Dear Friend,
The import of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (#CAB) is that about a million muslims have been rendered stateless in Assam. More to come when NRC is implemented across India. Majority of people in mainland India are clueless of this fact. They are kept purposefully ignorant by the Mainstream Media. It is high time that we quit reading and watching Mainstream Media when our country goes up in flames.
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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
Left Parties To Organise Joint Protest On December 19 Against CAB-NRC
Press Release
Both the Houses of Parliament have passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB). The Left parties consider this Bill as being completely violative of the Indian Constitution and aimed at destroying the secular democratic foundations of the Indian Republic.
An India that wasn’t
by T Navin
Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). With this India moves one more step further towards ‘Hindu Rashtra’ an anti-thesis to the idea of India
Amit Shah De Facto Prime Minister of India on Indian Partition: Bulldozing History
by Shamsul Islam
No other fascist organization, in the present world, can beat Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in demagogy, hypocrisy and
double-speak. In fact, what George Orwell termed as “doublespeak” would be an understatement in the case of RSS. The latest proof of this nasty character was provided by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, de facto PM and a senior RSS leader in the Lok Sabha (akin to the House of Commons in England) on December 9, 2019.
The Dream City
by Nivedita Dwivedi
A parable on the current state of affairs in India
Funeral of Democracy
by Dr Mudasir Firdosi
Funeral of your democracy
warned foresighted ages ago.
In spite of fellow beings,
you burn your abode willfully.
Dollar’s domination diminishing
by Countercurrents Collective
US Dollar’s world domination is diminishing. Not only are central banks, the world’s rich also hoarding the yellow metal – gold.
US Dollar’s world domination is diminishing. Not only are central banks, the world’s rich also hoarding the yellow metal – gold.
A Bloomberg opinion piece “World Is Stuck With the Dollar as the Reserve Currency” (December 11, 2019) said:
“The U.S. dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency might be weakening. In the last few years, the fraction of global reserves denominated in dollars has been inching down:
“This follows a longer-term slide; at the turn of the century more than 70% of reserves were in dollars. Meanwhile, central banks are buying more gold, which could signal a lack of confidence in the dollar or the global monetary system more generally.”
The opinion piece by Noah Smith, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, said:
“If the dollar loses its status as the reserve currency, it would be a major shift in the global economy the likes of which only happens once or twice a century. What happens then is anybody’s guess. The result could be chaos if it’s mismanaged; but if it’s handled well, the loss of the reserve currency could be healthy for the U.S. and the world. Indeed, given the U.S.’s waning economic dominance, the consequences of keeping the dollar as the sole reserve currency could be worse.
“Because the dollar is the reserve currency, central banks around the world hold large amounts of dollar-denominated assets, mostly U.S. government bonds. They hold these reserves for a number of reasons: to maintain exchange-rate pegs, to insure against capital outflows and to facilitate international trade.”
Noah Smith was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University.
Referring to history the Bloomberg opinion piece said:
“In the 19th century, countries held their reserves in gold or in British pounds (which were backed by gold). But after World War I the U.S. accumulated a large share of the world’s gold, meaning that holding dollars became the next best thing to holding the yellow metal itself. This arrangement was formalized in the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, when the dollar became the world’s official reserve currency and the U.S. promised to hold large amounts of gold. In the early 1970s, all connection between the dollar and gold was severed, but the U.S. remained the reserve currency of choice.”
It raised the question: “So why is dollar dominance slipping now?”
It answered the question:
“One long-term reason is the rise of the euro as an alternative reserve currency. A more recent factor is China’s increasing desire to diversify its foreign-exchange holdings to reduce its vulnerability to shifts in U.S. policy amid the trade war. But in the long term, the shrinking U.S. share of world economic output is the biggest threat to the dollar’s status. In 1960, the U.S. represented about 40% of the world economy but that has shrunk to less than a quarter:
“As poorer nations catch up to rich ones, they face pressure to diversify and hold less of their growing reserve stockpiles in the currency of one decreasingly important country. It’s no coincidence that the 1980s, when the dollar dipped below half of global reserves, were a time when it looked as if the U.S. might be economically eclipsed by a rising Europe and Japan. That didn’t happen, but this time it might.
“Economists have a hard time predicting the effects of a shift away from the dollar, because this is to some extent uncharted territory. One theory says that American borrowers would be forced to pay higher interest rates, causing the U.S. economy to suffer. Now, in order to acquire dollar reserves, foreigners essentially are forced to lend money to either the U.S. government or to U.S. companies. That demand for U.S. assets can bid down the price of loans within the U.S. But former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke argues that the U.S. no longer enjoys this so-called exorbitant privilege, noting that other countries’ real interest rates are almost as low. Bernanke could be wrong — those other countries’ rates might be held down by their slow population growth, while the faster-growing U.S. benefits from reserve status instead. But in a world already awash in capital, the extra effect of reserve status is probably not that much.
“Another theory says that the U.S. would benefit. Less demand for the dollar would cause the currency to depreciate; that would cut the price of U.S. exports and make imports more costly, reducing the trade deficit. That could ultimately lead to a more balanced global economy. It could even potentially help the U.S. become more competitive in manufacturing and other high-value export industries. But as Paul Krugman has noted, reserve-currency status might not be that big a factor because a number of other countries have run big trade deficits in recent decades as well.
“In the end, a shift to a basket of world currencies might be the healthiest outcome. If the euro, yen and Yuan were to join the dollar as international reserve currencies, it would mean a safer and more stable global economy. And it would enable the world’s major economies to compete on a more-or-less level playing field.
“The problem is, the other major economies may be either unwilling or unable to help bring about that outcome. The euro-zone crisis cast doubt on that currency’s long-term dominance, while China shows no inclination to abandon capital controls and make the yuan fully convertible.”
The opinion piece that does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners said:
“Reserve-holding countries may thus be stuck with the dollar. And the U.S. and its central bank may be stuck with the unenviable task of stabilizing a global economy that increasingly dwarfs it in size.”
According to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., central banks worldwide are consuming 20 percent global supply of gold as a part of a de-dollarization strategy – reducing the dollar’s dominance of global markets.
“De-dollarization in central banks – demand from central banks for gold is biggest since the Nixon era, eating up 20% of global supply,” the Head of Global Commodities Research at Goldman Jeff Currie told Bloomberg Monday. “I am going to like gold better than bonds because the bonds won’t reflect that de-dollarization.”
Gold climbed to a six-year high in September as the U.S. Federal Reserve cut borrowing costs and the total pile of debt yielding less than zero climbed to a record US$17 trillion, boosting the appeal of non-interest bearing gold.
The uncertain economic scenario, caused by a deceleration in economic growth, a political crisis such as Brexit, and mainly the U.S.-China trade war has influenced this “fear-driven demand,” ditching the U.S. dollar in the process.
“Going long-term depends on what is going to happen to global growth. The further out you go, the higher the probability that the U.S. is going to hit a recession. We have US$1,600 holding out through 2021,” Goldman Sachs analyst Mikhail Sprogis told Kitco News.
Gold was traded at US$1463.30 per ounce on Tuesday. On Monday, gold was trading near $1,460.
In March, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts warned that although the U.S. dollar remains the dominant reserve currency, it is slowing using its status in the world. The bullion’s high demand comes primarily from large world economic players such as Russia, Turkey, China, among others.
“Even though USD still accounts for 39.9 percent of international payments according to SWIFT, its market share has declined, as the global economy has become less U.S. and USD-centric,” the analysts said. “We believe that de-dollarization is an important factor behind the addition of gold to central bank gold reserves.”
Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their bets on gold by 8.9 percent last week, government data showed Friday.
“Gold cannot fully replace government bonds in a portfolio, but the case to reallocate a portion of normal bond exposure to gold is as strong as ever,” Goldman commented, adding that they “still see upside in gold as late-cycle concerns and heightened political uncertainty will likely support investment demand” for bullion as a defensive asset.
Other reports said:
Over the last year, gold prices are up nearly 20%. The yellow metal is on pace for its best year since 2010.
In a note to clients published over the weekend, analysts at Goldman Sachs outlined why the strategic case for owning gold remains strong. The firm cites political uncertainty and recession fears that are unlikely to abate as primary catalysts, among other worries among the global elite like wealth taxes and increasing talk about MMT and central bank effectiveness.
By 2020, the firm thinks the price of gold will reach $1,600 an ounce.
“Since the end of 2016 the implied build in non-transparent gold investment has been much larger than the build in visible gold ETFs,” the firm writes, citing the chart below.
Trade data implies that gold in storage has increased far more rapidly than is reflected by financial market instruments, indicating a widespread preference for physical gold instead of gold-linked financial assets. (Source: Goldman Sachs)
This means that for those including gold in their end-of-the-world trade, owning gold bullion is a must.
“This [data] is consistent with reports that vault demand globally is surging,” the firm writes.
“Political risks, in our view, help explain this because if an individual is trying to minimize the risks of sanctions or wealth taxes, then buying physical gold bars and storing them in a vault, where it is more difficult for governments to reach them, makes sense.”
“Finally, this build can also reflect hedges by global high net worth individuals against tail economic and political risk scenarios in which they do not want to have any financial entity intermediating their gold positions due to the counter-party credit risk involved.”
Evan Osnos’ 2017 New Yorker story that chronicled efforts from the super rich to prepare luxurious hideaways that will see them through the apocalypse.
The head of an investment firm told Osnos that, “A lot of my friends do the guns and the motorcycles and the gold coins. That’s not too rare anymore.”
As Osnos chronicled, underground bunkers with air-filtration systems and helicopters that are gassed up and ready to go are now the real differentiators in the prepper community.
On October 4, 2019, a Geneva datelined Reuters report was headlined “Super-rich investors buy gold by ton”. The report said: “The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar — and sometimes by the ton — and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.”
The report said:
“Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
“They don’t only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold,” said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank’s services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.
“UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.”
On September 3, 2019, Alice Ross, editor of FT Wealth Magazine and Financial Times wealth correspondent, wrote an opinion piece in Financial Times, which was headlined: “Rich people are hoarding cash, and wealth managers are getting frustrated”.
The opinion piece informed that persons with at least $1 million in investable assets, known as High-net worth individuals (HNWIs) were increasingly shunning equities. It cited Capgemini World Wealth Report, which said that HNWIs held nearly 28 percent of their portfolios on average in cash. A year ago, it was 27.2.
Bolivia’s Five Hundred-Year
Rebellion
by Peter Lackowski
The Kataristas presented an idealized pre-Columbian society, outlining a socialist vision that many Bolivians would like to make a reality. The ideas of national liberation and communal society have taken root. Benjamin Dangl’s book tells how that came about; it will be a valuable resource in understanding what is to come.
In 1781, the Bolivian indigenous leader Tupac Katari led a rebellion in which La Paz, the Spanish colonial capital of “Upper Peru,” was besieged for 109 days. The siege ended with the arrival of a Spanish army. Katari was captured, he and his wife, Bartolina Sisa, were gruesomely executed, and thousands of indigenous people were massacred.
For many years, this was treated as a minor event in history books, but in the latter half of the twentieth century Katari and Sisa have been celebrated by the indigenous majority as symbols of resistance to oppression, and as martyrs in a national revolution whose time has finally come.
The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia, by Benjamin Dangl (AK Press, 2019), is the story of decades of work by organizers, activists, intellectuals, and politicians to turn this story of indigenous resistance to oppression into the symbol of national liberation. It follows the way social movements have related to the question of indigenous identity, and their efforts to organize and focus its power, up to the point of electing an indigenous president. It is a story of decolonization, of people freeing themselves from the mental and political structures that were imposed upon them by imperial powers.
In 1952, the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) led a revolution that made historic gains with expanded rights for workers, land reform, and national economic sovereignty. It was supported by miners, workers and peasants, but it was led by a white and mestizo middle class who saw the indigenous majority as “primitive,” people who needed to be modernized, assimilated, and brought into the economy as workers and capitalist farmers. This implied giving up communal economic forms, traditional clothing, using Spanish, and finding their place in a capitalist society. While peasants welcomed the land reform, cultural change was resisted.
Many indigenous people benefited from improvements in their rights and education, but as their conditions improved, they became more aware of how racism was limiting their advancement — it was not just poverty. By the 60’s Aymara, many of rural origin who had got into the university, were forming Katarist circles that promoted a powerful, liberating ideology. In the words Luciano Tapia, a protagonist in the movement, “I understood that, far from feeling as though I were a beggar and foreigner in my own ancestral land, rather, I should instead feel proud of being a descendant of the great and glorious civilizations from this part of the world. From this comes the reason to maintain that beyond being a simple campesino class, we are fundamentally a living historical reality, a people made of flesh and bone, a real Nation.”
Kataristas looked back at a time when Andean people lived in a society that was superior in its values and organization to 20th century Bolivia. That society was not a Utopia; it was a living reality that their ancestors created. Their country had been violently taken from them and they had been enslaved. However, there is a history of resistance to be proud of, not just Katari but also many others who are being rediscovered as the stories of the elders are compiled. Dangl tells how indigenous thinkers and activists deepened and popularized these ideas, turning them into a political force.
The revolution of 1952 had empowered a government-sponsored peasants’ union, but a series of subsequent coups eroded its gains after a few years. Kataristas went to work to take control of the state-dominated union, using their message to build morale and solidarity. One of their early leaders spoke of analyzing things with ”two eyes,” that is, that exploited campesinos were members of the wider oppressed working class of Bolivia and also exploited as indigenous people. By 1979, they created a new peasants’ union that was affiliated with the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), the national union of miners and industrial workers.
Bolivia has relatively few roads, and they run through areas with concentrations of campesinos. Road blockades have been a key tactic for indigenous struggles all the way back to Tupak Katari’s time. Katarist ideology enhanced this strategic asset, raising morale and determination by enabling people to see their actions as part of a historic continuity. Dangl skillfully embeds these stories of campesino resistance in a concise account of Bolivia’s tumultuous history of those times.
Aymara students at the university in La Paz in the seventies found themselves in an environment in which they were expected to abandon their indigenous identity, even to the point of having to adopt a Spanish sounding surname. They also learned that there was virtually no information at all about the history of their people. Two chapters of the book are devoted to their response: the Andean Oral History Workshop (THOA), a project in which they worked collaboratively with indigenous communities, often the ones they grew up in, to collect memories from elders. They were able to reconstruct historical struggles and biographical information about Aymara leaders who worked for justice, and they turned them into widely distributed books, radio programs and other media. The chapters on the work of THOA are a fascinating story of a nation discovering its own history by reassembling the fragments stored in the living memories and family stories of its people.
Ayllus were the basis of pre-Columbian society in the Andes. They are communities typically consisting of two or more settlements at different altitudes to take advantage of the different ecological zones for a greater range of products. Dangl explains how they function on the basis of reciprocity and mutual obligation, sharing not only produce but also the risks that come with adverse weather, labor parties for tasks like harvesting, and decision making by consensus. Leadership responsibilities rotate routinely among members; governance is egalitarian and participatory.
The Ayllus is stable enough to have survived long after the conquest in more remote areas, but the Spanish and their Creole successors had other uses for Ayllu lands and populations, and by the middle of the twentieth century, they were very diminished. But in the eighties people began to advocate their revival, and by the nineties a national network of Ayllus was well under way. Dangl traces this expanding reconstructive effort and its complicated relationships with successive governments, the campesino union, etc.
This book was written at a time when Evo Morales was nearing the end of his third term. It was clear that while Bolivia’s first indigenous president had been in office — since 2005 — the county had undergone substantial economic expansion, and that those who had benefited most notably were the poorest, that is, mostly the indigenous. Not only were they better off economically, they had also developed a new understanding of their place in their own country.
The symbols of Tupak Katari and Bartolina Sisa evolved as the MAS, understandably, adopted them wholeheartedly, but more in their role as political leaders and less as revolutionaries. But the MAS government has been criticized for some decisions that are inconsistent with the vision that the Kataristas articulated. As an astute observer, Dangl alludes to some of those contradictions, but to analyze them in depth would be outside the scope of the book.
The Kataristas presented an idealized pre-Columbian society, outlining a socialist vision that many Bolivians would like to make a reality. The ideas of national liberation and communal society have taken root. Benjamin Dangl’s book tells how that came about; it will be a valuable resource in understanding what is to come.
Peter Lackowski is a retired Vermont school teacher who has been visiting and writing about Latin America, including Bolivia, since 2004. See his CounterPunch report from Venezuela this May.
‘Elected by Donors’: The University of Cape Town Fails Palestine, Embraces Israel
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
It was a scandal of the highest caliber. On November 23, the Senate of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa was practically bullied to reverse an earlier decision that called for the academic boycott of Israel. While the story may seem relevant in South Africa’s political and academic contexts, in reality, it exemplifies the
nature of a brewing war between supporters of Palestinian rights and Israeli interests, worldwide.
Kashmir is heading to a point of no return
by Naveed Mehmood Ahmad
The crackdown on the mainstream leadership in Jammu and Kashmir and the inability of the present dispensation, to take into confidence the Abdullah’s and the Mufti’s, is deeply problematic. The political doctrine that has been operating in Kashmir since 1947 has now been challenged.
Untouchability Walls keep rising and falling in Tamil Nadu
by Subhash Gatade
No doubt, the struggle to eradicate caste or doing away with untouchability needs new ideas, new initiatives and a determination to make mountains move. Tamil Nadu’s experience goes to show that a progressive past is no guarantee that your present or future does not get marred
by an utterly regressive turn.
Where are the Safe Spaces?
by Simona Sarma
We always hear people making arguments like “we all have mothers and sisters. So, we must respect women”. Clearly, that is not enough. The abusers and rapists also have mothers and sisters and they still go out there and do what they do. Respect shouldn’t stem from the presence of other women in men’s lives. We deserve respect because we are humans.
Hang down your Head
by Mitali Chakravarty
Rapes —
How many a day?
How many a week?
How many a year?
Unconstitutional Statement By Odisha Minister On Hyderabad Encounter Killings
Press Release
Regarding unconstitutional statement by Minister of Law of your Cabinet on the infamous Hyderabad ‘encounter’
killings
China has the world’s best merit-based education system. Here’s why
by Jeff J Brown
https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/china-has-the-worlds-best-merit-based-education-system-heres-why
Is it any wonder that the Chinese have the best merit-based academic system in the world? The Chinese do well in these international tests because they work their asses off in the classroom, where there are positive incentives for doing well
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