Beginning to See the Light: No Pasaran

 

‘The regime is moving towards censorship of dreams

It’s about time for blasting confrontation

Pack of bitches of the sexist regime

Begs the feminist wedge for forgiveness.’

 

No pasarán became a slogan for the 35,000 volunteers of the International Brigades who travelled to Spain to defend its legal government from Franco’s fascists.

In Ukraine, President Zelenskiy drew a similar parallel saying: ‘This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules, and peaceful coexistence. Anyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come.’

In 1936 the ‘Brigaders’ were fighting a war about moral truth. Western democracies were too terrified of Hitler to send troops or weapons, the brigaders argued that fascism could only be stopped with arms. Five months after the end of the Spanish Civil War Hitler started WW2.

Last Thursday witnessed one of those ‘I remember where I was…’ moments, when the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, in a speech declared: ‘The invasion of Ukraine is a paradigm shift on the scale of 9/11.’

9/11 was a clarion call to democracies to defend a fundamental principle of freedom. The situation in Ukraine presents the same challenge, but the threat is greater. Russia’s actions violate the basic concept of sovereignty and self-determination by which nations coexist, presenting a challenge to all freedom loving democracies. 

 

‘Russia’s actions violate the basic concept of sovereignty and self-determination by which nations coexist’

 

Unlike al-Qaida, Putin has vast nuclear capabilities, and a large army, albeit largely composed on unwilling conscripts. 9/11, and the resulting war on terror distracted the western democracies allowing Putin to dismantle Russian democracy, and advancing towards this current conflict, via land grabs on Georgia in 2008, and the Crimea in 2014.

His aggression isn’t new we just weren’t paying attention. Even today, his method of terrorising the civilian population to force capitulation are based on tried and tested tactics in Syria and Chechnya.

Post-9/11 hawks spoke of a ‘clash of civilisations’, creating dissent against Islam rather than a narrowly defined group of violent jihadists. This lead to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter in pursuit of weapons that did not exist, when all that was required were limited operations aimed at al-Qaida.

We must learn from this, the fight is against Putin and Putinism, not Russia or Russians. Most Russians should be seen as our allies, they have been robbed by him and his cronies, and forced into a war most did not want.

The world, led by the US, needs to realise that dictators and totalitarian states don’t understand diplomacy and negotiation, only force. Putin’s invasion has been a wake-up call for many. He expected the global powers to sacrifice Ukraine, rather than come to their aid.

As Truss said in her speech:

‘If we let Putin’s expansionism go unchallenged it would send a dangerous message to would-be aggressors and authoritarians around the world. We can’t allow that to happen.

‘We must start with the principle that the only thing aggressors understand is strength … and we must start by working together to stop Putin’s offensive in Ukraine.’

‘That means acting now. It means being tough – because we know that the costs will only rise if we don’t. The public understands the gravity of this moment. They see the terrible suffering caused by this pre-planned, barbaric and illegal invasion against a European democracy and they recognise that the world has changed.’

Truss targeted further on sanctions, including a full Swift ban, freezing all Russian banking assets, and encouraging more countries to join the effort. The situation with Swift is complicated by German insistence that Russian energy-related banks be kept within the system.

This last point highlights the reliance some western economies have on Russian energy, E.G., Italy and Germany. By comparison Russia supplies only 8% of Britain’s oil and 4% of our gas.

One of the few beneficiaries of the war are the oil and gas companies. In addition to soaring profits, they are using the fear of fuel shortages to position themselves as crucial to governments in ways that could be detrimental to the climate crisis. Marc van Baal, of Follow This, a group of 8,000 green shareholders in oil and gas companies, said:

‘The leaders of oil and gas companies really have shown in the last years that they want to hold on to their old business model. This is what they understand – turning hydrocarbons into petro-dollars. So I am afraid this is what they are telling governments they should do.’

Johnson has already said that alongside the accelerated deployment of renewables will be greater production from the North Sea. There is the potential for growth prospects and upside [for fossil fuel producers].’

In addition, last week Johnson defended oil companies against calls for a windfall tax, saying: ‘The net result of that would be to simply see the oil companies put their prices up yet higher and make it more difficult for them to do what we need them to do … divesting from dependence on Russian oil and gas.’

A reminder of the consequences of a continuing dependence on fossil fuels came from the International Energy Agency, which reported on Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions had shown the highest ever annual increase in 2021:

 

• Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, which make up the bulk of greenhouse gases, had risen by 6% in 2021 to 36.3bn tonnes, their highest-ever level.
• The increase in global CO2 emissions was more than 2bn tonnes, the largest in history in absolute terms.

 

Fracking, which had been dismissed as an alternative is rearing its ugly head, especially amongst right-wing Tories, led by Steve Baker, the MP for High Wycombe and a trustee of the climate denial thinktank Global Warming Policy Foundation.

However, opinions amongst them differ; Blackpool MP, Scott Benton, a member of Baker’s Net Zero Scrutiny Group, who had previously mocked the Cop26 climate summit, is against allowing fracking in his constituency due to the threat of earthquakes.

A spokesman for Johnson opened the door to a shift in the UK’s position on fracking on Wednesday, saying that ‘all options’ would be considered before the forthcoming energy strategy is completed. A No 10 source confirmed it was under review.

Not only do we need to consider the environment, we need to be careful not to replace one rogue nation with another, which is the concern with producers such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

 

‘we need to be careful not to replace one rogue nation with another’

 

What will Johnson’s humiliating dash to plead with Saudi Arabia’s ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to lower the price of oil cost us? Will we continue to turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses, such as the state sponsored murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the continued devastation of the Yemenis, or the execution at the weekend of 81 men, some of them political prisoners?

Oil-producing dictators know that it will help sanctions if they raise production to lower energy prices. However, we need to understand that this spike in prices is caused by a war which will end, meaning that prices will fall. We must resist the temptation to run into the open arms of another totalitarian state.

The ultimate victims of totalitarianism and war are people, refugees fleeing the oppression and fighting.

This time the government is at least saying the right things compared to 2015 when David Cameron spoke of a ‘swarm of migrants’ crossing the Mediterranean

I use the term ‘saying’ as, true to form, their words are just that. Krzysztof Mikucki, a Polish-born builder living in the UK, was trying to bring his Ukrainian wife and her family to safety. He thought they’d be allowed to apply for visas at the ferry port, instead they were kept waiting for 4-hours while Border Force staff chatted and laughed among themselves. ‘At 5.30am they just gave us a piece of paper with a phone number on it.’

To be honest we aren’t good at supporting refugees; last August, the government made promises of support to Afghans fleeing the advance of the Taliban. Many that made it to the UK are still in hotel accommodation, because, if they find homes of their own then they lose funding for integration. After the 2018 Windrush scandal, the government promised compensation, 4-years on that is till beset by delays.

The Home Office and its ministers are equally culpable. 

At the start of the Ukraine crisis ministers had a choice; they could follow Europe’s lead and make safe passage for refugees as frictionless as possible, or they could leave Ukrainians to wrestle with a system that has been designed to treat would-be migrants as suspect. Ministers chose the latter, only relaxing the rules in recent days after they came under increasing public and political pressure.

The Home Office is hostile towards immigrants and is obsessed with control. An example of this was their reaction when compared to Ireland, which has waived visa requirements for Ukrainians. Via the Telegraph they commented that Ireland’s open-door policy created a ‘security risk’ for the UK because of the common travel area that allows relatively free movement between the two countries.

The current Home Secretary, Priti Patel, typifies all the Home Office’s failings. A former colleague described her as a ‘blunt instrument’ who seeks to do and say the thing that will be perceived to be the toughest anyone could possibly do or say in any given scenario. She is typical of the current political environment.

 

‘a ‘blunt instrument’ who seeks to do and say the thing that will be perceived to be the toughest anyone could possibly do or say in any given scenario’

 

For years our culture has been dominated by a right-wing discourse that presents migration as first and foremost a problem. Typical of this is the Conservative MP Edward Leigh who he praised Patel during a debate on 2 March for ‘not throwing away the immigration rulebook’, since his constituents had already ‘done our bit in terms of migration from eastern Europe’.

We finish closer to home with the thugs in blue, AKA the police.

On Monday, 4-protesters occupied a house in London’s Belgravia supposedly owned by the Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska who is on the UK sanctions list. If this was the home of you or I the police might turn-up sometime soon. In this instance they were in quick attendance, and in numbers; at least eight vans and two squad cars, as well as a JCB.

As the author and kleptocracy expert Oliver Bullough remarked: ‘There must be 20 police officers outside the Belgrave Square property occupied by anarchists, which is I reckon approximately 20 more than ever checked the provenance of the money that bought it.’

If that wasn’t enough, details are now emerging of an incident from 2020 when police officers strip searched a 15-year girl at school. There was no one present, and no parental consent was sought even though the girl was a ‘minor’. I won’t go into detail as it borders on the perverse. But, what chance did she have, black, female, everything our police love to victimise. It’s called law and order, apparently! 

This week rather than including comments on my lyrical choice in the note to my editor I have included it the text. In tribute to the heroic protestor Marina Ovsyannikova who interrupted Russia’s most-watched news show live on air to protest the invasion of Ukraine, I have chosen two songs from Pussy Riot.

You may remember them as the all-girl punk band who have also been ‘guests’ of Putin. The opening lyrics were from Путин зассал’ (‘Putin pissed his pants’), we finish with ‘Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest’.

 

‘Fill the city, all the squares and streets,

There are many in Russia, beat it,

Open all the doors, take off the shoulder straps

Taste the smell of freedom together with us’

 

Powerful stuff from Philip as ever as horrific scenes unfold – Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko tells the BBC fighting has reached the city centre and that ‘there is no city left’ as it is believed 1,300 people are trapped in a bombed out theatre, outside which ‘children’ was daubed on the pavement.

Europe 2022.

Philip’s ‘sketches’ are always a passionate preamble to the main event, and I know that there is nothing I could do to nothing to make them more powerful:

‘This week we look at history and comparable events.

There are two I have featured on. The first is the inevitable comparison with the rise of fascism in the 1930s, and how western governments looked the other way. Some of the first people to recognise the danger were the “brigaders” who joined-up to fight alongside government troops against Franco’s fascists.

They understood the threat posed, especially from Hitler, and realised that they only responded to force.  

The second, as recognised by Liz Truss, is 9/11. The difference here is that 9/11 was an attack by extremist terrorists, whereas the Ukraine is one country violating another.

9/11 was followed by two mistakes. Firstly, the hawks and right-wing press demonised Islam in general, rather than recognising that al Qaeda were simply an extremist offshoot and total unrepresentative of Muslim’s in general. The second was being distracted from the main event, the rise of Putin.

This time we need to see it for what it is. Putin and Putinism are not representative of Russia or its people. We need to target him, not them.

Energy has become an issue because nations are over dependent on Russian oil and gas which, despite what the government might say, isn’t true of us. There are two areas for concern, first we become overly dependent on fossil fuel and allow the oil companies to shape future policy, and secondly that we jump from the Russian bed to the Saudi one. Bad baddies and good baddies!

We briefly look at the refugee crisis and our response. Terms like token, and hollow words spring to mind. The government is again out-of-step with public opinion.

We finish with the police, who wouldn’t! Firstly, they break all records when demonstrators get into the mansion of an oligarch subject to sanctions. The second astounded even my low opinion of the force, the strip search, and humiliation of a 15-yr old black girl. Would it have happened if she was white? No.

This week the lyrics are in the article (except I fear ‘Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest’ may have been expunged from the internet in the way that I have been denied access to RT despite having a premium package. Instead I have included a video of Pussy Riot going down. So to speak. Ed’. Enjoy!

‘Prisoners Exercising’ – @coldwar_steve

 

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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