High stakes at Glasgow climate summit

 

High stakes at Glasgow climate summit

Lavanya Rajamani writes: COP-26 must try to ensure that world has a fighting chance of limiting global warming.

Written by Lavanya Rajamani |

Updated: October 30, 2021 9:24:23 am

Ocean Rebellion activists wear oil canister masks as they spill fake oil in front of the venue for COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, October 29, 2021. (Reuters Photo)

The United Nations will soon convene its 26th Climate Change Conference, COP-26, amid a global pandemic, a two-year hiatus, and the most alarming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report yet. It is also the first since the US re-entered the Paris Agreement. Expectations, always high, are now stratospheric.

Lest they topple the entire conference, these great expectations should be tempered by an understanding of its dual nature. These annual climate conferences contain a complex UN negotiating process, with lengthy agendas, difficult texts, and 197 governments pulling in different directions.

But they also provide a focal point for the world’s hopes and ambitions for combating climate change. For the latter, COP-26 presents nothing less than a global reckoning on climate action, as its political signals must re-energise the process of making the systems transitions needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

As a negotiating process, governments at COP-26 are tasked with completing the set of rules needed to operationalise the Paris Agreement. While most of the rules were completed in 2018, the technical rules for emissions trading markets remain particularly contentious. Most negotiators have not met in person for two years, and only a fraction of the usual preparatory work has been done. But negotiators must nonetheless get these rules right, so as to ensure robust accounting measures and real emissions reductions.

Editorial |On COP-26 hinges credibility of UNFCCC process. It must break impasse between developed and developing world

As a moment for global reckoning, COP-26 faces a much higher hurdle — it must deliver signs of hope to a worried, pandemic-weary world. The IPCC’s latest report released in August found “unequivocal” evidence that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, that temperature has already risen by 1.07 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial levels, and that widespread, pervasive, and unprecedented impacts are in evidence across the world.

For sea-level rise, the findings are particularly sobering, with seas rising faster since 1900 than any preceding century in the last 3000 years, and a continued rise expected during the 21st century, possibly for millennia. This has profound existential implications for small island states and low-lying regions and the UN climate regime is not on track to avert such a catastrophe.

India, with both a high disaster risk level (with exposure to flooding, landslides, cyclones) and high socio-economic deprivation, will be on the front line for such climate change impacts.

Under the Paris Agreement, governments agreed that in 2020 they would update or resubmit their “nationally determined contributions”, known as NDCs, which spell out their national climate change plans. But the pandemic slowed the number of submissions to a trickle, and the plans submitted until a few weeks ago cover only 61 per cent of the global emissions. Some countries like Indonesia are yet to submit.

Brazil’s newly submitted plan now faces a court challenge for being insufficiently ambitious. India, on track to surpass its current contribution, will reportedly announce an updated plan during COP-26. The UN’s latest synthesis report concludes that if all these contributions are implemented, the total global GHG emission level in 2030 will be 15.9 per cent above the 2010 level.

But scientists with the IPCC predict that carbon dioxide emissions need to be 45 per cent below 2010 by 2030 and “net zero” by 2050 if we hope to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Another recent study, the 2021 UNEP Gap Report, estimates that current contributions will lead to a temperature increase of 2.7 degrees Celsius, a far cry from the Paris goal.

The much-needed course correction cannot happen without system-wide transitions across the world, which in turn require ambitious levels of finance and support for developing countries. The 2010 commitment by developed nations to mobilise US$100 billion per year by 2020 — a fraction of what is necessary — has yet to be realised. The UK, host of COP-26, released a “climate finance delivery plan” earlier this week, charting a course for delivery in 2023, three years behind schedule.

States have been far more ambitious in announcing their long-term “net zero” GHG and carbon dioxide emission reduction targets. Over 130 targets have been adopted so far, which if faithfully implemented, could limit global temperature rise to approximately 2.2 degrees Celsius.

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High stakes at Glasgow climate summit

There are, however, serious issues of credibility, accountability, and fairness at play. Short term contributions are seldom aligned with long-term net zero targets, and many presume extensive reliance on carbon removal technologies.

They also shift the burden of mitigation and removal to future generations, leading youth claimants to challenge governments in court over intergenerational unfairness. Earlier this year, the German Federal Constitutional Court directed the German government to strengthen its short-term climate actions so as not to place freedom- and rights-limiting burdens on future generations.

Intra-generational unfairness is also at stake, as long-term targets are demanded of all nations, regardless of their national circumstances, even though the Paris Agreement recognises that emissions will peak later in developing countries.

If COP-26 wants to provide inspiration, it must encourage countries to respect the Paris Agreement provisions on differentiated responsibility. Some countries will need to lower their emissions sooner than 2050 to create room for others, like India, to get there later.

UN Climate Conferences are always a high-stakes affair. But in the wake of a devastating global pandemic and ever more harrowing headlines of disastrous floods, fires and droughts, and the mounting human toll, the approaching conference feels like a moment of truth.

Perhaps more than ever, COP-26 should not only strive to tick items off its “to do” list and complete the Paris Rulebook, but also generate a clear sense of momentum and political will to put the world on track to deliver on the goals identified in Paris. It should seek to trigger significantly enhanced national action and financial commitments, and instill credibility, accountability, and fairness for net zero targets. In short, it must ensure the world still has a fighting chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This column first appeared in the print edition on October 30, 2021 under the title ‘Climate of hope’. The writer is Professor of International Environmental Law, Oxford University & Visiting Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

The Indian Express

Moscow Tells Central Asia—Don't Host NATO or U.S. Forces

 Moscow Tells Central Asia—Don't Host NATO or U.S. Forces

Since the Taliban takeover in August, the Kremlin has increased its military presence in the region, but it's not looking to share space. 

by Peter Suciu

Nearly two months after the withdrawal of essentially all Western forces from Afghanistan, Russia has made it crystal clear that it doesn't want to see any foreign military build-up in the region. On Wednesday, Moscow called on countries neighboring Afghanistan not to host any international military forces—and named the United States and NATO specifically.

"We call on Afghanistan's neighboring countries not to allow a military presence of U.S. and NATO forces that plan to move there after leaving Afghanistan's territory," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a video conference held in Tehran.

The conference, which focused on the state of Afghanistan, also had representatives from China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in attendance, Reuters reported. Russia has been increasingly worried about terrorists claiming to be refugees who are now moving throughout the region and could carry out attacks against Russian interests; as well as Western powers expanding their presence in the region, much of which was once part of the Soviet Union.

While independent, the nations of Central Asia are still viewed by Moscow as a defensive buffer to Russia's south.

Russia's Sphere of Influence

Since the Taliban takeover in August, the Kremlin has increased its military presence in the region. It houses one of the largest foreign military bases in Tajikistan, which maintains a long border with Afghanistan. The two countries have become close regional partners.

Last week, Tajikistan's Defense Minister Sherali Mirzo praised the interaction of Tajik and Russian troops during bilateral drills that took place at the Momirak training ground fifteen to twenty kilometers from the Tajik-Afghan border, TASS reported. The Russia-Tajikistan bilateral drills brought together one thousand troops, combat vehicles, tanks, artillery, and various types of advanced armaments, according to the Tajik Defense Ministry.

Those drills followed even larger drills. On October 18, the post-Soviet security bloc kicked off both the Echelon 2021 and Search 2021 special drills and the Interaction 2021 joint maneuvers at the Kharbmaidon training ground in Tajikistan as part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's (CSTO's) Combat Brotherhood 2021 operational and strategic exercise. More than four thousand troops from Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan along with some five hundred items of military hardware conducted joint operations to "thwart an attack by notional terrorists."

The CSTO is made up of member states Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, while Afghanistan and Serbia have each been observer states since 2013.

However, despite Russia's strong words to the United States and NATO this week, over the summer Russian president Vladimir Putin had offered the United States the use of Russia's military bases in the same region, according to reporting by Russia's Kommersant newspaper.

While Russia has made it clear that it doesn't want to see Western powers maintaining a presence in the region, Moscow seems willing to let Beijing expand. Perhaps this is because of the growing partnership between Russia and China, or perhaps Moscow just accepts the reality that Beijing is going to move in and there is little to stop it. China is looking to forge closer relations with the Taliban, but it may not be prepared for everything that comes with it. And even if Russia is content with letting China maintain a presence in Central Asia, it isn't likely that Al Qaeda or other elements in the region will greet the Chinese with open arms.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Don’t Believe Iran’s Claims of Another Nuclear Milestone

 October 29, 2021  Topic: Iran  Region: Middle East

Don’t Believe Iran’s Claims of Another Nuclear Milestone

Tehran claims to have nearly enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, but this is just a ploy to extract concessions in negotiations.

by Blaise Misztal Jonathan Ruhe

Iran is running an elaborate nuclear shell game. While vaguely promising to resume negotiations over its nuclear program, it repeatedly stokes fears about its progress enriching uranium. Recently, for example, Tehran announced it now has 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, dangerously close to the quantity needed, with further enrichment, for a nuclear weapon.

But such declarations are mere bluster meant to extract U.S. concessions and obscure serious setbacks in Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has claimed major enrichment breakthroughs three times this year. In April, it took the unprecedented step of producing 60 percent enriched uranium, just below the level needed for a nuclear warhead. Tehran then audaciously overstated its 20 percent stockpile in June, followed by last week’s alarmist claim.

Yet, the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) data indicates Iran’s output of 60 percent uranium is too small, for now, to significantly reduce the time required to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. It had far less 20 percent uranium in June than it asserted. Its latest claim of 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium is misleading since it continually diverts this stockpile for uranium metal, thereby rendering it unsuitable for further enrichment. At current rates, it won’t have a bomb’s worth of either 60 or 20 percent uranium until mid-2022 at the earliest.

Iran is being deceptive because its enriched uranium stockpiles are the easiest metric of progress toward a bomb. By exaggerating them, Tehran hopes to scare the Biden administration into paying any price to keep it from crossing that dangerous threshold. Just days before its latest misrepresentation, Tehran suggested Washington should release $10 billion in frozen Iranian funds before it would resume negotiations.

Even though the Biden administration has refused such payments, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned there is only a “limited runway” that is “getting shorter” to prevent a nuclear Iran. Such statements likely suggest to Tehran that its ruse is working as intended, with Washington growing desperate enough to accept any deal as soon as possible.

Tehran also hopes its enrichment claims obscure serious setbacks in other key areas of its nuclear program stemming from three covert attacks since July 2020. The most serious of these knocked out several thousand rudimentary IR-1 centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz facility in April 2021.

Following that attack, Iran initiated ambitious plans to triple its enrichment output by replacing the destroyed IR-1s with thousands of more advanced centrifuges. According to a new JINSA analysis, by late August it was operating enough of these new machines to negate the setbacks from April’s explosion. This installation of large numbers of advanced centrifuges, not slowly growing uranium stockpiles, has been driving Iran’s real and dangerous nuclear progress.

But now Tehran is reaching a new roadblock: It is struggling to build more centrifuges. A July 2020 attack destroyed a centrifuge production site near Natanz; one recent assessment suggests this facility won’t be online until 2023. Just days after the last Vienna negotiations concluded in June, another attack significantly damaged the Karaj centrifuge plant.

For now, while relying primarily on surplus IR-1s, Iran can only expand its enrichment capacity incrementally, at best.

This offers the United States precious time to build bargaining power while avoiding a rush back into a bad deal. The Biden administration should put negotiations on hold and focus instead on restoring its leverage over Tehran.

This means preparing alternatives to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action rather than reentering talks and letting Iran play for time to reconstitute its centrifuge production capacity. The Biden administration should build on its own declarations that its ability to wait is “not indefinite” and “if diplomacy fails, we’re ready to turn to other options” by making those options clear. A good start would be reiterating President Barack Obama’s 2009 assertion that “all elements of American power” are on the table for preventing a nuclear Iran.

The Biden administration also needs to credibly strengthen the military elements of that power. This includes measures to enhance readiness, like updated contingency plans for operations against Iran’s nuclear sites, deploying strategic airpower to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and conducting relevant military exercises with regional allies.

The White House also must forge ahead with Israel on a “Plan B.” This will entail backing its ally’s freedom of action, which has done more than negotiations or sanctions to tangibly extend the runway between here and a nuclear Iran. Top priorities are ensuring prompt transfer as Israel procures key capabilities like aerial refueling tankers and fighter aircraft, and ensuring an adequate supply of precision munitions. 

Rather than falling for Iran’s con, the United States should make it clear to Tehran that time is not on its side.

Blaise Misztal is the vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Twitter: @BlaiseMisztal.

Jonathan Ruhe is the director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Twitter: @JCB_Ruhe.

Cumhuriyet, adalet, demokrasi: bitmeyen mücadele - Murat Yetkin

Cumhuriyet, adalet, demokrasi: bitmeyen mücadele

Murat Yetkin

Gazeteci-Yazar

YAYIN TARİHİ 29 EKİM 2021 · GÜNCELLENME TARİHİ 29 EKİM 2021

Mücadele Atatürk’ün 1923’te Cumhuriyeti ilanıyla başlamadı, kökü derinde. Bugün sadece Cumhuriyet değerleri için değil, adalet, laiklik, kadın hakları ve çoğulcu demokrasi için de devam ediyor.

Ne Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’ün 29 Ekim 1923’te ilanıyla başlamıştır Cumhuriyet, adalet ve artık demokrasi için verilen mücadele ne de iki yıl sonra, Cumhuriyetin 100’üncü yıldönümünde bitecektir. Şekli değişen ama bitmeyen bu mücadele aslında insanın özgürleşmesi için verilen mücadele sayılmalı.

Kökü derindedir.

Falih Rıfkı Atay, “Çankaya” kitabında aktarıyor. 9 Eylül 1922, İzmir kurtarılmıştır. O zamanki Akşam gazetesinin yöneticileri ve yazarları olarak manşetleri hazırdır: “Elhamdülillah İzmir’e kavuştuk”. Gazete halk tarafından kapışılmakta, Atay’ın deyimiyle “alan, yüzüne, görüne sürmektedir”. İstanbul hala işgal altında, işgalcilerle işbirliği içindeki son Osmanlı sultanı Vahdettin hala tahtındadır. Mücadele sürmektedir.

Ama madalyonun öte yüzü de vardır. Haber Ankara’ya ulaştığında Meclis’te büyük sevinç yaşanmaktadır. Neticede Yunan ordularının İzmir’i işgaline Halife Sultan Vahdettin’in emrindeki değil Büyük Millet Meclisinin emrindeki ordular son vermiştir. Ama o kurtarıcı Meclis’te dahi aydınlık ile karanlık arasındaki mücadele kendisini, o gün dahi göstermektedir.

Atay, Birinci Meclis’te dahi İzmir’in işgalden kurtuluşuna sevinemeyenlerin bu yüzüne tanık olan Muhiddin Baha’dan naklen anlatır.

Sadece Mustafa Kemal düşmanlığı mı?

“Muhiddin Baha bir ara ellerini yıkamaya gitmiş. Asık suratlı bir milletvekili görmüş. Mustafa Kemal’in muhaliflerinden biri.

“Yahu nedir bu halin?” diye sormuş.

Öteki dudaklarını sıkarak, “Ne var sanki? Nasıl olsa İzmir’i bize vereceklerdi. Nesini büyütüp duruyorsunuz?” diye çıkışmış.

Sonra da “Yunanlılardan kurtulduk. Bakalım Mustafa Kemal’den nasıl kurtulacağız?” demiş.

Evet, muhalifleri ve rakipleri sapsarı idiler. Ah! Bir kurşun, son Yunan kurşunu Mustafa Kemal’in göğsüne saplanamaz mıydı?”

Atay bunu aktardıktan sonra şu yorumu yapar: “Doğu böyledir dostlarım. Doğuda kin, kolayca hıyanete kadar götürür.”

Bu kin yıllar sonra “Keşke Yunan galip gelseydi. Ne hilafet yıkılırdı ne şeriat kaldırılırdı ne medrese lağvedilirdi” diyen gerici Kadri Mısıroğlu’nun sözlerinde somutlaşacaktı. Acı olan Mısıroğlu’nun, Mustafa Kemal ve arkadaşlarının kurduğu Cumhuriyet’in getirdikleriyle fakir bir işçi çocukluğundan devletin idaresine yükselebilen Cumhurbaşkanı Tayyip Erdoğan tarafından el üstünde tutulmuş olmasıdır.

Necip Fazıl Kısakürek’in “Dinini ve kinini unutmayan nesil yetiştirmek” hedefi ile dile gelen bu kin, sadece Atatürk’e duyulan düşmanlık değildir.

Kin de bu, mücadele de

Çünkü Kemal’in öncülük ettiği mücadele sadece işgalci düşmana değil, onunla işbirliği içindeki Halife Sultanın ordularına karşı da verilmiştir. İç savaş niteliği de vardır. Modern tarihte, aynı anda içten içe çürümüş olana ayaklanma niteliği de taşıyan ilk örnektir Kurtuluş Savaşı.

Yıllar sonra bir başka gazeteci Abdi İpekçi, Kurtuluş Savaşının Batı Cephesi Komutanı İsmet İnönü’nün sözlerini söyle aktaracaktı:

• “Düşününüz: Biz o kadar güç şartlar altında muharebe edip, memleketi düşman işgalinden kurtarmaya çalışırken dinsizlikle itham olunuyor ve cezalarla hüküm giymiş ilan ediliyorduk. Biz Anadolu’da felaketli bir devre geçirirken İstanbul’da toplantılar, kokteyller vesaire yapılıyordu. Sonra düşmanla muharebe ederken İstanbul Hükümetinin silahlı kuvvetleriyle, ordusuyla ayrıca muharebe verdik.

• “Yani sabit olmuştu ki, saltanat idaresinin tekrardan memleketin mukadderatına hâkim olması yanlıştı. Büyük Millet Meclisi idaresi kurulmuştu. Harp bitince bu idare devam edecekti. Tekrar saltanata yer verilmeyecekti…”

Saltanatın kaldırılması kararı, Meclis tarafından Cumhuriyetin ilanından önce 1 Kasım 1922’de alınmıştı. Hilafet ise 3 Mart 1924’te, Cumhuriyetin ilanından yaklaşık dört ay sonra kaldırılmıştı. Aynı gün Genelkurmay Başkanlığı ve Diyanet İşleri başkanlığının kurulmuş, medreselerin kaldırılması anlamına gelen Eğitimin Birliği yasası onaylanmıştır.

Mücadele de budur, kinleri de budur.

Mücadele kadın hakları, adalet ve demokrasi için de

Bugün bu mücadele daha da önem taşıyor. Çünkü artık sadece cumhuriyeti koruma anlamının çok ötesine geçti. Odağına insanı ve haklarını koyan adalet kavramı ile çoğunlukçu değil, çoğulcu demokrasinin kazanımlarının korunması, geri alınmaması mücadelesi anlamına de geliyor.

Bu işin kırılma noktasında Atatürk’ün Türkiye’yi doğu dünyasından koparan ve o dönem batı dünyasına da örnek olan en büyük adımlarından biri olan din ve devlet işlerinin ayrılması, yani laiklik ve onun kopmaz parçası sayılması gereken kadın-erkek eşitliği geliyor.

Özellikle 2019’da İstanbul ve Ankara’da seçimi kaybedince paniğe kapılan gerici güruhun nasıl önce kadın haklarına saldırdığını gördük. Hiçbir konuda geri adım atmadığını söyleyen Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, bir zamanlar ilk imzayı atmış olmakla övündüğü kadına şiddete karşı İstanbul Sözleşmesinden imzasını kendisine oy şantajı yapan bu güruhun baskısıyla çekti.

Halkın büyük kesiminin güvensizlik beyan ettiği yargı, adaletsizliğin bir parçası sadece. Artık gelir eşitsizliğinden eğitimde fırsat eşitliğine, temiz çevrede yaşama hakkına dek adaletin çok boyutu bulunuyor.

Demokrasi alanında ise mücadele çoğulculuktan çoğunlukçuluğa kaymamak adına veriliyor. Biri çok seslilik, diğeri oy ile başa gelip bir daha başkalarının oy ile başa gelmemesi için her türlü baskıya baş vurması anlamına geliyor.

Cumhuriyet Bayramına işte bu bilinçle kutluyoruz.

YAYIN TARİHİ 29 EKİM 2021 · GÜNCELLENME TARİHİ 29 EKİM 2021

YETKİN Report

Africa Is Central to the Modern World’s Future—and Its Past

Africa Is Central to the Modern World’s Future—and Its Past

Howard W. French Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021

No regular reader of my columns at World Politics Review can be surprised by now that I believe the future of Africa is one of the most important as well as one of the most neglected questions facing humankind.

Africa is so routinely marginalized from the concerns of global affairs that even among otherwise well-informed people, most are unaware that it is the continent where almost all the action is taking place in terms of worldwide demographic growth. So it bears repeating here what I have written before: Africa’s population, which at the outset of my own career was about 800 million people and is currently estimated at 1.2 billion, is projected to rise to 2 billion people by the middle of this century. Naturally, the further into the future one projects, the more uncertain such things become, but by this century’s end, Africa could potentially have as many as 4.5 billion people, according to the United Nations, making it more populous than two Chinas and an India combined.

More imminent changes in global demographics are in some ways even more impressive. Pause to consider that by 2030, Africa is projected to be home to 60 percent of the world’s working-age population. This should concern everyone, even those who usually never give a thought to Africa, and it confronts governments worldwide as well as global bodies—like the U.N. and World Bank, for example—with challenges whose urgency is totally out of proportion to the energy being devoted to Africa as a topic.

At present, the politics of many rich countries are driven by the obsessive but largely unrealistic idea of sustaining their privilege in a kind of blessed isolation, meaning by keeping immigration to a minimum. But their own demographic fundamentals—driven by rapid aging, population stagnation and, in some cases, outright decline—combined with Africa’s present path will soon render this posture baldly untenable. The very future of work is bound up in the future of Africa, as is the future of economic demand, climate change, conflict, global health and much more.

The nature of the challenge ahead is to work together to find ways to integrate African countries far more deeply into the global economy, helping to improve the continent’s institutions—especially in education—in order to share opportunities in manufacturing and higher-end services. The alternative is for the world’s wealthy countries to sit on their hands and wait until the current relative trickle of emigration from the continent becomes a floodtide.

To understand something so antithetical to conventional wisdom as the idea that Africa is the key to our global future, it is helpful to understand something equally remote from standard Western narratives about the world: how extraordinarily central Africa was to the very creation of our familiar world. This, indeed, was one of my main purposes in writing my new book, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.” 

The arc of this largely unknown story begins in the late 14th century, when lavishly illustrated maps began circulating in Europe depicting an unimaginably rich African sovereign—Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire—sitting on a golden throne in the center of West Africa. These maps emerged in response to reports that by then had reached Europe of Musa’s 3,500-mile pilgrimage in 1324 to Mecca, a voyage he undertook at the head of a party of 60,000 people, carrying 18 tons of gold for distribution as patronage here and there along the way.

The West’s reliance on African labor has been minimized or indeed sometimes written out of this history altogether.

Musa’s lavish generosity depressed gold prices for a decade or more in the Levant and Europe, becoming, as one writer called it, the event of the century. This drove a determination in Europe to discover the source of African gold, which is what impelled Portugal’s famous maritime voyages of discovery during that period. After an abundant source of gold was eventually discovered in what is now Ghana, the Portuguese built a fortified trading center there, which was serviced by a host of navigators who would later become famous for other exploits. These included Afonso de Albuquerque, Bartolomeu Dias and even Christopher Columbus, nearly two decades before he would sail to the Americas on behalf of Spain. 

Portugal’s sudden windfall in gold it then acquired by trade helped put this small and hitherto poor country in a position to resist conquest by Spain and continue seeking wealth through exploration elsewhere in the world. In the meantime, though, it spurred other developments that were vital to the unfolding of European history itself. Because Lisbon lacked the kinds of trade goods that Africans, with their own relatively well-developed material culture desired, the Portuguese used their newly acquired gold to buy goods in northern Europe for trade with Africans, helping build out important new circuits of intra-European trade and infusing that continent’s economy with badly needed specie.

Only gradually did Europe’s economic interest in Africa begin to shift fatefully from gold to slaves, a story told in depth in my book but that is too complex to fully render in a column like this. A key moment came, though, with Portugal’s settlement of the previously uninhabited equatorial island of Sao Tome. There, the Portuguese began growing sugar, using slaves bought—yes, bought—from nearby Africa. In the 16th century, when refined sugar was still an expensive rarity in Europe, the Portuguese perfected a model of production for it that would change history like nothing else in the early modern age, putting the West on a path that created its great prosperity. That model was called chattel slavery: the reduction of other human beings to the equivalent of beasts of burden. 

With the institution of chattel slavery on Sao Tome, another closely related institution was implemented: the slave society, where a national or, in this case, racial minority rules over a vast working force and is almost totally dependent on the enslaved for labor. Societies like these are exceedingly rare in history. Some historians have numbered them as few as five, all the product of Europeans: Ancient Greece and Rome, colonial-era Brazil and the Caribbean, and the colonial and post-independence American South. This model quickly migrated from colonial Sao Tome to the so-called New World, where the racially defined enslaved workforce often constituted three-quarters or more of the population, and where whites reigned over Blacks to generate untold new levels of wealth and privilege, while the latter suffered a brutal regime built on the idea of exploitation unto death.

Western societies have demonstrated longstanding reluctance to acknowledge the importance of slavery to the West’s success, which in some ways seems unsurprising. Everyone would prefer positive explanations for one’s own achievements, while minimizing anything that detracts from that. And because, as the famous adage has it, victors write what become the standard histories, the West’s reliance on African labor has been minimized or indeed sometimes written out of the history altogether.

Nonetheless, there are many ways of substantiating the vital contributions of Africa and Africans to global prosperity during the slave age. Some estimate that people taken from Africa performed 2.5 billion hours of labor under the lash. On the plantations of the New World, this produced far more wealth for Europeans than the gold and silver they took from the Americas. Poor by comparison, Britain’s North American colonies became overwhelmingly dependent on trade with the slave islands of the Caribbean for their livelihood. In the 18th century, slave production, mostly concentrated in the colony that became Haiti, amounted to one-third of France’s external trade and a major driver of its growth. 

People of European descent are broadly unfamiliar with this history, which is as much their history as it is the history of Africans and people who descend from that continent.

Don’t take my word for these things, though. It suffices to listen to many major European thinkers of this era, before the enslavement of Africans became widely recognized as morally odious. A prominent Englishman of the time, Malachy Postlethwayt, wrote for example that slave labor constituted “the fundamental prop and support” of his country’s prosperity.

I’ve been deeply gratified by the many open-minded and thoughtful responses I have received so far in reaction to my book. But there has also been another kind of reader—persistent in their skepticism, which has been characterized by common threads—and to whom I would like to offer some responses. 

Some insistently ask questions about why Africans sold slaves to Europeans, and why I didn’t focus on that. I did. Some say that this fact set Africans apart from Europeans, who they assert never sold other Europeans among themselves as slaves. They did, and for many centuries. Consider the word Slavic, which derives from this very fact. I recommend the work of the British historian Peter Frankopan and his book, “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World,” for those who would like to know more about the centuries-long intra-European trade in slaves.

Still others ask, Why the focus on white slave traders and not on the Blacks. And why tell this story now? Is it to merely sell books or to foment racial disunity? In the book, I explain that Africans living in Africa had no unitary racial identity. In a world where everyone is black, blackness itself is unremarkable. Moreover, Africans who sold slaves had no notion of what was taking place in the New World, and because most African societies practiced distinct forms of slavery of their own—as have human societies everywhere—they had no concept of the European system of chattel slavery. In most African societies, slaves were gradually absorbed into the owner’s family, with any taint attaching to their ancestry quickly disappearing. It was not uncommon for the descendants of slaves to become chiefs and kings.

The question about why I wrote about this now is answered in part at the top of this column, but there is an important further reason. People of European descent are broadly unfamiliar with this history, which is as much their history as it is the history of Africans and people who descend from that continent. Few know, for example, that until 1820, four times as many enslaved Africans were shipped against their will across the Atlantic than the number of Europeans who usually made that journey voluntarily, and the ratio of African versus European women was far higher still. Meanwhile, both education and popular entertainment have long reinforced notions of the pioneering spirit, courage and sometime brilliance of the European settlers, but we learn little about anyone else. 

This leads to the insinuation by people like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that America was “built” by white people. If one considers the West to be a condominium between Western Europe and anglophone North America, it was to the contrary these millions of unheralded Africans who made the Americas profitable for European settlement. They produced an inordinate share of the New World’s wealth. Their labors helped create the freedom from menial work that allowed European culture to flower. Indeed, it was their sacrifice that created the West.

As big as these claims are, the Africans who were brought to the New World did more than just this. The slave trade and the plantation sector that produced sugar and cotton in astonishing quantities helped not only to pave the way for industrialization, but also to spur a boom in modern banking, insurance and accounting-based management. Through the mass production of sugar, coffee, tobacco and cotton, in ways that are documented closely in my book, they also utterly transformed European culture, helping make democracy possible in the 17th century with the birth of the coffee shop and the invention of the newspaper, an innovation created to cater to coffee-drinkers. Like no Europeans had ever done before, meanwhile, Haitians fought and died for the idea of universal freedom in their war for independence from France. And the offspring of Africans subsequently carried this battle to American soil, where they fought for freedom in the American Revolution and played a decisive role in winning the Civil War.

Africa and Africans have always been right at the heart of the action in our shared history of modernity, but because of the wish to emphasize one’s own virtues, while downplaying the horrors of the past, history’s seeming winners have been reluctant to embrace the facts. Africa will be just as important to the global future, too, and if we don’t overcome our customary denial and indifference toward that continent, the same mistakes will be made all over again.

Howard W. French is a career foreign correspondent and global affairs writer, and the author of five books, including the recently published, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World.” You can follow him on Twitter at @hofrench. His weekly WPR column appears every Wednesday.

İzzettin Önder'in "Cumhuriyet" başlıklı, 30 Ekim 2021 tarihli yazısı

 İzzettin Önder'in "Cumhuriyet" başlıklı, 30 Ekim 2021 tarihli yazısı

Cumhuriyetimizin yüzüncü yılına giderken, iki kademeli olarak, önce nereden nereye geldiğimize, ikinci kademede de nerelere savrulduğumuzu bir düşünsek, neşe mi hüzne, yoksa hüzün mü neşeye ağır basar acaba? Güzel Türkçemizdeki şu özdeyişin gerçekleşeceği dileği ile bu yazıyı yazmaya oturdum: “Son gülen iyi güler.” Umuyorum!

Parçalanmış bir imparatorluktan bir ulus devletle çıkmak hiç kolay olmadığı kadar, bir o kadar da tarihin kaydettiği muhteşem oluşumdur. Dönemin siyasi koşullarında müthiş bir zeka yönetiminde şahlanan ulus halkları birlikte mücadele ve beraberlik ruhuyla bu mucizeyi oluşturmuştur. Eğer bu sav doğru ise, bugün bir tarafta “cumhur” yaftalı, diğer tarafta da “millet“ yaftalı siyasi ittifaklar neye hizmet etmektedir ki? Yoksa tarihin derinliklerinden diş ve tırnakla sökülerek oluşturulan bu muazzam oluşum, bir fiske ile tarihin derinliklerine mi gönderilmek istenmektedir?

Böyle bir amaç siyasi gafletten de ötedir, çünkü parçalanmış bir toplum ulus olma niteliğini yitirir ve günümüz dünyasında böylesi bir gaflete bürünüşün geri dönüşü olamaz. Hal böyle iken, Türkiye’mize bir bakalım, hangi ölçütlerle nerelere savrulmaktadır. İnsanların kutsalıyla, kimliğiyle oynamanın ne denli bölücü olduğunu çok acı olarak gördük ve aklıselim dışı yollara saparak bu tür acıların sancılarını büyük can ve kaynak kaybı ile ödedik, hâlâ da ödemekteyiz.

Bir ulusun bölünmesi aklıselim sahibi ulus içi güçlerden gelemeyeceğine göre, böyle bir süreç ancak gaflete bürünmüş bir gurubun emperyalist baskıların parıltılarına kapılmasının sonucu olabilir. Bu öyle bir cazibedir ki, ulus içinden elde edilmiş yandaşı uzun süre hizmette tutabilmek için payeler verilir ve servete boğulur. Güdümlü egemenlik hırsına kapılanlar ulus üzerinde sosyal ve siyasi modeller denemeye kalktığında halklar bir bütün cumhur olma niteliğini yitirir ve artık onların başta Cumhuriyet Bayramı olmak üzere, resmi bayram ve özel günleri kulak ardı edilmeye başlanır.

Mutlulukla görüyorum ki, bir asra yaklaşan cumhuriyetimiz, zaman içinde bazı tahribata ve ihmale uğramış olsa da, direncinden ve ileriye yürüme azminden fazla bir şey kaybetmemiştir. Üstelik ulusumuzun gösterdiği bu metanet, Sovyetler’in yıkılışından ve taşların bağlanıp, köpeklerin salındığı son dönemde de emperyalistlerin ve onların hizmetkarlarının tüm çabalarına rağmen erime emaresi göstermemiştir. Bunun sebebi, büyük bir devlet deneyiminden gelmiş olmanın yanında, cumhuriyet harcının toplumsal-tarihsel yürüyüş doğrultusunda atılmış olmasıdır. Bu nedenledir ki, toplumsal-tarihsel gidişte tarihe ters her çaba girişimi akim kalmıştır ve bundan sonra da kalmaya mahkumdur. Çünkü tarih toplumsal dinamikler bağlamında diyalektik işleyişle ulusların şekillendirilmesinde başat olur.

Toplumların en büyük dinamiğini yaratan eğitim ve aydınlanma süreci, tarihin karanlığına gömülmesine yol açan da kör cehalet ve gericiliktir. Bu sürecin aydınlanma ve özgürleşme yolunda olumlu işletilmesi toplumlarda ekonomik olarak ilerlemenin motorunu oluşturduğu gibi, aynı zamanda da toplumun geriletici ve teslimiyetçi yönelişlere karşı da direncini oluşturur. Bu sebepledir ki, eğitim teknik anlamda ne denli yüksek düzeyde yapılırsa yapılsın, salt bilgi sağlayıcı bir süreç olarak değil, onunla beraber, hatta ondan çok öte özgür düşünceye ve davranışa sahip birey oluşturma işlevi ile toplumun hizmetine sunulmalıdır. Bu anlamda eğitim, salt üretime emek gücü yetiştirme işleviyle yükümlü olarak değil, fakat onun çok ötesinde, toplumsal işleyiş ve siyasette söz ve karar sahibi olabilecek cumhur bütünselini oluşturma süreci olarak görülmelidir. Özgür düşünme, özgür karar verme ve toplumsal davranışlarda sorumluluk alarak, bir bütünselin ahenkli çalışmasında işlevsel birey yetiştirmektir eğitimin asli görevi. Dogmalarla beyninin çürütüldüğü birey, teknik bilgi sahibi olsa da yürüyüş felsefesini bilemeyen ve algılayamayan “kurşun asker” e dönüşür ve  böylesi bireylerden oluşmuş bir toplum cumhuru da oluşturamaz, ulusu da kuramaz. Böylesi toplumların coşkulu kutlayacakları Cumhuriyet Bayramı da olmaz.

Bir asra yaklaşan bir toplumsal yürüyüşüyle, toplumumuz oldukça değerli ve zengin deneyim kazanmıştır. Her ne kadar taşların bağlanıp köpeklerin salındığı bir dünyada yaşıyor ve bu çalkantılı dünyanın ülkeye sızan derin dip dalgaları olsa da, ulusal birliğimiz ve gelişme azmimizin bu badireyi de atlatacağını ve bir asrı da aşacak şekilde cumhuriyetimizi ekonomik ve sosyal gelişmelerle taçlandıracağını düşünüyor ve diliyorum.

Ancak, bütün bunlar saf ve samimi dileklerle olabilecek bir durum değildir; bunların gerçekleşebilmesi için, siyasi tercihimizi salt kısa dönemli çıkarımıza göre değil, hiç değilse orta dönemli ve toplumsal çıkar yönünde yapmamız gerekmektedir, çünkü günlük çıkarımızın topluma zarar verdiği ve çöküş oluşturduğu her durumda herkes bu yıkıntının altında kalacaktır.

EVRENSEL -30 Ekim 2021

ABD Dışişleri Bakanı Antony J. Blinken'in, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin 98nci kuruluş yıldönümünü kutlama mesajı

 

ABD Dışişleri Bakanı Antony J. Blinken'in, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin 98nci kuruluş yıldönümünü  kutlama mesajı aşağıda kayıtlıdır. 

Turkey National Day

10/29/2021 12:01 AM EDT

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

On behalf of the United States of America, I congratulate the people of Turkey as you celebrate the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. 

Turkey is an important NATO Ally and partner of the United States.  For decades, Turkey has stood together with the United States and the international community to confront global challenges.  Our longstanding relationship is built upon strong commercial, diplomatic, and security cooperation.  The incredibly deep, people-to-people ties between Turkey and the United States have persisted for generations and are critical to the strength of our relationship.

We send best wishes as you celebrate this special occasion and look forward to expanding our partnership in the years to come.