The UN Report on Accountability in Sri Lanka: Substance and Reactions

The Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka was set up on 22 June 2010 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It had three members: Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia (Chair), Steven Ratner of the US, and Yasmin Sooka of South Africa. It did not engage in fact-finding or investigation, but analysed information from a variety of sources, assessed which of the allegations against both sides in the conflict were credible, and appraised them legally. The report was submitted on 31 March 2011.[1] It was shared with the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) on 12 April, but released to the public only on 25 April in order to give the government a chance to read the report and formulate a response which could be released simultaneously. This invitation was apparently not accepted. 

Identities and Borders in South Asia: A View from the Left

Introduction

From the partition of British India to the civil war in Sri Lanka, the attempt to impose national borders in accordance with ethnic, linguistic or religious identities in South Asia has spawned civil wars and crimes against humanity, resulting in almost unimaginable suffering and bloodshed. This is all the more preposterous in a region where migration and the mixing of peoples and cultures have been occurring from time immemorial. The Left potentially has a conceptual and theoretical framework which would allow it to propose solutions to these conflicts, yet flawed interpretations of ‘the right to self-determination’ have led many on the Left to compound the problems instead. A different interpretation suggests that the key goals should be less violence and more democracy, and taking down barriers between peoples rather than erecting more and more of them.

The Politics of Globalisation: Theoretical Debates

 Defining globalisation

Globalisation has become a buzz-word, yet there are widely differing conceptions of what it means. Part of the problem is that those who use the word seldom bother to define it. Prima facie, it would appear that a globalised world is one in which there are no barriers (other than purely natural and technological ones) to the movement of people, products, money and ideas around the world. But globalisation in this very general sense pre-dates capitalism and the formation of nation-states. Clearly, this is not the subject of current debates about globalisation, although it is not irrelevant to them. It is presumably in order to clarify this point that various adjectives are used to qualify ‘globalisation’, such as ‘capitalist’, ‘imperialist’ and ‘neoliberal’. However this creates new problems, because these adjectives have their own meanings. When they are combined with ‘globalisation’, where do these meanings end and the meaning of globalisation begin? 

Introduction to Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India

 

The politics of globalisation

Globalisation has had a profound impact on labour worldwide. But what, exactly, has this impact been? Enthusiastic proponents of globalisation in its heretofore dominant form argue that it levels the playing field between developed and developing countries, creating employment in the latter and enabling them to pull themselves out of poverty (cf T.Friedman 2005). Diametrically opposed to them are the passionate proponents of de-globalisation, who see globalisation as synonymous with inequality and oppression, and advocate disabling the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and transnational corporations (cf. Bello 2000).

The economic crisis, which started in the US in September 2008 and swept through the world, left the first camp in disarray. With financial institutions collapsing, millions of jobs being lost, GDP shrinking and world trade contracting (Wade 2009), even Thomas Friedman (2009) had to admit that the market was ‘hitting the wall’. The opposite camp, predictably, was triumphant: ‘The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization,’ proclaimed Walden Bello (2009).

However, there is a third position, which represents the majority of workers throughout the world. They have been fighting a losing battle for jobs, better employment conditions and social security for over three decades, a struggle that has become more desperate since the downturn. While it is clear that the model of globalisation pursued so far has been a disaster for them, de-globalisation would mean a further loss of jobs for workers in exporting countries, and raise both costs of production for companies using their products and the cost of living for consumers. Dissatisfied with both these positions, international unions have advocated building workers’ rights into the new global order (cf. ICFTU 1999), but this has yet to emerge as a concrete alternative.

This book argues that it is not globalisation as such but the dominant neoliberal model of it, alongside traditional authoritarian labour relations, that have exerted downward pressure on labour standards.  It attempts to put flesh on the bones of the third alternative by looking at workers’ responses to globalisation: responses which indicate that labour is ‘a social force which is central to the development of the international political economy and international relations’ (Harrod and O’Brien 2002a: 8).

Kashmir, Socialists, and the Right to Self-Determination

The bloodshed in Kashmir beginning in June 2010 gave rise to a heated debate in India concerning the causes of and possible solutions to the conflict. A meeting in Delhi organized by the left-wing Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners on 21 October was entitled ‘Azadi (Freedom) – the Only Way’. Interpreting ‘azadi’ as shorthand for ‘the right to self-determination’, the keynote speakers – writer-activist Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Hurriyat – argued that the only solution to the dispute in Kashmir was freedom for Jammu and Kashmir from India. The audience and other speakers, including Varavara Rao speaking for the Communist Party of India (Maoist), concurred, although the conference was invaded by Kashmiri members of the Hindu Right, who staged a protest and later brought charges of sedition against the speakers.[1] At around the same time, a parliamentary delegation was sent to Kashmir, followed by the appointment of three civil-society ‘interlocutors’ by the Indian government to speak to and obtain the opinions of all sections of the population in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

Dilemmas of the 'Right of Nations to Self-Determination'

The hectic discussion over the Kashmir meeting in Delhi in October [2010] entitled ‘Azadi – The Only Way’ has made it urgent to revisit the debate between Lenin and Luxemburg on the right of nations to self-determination. Lenin, starting from his experience in imperialist Russia, insisted on the right of nations like the Ukraine to self-determination (in the sense of their right to form separate states), contending that denial of this right would merely strengthen Great Russian nationalism. In a colonial situation, Lenin was surely right. When a country is under foreign occupation, all sections other than a very small number of collaborators want to be free of the occupiers, even if there are sharp differences between these sections. A striking example is RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) which, despite speaking for a section of the population which is sorely oppressed by the Taliban, and continuing to fight against it, nonetheless shares with the latter the goal of ending the occupation by US and NATO forces. In such situations, the right of an occupied nation to self-determination makes sense.

So why did Rosa Luxemburg reject the whole notion so passionately? Her question was: Who embodies or represents the ‘nation’, given that it consists of groups that are often at loggerheads with one another? ‘The “nation” should have the “right” to self-determination. But who is that “nation” and who has the authority and the “right” to speak for the “nation” and express its will? How can we find out what the “nation” actually wants?’ she asks (Luxemburg 1909). This is surely a valid question where the territory claimed by those who speak for the nation-to-be is shared by others (who may be a minority or even the majority) who do not want to be part of that vision. In such situations, more complex than the clearcut opposition between an imperial power and a colony, Luxemburg’s question needs to be taken seriously.

In Memory of My Mother

 

My mother Pauline Hensman, born Pauline Swan on 1 December 1922 in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), died peacefully on 21 May 2010 in London. She was the daughter of Erin Swan and James Swan, who worked his way up from the lowest grade to become a foreman in the railway workshop at Maradana. She had childhood memories of creeping through the fence with her elder sister Rosine and younger brother Edward to get to the office of the workshop, in order to dance and sing to the amused clerical staff in return for paper and pencils. She also had memories of the tramway strike of 1929, which was supported by the railway workers. According to her, when the employers attempted to break the strike using British management staff to drive the trams, the workers retaliated by throwing buckets of nightsoil at them. I have no idea whether this is an accurate recollection or not, given that she would have been just six years old at the time, but what was undeniable was her glee at the discomfiture of the colonial bosses at this unusual form of industrial action! On another occasion, when her mother was attacked with a knife by a drunk and violent man whose wife she had befriended, Pauline bit him so hard that he was forced to back off. My grandmother lost a couple of teeth in that encounter, so one can imagine what might have happened if her daughter had not come to the rescue!