Human rights and justice

“A shift must occur away from the focus on individual justice for Floyd back to a critique and opposition to the ongoing structural violence of the system.” June 8, 2020 Ajamu Baraka The justice for George Floyd mobilizations today reflected the state’s worst nightmare – a multi-national and multi-racial action initiated by Black people with Black leadership. “A shift must occur away from the focus on individual justice for Floyd back to a critique and opposition to the ongoing structural violence of the system.” So, we say: Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland; for our political prisoners; for the super-exploited Black and Brown working class; for oppressed Indigenous nations; and for the millions subjected to U.S. warmongering, sanctions and criminality. We say this to shift the focus from the individualization of this week’s rebellion back to the objective structures of white supremacist, global colonial/capitalist...

June 5, 2020 By Lynn Burnett Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings of nonviolent resistance had a famous and profound impact on the civil rights movement in the United States. That impact was facilitated in part by the journeys of two of Martin Luther King’s future mentors – Howard Thurman and Benjamin Mays, who were good friends with King’s father – to meet with Gandhi in 1936. However, the Black American interest in Gandhi goes all the way back to 1919, when the Indian freedom struggle exploded in the wake of World War I after the British Empire failed to extend greater autonomy to India despite the Indian participation in the war. Gandhi’s interests in the Black American freedom struggle date back even further – to the 1890s – when he first studied the abolitionist movement that destroyed slavery. This article traces those earlier connections between Gandhi and Black Americans, in the decades...

May 18, 2020 Steven Youngblood When asked to describe Mahatma Gandhi, most would say he was an Indian independence leader, human rights defender, and spiritual guide. However, “People don’t think of him as a journalist” even though “he was a journalist from an early age, and died as a journalist.” Originally posted on The Peace Journalist magazine, published by the Center for Global Peace Journalism on February 6, 2020, here This is according to professor, historian, and author Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Professor Gandhi was the featured speaker at a program titled “Gandhi: The First Peace Journalist,” held at Park University on Aug. 26. The evening began with a presentation by Gandhi documentarian, Cynthia Lukas, about Gandhi’s background as a journalist. Gandhi was a prolific journalist and editor who was well-known in India for his articles stressing social justice in such publications as Indian Opinion, Young India,...

Richard Falk May 16, 2020 Prefatory Note Republication of opinion piece published in Al Jazeera English on May 13, 2020. The published AJE text has been slightly modified. Annexation foreplay These are the strangest of times. On this almost everyone will agree. Lives all over the planet are being torn apart either by COVID-19 or as a result of its devastating social and economic dislocations. In such a moment, it is hardly surprising that the best and worst of humanity is being showcased. Yet what seems worse beyond even these forebodings is the persistence of gangster geopolitics in its various manifestations. Intensifying U.S. sanctions in the midst of the health crisis on already deeply afflicted societies and suffering populations such as Iran and Venezuela is one striking example. This display of the primacy of geopolitics is highlighted by its rejections of numerous high profile humanitarian appeals for the suspension of...

With a bit more pushing and – after, unfortunately, a bit more killing – the three remaining serious wars on the planet, in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, should come to an end. Then it will be time to take stock on what caused the killing, especially why so many innocents lost their lives and whether wars of this kind can be deterred in the future. The world has already made a lot of progress over the last few decades: there are no inter-state wars and the number of civil wars has steadily fallen, (albeit the graph has begun an upward turn in the last two years mainly because of mini-wars in West Africa). Eighteen years ago the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war criminals was established by treaty. Nearly all the world signed up. The US, Israel, Russia, China and India did not. However, the latter three have not...

By Eric Mann May 5, 2020 Every year, until The Revolution comes again, the counter-revolution manipulates the historic birthday of Dr Martin Luther King, that so many people fought for, as their symbol of Black “integration” into imperialism and “non-violent” acquiescence to, at best, Barack Obama’s cynical negation of his dream. As Donald Trump has just assassinated Iranian General Quassem Soleimani – with Democratic Party token opposition at best and acquiescence at worse, Dr King reminds us that “the United States, my government, is the greatest purveyor violence in the world.” As Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren squabble for position and too often, reduce the meaning of life to a barren economic populism, Dr King reminds us that U.S. society is a moral disgrace and we need a revolutionary movement to challenge its “racism, militarism, poverty, and materialism.” His thoughts offer Democrats and the Movement a challenge. There is an...

Jan Oberg April 30, 2020 Last year, the Danish artist Gudrun Steen-Andersen created a multimedia installation under the theme: “Perpetuum Mobile – What Would Happen If Migration Was Free Worldwide?” Naturally, it is a thought experiment – not the least in these times of multi-crisis where nationalism, xenophobia, populism and the building of walls seem to have emerged as just another – political – virus way before the Coronavirus. The Danish-language version was made in 2019 and in March this year, we repeated – more or less, that is – the video lectures in English. It was about the time when the Coronavirus had just begun its race to the top of the global agenda. You’ll find them all the videos here or click on this: Steen-Andersen’s heuristic intention – somewhat in the tradition of the great future-thinker Robert Jungk’s future workshop – was realized through her own amazing installation...

By Hussein Askary April 22, 2020 When China was fighting alone against the Corona virus in January and February, Western media mocked China and its leadership for mismanaging the health affairs of the nation. A Danish newspapers gleefully published a cynical cartoon of the Chinese flag with a cluster of Corona viruses instead of the stars. Others called the COVID-19, a “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus”. China was described as “Asia’s sick man” in the Wall Street Journal. Chinese and Asian nationals suffered racist attacks in Europe and the United States. Orginally posted on Brix’s official website on March 21, 2020 The Chinese people and their leadership were busy fighting ferociously, making huge sacrifices in lives and wealth to control the epidemic. Their fight was praised by the World Health Organization (WHO), which called on the other nations of the world to learn from China in dealing with the outbreak...

Joe Lauria April 15, 2020 In Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ science fiction fantasy, War of the Worlds, all the military spending and preparedness by the United States could not defend the American people from the invaders from Mars. In the end what killed the superior intruders was not arms, but a microscopic organism against which the Martians’ immune system had no defense. Originally posted on Consortium News website on March 23, 2020 “Suddenly, my eyes were attracted to the immense flock of black birds that hovered directly below me. They circled to the ground, and there before my eyes, stark and silent, lay the Martians, with the hungry birds pecking and tearing brown shreds of flesh from their dead bodies. Later when their bodies were examined in the laboratories, it was found that they were killed by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were...

We hear next to nothing about these sanctions in the so-called free media – primary sanctions by the US hitting Iran directly, secondary sanctions by the US demanding other countries – the EU and NATO allies in particular – to implement its sanctions, i.e. to accept that US sanctions laws shall apply to them as sovereign states. The EU has not been able to get its acts together and respect the nuclear deal, or JCPOA: not in autumn 2015 when it could not find a way to temporarily host 1,5 million refugees arriving as asylum seekers from countries destroyed predominantly by the EU/NATO members themselves – and not now when the coronavirus hits Europe and they have let China be the one who helps their neighbour Italy. On March 15, 2020, I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on these matters in the wake of Iranian foreign minister, Dr...

Illustration by Shenuka Corea By Richard Falk, TFF Associate March 12, 2020 Prefatory Note International law – as so much else of value – has fallen on hard times, violated and ignored, where applicable and needed. Although this is a deplorable state of affairs as the planet burns and vulnerable people suffer from ecological hazards and predatory geopolitics, it is the time to heighten struggle, and not sit home in despair. This essay in a slightly modified form was written at the request of Fikir Turu, an online source of commentary operating from Turkey, and published in Turkish. An English version was also published in Transcend Media Service, TMS, 17 February 2020. Published at Richard Falk’s personal blog  Respecting International Law: A Practical Argument International law disappoints in so many ways, making it easy to overlook why, despite its flaws, it remains valuable and indeed vital for human wellbeing. I put here...

By Caroline Davies February 17, 2020 Extinction Rebellion (XR) US has four Demands for our governments, local and national, the first of which is “Tell the Truth”. One truth that is not being told or spoken about openly, is the carbon footprint and other sustainability impacts of the US Military.  Originally posted on WorldBeyondWar on February 4, 2020 here I was born in the UK and, although I am now a US citizen, I have noticed that people are very uncomfortable saying anything negative about the US Military here. Having worked with many injured veterans as a physical therapist, I know how important it is for us to support our veterans; many Vietnam veterans still feel hurt about being blamed and discriminated against when they came home from that war. As horrific as wars are for everyone involved, especially the civilians in the countries we are attacking, the soldiers follow...