Migration researcher Jochen Oltmer: “Labor migration has always existed”

In conversation Jochen Oltmer researches the history of labor migration to Germany, from the Huguenots to the present day. A conversation about historical migration movements, the shortage of skilled workers – and so-called “poverty migration”

by Sascha Lübbe
[This article posted on 6/2/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/migrationsforscher-jochen-oltmer-arbeitsmigration-hat-es-immer-schon-gegeben.]

Labor migration to Germany has a history: Italian guest workers in the 1960s

"The labor shortage in the countryside is becoming increasingly noticeable, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find local workers; on the other hand, the demand for migrant workers, mainly foreigners, is increasing. (...)

There are abuses in the treatment and accommodation of workers, in their sleeping and living quarters. In many cases, even the most basic regulations and protective measures in terms of morality and hygiene are disregarded. (...) The legislature takes a defensive position towards workers immigrating from abroad, seeking to protect the interests of the homeland and to tolerate immigration as a temporary necessity to replace the labor force."

These sentences are around 100 years old, taken from the dissertation “Foreign Migrant Workers in German Agriculture” from 1914. The author, Andreas Mytkowicz, describes the working and living conditions of Polish-speaking people who came to Germany to work in the fields – to compensate for the lack of local workers. The parallels with today are obvious. Even then, foreigners were taking on work for which there were not enough people in Germany. Even then, they were living under sometimes precarious, exploitative conditions. A conversation with the historian Jochen Oltmer about the history of German labor migration.

The gap between the rich and poor in Germany is widening. The broad middle class that once characterized our country and supported our society is eroding

der Freitag: Mr. Oltmer, how long has there been migration to Germany?

Jochen Oltmer: There has always been geographical mobility for the purpose of employment in the area that is now Germany, usually limited to small and medium distances. Transportation was expensive. For a long time, people who had to leave their home for work were therefore usually on foot.

One of the first major migratory movements was that of the Huguenots in the 17th century. Protestants who were persecuted in their homeland, France, which was predominantly Catholic, and fled to Prussia. What kind of people were they?

Many specialized craftsmen, merchants, officers. In Prussia, they often worked in the emerging luxury segment. They made gloves and hats, wove silk, built furniture. In doing so, they were mainly in contact with the social elite, who spoke French.

Many Huguenots were “skilled workers”, as we would say today. Their integration was therefore long considered to be relatively problem-free.

That's true. But there were also conflicts. The Huguenots were exempt from taxes, they received building land and favorable loans. This privileged status was also viewed critically.

In the 19th century, the focus shifted towards the east. The main arrivals were Polish-speaking people.

On the one hand, there were the so-called Ruhr Poles. People from the mining areas of Upper Silesia, but also from East and West Prussia, who moved to the mining areas of the Ruhr region because of the higher wages. On the other hand, there were Polish-speaking people from abroad, from Russia and Austria-Hungary, who came to Germany at harvest time. They met with considerable resistance here, especially from the political elite.

Why?

They feared that they would strengthen the Polish minority in the country too much. For this reason, Polish-speaking agricultural workers were also subject to a compulsory return policy. After the harvest, they had to leave the country again. These conditions did not apply to other groups, such as Italians and Dutch people, who were working in German brickworks, in mining and in industry at the same time.

What is often overlooked in the discussion about migration: Germany, or rather the area that became the German Empire in 1871, was itself a country of emigration for a time, especially in the 19th century.

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The German population had grown enormously in the 19th century, almost tripling, and this was out of proportion to the employment opportunities. Over six million people emigrated across the Atlantic at that time, 90 percent of them to the USA, where they formed the largest immigrant group for a while. The development ended with the American economic crisis of 1893, which was a significant turning point for the USA. In the meantime, the situation in Germany had changed: Industry had grown, agriculture had been modernized. There was now a shortage of labor. Germany went from being a country of emigration to a country of immigration. Before the outbreak of the First World War, 1.2 million people from abroad were working in Germany.

One of the most significant migration phases in Germany began in 1955 with the recruitment agreement with Italy. Further agreements with other countries followed. An exception?

Germany was not the first or only industrialized country in Europe to conclude this type of agreement. By the mid-1950s, almost all European industrialized nations had negotiated agreements with southern European countries. Italy, for example, had already concluded other agreements with other countries before the agreement with Germany.

By the time the so-called recruitment stop was introduced in 1973, 14 million people had come to Germany. Unlike today's migrant workers, the so-called guest workers in Germany at that time were also permanently employed by large companies, and many initially worked alongside German colleagues. And yet it was difficult for them to gain a foothold in society. There were no language courses, and the workers were initially housed in separate barracks. Why?

Because it was assumed that their stay would be limited. This applies to all parties involved, including the sending countries. They hoped that the people would return with new know-how and boost the domestic economy. But by the end of the 1960s at the latest, it was clear that the people were staying in Germany. They had built up social relationships here, while the economic prospects in their home countries were not improving.
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How was this received in German society?

No one had seriously considered the prospect of these people staying. But now they were there and seemed to be causing costs: more daycare places, more school places, more apartments were needed. Only now did the discussion begin about what immigration actually means for German society. This also involved its self-image: the Federal Republic, generally perceived as homogeneous, had become more colorful. Societies that see themselves as homogeneous generally perceive immigration as a threat. In such cases, migration is sometimes allowed, but attempts are made to prevent settlement.

This also applied to the so-called contract workers in the GDR. People from socialist brother states such as Vietnam, Mozambique or Angola. Their stay was limited to five years, they were not allowed to bring their families with them, and women who became pregnant had to have an abortion or were deported.

GDR society saw itself as extremely homogeneous. The government treated anyone who had not been socialized in the country with suspicion. They feared that he or she could disrupt the political order.

You say that the majority society's view of certain migrant groups is changing.

Yes. In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, there were lively debates about Italian immigrants, with a lot of talk about crime and sexuality. At the same time, Italy became a popular destination for Germans. Migration from other countries increased rapidly, and new immigrants were now perceived as particularly foreign. Italians were now seen as an enrichment.

What about migration from Eastern Europe?

Even before the eastward expansion, in the 1990s, many people from Poland came to Germany to work. The media reported a lot about them. They were mostly classified as illegal and criminal. This was associated with strong political defense mechanisms. Later, people from Romania and Bulgaria came to the public's attention. There was a lot of discussion about “poverty migration” from both countries and “immigration into the social systems”. The discussion ended in 2015 because there was a more pressing issue: the increased number of refugees. Romanian and Bulgarian workers only reappeared in the media in the wake of the corona pandemic.

Jochen Oltmer (born 1965) is a professor at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at the University of Osnabrück. He has written many books on migration, most recently Die Grenzen der EU. Europäische Integration, “Schengen” und die Kontrolle der Migration

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Selenskyj: “We see the Russians, but we can't reach them”
War In an exclusive interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks about Joe Biden's decision to allow US weapons to be used against targets in Russia. However, this is not enough
by Katharine Viner, Luke Harding, Shaun Walker, Nick Hopkins
The Guardian
[This interview posted on 6/2/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/the-guardian/wolodymyr-selenskyj-wir-sehen-die-russen-aber-koennen-sie-nicht-erreichen.]

Selenskyj on the Russian side: “I think sometimes they just laugh”

The late decision by US President Joe Biden to authorize the use of Western weapons against certain targets in Russia has allowed Kremlin forces to laugh at Ukraine and hunt the Ukrainian people, Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the British Guardian. In the wide-ranging interview in Kiev, the Ukrainian president said the White House's indecision had cost lives and he urged the US president to overcome his concerns about a possible nuclear “escalation” with Moscow.

On Thursday evening, it was announced that the US had taken a small but symbolic step after months of pressure, allowing the Kiev military to use some US-made weapons inside Russia for the first time to defend the city of Kharkiv. In his interview with the Guardian, however, Zelenskyy made it clear that he wanted to be in a position to use “powerful” long-range weapons that could hit targets deep inside Russian territory – a red line that the White House is not willing to give up. The US, he said, needed to “believe in us more”.

Without this green light, other allies such as the UK might not allow Ukraine to use its long-range weapons. “Believe us, we have to react. They understand nothing but force. We are not the first and not the last target,” he said about Russia. “I think it is absolutely illogical to have [Western] weapons and to see the killers, the terrorists who kill us, on the Russian side. I think sometimes they just laugh at this situation,” he said. “It's as if they are hunting for them. Hunting for people. They understand that we can see them, but we can't reach them”.

“Putin is not crazy, he is dangerous”

Selenskyj said in the interview:

New US weapons have not yet arrived in sufficient quantities to equip additional Ukrainian brigades in the northeast, where Russia is on the march.
He said that Vladimir Putin was similar to Adolf Hitler: “Putin is not crazy. He is dangerous, which is much more frightening.”
He had asked former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to lobby Donald Trump ahead of a vote in the US Congress in April to authorize $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, which was rejected by the right-wing Republicans.
British Labor leader Keir Starmer, whom he met in Kiev last year, was a “good guy”. After a pause, he added: “Rishi [Sunak] is a good guy too.”

Selenskyj's comments came as the Biden administration on Thursday relaxed its longstanding policy that prohibited Ukraine from using US weapons against targets in Russia. It granted Ukraine permission to fire back – but only near Kharkiv, where Moscow has launched a new offensive. The decision allows Ukraine to use the Himars artillery supplied by the US against Russian soldiers and command and control centers. Zelensky's press secretary, Serhii Nykyforov, welcomed the US move. He told the Guardian: “This will significantly improve our ability to counter Russian attempts to push across the border.”

The White House, however, insisted that nothing had changed in its policy of banning deeper strikes into Russia. Ukraine would still not be able to use the Atacms long-range missile system within Russia, it said.
Long-range missiles on Russia?

In a speech at the presidential office, Zelenskyy made it clear that he wanted to use long-range weapons such as the Storm Shadow missiles manufactured in the United Kingdom. He said that despite reports to the contrary, the United Kingdom had not given its “full permission” to do so. It is unlikely that Thursday's decision will change this position.

In reality, Downing Street is waiting for the Americans, said Zelensky. “We have raised this issue twice. We have not received any confirmation from him [David Cameron, the foreign secretary],” he said. A final decision by the UK and other partners would depend on a “consensus”, with the position in Washington being crucial, Zelensky said: “You know how it works.”

Joe Biden has long been concerned about the risks of a direct nuclear conflict with Moscow. The US president is unlikely to attend a peace summit in Switzerland next month, which Zelensky organized. When asked if he felt abandoned by the US and its leadership, he replied: “I think they need to believe in us more.” Ten countries had signaled their support for the removal of the “red lines”. French President Emmanuel Macron had pledged his support on Wednesday, saying Ukraine could use French Scalp long-range missiles against enemy Russian military installations.
A dialogue takes time, but time is short in a war

Last week, Russia killed at least 25 civilians in Kharkiv with guided missiles. However, Ukraine has not been allowed to fire on Russia, said Zelensky. It also does not have enough conventional weapons to equip reserve brigades that could be used to drive out the Russians.

“Nobody is blaming anybody,” he said. “We are where we are. We are fighting, and we are at war, not at the beginning. Therefore, we have to find a way out of this situation every day.” Zelenskyy noted that Western countries, which are at peace, have “different priorities” and understandably do not share Ukraine's sense of existential urgency. This means that a “dialogue” instead of action can be frustrating. “For us, time is our life,” he said. “If you don't go [to a bunker] in a minute, you can be dead. That's why the attitude to time is completely different.”
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The role of the International Court of Justice in the Gaza war
by Norman Paech
[This article posted on June 6, 2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=116291.]

Colonial violence and the path to justice. The war in Gaza has been raging for over seven months now and has long since reached the incomprehensible dimensions of genocide. All initiatives to end this horror by political means have so far failed. And now, as so often, peace is hoped for from the judiciary as the ultima ratio. By Norman Paech[*].

For decades, it was kept out of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, just like the UN. But now the courageous initiative of South Africa has broken the spell and received an unexpected positive response worldwide – except from Israel and its cronies in the USA and Germany. Since the preliminary ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 26 of this year, it has already taken a position on South Africa's complaint against Israel three times. The first two rulings did not persuade Israel to change its conduct of the war as demanded, and the third decision did not either, as the bombing of Rafah immediately after the court's decision to cease the offensive proves. The question therefore arises as to what significance international jurisdiction has in preventing and managing wars. And this may then lead to the question of how Germany, or rather the German government, should behave towards such a court, in other words, what significance international law has for its foreign policy.

Israel, at least, has ignored international law for decades – but without consequences. Israel is the country most condemned by the organs of the United Nations, in particular by the General Assembly, but also by the Human Rights Committee. All Israeli governments have refused to accept any resolution and have reacted at most with accusations of anti-Semitism. International jurisdiction has never been able to intervene, simply because there were no plaintiffs. It is only in recent years that this situation has changed fundamentally. There are currently four court cases directly or indirectly pending against Israel.

At the turn of the year 2008/2009, there were significant Israeli attacks on Gaza. In the short space of ten days, over 2,000 people were killed by the Israeli army. Palestine immediately applied to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an investigation into this attack on Palestine. The legal basis for this is the international criminal law, the so-called Rome Statute, which has existed since 1998. The court in question, the International Criminal Court (ICC), was established in 2000 in The Hague, where it then began its work in 2002.

At first, nothing happened after this request to investigate the attacks of 2008/2009. However, when the Israeli army launched a second military offensive against Gaza in 2014, the so-called Protective Edge, which lasted 50 days and claimed well over 2,000 lives and left over 10,000 injured, the International Criminal Court, i.e. its chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, became active. Investigations were now launched into war crimes, crimes against humanity, and above all into the settlement activities since 2014.

In 2019, Fatou Bensouda reported on her preliminary investigations and stated that they had been completed. Then, in 2021, two years later, the International Court of Justice also declared itself competent. Palestine had been a state party since 2015 and had recognized the Rome Statute. The question was whether the active legitimization was sufficient for this? It had taken two years for the Court to recognize the active legitimation, even though Palestine is still not recognized as a state in the UN. The Court considered the observer status to be sufficient for the active legitimation before the court, which is why the proceedings could now be transferred to official investigations. Article 7 of the Rome Statute, which defines apartheid and segregation as crimes against humanity, also played a role here.

For a long time, however, nothing happened. This was partly because Fatou Bensouda was replaced by a new chief prosecutor, the Englishman Karim Khan, in 2021. He did nothing at first, until 32 UN special rapporteurs complained to the UN and the International Criminal Court in March 2023 about why no official investigation had been carried out so far. It should be noted that the position of Chief Prosecutor is a political one, as is the case in the national legal systems of European states. Every prosecutor is dependent on his or her government. The ICC's Chief Prosecutor is also dependent on the dominant states. Khan was the preferred candidate of the UK and the US, which in fact have no interest in an investigation against Israel. That is why it took so long.

We recall that Khan suspended the ongoing investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan against US soldiers accused of torture in Bagram prison in September 2021, officially due to a lack of capacity and a lack of prospects for success. He therefore limited the investigations to the prosecution of possible war crimes by the Taliban. President Trump had already threatened his predecessor Fatou Bensouda with sanctions if further investigations were carried out against US soldiers. The Mossad, with Yossi Cohen at its head, also put Bensouda under massive pressure to drop the investigations, as the Guardian recently revealed on May 28. The pressure on Khan will not have been much less, as can now be concluded from the reactions in Israel and the USA. Nevertheless, he suddenly became active on October 7, 2023, with the Hamas attack on Israel. He went to Rafah to open the investigation – not only against Israel, but also against Hamas.

And now the politically surprising, but legally consistent and necessary application for an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant, and against the three Hamas leaders Ismail Hanyieh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deid. The relevant chamber of the court has not yet granted the application, but the political impact is already considerable. For the first time, the Criminal Court is daring to issue an arrest warrant for a head of state from the Western camp. It will have to follow Khan's request if it does not want to lose its credibility.
Surprisingly, on January 9, 2023, the UN General Assembly called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to investigate the legality of the Israeli occupation (Article 36 of the ICJ Statute). The Court was asked three questions: What legal consequences can be identified from the permanent violation of the Palestinians' right to self-determination by the occupation? And secondly, what is the legal status of the occupation? Finally, what are the legal consequences for third countries, for example for the Federal Republic of Germany or for France? At the end of February 2024, hearings were held before the Court of 52 states that had expressed an interest in the proceedings in order to submit their legal assessment to the Court. The most interesting was probably the Chinese one, which emphasized the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves against the occupation, even with the use of force.

In this context, I would like to refer to an advisory opinion that the International Court of Justice had already issued in 2004, also at the request of the UN General Assembly, the so-called Wall Advisory Opinion. The Court was asked to examine whether the wall or fence that Israel has built and is still building around the occupied territories is lawful. The judges published their advisory opinion in 2004, which is not binding, however. But the language is very clear. The wall is illegal to the extent that it cuts off Palestinian territory. The Israelis had not only built the wall on their own territory, but 80 percent of it was on Palestinian territory. Every state can build a wall around itself. But of course it cannot at the same time appropriate foreign territory. The court ordered Israel to dismantle the wall and to pay compensation to the expropriated owners. Israel has not done anything about it. However, since the International Court of Justice has no means of enforcement, this opinion is now in limbo. The Court has determined that the majority of the wall is illegal, but it cannot do anything to enforce its opinion.


And so to the third case, the most recent one that we are currently following. On December 29, 2023, the Republic of South Africa again surprisingly filed a lawsuit against Israel for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention. This was possible because both states have signed and ratified this Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention contains a passage stating that all disputes regarding compliance with or violation of this Convention may be brought before the International Court of Justice. The South African government has taken this route and filed the lawsuit. It made two requests: a temporary injunction for an immediate ceasefire, i.e. the cessation of all military action by both parties – because the situation was urgent and was coming to a head. It also wanted to have it established that the Israeli army was committing genocide with this war, which had already lasted almost 100 days at the time.


The decision is well known. The 15 male and two female judges called for concrete humanitarian measures to prevent genocide. But that was all. They did not order an end to the hostilities, which South Africa had demanded. And yet, just a week before, on January 15, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had called for an immediate ceasefire. However, the court did not want to follow suit. There was also no dissenting vote, i.e. a minority vote calling for a ceasefire.

As was to be feared, Israel has ignored this decision of the ICJ as well and has mercilessly continued to pursue its goal of destroying Hamas, with terrible consequences for the civilian population. South Africa has repeated its demand for a ceasefire three times. However, the court felt that it had already said everything necessary in its decision of February 26. In a further application, South Africa demanded that the offensive in Rafah be stopped. In its decision on March 28, the court recognized the drastic deterioration of the situation in Gaza, which is endangering all areas of life in a way that is without comparison. It ordered further urgent measures of humanitarian aid, but without deciding on a stop to the violence. According to media reports from the Netherlands, seven judges are said to have voted for an immediate ceasefire this time. The chairmanship of the court had changed from the career lawyer from the US State Department, Joan E. Donogue, to the Lebanese Nawaf Salam. This can be decisive if an eighth judge is added. Now, on May 10, South Africa has made a third urgent appeal to the court to demand an immediate stop to the offensive against Rafah. South Africa used the public hearing on May 16 to once again describe in detail the horrific atrocities and the excessive, unbridled violence of the Israeli army in the south of the Gaza Strip. On May 24, the court decided to grant the request and ruled by a vote of 13 to 2 that Israel must immediately stop its military offensive. However, the praise for this decision is mainly directed at the South African government, which, with its courage and tenacity, not only drove the court to this decision, but also drew the attention of the whole world to these crimes in order to increase the pressure on Israel to finally end almost 60 years of colonial oppression.

However this terrible massacre in Gaza continues, and hopefully comes to an end soon, the International Court of Justice will remain involved in both proceedings concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the question arises: how will it deal with it?
The ICJ has a long and varied history of dealing with colonial conflicts, which may also provide some pointers for this conflict. We have to go back to the early days of the anti-colonial liberation movements, more precisely to the year 1960, when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514 (XV) on the “Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” by a large majority (89+ 9- 9./.) on December 14, after long deliberations. It declared: “All peoples have the right to self-determination... The subjection of peoples to foreign subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights.” And on the principle of territorial sovereignty: “Any attempt to destroy the national unity of a country, in whole or in part, is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” This manifesto of anti-colonialism had become possible because numerous new and young states had joined the UN, 16 African states alone in 1960.

During the deliberations on Resolution 1514, Liberia and Ethiopia filed a complaint against South Africa in The Hague in November 1960. They wanted to put an end to its administration of South West Africa. This country had come under brutal German colonial rule in 1884, with massacres of the Herero and Nama peoples, which the German government, after much hesitation, now recognized as genocide. When German rule ended in 1919, the League of Nations turned the territory into a British mandate, placing it under the administration of the Union of South Africa. It remained there even after South Africa gained independence in 1931 and the League of Nations was replaced by the UN in 1945. However, the General Assembly was increasingly outraged by the apartheid policy that South Africa was also applying to the mandate territory. It commissioned a total of three expert opinions from the International Court of Justice to examine the rights of the people and the UN's control options over the territory. However, the results were not satisfactory to Liberia and Ethiopia, who therefore filed a lawsuit.

The court first had to deal with South Africa's objection that the two plaintiff countries had no legitimate legal interest in the treatment of the inhabitants of a third country. But with a narrow majority of 8 to 7 votes, the court rejected the objection and recognized the right of the plaintiff countries to bring the case. That was in 1962. However, when the deliberations on the final decision were due in 1968, the bench of judges had changed. The leader of the minority opinion, the Australian judge Sir Percy Spender, had been elected President of the Court and he managed to put so much pressure on the Pakistani judge Sir Zafarullah Khan that the latter finally withdrew as a result of prejudice. Only 14 judges were therefore left to take part in the decision, which ended in a 7-7 tie. Since the chairman's vote is decisive in this case, the complaint was rejected. A clear political step backwards and a significant defeat for the UN. A loss of confidence in the court and apparently further proof of the powerlessness and uselessness of the judiciary.

But the story did not end there. The General Assembly immediately reaffirmed its 1960 Resolution 1514 and terminated South Africa's mandate. The Security Council called on the government to withdraw from South West Africa. But South Africa refused. So the Security Council turned to the ICJ again and requested an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of South Africa's refusal. It was now 1971 and the bench had changed again. Sir Percy Spender had retired and his rival Sir Zafarullah Khan had become President. The court now ruled that the South African administration was illegal and that it had to leave Namibia immediately. All member states were called upon to end all support for the occupying forces. The court's credibility had been restored.

This brief excursion into the history of decolonization shows two things. The fight for justice is highly political and can only be won if the pressure of the people forces the norms of justice in the direction of liberation and equality. The long struggle for the right of self-determination of the people is an instructive example of this. It is mainly conducted in the UN. The courts and tribunals are merely the regulated battleground that replaces the largely uncontrollable theater of war of armed force in order to achieve progress in the areas of liberation, equality and peace. But they too are highly political institutions that are constantly being fought over. Incidentally, the German government has just lost a battle with France over a vacant seat on the International Criminal Court. Germany will no longer be represented there in the coming years.


Finally, let us turn to the fourth case before the International Court of Justice, the complaint filed by Nicaragua on March 1, 2024 against Germany for supporting Israel's conduct of war in the Gaza Strip and aiding and abetting genocide. This complaint is also based on Germany's general obligation as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Prevention of Genocide. The Federal Republic of Germany is not accused of genocide itself, but only of providing political, financial and military support to Israel during the war in the Gaza Strip, which led to genocide. Why Nicaragua in particular is interfering in the war in Gaza may be explained by the historically close relations between the Sandinistas and the PLO, but also by its own experiences with the ICJ in its fight against the USA.

Nicaragua, once a Spanish colony, became independent as early as 1821, but for decades it suffered under the anti-communist and pro-US Somoza family. When they were overthrown in the Sandinista revolution in 1979, the USA did not hesitate to use its favorite instruments of blockade and intervention, supplying the so-called Contras with money, weapons and training. When the USA began to mine Nicaragua's ports and violate its airspace, the Sandinistas planned to file a lawsuit with the ICJ in 1983. Their allies Cuba and the Soviet Union were against this, as they did not trust the court in The Hague. But after extensive secret consultations with other countries, precise analyses of the court and the balance of power, they filed a complaint with the ICJ at the beginning of 1984 for violation of the prohibition of the use of force under Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter. The USA defended itself with collective self-defense to protect El Salvador from violence from the neighboring state. However, the court, under the chairmanship of Judge Elias from Nigeria, ordered provisional measures as early as May 1984, such as the lifting of the blockade and the removal of mines from the ports, and the observance of Nicaragua's sovereignty. In November 1984, the court confirmed its jurisdiction over this case. Only the US judge Schwebel voted against it, saying that it would undermine justice, and the US withdrew from the process – after the judgment, which was to be passed in the absence of the US, they also left the court. They never rejoined it.

It took the court only two years until, in the summer of 1986, the new chairman, Justice Singh, announced the verdict by a vote of 12 to 3, condemning the United States on a total of 11 counts for the illegal use of force, violation of Nicaragua's sovereignty, training, arming and financing of the Contra forces, to cease their activities and to pay compensation. It rejected the US argument of collective defense. The USA rejected the judgment with the remarkable argument that the court had no jurisdiction over its actions and that this was exclusively a matter for the USA. In short, the USA's actions against Nicaragua were not the court's concern – a view that is familiar from the “political question doctrine” in the USA, which largely exempts government action from judicial review. The Ugandan judge Sebutinde, now Vice President of the Court, also rejected all decisions on the complaint of South Africa against Israel on the same grounds.

Nicaragua immediately turned to the UN Security Council and insisted that the decision of the International Court of Justice be binding. On October 28, 1986, the USA naturally vetoed the planned decision of the Security Council, while France, Great Britain and Thailand abstained. Undaunted, Nicaragua turned to the General Assembly and received overwhelming support for its claim, with 94 votes in favor and only three against (the USA, Israel and El Salvador). A year later, on November 12, 1987, the General Assembly reiterated its demand that the USA comply “fully and immediately” with the ICJ ruling. The USA had left the court, but largely ceased its interventions against Nicaragua. It never paid any compensation and Nicaragua has only recently submitted a declaration to the UN Secretary-General, in which it still demands compliance with the 1986 judgment. The original claim of 12 billion US dollars has now risen to more than 31 billion dollars with interest.

The success at the court in 1986 undoubtedly prompted Nicaragua to follow South Africa's example and file a lawsuit against a state, the Federal Republic of Germany, which, like no other state after the USA, unconditionally supports Israel in a murderous war. Just recently, on May 16, the lawyers of South Africa presented in a renewed public hearing the hardly imaginable excesses of violence with expulsion and so-called extermination zones in the Gaza Strip, which make the accusation of genocide seem so justified. The two historic lawsuits have also shown, however, that the last bastions of colonialism can only be overcome with the additional support of the states in the UN – and these include the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

Back to the current proceedings before the International Court of Justice. It has ruled quickly and, for the time being, exonerated Germany of the charge of supporting genocide on May 2. It has rejected Nicaragua's urgent application to order a stop to German arms deliveries, since export licenses for military equipment have declined sharply this year. However, it also rejected the German government's request to dismiss Nicaragua's complaint for aiding and abetting genocide. Germany therefore remains under indictment until a final decision is made on this request. How long this will take is uncertain.
The fact that this war in Gaza is so difficult for our society to understand as one of the last colonial wars is undoubtedly due to the fact that Israeli propaganda about the war of survival, the fight for the existence of Israel, has been adopted as a so-called German raison d'état. Israel's existence may be threatened, but the threat comes from within, from the escalating crisis and the growing contradictions in Israeli society. And these contradictions are essentially generated by the unnatural, completely illegal and increasingly violent occupation. Israel's existence is indeed not secured by the ongoing occupation, which is becoming increasingly intolerable for both sides, but only without occupation and with a free and equal state of Palestine as a neighbor. Such a state without occupation could be guaranteed its existence, but a state with occupation and the violence that goes with it cannot be guaranteed its colonial existence.

For Germany, this realization would require a break with the outdated cliché of the culture of remembrance that the burden of the Holocaust forces German politics to accept the crimes of Israeli government policy, which it would not allow any other state in the UN to do. It has taken Israel's side before the International Court of Justice, although it would have to take at least a neutral position due to its contractual obligation to support the court. The “never again” that the memory of German history repeatedly leads to forbids the support or even the acceptance of foreign crimes, as well as one's own crimes – a matter of course with regard to every other state, which does not allow for double standards and thus no exception for Israel.

[«*] “N.P. Prof. emeritus of public law at the University of Hamburg. His work focuses on international law, human rights, war and peace. Member of the scientific advisory board of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), 2005-2009 Member of the German Bundestag for the party DIE LINKE, norman-paech.de.

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A Germany of lead: Why political illusions are our main problem
Inequality and poverty, the exclusion of minorities, defamation of critics and support for military violence have always existed in Germany, as in other countries around the world, despite all the improvements and positive developments that have been fought for from below.
But in the last two or three decades, German politics has taken a disastrous turn. This has been accompanied by a creeping process of social erosion, while even the claim to social equality, democratic strengthening of the public and the promotion of a global peace and prosperity policy has increasingly disappeared behind mere rhetoric. Instead of progress, there have been setbacks.
In order to conceal the departure from general prosperity and values, illusions were created about what actually drives politics.

Source: Telepolis

Are we at the end of the Gaza war?
Biden has presented Israel's plan for a ceasefire. Now there is great confusion. Will Netanyahu agree to his own proposal? An analysis.
After almost eight months of war, US President Joe Biden presented a plan for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Friday. He described three phases in which prisoners from both sides would be released, residents would be able to return to the north of the Gaza Strip and the reconstruction of the devastated area would begin after the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops.
According to Biden, this is a proposal from Israel. Hamas has already accepted the same conditions for a ceasefire in previous negotiations and immediately expressed its positive attitude towards the proposal.
At first glance, it looks good: all the relevant parties, Israel, Hamas and the USA, are in principle behind the plan. The Gaza war could therefore be coming to an end. But is that really the case?

Source: Telepolis

The vulgar and undignified speech by the Israeli UN ambassador
With his speech to the UN General Assembly, Israel's UN ambassador Gilad Erdan has played into the hands of the Palestinians.
Guest author Professor Jeffrey Sachs is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York.
On May 10, the UN General Assembly voted 143 to 9 (with the remaining members abstaining or not voting) to request that the UN Security Council admit Palestine as a full member. During the debate preceding the vote, Israel's UN ambassador Gilad Erdan provoked the assembly with an undiplomatic, insulting and vulgar speech:

Source: Infosperber

Neutrality is not a fair-weather option
In Switzerland, some people are calling for a reduction in neutrality when it comes to punishing “the aggressor”.
In 2002 and 2003, ABC inspectors spent months searching for “trace elements” of uranium and for Saddam Hussein's hidden weapons. They were not found, but a “coalition of the willing” bombed Iraq to smithereens as a preventive measure, because with its nuclear bombs and biological weapons, it was a threat to the West and our liberal order. Then the astonished newspaper reader learned that the evidence of the existence of these weapons was a fake concocted by the US secret services. The “threat” had evaporated into thin air. And the claim that Saddam Hussein had had a hand in 9/11 was also a lie.

Source: Globalbridge
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No more votes for warmongers and their parties
Never before has the danger of our country being drawn into a global war been as great as it is now. A war that will most likely be fought with weapons of mass destruction and will leave a completely devastated Europe in its wake.
For about 10 years, NATO and Russia have been waging a proxy war in Ukraine, arming and supporting different warring parties (the West the Kiev central government, Russia the oppressed minority in eastern Ukraine). With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the anti-Russian sanctions of the West, this war has escalated to a new level.
Strategically, Ukraine is now so at a disadvantage that even the delivery of alleged “wonder weapons” such as the Taurus cruise missile cannot reverse the trend in this war. They may be good for a few pinpricks against Russia, but they will not be able to force the withdrawal of Russian troops – but they are increasingly entangling Germany in a war with Russia and making our country a target for Russian missiles.

Source: Gela-News
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State fanaticism and mass delusion
against forgetting
Aspects of anarchist fascism theory in Rudolf Rocker

by Jens Kastner
[This article posted on 4/30/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.graswurzel.net/gwr/2024/04/staatsfanatismus-und-massenwahn/.]

Anarchists in London in 1912: Ernst Simmerling, Rudolf Rocker, Lazer Sabelinsky, Loefler (back), Milly Witkop-Rocker, Milly Sabel (front): Photo: [1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Anarchism is anti-fascist, of course. Its theory and practice aim at the abolition of domination, of which fascism – in a minimal definition – must be considered one form, among others. Nevertheless, fascism was not a central theme of anarchist theory. While the founders of anarchism, such as Mikhail Bakunin and Voltairine de Cleyre, had not yet been confronted with fascism, it was rarely addressed in later writings. An exception is Rudolf Rocker's work “Nationalism and Culture”, first published in 1937.

For the German anarchist Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958), fascism was a form of modern nationalism “with its state fanaticism taken to the extreme” (1).
In his main work, Rocker deals with contemporary fascism in Italy and Germany at various points. In doing so, he also emphasizes the economic dimension of the rise of fascism and the support it received from big business. However, the entire book is characterized by an anti-economism. “There are thousands of phenomena in history,” writes Rocker, “that cannot be explained by purely economic reasons or by these alone.” Fascism is one of them. He sees its foundations in certain philosophical traditions that also go back to the Enlightenment. He describes the successes of fascism primarily as the effects of its quasi-religious manifestations.

Philosophy and religion

Rocker sees the ideological foundations of fascism in the modern concept of the state, which he says establishes a comprehensive control regime over people. “Modern nationalism, which has found its most perfect expression in Italian fascism and German National Socialism,” writes Rocker, “is the mortal enemy of every liberal way of thinking.” By “liberal thinking” Rocker does not mean economic liberal attitudes that are geared towards the protection of private property, but rather a way of thinking that aims at individual freedom. He sees the possibility of free development as being threatened by the idea of the modern nation, which has been developed and defended in the history of philosophy. “Rousseau and Hegel are – each in his own way – the two goalkeepers of modern state reaction, which later set out to reach the highest level of omnipotence in fascism.” In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's concept of the common will, Rocker sees less of a democratic guideline for consensual agreement than a totalitarian concept that is represented in the modern state and thus legitimizes it. Any other form of collective organization, such as trade unions, could be interpreted as an attack on the common good concentrated in the state, given the background of Rousseau's concept. This happened not only in German and Italian fascism, but also in the Soviet Union.

According to Rocker, Hegel's concept of the state as the bearer of the “objective spirit” and the sole guarantor of successful coexistence is similarly totalitarian. In this concept, which was taken up by the fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) in the 1930s, according to Rocker, “the love of one's fellow human beings [...] is crushed by the greatness of the state, which people must serve as fodder for”. The state is made by fascists into a kind of substitute for religion, to which individual life is subordinated.
The initially anti-religious and, above all, anti-clerical attitude of fascists such as Benito Mussolini therefore gave way to a religion-like policy with a cult of personality for strategic reasons, because long-term power could not be secured with repression and pogroms alone. The orientation towards authoritarian leaders is certainly shared by today's extreme right-wingers from Orbán to Trump with historical fascism.

Structurally related to state fetishism is the elevation of the economy as a kind of natural law of social development, as reflected in the talk of “objective constraints” since the triumph of neoliberalism. Rocker writes: “Just as political fascism tries to teach people today that they can only claim the right to live insofar as they serve the state as fuel, so modern economic fascism tries to show the world that the economy does not exist for the sake of people, but that people exist for the sake of the economy and serve only the purpose of being exploited by it. If fascism has taken on the most terrible and inhuman forms in Germany, this is due not least to the fact that the barbaric thoughts of German economic theorists and traveling industrialists have, so to speak, paved the way for it.

But the paths that have been thought out are by no means straight, so their content is not necessarily clearly defined. In this context, it would certainly be necessary to differentiate between the state-fixated right-wing parties, which are the dominant currents in right-wing extremist parties such as AfD, FPÖ and Vox, on the one hand, and the ultra-right-wing neo-liberals on the other, who find their representatives in the US Tea Party movement and the new Argentine President Javier Milei, for example. The latter also use the state to push through their economic radicalism and conservative social policies, but at the same time constantly attack it at the level of discourse. The state-fanatical right does not do that. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is staging himself as the future “People's Chancellor” and thus directly aligning himself with the National Socialist tradition – Hitler also called himself that – which, as is well known, had no problem with the state.

Rocker has already drawn attention to the flexibility of fascism in terms of content, which, as the film and political theorist Drehli Robnik recently described in “Flexible Fascism” (2), is also characteristic of the current right-wing extremists. Nationalism, anti-Semitism and – not considered by Rocker – anti-feminist tendencies are indeed integral components of fascist mobilization. They should therefore not be taken up by the left: Rocker accordingly criticized the KPD for using nationalist slogans with the aim of taking the wind out of the right-wingers' sails – a criticism that can easily be applied to many current attempts to occupy nationalism from the left. What gave the fascist movement “its substance”, however, was less the consistency of its content than, according to Rocker, “the brutality of its methods, its reckless recklessness, which did not respect any other opinion because it itself had no opinion to defend”. In the struggle for social power positions, the fascists also engaged in a “struggle for hegemony”. In these struggles for cultural dominance, they are willing to compromise in order to appear all the more uncompromising as soon as they are powerful enough.

Minority and the masses

Rocker ultimately describes fascist movements as projects of a relatively small political elite. “In reality, however, only the power-political aspirations of a small minority stood behind this movement, which understood how to exploit an exceptionally favorable situation for its own special purposes.” The masses were suggested to be “the chosen instrument of a higher power” and to serve “a sacred purpose that gives their lives meaning and color. The fascist movement's real strength lies in its roots in the masses' need for worship. For fascism, too, is only a primitive religious mass movement in political clothing.” According to Rocker, National Socialism also bore ‘all the signs of a religious mass delusion’.

Rocker had already described the anti-Semitic nature of this mass delusion in an article for the magazine “Der Syndikalist” in 1923. Rocker saw the anti-Jewish pogrom that took place in the same year in Berlin's Scheunenviertel as a sign of “where the road is leading, which the luminaries of nationalist reaction want to lead us to, in order to ‘save Germany from destruction’” (3). Rocker did not believe that anti-Semitic thought patterns and violence would be able to win over the majority, however; the masses of the people would not take the “political buffoonery” of the pogrom seriously. In his article, Rocker names certain milieus as the main carriers of the emerging fascism: “Disgruntled small businessmen, indebted small farmers, immature young men in the merchant trade with the prescribed 'national attitude , ‘racially pure’ Prussian squires and loud-mouthed fraternity members whose German idealism had to be refreshed every day with the necessary amount of beer yeast – these were the appointed extras in the anti-Semitic nightmare.” In this context, too, Rocker warns against left-wing connections and criticizes the KPD politician Ruth Fischer for her anti-Semitic tirades against “Jewish capitalists”. Finally, he calls anti-Semitism a “crime against the spirit of socialism” (4).

On the one hand, the characterization of fascism as mass delusion has a certain plausibility, as the mobilization successes of the extreme right can often not be attributed to rational reasons: many voters of historical fascisms, as well as those of Trump, Milei and the like, have not and will not be materially rewarded for their vote. Nevertheless, the appeal of being part of a “higher power” that would make the respective nation great again apparently works. On the other hand, however, there are also many profiteers who make the assessment that fascism is based primarily on the “delusions of power of a minority” problematic. This is because she always conceives the majority, which is opposed to the minority, as being exploited and seduced and thus as being innocent. However, Rocker does not mention that many people also benefit from fascist forms of society, are able to expand their own privileges and enjoy the (at least symbolic) advantages of their ascribed (“people's”) affiliation at the expense of others. This historical, anarchist position has little to contribute to the current debates on dominance culture and privilege. This is ultimately due to a positive attitude towards the “people”, which Rocker shares with many leftists.
Rocker envisioned the “development of a world federation” that would explicitly “ensure that the so-called colonial peoples have the same rights and claims to their full humanity”. Like most projects of the left, the world federation was ultimately dependent on the idea of a “people” that was not contaminated by right-wing influences.

(1) Page 208. All quotations, unless otherwise stated, from: Rudolf Rocker: “Nationalism and Culture.” [1937] No place of publication given 1947, https://mirror.anarhija.net/anarchistischebibliothek.org/mirror/r/rr/rudolf-rocker-nationalismus-und-kultur.pdf
(2) Drehli Robnik: “Flexible Fascism. Siegfried Kracauer's Analyses of Right-Wing Mobilizations Then and Now.” Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2023.
(3) Rudolf Rocker: “Antisemitismus und Judenpogrome” [1923]. In: “Der Syndikalist”, 5th year, no. 47, https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/referenz/rocker/1923/xx/antisemit.htm
(4) Cf. Olaf Kistenmacher: “Against the Spirit of Socialism. Anarchist and Communist Criticism of Anti-Semitism in the KPD during the Weimar Republic.” Ca Ira Verlag, Freiburg 2023.

The anarchist newspaper Graswurzelrevolution has been working since 1972 to spread and develop the theory and practice of non-violent revolution.
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“To submit means to lie!”

Numerous events to mark the 90th anniversary of Erich Mühsam's death in Oranienburg

[This article posted on May 29, 2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.graswurzel.net/gwr/2024/05/sich-fuegen-heisst-luegen-4/.]

Writer, anarchist, revolutionary, free spirit, bohemian. Erich Mühsam's life, which lasted only 56 years, was like a wild ride through political, social and personal struggles. His ideals and his Jewish origins ultimately became Mühsam's downfall. On the night of July 10, 1934, the National Socialists had him murdered in the Oranienburg concentration camp. A large program of events is being held in Oranienburg to honor him on the 90th anniversary of his death.

A series of events, including an exhibition and a symposium, will be held from the end of June to commemorate the writer Erich Mühsam, whose murder by the SS in the Oranienburg concentration camp will be commemorated for the 90th time on July 10. However, before Oranienburg became the place of his death, the poet also had positive associations with the city. He was in contact with the Eden fruit-growing cooperative, which was part of the life-reform movement.
A group of people from the cultural association Alte Mosterei Eden e.V., the Oranienburg Democracy Forum, the Association for the Promotion of the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum and the Erich Mühsam Society have set themselves the goal of commemorating the 90th anniversary of Erich Mühsam's death with a series of events.
Exhibition and lecture on life and work

An exhibition can be visited in Oranienburg Castle (municipal administration) from June 21 to July 27, which provides information on Erich Mühsam's life and work on more than 40 panels. The exhibition can be seen in the gallery on the second floor of House 1 during regular opening hours (Mon-Fri: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Admission is free.

In a talk entitled “Erich Mühsam – Writer, Anarchist, Scourge of the Bourgeoisie”, Dr. Maurice Schuhmann will report on the life and work of the anarchist and writer, thus bringing the exhibition to life. Original text passages from the work will be read by actor Manuel Harder (Dt. Theater, Berlin). June 27 at 6:30 p.m. Oranienburg City Library. Admission free.
Multi-day symposium

A conference lasting several days will take place from July 4 to 7, in search of the poet's traces and will explore various questions: How did Erich Mühsam die in the Oranienburg concentration camp? Will his memory be sufficiently honored in the redesign of the memorial at the former Oranienburg concentration camp? What happened to Mühsam's wife Zensl after his murder? What was his involvement with the life-reform movement, which included the Eden settlement cooperative? Did Erich Mühsam himself visit Eden? These and many other questions will be answered during an excursion to Eden on July 7. In addition to guided tours of the Eden exhibitions and the historical settlement grounds, a lecture will also shed light on Erich Mühsam's relationship with the Eden settlement cooperative.
All events of the symposium can also be attended individually. Among the speakers: Wolfgang Haug, Uschi Otten, Dr. Siegbert Wolf, Gustav Landauer Initiative and Klaus Trappmann. The detailed program of the symposium and information on registration can be found at:
www.muehsam-in-oranienburg.info/Muehsam/Fachtagung
Memorial demonstration and concert

Not to be bent was the motto of the anarchist writer and activist Erich Mühsam, who was murdered by the SS in the Oranienburg concentration camp 90 years ago. Throughout his life, Erich Mühsam was in the front line in the fight against paternalism, authorities and for the rights of workers. The organizers are using the 90th anniversary of his death as an opportunity to remember Erich Mühsam and his work. The call reads: “We also expect an appropriate tribute to his person in the upcoming redesign of the memorial site ‘Oranienburg Concentration Camp’. Once again, our republic is under massive threat from right-wing extremist forces. It is precisely against this background that we would like to remember Erich Mühsam and his cruel death! Let us send a clear signal on the 90th anniversary of Erich Mühsam's death!

First callers: Democracy Forum Oranienburg, Erich Mühsam Society, Association for the Promotion of the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen

A memorial demonstration for Erich Mühsam will take place on July 6. It will start at 3 p.m. at the Bahnhofsplatz in Oranienburg, from where we will walk together to the memorial site of the Oranienburg concentration camp in Berliner Straße. From 4 p.m. there will be a stage program with music, speeches and theater.

At 8 p.m., the commemoration of Erich Mühsam will continue with a concert at the Oranienwerk. The audience will hear poems by the author, which Isabel Neuenfeldt will translate into accordion and song. Admission: 7 p.m. Registration via the Oranienwerk, advance ticket sales from 12 euros/8 euros (reduced): www.oranienwerk.com/veranstaltungen

All events in memory of Erich Mühsam can be found at www.muehsam-in-oranienburg.info/Muehsam

Erich Mühsam

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They want total war
Crazy NATO politicians are trying to prepare us militarily and psychologically for a war against Russia.

It started with 5,000 helmets, and now, after a good two years of war in Ukraine, “we” have arrived at the point where German weapons are being used to kill Russians in their own country. What's next? Who will be the first to press the red button? The abyss is getting closer and closer.
by Sven Brajer
[This article posted on 6/7/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/sie-wollen-den-totalen-krieg.]

“International politics is never about democracy or human rights. It is about the interests of states. Remember that, no matter what you are told in history class” (Egon Bahr, 2013).

The callousness with which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is tearing up the red lines he himself drew is truly remarkable. In this respect, he is reminiscent of his predecessor Konrad Adenauer and his legendary saying: “What do I care about my talk of yesterday?” Now, for the first time, he has officially allowed Ukraine to use German weapons to fire on Russian territory. 80 years after the Red Army pushed the German occupiers out of the Soviet Union at unimaginable cost, and 110 years after the Social Democrats voted for the German Empire's war loans on the eve of the First World War.

It is striking that just one day earlier, Washington announced that the Ukrainians would now be allowed to use US weapons against targets on Russian territory, but only in the Kharkiv region for the time being. For the time being. So it is clear where the wind is blowing in the Federal Chancellery: from the west, from the Atlantic, as so often. Because that is where the decision has now been taken to escalate. Not only Ukraine is being sacrificed on the geopolitical chessboard of the US administration, but the rest of Europe is also welcome to become a battlefield, as long as the war is far enough away from their own territory. In the “best case”, the EU would be eliminated as an annoying economic competitor, which could be rebuilt with US loans after a possible total or partial destruction, as was the case after 1945.

But fortunately we are not at that stage yet. First of all, mobilization is needed. And that is happening right away: FDP politician and warmonger Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann has called for the 900,000 reservists in Germany to be activated and registered as quickly as possible, just one day after the renewed “turning point” in the chancellery. Because one thing is clear: Ivan will soon be back on the doorstep of Berlin if we don't stop him now.

The 5,000 helmets that were sent east have now become tanks and artillery. The Federal Republic of Germany, as part of the declining West, is cheerfully escalating in the collective of values. Others are going even further: at the end of May, the Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen allowed Ukraine to use F-16s supplied by the NATO state of Denmark to attack military targets in Russia. For months, French President Emmanuel Macron has been ranting and raving about the deployment of French troops in Ukraine.

Napoleon complex? Old French colonial reflexes? Maybe. But what is even more obvious is that, just like the traffic lights here in Switzerland, Macron is backed into a corner in terms of domestic policy: the madness of the Corona years has massively divided societies everywhere – he was right at the forefront of it; the migration debate, along with social and cultural upheavals, especially about people with an Islamic background, is flying in the face of the ruling powers. Large parts of the economy have been and are being driven to the wall, and in this country, due to the globally unique climate apologetics, even more so than in neighboring countries, because the French, as is well known, do not put up with every kind of madness – unlike the Germans.

What unites both governments again: the policy of cheap money. Since 2020, the new debt of both states has been through the roof. Pensions, social benefits, health care for future generations? Not interested! No, the young can look forward to even higher taxes in the future – besides: we are still doing well, aren't we? Not quite anymore, there is ferment at every turn. A big war would be the solution! After all, the arms industry wants to get back to the meat troughs, and the banks have always been happy to finance wars, as well as the reconstruction of the destroyed areas afterwards, of course. Then no one will ask any more about the annoying RKI files or Pfizer deals, why bloody knife attacks seem to happen every day in broad daylight, or even why the traffic light has “sustainably” damaged Germany as a business location in just three years.

The enemy image is ready, it has been “the Russians” for more than 100 years – who cares about the 27 million dead Soviet citizens of the Second World War or even the question of who has been getting closer and closer to whom in the last 35 years: NATO to Russia or Russia to NATO?

And who actually made the reunification of Germany possible in the end by withdrawing their own troops? It doesn't matter – the chancellery has already forgotten about completely different things, but for the “Western values” the roles of “good” and “evil” are immovable. After all, it's always about “our democracy and freedom”! Instead of in Afghanistan, “our values” are now being defended in Ukraine. Or better yet, directly in Russia. With the Taurus? We'll see.

So everything is in place for a “purifying” military campaign in the East, isn't it? The third attempt will definitely work — if we are all a little “solidary” and everyone makes a few smaller or larger sacrifices. For the good cause, you know. The only question is when the starting signal will sound from Washington. Since someone could move into the White House in November who might call off this madness at the last minute, the time window is manageable.

“I'm not sure what weapons will be used in the Third World War, but in the Fourth World War they will fight with sticks and stones” (Albert Einstein).

Editorial note: This article was first published under the title “They want total war. Will it finally work on the third attempt?” on the blog Im Osten. Perspektiven wider den Zeitgeist.


Sven Brajer has a doctorate in history, is a museologist and journalist. The trained retail salesman studied history, sociology and political science at the Technical University of Dresden. His academic focus is on German and European social, cultural and economic history from the 19th to the 21st century, especially parties and movements, revolutionary research, East Germany, geopolitics with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. His book “The (Self-)Destruction of the German Left. From Criticism of Capitalism to the Woke Establishment” was published in spring 2023. For more information, visit imosten.org.
Read more
The abolition of the human being

In the Manova-Einheizpodcast, Sven Brajer and Aron Morhoff discuss the author Tom-Oliver Regenauer and the philosopher Gwendolin Kirchhoff about the intention of the transhumanists to completely subjugate the body, mind and soul of humans.

May 31, 2024 by Sven Brajer, Aron Morhoff
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Lawless world
War and political assassinations are driving humanity to the brink of disaster.

On Monday, May 20, 2024, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the United Nations issued arrest warrants for war crimes against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as against three Hamas leaders, and Joe Biden repeated: “What is happening is not genocide. We reject it” and thus continues to insist that Zionist Israel is not currently committing genocide against the Palestinian people, we live in an increasingly dangerous world. And this is just a few days after a failed assassination attempt on a head of state of the EU and then the sudden death of the Iranian president and foreign minister: the incredible speed at which disturbing events are occurring worldwide is extremely threatening.
by Manova's World Editorial Team

by Daniel Warner
[This article posted on 6/6/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/gesetzlose-welt-2.]

Indeed, we are now witnessing ever more dangerous and ominous signs of an end-time collapse and an imminent world war between the leading nuclear powers, political assassinations and, yes, a polarized, seemingly out-of-control world that is becoming increasingly unstable and violent from week to week.

This seemingly unending stream of events represents an escalation of global destabilization, the deliberate and controlled destruction of our out-of-control planet by globalists. None of this is happening by accident or by mistake. It merely reflects the systematic breakdown of all life as we know it, following a diabolical plan. Portents of destruction and accelerating upheaval, as well as potential mass death, are appearing almost daily and on a large, shocking scale.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was almost assassinated on Wednesday, May 15. He is one of only two EU leaders who are friendly to Russia and oppose military aid to Ukraine, and the only living world leader investigating and determined to publicly hold accountable Pfizer and the power-hungry co-conspirators in the mass destruction of COVID death vaccines.

Three African heads of state and the last elected Haitian head of state were assassinated several years ago for courageously opposing the globalist agenda of committing genocide on humanity with Big Pharma's bioweapon of a poison that is not a vaccine. It is no coincidence that one of the largest globalist-controlled news agencies, the Associated Press, claimed just hours after the attack on Fico:

“Slovak authorities say the (failed assassin) acted as a lone gunman in a politically motivated attack.”

Every time the establishment's embedded frauds bring up their “lone wolf” metaphor like clockwork, they immediately follow it up with their standard, crime-covering conclusion. The facts, however, often prove the opposite, as the CIA and Mossad are known to be guilty of countless assassinations and coups. John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King immediately come to mind.

Just a month and a half ago, the author Simon Tisdall introduced his article in the Guardian entitled “Once a relic of the Cold War, political assassins are now back with a license to kill” as follows:

“In today's lawless world, political assassination is the new growth industry – and anyone, famous or not, is a potential victim. State-sanctioned killings are on the rise, led by Russia, Israel, Iran and India.”

Tisdall was referring to the assassination of senior Iranian generals at the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, by Israel on April 1 (2024), which was clearly a violation of international law. This in turn led to Iran's restrained “revenge” on April 13, when it launched the world's largest drone and missile attack (on Israel), in which Tehran directly attacked military targets on Israeli soil for the first time, hitting spy military posts in the Negev desert, while at the same time sending a clear message that Israel's air defense system is indeed penetrable, despite Zionist lying bragging about its infallible “Iron Dome”.

Within four days last week, the world witnessed a failed assassination attempt on an EU head of state who is friendly to Russia – a rare case – followed just four days later by what could be described as the successful assassination of another of Russia's allies, namely Iran's president and foreign minister.

On May 20, 2024, all the headlines reported the death of 63-year-old Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, his 60-year-old Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other senior Iranian officials on Sunday, May 19, in a helicopter crash in the northwestern Iranian province of East Azerbaijan near the city of Varzaqan. Other fatalities included the governor general of East Azerbaijan Province, Malek Rahmati, and Mohammed Ali Ale-Hashem, a representative of the Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan.

Despite today's GPS technology, which can accurately pinpoint a location with the help of black box recordings, heavy fog hampered the efforts of the forty rescue teams to locate the crash site, which in itself is suspicious. AP stated that the crash occurred 12 miles south of the Iran-Azerbaijan border “on the flank of a steep mountain”.

Israel immediately denied any involvement, and the allegedly difficult flight conditions at the time of the crash back up Israel's automatic declaration of “plausible deniability”. Reuters stated:

“An Israeli official, who asked for anonymity, told Reuters that Israel was not involved in the crash.”

Israel's track record on credibility has been abysmal, especially of late. Few states or people trust Israel, because it has the worst record of perpetual deception, not unlike its top liar-in-thief sitting in the White House and its treacherous regime in Washington. (Translator's note: “Liar-in-Thief” is a play on words that turns the “Commander-in-Chief”, namely the supreme commander of the US army and thus the US president, into a liar and thief.)

The genocidal Israeli government has not yet issued an official statement on the death of the Iranian leader. Nevertheless, Israel's current Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, reacted to Raisi's death by posting a picture of a wine glass with the caption “Cheers!” on X. Avigdor Liebermann, former defense minister and leader of the right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beiteinu, told Ynet News that Israel “will not shed a tear over the death of the Iranian president”.

Despite the supposedly bad weather, two other Iranian helicopters, apparently carrying less important officials from Tehran, reached their destination safely after attending an opening ceremony for a joint dam project with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan. But was this helicopter crash really an accident or another terrorist attack by Israel on the top leaders of Iran, the arch-enemy of Zionist Israel?

Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader since 1989, has declared a five-day period of national mourning and appointed Raisi's deputy, Mohammad Mokhber, as acting president until new elections are held within 50 days.

The assassination of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi would certainly not be the first deadly political attack by Israel and its allies. In the last ten years, Israel and its friends have been responsible for numerous targeted assassinations of Iran's top political and military leaders.

On January 3, 2020, under the presidency of Donald Trump, who was bought and paid for with “Israel First” money and with an “Israel First” mentality, his then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a West Point graduate and former CIA director, launched a CIA drone attack against the highest-ranking military official in Iran, General Qasem Soleimani. Mike Pompeo is another brazen liar: the day after he executed Soleimani, he was blabbering on CNN about his trophy, smugly claiming that the Iranian general had been working with Middle Eastern terrorists. In fact, Soleimani was about to take them out, thereby defeating the US-backed terrorist proxy groups like ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. war against Iraq, based on another bald-faced lie about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, was another U.S. imperial expansion war in which the U.S. was clearly on the wrong side of history once again as the globalists' battering ram. General Soleimani helped Iraq remove the US military as occupiers of Iraq by inflicting another humiliating defeat on the US in 2011, which was only surpassed by the Afghanistan debacle almost a decade later.

For years, the U.S. has blatantly violated the national sovereignty rights of Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan by stationing U.S. military forces on their soil against the will and rights of the governments in Baghdad, Damascus, not to mention Kabul.

These nations know that the US pretext for its unwanted presence to this day – namely the removal of the so-called remnants of Islamic State terrorists in the region – is an absolute lie, as the US and Israel are the main perpetrators and long-time supporters of their surrogate terror allies in the US-declared war on terror, who operated throughout the Middle East for decades.

Before ISIS, the US and Israel joined forces with the monarchies of the Gulf States to create Al-Qaeda and the Bin Laden family, an ally of Bush, to carry out the US-Israeli insider job 9/11, deliberately committing treason by killing 3,000 Americans to launch the planned “new Pearl Harbor” and overthrow seven nations in five years. All this is now known history.

General Soleimani, at the time of his assassination the most popular general and second most powerful national leader in Iran after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was not only primarily responsible for weakening the Taliban, but also for the almost complete eradication of the US-created, funded and trained terrorists of the Islamic State, which had grown into the world's largest terrorist organization, as well as other US-backed militant jihadist groups operating in Syria and Iraq.

At the end of December 2021, Major General Tamir Hayman, then the recently retired head of the Israeli military intelligence service, admitted that Israel had supported the United States in the assassination of General Soleimani, and said with a smirk:

“Soleimani's assassination is a success, because in my eyes Iran is our main enemy. Two significant and important assassinations fall within my term of office.”

The other assassination that Hayman boasted about illustrates how Israel has always used its “divide and rule” strategy to control both Palestinian factions – Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Hamas was secretly created and funded by Netanyahu to oppose the PA, and as long as the Palestinian groups fight each other, remaining weak and easily controlled, they enable Netanyahu's long-term policy of outlawing a two-state solution.

In this case, Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority's intelligence agency of informing the IDF of the whereabouts of Baha Abu al-Ata, the commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza so that he could be assassinated in November 2019 by another Israeli air strike. Another Israeli blow below the belt against Iran came a year later in November 2020, when Iran's leading nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahavadi was assassinated.
On Christmas Day 2023, another deadly assassination followed in a suburb of Damascus in an air strike by the Jewish state: this time the target was Iranian General Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior advisor to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran. A little over a week later, on January 3, 2024, the US and Israel undoubtedly coordinated with their proxy ally in the Middle East, ISIS, to once again cold-bloodedly massacre another 84 Iranian civilians—simply for commemorating the loss of their heroic and beloved General Soleimani and attending a memorial service for the fourth anniversary of his death. This act of terror was committed to deliberately escalate tensions in the Middle East, once again targeting Iran as a brutal victim.

Iran did not retaliate with any killings in response to any of the Israeli attacks, even though they would have been more than justified. Just last month, on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, Israel deliberately killed the three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and four of his grandchildren.

Haniyeh said that Israel had deliberately targeted his family in the Shati refugee camp, where they were visiting family for the holiday.

Targeted killings remain a protected lifestyle, apparently reserved for the “chosen” of the Israeli state. No other nation-state comes close to matching such a high frequency of premeditated, heinous acts of violence, followed, no doubt, by the United States.

It didn't take long for speculation to run rampant and for Israel to be considered the most likely suspect. In a video released by DCM Global on Monday, May 20, anonymous sources within the government in Tehran claim that the helicopter pilot who transported Raisi and his staff to the event with the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan near the border with Iran was a different one than the one who brought them back to Iran for the “hard landing” due to an accident. The video also claims that the second pilot was a Mossad agent. When search and rescue teams arrived at the alleged crash site, the helicopter was already completely burnt.

Reports of a US Air Force C-130 plane suspiciously arriving in Azerbaijan around the time of Raisi's helicopter's departure are fueling speculation about the sudden deaths of Iran's president and foreign minister, as well as other prominent officials. At the center of the speculation is the possible use of electronic warfare to cause disruptions in the president's aircraft and ultimately cause the crash.

Iran claims to have purchased the Bell 212 helicopter in the early 2000s. The USA is said to be extremely familiar with its avionics and may have disabled Raisi's helicopter in Azerbaijan. Unlike the Boeing aircraft of recent years, the B212 model has had an excellent safety record for decades. An involvement in an accident – and with the president of a regional superpower – is therefore highly unusual.

It would have been hard to imagine a more explosive time for this fateful incident in the current conflict situation, which is escalating into a third world war. The timing also seems highly suspicious and worrying in relation to the impending retirement of the 85-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Raisi was considered the top candidate to succeed Khamenei, having served under his aging predecessor, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, from 1981 to 1989.

While Israel has played a special role in the assassination of so many Iranian leaders in politics, the military and science, Israel has been able to murder systematically and deliberately for three-quarters of a century without being challenged or facing any consequences. Should conclusive evidence emerge that Israel murdered Raisi, will this latest, most monstrous crime also go unpunished? If history repeats itself, it will.

However, we are living in extraordinary times that call for extraordinary, unprecedented measures. And a radical change is in the air. Iran, the Muslim world and indeed the whole world are on the verge of a revolt against the old world order that the globalists have transformed into a New World Order (NWO). The growing opposition in the midst of so many public revelations of these egregious, exposed crimes against humanity is reaching the point of no return.

It has been widely reported that relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have been strained in recent years. The fact that Azerbaijan and Iran are Shiite Muslim neighbors has not prevented the oil-rich Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev from cultivating increasingly warm and intimate relations with Israel.

After all, it was the Jewish Ashkenazi state that supplied Azerbaijan with the strategic drones that enabled it to defeat the Armenians on the battlefield for the first time in the 45-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of 2020. This action, in turn, was the trigger for Baku's “lightning strike” in Nagorno-Karabakh last year, which drove out virtually all 120,000 Armenians who had fled as war refugees from their rightful ancient homeland to the Republic of Armenia.

Because of this symbiotic relationship between the “strange friends” Israel and Azerbaijan, Aliyev today openly supports Israel's war against Hamas.

For the Iranian leader, it was therefore possibly a fatal, fateful mistake to participate in a political event in Azerbaijan with a proven untrustworthy despot who is so close to Zionist Israel, Iran's arch-enemy. And the fact that the Iranian foreign minister, Amir-Abdollahian, may be of Armenian origin makes this fateful trip even more insidious and suspicious. Aliyev has never made a secret of his desire to wipe the Armenians off the face of the earth, just as his godless Khasarian mafia comrade Benjamin Netanyahu wipes all Palestinians off the face of the earth. These two war criminals Bibi and Ilham are as alike as two rotten eggs.

Editorial note: This text was first published under the title “A Lawless World Driven to the Brink of War And Political Assassinations”. It was translated by Gabriele Herb on a voluntary basis and proofread by the Manova volunteer proofreading team.

Manova's World Editorial

It is of little use to stew in one's own, albeit exquisite, juice. That is why Manova's World Editorial Team regularly collects and publishes voices from around the world. What do critical contemporaries in other countries and cultural circles think about geopolitical events? What ideas do they have for solving global problems? What developments are they observing that may soon be upon us in Europe? It is also encouraging to look beyond our own horizons, as it makes it clear that we are not alone!
Read more
Creative chaos
The current student protests in the USA are part of a long tug-of-war that can be viewed positively overall.
29.05.2024 by Manovas Weltredaktion
Psychosis against the right

___________________________________________________________________________

Before the social explosion
In the USA, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever before – frustration is reaching dangerous levels

Donald Trump wanted to make America “great again”; however, the incomes of Americans have been shrinking under him and his successor Joe Biden. For decades, the media have been complaining about the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. Since then, a lot has happened – it has gotten even worse. Capital concentration and mass impoverishment are among the megatrends of the era, as are the despair and political weariness of millions. The unemployed and the working poor are among the steadily growing “professional groups”, and the psychosocial health of an entire nation is at an all-time low. How long can this go on? The answer is: not much longer. Social uprisings out of sheer desperation could break out very soon.
by Manova's World Editorial Team

by Tyler Durden
[This article posted on 6/6/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/vor-der-sozialen-explosion.]

Have you ever felt like you're just not getting ahead, no matter how hard you try? If so, you're definitely not alone. The gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us has never been wider, and every day more wealth is being transferred to the top of the pyramid.
Unfortunately, our economy has become a highly centralized system designed to extract wealth from those who do not own profitable assets and transfer it to those who do.

Sadly, the elite have even turned most of our homes and vehicles into profit-generating assets. Every month you pay off your house or car, you make the rich richer. The whole system is designed to get you into debt and to keep you in debt until you die.

As we have seen in recent years, the system managers will do everything they can to protect the wealth of the elite.

The Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into the system to maintain the value of financial assets – and it has worked. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently hovering around 40,000, giving stock owners a life of luxury.

But who owns the most shares?

According to the Federal Reserve, the wealthiest Americans have never held such a large share of the stock market; the wealthiest 10 percent now own a record high of 93 percent of all stocks.

On the other side of the coin, data from the Federal Reserve shows that in the third quarter, the poorest 50 percent of Americans held just 1 percent of all stocks and shares of mutual funds.

Of course, stocks are only one form of wealth.

But when all other forms of wealth are added in, the bottom 50 percent of the US population still own only 2.6 percent of all assets.

Tens of millions of Americans have lost faith in the system and are growing increasingly restless, while our politicians try to pacify them with handouts.

As many as 42 million Americans are now receiving food stamps every month, and a large portion of that money is spent on junk food...

An alarming study shows how 42 million food stamp recipients are spending their welfare on highly processed junk food.

According to a new study, Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most purchased items in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which spends $135 billion annually. Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies and other highly processed foods are among the top 20 products most often purchased, according to a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

Many of those receiving government assistance are currently employed. But the cost of living has become so oppressive that even people working for the largest corporations in the U.S. can no longer afford the most basic necessities...

Five years after Amazon.com.Inc. raised hourly wages to $15, half of warehouse workers surveyed say they struggle to afford enough food or housing.

In the national study, released Wednesday (May 26, 2024; translator's note) by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago, surveyed U.S. workers about their economic well-being — including whether they skipped meals, suffered from hunger or worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage.

53 percent of respondents reported experiencing one or more forms of food insecurity in the three months prior to the survey. 48 percent reported experiencing one or more forms of housing insecurity. The researchers found that workers who reported taking unpaid leave after an occupational injury were more likely to have trouble paying their bills.

Today, about 40 percent of the total U.S. population either lives in poverty or is among the “working poor”.

An average American family now has to find an additional $12,000 per year to maintain the same standard of living as in January 2021. If your income has not increased by $12,000 since January 2021, you are falling behind.

And now that economic conditions are deteriorating at an alarming rate, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the economy's future.

After a brief period of optimism, Americans are feeling a little more downbeat about the economy.

A widely watched index from the University of Michigan – a gauge of Americans' economic sentiment – shows consumer sentiment at a six-month low and the sharpest decline since 2021. It reflects the ongoing strain on household budgets from inflation and fuels fears that rising prices, unemployment and interest rates could worsen in the coming months.

This pessimism is changing consumer behavior. McDonalds, Home Depot, Under Armour and Starbucks recently reported disappointing earnings as people cut back on fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers and afternoon lattes.

Discontent with economic conditions will be a big issue here in the US in the next few years.

Of course, the whole world is struggling with a system that leaves far too many people behind. According to Oxfam, the majority of the world's population has become poorer since 2010...

Oxfam's latest report, Inequality Inc., examines the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society. Since 2020, five billion people have become poorer, while the world's five richest men have more than doubled their wealth at a rate of $14 million per hour.

As in the US, the gap between the rich and the poor is reaching unprecedented levels worldwide. Hundreds of millions of people are struggling to keep up with the cost of living, while billionaires have become 3.3 trillion richer than in 2020, according to Oxfam. This is no coincidence. When we analyzed the world's largest companies, we found that in 7 out of 10 cases, a billionaire either runs the company or is its main shareholder.

Such a system is not sustainable.

If the majority of the world's population is getting poorer and poorer and a tiny minority of the world's population is getting fabulously rich, it is only a matter of time before the whole system collapses.

Hundreds of millions of people will become increasingly angry and frustrated, and in the period of great chaos that is now dawning, riots will break out in all major cities around the world.

Today, the world is ruled by ultra-powerful governments, ultra-powerful banks and ultra-powerful corporations.

The little guy is being literally crushed, but it won't be long before the deeply corrupt system that the rich have created implodes before their eyes.

Editorial note: This text was first published under the title “The Gap Between The Rich And The Poor Is Larger Than Ever, And Frustration Is Growing To Very Dangerous Levels”. It was translated by Gabriele Herb on a voluntary basis and proofread by the volunteer Manova proofreading team.

Manova's World Editorial

It is of little use to stew in one's own, albeit exquisite, juice. That is why Manova's World Editorial Team regularly collects and publishes voices from around the world. What do critical contemporaries in other countries and cultural circles think about geopolitical events? What ideas do they have for solving global problems? What developments are they observing that may soon be upon us in Europe? It is also encouraging to look beyond our own horizons, as it makes it clear that we are not alone!
Read more
Creative chaos

The current student protests in the USA are part of a long tug-of-war that can be viewed positively overall.
29.05.2024 by Manovas World Editorial

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