Mali Bans French NGOs, Rejecting ‘Conditional Aid’

Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ opinion.

A free and transparent media is critical for any democracy. But in every society, defending the integrity of the media requires constant vigilance. We found ourselves drawn into the work of exercising this vigilance by complete chance.

When the independent left publication New Frame closed down after four years of operations, the liberal media rushed in, in unseemly haste, to put the boot in. Perhaps the worst of the attacks was penned by Sam Sole and Micah Reddy of the investigative journalism outfit amaBhungane. They alleged, based on nothing more than salacious gossip, that there was an attempt to influence public discourse in South Africa by the Chinese state. Not a shred of evidence was provided for this conspiracy theory by Sole and Reddy in an article that was largely based on innuendo. They abused the institutional authority of amaBhungane as a trusted publication to give credence to a conspiracy theory, one that aligned closely with the
key tropes being driven by the United States in the New Cold War.

The hostility towards us in this story can only be because our new organization, the Pan-African Institute for Socialism (PAIS), aims to create a non-sectarian space on the left to reach consensus on a pragmatic minimum program to increase the prospects for the Black poor and working-class majority in South Africa, Africa and the Global South.

PAIS has never had any sort of connection to New Frame aside from a single meeting held at their offices to inquire about the process for submitting opinion pieces for consideration, something that never actually happened in the end. But, to our complete astonishment, we found PAIS, a new and entirely unfunded organization, drawn into the conspiracy theories recycled by Sole and Reddy. This quite bizarre experience led us to wonder who funded amaBhungane, and what the drivers were for such vehemence by publications that claim to be fair, even-handed, and balanced. Those questions soon led us to an intricate web of relationships that are clearly designed to hide the influence of powerful funders and networks.

What is the real project of these U.S.-led imperialists and their surrogates in South Africa? A common thread has been the use of proxies to stymie the liberation of the majority of South Africans, particularly the Black working class and rural poor. First was Inkatha.¹ Then came the DA. Lately, it is a hodge-podge of xenophobic opportunists. In addition, there are organizations that pose as being ‘Left’ and the so-called independent media. They all have one thing in common. They have an agenda to drive the ANC vote below 50 percent, in towns, cities, provinces and ultimately nationally.²

While PAIS may irritate them because we shine a spotlight on these reactionaries, their real target is the liberation movement. They wish to stymie the realization of the National Democratic Revolution, the as-yet unrealized goal of the struggle.

We have been stunned by the extent of the capture of much South African media by the U.S. state and how most of it is hiding in plain sight. The first article to come out of our ongoing research project, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media”³ noted a few key points, including the following:

1. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983 during the Reagan era to conduct operations and functions previously carried out by the CIA.⁴ It supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua and has been involved in many U.S.-backed coups.⁵ It now has vast tentacles across Africa.⁶
2. The NED funds the Mail & Guardian’s (M&G) weekly publication The Continent⁷ via its own non-profit arm, Adamela Trust, and international organisations like the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM),⁸ and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA),⁹ all of which are linked to key people and organisations in the South Africa media. The editor-in-chief of the Continent is Simon Allison, former Africa editor of M&G, Africa correspondent of Daily Maverick, and a former consultant with Open Society Foundation (OSF)-funded Institute for Security Studies.^{10 11} It is noteworthy that the NED has continued its program through Republican and Democratic administrations, from Reagan through to Biden, and was headed by Carl Gershman from its inception until 2021. Its agenda has not changed.
   3. The OSF and Luminate, another major foundation, are official U.S. government partners that often work closely with the NED and other parts of the U.S. state, strategically taking on and funding projects that the U.S. state cannot or does not wish to directly undertake.¹² Among the many examples of direct collaboration is that the NED and the OSF jointly founded Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).¹³ The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) is an official initiative of NED that coordinates this work and lists OSF as a partner.¹⁴ Luminate, together with the MIDF, has facilitated “dedicated coaching and newsroom expertise in topics such as marketing, newsletters, community building, and audience development” for M&G.¹⁵
   4. Key senior people in publications like the M&G and amaBhungane, including three former editors-in-chief of the M&G have gone on to work for U.S. and Western government-supported organizations, including three separate projects funded by the NED.^{16 17 18}
   5. At least fifteen people who passed through the fellowship program run by
   amaBhungane have been directly tied to U.S. government organizations and programs including the Voice of America.¹⁹ amaBhungane has also led the formation of a regional investigative journalism network, IJ Hub.²⁰
   6. The M&G, the Daily Maverick and amaBhungane, as well as smaller projects like the M&G-linked Daily Vox and the local U.S. embassy-linked Africa Check,²¹ are part of a list of at least 24 publications that have been funded by one or more of the major funders that regularly partner with the U.S. government.²²

As we continue with our research we are finding more NED links. For instance the NED has funded the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),²³ which publishes the Daily Friend,²⁴ a publication that is ostensibly liberal, but veers towards the reactionary right wing weltanschauung. Sam Sole, the editor of amaBhungane, is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ),²⁵ which is funded by the NED.²⁶ We are also finding more and more links between organizations, like the OSF and Luminate, and the U.S. state. It is also likely that some journalists are funded directly by organizations, so that the claim to independence of organizations can be upheld.

The Oppenheimer family, whose wealth was wrung from the super-exploitation of Black labor in the mines, have long had considerable influence over political life in South Africa, including during the negotiations where the right of capital to continue to exploit was affirmed.²⁷ But it is clear that, like OSF and Luminate, the Oppenheimers are also key partners of the U.S. state. The Oppenheimers fund amaBhungane²⁸ and are given the red carpet treatment by the Daily Maverick to platform for their surrogates such as Greg Mills to propagate their pro-Western worldview.²⁹ Founded by Branko Brkic, the Daily Maverick does list some funders, but asks you to take a leap of faith that a group of ten trusts, companies, and individuals that own anything between 0.1 percent and 15 percent of its investment holding company, are not compromised or party to any external leverage, as a cohort or as individual opaque entities. It also raises questions that the Daily Maverick and its biggest shareholder, Inkululeko Media, are indexed by Google as sharing the same office address in St. George’s Mall, Cape Town.^{30 31} Their opaqueness flies in the face of the Daily Maverick’s claims of transparency, which are merely a marketing strategy. Since their reader covenant was drafted in 2009, the Daily Maverick has become an important and influential player in the polity. It has evolved beyond being a blog with an angle that punched above its lightweight class and has accrued a tremendous amount of institutional authority in shaping discourse and curating narratives. With this power comes the responsibility to precisely disclose its funding. In short, it’s time for Daily Maverick to grow up, just like its peers in the mediascape.

The Oppenheimers also fund the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),³² the South African Institute for International Affairs,³³ and their own foundation, the Brenthurst Foundation³⁴. In each case, the links to the U.S. state are clear. Chester Crocker, who was Ronald Reagan’s point man in southern Africa at the height of the Cold War³⁵ is an “honorary life member” and board member of the IRR.³⁶ The Brenthurst Foundation has clear and open links of various kinds to NATO. The director of the Brenthurst Foundation, Greg Mills,³⁷ served as a special advisor to the NATO Commander David Richards, who commanded the Western coalition forces as they stomped their way across Afghanistan.³⁸ Greg Mills³⁹ is one of four foreign policy right-wing hawks who are “allowed” to write on geopolitical affairs by the Daily Maverick. The other three are former U.S. diplomat Brooks Spector,⁴⁰ former editor of M&G and president of consultancy group Calabar Consulting, Phillip van Niekerk,⁴¹ and lifetime foreign affairs hawk and stenographer of Western imperial interests, Peter Fabricius. Fabricius and Spector are also linked to the South African Institute of International Affairs as “experts”.⁴² The SAIIA is funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of State.⁴³ But the systemic capture of much of our mediascape by the U.S. state and its partners extends beyond questions of funding, training programs, revolving doors, boards and collaborations of various kinds. There is also the question of editorial lines. In a number of publications, there is a systemic bias towards pro-U.S. positions, and very, very little critique of U.S. imperialism. There are a number of people writing as independent analysts, who are in fact embedded in the U.S. state in various ways. We also see that while the media has often served the interests of the public in terms of uncovering corruption in government, it has often done comparatively little in terms of doing the same in terms of private sector corruption, abuse of workers and control of policy.

All this is just scratching the surface. We are finding much, much more evidence of widespread media capture with every hour of research. Already some key questions are emerging for future research and articles. They include the following:

1. Why is the Daily Maverick’s funding not fully and precisely disclosed—including, in particular, the details on all equity, loan, or subsidy transactions?
2. How are the amaBhungane fellowship and training programs funded? Are there project costs, fees and expenses received from programs funded directly or indirectly from U.S. government agencies? Why do such large numbers of the fellows go on to work for U.S. government funded projects?
3. Which publishers, editors and journalists have attended the regular events for editors held by the U.S. consulate in Cape Town? What are the details of other briefings held by U.S.-directly or -indirectly funded organizations that senior leaders of South African media attend?
4. Who are the former publishers, editors and journalists who now work for the U.S. state or for U.S.-state directly or -indirectly funded organizations?
5. What other media projects are funded by the NED, OSF, Luminate and the Oppenheimers?
6. What is the percentage of articles in our “independent” media on geopolitics that support the U.S. line on international affairs and the percentage of those that are critical?

Transparency is a basic democratic value. It is time we knew who the masters of our media really are. It cannot be acceptable that while the editors and reporters of these publications demand accountability and transparency of those in government, labor and, occasionally, in business, they arrogate to themselves the right to not meet the same standards.

Our research project is growing in scope and urgency by the day. We need help from all interested citizens of South Africa who wish to contribute to media reform in the interests of transparency and the important work of defending and deepening our democracy. As a start, we welcome suggestions for further questions for us to explore and, in due course, to present to the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). Please do contact us at [email protected] and share the questions that you think should be raised.

Phillip Dexter and Roscoe Palm are co-founders of the Pan-African Institute for Socialism, which can be found on Twitter at @PaisSocialism.

 

Footnotes

¹ The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) started as a cultural movement in present day KwaZulu-Natal, but quickly morphed into a political movement to oppose the ANC’s liberation struggle. See “Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP),” South African History Online.
² For example, in a recent opinion piece in Financial Times, Gideon Rachman wrote, “The best thing [the ANC] could do for the country’s future would be to lose the next election and leave power.” Gideon Rachman, “South Africa’s fear of state failure,” Financial Times, Aug. 15, 2022
³ See Ajit Singh and Roscoe Palm, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media,” MR Online, Aug. 8, 2022.
⁴ See David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,” The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1991 (“‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,’” agrees [Allen] Weinstein.” Weinstein was a co-founder of the NED.)
⁵ See David K. Shipler, “Missionaries for Democracy: U.S. Aid for Global Pluralism,” The New York Times, June 1, 1986.
⁶ For example, in FY2021 alone, the NED’s Africa program granted $41.5 million dollars across 34 countries and hundreds of projects. See National Endowment for Democracy, 2021 Annual Report.
⁷ See National Endowment for Democracy, “Regional: Africa 2021,” Feb. 11, 2022.
⁸ See International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”.
⁹ See National Endowment for Democracy, Awarded Grants Search, (search: “Media Institute of Southern Africa”). Additionally, MISA has received funding from and is a “key partner” of the U.S. Agency for International Development. See United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 2002: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001, p. 870.
10 See Simon Allison LinkedIn.
11 See Institute for Security Studies, “How we work”.
12 “Private sector funding of independent media abroad … has several advantages over public financing. Private funders can be more flexible … and their programs can operate in countries where U.S. government-funded programs are unwelcome. “In many places around the world, the people we train are more open to participating in programs funded by private sources than those funded by the U.S. government,” says Patrick Butler, ICFJ [International Center for Journalists] vice president.” National Endowment for Democracy, Center for International Media Assistance, Empowering Independent Media Inaugural Report: 2008, Ed. Marguerite Sullivan, (cited in Manufacturing consent article).
¹³ According to the Global Forum for Media Development, OSF and NED are its “core funders.” See Global Forum for Media Development, “Partnerships”.
¹⁴ See Center for International Media Assistance, “Partners”.
¹⁵ See Luminate Group, “Sixteen media selected for Membership in News Fund,” Feb. 4, 2021.
¹⁶ Roper became editor-in-chief of M&G in 2009 and left in 2015 to become the Deputy CEO of Code for Africa (CfA). CfA is a member of Code for All, which is funded by the NED. Additionally, Roper was a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, which is also funded by the NED. See, Chis Roper LinkedIn profile; Code for All, “Our Supporters”; International Center for Journalists, Impact Report, 2022, p. 17.
¹⁷ Former editor-in-chief Khadija Patel (2016-2020) left the M&G to chair the NED-sponsored International Press Institute. In 2021, Patel became head of programs at the NED-funded International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM). See fn. 2 (above) (NED funding of IFPIM); International Press Institute, “Supporters and Partners”; International Press Institute, “Executive Board”; International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”.
¹⁸ Former editor-in-chief Phillip van Niekerk (1997-2000) left the M&G to take up a senior position at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington D.C. ICIJ is funded by the NED. See “New editor of M&G,” Mail & Guardian, Mar. 20, 1997; “Over to you, Dr Barrell,” Mail & Guardian, Dec. 15, 2000; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”.
¹⁹ See “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media.” Full citation at fn. 3.
²⁰ AmaBhungane “is incubating the Hub… As incubator, amaBhungane has continued to support the Hub administratively.” IJ Hub, Annual Narrative Report 2021/21.
21 See Africa Check, “Partners” (“The U.S. Embassy in South Africa is proud to team up with Africa Check to tackle misinformation and disinformation in the media.”).
²² In addition to their own media-related grants, OSF and Luminate jointly founded the South African Media Innovation Program, a multi-million dollar media investment initiative managed by the Media Development Investment Fund, which is also funded by OSF and Luminate. See South Africa Media Innovation Program; Luminate Group, “South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP) launched by Open Society Foundation of South Africa (OSF-SA), Omidyar Network, and Media Development Investment Fund,” Aug. 29, 2017.
²³ See i.e. South African Institute of Race Relations, 86th Annual Report, 2015, p. 7. Additionally, the IRR has partnered with the International Republican Institute, which is one of NED’s four core institutes. See International Republican Institute, “Democratic Governance in Africa”; National Endowment for Democracy, “How We Work”. The IRR is also a member institute of the NED’s Network of Democracy Research Institutes. (See National Endowment for Democracy, “NDRI Member Institutes” (https://www.ned.org/ideas/network-of-democracy-research-institutes-ndri/ndri-member-institutes/#Top).
²⁴ “The Daily Friend is the online newspaper of the Institute of Race Relations.” Daily Friend, “About” (https://dailyfriend.co.za/about/).
²⁵ See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Sam Sole”.
²⁶ See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”.
²⁷ See Sampie Terreblanche, “The New South Africa’s original ‘State Capture’”, Africa Is a Country, Jan. 28, 2018.
²⁸ See amaBhungane, “About Us”.
²⁹ See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ray-hartley-and-greg-mills
³⁰ See https://www.sayellow.com/view/south-africa/daily-maverick-in-cape-town
³¹ See footer on Inkululeko website for address.
³² See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S”
³³ See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S”
³⁴ See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Our Story”.
³⁵ Interestingly, a 1983 New York Times profile of the Oppenheimer empire opens with the following: “In an oracular vein, an academic named Chester A. Crocker once said of South Africa: That country is by its nature a part of the West. It is an integral and important element of the Western global, economic system. Mr. Crocker, who has since become the State Department’s top Africa hand and author of the Reagan Administration’s policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s white minority Government, was openly embracing a premise found in both South African propaganda and the arguments of Marxist analysts: that the West’s formal condemnations of apartheid mask an enormous stake in the outcome of the shadowy struggle between the races there.” See Joseph Lelyveld, “Oppenheimer of South Africa,” The New York Times, May 8, 1983.
³⁶ See South African Institute of Race Relations, 92nd Annual Report, 2021, p. 6.
³⁷ See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Greg Mills”.
³⁸ See Greg Mills, From Africa to Afghanistan: With Richards and NATO to Kabul, Wits University Press, 2007.
⁴⁰ See J. Brooks Spector author page at Daily Maverick.
⁴¹ See Phillip van Niekerk author page at Daily Maverick.
⁴² See South African Institute of International Affairs “Expert” pages for Peter Fabricius and Brooks Spector.
⁴³ See South African Institute of International Affairs, “Funders”.

The United States, which has prosecuted a war against Afghanistan since October 2001, has promised to withdraw its combat troops by September 11, 2021. This war has failed to attain any of the gains that were promised after 20 years of fighting: neither has it resulted in the actual fragmentation of terrorist groups nor has it led to the destruction of the Taliban. The great suffering and great waste of social wealth caused due to the war will finally end with the Taliban’s return to power, and with terrorist groups, which are entrenched in parts of Central Asia, seizing this prospect to make a full return to Afghanistan.

 

Civil War

There are two forms of war that exist in Afghanistan.

First, there is the war prosecuted by the United States—and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—against their adversaries in Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO have allied with a range of political projects, which certainly includes the government of the President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani. This is the war that the U.S. and NATO have indicated will now be ending.

Second, there is the ongoing civil war between the Ashraf Ghani government, backed by the West, and the forces around the Taliban. This is a war among Afghans, which has roots that go back several decades. As the first form of the war ends, the civil war will continue. The two principal forces in Afghanistan—the government of Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban—are unwilling to form a government of national unity or to create a mechanism to end the civil war.

Failure of peace talks between the various stakeholders in Afghanistan—including the United States—in Doha, Qatar, suggests the continuation of the civil war. The United States, since 2001, has not drawn up any serious political road map for a withdrawal. The U.S. will leave as it came, with the U.S. troops taking off as abruptly as they arrived.

Already, the Afghan National Army is weakened, much of the Afghan territory outside its full control. In recent months, the Taliban has been keeping its powder dry, waiting for the U.S. to withdraw before it steps up its attack against the government in Kabul. A report by the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which was submitted to the United Nations Security Council on June 1, suggests that Al Qaeda and the Haqqani network prepare to strike as soon as the opportunity arises. Al Qaeda is “such an ‘organic’ or essential part of the insurgency that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate it from its Taliban allies,” the report noted.

A Pakistani intelligence official, who is well-informed about the situation in Afghanistan, told me that the countryside will gradually slip further out of Kabul’s control, with the Taliban and its allies—including Al Qaeda and other regional terrorist groups—confident of victory by the end of the summer in 2022.

There is no appetite either in the United States or in Central Asia for the continuation of the U.S. military presence. Nothing good has come of it, and it does not promise any advantage in the future.

 

Regional Possibility

On June 3, 2021, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi held their fourth trilateral dialogue. This was the first high-level meeting held since September 2019. There was no direct reference to the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, but it set the context for the two most important outcomes of the meeting.

First, China pledged to play a “constructive role” to improve the long-fraught relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have become more heated up because of the regional conflict between India and Pakistan. China has close ties with the governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) requiring peace in Central Asia for the success of the massive infrastructure and trade project, which runs from China’s Pacific coast to the Indian Ocean and to the Mediterranean Sea. China’s leverage over these countries is considerable. Even if China can create a modus vivendi between President Ghani and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, it does not settle the deeper problems, such as the military weakness of Ghani’s government.

Second, based on these governments’ cooperation in the counterterrorism process, the foreign ministers agreed to jointly tackle terrorist outfits that operate in Afghanistan and in its neighboring countries: such as the Turkistan Islamic Party or East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), ISIS, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistan’s government is troubled by the operations of the TTP, which operates along the borderlines of the two countries but is based in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. China, meanwhile, is very concerned about the ETIM, which operates in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and has been trying to destabilize the Chinese province of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The ETIM has close ties with the Taliban, which—while it has held discussions with the Chinese—understands that its use of the ETIM gives it leverage against China. Whether or not these three governments will actually be able to weaken these terrorist groups, incubated by the Taliban, is unclear.

 

Tangled Web

It now seems impossible for the United States to formally remain in Afghanistan. There is simply no political will for the troops to remain in the country, even as the U.S. will keep paramilitary and mercenary forces in Afghanistan.

Given the heightened U.S. pressure on China, however, there is plenty of evidence that the U.S. is not unhappy with the possibility of instability that will come to the heart of Asia after the summer of 2021. In 2003, the U.S. designated the ETIM as a terrorist group, but it removed it from that list in 2020. This is clear evidence of the U.S. motives to destabilize China’s Xinjiang province.

The Pakistani intelligence official suggests that if the Taliban takes Kabul, groups such as the TTP and the ETIM will be emboldened to conduct attacks in Pakistan and China respectively. These groups, he tells me, will fight alongside the Taliban to weaken Kabul’s hold and to use the countryside to launch these attacks; there is no necessity for the Taliban to actually take control of Kabul.

The question that remains is whether or not the Taliban can be divided. The Taliban is a tangle of Afghan nationalism and patriotism as well as various forms of political Islam. There are elements in the Taliban that are far more nationalistic and patriotic than they are committed to the Islamist currents. Attempts to peel the “moderates” away from the more hardcore sections have largely failed, which has been evident since at least former U.S. President Barack Obama’s failed plea to the “moderate Taliban” in 2009.

There is simply not sufficient strength in Afghanistan’s society to resist the spread of the Taliban. Nor is there an organized capacity of Afghan citizens present yet to build a new bloc against both the failed U.S.-backed governments (from Hamid Karzai to Ghani) and the Taliban. But if Afghanistan’s neighbors cut off their support to the Taliban, and if they are able to deepen an economic project (such as the BRI), then there is the possibility for this new bloc to eventually emerge. That is why the dialogue between Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan is central. It might, in fact, be more important in the long run than the conversations with the Taliban.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Editor’s Note: This opinion was published as “Left-Right White Solidarity?” in Common Dreams in 2014, shortly after the U.S.-backed neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine, in response to solidarity emerging between left-wing and right-wing people of European descent in the United States and in Europe. However, this does not refer to the “horseshoe theory,” a concept that suggests the left and the right have much in common and pose a threat to a so-called “center.” The horseshoe theory leaves out the colonial question: What happens to people who have been colonized by Europeans in the United States and around the world? And what impact does white supremacy have not just on those who have been colonized, but on people of European descent? This version has been edited with the author’s permission.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana

Some years ago, Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri suggested that while not always visible in the social practices of everyday European life, the racist foundation for European fascism was still present, safely confined to a space in the European psyche, but always ready to explode in what he called a “racist delirium.”

Today, white workers and the middle classes in Europe and in the United States, traumatized by the new realities imposed on them by the decline of the Western imperialist project and the turn to neoliberalism, are increasingly embracing a retrograde form of white supremacist politics.

This dangerous political phenomenon is developing in countries throughout the European Union and in the United States. Just recently, the National Front, a racist, authoritarian party that labored on the fringes of French politics for years, has emerged as one of the dominant forces. The Tea Party in the United States, Golden Dawn in Greece, the People’s Party in Spain, the Partij Voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands—in these and other countries, a transatlantic, radical racist movement is emerging and gaining respectability.

The hard turn to the right is not a surprise for those of us who have a clear-eyed view of Euro-American history and politics. In all of the 20th century fascist movements in Europe, two elements combined to express the fascist project: 1) The rise of far-right parties and movements as the political expression of an alliance of authoritarian, pro-capitalist class forces bankrolled by sections of the capitalist class and constructed in the midst of capitalist crisis; and 2) racism grounded in white supremacist ideology.

The neo-fascism that is now emerging within the context of the current capitalist crisis on both sides of the Atlantic has similar characteristics to the movements of the 1930s, but with one distinguishing feature. The targets for racist scapegoating are different. The targets today are immigrants: Arab, Muslim and African in Europe; and Latinos as well as the never-ending target of poor and working-class African Americans in the United States.

What makes the rise of the racist radical right even more dangerous today is that it is taking place in a political environment in which traditional anti-racist oppositional forces have not recognized the danger of this phenomenon or—for strategic reasons—have decided to downplay the issue. That strategy has been tragically played out in the “immigrant rights” movement in the United States.

The brutal repression and dehumanization witnessed across Europe in the 1930s has not found generalized expression in the United States and Europe, at least not yet. Nevertheless, large sectors of the U.S. and European left appear to be unable to recognize that the U.S./NATO/EU axis that is committed to maintaining the hegemony of Western capital is resulting in dangerous collaborations with rightist forces both inside and outside of governments.

The manufactured crisis with Russia over the issue of Ukraine is a case in point. The incredible recklessness and outrageous opportunism of the U.S./NATO/EU axis in destabilizing Ukraine—knowing that the driving forces on the ground were racist, neo-Nazi elements from the Right Sector and the Svoboda party—demonstrated once again the lengths this axis is prepare to go to achieve its geo-strategic objective of full-spectrum economic and political global domination.

Yet, strangely, not only did many radicals in the United States and Europe not see the potential threat this situation represented—they seemed unable to penetrate the simplistic cold-war propaganda that suddenly re-emerged to frame events in Ukraine.

Instead of being concerned that—as a direct consequence of U.S. actions—a government came to power in Europe that, for the first time since the 1930s, included ultra-nationalist, racist neo-Nazis in key positions, the left along with the general population allowed the corporate media and U.S. propagandists to turn the narrative away from U.S./EU destabilization of Ukraine to Putin’s supposed expansionist aspirations.

The ease in which the corporate media was able to flip that script and make Putin the new face of evil has been truly astonishing. And the fact that that narrative was embraced by most liberals and large sectors of the white left in the United States only affirmed that—having abandoned class analysis and anti-imperialism, and never really having understood the insidious nature of white supremacist ideology—the U.S. left has no theoretical framework for apprehending the complexities of the current period.

The inability to extricate itself from the influences of white supremacist ideology has to be considered one explanation for the strange positions taken by large sectors of the white liberal/left over the last few years. How else can one explain the bizarre incorporation of the discourse of “humanitarian intervention” and the obscenely obvious racism of the “responsibility to protect”?

Could it be that many white radicals have fallen prey to the subtle and not-so-subtle racial appeal to a form of cross-class white solidarity in defense of “Western values,” civilization and the prerogative to determine who has the right to national sovereignty, all of which are at the base of the rationalization of the “responsibility to protect” asserted by the white West?

The apparent incapacity of white leftists to penetrate and understand the cultural and ideological impact of white supremacy and its powerful effect on their own consciousness has weakened and deformed left analysis of U.S. and European foreign policy initiatives. It has also resulted in the U.S. and European left taking political positions that either objectively championed U.S./NATO imperialist aggression or provided tacit support for that aggression though silence.

As a consequence of the abandonment of anti-imperialism and an active class-racial collaboration with the Western bourgeoisie, an almost insurmountable chasm has been created separating the Western left from its counterparts in much of the global South.

Instead of more resolute anti-imperialist solidarity, broad elements of the white left in the United States and Europe have consistently aligned themselves with the policies of the U.S/NATO/EU axis that supports right-wing forces from Ukraine to Venezuela.

Exaggeration, racial paranoia, and an overly simplistic and divisive—even “racist”—assessment of the liberal/left will be the charge. We accept those charges. We accept them because we know they will come. For those of us living outside the walls of privilege who must nevertheless accept the realities of the colonialist/imperialist-created global South, we don’t have the luxury of comforting illusions. Our lived experiences negate the false history of Europe’s benevolent civilization. We see developing in Europe and in the United States the very real possibility of a left-right racial convergence fueled by crisis, leftist ideological confusion and what appears to be a mutual commitment to maintaining the global structures of white supremacy.

Understanding the violent history of the Western project and the pathological nature of white supremacy, we are forced to see with crystal clarity that within the context of the volatile economic and social conditions in Europe, giving legitimacy to neo-fascist forces like the ones in Ukraine might just be the fuel needed to ignite that racist, fascist delirium Berneri referred to.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.