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      in US Politics

      What if liberal anti-racists aren’t advancing the cause of equality? | Bhaskar Sunkara

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      Americans are talking more and more about racism and inequality, and that should be a good thing. It’s not just policing and incarceration – black Americans suffer disproportionately from every aspect of our unjust social system. They’re more likely than white Americans to deal with poverty, housing insecurity, joblessness, go without health insurance, or face regular bouts of hunger.After years of embracing the “post-racial” rhetoric of figures like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, mainstream Democrats are coming around to acknowledging how much the 1960s civil rights revolution left unfinished. And yet, years into a “great awokening” that has drawn attention to these issues, it’s worth asking whether anything is changing.Indeed, we should ask: are liberal anti-racists advancing the cause of equality? Could they even be setting it back?Unlike mid-century movements for justice, much of today’s advocacy around racial justice places the onus on individual actors and the private-sector to address problems that are really best fixed through collective action and social legislation.Biases and interpersonal hostility, of course, still negatively impact the lives of people of color. A Harvard Business Review survey found that “since 1990, white applicants received, on average, 36% more callbacks than black applicants and 24% more callbacks than Latino applicants with identical résumés.” That’s a strong case that even if we equalize opportunities for advancement, there will be a need for affirmative action policies, however inadequate they might be.However, even affirmative action wasn’t brought about through the proliferation of White Fragility reading groups and self-contemplation about one’s own privilege. Rather, it was a demand that emerged from a labor-backed political coalition. As the scholar Touré F Reed reminds us, the phrase “affirmative action” first appeared in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 – the single-most important piece of labor legislation passed in the United States. The extension of affirmative action to issues of racial discrimination was initially part of a social democratic coalition that saw a government role in bringing about greater equality.That’s a far cry from today’s emphasis on private sector activity not mandated by the state – through anti-racist trainings at workplaces and the like – to foster diversity and inclusion. For starters, “diversity” and “inclusion” aren’t synonymous with “equality” and “justice” and trainings themselves don’t appear to be effective, even on their own terms. But even if they did work, the best we could expect from them is a more sensitive working environment for minorities lucky enough to be employed or for those customers who patronize them. If you don’t have a job, or don’t have any money, you’re out of luck.Why is there so much emphasis on these trainings, then? Part of the story is the budding industry emerging around them – expert guidance through “honest and raw discussions of white supremacy and implicit bias and an analysis of racial hegemony” doesn’t come cheap, and is a job creation program of its own. But there are other reasons why even seemingly apolitical brands like Gushers and Fruit by the Foot, who make delicious varieties of candy, are jumping on the liberal anti-racism bandwagon.First, it might satisfy younger staffers who want to feel like they’re working for companies that are stalwarts of anti-racism. Second, some consumers might like such anti-racist gesturing. Third, showing a commitment to diversity and arranging for a diversity consultant to come in is cheaper than dealing with an anti-discrimination lawsuit, having to deal with a Twitter-led consumer boycott for a misstep, or paying black and brown workers more.Better to have Kendall Jenner in a BLM-themed Pepsi ad than paying more in taxes to help working-class peopleYet even if corporations aren’t driving the race-conscious awakening, they’re willing to adapt to the new environment because the political demands flowing from activists are increasingly compatible with corporate profit-making and governance. Corporations are also more than happy to monetize the new social justice interest. Just think of Hollywood – which once blacklisted socialist actors and directors in the cold war – rushing to make films with watered-down accounts of Black Panther leaders like Fred Hampton (who was a Marxist) or the Chicago Seven (all of whom were radical anti-capitalists at the time).Similarly, companies like Apple, where workers in the secretive Chinese complex that manufactures iPhones attracted global concern after a spate of suicides, just brought out a special edition $429 Black Unity Apple Watch that was marketed for Black History Month. Apple says: “The Black Unity Sport Band is inspired by the pan-African flag and made from soft, high-performance fluoroelastomer with a pin-and-tuck closure laser-etched with ‘Truth. Power. Solidarity.’” Where is the power or solidarity for the workers toiling in factories in China, one might wonder? Or for child workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo who toil and die in mines extracting raw materials like cobalt that are used in iPhones. One doesn’t hear anything about that kind of material injustice affecting the working class from the global south when corporations make their self-congratulatory PR statements around inclusion.They would rather focus on symbolism and racial-justice-themed commodities and products than contend with more expansive state oversight of private employment decisions, like an affirmative action program. Better to have Kendall Jenner appearing in a schmaltzy BLM-themed Pepsi ad than paying more in taxes to help working-class people in the form of an expanded welfare state and cash transfers.*It must come as a relief to the most class-conscious of executives that popular ire and media scrutiny has often fallen upon individual people rather than the system and corporations responsible for unprecedented inequality. It’s convenient for the enemy to be a white worker committing a microaggression on the job while earning $12 an hour and voting for Donald Trump than a chief executive spouting platitudes about diversity while earning $12 a second and donating to Republican Super Pacs.Nowhere is the new anti-racism embraced with more zeal than at elite universities. Smith College, where a liberal arts education will cost you around $78,000 a year, has become the most famous example lately. In the summer holidays of 2018, a black student at the school was eating lunch in a building that was meant to be closed when she was questioned by a campus security officer about what she was doing there. She saw this as an act of racial animus and went to social media with her concerns. The incident came to the attention of Smith’s president, Kathleen McCartney, who offered an immediate apology and reportedly suspended a janitor without even speaking to the workers involved.The student allegedly wasn’t satisfied, and posted photographs, names and email addresses of Mark Patenaude, a long-time Smith College janitor who wasn’t even working at the time, and Jackie Blair, a cafeteria worker who wasn’t actually the one who called security, on Facebook, accusing them of “racist and cowardly acts”.Blair, an older worker who has lupus, said her condition flared up as a result of the stress, and had to go to hospital. She got death threats, had her car vandalized, and had threatening notes placed in her mailbox saying things like “You don’t deserve to live” and “RACIST”.Patenaude told the New York Times’s Michael Powell: “We used to joke: don’t let a rich student report you, because if you do, you’re gone.”There’s nothing special here: a boss throws a worker under the bus to satisfy the angry customers (in this case wealthy students and donors) that keep her employed. The only unusual part is that instead of demanding due process for the workers and an investigation, grassroots sentiment at a progressive institution called for even more sweeping actions. Student groups staged walkouts, while a pressured administration shifted more and more attention to beleaguered employees, calling upon Blair to go into meditation with the student, what McCartney called “restorative justice”.Months later, a 35-page report was issued on the incident, which cleared all workers of wrongdoing, yet those affected were issued no public apology from McCartney or anyone else at Smith. In fact, an even greater scrutiny was placed on their thoughts and behavior. As McCartney put it: “It is impossible to rule out the potential role of implicit racial bias.” As such, cafeteria workers and other staff were subjected to intrusive and humiliating educational sessions led by outside consultants, where they were forced to speak about their childhoods, their racial backgrounds, and their political and social beliefs. It’s a high price to pay to serve rich kids food.There was far less outcry months later, when Smith University furloughed Blair and hundreds of other workers during the pandemic.*The 2018 incident has gotten a lot of extra attention since the February 2021 resignation of Jodi Shaw, a former employee. Shaw detailed the ways in which the racial bias trainings at Smith, along with the workplace culture, meant that white employees could not bring grievances to the college about the nature of those trainings without being accused of “white supremacy”. But her own rhetoric and route to redress is a profoundly private one. Shaw, a white woman, is likely to sue the school for being a “racially hostile workplace”, and she’s been soliciting funds through GoFundMe. Shaw, whatever the merits of her case, is seeking justice via newfound internet celebrity, claims of racial discrimination, and the courts, rather than through collective action.Now, an aggrieved individual might have no other viable option in this environment. But her case offers a neat parallel to what the university administration and some students are doing: trying to usher about anti-racism through psychological training rather than material redistribution.But there is another way outside of the existing culture war – the union option. Smith workers aren’t completely without protections, because they are largely unionized: housekeeping workers are organized in SEIU Local 211 and other support staff are members of SEIU Local 263. Both unions, however, only have about 100 members, and assets roughly equaling what the average student pays for a year of tuition. They’re simply not in a position to do battle with the administration or a hostile campus to assert their rights as workers. The recent furlough of 230 employees will only weaken their bargaining power.That’s a shame, because unlike diversity trainings and “white accountability” Zoom sessions, unions have been shown to increase pay and job security for working people and decrease disparities between women and men and between people of color and white workers. They foster an environment where those of all backgrounds can find their common interests and realize through struggle that they are more powerful united. The wage scales cemented in collective bargaining agreements erode the racialized stratifications often created when individual employees bargain with their bosses.A year of privatized solutions and bitter polemics in the media have yielded nothingWhat’s more, the shared struggle for improved conditions can foster new forms of solidarity. A 2020 paper, not surprisingly, finds that white workers are less likely to hold racist views if they’re in a union, and that white union members also tend to have greater support for not only universal social goods, but for policies like affirmative action.Mainstream unions weren’t always bastions of racial justice. In 1919, the socialist A Philip Randolph could call the American Federation of Labor “the most wicked machine for the propagation of race prejudice in the country”. But through years of political struggle, they transformed themselves into powerful vehicles for the advancement of black and brown workers and a linchpin of a New Deal coalition that took the power of organized labor at the firm level and began to guarantee important economic rights at the federal level.It’s not just that today’s emphasis on privilege, and the rush to condemn working people as racists, are distractions from the politics that can actually help change the United States. It’s that they run the risk of alienating potential allies and creating a subculture out of activism.Where does this leave the rest of us, those likely on the outside of even an expanded labor movement? A working-class politics isn’t a way to ignore struggles against oppression, but it creates space for social movements to grow and an environment where anti-racist demands naturally shift from cultural representation to material redistribution. We might not all be able to join unions, but we will all be able to take part in those fights and support candidates who will improve the lives of black and brown workers through state action.Campuses, even at elite colleges like Smith, can take part in such a transformation too. In 2016, hundreds of Smith students marched – not to call for the disciplining of cafeteria workers but in solidarity with them. They showed the campus administration that they were going to morph whatever privilege and power they had to help others fight back.A year of privatized solutions and bitter polemics in the media have yielded nothing. Neither anti-woke commentators like Bari Weiss or the Robin DiAngelos of the world have a plan to change the conditions that produce racism and inequality. But the combination of union representation in the workplace and universal, social goods guaranteed by the state gives us a way to actually do that.Don’t let either side of the culture war – from the liberal anti-racists who would have us all confess our thought crimes in front of our bosses, or the conservative anti-anti-racists who would just have us shut up about discrimination – obscure how another path exists: one that is tried and tested. More

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      in Elections

      Mail-in voting did not swell turnout or boost Democrats, study finds

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      Mail-in voting did not significantly increase turnout nor did it benefit Democrats in the 2020 election, a new study has found, undermining the talking point, advanced by Donald Trump and others, that mail-in ballots cost him the election.States that required an excuse to vote by mail saw increases in turnout similar to those that did not, the researchers from Stanford found. In Texas, where only voters ages 65 and up can vote by mail without an excuse, Democratic turnout did not “substantially increase” relative to Republican turnout.“Despite the extraordinary circumstances of the 2020 election, vote-by-mail’s effect on turnout and on partisan outcomes is very muted,” the researchers wrote. “Voter interest appears to be far more important in driving turnout.”Those findings challenge the conventional wisdom that has emerged after Joe Biden’s victory in November. Republicans have repeatedly pointed to the decision to expand vote by mail – a choice driven largely by the Covid-19 pandemic – as a major reason Trump lost the election. They have filed a flood of bills in statehouses seeking to restrict voting, several of which take aim at mail-in voting specifically. In Georgia, for example, there are proposals to require voters to provide identification information as well as an excuse when they vote absentee, which would end the no-excuse policy Republicans adopted there in 2005.The Stanford findings also come amid an effort by Democrats in Congress to push nationwide changes that would require states to offer no-excuse balloting nationwide. Republicans staunchly opposed that effort, saying it is part of a broader set of reforms to help Democrats’ political prospects.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletter“The results of our paper do not offer a clear recommendation for the policy debate around vote-by-mail, but they do suggest that both sides of the debate are relying on flawed logic,” the study says. “Vote-by-mail is an important policy that voters seem to like using, and it may be a particularly important tool during the pandemic.”Overall, states that adopted no-excuse absentee voting in 2020 saw around a 5.6 percentage-point increase in turnout compared to 2016. States that still required an excuse saw a 4.8-point increase. The researchers were unconvinced that the modest difference in turnout represented an even minor bump in turnout because of vote-by-mail, noting there was random variation in turnout between elections.To better understand the effects of mail-in voting, the researchers focused on Texas, where they compared turnout among 65-year-olds able to vote without an excuse under state law to that of 64-year-olds, who still needed an excuse. When they did the comparison, they found “no noticeable increase” in turnout among the 65-year-olds who did not have to provide an excuse to vote by mail.They reached a similar conclusion when they looked at partisanship in Texas. Sixty-five-year-old Democrats embraced absentee voting in 2020 while Republicans continued to vote early in person. Overall, being able to vote easily by mail did not produce “large effects on the partisan composition of overall turnout in 2020”.Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who closely tracks voter turnout, said there were factors not discussed in the study that were important to consider when assessing turnout. Some of the biggest increases in turnout from 2016 to 2020 were in states where voters automatically receive a ballot, he said. Several of the states where there was no-excuse absentee voting also still had a wide range of hurdles – like showing photo ID or getting a notary signature – that could make it harder to cast a ballot.“Mail ballot usage is a better way to examine the effect of laws and policies than simply whether or not a state had a particular policy, since there are often many policies that affect mail ballot usage, such as all-mail ballot elections, ID requirements, dropbox accessibility, return deadlines, etc,” he said.Even if mail-in voting did not ultimately boost Democrats, officials told the Guardian last year that the process made it easier to target, track and encourage voters to cast a ballot. Jay Tucker, the chair of the Democratic committee in Pike county, Pennsylvania, said it was useful for the party to be able to see who had requested a ballot and had yet to return it during the election. Those efforts, he said, helped cut into Trump’s margins in the county.While the researchers found mail-in voting did not have a major effect on turnout in 2020, they noted that it could be more consequential in contests where interest is typically lower, like a midterm.“When voter interest is high, such as in 2020, even low-propensity voters … could base their decision to vote on the convenience of doing so, turn out at the same rate whether or not they can take advantage of no-excuse absentee voting,” they wrote.“When voter interest is low, there is likely to be more room for altering the costs of voting to affect turnout.” More

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      in US Politics

      The New York attorney general holding Trump and Cuomo accountable

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      The two men were born a decade apart in Queens, New York, one the heir to a real estate fortune and the other to a political dynasty. Donald Trump went on to be president, and Andrew Cuomo became governor, like his father.Over the course of their long and controversial careers, both men have seemed untouchable. But thanks to the recent work of one lifelong public servant, who was born into a big family in Brooklyn without legacy money or power, each man is suddenly facing a moment of unaccustomed accountability.The state attorney general, Letitia James, the first woman of color ever to hold statewide elected office in New York, blasted a hole in the fable of Cuomo’s pandemic leadership with a report in January showing the state was under-reporting deaths in nursing homes by as much as half.A quick succession of sexual harassment claims against Cuomo in the ensuing weeks has knocked him from his political perch and left open the question of whether he will withdraw his 2022 re-election bid – or even resign before his current third term ends.Trump might be in even greater peril. Since 2019, James’s office has been conducting an investigation of business practices inside the Trump Organization and family. Trump has fought fiercely in court, but month after month, James has succeeded in unearthing financial records that appear to be adding up to a giant legal hazard for the former president, analysts say.“He should be very concerned,” said George Albro, co-chair of the New York Progressive Action Network who has known James going back to when he was a union officer in New York City and she was a public defender. “She’s going to take this to its logical conclusion.”The Trump case and the Cuomo nursing home scandal have generated a torrent of national attention for James, with people outside New York politics wondering how a single state officer could make such big legal waves.People who know her from her time as public advocate in New York City – when she was the first woman of color to be elected citywide – and her time as a city council member before that nod in recognition: that’s Tish.As state attorney general, James has aggressively pursued a full catalogue of progressive causes.She sued the police department over brutality against people of color, blocked unlawful evictions during the pandemic, won a major sexual harassment settlement for women in the construction industry, filed an amicus brief before the supreme court opposing a rushed census, and sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association.She also sued Amazon for allegedly failing to protect workers, sued Facebook as an alleged monopoly and investigated Google on similar grounds. She has asked federal regulators to clamp down on toxins in baby food and called for student debt relief.I see the law both as a shield and as a sword“I see the law both as a shield and as a sword,” she said in a public discussion last year about Black leadership. “And so I wake up every day with a fire in my belly, and I march into the office – well, I actually march into my kitchen – and the question is, what can I do today to make a difference in the life of somebody? Who can I sue?”James has acknowledged past critics who thought that she filed too many lawsuits without making enough stick. But she argues that “the law should be a tool for social change” – and with the pressure she has exerted on Trump causing visible stress among family members, the impact of her efforts is plain and the public mood is enthusiastically with her.That kind of momentum has led to speculation about what might be next for the political pioneer with impeccable grassroots credentials who maintains a huge store of goodwill in New York City as well as a disarming, down-to-earth approach on and off the campaign trail.“Everyone still calls me Tish,” she told Melva M Miller, chief executive officer of the census watchdog Association for a Better New York, in a public forum last year. “I still have to do my laundry later – I’m still Tish. I have to go to the grocery store – I’m still Tish.”James, 62, one of eight children, went to Brooklyn public school, graduated from the City University of New York’s Lehmann college and earned a law degree at Howard University, the historically Black university in Washington DC.Her earliest memory of the legal system, she has said, was seeing a court officer verbally abuse her mother at a hearing for a brother.“When I looked around the courtroom, all the defendants and all the family members looked like me, but everyone in a position of power did not, and there was something really unbalanced about that and unfair about that,” James told Miller.Before her election to the New York city council in 2003, James worked as a public defender, as counsel to the speaker of the state assembly and as an assistant attorney general for Brooklyn, where she targeted predatory lenders, advocated for working families and brought the first case against the New York City police department for so-called stop-and-frisk abuses.She lost a primary race to join the city council, but was able to resume her bid when the incumbent was shot and killed inside city hall. In her 10 years on the council, she emerged as an advocate for police reform and for better public housing.She also showed a fearlessness about taking on powerful political figures, helping to lead the charge against an effort by the then mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to change city rules and seize a third term in power (a fight Bloomberg won).She told us that she would be independent of the governor and I think she’s proven thatSome political allies wondered, however, whether James’s posture of antagonism towards the powerful would apply to Cuomo, who cleared the path for her political future by endorsing her to be attorney general.As a candidate under Cuomo’s protection, James insisted she was “unbossed and unbought” by the governor. The results of her bombshell investigation of how the Cuomo administration failed to report Covid-19 nursing home deaths shows she meant those words, said Albro.“She told us that she would be independent of the governor and I think she’s proven that,” he said.Her battle against Trump has the potential to elevate James’s profile – and prospects – even further, encouraging open speculation about whether she might even succeed the governor whose alleged misconduct she helped expose. Before he was elected governor, Cuomo was state attorney general – the very job James now holds.“I think she wants to be governor, I think that’s clear, and she’d be a formidable candidate,” said Albro.“I think she’d be a formidable candidate because she is very well liked and known in the city and that’s a big chunk of the vote.” More

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      in US Politics

      'It's not fair!' Capitol suspect who put feet on Pelosi's desk has court outburst

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      Of all the pictures that were taken during the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, one of the most famous is of a man sitting on a chair with one foot on the desk of the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.That man, Richard Barnett, was told by a judge on Thursday that he is to remain in jail until his next court date in May.Barnett, a self-proclaimed white nationalist, began to yell at US district judge Christopher Cooper, saying “it’s not fair” that he should remain in custody as he awaits trial.“Everybody else who did things much worse are already home,” he told Cooper during the virtual hearing, according to court records and reporters listening in. “I’ve been here for a month, they’re going to set it for another month, and everybody else is getting out.”!! WHOA: US Capitol defendant Richard Barnett — man accused of putting feet on Pelosi desk – is *screaming* at attorneys and judge during his court hearing right now.Upset he’s been locked up “for a whole month”… “it’s not fair” Judge just recessed hearing for “5 mins” pic.twitter.com/ayaO4d6lb0— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 4, 2021
      Barnett was arrested in January in Arkansas, his home state, and faces a series of federal charges over his alleged role in the insurrection, including violent entry, disrupting official proceedings and disruptive and disorderly conduct.Upon leaving Pelosi’s office on the day of the riot, Barnett was seen by a New York Times reporter holding an envelope which displayed Pelosi’s letterhead. He told the Times that he “put a quarter on her desk” in exchange for the letter. He also said he “wrote her a nasty note, put my feet up on her desk”. Barnett is also facing charges of theft of public property.In a statement to NBC News, Joseph D McBride, Barnett’s attorney, denies that his outburst was directed at the judge.“Mr Barnett’s frustration stems from the fact that he is incarcerated pre-trial, despite lacking any criminal history, being gainfully employed, respected in his community and in a stable relationship for over 20 years,” the statement said. “Normally, facts like these are more than enough for an individual to fight their case from the outside.”More than 250 people have been identified by the government as suspected participants in the riot. The trials of those who have been charged began last month and will probably last months. More

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      in World Politics

      What’s Behind Chile’s Vaccination Success?

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      The deadly impact of COVID-19 has been felt in every corner of the globe. On February 22, the United States reached a tragic landmark of 500,000 deaths. Across the Atlantic, nine of the top 10 nations in deaths per million are in Europe, with tiny enclaves of Gibraltar and San Marino topping the tables. The list of countries that have dealt with the pandemic relatively well is much shorter. Almost a year ago, I wrote about how leaders in Brazil and Mexico were slow in taking tougher action to prevent the spread of the virus. I falsely predicted that Latin America is unlikely to witness the death rates seen in Europe. Unfortunately, the effects of the pandemic were equally devastating in the region, if not worse.

      Images of mass graves in the Amazonian town of Manaus and the dead bodies left in coffins in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, have spread worldwide. More than 260,000 Brazilians and nearly 190,000 Mexicans died because of the virus, placing the two countries second and third in absolute numbers of fatalities. Peru registered 1,421 deaths per million and Panama 1,352 on March 4 — numbers that show the devastation caused by the virus in the region so far. Chile has also experienced a significant death rate of 1,084 per million.

      Why Are Mexico and Brazil So Slow in Reacting to COVID-19?

      READ MORE

      The big difference in Chile was that authorities mobilized in advance to secure vaccines, hedging bets on various suppliers in different stages of development. In September last year, President Sebastian Pinera announced the purchase of 10 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Deliveries commenced on December 24, making Chile the first Latin American nation to start its vaccination program. The country has ordered some 90 million doses, more than enough to immunize its 19 million citizens. By March 4, more than 20% of its population received at least one shot, placing Chile fifth in the world when it comes to vaccination rates, just behind Israel, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

      Political Conflict

      On December 29, Argentinians started to receive the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The pace of immunization in Argentina has been much slower than expected, with several complaints of those not in priority groups receiving the jab before health workers and the elderly. The “VIP vaccination” scandal has caused the resignation of the health minister, drawing protesters onto the streets and generating criticism against President Alberto Fernandez. So far, Argentina has vaccinated only 2.61% of its 45 million citizens. The slower pace seems to be standard in the region, with most nations unable to vaccinate even 1% of their citizens. The cause is not only the shortage of vaccines but lack of planning and, more significantly, internal political conflict. 

      In Brazil, president Jair Bolsonaro has made several statements that undermined efforts to slow the pandemic. In a national broadcast on March 24, 2020, he criticized the restrictive measures adopted by governors and mayors, urging people to return to work and referring to COVID-19 as a “little flu.” The president also highly publicized the unproven anti-malarian drug chloroquine as being effective against the virus, ordering the Ministry of Health to produce four million doses. His insistence on the use of the drug caused the loss of two health ministers, Dr. Henrique Mandetta, fired by Bolsonaro last April, and Dr. Nelson Teich, who resigned less than a month after taking over. Since then, the position has been filled by an army general specializing in logistics, with neither medical education nor experience.

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      Over the course of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has been exchanging public barbs with the state governments, such as over lockdown measures adopted by individual governors last month. On March 1, 16 of the country’s 26 governors, including three Bolsonaro allies, signed a letter criticizing the government and accusing the president of misleading the public about federal pandemic relief funds. Sao Paulo’s governor, Joao Doria, a former ally in the 2018 elections and a potential competitor in 2022, has been the president’s most vociferous antagonist over the handling of the pandemic.

      At the center of the dispute is the Butantan Institute, one of the most prestigious health centers in Latin America, situated in the state of Sao Paolo. Back in June, Butantan signed a partnership with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech to produce the CoronaVac vaccine. Initially, Bolsonaro has signaled that Brazil would not purchase the Chinese vaccine, questioning its efficiency, but in January, the Ministry of Health added the vaccine to the national immunization plan following approval by the health regulator, Anvisa. Last month, Doria announced a deal for a further 20 million doses of CoronaVac to complement the 100 million already secured by Butantan.

      Last August, Pfizer said it offered 70 million batches of its vaccine to Brazil, with a delivery scheduled for December. However, with Brazil dissatisfied with the terms of the contract, the deal is still being negotiated. Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello hopes to secure 100 million doses from Pfizer and 38 million from a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, to start deliveries in May and August respectively. Due to this lack of urgency and an absence of a unified policy between the federal and state governments, Brazil has so far vaccinated just 3,67% of its population.

      Crisis Management

      Chile has also faced political unrest. Since 2019, the country experienced several mass protests calling for education and pension reforms. In a televised address, President Pinera declared a state of emergency, granting powers to restrain freedom of movement and assembly. The measure resulted in violence that cost 18 lives in five days, leading the UN to examine possible human rights abuses. As a result, Pinera’s approval rating fell to just 7%. In 2020, amid the ongoing political crisis, COVID-19 hit the country hard, provoking the resignation of the health minister, Jaime Manalich.

      However, Pinera managed to turn the situation around. With a degree in commercial engineering from the Catholic University of Chile and a PhD in economics from Harvard, the president is a billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of $2,9 billion. He has already led the country once, between 2010 and 2014, earning crucial government nous. Pinera made several concessions to the protesters and supported the calls for a new constitution in an attempt to turn down the political temperature.  

      A referendum on October 25 saw 78% of the population approve a new constitution that will substitute the current one created in 1980 under General Augusto Pinochet. The new Magna Carta will be written by a 155-strong body also elected through a popular vote and with an equal number of men and women. The document will then be confirmed by a popular vote before being implemented.

      Embed from Getty Images

      To assuage popular discontent caused by the initial handling of the pandemic in combination with other historical grievances relating to health care, education and pensions, Pinera focused his negotiation abilities to mediate the purchase of million doses of vaccine from different laboratories and suppliers. While most developing nations have been struggling with a lack of supplies, Chile is among the top three countries, along with Canada and the UK, when it comes to the number of doses ordered per capita. Back in September, just before the peak of protests, Pinera announced partnerships on the development and clinical trials between the Catholic University of Chile and Sinovac; the University of Chile, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca; as well as the University of Frontera and another Chinese laboratory, CanSino Biologics. More than that, purchases were agreed with Pfizer, Covax, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.

      But despite perceived goodwill from an unpopular right-wing government, the president still faces an uphill climb when it comes to popularity. By March 1, 83% of the Chileans deemed the massive vaccination as good or very good, 58% asses the general management of the pandemic as positive, but Pinera’s personal approval is still only at 24%.

      The successful vaccination has already yielded positive outcomes. According to Chile’s Health Ministry, the number of new COVID-19 cases has decreased in six of the country’s 16 regions in the last seven days and in eight the last 14 days. Chile hopes to vaccinate at least 15 million people in the first semester, which would allow the country to immunize its entire population by the end of June. These numbers would put Chile way ahead in the vaccination game not only in Latin America but worldwide, suggesting that resolute leadership is as important for the nation’s well-being as a robust medical system.

      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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      Biden makes friends with 'the west': Politics Weekly Extra

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      This week, guest host Rafael Behr puts some epoch-defining questions to the former US ambassador to Nato Nicholas Burns. How does the president convince the Europeans that America is reliable? How does Washington begin to engage with Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Does ‘the west’ exist any more?

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      A few weeks ago, Joe Biden gave his first major speech on foreign policy since taking office. In that address, the president declared that “America is back”. It wasn’t exactly clear where America had gone. If it’s back to stay, what exactly will be different? Rafael asks this and many other questions of Nicholas Burns, a professor of the practice of diplomacy and international relations at Harvard, who has worked with George HW Bush and Bill Clinton and was US ambassador to Nato, among other high-ranking positions. He also acted as foreign policy adviser to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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      The Talented Mr. Bin Salman

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      Mohammed bin Salman is a charming fellow. The tall, dark and handsome Saudi prince known as MBS has seduced world leaders and eager pundits left and right. To his supporters, MBS became first in line to the Saudi throne by championing reform in a deeply conservative Gulf kingdom, taking on corruption, confronting religious extremists and promising to modernize the economy. “Someone had to do this job — wrench Saudi Arabia into the 21st century — and MBS stepped up,” wrote Thomas Friedman in an oft-cited column from November 2017. “I, for one, am rooting for him to succeed in his reform efforts.”

      Not only impressionable opinion-makers have fallen for the prince’s charm. In 2017, MBS won the reader poll for Time’s person of the year with an astonishing 24% of the vote. Second place, at 6%, went to the magazine’s eventual pick for its cover, the #MeToo movement, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau garnered a mere 4%, Pope Francis 3% and then-US President Donald Trump 2%.

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      Of course, not everyone has been enthusiastic about the talented Mr. bin Salman. In 2015, three months into his new position as defense minister, MBS launched an air war in neighboring Yemen. Tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died, and the country has been plunged into a humanitarian nightmare. The war, which has become a quagmire for the Saudi-led coalition, has not exactly made a lot of friends for MBS.

      Two years later, shortly before he mesmerized Friedman in Riyadh, Mohammed bin Salman detained a number of his wealthiest rivals in a set of rooms at the Ritz-Carlton in the Saudi capital. There he subjected the sheikhs and businessmen to interrogations and torture that resulted in one death and the hospitalization of 17 others. The Saudi leadership called the extortion of billions of dollars from the rich prisoners an anti-corruption campaign, but it was really a way for MBS to consolidate his power through brute force.

      Embed from Getty Images

      “He is a psycho,” a relative of one of the detainees said of MBS. “He has spite. He wants to break people. He doesn’t want anyone to have an honorable name but him. He is a devil, and the devil is learning from him.”

      Shortly before the Ritz-Carlton “sheikhdown,” Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi fled the country for the United States. As a Washington Post columnist, he then took aim at the policies of the Saudi government and those of MBS in particular. While the Saudi prince “is right to free Saudi Arabia from ultra-conservative religious forces, he is wrong to advance a new radicalism that, while seemingly more liberal and appealing to the West, is just as intolerant of dissent,” Khashoggi wrote in a column from April 2018.

      That intolerance for dissent was on full and tragic display a few months later when Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to get papers to marry his Turkish fiancée and never came out. A government-dispatched death squad strangled the journalist and dismembered his body.

      The Saudi government initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed. Then it claimed that the killers were rogue elements. The kingdom eventually put 11 unnamed individuals on trial for the crime, charged eight of them and handed down five death sentences that it subsequently commuted to 20 years in prison.

      After Khashoggi’s murder, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials. But even though a UN report implicated MBS in the assassination, he didn’t face any consequences. Indeed, Trump continued to praise the Saudi prince as if nothing had happened.

      “It’s an honor to be with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia,” Trump said at a June 2019 breakfast with MBS at the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “I want to just thank you on behalf of a lot of people, and I want to congratulate you. You’ve done, really, a spectacular job.”

      This week, the Biden administration released an earlier US intelligence report on the assassination of Khashoggi that concluded that Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing. The administration added some new sanctions against certain Saudi officials and instituted a “Khashoggi ban” against 76 unnamed individuals associated with the killing. That ban can also be applied to any foreign officials who harass or harm journalists or activists.

      Still, the Biden administration has declined to sanction MBS himself. Like Tom Ripley in the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Mohammed bin Salman is a confidence man, a possible serial killer and an all-around psychopath with a taste for the high life. Highsmith described the protagonist of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and four other novels as “suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral.” Although he often comes close to getting caught, in the end, Tom Ripley gets away with murder every time. Will that be the fate of the talented Mr. bin Salman as well?

      The US-Saudi Relationship

      The alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia initially made sense, at least at a basic economic level. In February 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on a Navy destroyer in the Suez Canal, the US president wanted to secure a homeland for Jewish refugees in Palestine. Although the Saudi king was not enthusiastic, he was willing to forge a partnership around oil. Saudi Arabia had recently discovered what promised to be very lucrative fields, and the US needed a reliable oil supply to finish off World War II and begin a post-war recovery.

      Saudi Arabia still has a lot of oil, but the US doesn’t need it anymore. From a high of two million barrels of crude a day in May 2003, US imports dropped to a mere 100,000 last December. For a period of time in January, for the first time in 35 years, the United States didn’t import any Saudi oil at all. Because of its own fossil fuel production, increased imports from countries like Canada, and greater reliance on renewables, the US is simply no longer dependent on the Saudis.

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      Take oil out of the equation and the alliance becomes untenable. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship with fewer political and religious freedoms than, say, Iran, which the US routinely castigates for its human rights violations. The kingdom has been a destabilizing influence in the region, for instance through its war in Yemen and its earlier embargo of Qatar. Moreover, Saudi Arabia promotes a conservative version of Islam, Wahhabism, that has squeezed out more liberal variants of the religion all around the world. The country has also generated even more extremist ideologies, like the jihadism of Osama bin Laden and his followers.

      In an investigation of the links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers, the FBI found some evidence of collaboration, through the Saudi Embassy in Washington, but the agency has been divided on whether that evidence is conclusive. The name of the relevant embassy contact, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, was even inadvertently revealed last May, but it’s not likely that the Saudi government will allow him to be deposed as part of the lawsuit mounted by families of the 9/11 victims.

      It’s not the only case in which the Saudi government has been implicated. A lawsuit in Florida alleges that the kingdom could have prevented an attack by a Saudi air force officer in 2019 at a naval air station in Pensacola that left three US sailors dead.

      The US government has generally looked the other way when it comes to these obvious disqualifications for a strategic partnership. It’s not just oil. The Saudis have proved to be useful partners in various causes over the years. They provided financial support for the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan. They’ve been a bulwark behind conservative regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt, which the United States has misinterpreted as a stabilizing influence.

      And then there’s Iran, with which Saudi Arabia has long battled for influence in the greater Middle East. Part of the rivalry is confessional — Iran is predominantly Shia, while Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni. The tensions are also political since the Saudis tend to prefer conservative, pro-Western regimes, while Iran favors governments and movements that are at least skeptical of the West if not outright hostile. But the competition often boils down to geopolitics, with the two countries trying to influence countries and leaders regardless of their religion or political leanings.

      Because the United States decided 40 years ago, with a big assist from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to do everything it could to constrain the new Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia became an essential partner. In 2015, the Obama administration challenged the cornerstone of this partnership with the Iran nuclear deal. Trump swung in the opposite direction to make the kingdom the fulcrum of a region-wide peace plan.

      President Joe Biden is now trying to “recalibrate” the relationship. It has ended “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” but that leaves open the possibility of supporting defensive operations, whatever those might be. It has put a hold on half a billion dollars in military assistance but is now evaluating which deals can go through under the category of “defensive” weapons, like missile defense systems.

      In his initial discussions with the kingdom, Biden also raised issues of human rights and the assassination of Khashoggi. At the same time, however, the administration has tried to preserve the overall relationship by effectively pardoning MBS. King Salman is 85 years old, and he’s not in good health. With MBS set to take over, the United States doesn’t want to alienate a powerful future monarch. Mohammed bin Salman is aware of his leverage. He will act accordingly.

      Dealing with Ruling Assassins

      The Biden administration this week announced sanctions against senior Russian officials over the poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny. In 2019, the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran for its involvement in the assassination of two Iranians in the Netherlands. After the 2017 assassination at the Kuala Lumpur airport of Kim Jong Nam, who was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Malaysia closed its embassy in Pyongyang and imposed a travel ban on the country.

      Embed from Getty Images

      None of these moves has doomed bilateral relations. The US still engages with the Kremlin, most recently by extending New START. The EU is pushing hard for a resumption of the Iran nuclear deal. Malaysia reopened its embassy in Pyongyang last year.

      Part of the reason why such extrajudicial murders generate sanctions but not a full quarantine of the perpetrating countries is the widespread nature of these offenses. Among its many “targeted killings” by drones, the United States assassinated the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, outside the Baghdad airport at the beginning of 2020. Israel has routinely killed its opponents all over the world, including a Libyan embassy employee in Rome, an Egyptian nuclear scientist in Paris, a Brazilian colonel in Sao Paolo and a Canadian engineer in Brussels. Syria might or might not have been behind several assassinations in Lebanon, including leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. None of these countries has suffered geopolitically for these acts.

      The talented Mr. bin Salman, in other words, killed his most prominent critic because he knew he would get away with it. Even if the Biden administration decides for entirely pragmatic reasons not to sanction the Saudi prince, it should definitively stop all military support to Riyadh, even weapons considered “defensive.” After all, if Saudi Arabia feels more secure behind a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, it will be more likely to direct aerial attacks against its opponents.

      It’s the nature of geopolitics that a few psychopaths are going to become the leaders of their countries. But that’s no reason for the United States to give these “talented” men the weapons to consolidate their power.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      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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      Is Dutch Exceptionalism Equipped to Cope With the Pandemic?

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      In late January, protests and riots against COVID-19 lockdown measures in the Netherlands drew attention from international audiences, taking many by surprise. Described by the Dutch police as the “worst rioting in 40 years,” it was a response to the first curfew the country has seen since the Second World War. Now, more violence and what appears to be a deliberate attack on a coronavirus testing center have caused further shock. The Netherlands is well established at the heart of orderly Northern Europe, bound by welfare-state solidarity and reserved, measured behavior. However, its populist subculture is news to no one. Radical and conservative elements, as well as a culture of Dutch exceptionalism, existed well before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has undoubtedly stirred social tensions in an unprecedented fashion.

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      As the curfew remains in place, most activities are restricted, including the shuttering of non-essential businesses and shops (closed since December), restaurants (closed since November) and gyms. Schools are only recently back in session after being closed in December, and only as of Wednesday, March 3, have contact professions been allowed to open on a limited basis, with stores also taking appointments for shopping trips.

      After suffering some of the worst rates of COVID-19 infections in the second European wave at the end of 2020, the Netherlands is watching numbers rise again. However, a poll in the third week of February indicated that 45% of Dutch citizens believe lockdown measures would be relaxed. How the government responds to this pandemic is most likely being swayed by the fact that national elections are coming up in less than two weeks.

      Intelligent Lockdown

      The unique social dynamics of the Netherlands are important for understanding the social sentiment surrounding the COVID-19 crisis. Firstly, it should be noted that the Netherlands took a different approach to many European counterparts at the start of the pandemic. Referred to as laissez-faire by some, there was never a total lockdown experienced by Spain or Italy. Of course, when the first round of lockdown measures hit Europe, schools, restaurants and businesses were closed. However, while citizens were encouraged to respect social distancing and limit gatherings, as well as to stay home as much as possible, there were neither explicit measures, such as how many times a day one could go outdoors, nor any regulation of them. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called this “an intelligent lockdown.” The Netherlands was one of the last countries in Europe to make masks obligatory, as late as December last year. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is perhaps due to the culture of Dutch exceptionalism or tolerance: no need to enforce or dictate rules to independent citizens so long as everyone peacefully goes about their business. As Sarah Bracke explains, Dutch exceptionalism can be understood as pertaining to “a notion of toleration, which is historically linked to its particular arrangement of secularization and later on, throughout the second half of the twentieth century, gained a strong resonance in relation to sexual politics.”

      The Netherlands has been known for its “coffee shop” culture where recreational use of soft drugs is openly tolerated, and it has legalized prostitution, euthanasia and gay marriage far in advance of many other countries. Such a culture, which is often criticized as being overly idealized, can prove resistant to what could be viewed as over-regulation of the private sphere through constrictive measures necessitated by the global pandemic.

      Systemic Tensions

      What is perhaps less directly related to but is more illustrative of the social tensions exacerbated by the pandemic is the history of radical-right and conservative presence in the country. Throughout the world, it seems that populist movements against COVID-19 measures and conspiracy theories relating to the pandemic are often led by right-wing factions or adherents. Populist anti-Islam or immigrant politicians or parties have proliferated in the Netherlands in the past decades. Geert Wilders, who founded the nationalist, far-right populist Freedom Party in 2006, is one of the best-known faces in Dutch politics.

      In fact, Dutch politicians often reference immigrants and minority ethnic groups in their rhetoric. While Dutch culture and identity are purportedly tolerant, there has been a constant and evidenced critique from academia and civil society that institutions and society remain exclusionary toward those who fall within the category of “allochtoon” (not from here) versus “autochtoon” (from here). Neoliberal and nationalist-populist parties reflect and mutually reinforce these alleged biases.

      A peek into the perspective of those who attest to discrimination on a daily basis is interesting and illuminative, even if it may not be statistically representative of Dutch culture or even an entirely objective account. The Amsterdam Confessions of a Shallow Man website, for instance, is authored by an expat living in Amsterdam who presents a bemused apparisal of Dutch life and moderates a large Facebook group where members joke, critique or celebrate Dutch culture. With over 8,000 members, it often serves as an outlet for those who feel discriminated against.

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      For example, members share when they have been told to “go back to their country” alongside news and experiences of racists attacks or rental ads that are exclusive to Dutch nationals. In particular, when someone experiences racism or discrimination, other members of the group offer support and advice on how to file a complaint. A common topic of discussion includes a Dutch Christmas character, Zwarte Piet — Black Pete — who takes his name from traditional blackface.

      There seems to be a frustration with proclaimed liberal Dutch tolerance vis-à-vis the experience of everyday life, especially among people of color. This explains the possibility of polarization and right-wing extremism or populism taking firmer root in Dutch society. However, simmering unrest intertwined with racial inequality is not exclusive to the Netherlands: The United States and its Black Lives Matter mobilization provides an example of a nation coming to terms with these same issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

      Typical Problems

      Problematizing extreme reactions to government-imposed COVID-19 response measures can be conducted from several angles. One could cite the culture of Dutch exceptionalism and resistance to intrusive regulation, or point to an increasing trajectory of populism. There are, however, many more factors at play, and the social implications of the pandemic will probably continue to be revealed in varying stages for years to come.

      For example, when explosives and fireworks were set off during riots, which were made up of mostly young people in their teens and twenties, earlier this year, it caused understandable alarm. However, these fireworks could be seen as an extension of Dutch youth culture and a popular, even if a dangerous, tradition. Each season, New Year’s fireworks result in injuries and property damage in otherwise peaceful Dutch towns and cities. These explosives seem to be a traditional manner of expression — both for festive and restive moods.

      By contrast, the recent, uncharacteristically intense February storm Darcy brought sub-zero temperatures, snow and iced-over canals that drew many happy faces. Locals enjoyed another cherished tradition: skating on nature’s ice rinks (at a respectable distance). The Dutch rank favorably on many indexes thanks to a comparatively rich, educated and open society, rooted in a specific set of customs, traditions and culture that requires a unique approach to a global emergency.

      The number of those who participated in the violence is low in comparison to the wider population, although it does suggest that there is understandable dissatisfaction with current COVID-19 response policies and management. Indeed, much like the rest of the world, the Dutch government and society face challenges in addressing the multilayered issues inherent in this unprecedented crisis.

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