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Rejecting Austerity
by Kerry-anne Mendoza
New Internationalist
United Kingdom
 
In July 1944, the soon-to-be victorious powers of the Second World War met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Their mission: to lay down the architecture of the post-War global political and economic systems. They stated that their new idea – neoliberalism – would free the world from fascism forever. In reality, they built the foundations for a new fascism, corporate fascism – and modern austerity is merely a vehicle to deliver it.
 
Austerity is not a short-term disruption to balance the books. It is the controlled demolition of the welfare state – transforming Britain from a social democracy into a corporate state. We are witnessing the end, and not the beginning, of a process set in train at Bretton Woods.
 
It began as ‘Structural Adjustment’, eviscerating the economies and societies of countries in the so-called ‘developing world’; now, austerity is feasting on the European and North American continents.
 
Austerity has been presented as necessary, constructive and temporary by governments across the world, Britain included. In reality, ‘Austerity’ is unnecessary, destructive and intended as a permanent break with the traditions of social democracy.
 
The pillars of social democracy – Law and Justice, Employment Rights, Civil Liberties and Human Rights, and The Welfare State – are being bulldozed, one after the other, under the guise of ‘Austerity’.
 
In education, successive governments have dissolved the model of state-owned schools, staffed by public-sector employees. Today, our children largely attend privately owned schools, where the majority of services in the schools are delivered by private-sector staff. The results have seen costs soar and quality plummet.
 
A similar model has been used in Health. The Health System is being gutted by endless and costly reorganizations, rampant commercialization and outsourcing, and unaffordable private finance initiative (PFI) contracts.
 
The latest major reorganization of the National Health Service (NHS), under the Health and Social Care Act, will suck another £4 billion ($6.1 billion) out of the health service. This comes on the back of the £780 million ($1.2 million) blown by New Labour on 70 reorganizations in just 4 years between 2005 and 2009. Anyone experienced in change management can tell you that this level of change, which does not allow for new systems and processes to bed in or for their benefits to be measured, is simply madness.
 
The underpinning of any social democracy is a generous welfare state that ensures citizens finding themselves unable to work through involuntary unemployment, sickness, disability or age receive enough to live in dignity. Our pensioners, our disabled people, our working and jobless poor – all have fallen towards a promised safety net only to find it has been replaced by a bed of nails.
 
Private companies like G4S have been allowed, by successive governments, to quietly buy up large tracts of our formerly public police, security and justice sector.
 
It is increasingly likely that if someone commits a crime in Britain they will be arrested by a G4S-provided officer, detained in a G4S cell and transported to court by a G4S van driven by G4S officers. The court will be staffed by G4S security officers, they will be sent to a G4S prison, and released into the G4S probation service to live in a G4S-run halfway house. All run at a profit, all unaccountable to the public, all free from scrutiny through Freedom of Information requests.
 
The government also cut £220 million ($335 million) from Legal Aid provision, which amounts to slashing the £1 billion ($1.5 billion) budget by almost a quarter. The cut was combined with punitive changes to the rules, making it almost impossible for regular citizens to challenge the privatized justice system. Leading Law and Justice bodies warn it will transform the much-lauded British justice system into something no better than a ‘banana republic’.
 
A raft of restrictions on the right to protest, assemble and express dissent has also hobbled the public’s ability to respond forcefully to such egregious changes.
 
Meanwhile, the fortunes of the FTSE100 companies is at record highs, Chief Executives are seeing 23-per-cent pay rises, taxes are being reduced for or simply not collected from the wealthiest individuals and corporations, MP expenses rose 25-per cent last year and the Queen received a £5-million ($7.6-million) pay rise from the public purse.
 
This is not a case of poor people suffering austerity while the wealthiest live large. It is a case of poor people suffering austerity in order that the wealthy live large. It is time to reject outright the politics and the economics of austerity – and instead work together to build a world that works for everyone.
 
* Kerry-anne Mendoza is the author of Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State published by New Internationalist: http://newint.org/ From England - How a disastrous privatisation duped the political class: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/alex-nunns/hinchingbrooke-how-disastrous-privatisation-duped-political-class


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As FIFA attempts to curb racism at the World Cup, a look at hate speech laws worldwide
by Pew Research Center, Minority Rights Group
 
June 2014
 
Reports of racist and xenophobic slurs against players and fans have continued to emerge during the World Cup. Two fans were arrested last weekend after chanting racist remarks during the match featuring Argentina vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina.
 
In an attempt to combat hate speech during the tournament, FIFA and Brazilian authorities initiated an anti-racism campaign using the hashtag #SayNoToRacism. Hate speech is taken seriously in Brazil, where racist or religiously intolerant speech or actions are prohibited by law and carry penalties including imprisonment.
 
Brazil is not the only country with a law that penalizes hate speech. A new Pew Research analysis finds hate speech laws in 89 countries around the world (45%), according to 2012 data. In some countries, the laws protect only certain religious or social groups, while others have broader laws, covering words or actions that insult, denigrate or intimidate a person or group based on race, gender, religion, ethnicity or other traits.
 
Although these laws are on the books, in some countries they are not enforced. However, in countries where penalties are imposed for hate speech, they often include fines or short-term jail sentences. A spectator in Spain was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of throwing a banana at a Brazilian player, and in 2012, a man in the United Kingdom received a jail sentence for posting racist and offensive comments on Twitter after a player collapsed on the field.
 
Laws against hate speech are most common in Europe, where 84% of countries (38 of 45) have such laws or policies (as of 2012). In 2008, the European Union passed a framework decision to combat hate speech and other expressions of racism and xenophobia – although member states have yet to consistently enforce the decision. In France, inciting racial or ethnic hatred is illegal, and non-citizens may be deported for such actions.
 
Some European countries have hate speech laws in place that include policies specifically targeting soccer and other sporting events. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the Football Offences Act (initially passed in 1991) prohibits racist chanting at football matches. In Spain, it is illegal to incite hatred because of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, nationality or sexual orientation, and athletic teams and stadiums can face sanctions for “actions that disparage religion if committed by professional athletic clubs, players or fans during sporting events,” according to the U.S. State Department.
 
Similar measures are in effect in nine of the 20 countries in the Middle East-North Africa region (45%) and more than a third of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region (38%, or 19 of 50). In Indonesia, for example, it is illegal to incite hatred toward individuals or community groups because of race, religion or ethnicity.
 
Hate speech laws were present in a quarter of countries in sub-Saharan Africa as of 2012 (12 of the 48 countries) and about three-in-ten countries in the Americas (31%, 11 of 35).
 
In the United States, courts have traditionally struck down attempts to limit hate speech. Most recently, during a 2011 case involving one of the Westboro Baptist Church’s anti-gay protests at a military funeral (Snyder v. Phelps), the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. Athletes occasionally encounter racist comments in the United States, often on Twitter.
 
This analysis is based on our ongoing research on global restrictions on religion. For more on our sources and procedures, see our most recent report on the topic.
 
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/20/as-fifa-attempts-to-curb-racism-at-the-world-cup-a-look-at-hate-speech-laws-worldwide/ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Minority/Pages/Stories.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/MinorityIssues/Session7/GAReport_SR_MinorityIssues_en.pdf
 
July 2014
 
Hate crime towards minorities and indigenous peoples is a daily reality in many countries across the globe, says Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in its annual report, but is often ignored by authorities.
 
The international organisation"s flagship report, State of the World"s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2014, focuses on ‘Freedom from hate and presents compelling evidence showing that hate crime and hate speech are prevalent in all regions of the world.
 
But hate crime is widely ignored, under-reported and often left unchecked by governments, resulting in escalating violence against minorities, says MRG in the report.
 
"If governments ignore hate crime, the perpetrators see it as a green light to continue," says Mark Lattimer, MRG"s Executive Director. ‘The prevalence of hate crimes against minorities is widely under-estimated and is now being driven across borders by online propaganda, whether by sectarian jihadis or right-wing racists."
 
The report finds that targeted violence often has a purpose. Anti-migrant rhetoric in Greece or sectarian violence in India serves to consolidate the power base of extremist organizations. Negative representations of indigenous groups in Guatemala or Uganda may provide justification for further exclusion or eviction from ancestral lands.
 
The impact of hatred may extend beyond discrimination to more visible extremes, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it drives the continuation of inter-ethnic conflicts. In the Central African Republic, hate speech and targeted attacks during 2013 were responsible for fomenting religious violence that has resulted in almost a million people being internally displaced.
 
Hate crimes send a message not only to the individuals targeted, but also to their communities. This is especially evident in violence against minority and indigenous women, with rape and sexual assault employed as a weapon of war or an instrument of oppression to fragment and humiliate entire civilian populations, says MRG.
 
In South Asia, for example, Dalit women are regularly subjected to sexual violence as a result of their lower caste status - often in response to their demands for basic rights.
 
The prevalence of demeaning or inflammatory language in political discourse, sermons, the media and online has very real implications for marginalized communities. The report highlights many countries in 2013 where rumours and incitement led to violence and loss of life.
 
In Burma, where a slow process of reform has opened up some degree of free expression, the situation for minorities is acute. In addition to reports of ongoing military abuses against ethnic minorities, a large number of Muslim Rohingya were murdered or displaced during 2013 by Buddhist vigilantes.
 
In Russia, official repression and discrimination of migrants from Central Asia and elsewhere has occurred alongside attacks and intimidation by extremists.
 
In Pakistan, despite the first democratic transfer of power between two elected governments in the country"s history, hundreds of Shi"a were killed in targeted attacks and other minorities such as Ahmadis also singled out.
 
The 2011 Arab Spring has had mixed implications for ethnic and religious minorities in the region. In Egypt, for example, a new constitution was passed in January 2014 that contained a number of new legal guarantees for minorities. Nevertheless, 2013 was marked by a series of violent attacks against religious minorities.
 
In Syria, civil conflict took on an increasingly sectarian character during the year. In July, the United Nations estimated that more than 100,000 people had died in the violence and by the end of the year the number of IDPs stood at 6.5 million, while the refugee population grew to 2.3 million.
 
In Iraq, 2013 saw the country"s highest death toll in five years, with smaller minorities such as Sabean Mandeans, Christians, Yezidis, Turkmen and Shabak continuing to be targeted with abductions and killings.
 
In Europe, the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis and the impact of austerity measures in many countries have played a major role in the rise of right-wing organizations with a strong anti-minority agenda. In Hungary, Jobbik"s rhetoric against the country"s Roma and Jewish minorities escalated as the party won a major place in mainstream politics, with its share of the national vote rising to more than 20 percent in the April 2014 elections.
 
Historical patterns of colonialism and segregation continue to be felt in some countries. In the USA migrants, Jews, African Americans and other minorities are still subject to vilification, particularly with the apparent rise of hate groups in recent years, in part due to anxieties over the country"s changing demographics.
 
While the 2014 State of the World"s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples documents disheartening levels of violence, harassment and verbal abuse across the world, it also includes many examples of how hatred is being countered by legislators, politicians, journalists, and communities, by addressing the root causes. Though there is still a long way to go before minorities and indigenous peoples across the world are able to enjoy freedom from hate, these and other initiatives highlighted in the report show some of the ways forward.
 
‘The impact on victims of violent crime is well-known, but when such crimes are motivated by ethnic or religious hatred, whole communities are made to feel under attack. Hate crimes need to be recognised as such, and the perpetrators punished." says Mark Lattimer.
 
http://www.minorityrights.org/12473/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2014.html


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