How Austria is dismantling civil liberties under the guise of 'anti-terrorism'Just days after the deadly attack in downtown Vienna on 2 November 2020, the Austrian cabinet agreed to broad new anti-terrorism measures. According to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the Conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), the measures were meant to target militants, in addition to the ideology that drives them - in other words, non-militant Islamists. Kurz made international headlines when he proclaimed that he wanted to create a “criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to move against those who aren’t terrorists but are preparing the ground for it”. But amid objections from the party’s coalition partner, the Greens, the bill dropped the term “political Islam” and replaced it with the still quite contentious “religiously motivated extremism”. Still, Austria’s integration minister made clear that the bill would target mainly so-called political Islam. When the “Anti-Terrorism Act” was first presented late last year, several institutions heavily criticised the bill. The European Center for Not-for-Profit Law argued that “the draft law is not in line with international and European human rights standards on freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association”. Amnesty International released a comprehensive critique, while lawyers, religious communities and NGOs uttered harsh condemnations - but with little impact. The law ultimately passed earlier this month.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-austria-dismantling-civil-liberties-under-guise-anti-terrorismMcDonald’s and the Failed Promise of Black Capitalism:Review of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain (Livewright, 2020)As Darnella Frazier’s video of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin circulated, hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding an end to racist state violence flooded the streets in cities all across the US. They were met with violent, retaliatory cops tear gassing and shooting them with “rubber” bullets. For the first time in a mass protest against police brutality, corporations from Starbucks to BlackRock released statements supporting “Black Lives Matter,” pledging to promote racial equity. Local businesses posted signs in their windows reading “black-owned” and “buy black,” protecting themselves from the fray in a symbolic gesture of support with protesters. Meanwhile protesters in Minneapolis burned down a police precinct and the Wendy’s where another black man, Rayshard Brooks, was killed by a police officer, and they occupied city squares all across the country. After the summer of uprisings waned into fall and the Coronavirus pandemic continued ravaging poor and working-class communities, slogans such as “buy black” and diversity trainings held at JPMorgan Chase served as a reminder that superficial market solutions have long been recommended by capital and the state in response to demands for wide-ranging, structural change in society — while those same forces have simultaneously disinvested in the social welfare of these communities. Historian Marcia Chatelain writes about the co-optation of black radical protest against state violence and economic disenfranchisement into the “struggle for silver rights,” defined by inclusion of black people in the institutions of the free market, in Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. This wildly entertaining and instructive book covers four decades of the civil rights movement — beginning in the late 1960s, when black protest was militant, anticapitalist, and frequent, to the early 1990s, when, in the absence of meaningful state investment, the movement had been trampled by a violent, reactionary government and the logic of black capitalism.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/07/franchise-marcia-chatelain-review-mcdonalds-black-capitalismRed star over Iraqi KurdistanFor those who have followed the development of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq since its formation after the Kurdish rebellion of 1991, the names Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani have been inextricably tied to the region’s politics. Their respective parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have long dominated the political landscape, dividing the territory of the autonomous region between themselves after a period of intense inner-Kurdish warfare in the 1990s. Today, they each maintain their own Peshmerga military formations, and the KRG often appears to function as a one-party state, though paradoxically, there are two of them. Given the omnipotence of the Talabani and Barzani families in Iraqi Kurdistan today, what then are the significance of other political formations? The extent of the corruption and nepotism of both major parties, as well as their monopoly on power, led to the emergence of the Gorran Movement in 2009. Though they have managed to achieve some electoral success, public perception of them as a genuine opposition party that can tackle the mismanagement of the region appears to have dulled. There are some minor Islamist parties that have seats in parliament, as well as the New Generation Movement that won eight seats in the 2018 election. Then there is the oldest party in the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdistan Communist Party. With one lonely MP, one could be forgiven for having the impression that the Communists are a marginal force. The party’s influence and importance to the region, however, far outstrip its electoral performance.
https://peoplesworld.org/article/red-star-over-iraqi-kurdistan/