Kronic Escapism.

It isn’t new to anyone that we can now buy synthetic marijuana from stores down the street. Essentially it could be seen as an example as to what the effects of legalising marijuana would be. First hand I have seen people buy Kronic and all the other brands every night, spending more money than they have on getting high. As we are currently seeing with Kronic, if marijuana became legal, it would become openly accessible to people who would normally not use it. Kronic’s effects seem to be harsher than marijuana’s but little is known for the moment other than it causes “vomiting, drowsiness, chest pain, palpitations and dissociation from reality”, the ODT reports. OGNA is not against the use of marijuana or “synthetic cannabinoids”, however we are interested in the reasons why these drugs are being used.

The government profits from selling cigarettes and alcohol, undoubtedly it must profit from selling Kronic, and the fact that so little information is known and that Kronic packets aren’t labelled with contents or precautions implies the government is earning a lot of money on them. It is in the governments benefit to have the working class, or students as the future one, hooked onto drugs. They benefit economically but they can also use drugs to keep the working class under check. Why do workers drink or smoke pot? Is in search of happiness? While there are social aspects involved with drinking and smoking, the addiction to these drugs fool people into thinking that they are being liberated from the stresses of day-to-day life. Thus people use them more often, at the expense this entails, to escape in search of happiness. What are people fleeing though? If they are fleeing the stresses of education we must look into that, if they are fleeing the bad work conditions they have to submit themselves to at low wages, we must look at that too.

It is true that workers and students have stressful lives. For workers, the low-paid salaries we receive in New Zealand forces us to work longer hours in order to have enough to pay for rent, groceries, education, children etc. Having to balance this with our social lives, children... is definitely not an easy job. For students the increased workload and obligations to succeed that have been put onto us force us to slave away behind books so that we can come out the other end of the manufacturing line with a diploma and a couple of letters in our hand. Then we have to add to the mix the stress of part-time work, student loans and finding jobs. It is no wonder workers and students seek to release themselves and find fleeting instances of happiness through drugs. Here we can see employers shovelling on another duty onto us. We are constantly threatened to work hard so we don’t lose our jobs or in order to be competitive, and then do so again the next day and the next while employers or ministers reap the benefits of our toll.

Employers, under laws such as the ninety day bill, can easily sack workers who are being less and less represented by passive unions. The key to decreasing our dependency on alcohol and marijuana is to build stronger unions that can improve conditions in the work place and gain benefits for students. This can only be achieved through the initiative of the average worker or student. We have to build strong unions that won’t back down, unions concerned with the membership and run democratically from bottom-up. This way we can gain pay increses and improve work conditions which will make our lives outside the workplace happier and more fulfilling.


D. F. Benson-Guiu

A Step Towards Peace in Afghanistan

On the 22nd of June Barack Obama declared victory in Afghanistan. He promised to remove American Troops after a ten year occupation that has achieve little more than the death of thousands of civilians, a few thousand troops, and the waste of more than one trillion dollars. This follows a comment a few weeks prior from General Petraeus, leader of the US forces in Afghanistan, who said “We have managed to reverse some of the Taliban’s momentum,” as if this was a huge accomplishment for the world largest and most well funded army after ten years of killing. He also mentioned that all of the gains made by the US were “fragile and reversible”, a quote that needless to say did not made it into any headlines.

The last ten years in  Afghanistan
After 9/11, US president George Bush, British Prime-minister Tony Blair, along with other Western leaders, claimed the Taliban in Afghanistan, a former US ally, were giving Al Qaida a safe haven. To sell a war to the public the US promoted this alongside the idea that they were going to “Liberate” the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban’s oppression. The Taliban’s treatment of women was spun as a reason to go to war. Laura Bush, George Bush’s wife, and Cherie Blair took to wearing a piece of fabric torn from a burka to symbolise the fight for women’s freedom in Afghanistan. It is true that the Taliban’s treatment of woman was oppressive but it soon became clear that the US were not out to change this when the largest woman’s rights group in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), talked out against the US invasion and demanded the Western forces leave. They have expressed on may occasions that the conditions woman are subject to are no better, if not worse than was before the invasion; thousands of innocent people have died; there is wider spread corruption than before; and the country’s infrastructure is far worse due to regular bombing raids that have destroyed homes, hospitals, mosques and farms.    

The liberation of the Afghani people was never the aim of the US and NATO. After eight years of US aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance as well as former Russian puppets and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on the Afghan people. Hamid Karzai, the head of this puppet regime is well known to be deeply corrupt and just works in the interest of the US and former members of the Northern alliance, not for the needs of the Afghan people.

After ten years, 140,000 NATO troops, the vast majority of them from the US, are still in occupation; different commanders-in-chief and imperialist strategies, from troops surge to counter-insurgency,have come and gone; and the Taliban now controls more of the country than it did five years ago. The much-vaunted aim of women’s liberation is rarely mentioned today and violence against women is rife. Twenty girls’ schools were firebombed or destroyed in just six months last year and Karzai recently attempted to push through laws to legalise rape in marriage. This would have also meant women could not leave their homes without their husband’s permission. It is estimated that in Afghanistan there are 1.5 million people suffering from immediate starvation, as well as 7.5 million suffering as a result of the country’s dire situation.



The Stats: Huge numbers of civilian deaths are the result of the US invasion


New Zealand’s Role
The New Zealand Government has played a role in the last ten years of Afghanistan’s history as it has supported the US in is brutal war. This may not be something that you would expect from a country that was ranked one of the world’s most peaceful in the 2010 Global Peace Index (GPI), a publication developed by an international panel of peace experts and published by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The New Zealand government sent troops to support the US-led invasion of Afghanistan immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just like the US, the NZ government uses rhetoric about “security” and “fighting terrorism” as a justification for the continued involvement of the NZDF (Defense Force). The language used by the government creates the image of altruistic action by the military. Soldiers are “peacekeepers” sent to do “reconstruction”—which obscures the reality that the Afghani government was installed by the US for economic reasons. If the New Zealand government wanted to do reconstruction work they would send builders, plumbers and engineers, not people trained to kill with guns. In the same way the term “peacekeeping troop” is an oxymoron- guns create the opposite of peace. It was only after the media revealed that the NZSAS (Special Air Service) was there that the government admitted to their involvement. They loudly trumpet the “reconstruction team” as “humanitarian aid” when in fact they are there to prop up the US military occupation.

Research by investigative journalist Nicky Hager makes it clear that the NZ Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) have been heavily focused on supporting the US War on Terror since September 11, 2001. When the US switched it’s attention to Iraq, so did we. It seems while New Zealand sits happy at number one on the GPI, our own tax dollars are funding an intelligence operation that supports the very same wars we once condemned.  NZ serves as cog in the war in Afghanistan. Not something you would expect from a “Peaceful Nation”.

 Two examples of the horrific effects of coalition bombing on civilians. On the left, a child who was injured– he is better than many. On the right—many graves are dug after bombs hit.

Current Struggles to Create Peace
This equating of winning a war with “progress” is never questioned by our media or our society. It is simply an implicit part of being involved. If we’re killing more of the enemy than they are of us, it is progress; if we’re not, then we need to try harder to kill more. War as a method of progress is never questioned, just its ‘success’ rate. Progress is in the eye of the war wager. As outlined above this war has not brought progress of any kind. It has only destroyed what progress had been made, and set Afghanistan back for decades to come.

With money and offers of official posts, the US and its Afghan agents have bought many Afghan intellectuals, writers and poets. As a result the media, instead of raising people’s awareness and mobilizing them for pro-independence, pro-democracy and anti-fundamentalism struggle, inflames and fuels ethnic, sectarian and lingual tensions among Afghan people. Any writer in Afghanistan who does not fit with this line, at the least does not get employed, and at the worst is killed. Almost all Western media shows story after story of poor young soldiers who innocently went off to fight and got killed while ignoring the deaths of civilians. But despite what the media is saying inside and outside of Afghanistan people are starting to organize and rise up to demand better lives, free from US imperialism, the Taliban and other warlords. The removal of US troops can only make this easier for them.

Left:  The perfect way to dress for construction work… it looks like this equipment would be much more useful for destruction rather than construction.     Right: So called “Peace-Keeping”

 A couple of these movements have been shown on American news but only ones with small minority extremist movements with guns as this helps to push the US governments agenda - Only groups that are shooting at American troops are shown as the US can use this to justify why they are there and why they shoot people. They neglect to show peaceful movements that are starting to form. A couple of weeks ago the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers marched through Kabul, to the UN headquarters, bearing a banner with a contrary message, “Peace is the prerequisite for any progress”. The alternatives to the great loudness, speed and force of the military is the quiet, slow, patient, painstaking work of relationship building, work which the AYPVs are doing internationally through Global Days of Listening, and locally through letters, the Bamiyan Peace Park, and other creative initiatives. For example, they made mobile phone pouches out of scrap leather, embroidered the word “peace” on them, and sent them with messages of love to students at schools in Kandahar in the south. The rarity of such action was underscored by the incredulous responses they received, such as, “I can’t believe such a love is possible.” One of the inspiring things about the AYPV’s march is that it didn’t just proclaim a different way, it embodied it. As we’ve all seen in the last few years, protests in Afghanistan typically end in violence and often deaths. Yet the presence of riot police didn’t intimidate or incite these young people to retaliate or flee in fear – instead they responded with active love. “Be alive and happy!” they called to police through beaming smiles.

Other peace movements are also starting to gain traction. The National Peace Jirga (assembly) has organized a series of peace assemblies in recent months, drawing thousands of people. The meetings often feature fiery speakers who condemn international forces for killing civilians – but who also criticize the Taliban. This movement is supported by many Afghan run political groups and other non-government organizations such as “Awakened youth” and various women’s rights groups.

Towards a Better Future
Despite the strengths of Afghan peace groups, most are also beset by weaknesses, says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of the Sciences. "A lot of these parties are organized along ethnic or tribal lines," he says. The Awakened Youth and the National Peace Jirga, for instance, consist mostly of Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group. But these groups are just the start. In order to gain a society in Afghanistan that insures that people are equal and get the resources and opportunities that they need, a grassroots movement that exists and operates across tribal lines must be built. The people of Afghanistan, whether they are being controlled and oppressed  by the US, the Taliban or other tribal leaders, are exploited in the same way as any other lower class around the world- in a system of control and profit making rather than equality and sharing of resources. To create equality, and in doing so peace, they must unite across ethnic and tribal lines and work together to overcome their oppressors. They must organise together through political groups and trade-unions dedicated to non-violent action. This must be done not just in Afghanistan but around the world. “Mountain cannot reach mountain,” goes the Afghan proverb, “only human can reach human.”  This is what real progress looks like – progress for humans to become more humane, more compassionate, more connected. This will not happen through the use of violence as it dehumanizes others and stops relationships building.

Slogans about restoring peace, security, democracy and women’s rights will be empty and amplified claims, as long as Afghanistan has not gained its independence; the Taliban and the Northern Alliance killers are not removed from their positions of power so that true democracy can be instilled; and the billions of dollars they have pillaged from people are not taken back from them. The benchmark to judge if any individual or organization is progressive in the current situation is their struggle in against US occupation, the Taliban and the US in the “National Front”.

Obama speech claiming victory are false, nobody has emerged victorious. But the removal of US forces can be nothing but good for the people of Afghanistan.

J.Llewellyn

Western Media Bias and Hypocrisy: Support for the People of Tibet and Neglect for so Many Others.

The Western mainstream media is often shouting for Tibet’s cause and so it should. Countless cases of exploitation have taken place in Tibet over the last 50 years where Tibetans have had their rights removed and now only a small minority of them can even get jobs and have control over their own lives.But while doing this it fails to support other national liberation movements such as in Chechnya, Kurdistan, Western Sahara, Xinjiang, Palestine and many more.

This is a huge hypocrisy and shows that American support for the Tibetans struggle is purely tokenistic. They are clearly supporting the struggle for their own purposes and not because they actually care that people are suffering and have no democratic rights.

It is all part of the power struggle between the US super-power, and China - the rising super-power. By saying that they are pro-Tibet and by small acts such as president Obama meeting with the Dalai Lama, the USA is sticking its middle finger up to China while not actually doing anything for the Tibetan cause. It is a reminder from the USA that it is still “top power” and a large amount of the money that comes into China comes from American pockets.

During the Cold War the USA did genuinely support the Tibetan struggle for independence — the CIA gave support in the form of supplies and military training to Tibetan independence groups as part of its attempt to undermine Mao’s Revolution. However, with China now being a major player in the global capitalist economy it obviously receives a large amount of Western investment – the majority being from the USA – and its economy relies on this.

Imperialism “supports” Tibet to remind China of where it stands in the global capitalist hierarchy, but it would be against its interests to dismember China — which has become the industrial estate of global capitalism. Western economic interests have increasingly penetrated into Tibet itself, which is facilitated by Chinese control of the region — maintained by repression.

The western media openly talks about Tibet as it openly criticises China. It would seem by watching it as if the Tibetans are the only people on earth whose right to independence is being denied by brutal force and violence.

There is no doubt that the Tibetan people deserve the right to self-determination because it is a democratic right. The desire of many Tibetans for independence reflects the fact that, after 50 years of Chinese rule, Tibetans are marginalized second-class citizens in their own country.

This rule should also apply to the Chechnyan’s; the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria; the people of the Western Sahara who’s territory is occupied by Morocco. Also in Xinjiang, the land north of Tibet, where the Uighurs reside, whose struggle for self-determination against China parallels that of the Tibetans. Notably the Uighurs are Muslim and in the Western world, Islamophobia now occupies the place that had for centuries been reserved for anti-Semitism. This is a major reason why the Tibetans are talked about and not the Uighars even though both were invaded by Mao’s red army at around about the same time and both face Chinese oppression. And of cause the struggle in Palestine, which is always ignored due to the USA’s special relationship with Israel.

The Tibetans have a culture that is appealing to a lot of onlookers from the west and is headed by the Dalai Lama who a lot of Buddhists and non-Buddhist alike look up to. This combined with the lack of “Buddhaphobia” exerted by the American government, and media as a whole, makes the Tibetan struggle a lot more likeable in the media’s eyes. Unlike Islam, Tibetan Buddhism arouses curiosity and sympathy. The picture painted by the media of a beautiful paradise hidden behind the beautiful snow capped peaks of the Himalayas is far different and more appealing than the harsh and baron deserts of the Middle East. The Policy of non-violence is also very attractive and is much easier for imperialist powers to support as opposed to militant Islamist groups who are leading struggles elsewhere. When looked at like this it is easy to see why the western media happily supports the Tibetan struggle but does not support that of the Uighurs. It would not be in line with other things that they support and criticise.

The Chinese regime is also easier to pick on than others. It is hated by many - by capitalists because it is a Communist dictatorship, by Communists because it has become capitalist and distinctly different from real socialism. It promotes a crass and ugly materialism, the very opposite of the spiritual Buddhist monks, who spend their time in prayer and meditation.
Immanuel Kant said that we should "Act as if the principle by which you act were about to be turned into a universal law of nature." The West’s general attitude towards the Tibetan problem does not conform to this rule. It does not reflect the attitude towards the struggle for independence of all other oppressed peoples.

The Chechnyans should have been in a better position. They, too, are a separate people, who have for a long time been oppressed by the Tzars of the Russian Empire, including Stalin and Putin. But alas, they are Muslims. Islam has turned into a synonym for terrorism, it is seen as a religion of blood and murder. In reality it is, of course, the religion of dozens of vastly different peoples, from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kosova to Zanzibar. The vast majority of which do not share the same ideas as the likes of Osama Bin Laden.

The US does not fear Moscow as it fears Beijing. Unlike China, Russia does not look like a country that could dominate the 21st century. The poor Chechnyans, who have no charismatic leader or outstanding spokespersons, have been banished from the headlines, unless a Chechnyan commits an “act of terror” within Russia. For all the world cares, the Russian government can hit them as much as they want, kill thousands and obliterate whole towns.

In the competition for the sympathy of the world media, the Palestinians are unlucky. They have a right to liberation, exactly like the Tibetans. They inhabit a defined territory; they are a specific nation; a clear border exists between them and Israel; and they are unrightfully being oppressed.

But the Palestinians are not favorable in the eyes of Israel and therefore the USA, who almost never fault the Zionists, whatever they do. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial even though the Palestinians are clearly an oppressed people and the two are not linked.

Also, the great majority of the Palestinians are Muslims (even though there are a significant number of Palestinian Christians but you rarely hear of them). Since Islam arouses fear and abhorrence in the West, the Palestinian struggle has become a part of that shapeless, sinister threat, "international terrorism". And since the deaths of Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Palestinians have no particularly impressive leader - neither in Fatah nor in Hamas.

The world media are shedding tears for the Tibetan people who are oppressed by the Chinese government. Who cares about the Palestinians who are being oppressed by the Israeli’s?                              
The Western media paints Tibetans more favorably than other oppressed groups but this does not make either people undeserving of democratic rights. In fact, the simple, spiritual Tibetan Buddhist monk and the deranged Arab terrorist are equally racist stereotypes. Everyone who supports the principles of social justice should support the growing global movement in solidarity with Tibet's struggle for self determination and that off all oppressed groups of people around the world.
It is never going to be the actions of the elite that will give power and democratic rights to the oppressed and make them equals as the elite have vested interests, such as the American’s in their stance towards the Tibetans. Democracy and equality can only be won through a international, organized, grass-roots movement of workers, students and all oppressed people who demand and take what they, as the majority of people on the planet, rightfully deserve. In the words of Karl Marx: “the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”. The only way for all oppressed people around the world to be made equals is through a new system of democratic socialism.

J.Llewellyn
With acknowledgements to U.Avnery and Counterpunch