Legend has it that when the English weren’t hacking lumps out of each other in the internecine War of the Roses in the 15^th century, opposing warriors would test their manhood and combat skills by kicking around an inflated pig’s bladder.

They called the no-holds-barred contest “footie” and thus, it is claimed, the world’s most popular sport was born.

A supporter holds up an anti-racism banner during a match between Manchester City and Liverpool on 3 January, 2012 (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Given England’s pivotal role in first establishing football, codifying it in 1863 with the formation of a Football Association (FA) and then exporting it around the world, it seems apt that England’s Premiership sits atop the action as the biggest league on the planet.

But “this sport for gentlemen, played by workers,” as the game was once described, has never been far from controversy.

And today it seems that on any given Saturday – when league matches are traditionally played in England – scandal, incident and outrage steal the headlines over any sporting excellence displayed on the fields of play: biting an opponent, cynical professional fouls, homophobia, lack of equal opportunity and, perhaps most insidious of all, naked racism both on the pitch and in the stands.

It’s a catalogue of shame that the English Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), the world’s oldest and largest sporting union, which represents the 4,500 current players and 35,000 former players of the country’s 92 clubs, is determined to stamp out.

“Football is a microcosm of society. Whatever happens off the field will inevitably be reflected on it,” Simone Pound, the PFA’s Head of Equalities, told Equal Times in an interview at the union’s London office.

“But it’s also important to see how far we’ve come. I don’t want to be jingoistic about it but I really believe that the PFA and the English game are leading the fight against racism in world football. We’ve come a really long way from where we used to be.

“In the 1970s we used to have banana skins thrown on pitches. Between 1979 and 1984 the (far right) National Front were using football grounds to recruit members. My dad (a West Ham United supporter) wouldn’t take me to matches because of the racist chanting,” said Pound, who is also a Trustee of the anti-racist Kick It Out campaign that was launched by the PFA and the Commission for Racial Equality in 1994.

Pound was speaking in the wake of several recent high-profile racist incidents in football.

In September 2012, Chelsea captain John Terry was found guilty by the FA, the ruling body of English football, of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand. And Liverpool and Uruguay striker Luis Suarez made international headlines when, in October 2011, he launched repeated racial insults at Manchester United defender and French international Patrice Evra.

Terry, 32, an ex-England captain, who seems mired in permanent controversy, was banned for four matches and fined 220,000 pounds (approximately 258,500 euros).

Suarez, 25, who once again has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, this time for biting an opposing defender earlier this month, was banned for eight matches and fined 40,000 pounds (approximately 47,000 euros) by the FA, English football’s ruling body.

“Totally unacceptable”

Piara Powar, Executive Director of Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), hailed the Suarez sanction as “a landmark decision.”

“This is the first time we have seen an insight into what is said between players on the pitch, and what may have been commonplace between players in the past. This is a big moment and I would say the FA have dealt with this in the right way,” said Powar.

“These incidents were awful for everyone involved in football,” conceded Pound.

“And we, as an industry, have to learn from them. We have to reinforce the simple message that racism both on and off the pitch is totally unacceptable.

“As the union within the industry, we can’t have anything just dismissed as ‘sporting banter’ or ‘industrial’ language. Any racism between players has to be considered as gross misconduct.”

The PFA is now planning to expand its Equalities Department and this season it has launched a pilot diversity-awareness programme at Tranmere Rovers, a League One (third tier) football club in Birkenhead, north-west England.

The programme, conducted by former professional footballers and focusing on the impact of language, the laws of the land, laws of the game, diversity training, cultural awareness and bullying, will be rolled out across all professional leagues at the start of the new 2013-2014 football season.

There have, of course, been massive changes in general and sporting society since the formation of the PFA on 2 December, 1907 in Manchester, home of legendary Manchester United and “noisy neighbours” Manchester City.

Racism in English football can be traced back even further.

Long history

In 1885 Arthur Wharton became the first black footballer to play for a recognised club, joining first Darlington FC and later Preston North End.

But even though Wharton was the All-England national sprint champion, he was placed in goal because he was deemed “to lack sufficient character and consistency” to play outside the box.

The first black footballer to play for England was Viv Anderson, then 22, who debuted in a 1-0 victory over former Czechoslovakia at Wembley Stadium in November 1978. Defender Anderson had a distinguished career with Nottingham Forest, Arsenal and Manchester United.

Fifteen years later, another Manchester United footballer, midfield enforcer Paul Ince, who also played for Liverpool and Italy’s Internazionale, became the first black player to captain England.

Today it would be a very poor England team indeed that did not feature a major contingent of black and mixed race players – notwithstanding the country’s singular lack of success in all major football competitions since its solitary World Cup win in 1966.

Nevertheless, despite these advances racism remains prevalent, in the English game, as the high profile cases of Terry and Suarez attest.

And, although England has a sizeable South Asian ethnic minority, not a single footballer of Indian or Pakistani origin is playing in the Premiership.

With around a third of all players in the top flight being either black or mixed race, racism is a problem that – in the opinion of this reporter – the venerable Football Association is just not doing enough to tackle.

In an age of multi-millionaire footballers how effective is a 40,000 pound fine for on field racism?

For Suarez, who has just been banned for 10 games for his biting outrage, it represents around two-days wages.

Homophobia and sexism remain major issues too.

So when will things change?

“Discussions have taken place,” Funke Awoderu, the FA’s Equality Manager, told Equal Times in response to questions about the ruling body imposing tougher sanctions for racism.

“I can’t pre-determine those discussions. But I can tell you that discussions are ongoing and front-facing.”

Tiki-taka euphemism and evasion aside, everybody agrees that football has to be “safe” for players and supporters alike.

But if the “beautiful game” is to prosper it must also be remembered that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Hopes for free and fair elections to return to democracy in Fiji are fading fast following the rejection of constitutional reform by the military regime and continuing repression of workers’ rights.

A silhouette of Commodore Frank Bainimarama (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Any pretence that next year’s election will usher in a return to democracy and human rights appears to have been dashed after the regime recently binned a draft constitution prepared by an independent panel.

With time running out, the global union movement is ramping up a campaign to put pressure on Fiji restore democracy.

The Destination Fiji campaign targets Fiji’s image as an idyllic holiday destination.

While not advocating a boycott of tourism to Fiji, it urges consumers to look beyond the picturesque postcards to the reality for Fijian workers.

The increasing pressure comes ahead of the relaunch of Fiji’s national airline, Air Pacific, under a new brand, Fiji Airways, in June.

Beyond the coastal resorts and hotel compounds where holidaymakers usually stay, the presence of poverty in the villages of Fiji is clear. The juxtaposition between the local communities and the hotel compounds is stark in Nadi (Fiji’s third largest city) and along the Coral Coast.

In the local communities – unlike in the hotel compounds – running water, sewerage systems and electricity are unreliable.  And the cost of living is sky rocketing.

These communities are the face of the poverty challenge in Fiji: over 60 per cent of workers earning a wage and a salary are living below the poverty line.

And while there are many holiday destinations in countries where poverty is a challenge, often the governments in these countries are working towards poverty elimination.

In Fiji, the military dictatorship that came to power following a coup in 2006 is exacerbating the problem.

Suppression

Poverty alleviation requires respect for human dignity and human rights.

Instead the regime of Commodore Frank Bainimarama has ruled by successive decrees that have stripped citizens of their voice, curtailed the media, restricted people’s movement, required permits for meetings of more than three people, and enabled the military and police to detain people without charge for up to 14 days.

When the highest court in Fiji found the coup to be illegal, Commodore Bainimarama sacked the judges, abrogated the constitution and appointed himself Prime Minister.

The regime also sacked an independent judiciary, sacked magistrates that the regime itself appointed when they showed independence from the regime, and introduced a decree that prevents any court action that questions the validity of the regime’s power and decisions.

The regime has shown disregard for decent work – a central pillar of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

“All the draconian decrees are there for everyone to see and there is no running away from the fact that it blatantly violates workers’ rights and human rights”, says Fiji Trade Union Congress National Secretary Felix Anthony.

In 2011, approximately 15,000 public sector workers were removed from the workplace relations legislation that protected minimum conditions of work, wages, and the right to bargain collectively.

In key private sector industries, workers were given 60 days in 2011 to renegotiate their collective agreements without union representation. If they failed to do so, corporations could unilaterally introduce individual contracts with revised wages and conditions.

Workers and trade unionists have been the most vocal opposition to the regime, and as a result, unionists have borne the brunt – harassment, intimidation and assault – of a regime trying to suppress opposing views.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has expressed serious concern about these developments.

A high level mission was sent to investigate in late 2012 but was kicked out by the regime.

At the time, Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO, strongly condemned the “Government’s unilateral decision which puts a greater spotlight on the critical situation of freedom of association in Fiji”.

In a recent survey, 60 per cent of indigenous Fijians responded that their human rights have been curtailed and suppressed since the 2006 coup.

As preparations progress for elections slated in 2014, it is timely to remember Amartya Sen’s comments on democracy: “Democracy is not just majority rule. It’s also toleration – tolerance of minority views and tolerance of criticism”.

Draft constitution

This is certainly not Commodore Bainimarama’s view of democracy.

The preparation of a draft constitution by an independent commission was thrown out by the regime.

Fiji’s interim Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, in explaining this decision said the draft did not capture the views of the majority of people in Fiji.

The truth is that the draft constitution was prepared by an eminent constitutional scholar after receiving over 7000 submissions.

The real reason was revealed by the Attorney-General in the same interview: the proposed constitution would challenge existing decrees and undermine the immunity of individuals involved in the 2006 coup.

So instead of a new constitution that gives the Fijian people a voice in reviewing decrees inconsistent with internationally recognised human rights that were unilaterally introduced and challenging immunity to coup perpetrators, the regime has now prepared its own constitution.

It upholds immunity for human rights abusers while failing to uphold human rights.

The regime has also introduced a decree on political parties that breaches basic principles on freedom of association. So it is becoming increasingly clear that elections, if they happen at all, won’t be free and fair.

New campaign

What to do in a situation where a regime won’t get serious on human and workers’ rights?

This week Equal Times is launching a new global online campaign to call on Fiji to respect workers’ rights.

People from around the world can take part in “Destination Fiji: a vacation from workers’ rights” by sending an email to their country’s foreign minister calling for Fiji to restore human rights and genuine democracy.

The online campaign will continue until a day of action by Australian unions on 8 June, which is the date of the first scheduled flight of the new Fiji Airways (currently known as Air Pacific) to Sydney.

“It’s time to turn up the heat on the Bainimarama regime,” says ACTU President Ged Kearney.

“Next year’s elections are rapidly becoming a farce, while the repression of workers’ rights is steadily worsening.  International pressure must be brought to bear on the regime to bring its practices into line with human rights standards and to repeal draconian measures that have stripped workers of their fundamental rights.

“The lead up to next year’s elections must be genuinely transparent and democratic, and monitored by the UN.

“Fiji tries to present a smiling, idyllic face to the world but the reality for Fijian workers is far different. Potential visitors to Fiji need to be aware of the truth.”

From experience with South Africa during Apartheid, and more recently the campaigns in response to dictatorial regimes in Zimbabwe and Burma, it is known that tourists think that it is unacceptable for people to live in communities where human rights violations occur on a daily basis and where there is a lack of democracy.

Perhaps it is time to rethink Fiji as a travel destination because travelling to Fiji means a vacation from human and workers’ rights.

http://destinationfiji.org/

27 December, 2012, will go down as one of the bleakest days in the history of Cambodian justice.

Cambodian union members queue to view the body of prominent labour leader Chea Vichea back in January 2004 (AP Photo/David Longstreath)

On that day, the Appeal Court of Phnom Penh ordered Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun to return to prison.

These two scapegoats were accused by the authorities of killing Chea Vichea, President of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC) on Chinese New Year in January 2004.

The arrest of these two men and their subsequent sentencing in Phnom Penh to 20 years in prison in 2005, despite the absence of evidence, unleashed massive protests within Cambodia and internationally, so blatant was the fact that they had nothing to do with Chea Vichea’s murder.

“Born Samnang had confessed to the killing of Chea Vichea under torture whilst in detention. But when the government put him in front of the media he retracted the confession,” explains Naly Pilorge, Director of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO).

“Many people came before the court to testify in favour of Born Samnang, who was celebrating Chinese New Year in another province at the time of the murder. Our investigations have also shown that Sok Sam Oeun was celebrating the New Year in a private home.

“The first judge to cross-examine the two suspects had dropped the charges against them. He was removed from his position the following day, accused of corruption!”

At the end of 2008, the Supreme Court of Cambodia released the two men on bail and ordered the Appeal Court to re-investigate the case.

In the absence of any new evidence, it was thought that the Appeal Court would clear Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun once and for all, but contrary to expectation they were ordered back to prison, where they now have to serve out the rest of their sentences.

Meanwhile, those actually guilty of the crime are still on the loose.

“A documentary on the murder clearly shows that high-level officials are implicated and that the government does not want an inquiry that would lead to the arrest of the real culprits,” says Tola Moeun of the Labour Programme at the Community Legal Education Centre in Phnom Pehn.

Behind the façade

Since Chea Vichea’s murder, two more FTUWKC union leaders have also been killed in Cambodia: Ros Sovannareth in May 2004 and Hy Vuthy in February 2007.

The Cambodian authorities have failed, yet again, to arrest the culprits.

Such impunity is not confined to those perpetrating crimes against trade unionists: “Eleven journalists have been killed since the nineties and not one culprit has been arrested,” says Naly Pilorge.

On 26 April 2012, environmental activist Chut Wutty was shot dead whilst accompanying journalists to a protected forest in Koh Kong province.

In a report on the culture of impunity in Cambodia, Human Rights Watch revealed that the investigation into Chut Wutty’s murder was totally devoid of credibility.

According to the same report, members of the Cambodian security forces have killed more than 300 people, including journalists and opposition politicians, since 1991.

None of these cases have been seriously investigated and no-one has been prosecuted.

Behind the façade of democracy, Cambodia continues to be one of the countries in the region where exercising fundmental rights is the most dangerous.

“We have the structures of a democracy but, in practice, the repression is similar to that of countries like Vietnam, China and Laos, where it is less veiled,” says Naly Pilorge.

“In Cambodia, one has to go and see what is hidden behind the façade to understand the reality of the situation. In the world of work, for instance, hundreds of pro-government or pro-employer unions make it very difficult for the few independent unions to operate. With regard to NGOs, there are dozens of pro-government human rights organisations, as compared with no more than six legitimate ones.”

The Cambodian justice system once again demonstrated its ineffectiveness in the case against former Bavet city governor, Chhouk Bandith, who shot three female workers during a protest on 20 February 2012 in the province of Svay Rieng.

On 4 March 2013, the Appeal Court upheld the very light charge of “causing involuntary bodily harm” and referred the case back to the Svay Rieng court, which had already acquitted him in 2012. Given the former governor’s power to influence this court, he is likely to get off scot-free once again.

No justice

The ITUC’s latest annual reports on trade union rights violations catalogue the many abuses that have been committed by employers and the authorities without any kind of justice being delivered.

“The legislation establishes a fine equal to a maximum of 90 days’ wages, a maximum prison term of one month or a combination of both penalties for acts of discrimination against trade unions. Such penalties have never been applied to a single employer in Cambodia,” says Tola Moeun.

The reason for this impunity is the total lack of independence of the Cambodian justice system.

“In cases where the two parties in a dispute have the same socio-economic status, have no connections in high places and no way of putting pressure on the courts, the judges and prosecutors occasionally interpret the laws correctly,” notes Naly Pilorge.

“As soon as one of the two parties has connections or financial resources, the ruling goes in favour of the party best able to influence the court.” The Cambodian judiciary’s complete lack of independence has also been denounced by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia.

A new wave of repression against independent unions is expected in the days to come.

“Over recent weeks, television stations tied to the government have being broadcasting adverts mocking the action of independent trade unions. Deputy Prime Minister Nhiek Bun Chhay has also said that it would be better for Cambodia to move towards a single union type system,” reports an independent observer in Phnom Penh who wishes to remain anonymous.

“You can feel the tension rising within the government as the July parliamentary elections draw nearer.

Four trade unions – The CLC (Cambodian Labour Confederation), CCU (Cambodian Confederation of Unions), NIFTUC (National Independent Federation of Textile Unions of Cambodia) and the CUMW (Collective Union of Movement of Workers) – are calling on workers to mobilise on May Day in protest at the poverty wages in the garment sector.

They are inviting political parties to send public speakers to give their views on the matter. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen fears losing face on occasions like these, and will probably do everything in its power to obstruct the workers’ rally.”

Chand Bibi, 38, runs a one-room informal school for girls in a slum on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital city, Islamabad.

The overwhelming majority of people living in the area are of Pakhtun origin, and come from the areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan worst affected by the Taliban insurgency.

Hailing from a conservative Pakhtun family in Mingora, the same town in Swat province where 15-year-old school girl activist Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban in October 2012, Chand was denied an education.

Girls on their way to attend lessons at Khushal School for Girls in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan where Malala Yousufzai used to be a student (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

“I still remember my brothers setting out for school every day but I, being a girl, was not allowed to go to school,” she told Equal Times.

“It took me 25 years to get the courage to start attending a non-traditional school in Mingora, but my father never knew that I was going to school.”

Chand finally matriculated at the age of 35 and started teaching her cousins and nieces.

In 2009, she left her hometown and moved to Islamabad after military operation against Taliban forced her to leave Swat.

Since then, Chand has been trying her level best to ensure that poor girls living in the slums would not be denied an education.

“I have few resources and can only teach 25 girls at a time. It is nothing in a slum where thousands of families live.

“There is no public school in the locality. I have been facing tough resistance from male counterparts but I am not ready to bow to the pressure. Some of them even threatened me, but if I left, these girls would lose hope.”

She said that in becoming a global symbol for the right of girls to have an education, Malala is an important role model for Pakistani girls, especially those hailing from Pakhtun families.

“More families are sending their girls to schools now. I can even see a day when a Pakhtun girl being educated will be an honour, not a shame,” she said.

Gender gap

In Pakistan, a country where nearly three-quarters of young girls are not enrolled in primary school, the interventions of people like Chand are a blessing.

Although last week’s Learning for All Ministerial roundtable – held as part of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washtington DC – highlighted some of the progress being made towards the Millennium Development Goals on Education, there is still a long way to go.

Globally, 32 million girls are still out of school.

And in Pakistan, according to Unesco’s 10th Education for All Global Monitoring Report (released in October 2012), not enough is being done to reduce the gender gap in education.

The report states that 78 per cent of Pakistan’s poorest were not in school in 1991, a figure which has only reduced to just 62 per cent in 2012.

In Pakistan there are five million children who are not enrolled in school and three million of them are girls.

Dilsahd Begum, district education officer in the Swat district, said that less than 30 per cent of girls in the district are enrolled in primary school.

However, culture isn’t the only factor.

“Militancy also plays an important role to keep girls out of schools in Swat and other parts of the troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,” she said.

“In Swat, the Taliban has destroyed 124 girls school and 93 others were damaged.”

However, she said that things are slowly changing in the area.

“From 74,904 female students in Swat in 2009, the number increased to around 118,594 students in 2011.”

Structural obstacles

On 5 April Malala teamed up with American actress Angelina Jolie to launch a charity to fund girls’ education. They announced that the first project of the “Malala Fund” would be the construction of a school for 40 girls in her home town of Mingora.

“Let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls,” Malala said in a recorded message.

In other areas of country, the problems are different.

In the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, a lack of infrastructure and basic facilities at girls’ schools are two of the main factors preventing their education.

An education official in the Rawalpindi district of Punjab province (who spoke to Equal Times on the condition of anonymity) said that there were a total of 619 girls’ schools in the district.

“Basic facilities like toilets are not available in 488 girls’ schools, 300 have no clean drinking water while 165 schools have no boundaries,” he said.

Abid Somro, a senior official at the Ministry of Education in Sindh province, said that out of 49,000 public schools in Sindh only 11 per cent are girls’ schools.

“More than 75 per cent of them are closed down. Lack of infrastructure and basic facilities are major issues but the prime issue is that teachers are not ready to go to school.

“Most of them belong to influential families and they just come to schools to draw their salaries,” he said, remarking that the dropout rate of girls is 60 per cent in Sindh.

“Most of the education budget goes to pay the salaries of the teachers,” he added.

Zehra Arshad, national coordinator at the Pakistan Coalition for Education — an alliance of around 200 NGOs  and other stakeholders working on education — said that recent governments had been working hard to bring more girls to school.

“The attack on Malala helped our rulers to realise the importance of girls’ education.  The international community has also started focusing more on girls’ education in Pakistan after the incident. A special fund has been established by the UN under Malala’s name to promote girls’education.

“Earlier, the government of Pakistan has also included the right to education as part of the constitution which is good step as well. But, we need to do a lot.”

When asked about Pakistan’s chances of meeting its MDG on education, Arshad was realistic. “We will miss the Millennium Development Goal on education by a big margin.”

And yet, there is light at the end of tunnel.

Tahira Khan, 12, a grade five student at The Nation School in Karachi was among the four students who were injured earlier this year on 30 March, when gunmen attacked the school during an award-giving presentation.

The school principal, Abdul Rasheed Khan, was killed along with a female student. But Tahira continues to go to school. “I am not afraid of the attackers. I will continue studying.”

Tahira still remembers the day when Malala visited her school only a couple of months before Malala herself was shot. “She is my inspiration. I want to become like her.”

• On 28 April, Education International, the global federation of teachers’ unions, will be launching a Teachers’ Scholarship Fund in Karachi to commemorate all of the teachers and students who have been killed or injured in the name of educating girls in Pakistan. To contribute to the fund or to find out more information, click here
  

• You can also sign the Education Envoy petition to the Pakistani government to end the killings and violence that prevent girls’ education and to ensure that all girls can go to school

The Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) is etched into Tunisia’s psyche.

A demonstrator at a pro-Palestinian march at the end of the World Social Forum in Tunis holds a UGTT flag (Photo/Isabelle Merminod)

Founded in 1946 during the country’s independence struggle, its militants recently played a crucial role in the 2011 revolution.

However, two years after the protests, Tunisians and the members of UGTT are still facing serious social challenges and widespread uncertainty about their future.

Abdelkarim Jrad, the UGTT deputy general secretary for social security, says Tunisians have gained freedom of expression, the right to have political parties and the right to build civil society.

He said, however, that the revolution has also meant that Tunisians have “a lower standard of living – particularly for poorer families, insecurity, [and] an increase in the unemployment rate.”

Official figures, which he questions, put unemployment at 16.8 per cent. Over 400,000 graduates are without work.

It is a widespread view that unemployment was a central element in the riots which overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

The funding for pensions, health and medical insurance is also a potentially serious issue. The money comes from contributions by employers and employees, but this does not cover the costs.

“For the UGTT it is necessary to find other sources for the funds apart from the contributors,” said Jrad.

He is hopeful that a social contract signed in January by employers, UGTT and the government will provide a basis for negotiations.

Last August, the BBC reported that the draft of the new Tunisian constitution provoked demonstrations by women protesting against the wording which proclaimed women as ‘complementary to men.’

The current draft of the new constitution is controversial. Law professor Aicha Hamza Safi says that the draft constitution talks of rights which are “inspired by the cultural heritage of the Tunisian people founded on their Arab-Muslim identity.”

Jrad notes that “the UGTT demands social rights, the right to work, the right to health for everybody. The current draft version [of the constitution] does not guarantee social rights, all the rights are conditional in the draft constitution.”

There are very few women amongst officials of the UGTT. The 13 member UGTT executive committee has no women on it at all.

At the national conference, which elected  the new post-Ben Ali leadership in December 2011, there were 518 delegates. Only 13 were women.

In addition, the mass of officials from the Ben Ali period hampered the UGTT after the revolution, argues UGTT teachers’ union general secretary, Lassad Yacoubi. Yacoubi believes that the UGTT needs restructuring to give more power to the sectors and decrease bureaucracy.

The UGTT mirrors Tunisian society: both need to be restructured for democracy and freedom; the people from Ben Ali’s time have to step down; the new generation of women and young people need to take their proper place; and reactionary ideas have to be overcome.

History of the UGTT

The founding of UGTT was linked to the anti-colonial independence movements in North Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s. Its founder, Farhat Hached, was assassinated by French colonialists.

During the dictatorship of President Ben Ali the UGTT was closely linked to the government; any strikes required the agreement of the executive committee of the UGTT .

Amnesty International in a 2009 report noted:  “Any strike not authorized by the UGTT is considered illegal and participants can face up to eight months in prison.”

However, on the ground, rank and file UGTT militants organised and fought against President Ben Ali.

According to Le Monde Diplomatique: “Since Tunisian independence in 1956, there have been two currents within the UGTT: one, represented by what is commonly called the ‘union bureaucracy’, of submission to the government, the other of resistance to it.”

The UGTT is loathed by the current religious government of the Ennahda Party. For example, on 4 December 2012, the day before the 60^th commemoration of the murder of Hached, a group of members were attacked by ‘The League for the Protection of the Revolution,’ a group widely believed to be linked to Ennahda.

When the opposition leader Chokri Belaid was assassinated earlier this year, the UGTT called a general strike on the day of his funeral, 8 February. The New York Times called it the “largest labor strike in decades.”

Jrad, claims a UGTT membership of 750,000 in a country where four million people are economically active. It has representation throughout the Tunisian economy and is strongest in the state sector and civil service.

The story of a revolution

According to Yacoubi the revolution started long before 2011. By 2005, the opposition to Ben Ali, often organising under the protection of the UGTT, was able to go onto the streets and gain some media coverage.

In April 2007, teachers – who are one of the most militant sections of the UGTT – went out on national strike. In November 2007, three teachers – whose contracts were not renewed after the strike – went on hunger strike demanding reinstatement and inspiring international protests and solidarity actions: “This was the first time we managed to really damage the core of the regime of Ben Ali,” said Yacoubi.

In January 2008, a few weeks after the end of the hunger strike, riots erupted in Gafsa, a phosphate mining area over recruitment practices of the largest local employer, the Gasfa Phosphate Company: “We consider [those protests] as the first date of the revolution against Ben Ali,” said Yacoubi.

“From then on the battle against Ben Ali changed… before it was the battle of the [opposition] movement, then it became the battle of the people.”

After another three years of struggle, Ben Ali fled in January 2011 as Tunisians crowded the streets demanding freedom.  But the revolution is unfinished; the fight for democracy, freedom, justice  and social rights continues.

The fate of Tunisia’s revolution is still in the balance.

Finn Richardson is a near perfect embodiment of the UK’s growing youth unemployment crisis.

At 19 years old he finds himself among 993,000 of his peers on the unemployment scrapheap, yet his determination to find work runs contrary to popular media portrayal of sedentary youngsters scrounging off the welfare state.

Britain has the third highest unemployment rate in the OECD behind Spain and Greece (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

“I’ve been looking for work for almost two years,” he says in a soft yet indignant voice, “I’ve handed out over 200 CVs and been to a few interviews but I don’t get any feedback and I’ve not really got anywhere with them.”

Finn has also attended training sessions at a youth charity near his home in Old Trafford, in the north of England.

Rathbone offers support to young people across the UK – often with few qualifications – to help them become more employable in a difficult labour market.

There is no doubt that Finn wants to work, his supervisor informs me. The problem is that demand for his services is non-existent.

Since the financial crisis in 2008, youth unemployment has more than doubled in the UK. In March, as Chancellor George Osbourne announced his budget for 2013, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the disproportionate extent to which austerity has hit the young.

21.2 per cent of the country’s youth (aged 16 to 24) are out of work, leaving the UK with the third highest levels of youth unemployment in the OECD, behind Spain and Greece.

The figure rose by 48,000 in the three months leading up to the budget, meaning that around young people account for around 40 per cent of the total unemployment figure of 2.5 million.

At a time of steep cuts in public spending and stagnating private sector growth, few employers are willing to take on teenagers like Finn, who left school without a qualification in maths.

He is convinced he is being discriminated against because of his age, and suggests an ability to work efficiently should be the main criterion for selection: “Some people get jobs with no experience at all, just because they’re older or just because they’re good at interviews and good at talking. I think they should give people a trial instead of an interview.”

Graduates

Part of the problem is that the low skilled jobs Finn is applying for are increasingly being taken by university graduates.

Louise Thomasson recently graduated with a first class honours degree in English literature from Bolton University.

She started looking for entry level positions in marketing six months before graduating, but despite numerous interviews has so far been unsuccessful. “It’s very frustrating”, she says, “It’s not enough to come out with a degree anymore you need a lot of experience to back it up.”

Consequently Louise has retained her part-time role as a retail assistant – a job she has held since she was 16.

She claims her situation is not uncommon. “When I think about my partner, he graduated two years ago and went straight into an IT position, but the majority of his friends are still looking for work and some of them are still working in supermarkets and places that had no relevance to their degree whatsoever.”

The government’s response to the problem has not been without incident. Last year a ‘workfare’ scheme was launched whereby young people who have been unemployed for long periods are given a choice between either working for free or sacrificing their benefit payments.

Then in February the Court of Appeals ruled the schemes were unlawful and that thousands of young people could be entitled to compensation as they had not been provided with clear information about what they entailed.

In response, the government passed a controversial emergency bill to amend the rules and apply them retroactively in order to avoid paying out millions of pounds to young people whose benefits had been cut.

Finn has just been informed by his job centre that if he hasn’t found work by May, he will be asked to do mandatory work.

Like many others in his situation, he doesn’t think it’s fair. “I feel that if they send you on a work programme I think you should get paid what you would if you’re in the job,” he argues, “Even if it’s just temporary you should get paid for the amount of work you’re doing.”

Supply and demand

Peter Fletcher, director of Rathbone, suggests the government isn’t focusing enough on providing more opportunities for young people.

“The government has been doing a lot to put young people on training schemes, to subsidise work and so on, but all that effort is on the supply side”, he says. “The issue is a lack of demand in the economy. Employers are not taking on young people because they haven’t got demand for their services.”

Fletcher believes the coalition should be looking to history in order to create more opportunities for the young. “We need to do something similar to the youth training schemes in the 1980s which is basically a job creation scheme for young people. The key is they need to last at least a year so they have sufficient time to gain skills and they are actually paid a wage so they retain their dignity.”

In nearby Salford, Labour MP and campaigner for young worker’s rights, Hazel Blears, says thousands of her young constituents are also struggling to find work.

Blears recently introduced a bill in parliament in an attempt to outlaw the advertising of unpaid internships and end the exploitation of young workers.

She argues that one solution could be to make already existing apprenticeships more accessible to young people from poorer backgrounds who currently can’t afford to do them. “There has been an expansion of apprenticeships which is very welcome, but the basic rates are £2.60 and hour. Who can afford to do that?” she asks.

Yet the government’s commitment to austerity combined with poor growth projections for the years ahead leave young Britons with little hope of any significant improvement in the short term. Many are painfully aware they pertain to a “lost generation”, the first since the Second World War expected to be poorer than their parents.

Had he been born at a different time, it is possible Finn might have dreamed of success, wealth and the pursuit of a better life for his family. When asked where he hopes to be in 10 years’ time, however, his answer is rather less ambitious.

“I just hope I’ve got a job that I enjoy in customer service work or retail and hopefully I won’t be unemployed anymore.”

The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 should have meant that Iraqi oil workers would be free to organise unions, and protect their jobs in a national industry devoted to financing the reconstruction of the country.

Instead, Hassan Juma’a, the head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) based in Basra, was hauled into a courtroom earlier this month, and threatened with prison for organising strikes.

Oil workers in Basra (Photo/David Bacon)

The union he heads is still technically illegal, since Saddam’s ban on unions in the public sector was his one law that the US occupation kept in place, and then handed on to the administration of Nouri al-Maliki who has been Prime Minister of Iraq since 2006.

And the oil industry?  The big multinational petroleum giants now run Iraq’s oilfields.

In 2010, the Maliki government began granting contracts for developing existing fields and exploring new ones to eighteen companies, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, the Italian energy company Eni, Russia’s Gazprom and Lukoil, Malaysia’s Petronas and a partnership between BP and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation.

US corporations won two of the eighteen contracts, while US military protection provided the security umbrella protecting all of their field operations.

The Iraqi oil ministry still technically owns the oil, but it functions more as the multinationals’ adjunct, while stripping workers of their rights.

As the oil corporations rush in to lay claim to developing fields, ministry spokesman Assam Jihad told the Iraq Oil Report “unionists instigate the public against the plans of the Oil Ministry to develop [Iraq's] oil riches using foreign development.”

As a result, in 2011, Juma’a along with Falih Abood, the president and general secretary of the Federation of Oil Employees of Iraq, were first hauled into court and threatened with arrest.

Juma’a said: “The government doesn’t want workers to have rights, because it wants people to be weak and at the mercy of employers.”

Many elected union officers were transferred from jobs they’d held for years to remote locations far from their families, in a government effort to break up its structure and punish activists.

Protests

The repression has been unsuccessful in stopping protest, however.

This year the protests have escalated, both by workers objecting to broken promises of better wages and treatment, and by local farmers protesting the seizure of their land and the lack of jobs to replace their lost income.

In February hundreds of workers demonstrated on three separate occasions outside the building of the state-owned South Oil Company (SOC) in Basra, calling for its director and his aides to resign.

The company, managed by the national oil ministry, promised to build housing for workers, an urgent necessity in a province still recovering from war.

Workers said they hadn’t been paid their normal bonuses for two years, and accused the company of hiring temporary workers, and then keeping them in that status indefinitely instead of giving them permanent jobs.

They also demanded better medical care, especially for those suffering the effects of exposure to depleted uranium.

This heavy metal was used extensively in shells and other munitions by US forces, and war remains are still piled high in neighborhoods and across the countryside.

In one of the largest protests, union members joined farmers in a demonstration at the West Qurna 1 field, operated by ExxonMobil.

They demanded higher payment for land taken to develop the field, and for jobs created by oil development.  Mohammed al-Traim, the sheikh of the Beni Mansour tribe, told the Iraq Oil Report: “We have become farmers without land.”

Farming is the traditional occupation for most families in southern Iraq, who have been cultivating the soil there for hundreds of years.

The Iraqi government set up a committee to compensate them, but farmers accuse it of grossly undervaluing their land.

“Compensation for one donum (six-tenths of an acre) is about one million Iraqi dinars (833 US dollars),” Abdul Sheikh told the publication.

“But if we had the chance to grow tomatoes in that one donum, we could make more than five million dinars.”

Others were offered compensation ranging from 80 US dollars to 1250 US dollars per donum.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil pumps 450,000 barrels a day from a field with reserves estimated at 8.7 billion.

Current crude oil prices hover at around 100 US dollars per barrel, giving the value of a day’s production at the field of 45 US dollars million.

Such compensation levels might keep a family alive for a few months.  But then what?

Unemployment

That dilemma fuels the demand for jobs, the source of ongoing conflict since the occupation started.

Foreign corporations operating in Iraq have a long history of trying to bring in foreign workers.

The IFOU has led many fights since 2003 to force them to keep the native Iraqi workforce, and to hire from the local population.

Although official figures put unemployment at around two milion (out of a general population of 31.7 million, of which 53.6 per cent are of working age according to recent UN figures), in reality it is significantly higher.

“There has basically been no change in the unemployment situation since the occupation started,” charges Qasim Hadi, who organised Iraq’s Union of the Unemployed (UUI) when the occupation began.

“There are more than 10 million unemployed people in Iraq – about 60-70 per cent of the workforce.”

According to the unemployed union, government unemployment statistics use exclusions to keep figures artificially low.

“Women aren’t counted,” Hadi says, citing just one example, “because the government says their husbands or fathers are responsible for supporting them.”

The Iraqi government pays unemployment benefits, but only to a very limited number of households – about 500,000.

Benefits are low, about 110 US dollars a month, and if there’s more than one unemployed person in the family, they reduce the benefits.

But the worst problem, the UUI says, is that you have to register with the governing political party at the same time you register for benefits.

“If you oppose the governing party, you can’t register,” Hadi says.  “Benefits are given out as political bribes.”

Global support for Juma’a

At first, government authorities denied rumors that they would punish workers involved in this February’s demonstrations.

“We will not punish any protesters and all their demands will be fulfilled,” Basra provincial council leader Sabah al-Bezzouni announced.

But after the largest of the Basra demonstrations took place on 27 February this year, the oil ministry moved to punish the union organising them.

A Basra court issued charges against Juma’a and has given him until 7 April  to find a lawyer.

Meanwhile Bezzouni sought to replace the union in negotiating over the workers’ grievances with the SOC.

In response, unions across the world have protested against the threats to Juma’a and his union.

In a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, they noted that eight other union protesters had also been summoned to the oil ministry “to investigate their role in recent demonstrations in Basra, where workers engaged in peaceful protest to express their legitimate demands.”

The letter reviewed the long history of the denial of workers rights since the beginning of the occupation, especially the enforcement of Law 150 banning unions in the public sector.

“The Iraqi government’s continued repression of freedom of association and worker rights, based on laws issued under a dictatorship, is in direct contradiction with the principals of democracy and justice that the Iraqi government promises its people,” it said.

“The government of Iraq should immediately cancel the orders issued by the Ministry of Oil to union activists, including all transfer orders, reprimands and arbitrary penalties against union activists. Charges against Hassan Juma’a Awad, and any other workers who have had retaliatory legal action taken against them, should be dropped.”

The letter was signed by the International Trade Union Confederation, the UK’s public sector union UNITE, Italy’s biggest labour federation, the CGIL, the US national trade union centre AFL-CIO and Labor Against the War, also in the US, among others.

The letter is still open for other organizations to sign, and can be found here.

“Once I was holding a tray full of food. When I slipped, my coordinator saw it, took over the tray and let me fall onto the floor saying ‘first the profit and then the worker.”

Kelly has worked for McDonald’s in São Paulo for five months and her story, among others, was reported by the Brazilian news weekly Brasil de Fato.

(Photo/Jesus Diaz)

In Brazil, McDonald’s has more than 650 restaurants and employs more than 50,000 workers. 70 per cent of them are under 21 years old.

In São Paulo, the staff turnover is extremely high and workers complain about outright inhumane treatment, to the point that the trade unions have reported about cases of slave labour.

According to 16-year-old Lúcio, interviewed by Brasil de Fato, “you can never take a break, as soon as you sit down, you get an earful.”

José, 17, says: “You don’t even have time to drink water.” Maria, 16, earned 2.38 Brazilian real per hour (approximately 1.20 US dollars) and remembers: “Once I burnt my hand. I told my supervisor, but she told me to continue working.”

Ruth’s story is even worse. She started working for McDonald’s at the age 17 in December 2010 and became pregnant five months later. Despite the fact that she continued to work, she remained unpaid until August 2011, when her situation finally forced her to leave her job.

On her behalf, the Food and Hospitality Workers Union of Sao Paulo (Sinthoresp) claimed back wages at the labour court.

In its response, McDonald’s justified the denied payment by claiming the employee had presented a savings account at the time of hiring while payments are made only to current accounts, thus transferring all responsibility to the 17-year-old. Ruth now has a current account, but she has not received yet a penny.

The Court is still considering the case. Ruth’s story is not an isolated one.

Sinthoresp has received similar complaints from other pregnant workers. In fact, the complaints are so many that the union sees a clear business strategy.

“Pregnant women are forced to resign through moral harassment and non-payment of wages,” says Rodrigo Rodrigues, a Sinthoresp lawyer.

“This relieves the company from severance pay or the special care of these employees during their pregnancy.”

“For the workers themselves the impact is enormous as they lose the right to unemployment benefits and medical insurance coverage exactly at the time they will need it the most,” says Ethel Machiori, another lawyer at Sinthoresp.

Consequently, in addition to the pay claim, the union requested that the Ministry of Labour investigate whether non-payment of wages and moral harassment are common practice at Golden Arches Ltd, McDonald’s Brazilian franchise.

Law suits

In August 2012, Sinthoresp found 1,790 on-going individual complaints against McDonald’s at the Regional Labour Court in the City of São Paulo only.

This excludes the cases settled in or outside the court and the complaints which were not admissible.

One particular restaurant with a workforce of 230 had 151 law suits running.

Despite this overwhelming evidence and many media reports, however, the Ministry concluded that there was no ground for further investigation.

“The number of complaints of workers could actually be much higher,” says Rodrigues.

Sindifast: as yellow as a cheese slice

“In 2001, fast food chains in Brazil sponsored the creation of a yellow union called Sindifast which they could control.”

“Sindifast is nothing more than a buffer for workers’ complaints and a phony structure to push so called collective bargaining agreements through,” says Rodrigues.

“Since Sindifast is bargaining for the workers at McDonald’s, salaries are on average 35 per cent lower than those of colleagues covered by other collective agreements.”

“Of the 1,790 legal claims against McDonald’s in São Paulo, not one of these complaints was supported by its lawyers.”

In 2008, the magazine Epoca denounced fraudulent schemes of trade union leaders leaching on union dues which are automatically deducted from wages, without any accountability or transparency of expenditure whatsoever.

The magazine presented the inexplicable enrichment of Ataide Francisco de Morais, the father of Sindifast’s president and a trade union leader in his own right, as an extreme example.

On 23 January this year, Sinthoresp submitted an official complaint to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association, accusing the Brazilian government of not doing enough to protect its citizens’ right to join or form a union of their choice and counter McDonald’s union busting practices.

Despite the refusal of the Labour Ministry to investigate irregularities in payment of workers, the union did not give up.

“Not this time,” said Rodrigues. “They have gone too far. McDonalds’ disrespect for Brazil and the Brazilian people is shameless. The company clearly violates the law in multiple instances and yet nothing happens. This impunity must end!”

In 2011, Sinthoresp denounced McDonald’s abusive payment scheme in a video packed with testimonies, hidden camera and other evidence of the slavery working conditions.

Workers are lured by false promises of wages and deceived about the scheme which deducts time in the ‘break room’ from the salaries of workers. Only when there are enough customers, workers are called out of the break room to work, and only then their hours start counting.

Some workers testify that they ended up earning as little as 70 Brazilian reals (approximately 36 US dollars) per month. Workers do not know at the beginning of the month what they will have earned by the end.

Big Macs, low salaries

Given the World Bank’s latest definition of ‘extreme poverty’ as living on less than 1.25 US dollars a day, some of McDonalds’ regular employees in São Paulo have an income below the extreme poverty line.

At the same time, the Brazilian real is one of the world’s most overvalued currencies and prices are skyrocketing.

This year, Brazil ranked fifth in The Economist’s ‘Big Mac Index’. In São Paulo, this iconic burger will cost you as much as 11.25 Brazilian reals (approximately 5.65 US dollars).

Since Sinthoresp launched the video, the union has gained strong political and popular support for its campaign.

“I saw the video of Sinthoresp and I was really shocked by what I saw,” said São Paulo city councillor Gilberto Natalini.

State parliamentarian Carlos Bezerra Jr says: “The problem of slave labour in São Paulo is real and it’s a disgrace to our country that we allow it to exist. McDonald’s is one of the biggest employers in the city.”

If slave labour is found in their restaurants, it affects thousands of young Paulistas and their families. Penal sanctions should be stronger to deter other perpetrators and the victims should be compensated.

“McDonald’s is not exempt from the minimum wage legislation and should align its payment scheme with the law. This exploitation cannot be tolerated,” says Bezerra.

After the Labour Ministry had dismissed the investigation, the union asked the federal police for a criminal investigation into ‘slave-labour’ in McDonald’s, as defined by Article 149 of the Brazilian Penal Code (i.e. the offence of reducing someone to conditions analogous to slavery by forcing them to work or by subjecting them to exhausting work days or degrading working conditions).

Unlike the Labour Ministry, the police found cause for further investigation.

“This in itself is a victory for the workers,” said Rodrigues.

“McDonald’s is a very powerful player in Brazil and it invests a lot in its lobby. Our previous actions had little or no impact. It is encouraging to finally get at least some recognition from an official institution.”

The police investigation into slave-labour in McDonald’s started in October last year. A report will be sent to the federal court.
 

The roots of slavery

Brazil has a dark past when it comes to slavery.

The enslavement of indigenous peoples and the importation of millions of Africans have shaped the country’s social structure and ethnic landscape.

It was one of the last countries to abolish slavery in 1888, but since, and especially in the last decade, it has adopted a strong stance on modern forms of slavery.

In 2008, the ILO estimated that there were 40,000 slave labourers in Brazil.

Most slave labour in Brazil is a form of debt bondage found in rural areas in cattle ranching, agriculture, forestry and charcoal production. In cities, slave labour is a well-known problem in textile sweatshops with often undocumented Andean workers.

One initiative is the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labour.

Companies signing the Pact commit to refrain from buying from suppliers found using slave labour.

Golden Arches has been a signatory to the Pact since 2009.

Sinthoresp has sent its allegations to the Monitoring Committee of the Pact asking for Golden Arches’ exclusion or its inclusion to the Brazil’s ‘black list’, a public register of companies caught using slave labour.

Meanwhile, following labour law suits in several Brazilian states, on Thursday last week ( 21 March), Golden Arches signed an agreement with the Public Labour Prosecutor (Ministério Público do Trabalho) in Pernambuco.

It commits to regularising the working time scheme throughout Brazil before the end of the year. However, it did not accept to pay the national minimum wage to its workers and insists on paying its workers per hour actually ‘worked’.

Luiz Machado of the International Labour Organisation said the Monitoring Committee of the Slavery Pact had analysed the case to note severe violations of labour law, while concluding that culpability of using slave labour was not proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Following a meeting with Golden Arches in which it outlined its commitment to improve working conditions, they will allow McDonalds to remain in the Pact as long as the Federal Court does not judge otherwise.

The Brazilian Federal Court will indeed judge whether McDonald’s submits its workers to slave labour, as it remains to be seen how McDonald’s commitment to the Public Prosecutor will translate into practice.

It is obvious, however, that McDonald’s has picked itself a fight in Sao Paulo and that Sinthoresp will not give up until working conditions significantly improve.

Offering employment to young workers is one thing; structurally abusing their vulnerability is another.

The upcoming World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016 will put Brazil in the world’s spotlight, and millions of sports fans will go for the familiar food served by international fast food chains.

This gives McDonald’s one year to clean up its act if it wants to avoid this conflict further escalating when the whole world is watching.

It’s an early March sunny, post-Friday prayer afternoon in Occupied West Bank.

Clashes over continued prison hunger strikes have been erupting for weeks.

Groups of youths run through the hills of Bituniya adjacent to the Israel’s Ofer military prison near Ramallah, setting tyres on fire and throwing stones at soldiers who lob teargas and rubber bullets in return.

A Palestinian boy holds posters showing men detained in Israeli jails during a rally to the Palestinian prisoners on 1 February. Posters in Arabic read: “On a hunger strike against administrative detention”(AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)

Today, the youth are full of anger at the death of 30-year-old Arafat Jadarat – a Palestinian man who died five days prior, while being held for interrogation in military custody.

Pronounced dead on 23 February, an autopsy of Jaradat’s body found broken ribs, blood on his face and lacerations on his back.

Amidst Israeli denials, Palestinians concluded he had been tortured to death.

This ignited the kind of West Bank unrest first instigated by prisoners hunger-striking against their detention and internment conditions.

Perhaps the best-known example is that of 33-year-old Samer Issawi who has now been refusing food for 240 days in response to being held in detention without charge or trial.

As the hunger strikes wore on, local discontent mounted, bubbling over into stone throwing youth confronting armed Israeli soldiers.

Then, just as international attention turned to Issawi’s plight, Jaradat died in Israeli custody.

He was arrested and interrogated for alleged stone throwing.

With virtually every Palestinian having a relative who has been through Israeli incarceration, the prisoners are a deeply personal issue, making them the latest lightning rod for protests and clashes around the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

But while Israeli officials and media mull over the potential of a new Intifada, the reality is that the current unrest is fuelled more by despair at the current conditions of occupation than any real attempt at mass social mobilisation.

“We have been doing this for years and things haven’t changed, they’ve only gotten worse,” says Issa (not his real name), a 14-year-old taking part in the clashes at the edge of Ofer.

Army jeeps bolt past towards the lines of masked young people about 100 metres away.

As the youths run, the jeeps screech to a halt and soldiers jump out, firing a barrage of teargas and a hail of rubber bullets towards the retreating crowd.

Issa turns towards me and says, dejectedly, that he has no faith that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will achieve freedom for the Palestinian people, or that anyone is truly backing their cause.

The softly-spoken teenager from Bituniya regularly takes part in protests and clashes, but not because he thinks it will lead to justice for the prisoners or to a process of liberation.

Rather, his participation is more about the spectacle. There is a feeling that making symbolic gestures against Israeli rule is all young Palestinians can do.

“I come here for many reasons, not just the prisoners,” Issa says as a string of concussion grenades go off.

“Months ago my cousin, who is 21, was shot when heading to the supermarket. I come here often, sometimes I get in it, sometimes I don’t, but it’s never a good day.”

Political divisions

The torture and humiliation of jailed Palestinians, increasing settler land seizures, new segregated buses for the dwindling number of Palestinians able to actually earn a day’s wage in Israel, and November’s attack on Gaza have created enough grievances to fuel several Intifadas.

However, instead of fuelling a new grassroots revolt, the outrage simply serves as an outlet for anger over the current dimensions of occupation.

It is part of the cycle of Israeli provocation and localised outbursts of Palestinian anger that has existed since Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza.

Whether it’s been an Israeli military assault, rounds of prisoner hunger strikes, economic deterioration, nationwide mobilisations to commemorate the Nakba (1948 expulsion of Palestinians) or Arab Spring-inspired protests, all resistance has fizzled out amidst continued political division.

Now, as another round of unrest followed by a US presidential visit grabs headlines, there is a real sense of frustration about what to do next.

Though many activists say a grassroots uprising like the 1987 Intifada is more necessary than ever, the action taken by labour unions, civil society and community organisations which made mass non-compliance with the occupation possible is completely absent.

What you find today is factional political rhetoric and posturing.

Sucked into national divisions that prioritise party loyalty above all else, the possibility for any of the factions to produce anything more than symbolic displays of force is questionable.

It is a reality that was clearly on display at Jaradat’s funeral.

Burial

On 25 February, thousands of people from all Palestinian factions—from the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine to Islamic Jihad – poured into the small village of Sa’ir adjacent to Hebron to bury Jaradat.

The occasion was also used to acknowledge the sacrifice made by Palestine prisoners and demonstrate total commitment to liberation.

As the smell of marijuana wafted around the village, masked fighters affiliated with Fatah’s Alaqsa Martyrs Brigade fired gunshots into the air and distributed leaflets promising vengeance.

Wandering through the crowds and flanked by a young member of Islamic Jihad holding party flags, former hunger striker Khader Adnan paraphrases Quranic text about the killing of innocents: “When Arafat was killed it was like they killed all the people of Palestine,” he says flatly.

Jaradat’s body is off-loaded from a Palestinian Authority security forces truck and given a military gun salute before being buried in the central square.

As this happens, the sense of hopeless impotence that has marked descriptions of his arrest becomes stifling.

“We woke up when they arrested him,” says Jaradat’s cousin who shares his full name.

Standing across the street from the house where Jaradat’s widow and two children reside, his cousin points to the house where he was arrested.

“They beat him with their rifle butts and all the neighbours woke up from the sound of him screaming.”

He says that before his cousin was taken away, the working-class petrol station attendant and Fatah activist was taken to his wife by the soldiers and “told to say goodbye.”

The next time Jaradat returned home was in a coffin for his funeral.

As I wander through the grieving crowd, talking to villagers and Jaradat’s family members, people tell me:  “This is what Israel does to us. What are we supposed to do?”

Cloaked in directionless rage and sorrow, the crowds begin to dissipate as the funeral ceremony concludes.

This time the funeral isn’t followed by the kind of fierce checkpoint clashes that are customary after Israel’s military claims the life of a young Palestinian.

No one appears to have the energy for yet another attempt at shaking off the occupation.

Over the last two decades, Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie has emerged as a champion of Africa’s migrant diaspora.

An imposing, powerful figure now aged 50, Chukwu-Emeka was born in London to a Nigerian father and Sierra Leonean mother and grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone with his mother where he was known as Philip Chukwu-Emeka Fergusson.

He moved back to the UK as a young adult to further his studies and many years later, after reconnecting with his estranged father, he reverted to use of Chikezie.

Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie (Photo: David Browne/www.youtube.com/davidbrownefilms)

Formerly a Senior Economic Advisor to the Mauritian government on the private sector and diaspora and founder of London-based NGO AFFORD (African Foundation for Development), Chukwu-Emeka is a leading light of the UN-sponsored Global Forum on Migration and Development and, amongst many other roles, also director of Up!-Africa Limited.

We talked to him on a recent cold day in London.

But a winter sun warmed our conversation, while overhead jet planes carrying thousands of passengers to and from all the world’s destinations underscored the phenomenon of mass travel and mass migration.

Why did you change your name, from Philip to Chukwu-Emeka?
It’s OK (laughing). You can call me Philip if you like! It wasn’t really about adopting a new identity. It was just something I felt I had to do at the time. Today I know who I am. I’m a black Englishman of African descent, a man who was born here and grew up in Sierra Leone. I feel comfortable in both worlds, but today I feel more and more Western. You could say that my story personifies the story of the black diaspora in Britain.

You’ve established a reputation as a far-thinking, progressive activist. What makes you different?
In a nutshell, I believe in the upliftment of Africa and the African diaspora through self-sustained economic and business success. Migrants must be given an opportunity to develop themselves and learn new skills, so that if or when they return home, they go back in a stronger position. In this way all the countries, the sending countries, the transit countries and the receiving countries, have the potential to benefit. It’s what I call hitting a ‘triple-win sweet spot.

What in your opinion is the biggest challenge facing Africa today?
The biggest challenge, without a doubt, is good governance. If the African lion is ever going to roar, we need good governments, transparency and strong institutions. And this is where I believe the international trade union movement, with its ability to organise, has a vital role to play.

I’ve worked on and coordinated projects on migration and development in Liberia, Ghana, Mexico, Nigeria and the United States, as well as Sierra Leone, Mauritius and the United Kingdom. I don’t see migration as a ‘threat’ to societies. Migration is a vehicle for lifting people out of poverty.

Yes. But regrettably it seems that all over the world migrants are indeed being portrayed as ‘threats’ to society. Migration is fuelling racism and xenophobia.
We must make sure that migrants do not become victims of the ‘dark side’ of globalisation. Migrants’ rights should be respected and protected. I accept that there are real and understandable fears over migration in receiving countries. Perception is a big challenge, and it feeds xenophobia and racism. Many people are going through economic turmoil.

They look around the world, and the world seems out of control, out of their control. And migrants have become a scapegoat. Empirical evidence and facts are necessary to counter this, but they are not sufficient because this is also about emotions.

What can be done to counter these negative perceptions?
People are uncertain, worried about their jobs. It’s a real issue. But it’s a big mistake to try and stamp out all discussion and label these people as racists. There needs to be much more debate on this. There is no monopoly on xenophobia and racism. It’s not limited to white receiving countries and developed receiving countries.

Just look at South Africa for example and see the backlash against other African migrants there. The core issue is that public perception determines, or even limits, the policy space for politicians and leaders. This only gives more space and power to the extremists to frame the debate and gives their xenophobia more credibility.

So it’s yet another failure by our political leaders?
What’s needed is real bravery and leadership from our politicians. They need to create a genuine political space so that we can have a civilised conversation about migrants and migration and not pander to these anxieties. Once people get into contact, then the whole story changes, it becomes more personal and truthful. But there’s still too much political cowardice and unwillingness to address the issue of migration. To be honest with you, if migration weren’t part of the human experience we’d all be sitting in Africa!

What single thing could African countries do to improve the conditions of their own African migrants?
Right now there are literally millions of people moving around the world. But it’s easier for an Australian to get a job in Africa than an African. All the companies that I speak to tell me it’s harder for them to move their African employees around the continent than non-Africans. I find this astonishing. We need to enhance co-operation among African countries on labour mobility.

It would make a significantly improvement in the lives of African migrants. Contrary to myth, most African migrants aren’t going North. African migration is predominantly a South-South phenomenon. The majority of African migrants migrate within their own region and don’t leave the continent.

The late great Trinidadian Marxist philosopher and writer C.L.R. James once told me that ‘Africa has got rid of its colonisers, now it needs to get rid of its leaders’. What are your views on personal responsibility?
Well there are some real positive examples out there. Look at Mauritius. Look at Botswana. Look at the direction Ghana is taking. When Mauritius got independence (in 1968), it was generally considered a basket case, but its diversified economy and political stability has helped it weather the financial crisis better than most of the world’s economies.

So many African countries have been struck by the so-called resource curse. But Botswana, for example, has got diamonds, and they haven’t squandered the wealth brought by diamonds through corruption. They’ve built strong and stable institutions. There’s been a more equitable distribution of wealth. The key for me is good governance. Perhaps then we’ll hear the African lion roar.
 

Some interesting stats

Statistics and information on migrants, “documented” and “undocumented”, are notoriously difficult to accumulate, substantiate and interpret.

What, for example, constitutes the African diaspora in the UK?ContinentalAfricans who arrived after World War Two? Or is it all people of African ancestry, including those of Afro-Caribbean and mixed-race background?

The definition is a minefield of controversy and differing opinion.

According to the most recent British census (2011), there are just over 2million self-described Black people in the country, split approximately  50/50 between those  who describe themselves as Afro-Caribbean and those who say they are of African origin.

What can’t be disputed is that the UK, and especially its capital London,has a diverse multi-ethnic population in which every country in Africa isrepresented.

The earliest Black inhabitants of England were noted in Roman times, over2,000 years ago. It is also known that during the 17th century, Queen    Elizabeth 1 enacted laws designed to expel all Black subjects.

Broadly speaking, there have been four contemporary passages of African  migration to the UK.

Post World War Two, and until the first phase of African independence in the early 1960s, came professionals, students, intellectuals and future  post-colonial leaders.

The late 1960s and the 1970s saw post-colonial political and economic    exiles, many returning with their British-born children who held British passports.

The 1980s, Africa’s so-called “Lost Decade”, saw mostly economic migrantscoming to the UK.

Spurred by conflicts in Rwanda and Somalia, for example, the 1990s saw a wave of refugees and political exiles coming to the UK.

Today, the largest communities of Africans in the UK come from Nigeria,  South Africa, Ghana, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Yet contrary to popular opinion, most African migrants remain in Africa  itself. African migration is essentially a South-South phenomenon; the   only African region that has a net outflow of migrants is North Africa.

Nearly 80 percent of West African migrants, for example, migrate within  West Africa. And overall, according to World Bank statistics, 63 percent of sub-Saharan migrants stay in Africa.

Around the world, the African diaspora makes a huge contribution to the  continent's economy.

In 2010, the World Bank estimated the African diaspora remitted US$40    billion back home.

And a recent survey of 10,000 Black and Ethnic Minority households in theUK by the Department for International Development (DFID) said that 34   per cent of the Black-British or Black-African households polled sent an average of £910 (around US$1,400) back to Africa each year.

Even beyond Africa, remittances constitute the second largest flow of    resources to developing countries, after foreign direct investment.

This money, earned by hard-working migrants, is significantly more than  capital market investment and foreign aid.