brothers of Italy, is credited with 14.1% — more than double of the 6.2% it won in the 2019 European elections.

      No Coherent Response

      Despite all this, the European radical right seems to have failed to develop coherent responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The speed with which the pandemic spread was unrelated to the limited migratory flows observed on the Greek island of Lesbos at the end of February, thus depriving the radical right of the possibility of singling out immigration as the cause of the pandemic. Instead, in all European countries, the radical right put the blame on globalization.

      Their idea, therefore, is that the pandemic was caused by globalization itself, which generates continuous flows of travel and international exchange, immigration notwithstanding. Globalization, they say, allows multinationals to make financial profits in times of crisis, while the poorest are hit hardest by unemployment and the overwhelmed national health systems. Thus, as a way of example, the Hungarian Mi Hazànk party writes: “We are happy to note that the government accepted our idea of ​​a special solidarity tax on multinationals and banks” and calls for a moratorium on debts and evictions.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      For the European radical right, the health crisis was an opportunity to denounce the European Union, which leaves the competence over health policy to individual member states, and to underline the absolute necessity of returning control of the borders back to member states. As Thierry Baudet, the leader of the Dutch far-right Forum for Democracy, says, “the Nation-State is the future.” During the COVID-19 crisis, European radical-right parties, including the National Rally, have continued to reiterate that they were the first to have warned of the dangers of bringing “back home” potentially strategic industries such as pharma away from China and India.

      The European radical right has failed for several other reasons as well. In Hungary and Poland, the conservative, illiberal right who are in power very quickly closed their borders, which led to the pandemic being contained. In addition, the governments of the most affected countries, Spain and Italy, have (belatedly) managed the crisis well, as had Germany, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has dropped to its lowest levels in voting intentions since 2017.

      To add insult to injury, the AfD is even faced with the birth of a single-issue party, Resistance 2020, that is even more conspiratorial than the AfD and lobbies for the complete rejection of all government-sponsored measures to fight the pandemic. At this point, Marine Le Pen’s popularity rating only rose by 3%, to 26% in May. Were presidential elections set for 2022 held today, she would lose to the incumbent Emmanuel Macron by 45% against 55% — a sobering thought for theorists who suggest that extremism inevitably grows in a crisis.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Trump at the UN: A Failure to Lead

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      True to himself, US President Donald Trump completely failed to address any of the issues confronting the global community in his keynote speech to the 74th General Assembly of the United Nations. Instead, he used the platform to criticize China, to excoriate Iran, to boast of how big and dangerous the US military has become, and to urge every nation to close its borders to even the most hungry or persecuted migrants. He did, however, think it appropriate to support the right of all Americans to own as many guns as they want.

      In the same speech, Trump made headlines with his words urging the world to hold China accountable for having “unleashed this plague on to the world,” in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for deliberately encouraging the coronavirus to spread. The White House cut these words from the transcript posted on its website. Perhaps even the administration’s press office did not have the stomach to publish such libel.

      This speech to the UN was a moment when the leader of the free world — as a US president might once have been seen — could actually attempt to lead. The speech was an opportunity to inspire and to set out a roadmap to a better future. Trump chose to do the reverse. The world is facing a triple crisis of an international pandemic, economic collapse and climate emergency. Trump could only reach out for people to blame: the Chinese, Iranians or Venezuelans. He failed to mention that the United States has the biggest coronavirus death toll of any country in the world, with over 200,000 dead and counting. 

      Nor did Trump comment on the millions out of work or that America’s west is burning at the same time that its southeast is inundated by hurricane after hurricane. These are not just America’s problems: Trump did not address the dire straits of billions of non-Americans impacted by these dangers. Why would he? This is the true measure of “America First.”

      The American leadership vacuum is a grave danger to not just Americans but to us all. Trump’s failure to act early to stem coronavirus infections — a deliberate decision he made to fatuously “avoid panic” — will likely cost the lives of tens of thousands more Americans on top of the current staggering death toll. The US withdrawal from the World Health Organization in the middle of the pandemic signaled that Trump wanted no part of the international leadership out of the health crisis. The resultant deaths will be beyond imagination.  

      Trump has employed the same approach to international economics. His regime’s policy has been to withdraw from trade agreements, set up sanctions barriers against competitors and allies, and complain that everyone else’s industrial policies are more successful than his. Trump has also embarked on a determined effort to weaken the international institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and so on — that have enabled the world economy to prosper for the past 75 years. The world is going to need a great deal of leadership to emerge out of the current economic wasteland, on a scale of what was done to repair the damage of the Second World War. We can rely on Donald Trump to be absent from that role, too.

      As for the climate emergency, Trump has chosen to deny it. More than that, he has proceeded to undo everything previous US governments and the international community had done to try to save the planet from disaster. All of these crises are going to produce millions of refugees across the world. Trump couldn’t care less.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      America’s War on Abortion

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      Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) releasing a statement earlier this year articulating that, “services related to reproductive health are considered to be part of essential services during the COVID-19 outbreak,” legislators in some US states have been making relentless efforts to declare abortion services as non-essential during the pandemic. Lawmakers in Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Iowa are having to contest extensive lawsuits in connection with the issue.

      On March 23, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked all licensed health care professionals and facilities, including abortion providers, to comply with the executive order issued by Governor Greg Abbott that stated that all surgeries and procedures that are not medically necessary to correct a serious condition or preserve life will be postponed. Thus, all procedural abortions in the state of Texas were banned amid the COVID-19 outbreak to conserve medical resources. After a union of abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, sued the state of Texas over this temporary yet extremely restrictive measure, the bans were partially lifted, with abortions resuming again at the end of April.

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      According to Marie Stopes International, the suspension of services could lead to anywhere between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions during the pandemic across the 37 countries where the charity operates. A large part of these will occur in the United States, owing to a lack of safe abortion facilities. Thus, the uproar caused by the US restrictions has breathed new life into the standoff between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, an argument the relevance of which has not diminished with time.

      May 15, 2019,was a decisive and divisive date for women in the United States, particularly in the state of Alabama, which saw the passing of the Alabama Human Life Protection Act. Under this law, women who undergo an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy can be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for homicide. The act bears only two exceptions: if the fetus has a lethal anomaly or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s life. Since the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973, this is the first time abortion is being criminalized in the US. The passing of the act has triggered a domino effect, opening the availability of abortion up for debate in several states. In Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana and Missouri, blanket bans on abortion have been passed.

      Of the 27 Republicans in the Alabama Senate, 25 of those who voted the act through were white men. As Nahanni Fontaine, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, Canada, tweeted, “These 25 men, who will never be pregnant, just legislated more rights to rapists than to women, girls & victims of rape/incest.”

      Hundreds of pro-choice demonstrators marched to the Alabama Capitol to protest the bill, with slogans like “My Body, My Choice!” and “Vote Them Out!” Then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg vocalized their opposition to the passage of the act. Celebrities like Jameela Jamil, Ashley Judd, Amber Tamblyn and Busy Philipps talked about their own abortion stories as an act of protest. Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Sophie Turner and Emma Watson have also spoken out against the bans. Even Tomi Lahren, a conservative commentator, has voiced her opinion against the ban, calling it “too restrictive.” The postulate that “Men shouldn’t be making laws about women’s bodies” flooded the internet.

      Pro-Life?

      On the other side of the argument, pro-life supporters think that the 6-week-old embryo is a living being and that aborting it is murder — even in the cases of incest and rape. Often, religion is used to justify such ideology. The main argument that pro-lifers bring to the table is that because at six weeks of gestation the fetus inside its mother’s womb has a heartbeat, it must be recognized as a human being.

      In 2015, 89% of all abortions in the United States happened during the first trimester, prior to week 13 of gestation. During this period of time, the fertilized zygote is generally attached to the wall of the mother’s uterus through the placenta. At this stage, the embryo is incapable of surviving independently from its mother. Hence, the embryo — which becomes a fetus at seven weeks gestation — cannot be considered an entity in itself.

      Pro-life advocates go on to say that adoption is an alternative to abortion and also highlight the fact that abortions may result in medical complications later in life. However, more than 60% of children in foster care spend two to five years, and 20% spend five or more years, in the system before being adopted. Some never do. This can lead to issues like a greater vulnerability to depression, obesity and anxiety. Furthermore, new research shows that only about 6% of children passing out of foster care have actually finished college and less than half are employed at the age of 23.

      When it comes to the safety of abortions, a study by the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health shows that major complications in abortion procedures are rare, occurring in less than a quarter of 1% of procedures, which is safer than having a wisdom tooth removed. Abortions performed in a clinical environment are safe. However, that is precisely what these acts are denying women.

      In the case of incest or rape, pro-life advocates are vocal about punishing the perpetrator. However, Republican Congressman Steve King has defended the blanket bans by saying, “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest?” He went on to ask: “Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.” The fact that the birth of a child is a physical burden carried out by women, not men, is glaringly absent from this line of thought.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What legislators seem to be impervious to is that rapists continue to walk free while women are made to carry their children. Nearly 3 million, or 2.4% of American women, experience rape-related pregnancy in their lifetime. However, for every 1,000 sexual assaults that take place in America, 995 perpetrators walk free. According to a CNN investigation, 25 law enforcement agencies in 14 states were found to be destroying rape kits in cases that could still go to trial.

      The American justice system is currently incapable of delivering justice to women. No minor — like the 11-year-old rape victim from Ohio — must be forced to carry her rapist’s child to term. Moreover, in cases of incest-related rape, the child born out of the union can suffer various mental and physical deficiencies. Children born to close relatives often suffer from being more prone to recessive genetic diseases, reduced fertility, heart defects, cleft palates, fluctuating asymmetry and loss of immune system function.

      Conservatives insist that women must be responsible enough to use contraception and not use abortion as an alternative. A Gallup poll shows that at least 78% of all American adults who are opposed to abortion are also pro-birth control. However, between 2011 and 2013, 43% of adolescent females and 57% of adolescent males in the US did not receive information about birth control before they had sex for the first time.

      There is a lack of sex education at the primary and high school levels, and women are expected to be aware of contraceptives in a system that doesn’t teach preventive measures in the first place. Moreover, in 2014, 51% of abortion patients were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, and this goes to prove that contraception does not always stop conception, especially in cases where people are ill-informed about its use.

      A Nightmare for Women

      The deeper one looks into the issue, the clearer it becomes that pro-life advocates are not really saving lives. They are more simply anti-women. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act states that if a woman does undergo an abortion, the doctor carrying out the procedure could go to jail for up to 99 years — a class-A felony charge.

      The ban will disproportionately affect racial minorities. For example, some 36% of abortions are performed on African American women, who make up just 13% of the population. In Georgia, while African Americans constitute 32.2% of the population, they account for 62.4% of all abortions. Policymakers are conscious of this.

      The bill also fails to address the crucial question of who will provide the basic necessities that a child needs to survive. In the US, the average cost of raising a child up to the age of 18, excluding college education, is $233,610. However, 49% of all abortion patients in the United States of America live below the poverty line, with an annual income of less than $11,770. Childbirth costs for many uninsured Americans can easily extend to over $30,000.

      Furthermore, in 2017, a total of 194,377 children were born to women aged between 15 and 19 — a rate of 18.8 per 1,000 women in this age group, a record low. The states of Mississippi and Louisiana, where attempts have been made to criminalize abortion, rank among the first six states with the highest teenage pregnancy rates. The expenses of having an unplanned child become insurmountable for many of these women.

      But making abortions illegal will not stop them from taking place. In 2017, over 6,000 abortions were provided in Alabama. This is despite the fact that the number of abortion clinics had been reduced to just five and that some people had to drive hundreds of miles to get to one. In the state of Georgia, 27,453 abortions were carried out in  2017, 8,706 in Louisiana, 20,893 in Ohio, 3,903 in Missouri and 2,594 in Mississippi. It is unrealistic to suggest that all these women will decide to keep the baby just because of the change in the law.

      Baby Lives Matter

      The only change Alabama’s new law will bring about is in the methods women will use to secure an abortion. In countries where abortion is already criminalized, non-clinical and illegal abortions still cause about 8 to 11% of all maternal deaths. America may soon be no different. Women may be forced to seek help online, where they receive suggestions such as injecting themselves with unknown drugs, falling down the stairs and other horrific solutions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As the Alabama abortion laws remain blocked by a federal judge, Americans are shadowed by uncertainty with respect to their right to abortion. With the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this week, the right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade comes under threat of a possible conservative majority on the court.

      Following  President Donald Trump’s termination of America’s relationship with the WHO, the US is under no obligation to adhere to the prospects of abortion being an essential service. Despite retaliation from several reproductive rights groups and national medical associations including the American Medical Association, the Trump campaign is selling baby onesies with the slogan “Baby Lives Matter.”

      These bans, though legally restricted to the US, affect women all over the world as they affect any progress toward gender equality and create general disagreement on the issue. According to Marie Stopes International, unless efforts are made to acknowledge the essential nature of reproductive health, 9.5 million women across the world could lose access to contraception, causing up to 3 million unwanted pregnancies and, in turn, between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions and 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths. Considering the current state of affairs around abortion in the US, it is safe to say that a large portion of these figures will be attributed to America.

      Amid deepening economic, social and health care crises spurred on by the global pandemic, the debate over reproductive rights will affect women the world over. When it comes to abortion, laws around it must be written by women, for women. America must listen to its women, who must retain their right to choose, especially during these trying times.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      COVID-19 Drives Conspiracy Theories and Islamophobia

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      For the past decade, I have been researching the impact of Islamophobia on social media. After the outbreak of COVID-19, I was commissioned, alongside my colleague Roxana Khan Williams, by the chair and independent members of the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group to produce an evidenced-based research report that looks at the impacts of conspiracy theories perpetuated by the radical right and how these norms have impacted Muslims.

      For me, it was very clear that COVID-19 could be acting as a trigger event that would galvanize hatred against Muslims, but I needed to find out whether this has already started amid the pandemic. After examining a range of social media posts, we found that Islamophobic tropes pushed the narrative that Muslims were solely responsible for spreading COVID-19. This narrative was perpetuated by, firstly, dehumanizing Muslims; secondly, through creating a “them and us” narrative; and, finally, by driving forward the message that Muslims are not to be trusted.

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      It was clear that some of these narratives being pushed by the radical right had created Islamophobic online cyber hubs that had linked Muslims to the spread of COVID-19. This was being shown through the visual anti-Muslim memes and fake news stories shared across social media.

      We also found a shift in online trends that started by arguing that Muslims were superspreaders of the virus and then quickly moving on to the notion that they were also to blame for the virus in the first place. For example, according to digital human rights group Equality Labs, the hashtag #CoronaJihad had appeared nearly 300,000 times in global conversations on mainstream social media sites (excluding Facebook) in just one week between March 31 and April 6.

      In Britain, one video, shared on the Tommy Robinson News channel on the messaging app Telegram, alleges to show a group of Muslim men leaving a secret mosque in Birmingham to pray. Despite the fact the video is fake and West Midlands Police have confirmed the mosque is closed, it has been watched over 14,000 times.

      These issues led to offline incidents because people have used fake narratives on social media to portray all Muslims as being part of the problem. For example, in another viral tweet posted on March 26, a user claimed to have spoken to his local mosque in Shrewsbury, UK, and was “horrified” to find that this Mosque was still open. He added that the people inside could be “super spreaders” of the virus and urged the police to act.

      After a fact-finding exercise, it was quickly revealed by the police that there was no mosque in Shrewsbury. This example, along with numerous others, reveals how individuals can create fake news stories which, if left unchecked, can spread quickly on social media. We also found that online narratives were rooted in anti-Muslim bigotry through the dehumanization of Muslims. These themes of dehumanization also link back to how Muslims are being described as “vermin” and “disease.”

      We also found the depiction of British Muslims on social media becoming synonymous with them being a “risky and problem-group.” A number of fake news stories featured claims that Muslims are flouting social distancing measures to attend mosque. One picture, for example, taken outside a Leeds mosque, appears to show Muslims breaking the rules of lockdown despite this having been taken two weeks before the official lockdown began.

      Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has created unity among groups and communities that have come together at this unprecedented moment. However, at the same time, it has caused wider divisions among smaller communities and groups, and has been used as a weapon by the radical right in promoting conspiracy theories, raising questions about how our society can come together to tackle the ills of social media.

      As lockdown measures ease, the worry is that we will start to see a rise in offline incidents. Unless we can get to grips with people’s attitudes online, we risk seeing more problems emerge. Social media companies can do much better and start the process of identifying perpetrators and working with the police and other agencies to combat the rise of Islamophobia online.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Donald Trump: A President Against His People

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      In less than two months from now, Americans would have elected their next president. One can only hope that they have elected their 46th president, not reelected their 45th for another four-year term. Electing Donald Trump was nothing short of shooting oneself in the foot with a .45-caliber pistol. Reelecting him will amount to taking that pistol to the head and pulling the trigger.

      In four years, this man has caused countless harm to everyone possible, save rich white Americans and even richer American corporations. He has worked hard to reclaim whiteness in America, having done everything possible to ensure that to be American is synonymous with being white. He has characterized Mexicans as rapists and Central American refugees as criminals. Blinded by his xenophobic views, he promised his supporters a beautiful wall on the southern border that would be paid for by Mexico. Employing his executive powers to keep Muslims away from American soil, his exclusionary immigration policies have been openly Islamophobic from the first days of his presidency.

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      As president, Trump had the opportunity to make a positive impact on innumerable aspects of the lives of its citizens. Unfortunately, anything he turned his attention to — whether it’s education, health care, taxation, immigration, trade agreements or the environment — he managed to make worse. It requires an extraordinary amount of ineptitude and incompetence to accomplish what Trump has in his four years. He has done enough damage to the country — and the world at large — to vie for the unenviable top spot as the worst president in the history of the United States of America.

      Enduring the final year of his presidency, I had thought that it is impossible to be surprised or outraged any longer by whatever the man says or does. I was proven wrong. Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has made his previous transgressions seem like a walk in the park. On September 9, he acknowledged that he had intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The White House response was a pathetic effort to mitigate the fallout from the information contained in the upcoming book by The Washington Post’s veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

      The COVID-19 death toll in the US is just shy of 200,000, from over 6.5 million cases — the highest in the world. That Trump never cared for the welfare and well-being of his fellow countrypeople was amply clear from his policies and actions over these past four years. That he could turn a blind eye to the calamitous effects of the pandemic and lie to the nation about it likens him to a modern-day emperor, mocking the suffering of his subjects, not much different from Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.

      Trump’s bungling response to the pandemic makes him culpable for this exorbitant death toll, which could have been averted had he acted swiftly and decisively, with a plan of action based on scientific findings. Instead of encouraging responsible social behavior from the country, he mocked science with his refusal to wear a mask, by consuming hydroxychloroquine as a shield against the coronavirus and misleading the American public by not only not impressing upon it the gravity of the pandemic but, as we now know, willfully underplaying the dangers of COVID-19. Trump’s callous and reprehensible behavior during the pandemic not only taints his legacy with the unnecessary loss of life, but it also cements his position as the worst president of the country with an insurmountable lead over Andrew Jackson and quite possibly anyone else in the future.

      America is a nation that loves to bookmark in history the wars its presidents spearheaded during their tenure. Lyndon Johnson is remembered for launching his war on crime in 1965, Ronald Reagan for his war on drugs in 1982. Today, both those wars have resulted in more than 2.3 million incarcerated Americans, with a disproportionate amount of them being black and people of color. George W. Bush is identified with the war on terror that he commenced soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

      By contrast, what Trump has managed to do in his four years at America’s helm is wage a full-scale war on humanity. Sadly, Republican politicians have been abetting this war by kowtowing to the president. A vote for Donald Trump this November is an endorsement of his war on humanity and actively lending support to it.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Will Chile Listen to Its People?

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      The country with the highest per capita infection rate of COVID-19 is in South America — but it isn’t Brazil. Chile, despite its high incomes and access to resources, has struggled to keep the pandemic under control and suffers from infection rates higher than the United States, which currently leads with the highest number of total coronavirus cases in the world. What the pandemic has done is highlight one of Chile’s biggest problems — income inequality.      

      Mortality rates in Santiago’s public hospitals are twice that of the nation’s private hospitals. However, those with fewer resources in Chile have been marginalized from the elites in the nation’s capital long before the virus. A highly privatized economy has allowed many to fall through the cracks, bringing millions of Chileans to the streets in protest in 2019. To close this gap, economic, social and educational reforms are required.

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      The Chilean government is aware of the discontent among its citizens. In 2006, 800,000 students took to the streets, with subsequent protests in 2008 and 2011 in response to the rising costs of higher education. Then, in October last year, a 4% subway fare increase sparked nationwide protests that brought over a million Chileans to the streets of Santiago, the largest protest in the country’s history. The 2019 protests have resulted in at least 30 deaths and 11,000 injured. Human rights organizations have reported incidents of torture, sexual abuse and assault by Chilean security forces.

      Most Unequal

      The government of President Sebastian Pinera has responded with various reforms, such as a middle-class stimulus package, early access to pensions as well as a promise of a vote on a new constitution. Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980, during the 17-year military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, furthering the need for a new democratic framework. The Chilean government must make good on its promises if it is to shake its place as the most unequal among the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

      The virus has disproportionately affected Chile’s poorest citizens, who often live in densely populated areas and do not have the luxury of working from home. Speaking to The Guardian, a university professor commented, “What are people in poor rural communities supposed to do with online yoga and cooking classes?” Chile must reach into its savings and provide immediate relief for those who are struggling. A stimulus package that benefits low-income populations should be implemented immediately.

      In the long term, Chile must reverse its stance on fiscal prudence. Savings can help mitigate recession, but Chile’s conservative fiscal management is its Achilles’ heel. Chile offers very few social services, ranking second only to Mexico in social spending among OECD countries. Even water is a private commodity. However, Chile has taken actions that indicate less austere policies may be coming. The lower house of parliament voted to allow Chileans to dip into their private pensions to provide immediate COVID-19 relief. President Pinera announced a 1$.5-billion middle-class stimulus as well. This is a positive step, but more funds must be directed to the country’s poorest citizens.

      “One Bread per Person”

      Looking to the long term, educational reform must be prioritized. Public schools in Chile are underfunded, while private education is often unaffordable. Average annual college tuition in Chile is $7,600 — approximately half of the median income and among the highest in the world; only American private universities and British universities have higher tuition rates adjusted for income.

      There have been efforts to reduce public university costs, such as when the gratuidad system was introduced in 2016. While the program mitigated university costs for low-income students, it has reduced funding for public universities. For public universities to be competitive with their private counterparts, funding is critical. Not only is an improved education system perhaps the most important factor in reducing inequality, but it is something that Chileans have been asking of their government for over 15 years.

      Feeling pressure from its citizens, Chile has pushed forward an agreement to vote on a new constitution in October. Polling showed last year that three-quarters of Chileans supported the protesters, with 87% backing the demand for constitutional reform. Camila Meza, a 28-year-old publicist living in Santiago, agrees with the need for a new constitution: “The need for a new constitution is paramount. One that allows for a more efficient response to issues of citizen interest, such as education and guaranteed health care.”

      A government directly addressing public needs amidst protest is not a given. But there should be optimism for a better, more stable Chile. It is important for the country to push forward with the drafting of a new constitution. Otherwise, the capacity for further violence and unrest will remain. The late Chilean poet Nicanor Parra said it best: “There are two pieces of bread. You eat two. I eat none. Average consumption: one bread per person.” 

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Did a French Far-Right Thinker Predict 2020?

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      The year 2020 has thrown the world into disarray, with a severe pandemic creating many unforeseen challenges. The COVID-19 plague has so far infected nearly 30 million people worldwide, with the death toll climbing toward a million. With rising unemployment and sector-specific industry liquidations, economic forecasts predict a grim picture ahead, even for the affluent West. As Francis Fukuyama explains in his recent article in Foreign Affairs, major crises have major consequences.”

      It’s in this extraordinary time that the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police triggered an explosive civil rights movement. Petty criminal elements undoubtedly wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to carry out looting and to damage property. Meanwhile, the Topple the Racists movement — campaigning to remove past icons of slavery — defaced and attacked landmarks, pulling down statues of the likes of George Washington. It is against this backdrop that we can observe how social unrest in a time of a pandemic contributes to feeding the metanarratives of the radical right.

      We Told You So

      French journalist and writer Guillaume Faye contributed to forming narratives of the radical right in his role as a leading thinker of the Research and Study Group for European Civilization (GRECE), a think tank established in 1968 by the European New Right (Nouvelle Droit). How does Faye fit into this current troubled world? He fits in because of his affinity for predicting calamities. Faye envisioned a cataclysm that would lead to social collapse, hoping that this would create the space to build his fascist utopia.

      Do Faye’s ideas reflect the current pandemic and economic and social unrest? Not to the vast majority of people, but pseudo-intellectuals of the radical right may well find material to help build their case. Narratives that the radical right have so jealously guarded for decades are finally becoming sellable. It seems that the radical right can now confidently say, We told you so — look, it’s happening.

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      Faye explains his catastrophe as a result of many troubles converging to create a cataclysmic breakdown of the current system. In his scenario, demographic changes brought about by immigration lead to racism and radicalization of ethnic and religious groups. This upheaval increases when liberal democracies are weakened as a result of environmental catastrophes, biological threats such as pandemics and economic meltdowns, producing mass poverty. This is the context that would trigger what Faye called an ethnic civil war between native Europeans and immigrants, who are mainly of Afro-Maghreb origin. This is an idea well-received in far-right circles as a race war.

      To Faye, a race war is a useful catastrophe that would end the current system and pave the way for his utopian empire, for which he even created a blueprint. But Faye’s hope and longing for a useful catastrophe seems far-fetched in reality. The many immigrants who live on the periphery of society in low-paying jobs are unlikely to help the radical right topple the current system by going to war with the natives. The only candidates capable of delivering such a system-uprooting blow are massive natural disasters, which are very rare although not unthinkable, especially given the growing climate emergency.     

      Faye in Context

      Guillaume Faye’s wishful thinking may never become a reality. However, radical-right narratives do not always need reality. Faye’s ideas resonate with historical metanarratives about being conquered and overrun by invaders of different religions and cultures. These deeply ingrained metanarratives can be used to recreate a threat scenario in which immigrants would overrun the native people and attack native culture. The selective memory of such metanarratives can be aggravated by episodes of the current civil rights movement, especially incidents of looting and property damage. Specifically, the Topple the Racists campaign inadvertently bolsters the radical right’s claims that migrants pose a cultural threat.

      All these events are happening in the context of great distress. People are slowly coming out of lockdown while facing mounting death tolls in communities. The situation is already sensitive and unstable. Riots, looting and public disorder can create greater insecurity among people. Looming economic peril is another concern. History teaches us that times of great economic upheaval were always followed by social unrest, aiding the rise of the far right and reviving authoritarianism. The civil rights movement and the Topple the Racists campaign, despite being triumphs of democracy, can create opportunities for the radical right to bolster their narratives. 

      It is not a coincidence, given the impact of the pandemic, that many social scientists are predicting similar social, political and economic upheavals. However, these analyses are based on facts rather than Faye’s wishful thinking and his desire to build the next fascist empire on the ruins of the current world. As the radical right attempts to give weight to their narratives with the help of an ever-chaotic world, geopolitics has also become increasingly hostile to liberal democracies. Authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia are mounting a serious challenge to destabilize the Western liberal system, especially aiming to undermine the postwar rules-based international order.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Russia’s attempts to sow racial discord among Americans is well known. China is now eagerly jumping onto the bandwagon by running special coverage of George Floyd’s killing in the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, Global Times. The irony is that this is a regime that has rounded up the Uighur minority into detention camps and has killed prisoners for gruesome organ harvesting. Racial tension in Western liberal democracies not only helps the radical right, but will also embolden authoritarian regimes that seek to discredit democracies.   

      How does the radical right frame their narrative to include recent developments? For example, the alt-right’s Richard Spencer seems to be glad to witness the upheaval of Western civilization. Faye has also been hailed as “The man who predicted 2020.” Twitter feeds have speculated about a liberal conspiracy to start a race war. The pandemic and the civil rights movement seem to give the radical right hope in two different ways. First, at a micro level, the radical right can now give credibility to their narratives about threats to Western culture and heritage. Second, at a macro level, the radical right hopes that the instability in liberal democracies is pushing them toward a system collapse that would uproot neoliberalism, without which the radical right could not ultimately win.

      The collapse of liberal democracy is the ultimate dream of Guillaume Faye and many of his current followers. It is indeed hopeful times for the radical right and the authoritarian regimes around the world. It is unlikely that the current system will face an existential crisis any time soon. However, similar to the 1930s, the context is ripe for greater instability and economic peril that would naturally lead to protectionism and a far-right, as well as an authoritarian, renaissance.  

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.] More

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      in World Politics

      What Can the Gulf States Learn from the Belarus Crisis?

      by

      It might come as a surprise that the Gulf states have more than a passing interest in events in Belarus. Beyond growing economic ties, the political drama provides valuable lessons for the region’s monarchies and their efforts to maintain standards of living for their citizens without compromising power and influence. The Belarus crisis also offers useful pointers for Gulf states in their dealings with Russia.

      Over the past three decades, Belarusian domestic politics has been defined by its predictability. Despite the emergence of opposition candidates around election time, President Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power was such that there was only one outcome. Yet, as with so much of 2020, life as Belarusians know it has been turned on its head.

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      While the veracity of past elections has been called into question, a mixture of political complacency and COVID-19-related turmoil has breathed new life into Belarus’ opposition movement. Beyond disputing Lukashenko’s winning margin in July’s poll, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Belarusians have taken to the streets calling for change. Mostly born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this generation does not regard the stability offered by Lukashenko as an asset. As they see it, state control of Belarus’ economy and society is incompatible with their aspirations.

      Lukashenko’s response to what has effectively become a matter of life and death for his regime has fluctuated between incoherency and heavy-handedness. The president’s disappearance from the public gaze at the start of the unrest, coupled with the disproportionate use of force against demonstrators, suggests that he did not seriously consider the possibility of mass protests. Continued police brutality and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s flight into exile make it difficult to use “external forces” as justification for the crackdown.

      “Family” Comes First

      Much like Belarus, the Gulf states have relatively young populations, particularly Saudi Arabia, where over two-thirds of citizens are under the age of 35. Many have benefited from access to higher education systems that have grown exponentially since the early 2000s, both in terms of state and private universities. With this in mind, the region’s political elites can use the lack of meaningful opportunities for so many Belarusians to underscore the importance of their development plans and national visions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Designed to meet the specific needs of Gulf countries, these strategies nevertheless have several objectives in common. In an effort to counter faltering prices and technological obsolescence, the region is attempting to diversify its dependence on oil and gas revenues by facilitating high-knowledge-content jobs in different industrial sectors. Doing so also requires the greater incorporation of indigenous populations into national workforces at the expense of expatriate workers. In this respect, Kuwait’s plans to drastically reduce its migrant population offers a glimpse into the future shape of the Gulf’s workplaces. While never explicitly mentioned in strategic documents, the Gulf states anticipate that encouraging their own populations’ development will offset opportunities for the type of political dissent that’s currently gripping Belarus and which rocked Bahrain almost a decade ago.

      The Gulf’s rulers have no appetite for an Arab Spring 2.0, a scenario that some warn is a distinct possibility thanks to COVID-19. Accordingly, local development opportunities will continue to be encouraged during these chastened times. When it comes to wider political participation, Kuwait will remain something of an outlier for the foreseeable future.

      The Gulf states’ responses to COVID-19 also merit consideration. Once dismissed by Lukashenko as an ailment that can be treated with saunas and vodka, Belarus was among the last in Europe to enact lockdown measures. While it remains to be seen what impact ongoing protests will have on infection rates, a spike in cases could be used by Gulf states to justify their no-nonsense approaches to tackling the virus. Qatar, for example, was one of the first to completely lock down all but the most essential public services. The country’s return to normal rests on the public’s strict compliance with a four-phase reopening plan.

      Don’t Annoy Next Door

      International reaction to the political crisis in Belarus has so far been muted, with presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and China’s Xi Jinping leading the congratulations for Lukashenko’s re-election. For its part, the European Union’s response has been cautiously led by the likes of Lithuania and Poland. Their approach reflects two important points. First, the protests are highly internalized and not about pivoting Belarus further East or West. Second, direct support for the opposition risks a Ukraine-type scenario whereby Moscow directly intervenes to safeguard its interests.

      Point two is of particular relevance to the Gulf states, whose economic ties with one of Russia’s closest allies continue to grow. Cooperation between Belarus and the United Arab Emirates is a case in point. According to government statistics, the volume of trade between both countries amounted to $121 million in 2019, up from $89.6 million the previous year. Minsk has also made overtures to Oman regarding joint manufacturing opportunities and the re-export of products to neighboring markets.

      Saudi Arabia undoubtedly has the most to lose from antagonizing Russia in its own backyard. Last April, the kingdom sold 80,000 tons of crude oil to Belarus. This purchase, first of its kind, not only reflects Minsk’s determination to lessen its reliance on Russian supplies, but also happened against the backdrop of faltering demand and an oil price war between Moscow and Riyadh. Since then, both sides have brokered a fragile peace designed in part to ensure that OPEC+ members respect industry-saving production cuts.

      Accordingly, the “softly, softly” approach currently being employed by the EU’s eastern flank provides a blueprint for how the Gulf states should continue to manage their responses to the Belarus crisis. Not only does it offer the best chance of maintaining economic relations irrespective of the final outcome, but it also keeps regional oil supplies in still uncharted waters at a time of great uncertainty in global markets. Antagonizing Russia with even the most tacit support for Belarus is, put simply, too risky a proposition.

      Belarus’ unfolding crisis is ultimately about replacing an unmovable political leader and system that have dominated the country for decades. In a region defined by its own version of long-term political stability, a similar scenario among Gulf states is unpalatable. Fortunately, the region still has resources at its disposal to prevent this from happening and protect much-needed economic victories in new markets. While always important, the Gulf’s indigenous populations are increasingly being reconfigured as the most essential features of the region’s future prosperity and stability.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More