 Hello and welcome to Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch, I am Shriya. In today's episode we talk about women's rights taking centre stage in the ongoing movement against pension reforms in France where trade unions organise an all-out strike on March 7 and 8. Next up, a Canada district school board in Toronto has become the first in the country to recognise the existence of caste discrimination in the city schools. And finally, we look at why Saudi Arabia is seeking security guarantees from the United States before full normalisation of its relations with Israel. As the movement against pension reform continues in France, trade unions across the country called for a 48 hours general strike on March 7 and 8 for the first time since 1968. This year, International Working Women's Day actions in France were marked as a tribute to all the workers who will be the first to experience the effects of Macron's pension reform, many of whom are women whose jobs are invisible, careers cut short and salaries inadequate. Anna from People's Health Movement joins us now with latest updates on this story. Thank you for joining us, Anna, welcome to the show. And first off, the question is that this protest is being considered historic because it's the first time that something like this has happened in the trade action, you know, history in France. So can you also tell us what were the key demands raised at the protest? Yes, so, of course, this protest actually started around the time when the government of President Macron floated the idea of a pension reform, which would raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 years of age. And the idea caused a wave of protests and of opposition by both trade unions, but also other people's movements, as well as left parties. Now, what you said is right. So it's the strike that took place from the 7th to the 8th of March is historic in many ways. First of all, you know, it's the first time in France since 1968 when we saw mass protests in the country that the trade unions have called for a general strike, which lasted for more than a day. So it was a 48 hour strike, and everybody was was invited to take part. So that was one part of it. And then the second part of it is, of course, that it was the first time that the general strike actually covered the 8th of March. So International Working Women's Day. And that's of great importance for the feminist movement, because finally we have seen a kind of convergence of the overall trade union movement and the feminist group that have worked with the trade union movement and that work within the trade union movement. So it's this wave of action is also something that's very likely to continue because the pension reform, it's still being discussed in the French parliament. And it seems that the government is not really ready to back down. So apparently they're counting on support from right wing parties to actually carry through the reform. But on the other hand, we have heard from trade unions and from left politicians over the last days and weeks that they're also not ready to back down. So if Macron insists on going through with the reform, the trade unions will insist on continuing and actually expanding the action that we are seeing today. Right. And you also mentioned about how this particular general strike is a part of the larger movement against the pension reforms. Since it happened on March 8, which is a significant day, the International Working Women's Day, can you also highlight why some of the demands and how is the pension reform going to affect the women workers in France in terms of, for example, health? Yeah. So of course, again, very true. The trade union movement has been very clear from the very beginning of their actions that women are going to be among the biggest losers of the pension reform if they go through. So this is because the raising the pension age would affect workers in sectors like health and education where we see more women and who also are involved in very difficult work, not only psychologically but also physically. So asking a nurse to work until she's 64 is not something that society should be doing because it's just something that takes a toll on her own health and it's also something that has implications for the quality of care that the health system is delivering. And of course, the implications for women go much beyond that as well. It's not only about the age until when they're working but also about the amount that the pensions will reach once they're retired. In France, we're already seeing a gap in addition to the gender pay gap. We're also seeing a gender pension gap because women are likely to get lower pensions than men at this point of time as well. And then finally, of course, there's the never-ending load of unpaid care work that women do at home and which is also not something that's going to decrease if the pension goes through. Together with other austerity reforms that might impact the social security system in France. So it's something that has very wide implications for women and it's been good to see how many parts of the social justice movement have recognized that. So it's not just the feminist movement who has been on the streets on the 8th of March as you pointed out. It was also the health movement which has been supporting and which has been working with the feminist movement since last year as well. So a kind of repetition of what they initiated last date of March when they called for an end to austerity for more investment in public services in France and for convergence of all these parts of the social justice movement to promote the rights of women. Right. Thank you so much for joining us today, Anna. Thanks. An important development for the South Asian diaspora in Canada took place as Toronto's school board became the first in Canada to recognize that caste discrimination exists in the city's schools. It has asked a provincial human rights body to help in creating a framework to address the issue. The Toronto District School Board on Wednesday voted in favour of a motion to that effect. In February, Seattle had become the first city in United States to ban caste discrimination. Earlier today, we spoke to Anish from People's Dispatch for the latest on this story. Yeah. So the Canadian public school system has adopted the resolution after possibly demands from within the Indian community. Obviously, you have an immense level of debate and discussion and discourse happening within the community which is also important. And obviously, you also have statements of Hinduffo, we are flying around all over the place. But this is significant in the sense that the caste system or the caste attitudes, let's say it's not necessarily a system we're talking about, but attitudes and discrimination and practices of discrimination has always been quite untouched within the North American systems, be it when it comes to legal cases or even the kind of discrimination that might happen in academic spaces like schools and universities. And despite the significance, the significant presence of Indian Americans, especially Hindu Americans, in these spaces, you just do not have that sort of, you never really had that level of discourse happening in public space, on talking about problems within the community that might need to be addressed on a systemic level. Now, this resolution definitely puts caste discrimination at par with racial and gender discrimination and that only makes it significant because obviously, you might have school districts or schools where there is a significant number of Indian Americans studying and if you have bullying or any other kind of issues happening or violence happening among students or within the cause of the school system and the school board and the students itself, you might have instances of caste discrimination being present, but now it gets recognized as a discriminatory practice and that can be liable to a lawsuit and so on. We have to talk about the history of the diaspora, the Indian diaspora in North America. Obviously, in the early part of the 20th century, you never really had this issue of caste being discussed because many of them came as workers and so you had a diversity of people in terms of religion and their caste location, but it is the latter part of the immigration from the subcontinent, especially during the 70s, 80s and 90s where you also had a rise in political Hinduism or what Indians call Hindutva happening at the same time and that also being exported from India to places like the US and Canada where you have wealthier, better to do Indians studying in universities, having decent jobs or being professionals in different fields, bringing that as a cultural asset into these nations and very often you had pretty much any talk about changing or reform or any kind of progressive development within the community being completely untouched because obviously these communities dominated the discourse and also demographically within the community. Now recently you have had this new generation of college educated students, student-led movements especially, that is bringing up these progressive points that needs to be addressed, especially caste discrimination, especially in cases where Indian Americans or Hindu Americans are quite a significant population, if not a majority but a very significant minority in several universities and academic spaces across the continent actually and in these instances when you have a new generation of oppressed caste students and other communities and new immigrants coming to these cities, these countries and the kind of discrimination they might face because of their caste location is something that was never really addressed earlier but now you have it being addressed on a more war footing from within the community. Many of the, we had a similar resolution happening in Seattle where Shama Savant, a socialist, a sort of cross-kite socialist, but socialist activist who brought up the, was the one who brought up the resolution, she was the only Indian American in the council, the same case happened in Toronto and you see a significant push from within the community to bring these progressive changes, so what you're seeing is that sort of these issues of caste and sectarian hatred that were otherwise never talked about, never touched within the community now being put out in the open and being scrutinized in the way that it needs to be right now, so this is definitely a step forward in many ways. And finally, in a new development in Israel-Arab relations, Saudi Arabia is seeking security guarantees from the United States in the form of a civilian nuclear program and lesser restrictions on arms sale as it moves closer to officially normalizing relations with Israel. We spoke to Abdul from People's Dispatch on this issue. Welcome to this episode, Abdul. So first off, there is a certain push that can be reflected in the terms that Saudi is offering to the United States for this normalization. Can you help us understand what is the objective behind such kind of a push towards normalization? Well, it seems that Saudi Arabia is looking for a greater regional role in our world and it basically wants to neutralize its larger, you can say, what it perceives as a potential threat from Iran and that basically is the motivation behind seeking a much more vibrant and much more, you can say, fruitful security guarantee from the United States in case and it seems that Saudi Arabia reads that there is a possibility to kind of get that particular security guarantee for example, civilian nuclear deal with U.S. and great lesser restrictions on the export of weapons and so on and so forth at this moment because U.S., it seems, is a much more desperate condition to kind of establish a relationship with Saudi Arabia because as we know, last few months there has been a kind of a very, you can say, there was a kind of some kind of uncertainty about the relationship between Saudi Arabia and U.S. We saw it during the Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia when Biden tried to persuade Saudi Arabia to kind of not cut the overall production of oil production in OPEC but Saudi Arabia went ahead with it and we saw that how Biden's utterances about making Saudi Arabia pariah state would have been the reason behind it. So that had led to some kind of distance between Saudi Arabia and U.S. and that was something U.S. did not, does not like to have that kind of particular situation and so Saudi Arabia sees that desperation and therefore it also sees that U.S. wants to kind of appease Netanyahu, want to appease Israel in general and relationship with Saudi Arabia, normalization with Saudi Arabia would be a great achievement for Netanyahu at this moment. So giving all these calculations, it seems Saudi Arabia is looking for a big share in the regional politics and that can only be achieved, it seems according to their calculation if U.S. is basically guarantees, guarantees much vibrant role in the Saudi Arabia's larger security and geopolitical calculations. Right. And if this proposal comes through, there are implications for in general Israel-Arab relations for the entire region. What do you think they can look like? Well, it is by and large already established that Saudi Arabia is has a very quote unquote vibrant relationship, not open but hidden relationship with Israel. Few months back, it allowed the Israeli planes to fly over its airspace. It has also basically not been very vocal despite the fact that it's on and off does issue statements, formal statements condemning the uptick of violence in occupied territories, in Palestinian territories. Other than that, Saudi Arabia has not been very vocal about the Palestinian cause in the last few years. So it is already by and large established that there is a clandestine relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So whether Saudi Arabia signs the Abraham Accord like Bahrain and UAE or not, it hardly matters. So overall whether it will have any impact on the larger Arab-Israel relationship or not, formally I don't think there will be any impact, but of course it has some symbolic value for Israel in particular and Netanyahu also. Because Netanyahu and Israel has tried to argue that they are no more considered to be pariah in the Arab world and the relationship with formal relationship with UAE Bahrain has kind of made it possible to argue on those lines. And therefore it is only the Iranians and Iranian back elements in the in the region which are opposed to Israeli existence and are talking about basically taking into Israeli stance and Arab world is not with them. But of course this is a false narrative as we all know the relationship between Israel and so-called Arab countries is basically a relationship between the Israeli state and the elites in the Arab world. The ruling classes in Bahrain, in UAE and maybe in Saudi Arabia in future in Egypt for example, they have a good relationship with the Israelis, but the larger population has been opposed to Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and have been opposed to any normalization of relationship with Israel. Some of the surveys quoted in the New York piece from which this particular point has emerged that Saudi Arabia wants to have normalized the relationship with the US says, those opinion polls says that more than 75% of the Saudi population is opposed to any kind of normalization with Israel and they are opposed to the entire idea of the Abraham Accord. So the people in the Arab world are still with Palestinian cause, the ruling classes with whatever their narrow calculation of interest are basically trying to see closer relationship with the US and Israel becomes a bargaining chip in this entire calculation. Thank you so much for joining us today. And that's all we have for today. For more such stories please visit www.people'sdispatch.org. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.