 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Prashant, it's 15th of April, 2022, where together without Zoe, because Zoe is gallivanting in the northern tip of South America. I'm in the southern tip of South America. We seem to be spread all over the place. You're with Give the People, what they want brought to you every week by People's Dispatch. Prashant and Zoe are the editors. I'm from Globe Trotter. Really happy to be with you again. I think we had a smorgasbord of stories to share with you today. And it may be a curiosity that we've decided to start in France. But this was a big election Prashant. What happened in the French primary of presidential election or rather the first round, what happened? The first round yesterday. The next round is coming up in 10 days. Very close contest actually between three very clearly defined political polls. And I think that's one of the important results. One of the important aspects to note. There was a lot of distinction between these three polls. Although there was also a lot of similarity between the right and I'll come to that. But of course, if you look at the straightforward results in Manuel Macron leading the first round with over 27, close to 28% of the votes. Marine Le Pen, the far right candidate gets 23.1%. Jean-Luc Mélenchon gets 22% the left-wing candidate. And that's quite a creditable achievement. He won more votes than last time. Some interesting demographics if you look at the urban vote, if you look at the immigrant vote, if you look at the young vote. And overall, quite a creditable performance by him because just a few weeks ago he was polling much much lower. So he was in the 10 to 12% range sometimes close to 15 to get 22% was substantial achievement. But unfortunately, as far as the French electoral system goes, only the top two candidates go to the next round and that's Macron and Le Pen. And this really presents the voters of France with a very unfortunate choice. And this is where we interviewed a French researcher some weeks ago who made the same point that what this is meant is that now the rest of the election campaign will be fought on issues of the right. The issues of the left, that is that of social justice of ecological justice of redistribution of wealth of welfare for senior citizens of no pension reforms, which is a big demand of the French people. All these will get kind of sidelined as the issues of the right take predominance. It's important to note, however, that both Macron and Le Pen are now sort of trying to pivot and capture some of Melenchon's voters by trying to speak their language. But I think Melenchon's voters are very convinced that neither of these candidates actually sincerely represents that cause because ultimately Le Pen has been the candidate of immigration. She's been the candidate of racism. She's been the candidate of dog whistles. And she benefited from the fact that a more far-right candidate, Eric Zemmour, was in the race and she somehow appeared less extreme on the right wing. But that does not change any of the centrality any of the, you know, viciousness of her positions. Whereas Emmanuel Macron, you know, who came to power in 2017 saying that I'm the candidate of both the left and the right and made all these tall claims as governed from a solidly right wing platform. You know, the archetype or the classic example of what you would call neoliberal policies. He's attacked the trade unions. He's attacked the freedom of the press. He's tried to increase the age of retirement. He's attacked the pension reforms. He's seen massive protests. The education system, the health system, all of the unions in all of these systems have time and again protested against him. And he's very clearly, even if you look at the demographics again, he's very clearly the candidate with a relatively more well off, not the relatively poor. And this is really, you know, this tag is really sort of stuck to him. So like I said, unfortunately, the voters presented with a very difficult choice. One side of hope occurs, like I said, from the improvement of the left is that there are parliamentary elections coming up in June. This time the left was unfortunately quite divided if the left is able to sort of come together on a more cohesive platform to see the potential of this earlier round of elections. They may be able to achieve substantially more in the parliamentary elections that are coming up in June. But this is a big question. Will they be able to do that? But right now in the next few days that are coming up, it remains to be seen, you know, what this large component or contingent of left voters will decide, many might decide to abstain. Many might decide to vote for Macron saying that, you know, like, you know, because they don't want Lippen to come in. Many might, some might even switch to Lippen because of some of the positions on Europe, for instance, and, you know, positions which are against the norm of neoliberal globalization, so to speak. So a very, you know, a very confused and very complicated picture in France. I think it adequately represents the failure of the European Union model of the politics of Europe which they tried to thrust upon the entire world, the politics of austerity, the politics of, you know, try, you know, the politics of the rich, the politics of the 1%, so to speak, where, you know, large numbers of people just completely fell off the economic life of the country. They were reduced to extremely difficult conditions. And this shows the bankruptcy of that politics once again. The traditional parties which practiced is the most socialist party, and the Republican party were decimated. And, you know, they were just completely, got less than 5%. So a mixed picture, like I said, for the coming election, not a great situation for the French. But can the left pick up from here a very important question to watch out for? I mean, you know, you've done a thorough job of this report. Of course, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who ran on the left, as you had got very close to being in the second round, if the Communist Party candidate had put his votes in with Mélenchon, they would have gone ahead of Macron. And there I say might have come out as the leading candidate of all, which says a lot about France and says a lot about the nature of election campaigns and the way in which people can get things quite wrong in a way. Well, speaking of election campaigns and democracy and human rights and all these wonderful things, it's the 20th year anniversary of the attempted, now bear in mind the language, the attempted coup d'etat against the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Interesting. Mr. Chavez won not one election. He won the election to become president in 1999. But Mr. Chavez then accelerated democracy and I don't know how many actions Venezuela has had since then. But between 1999 and 2002, they had elections towards a new constitution. They had elections to make sure, you know, referendum of all kinds and so on. There was no death of democratic activity taking place inside Venezuela between 1990 and 2002. No lack of it. I do remember Prashant in the Canadian and U.S. press. There was just palmination often led directly without shame by the mining industry going after Mr. Chavez because President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had already begun to roll back the power of the North American mining companies over Venezuela's various resources, but also over its government. I think that's important. He was trying to push them out of quote unquote advising the government. Very easy to advise the government with suitcases of cash. I must say that is the form, the principal form of advice offered by big corporations. In fact, Mr. Monk, who was the head of Barrick Gold, writing a Toronto newspaper began to say, well, Mr. Chavez is a, now wait for it again. Is a what? Is a Democrat? Because after all, Mr. Chavez had won an election. Mr. Chavez won a referendum and so on. What was Mr. Monk going to say? Well, certainly not that Hugo Chavez was a democratic leader. He called him autocratic on the basis of what? Particularly given the fact that Mr. Peter Monk, after whom a school of international studies is named at the University of Toronto. Wonder what they teach their Prashant, but Mr. Monk who himself hadn't really won an election to be the head of one of the world's largest mining companies, but autocratically ran it, you know, created in a way the atmosphere for the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez. Well, the people rose up to defend the government of Hugo Chavez. They defeated the coup as they have since thus far defeated a number of attempts to overthrow governments in Venezuela. It's very interesting. There's a lot of talk. Every time there's an election in Venezuela, there's a lot of talk about electoral fraud. The Europeans come out there, you know, talk about fraud. The United States, the Canadians and so on. Interesting that they don't reflect on their own role in the opposite of election fraud, which is a coup d'etat, the very antithesis of democracy. It's 20 years since the Venezuelan people, you know, push back against that coup. Well, you know, you're now talking about the French elections. How much democracy do the French people experience given that, you know, a quarter of the vote, the vote will no longer have an easy place to go in this election. It's extraordinary. There's a lot to reflect on, not just on current events, but on the philosophy of democracy and the philosophy of elections and so on. A lot to look at. A lot to look at, particularly given the fact that in many countries in the world, the pandemic continues. It's not over. The all clear seems to have been sounded, but the WHO, the World Organization, hasn't been all clear yet. Well, in Greece, South Africa, other places, serious debates going on about healthcare. Prashant, take us in there. Right. Actually, this refers to two sets of actions that took place in March, but I think are important to note because they have a really global significance. Greece and South Africa, countries quite far apart, often not brought together under the same banner referred to simultaneously in any context. But in each country, we see a series of processes which are very dangerous, considering that we were in the third year of the pandemic and we were supposed to learn lessons about how to manage our health better. So if you look at Greece, for instance, there's this proposal by the government to bring a new national health service which has some absurd proposals. For instance, starting with the idea that, say, private practicing doctors will be subcontracted by the public health system instead of the government hiring fresh professionals, or that, say, private practitioners can actually perform surgeries in public health clinics at various points of time, which means that public health facilities essentially become private facilities for so many hours a day. And at this point of time, even insured patients will have to contribute 30% of the cost to the surgery as well as the fee of the surgeon right now in public health facilities. So Greece is faced with a shortage of healthcare professionals. There's no doubt about it, as were countries across the world, and it was very clear when the pandemic struck that this was the case. But the question many people asked was, will we learn a lesson from this experience, from the experience of the pandemic when health professionals actually sacrifice so much? But the answer is clearly no, because these are the kind of proposals that are being brought up. And for that matter, the fact that if you want to sort of go to a public hospital, you need to go via your family practitioner. That's a new rule that is being brought in. Whereas no such rule exists when you want to go to a private hospital, which means that you're automatically creating barriers in order to enter, in order to be able to access public healthcare. And if you look, for instance, at the fact that these family practitioners themselves are going to get stipends as well to register patients, which means they're probably going to register younger patients as well. So a very important article by Zoe Parichati from the People's Health Movement who is covering this issue and really talks about some of the strategies that governments across the world are employing. Now if we switch over to South Africa, we see exactly another process that is also taking place on the same lines, which is that a lot of workers who are contracted to assist in healthcare work, to do essential healthcare work during the pandemic, their contracts are expiring right now. And the government solution has been to basically say that, you know, what we cannot a lot funds for these, et cetera, et cetera. And many of these workers are either in danger of losing their jobs. Some of them have already lost it. Some other workers are clearly protesting very strongly against it. And I think at least in one place, they were able to sort of, you know, manage to save their jobs. But as our friends in the People's Health Movement have pointed out that this also brings in the question of the IMF as well, because IMF did provide financial assistance to South Africa for the pandemic response. But interestingly, if you look at the clauses in the IMF packet that basically South Africa got, it already called for austerity towards what was the end of the pandemic. So there was a very clear stipulation, not only for South Africa, but countries across the world. Then by 2021, 2022, we should once again start cutting down on costs, once again, reduce hiring. So this is actually the underbelief which many people did not notice. We know that the IMF and the World Bank made a lot of noises at that point of time about helping poor countries, et cetera, et cetera. But these were the conditionalities that continue to be associated with these loans. So when we talked about France and the kind of development model that Europe has been following and what the IMF and the World Bank have imposed across the world, this is really how you see it in practice, people losing their jobs, people not being able to access public health care, people struggling to find the money to even go to some of these institutions which are either being shut down. So very unfortunate to see that after all these years, after one of the greatest health cataclysms of our time, we are still back to ground zero in terms of how healthcare is being administered, how healthcare, how much money is being spent in terms of healthcare. You have to give the people what they want, coming to you every week, and we mean it every week, from People's Dispatch, that's peoplesdispatch.org, one of the best places to get movement-driven. You might wonder what's movement-driven, movement-driven news anywhere on the internet. Prashant and Zoe are the editors. Today Zoe, as we said, is not with us, but Prashant and I are here. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Globetrotter is a global syndication service, gets you news and reports to publications all over the world. Give us all a bit of your energy. We need it. It's Friday. We're bringing you world news. Unfortunately, not always the most exciting news, although here, Pivot, I have something interesting to tell you about. Now, I don't normally read the Lancet, but during the pandemic, I've taken to looking at the Lancet periodically because it's one of the most important journals for civilians of developments in public health and so on. I say for civilians because, as you know, it's very difficult to read, even for those of us whose journal is very difficult to read, scientific journals can't follow what's happening. I'm very grateful to the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for producing executive summaries that are quite digestible. Although I am told that in the last IPCC report where they had the red light on climate change, apparently the scientific section was much bleaker than the section, the executive section that many of us read and many of us were able to then report from. Well, yes, the IPCC has said there's a red alert and matters are terrible. Fast forward to Rio, 1992, where during the great summit on the environment, the countries of the world agreed to a formula called Combined and Differentiated Responsibilities where they said, look, we have all common, you know, problem, we have a common problem, environmental disasters, climate change, you know, at the time, even the ozone layer and so on. We have common problems, therefore the word common, but also differentiated responsibilities. There are differentiated responsibilities. Different people have contributed to this disaster in different ways. If you just look at environmental degradation, it's quite clear. Capitalist firms play the largest role here. Imperialism played a large role. You know, I remember travelling in the northern forests of India, large clear cutting of forests. Now, similar clear cutting was done in northern New York state where entire old growth forest was brought down. But then observation movement grew in America and new trees were planted and so on. Nothing like that was done in, say, the hills of the Shivalik Mountains, the foothills of the Himalayas, where for generations, hills look scarred. Differentiated responsibilities. Well, as I said, I read the Lancet once in a while and in Lancet Planetary Health this month, there's an excellent article by Professor Jason Hickel and his colleagues called National Responsibility for Ecological Breakdown. Now, the bottom line friends is that, and I'm quoting from them, high income nations are responsible for 74% of global excess material use driven primarily by the United States at 27% and the EU at 25%. That's 28 high income countries. China is responsible for 15% of global excess materials and the rest of the global south. That is all the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East and the rest of Asia responsible for only 8%. This extraordinary, I mean, this is an extraordinary set of data that they have presented here. I don't know what to make of it, frankly. I was shocked to read this. And the reason I'm putting this on the table, it's related to the debates that took place at COP26 about who bears the greatest responsibility. But now remember, this article is not about historic responsibility alone. They look at resource use. Now mark this, this is important. They look at resource use from 1970 to 2017, 1970. This is not during the colonial era. This is not during the high era of imperialism. This is from 1970, the neoliberal era, from 1970 to 2017, high income nations responsible for 74% of excess resource use. That is extraordinary. Have a look at it. We'll all be writing more about this study. We'll be looking carefully at its implications and so on. But as far as I, you know, as I said, a civilian in many of these matters, as far as I'm concerned, I was shocked to look at these numbers. Now we're going to pivot. We're going to go to occupied Jerusalem, the major city in the Middle East, where it is a flash point regularly of something or the other related to the apartheid Israel state. Prashant, what happened at Al Aqsa, the mosque at the center point of occupied Jerusalem? Right, which is Ramadan season. And as usual, the Israelis have continued. I mean, there isn't, you know, there's an air of, you know, I don't know. It's a coin. It's very difficult sometimes to talk about this because just last year you were talking exactly about the very same thing, which is that, you know, at Al Aqsa Mosque, a key site for Israeli Zionist attacks. You know, there is at least one section of the Zionist movement which even wants to destroy that mosque and settlers constantly barging in Israeli forces, constantly barging in. Today morning's incident very shocking again because about 150 Palestinians injured in the Israeli security forces attack on the mosque. If the Israelis of course had some excuse, some firecrackers were burst, et cetera, et cetera. But what this is collective punishment is no doubt about it because, you know, this is a season where people gather in large numbers for prayers. It is obviously a very deliberate move about, like I said, 150 people injured or 400 arrested and this is the kind of provocation, you know, a needless provocation but nonetheless a very deliberate one. And we have seen this happen time and again, like I said, a combination of both Israeli and Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces often working together in tandem, you know, making it, you know, making it clear to the Palestinians or trying to make it clear to the Palestinians that they do not belong there in whatever way. That is really the attempt of Israel which has been the attempt all despite in multiple ways, whether it be the apartheid wall, whether it be the policy settlements, whether it be attacks like in Hebron or in Al-Aqsa over here. And like I said, last year we saw this happen again and again and again, you know, multiple attacks happening almost every week for that matter and then ultimately all of this culminated in the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza in May in which again hundreds were killed, very horrible operation for which still there has been no justice, still there has been no accountability. So a very tense moment right now in occupied Jerusalem, like I said, we need to watch and see what is going to happen in the coming days, Palestinian movements of course expressing their condemnation there is likely to be protests. Also, this also takes place in a time when there have been multiple incidents of clashes as well. Palestinians have been killed, some Israelis also have been attacked and killed as well. So, you know, all the during all these times there has been you know, generally a very tense atmosphere and this is a time when the right wing in which case Israel is using to sort of build up tensions to create the possibility for the flashpoint always convenient for Israel's right wing politicians when something like this happens. Does Naftali Bennett need his own war? Very important question to ask, but you know, ultimately like I said in some ways a very disappointing series of incidents because it almost seems inevitable the way it happens the way it is allowed to happen the way Israel has given a free hand to keep doing this and then we see the same voices rise in condemnation or rise with this kind of mock indignation when there are incidents happening in other parts of the world but whereas Israel has a full backing to continue doing this time and again for years so that's where we are in Palestine. Well, you know, it's interesting I saw the footage it's appalling reminded me a little bit Prashant about the attacks taking place in India the kind of hereditary terrible dangerous looking protests in Madhya Pradesh in Gujarat and so on led by very vicious elements of the Hindu right wing against places of Muslim worship mosques and so on. This is again the month of Ramzan you know, yes it was also the month of celebrations in India for Hindus some Hindus today by the way is happier for Bengalis so that's on the table for me happy new year to you Prashant to start on that note but the footage really did remind me of scenes from Madhya Pradesh scenes from Gujarat you want to see few things about those incidents because I don't think we've really paid attention to them here Right Vijay, actually that was exactly what is on my mind while which is why I mentioned the global writers but again a very you know the two incidents almost exactly each other actually because once again we have this kind of attempt to isolate the Muslims in India to corner the Muslims in India, Ramnami of course religious festival but the kind of violent protests that have taken place in many of these areas in the northern part of India the kind of violence, sloganeering, the open brandishing of weapons that has taken place all of this actually paid a very dangerous picture right now of Indian society the important thing to notice that despite all of this footage like I said once again all of this footage being in public despite the fact that the kind of slogans that have been shouted are not you know it is no civilized society can actually accept that such slogans are being shouted slogans of murder, slogans of sexual violence, there has been no condemnation from the people the government at the very top, the prime minister the whole minister who are seen by the large parts of the Hindu community for instance as their leaders no condemnation from any of these figures and this really is one of the most dangerous aspects of this because we cannot dismiss this as the acts of just some violent people or the acts of just some lumpen element which is often how everyone is prepared to say okay it's just some people this does not represent us is what everyone is convenient a lot of people are conveniently saying but what we are seeing online, what we are seeing in the narrative on social media in conversations among people is a normalization of hate is the normalization of the understanding that say the minorities, the Muslims they need to be taught a lesson and this is actually a very very dangerous situation for India to be in unfortunately like I said a clear abandonment of responsibility from those in power remains to be seen what happens but very dangerous times as well very dangerous I think the point you made is a good one which is that no civilized society should tolerate something like this I mean this is threats of intimidation and let's be clear friends neither the Israeli government will condemn the attacks that the Indian government has condemned these protests in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and so on no civilized society should bear this because we're talking also about the feelings of people who feel beleaguered and their sense of being beleaguered increases and that creates its own kind of anger it's the 50th day of Russia's war in Ukraine it's got to be on the table for us again very little advancement terms of ceasefire negotiations the talks and so on a important Russian ship was scuttled and has sunk in the Black Sea that's a very important development Mr. Putin has warned the United States not to keep arming Ukraine I doubt that's going to end the arms manufacturers and arms traders are making a lot of money weapons bought by the countries like the United States and then delivered to Ukraine this has been in you for a long time yet danger of course is escalation will this go any further hard to say 50 days of that war we of course as journalists reported but we also are people with feelings and we hope that the war comes to a close point soon that's one of the complexities Prashant in reporting terrible things like the incidents in al-Aqsa or the terrible violence in India of people standing there with their trishuls and their various weapons chanting threats including with quote-unquote religious leaders right there with them calling for rape and so on it makes reporting a complicated business because doctors have a Hippocratic Oath and I've talked about this before on this show doctors Hippocratic Oath means they have an obligation to heal anybody and everybody doesn't matter whether you like the person or not journalists have a kind of similar thing it's like what some lawyers have lawyers have a responsibility to defend their clients even if they don't like them or don't like what they've done journalists have the responsibility to report stories we have the responsibility to tell every side in a way setting the table for human understanding at give the people what they want brought to you by people's that's what we strive to do we're not just here to tell you what's happening we hope we strive to provide some kind of understanding well see you next week