Both were 22-year-olds. Their deaths in 2023 serve as a reminder on International Women’s Day that the tragedies of femicide and gender-based violence (GBV) will continue into 2024. “Honor killings” need to be recognized as problems that are not only confined to the global south and developing world.

 While governments often react to direct violence, this problem will not end unless both state and society recognize endemic structural and cultural violence that enable femicide. The failure to act on these problems becomes a form of “necropolitics,” where the states allow women to succumb to the fate of femicide.

Direct Violence

Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung’s Triangle of Violence begins with “direct violence,” which often gets the most attention.

The father of Tiba Al-Ali projected direct violence against his daughter by strangling her. The last thing Tiba saw was the eyes of her father before she died.

Turetta projected direct violence against Giulia, a video camera capturing him beating her, and then later stabbing her 20 times to the neck and head. The last thing Giulia saw was the eyes of her ex-partner.

Tiba chose to defy her father.  Giulia chose to leave Filippo and she was graduating before him, which he could not accept.

Structural Violence

Cameroonian scholar Achille Mbembe defines “necropolitics” as how political actors allow certain demographics to die. When states fail to prevent femicide that is a form of necropolitics, or what Galtung would call “structural violence.”

Ali’s murder is part of the rise of GBV due to a revival of tribal culture that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein encouraged after the 1991 Gulf War to maintain domestic order, as his security forces were diminished. Iraq’s gendered insecurity continued unabated as the security sector collapsed after the 2003 invasion.  The US touted post-Saddam Iraq as a model state that would inspire a wave of democratization in the region. Yet Articles 41 and 409 of the Iraqi Penal Code, to this day, permits males to “punish” female members of a household. Those codes are a form of structural violence and necropolitics, enabling “honor killings.” It allows “practices of patriarchy” at the state level.

Women’s rights in Iraq • FRANCE 24 English Video

Structural violence and state patriarchy is evident by the security sector failing to address this issue, as the police allegedly knew beforehand that Al-Ali’s life was at risk and failed to take action.

Let us turn to Europe. Surprisingly, the Italian state engages in necropolitics by not legally recognizing “femicide” as a separate crime. Cecchettin’s sister, Elena, referred to this problem when said, “Femicide is a murder committed by the state because the state doesn’t protect us.” The state’s failure in this case to prevent direct violence is itself a form of violence. In the absence of the state Elena refers to the need for Italian civil society and NGOs to step in: “We need to fund anti-violence centres and give the possibility to those who need to ask for help.”

After the murder, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she would increase funds to women’s shelters and anti-violence centers. However, Meloni was also part of the problem, since her misogynistic right-wing politics and “Brothers of Italy”(Fratelli d’Italia) party enabled gendered cultural violence in Italy.   

Cultural Violence

After the murder in Iraq, a twitter user, Ali Bey, wrote that women should “behave or face the same fate as Tiba Al-Ali,” along with a series of other voices in the Iraqi cybersphere condoning, if not celebrating the murder. These outbursts are examples of cultural violence or societal patriarchy that enables such crimes.

Elena links the murder of her younger sister to the patriarchal culture of violence that pervades Italy, a form of cultural necropolitics, which normalises the toxic behaviour of men like Turetta and eventually commits femicide. She said “Turetta is often described as a monster, but he’s not a monster.”  She then addresses cultural elements: “A monster is an exception, a person who’s outside society, a person for whom society doesn’t need to take responsibility. But there’s a responsibility. Monsters aren’t sick, they’re healthy sons of the patriarchy and rape culture.” 

Meloni promised promised a new educational campaign in schools to eradicate “the toxic culture of violence” in the country. While Meloni had condemned sexual violence in the past, it was usually when a migrant committed GBV, to support the anti-immigrant politics of her party.

In 2023 I conducted two digital autopsies on Tiba’s YouTube account and Giulia’s Instagram account. Both were beautiful souls that made the earth a better place. Tiba’s vibrant videos described her new life in Istanbul, to pursue her education. Guilia loved her mom, had a collection of beer bottle tops, and apparently had a fear of going to the hospital alone, but overcame her fear.  That fear apparently had to do with the fact that she was taking care of her mom who eventually died of cancer.

The triangle of violence and necropolitics offers a nuanced means of analyzing the agents of patriarchy.  But a simple linguistic exercise can also achieve this goal, using patriarchy as a verb instead of an abstract noun. We must each ask ourselves “Who or what has patriarched me or others in the past, present, and future?” and “Who or what have I patriarched?” Difficult questions, yes, but by bringing them into focus we can begin to identify the active agents and institutions that have patriarched and continue to patriarch in Iraq, Italy and the world.  On this International Women’s Day, Iraq and Italy have failed to ensure gendered security.

( Middle East Monitor ) – On 30 August 2008, Italy and Libya signed their Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, ending their awkward past of feuding and diplomatic tensions over Italy’s colonisation of Libya from 1911 to 1943. Libya was seeking compensation, recognition of suffering of its people and, above all, an apology. Rome, as is the case with all former colonial powers, tried for years to close the matter without offering anything. The treaty, a success for Libya, might have ended the political and diplomatic struggle over the colonial past, but it will not wipe it out from history and people’s memories.

The idea of invading Libya came during the colonial rush that saw major colonial powers like France, United Kingdom and others divide the dying Ottoman Empire possessions in North Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe itself. Libya was part of that empire, very close to Italy across the Mediterranean Sea and, above all, Libyans lacked effective means to fight back after the Ottoman military garrison left the country.

The rise to power of the Republican Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini in 1922, gave the occupation of Libya another nostalgic dimension as the fascists strongly believed in the deceptive idea that modern Italy was the rightful heir to the Roman Empire and, therefore, they were responsible for recovering the possessions of the bygone empire.  Another reason that made Libya more attractive to fascist Italy is the fact that Italy, united just 50 years earlier, became overcrowded and its farmers, particularly in the south, were eager to own land of which Libya has plenty. Mussolini used to call Libya the “fourth shore of Rome”.

Italians thought that the taking over of Libya would not be more than a few days’ sea trip and the entire country would be conquered. However, once the first amphibious forces tried to land on Tripoli shores in 1911, they were faced with stiff resistance from the locals, who rushed to defend their country with the little means they had.

As the invaders increased their numbers and widened their presence, the resistance shifted to new tactics, using the guerrilla tactics of hit-and-run. Outnumbered and out-gunned, the Libyans, mostly nomads and shepherds, figured out that direct confrontation with one of the most modern armies at the time was suicidal and destructive.

Instead of facing the Italian army directly, they waged rather small battles, mostly at night time. Benefitting from their detailed knowledge of the land and its geography, the Mujahidin, as they were called, managed to make life really difficult for the Italian army wherever it went. Facing a ghost enemy fighting on horseback, the Italian army started to use unheard of methods of war, scoring many firsts.

For instance, Italy was the first country to use air war and Libya became the first country to be bombed from the air. An Italian pilot named Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, in a letter to his father, described how he threw the first bomb at an Arab [Libyan] camp in November 1911, just a month into the invasion. The young pilot wrote “today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane”, before pointing out that it was “the first time that we [Italian army] will try this and if I succeed, I will be really pleased to be the first person to do it.”

Pilot Gavotti, indeed, succeeded in throwing the first ever bomb from an aeroplane, ushering in the age of air war for the first time in the history of mankind.  He wrote “and after a little while, I can see a small dark cloud in the middle of the encampment” in Ain Zara, today a town, but at the time just an oasis south-east of Tripoli. Ain Zara became the first place on earth to be bombed from the air. The Italian pilot did not realise what he had just done and had no idea what his bomb had done to people, mostly civilians, below. He returned to base, overwhelmed by his success in hitting “the target” and went straight to report to General Caneva that he just registered his name in history as the first person to bomb a target from the air. Carlo Caneva was the first Italian commander to announce that “Tripoli will be Italian”, as his forces launched the first attacks on Libya. He led the earlier brutal stages of the invasion before being replaced later by another, crueler General Rodolfo Graziani in 1930.

In the same year, the Italian army scored another world first when Benito Mussolini authorised, for the first time, the use of sulphur mustard to subdue Libyans. Bombing formations of fighters and civilian villages suspected of supporting the Mujahidin from the air but, this time, using poisonous gas, besides explosives.

In the 1920s, Libyan resistance intensified, particularly in eastern Libya with the rise of Omar Al-Mukhtar, a septuagenarian who suffered old age and chronic back pain, who became the national leader of the Mujahidin against fascist Italian occupation.

This forced General Graziani to revert to using collective punishment against entire civilian communities by forcing them into concentration camps across Eastern Libya. At one point, there were some 16 different camps in the Sirte desert and further east in which thousands of civilians including women, children, the elderly and young men were forced to live with their animals in desert plots surrounded by barbed wire and guarded, around the clock, by armed soldiers.

Despite this brutality, Al-Mukhtar and his colleagues fought for 20 years, until he was captured on 11 September 1931, after suffering an injury in a village called Slonta, south of Al-Bayda town in Libya’s eastern Green Mountain region.

After a quick trial, he was sentenced to death by hanging on 16 September. Hundreds of civilians, including women and children were forced to watch as Al-Mukhtar was hanged in Suluq concentration camp, one of the most infamous, south-west of Benghazi. By staging such a gruesome show, the Italian authorities wanted to terrify Libyans who might think of following in his footsteps and fight them.

Modern Libya, before the NATO invasion of 2011, used to commemorate 16 of September as a national day of mourning to remember Al-Mukhtar and remind younger generations of what happened in Libya, decades before. New Libya, however, has forgotten the mourning day, while fascist concentrations camps are never really mentioned outside academic circles.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

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( Clean Energy Wire ) – The German government and NGOs have welcomed the first G7 commitment to concrete targets for the rollout of renewables, but environmentalists also warned that the rich nation’s inclusion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) could lead to a “huge greenwashing show”. Following a meeting of climate, energy and environment ministers, German environment minister Steffi Lemke said the G7 countries Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S. bear a special responsibility for solving the climate crisis given their resource consumption and the associated damage to the climate. “The G7 met this responsibility, which is also an obligation,” she said.

Energy and climate state secretary Patrick Graichen also said the G7 environment ministers took “the right path” for climate protection, and sent “the right signals” to partner countries outside the G7 on the way to COP28, and to decision-makers in business and society. “But in order to achieve our goals, we need to step up the pace and mobilise the necessary investments.”

At their meeting in the Japanese city of Sapporo, the G7 ministers for the first time agreed on joint targets for the expansion of renewable energies: 150 gigawatts expansion for offshore wind, and a combined solar capacity of more than 1,000 GW of photovoltaics by 2030.

They also committed to accelerating the phase-out all fossil energy sources, specifying that no new coal-fired power plants may be built.

Environmentalists also broadly welcomed the agreements. “The clear commitment to accelerate the expansion of renewables can be seen as a success and gives hope that the signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement will agree on a global renewables target at the climate conference in Dubai [COP28] at the end of the year,” Germanwatch executive director Christoph Bals told energy and climate newsletter Tagesspiegel Background.

He added the targets implied a five-fold increase in offshore wind, and a tripling of solar power by 2030.

But Bals also warned that the G7 commitment to phase out “unabated coal” leaves the door open for plants using carbon capture and storage (CCS). “CCS must not serve as a life extension for coal power.” He also criticised equating “blue” hydrogen made from natural gas using CCS and “green” hydrogen made with renewables: “Without strict criteria, this opens the door for a huge greenwashing show.”

Clean Energy Wire

( Middle East Monitor ) – Israelis are watching political developments in Europe with interest, particularly in Sweden and Italy, amid fears that the Jewish communities there may soon face problems. Italy, for example, is expected to have a right-wing government involving Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and Matteo Salvini’s party, the League (formerly the Northern League). Israelis consider this to be problematic because of their previous links to the extreme right and neo-fascists. However, even the list of centre-left candidates for the Democratic Party included figures who publicly expressed anti-Semitic and anti-Israel positions.

Israel’s concern over the outcome of the elections requires the government to establish common interests and closer relations with the various parties. It is true that the latter are generally supportive of Israel in certain aspects, but not as a whole. There is also anti-Semitism in Italy, including Holocaust denial.

A real challenge facing the Israeli project for colonizing the West Bank is posed by the left. The Italian left encourages the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and pro-Palestinian positions. More seriously for Israel, is that all such positions pass quietly without an official response. There has to be a question mark over how and to what extent the incoming Italian government will fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel positions.

There is a fear in Israel that a right-wing Italian government will take anti-Israel positions at the UN, and oppose anti-BDS legislation. The number of openly anti-Israel Italian MPs across all parties may increase, putting doubts in Israeli minds about how far the allies of Israel in Rome will go to defend Israel, especially against BDS campaigns.

Although support for BDS in Italy is relatively low compared with other countries, the problem of anti-Semitism still exists. This has prompted the Jewish community to agree with the Italian Ministry of Education to teach about anti-Semitism in schools. An agreement has also been reached with the Roman Catholic Church to review all textbooks and remove everything related to religious and political anti-Semitism. Zionists believe that any anti-Israel activism is de facto anti-Semitism, but such conflation of the two is disputed.

Away from the elections, Israel is concerned about growing Palestine solidarity among Italians. Major Italian cities — including Rome Milan, Genoa, Turin and Florence — witness frequent demonstrations against Israel’s illegal settlements. Palestinian Italians as well as local solidarity groups take part.

In Sweden, meanwhile, the far-right has also swept to power after many years of left-wing government. This constitutes another challenge and opportunity for Israel to renew and strengthen its relations with the government in Stockholm.

Sweden is generally not friendly towards Israel; successive left-leaning governments probably explain why. The past eight years of a Social Democrat government had a negative record in terms of Sweden’s attitude towards Israel state, especially under former Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom. The Social Democratic Party has an influential pro-Palestinian lobby.

Before the latest election in Sweden, especially under Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, relations with Israel improved, but that was a little late. Now the right-wing parties show a more positive attitude towards Israel. They tend to sympathise with Israel as an extension of the West in a hostile Islamic region. They stood with Sweden’s Jewish community in the face of an increase in anti-Semitic violence.

It is worth noting the position of Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid towards the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. His Foreign Ministry has supported the boycott of the party on the basis that Israel, officially at least, does not give legitimacy to parties with a neo-Nazi heritage. Such a policy will not serve Israel in its relations with Sweden over the next four years, as the Sweden Democrats will be the most influential party. Paradoxically given such a heritage, the party is a supporter of the Zionist state. Israel may not have the luxury of giving up its contact with the Swedish far-right, despite its Nazi heritage, because it is now a political majority.

Relations between Israel and Sweden have stumbled from crisis to crisis, with Israel accusing the left-wing government in Stockholm of being one of the most hostile in Europe, and behind many EU initiatives to condemn Israel at every opportunity. Former Foreign Minister Wallstrom has always waved a “red card” towards Tel Aviv, as Israel puts it, which prompted Israeli leaders to refuse to meet her.

Today, Israelis are cautiously optimistic about the right-wing victory in Sweden, claiming that this will mean a change in foreign policy towards Israel. The belief is that most of these parties are more pro-Israel, although they do not support Jews; oppose the recognition of an independent State of Palestine; and call for tighter control over financial aid for the Palestinians.

Dr Adnan Abu Amer is the head of the Political Science Department at the University of the Ummah in Gaza. He is a part-time researcher at a number of Palestinian and Arab research centers and he periodically writes for Al Jazeera, the New Arabic and the Monitor. He has written more than 20 books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian resistance and Hamas.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

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One option the U.S. and other nations have for ratcheting up pressure on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine is reducing their Russian energy purchases. U.K. Foreign Minister Liz Truss has proposed that the G7 nations – the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – impose limits on their Russian oil and gas imports. Global energy policy expert Amy Myers Jaffe explains how this strategy might work and how it could affect international oil markets, which have already been roiled by the conflict.

How important is Russia as a global oil supplier?

Russia produces close to 11 million barrels per day of crude oil. It uses roughly half of this output for its own internal demand, which presumably has increased due to higher military fuel requirements, and exports 5 million to 6 million barrels per day. Today Russia is the second-largest crude oil producer in the world, behind the U.S. and ahead of Saudi Arabia, but sometimes that order shifts.

About half of Russia’s exported oil – roughly 2.5 million barrels per day – is shipped to European countries, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. Nearly one-third of it arrives in Europe via the Druzhba Pipeline through Belarus. These 700,000 barrels per day in pipeline shipments would be an obvious target for some kind of sanctions, either by banning financial payments or refusing deliveries via spur lines at the Belarus border.

In 2019, European stopped accepting deliveries for several months from the Druzhba line when crude oil flowing through it became contaminated with organic chlorides that could have damaged oil refineries during processing. Russia’s oil shipments fell noticeably as it redirected flows to avoid the Druzhba line.

The remaining export shipments of Russian crude oil to Europe come mainly by ship from various ports.

China is another large buyer: It imports 1.6 million barrels per day of Russian crude oil. Half comes via a special direct pipeline, the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline, which also services other customers via a port at its end point, including Japan and South Korea.

How would Russia be affected if other nations reduce imports of its oil?

Sanctions against Russia’s oil industry would have a greater impact than limiting natural gas flows because Russia’s oil receipts are higher and more critical to its state budget. Russia earned over US$110 billion in 2021 from oil exports, twice as much as its earnings from natural gas sales abroad.

Since oil is a relatively fungible global commodity, much of Russia’s crude exports to Europe and other participating G-7 countries might wind up being sent somewhere else. That would free up other supplies from sources such as Norway and Saudi Arabia to be redirected back to Europe.

Russia’s oil has high sulfur and other impurities, so refining it requires specialized equipment – it can’t be sold just anywhere. But other Asian buyers can take it, including India and Thailand. And Russia has special supply arrangements with countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

It’s already clear, though, that Russia is having trouble redirecting its crude oil sales. At the start of the invasion of Ukraine, European refiners began shunning spot cargoes for fears that sanctions might be forthcoming.

India bought Russian crude cargoes that were already at sea, at a sharp discount. Markets would likely respond to a G-7 oil ceiling by further discounting Russian crude. We saw the same pattern in the past when countries sanctioned Venezuelan and Iranian oil: Those nations still found buyers, but at reduced prices.

Can European nations get oil from other sources?

Oil shipments are arguably easier to reroute than natural gas, which has to be super-chilled to liquefy it for ship transport, then converted back to gas at its destination port. That means Russia’s crude oil may potentially be easier for European countries to replace and reroute than its natural gas, which relies more heavily on pipeline delivery, depending on market conditions.

To ensure replacement barrels are available, Europe and the U.S. could simultaneously increase crude oil sales from their national strategic stocks to lessen the blow of any restrictions on Russian crude oil imports to the G-7. The U.S. is already selling 1.3 million barrels per day from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and it could increase these flows. China has also released oil from its national strategic stocks to help ease oil prices.

The U.S. and other G-7 members would also likely ask Middle East countries to relax destination restrictions on their crude oil shipments and press countries like China and India to redirect other oils of similar quality to Russian oil back to Europe if and when they increase their purchases from Moscow. Such steps would lower the chances of G-7 restrictions on Russian oil imports raising global prices.

It’s not certain that China and India would cooperate, but it would be in their interests to do so. They are major oil importers and would not want to see higher crude oil prices.

How would global oil prices be affected if G-7 nations buy less Russian oil?

It would depend on what other steps governments take in response to rerouting of Russian oil exports. Nations are already acting to prepare global markets for shifts in liquefied natural gas flows in case of reduced purchases from Russia.

G-7 energy diplomacy is likely to involve other oil capitals that might be willing to export more oil to alleviate disruption of crude oil sales from Russia. Most exporters are maxed out in terms of crude oil production, but a few of the largest Middle East producers could surge their output in the short term to put an extra 1 million barrels per day or more onto the market.

U.S.-Saudi relations could face a test. Riyadh has access to large stores of crude oil in its vast global tank system and its tankers that float at sea. In 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf held over 70 million barrels in storage near Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. They did this as a threat to Russia that a price war would ensue if Russian troops moved beyond that peninsula. Russia stayed in Crimea, so the oil was not released.

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Saudi Arabia has instituted price wars that hurt Russia’s economy in 1986, 1998, 2009 and again briefly in 2020. But today’s oil market conditions make a price war an unlikely outcome, given the existing tight balance between supply and demand. The only scenario that could trigger a price war now would be if global demand were to contract suddenly because of a recession.

Amy Myers Jaffe, Research professor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Austerity and an anti-immigrant blockade left Italy with an older population and underfunded health care. Could the same happen here?

( Foreign Policy in Focus) As the viral blitzkrieg rolls across one European border after another, it seems to have a particular enmity for Italy. The country’s death toll has passed China’s, and scenes from its hospitals look like something out of Dante’s imagination.

Why?

Italy has the fourth largest economy in the European Union, and in terms of health care, it is certainly in a better place than the United States. Per capita, Italy has more hospital beds — so-called “surge capacity” — and more doctors and more ventilators. Italians have a longer life expectancy than Americans, not to mention British, French, Germans, Swedes, and Finns. The virus has had an especially fatal impact on northern Italy, the country’s richest region.

There are a number of reasons why Italy has been so hard-hit, but a major one can be placed at the feet of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the xenophobic, right-wing League Party and his allies on the Italian right, including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Aging Out

Italy has the oldest population in Europe, and one of the oldest in the world. It did not get that way by accident.

Right-wing parties have long targeted immigrants, even though Italy’s immigrant population — a little over 600,000 — is not large by international standards. Calling immigrants a “threat to European values” has been the rallying cry for the right in France, Germany, Hungry, Poland, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain as well.

In the last Italian election, the League and its then ally, the Five Star Movement, built their campaigns around resisting immigration. Anti-immigrant parties also did well in Spain, and certainly played a major role in pulling the United Kingdom out of the EU.

Resistance to immigration plays a major role in “graying” the population. Italy has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, surpassing only Japan. The demographic effects of this are “an apocalypse,” according to former Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin. “In five years,” she continued, “we have lost more than 66,000 births” per year — more than the population of the city of Siena. “If we link this to this increasingly old and chronically ill people, we have a picture of a moribund country.”

According to the World Health Organization, the ideal birth-death replacement ratio in advanced countries is 2.1. Italy’s is 1.32., which means not only an older population, but also fewer working age people to pay the taxes that fund the social infrastructure, including health care.

As long as there is no major health crisis, countries muddle though. But when something like the coronavirus arrives, it exposes the underlying weaknesses of the system.

Some 60 percent of Italians are over 40, and 23 percent are over 65. It is demographics like these that make Covid-19 so lethal.

From age 10 to 39, the virus has a death rate of 0.2 percent, more deadly than influenza, but not overly so. But starting at age 40, the death rate starts to rise, reaching 8 percent for adults aged 70 to 79, and then jumping to 14.8 percent over 80. The average age of coronavirus deaths in Italy is 81.

Austerity

In addition to its graying population, today Italy is being haunted by the years of austerity that followed the global recession a decade ago.

When the economic meltdown hit Europe in 2008, the European Union responded by instituting painful austerity measures that targeted things like health care. Over the past 10 years, Italy has cut some 37 billion euros from its health system. The infrastructure that could have dealt with a health crisis like Covid-19 was hollowed out, so that when the disease hit, there simply weren’t enough resources to resist it.

Add to that the age of Italians, and the outcome was almost foreordained.

The issues in Italy’s 2018 election were pretty straightforward: slow growth, high youth unemployment, a starving education system, and a deteriorating infrastructure — Rome was almost literally drowning in garbage. But instead of the failed austerity strategy of the EU, the main election theme became immigration, a subject that had nothing to do with Italy’s economic crisis, troubled banking sector, or burdensome national debt.

Berlusconi, leader of the right-wing Forza Italia Party, said “All these immigrants live off of trickery and crime.” Forza made common cause with the fascist Brothers of Italy, whose leader, Giorgia Meloni, called for halting immigrants with a “naval blockade.”

The main voice of the xenophobic campaign, however, was Salvini and the League. Immigrants, he said, bring “chaos, anger, drug dealing, thefts, rape, and violence,” and pose a threat to the “white race.”

Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Mario joined the immigrant bashing, if not with quite the vitriol of Berlusconi, Salvini, and Meloni. The center-left Democratic Party ducked the issue, leaving the field to the right.

The outcome was predictable: the Democratic Party was routed and the Five Star Movement and League swept into power. Salvini took the post of Interior Minister and actually instituted a naval blockade, a violation of international law and the 1982 Law of the Sea.

Eventually the League and Five Star had a falling out, and Salvini was ousted from his post, but the damage was done. The desperately needed repairs to infrastructure and investments in health care were shelved. When Covid-19 stuck, Italy was unprepared.

Italy’s Not Alone

Much the same can be said for the rest of Europe, where more than a decade of austerity policies have weakened health care systems all over the continent.

Nor is Italy facing a demographic catastrophe alone. The EU-wide replacement ratio is a tepid 1.58, with only France and Ireland approaching — but not reaching — 2.1.

If Germany does not increase the number of migrants it takes, the population will decline from 81 million to 67 million by 2060, reducing the workforce to 54 percent of the population — not enough to keep up with current levels of social spending. The Berlin Institute for Population and Development estimates that Germany will need 500,000 immigrants a year for the next 35 years to keep pensions and social services at current levels.

Spain — which saw the right-wing anti-immigration party do well in the last election — is bleeding population, particularly in small towns, some 1,500 of which have been abandoned. Spain has weathered a decade and a half of austerity, which damaged the country’s health care infrastructure. After Italy, Spain is the European country hardest hit by Covid-19.

As populations age, immigrants become a necessity. Not only is new blood needed to fill in the work needs of economies, broadening the tax base that pays for infrastructure, but, old people also need caretaking, as the Japanese have found out. After centuries of xenophobic policies that made immigration to Japan almost impossible, the Japanese have been forced to accept large numbers of migrants to staff senior facilities.

The United States will face a similar crisis if the Trump administration is successful in choking off immigration. While the U.S. replacement ratio is higher than the EU’s, it still falls under 2.1, and that will have serious demographic consequences in the long run.

It may be that a for-profit health system like the U.S. model simply can’t cope with a pandemic because it finds maintaining adequate surge capacity in hospital beds, ventilators, and staff reduces stockholders’ dividends. And public health care systems in Europe — which have better outcomes than the American system’s — only work if they are well funded.

To the biblical four horsemen — war, famine, wild beasts, and plague — we can add two more: profits and austerity.

Conn Hallinan can be read at www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.worpress.com and www.middleempireseries.wordpress.com.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Italy’s Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 10,000 | MSNBC

After several years in which refugees and migration have featured heavily in the Western media narrative, a disturbing correlation between human trafficking and conflict zones is well established. But new studies indicate that conflicts do not just cause human trafficking as refugees seek to flee warzones; wars also create demand for various forms of labour which human traffickers seek to satisfy, with child trafficking and trafficking within conflicts both emerging areas of international concern. Moreover, some smuggling networks take advantage of the collapse of law and order in warzones to deliberately transition economic migrants through them, while established criminal networks in places like Europe cooperate with these traffickers to bypass more secure borders elsewhere and get ‘their’ migrants into developed states where they can be put to work for the criminal cells based there.

The North African state of Libya features all the types of trafficking mentioned above, though arguably it first became widely known due to Syrian refugees seeking to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe. With Libya’s various feuding governments unable to provide work or security for Libyans and foreign visitors, criminal enterprises have essentially filled the gap, and human traffickers providing some local people with employment while intimidating their critics into silence with violence. The smuggling syndicates also treat their fleeing customers appallingly, launching them from Libya’s coast into international waters on flimsy vessels in the hopeful expectation that rescuers from Western navies or foreign NGOs will pick them up and take them to Italy.

However, escaping conflict by getting to Europe is not the only reason foreigners risk entering Libyan territory. The US State Department has also recorded explicit cases of sub-Saharan migrants being tricked into accepting false offers of work within Libya itself, then being pressed into sexual slavery or forced labour (often in agriculture) once they arrive. In 2016 it reported Eritreans, Sudanese, and Somalis as being particularly at risk of being subjected to forced labour in Libya, whilst Nigerian women experienced a heightened risk of being forced into prostitution (particularly in the south of the country). The report cites how official indifference, extremely limited law enforcement capabilities, legal loopholes and a non-functioning judicial system have all combined to allow the forced labour and sexual exploitation of trafficked individuals (who usually have no legal right to be in Libya) to continue. The Libyan franchise of Islamic State is also known to have lured or forced foreign women into sexual slavery when it held the city of Sirte.

The money made by trafficking migrants and refugees into and out of Libya is also supplemented by moving their victims around the war-torn country itself. Media reports have highlighted how some individuals are held hostage by smugglers while their families are extorted for money. Others report being sold at slave markets, and then being passed from owner to owner around the country. Some of the migrants themselves even begin to work for their Libyan captors as guards and enforcers, with Italian police recently arresting a Somali suspect on the island of Lampedusa on suspicion of murder, torture and extortion. Mohamed Ahmed Taher, 23, was accused by other migrants in Lampedusa of being employed by a ‘transnational armed criminal organisation’ at a detention centre in Libya’s south-eastern Kufra region according to the police who arrested him.

Child trafficking is a particularly worrying trend for international organisations and NGOs, who have recorded militias and terrorist networks using children as soldiers, sex slaves, labours, servants and even suicide bombers during recent years. In Libya, there have been past reports of children being used as fighters by the former Ghaddafi regime and its opponents, but the focus today is on child prostitution. Trafficking gangs are exploiting sub-Saharan girls in Libya itself, but are then sending most to Italy, where they quickly meet migrant gang members and leave Italy to head to other European countries further north. The free movement of people between European Union countries means that once the victims have landed in Italy they can be moved across the rest of the EU by their traffickers without undergoing further identity checks.

The Libyan trafficking groups are able to operate this way because they themselves make up only part of a much wider transnational criminal network working on a migrant trail stretching from Europe to deep into the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. To the south-east of Libya Somali pirate groups turned to human trafficking to keep themselves in work after an international crackdown on their maritime activities. At the other end of the journey Nigerian criminals have migrated from Libya to nearby Italy and are reportedly working in uneasy partnership with the Sicilian mafia in the sex and drug trades. Recently Italian police raids have targeted the Nigerian ‘Vikings’ and ‘Black Axe’ gangs to disrupt this malign trend.

The fact that Italian police have weakened traditional Italian organised crime syndicates like the Camorra in Naples in recent years may also have helped African organised crime groups involved in people trafficking to extend their overseas activities into new sectors. While the fight against Italian organised crime itself is far from finished, Italian police have far less information about the newer African organised crime groups springing up in their place. As a result, recently cells of criminalised migrants have begun to operate independently (and often under the radar) inside Italian cities and likely in other European countries, whilst keeping communications open with groups back home. In turn those smuggling networks now connect most major population centres in the northern half of Africa to Tripoli’s coast.

Such webs of criminal groups ‘pull’ vulnerable African migrants from their countries towards Europe in the same manner as Libyan gangs lure refugees and migrants into Libya, promising them good jobs and support in the strange new country. The European border control agency Frontex estimates that some 60,000 migrants reached Italian territory in the first six months of 2017, causing ructions in Italian politics and leaving many desperate individuals open to recruitment into criminal gangs as a result of Europe’s inability (and unwillingness) to absorb them. Meanwhile the collapse of state authority in Libya creates a secure jumping off point near to Europe’s borders and a legal safe haven for trafficking kingpins. Until this situation is resolved by the end of its civil war and the creation of a strong and stable Libyan government, the North African country will tragically remain a global centre and exporter of people trafficking and modern slavery.

Neil Thompson is a freelance writer who has lived and travelled extensively through East Asia and the Middle East. He holds an MA in the International Relations of East Asia from Durham University, and is now based in London.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Thomson Reuters Foundation: “Frontline Insight: Photographing Libya’s slaves”

(Washington, DC) – The rise of populist leaders in the United States and Europe poses a dangerous threat to basic rights protections while encouraging abuse by autocrats around the world, Human Rights Watch said today in launching its World Report 2017. Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk.

Meanwhile, strongman leaders in Russia, Turkey, the Philippines, and China have substituted their own authority, rather than accountable government and the rule of law, as a guarantor of prosperity and security. These converging trends, bolstered by propaganda operations that denigrate legal standards and disdain factual analysis, directly challenge the laws and institutions that promote dignity, tolerance, and equality, Human Rights Watch said.

In the 687-page World Report, its 27th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that a new generation of authoritarian populists seeks to overturn the concept of human rights protections, treating rights not as an essential check on official power but as an impediment to the majority will.

“The rise of populism poses a profound threat to human rights,” Roth said. “Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism. They all claim that the public accepts violations of human rights as supposedly necessary to secure jobs, avoid cultural change, or prevent terrorist attacks. In fact, disregard for human rights offers the likeliest route to tyranny.”

Roth cited Trump’s presidential campaign in the US as a vivid illustration of the politics of intolerance. He said that Trump responded to those discontented with their economic situation and an increasingly multicultural society with rhetoric that rejected basic principles of dignity and equality. His campaign floated proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture. Unless Trump repudiates these proposals, his administration risks committing massive rights violations in the US and shirking a longstanding, bipartisan belief, however imperfectly applied, in a rights-based foreign policy agenda.

The rise of populist leaders in the United States and Europe poses a dangerous threat to basic rights protections while encouraging abuse by autocrats around the world.

In Europe, a similar populism sought to blame economic dislocation on migration. The campaign for Brexit was perhaps the most prominent illustration, Roth said.

Instead of scapegoating those fleeing persecution, torture, and war, governments should invest to help immigrant communities integrate and fully participate in society, Roth said. Public officials also have a duty to reject the hatred and intolerance of the populists while supporting independent and impartial courts as a bulwark against the targeting of vulnerable minorities, Roth said.

The populist-fueled passions of the moment tend to obscure the longer-term dangers to a society of strongman rule, Roth said. In Russia, Vladimir Putin responded to popular discontent in 2011 with a repressive agenda, including draconian restrictions on free speech and assembly, unprecedented sanctions for online dissent, and laws severely restricting independent groups. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, concerned about the slowdown in economic growth, has embarked on the most intense crackdown on dissent since the Tiananmen era.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, has honed a war-crime strategy of targeting civilians in opposition areas, flouting the most fundamental requirements of the laws of war. Forces of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS, have also routinely attacked civilians and executed people in custody while encouraging and carrying out attacks on civilian populations around the globe.

More than 5 million Syrians fleeing the conflict have faced daunting obstacles in finding safety. Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon are hosting millions of Syrian refugees but have largely closed their borders to new arrivals. European Union leaders have failed to share responsibility fairly for asylum seekers or to create safe routes for refugees. Despite years of US leadership on refugee resettlement, the US resettled only 12,000 Syrian refugees last year, and Trump has threatened to end the program.

2016 in Numbers

In Africa, a disconcerting number of leaders have removed or extended term limits – the “constitutional coup” – to stay in office, while others have used violent crackdowns to suppress protests over unfair elections or corrupt or predatory rule. Several African leaders, feeling vulnerable to prosecution, harshly criticized the International Criminal Court and three countries announced their withdrawal.

This global attack needs a vigorous reaffirmation and defense of the human rights values underpinning the system, Roth said. Yet too many public officials seem to have their heads in the sand, hoping the winds of populism will blow over. Others emulate the populists, hoping to pre-empt their message but instead reinforcing it, Roth said. Governments ostensibly committed to human rights should defend these principles far more vigorously and consistently, Roth said, including democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia that support broad initiatives at the United Nations but rarely take the lead in responding to particular countries in crisis.

Ultimately, responsibility lies with the public, Roth said. Demagogues build popular support by proffering false explanations and cheap solutions to genuine ills. The antidote is for voters to demand a politics based on truth and the values on which rights-respecting democracy is built. A strong popular reaction, using every means available – civic groups, political parties, traditional and social media – is the best defense of the values that so many still cherish.

“We forget at our peril the demagogues of the past: the fascists, communists, and their ilk who claimed privileged insight into the majority’s interest but ended up crushing the individual,” Roth said. “When populists treat rights as obstacles to their vision of the majority will, it is only a matter of time before they turn on those who disagree with their agenda.”

Human Rights Watch

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Slavic Languages and Literatures Department Upenn: “TRUMP – PUTIN – BERLUSCONI – ORBAN – KACZYNSKI – FARAGE: A POPULIST COCKTAIL?”

LONDON – For the past couple of weeks, the world has been guessing at how US President-elect Donald Trump will behave in office and what policies he will pursue, following a long campaign full of contradictory statements. America’s previous businessman-presidents – Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover – were around too long ago to provide much guidance. There is, however, a recent European precedent: Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.

What Trump has achieved, Berlusconi pioneered. Like Trump, Berlusconi is a businessman who made his first fortune in real estate. When he entered politics in 1994, he was an outsider, albeit one who, also like Trump, had long been close to plenty of insiders.

America’s president-elect has done little to assuage growing anxiety, both at home and abroad, since his victory. Project Syndicate contributors explain why the fear is justified.

The similarities don’t end there. Both Trump and Berlusconi are intimately familiar with the insides of courtrooms; Trump has moved fast since the election to settle fraud lawsuits against Trump University, but has about 70 other suits outstanding against him and his businesses. And both have an array of conflicts of interest with their role as head of government, thanks to their large business empires.

Berlusconi, like Trump, managed to present himself as a rich man and a populist. He preferred to communicate directly with the people, bypassing traditional media and party structures. His propensity for glamorous women and glitzy homes somehow enhanced his popular appeal.

The comparison between Trump and Berlusconi is far from superficial. In fact, Italy’s experience with Berlusconi – or Il Cavaliere (the Knight), as he is known in his country – provides six clear lessons for Americans and the world on what to expect from Trump.

First, no one should underestimate the next US president. Already, Trump has defied expectations; few expected him even to win the Republican primary. Yet many observers continue to predict his imminent downfall, assuming that he will last only four years in the White House, if he is not impeached before that.

Berlusconi’s experience tells a different story. Berlusconi, too, has been consistently underestimated by his opponents. Commentators deemed him too ignorant and inexperienced to last as prime minister, assuming that he would not survive the cut and thrust of politics or the pressures of government.

Yet Berlusconi remains one of the kingpins of Italian politics. In the last 22 years, he has won three general elections and served as prime minister for nine years. Every time journalists or intellectuals have tried to take him on in public debate, they have lost. Trump’s critics – indeed, all US observers – should keep that in mind.

The second lesson is that Trump will probably pursue what is essentially a permanent political campaign, injecting himself directly into conversations. Berlusconi has often used television, especially his own commercial channels, to that end. Instead of giving interviews he cannot control, Berlusconi has often worked with favored acolytes, or simply talked directly to the camera. When he was in office, many a political talk show was interrupted by a phone call from the prime minister demanding to have his say.

From Trump, we should expect not just a continued Twitter barrage, but also the use of TV, including talk shows, and other channels to speak directly to the people. Trump’s decision to release a two-and-a-half-minute YouTube video laying out his priorities, in lieu of a press conference, reinforces this reading. While the approach may not seem very presidential, it works, at least when carried out by a master marketer who plays fast and loose with the facts.

The third lesson from Berlusconi’s success is that even a very wealthy and powerful person can wield the victim narrative effectively. Indeed, even while in office, Berlusconi consistently claimed that he was being attacked by the judiciary, by rival businessmen, by “communists,” by the political establishment.

When the chips are down, expect Trump to do the same. Never mind that he is a billionaire, born to a wealthy family, or that, in the next election, he will be the incumbent. He will consistently portray himself as besieged by self-serving enemies.

The fourth lesson is that mudslinging is bound to happen. Berlusconi’s used his TV stations and newspapers so liberally to smear his opponents that the writer Roberto Saviano called them his macchina del fango or “mud machine.”

Trump’s attacks on the media, often carried out via Twitter, are a precursor to this, as are his campaign vows to “open up” libel laws. His chief mud-slinger is likely to be his newly appointed chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, the former chair of the ultra right-wing Breitbart News.

The fifth lesson is that Trump will probably continue to prize loyalty above all else in his administration, just as Berlusconi has. Already, Trump has made his three oldest children – who are supposed to run his business during his presidency – key players in his campaign and transition.

Federal law may prohibit Trump from appointing his children to government posts, but they will surely remain at the center of his decision-making. Already, his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, attended Trump’s first meeting with a head of government, Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Even Trump’s non-family appointments – often controversial or radical figures who would not have a place in any administration except his – reflect an emphasis on personal loyalty.

The final lesson of Berlusconi is that expressions of admiration for strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin should be taken seriously. Narcissistic lone rangers like Berlusconi and Trump are accustomed to making personal deals, and prefer other strongmen as their interlocutors. Berlusconi’s favorite overseas visits while in office were to Putin’s dacha and former Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s tent, not to boring European Council meetings or G20 summits.

In the end, however, there is one key difference between Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump. Berlusconi had no real agenda while in office, except to further his business and personal interests and nurture his own power by providing resources and favors to his supporters. His greatest disservice to Italians was his inaction in the face of economic stagnation, but at least he didn’t make it worse. Trump, by contrast, does have an agenda, however hard to read. Whether it will make things better or worse remains to be seen.

Bill Emmott is a former editor-in-chief of The Economist.

Via Project Syndicate

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

The Jimmy Dore Show: “The Right Way To Resist Trump – Italian Scholar Who Studied Italy’s Berlusconi”