I offer apologies to subscribers to this blog and viewers of an earlier version of the latest post Marx and life on Earth. The internet connection was interrupted and resulted in a jumbled article. I have since rectified (hopefully) this internet created fault and republished the article on the blog. I cannot retrieve the email versions but can advise you visit the blog http://www.critical-mass.net for the corrected version. Regards,

Roy

The general cultural and educational level promoted within modern hierarchical mass societies, ensures that an anthropocentric viewpoint dominates the thinking of the vast majority of humanity. At its most basic level the ideology generated by the capitalist mode of production views the planet from a perspective of bourgeois property ownership. From the feudal elite perspective, the local land (and everything living on it) was ‘their” land obtained by conquest and inheritance. By a similar process, from the bourgeois elite perspective, the entire planet is effectively ‘their’ planet and most of it has by now been obtained by purchase and deed of transfer. This cultural concept of human beings owning land and nature has permeated all classes of society until it is no longer generally questioned and has taken the ideological form of taken for granted Anthropocentrism. Humanity in general now views the planet (and everything on it) as ‘our’ planet and the only question frequently raised is the unfair allocation of portions of it to individuals by means of their accumulated monetary wealth.

Furthermore, according to bourgeois law, the owner can legally do whatever they want with their property. If a capitalist individual or consortium buys a forest, then cutting it down and planting a mono crop is currently their legal right and entirely their own ‘business’. If another consortium of capitalists purchase the land and means to process sewage, then that is ‘their’ business and they can discharge it in rivers and seas in any treated or untreated condition they choose. Indeed, in general, the global capitalist elites are still acting 24/7 in accordance with this bourgeois intellectually constructed paradigm of individuals of one species owning and effectively controlling the rest of life on earth. This practice of ownership rights over the natural world is so culturally embedded that no serious challenges to that ‘basic right’ come from any other sections of humanity. Yet it is common knowledge that the establishment of ‘life on earth’ has been an evolutionary process continuing over billions of years, in which the planetary resources throughout evolution have been shared among millions of species life-forms. However, particularly in the last two centuries or so, humanity has produced an elite with a colossal level of wealth and arrogance, combined with a wilful ecological ignorance.

Since the Industrial Revolution the capitalist orientated bourgeoisie have begun to feel entitled to do whatever they want to other members of their own species (genocidally eliminate them and/or enslave them) and to do whatever they want to the rest of the planetary species of life (tear down forests, chemically assassinate insects, pollute air, land and seas). This characteristic of allowing individuals to undermine or destroy the earths life support system is an indictment of the low level of intelligence and wisdom of both the global elite and their millions of middle-class supporters in academia, media, entertainment, education, science, politics and government. For as opportunistic individuals the latter groups either turn a welcoming or blind eye to such activities and to their own more nuanced but nonetheless conspicuous consumption and pollution. To the firmly entrenched Anthropocene man (and woman) their particular section of the human species is all that really matters, and the rest of life on earth, apart from favoured pets, zoos and wild-life conservation parks, has to just get out the way or otherwise they will be pushed out of the way or eliminated in one way or another.

Placing humans first, clearly represents a commonly held anthropocentric viewpoint concerning life on earth and it is one, which has been a dominant view in religion and secular politics since the formation of hierarchical mass societies. Nevertheless, in actual fact, both in pre-historic, historic and biological terms, nature (life on earth) came before multi-cellular species of life and multi-cellular and multiple species of life came before a branch of the hominid species evolved to be human. Indeed, the so-called higher sentient species of which humans claim to be the most important, still absolutely depend upon the prior and continued existence of a whole network of visible and invisible inter-dependent life forms providing the oxygenated air, and the basic food and habitat chains on which the sentient beings rely to survive and reproduce. The real world came before the ideas about the real world and the human species ultimately remained (and still remains) more dependent upon biology than upon sociology. As noted in part 1, we are natural beings. The material foundations of our social existence are biological and ecological not intellectual. And whilst the human species depends absolutely upon ‘life on earth’ (nature) for its continued existence, life on earth in general does not depend upon the existence of human species, for its continued existence.

My own researches for a new study I am completing indicate to me that for thousands of years life on earth has been studied from the perspective of the human species; but the human species has rarely (if ever) been seriously studied from the perspective of life on earth. The intellectual reversal of the real status of humanity as natural human beings I consider is something of a historically based narcissistic exceptionalism spun out of the human ability to think and imagine itself as something above and beyond nature and unattached to natural parameters. However, that intellectually created virtual world was constructed prior to gaining a more modern level of understanding which fully recognises the dependence of humanity upon life on earth (or nature) – in all its manifold interdependent forms.
Marx, got as close as was possible duing the 19th century to understanding the reliance of humanity upon the totality of ‘nature’ but the interdependence of life on earth was not adequately understood or revealed then (or now) by the generic use of the term ‘nature’.

The continued repetition of the abstract concept ‘nature’ does not reveal anything of the inter-connected, inter-dependent and intricate web of life on earth. In actual fact the billions of life forms on earth and their interdependent life cycles that make up ‘nature’ is effectively obscured by never getting further than repeatedly using that convenient abstraction. It has taken almost two futher centuries of scientific research since Marx conducted his studies, to arrive at a more accurate understanding of the ecological interdependence of life on earth and humanities absolute dependence upon it at the cellular and microorganism level of sophistication and miniscule size. So whilst it is true that at one point Marx considered the Russian village subsistance commune might offer an alternative to the multiple alienations of capitalist based hierarchical mass societies, this 19th century suggestion of his needs to be treated with caution. For even when he wrote;

“..if the Russian intelligentsia (l’intelligence russe) concentrates all the living forces of the country to ensure the unfettered rise of the rural commune, the latter will soon develop as a regenerating element of Russian society and an element of superiority over the countries enslaved by the capitalist regime.” (Marx correspondence)

We cannot assume that the words “concentrating all the living forces to ensure the unfettered rise of the rural commune” represents a definitive break by Marx with the idea of a future  mass society form. How could it? The real biological and ecological evidence upon which to base such a complete reversal of anthropocentric exceptionalist thinking was almost completely missing in the late 19th century. Marx was, (as we all are), a product of the stage of socio-economic development then reached by the evolution of human life on earth. At the point in the trajectory of hierarchical mass society history that Marx was living through, the glaring negative affects of human productive activity upon life in general was restricted to particular parts of Europe and North America. In any case such dust-bowl, Aral Sea shrinking and river polluting, mass society effects seemed to be based upon callous or neglectful aberrations to the system of production. These rubbish dumps and discarded waste materials did not at the time manifest themselves as the general systemic affects globally generated by the entire profit based and turbo-charged hierarchical mass society system itself.

In fact even now, two centuries, later, this systemic pollution by so-called rogue producers ‘neglect’ and disregard for the environment is still the ‘common sense’ default understanding of millions of people – including large numbers of those intellectuals who claim to be influenced by Marx. Yet, the hierarchical mass society system by it’s original design and continuing purpose, is as a short term exploitative system of production, particularly in its latest capital dominated form. It is a form of human social organisation in which, since ancient Babylon and Egypt an elite have exploited and oppress the majority and nature, on the basis of a fiction that they are better, or considered more deserving, than the rest of life on earth and their own citizens.

However, the dire consequences for life on earth, as a whole, are gradually emerging from realising the effects of how the human species produces and reproduces itself biologically, socially and economically. The realisation is slowly dawning of how blatantly out of sync the human species is with how the biologically based system of life on earth has reproduced itself for billions of years. Yet this realization is still restricted to a few and of course in the life-time of Marx the climate changing, eco-destroying possibility of profit based production and consumption had not become a probability and so was not a defining issue. The most vitally important issue then was the alienating relationships between the human species within and between class based hierarchical mass societies. Therefore, when Marx wote;

“Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself, the abstract citizen, and an individual human being – has become a species being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation….only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.”(Marx. Collected Works Volume 3, page 168.)

We need to acknowledge that this statement – as radical as it was in the 19th century – is now insufficient and needs a 21st century makeover and a crucial addition. This could be done by re-phrasing the first sentence and inserting the following clause (in bold) after the words “particular situation’; i.e. “…to ensure it’s own species well-being does not detrimentally affect the present and future well-being of all the other inter-dependent species of life on earth,” will human emancipation have been accomplished’. So that the essence of the above revolutionary-humanist perspective formulated by Marx in 1870 would now read;

“Only when real individual human beings think and act as species beings in their everyday life and organise their energies and abilities in a genuinely voluntary collective way to ensure their own well-being does not detrimentally affect the present and future well-being of all the other inter-dependent species of life on earth, will human emancipation have been accomplished and humanity have realised an evolutionary balanced potential.” (RR)

Hence, whilst I am convinced that Marx regularly needs defending from the negative distortions of his many detractors, (and I have done so repeatedly during my adult life) he should not be transformed into some now dead ancient guru whose ideas must be defended at all costs or positively distorted in order to make all his ideas seem relevant to the new set of circumstances, now facing humanity. Pursuing such a strategy is not a scientifically based attitude but a semi-religiously based one. Marx’s research ought not to be routinely ignored and then bought out to be used like a compass when anti-capitalists feel lost in unfamiliar intellectual territory. His Revolutionary-Humanist criticism needs to be understood, but also refreshed and replenished by reliable and confirmable new evidence. Sadly, some modern followers of Marx have become trapped in a post-Marx, dogmatic paradigm of ‘Marxism’ where the “masters” theories must be occasionally dipped into, mined for ‘gems’, dug out and dogmatically followed, regardless of unfolding reality.

Some of his current followers seem to think that a guru-like Marx gave us the absolute socio-economic truth about human life on earth, when in fact he was limited by circumstances and limited himself to providing important relative truths concerning the capitalist mode of production and its wider social and political manifestations. That itself was innovative, groundbreaking and valuable at the time and remains so. Nevertheless, the relative economic truth about the capitalist mode of production and its alienating social life that he provided was relative to the evidence he acquired during his life by his reading of history and economics and by the combined experience he had accumulated during his life time in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe. 

Sadly, the revolutionary programme and praxis Marx proposed in the ‘Theses on Feurebach’ and elsewhere, never got further than the dead ends that the Bolsheviks and Maoists took it. While the reformist left became the reformist centre and the post second world war generations of anti-capitalists became bogged down in sectarian squabbling and point scoring against each other rather than promoting a collective analysis of the egocentric and anthropocentric (Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Maoist) vanguard model they were still promoting. However, in the meantime, planetary reality and the capitalist mode of production has substantially changed both qualitatively and quantitatively and so too must our ideas.

The experience of the Russian, Chinese and Cuban Communist Revolutions indicated that the hierarchical mass society model, even when controlled by those who were convinced they were following the ‘revolutionary’ ideas of Marx (or Engels) still remained hierarchical, still retained wage slavery and still treated nature as resources to be consumed indiscriminately and bought and sold as expendable commodities. Marx clearly knew the importance of some aspects of nature, (“land, the first condition of our existence” as he noted in ‘Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy’ ) as did many others, but he and his generation did not know the full extent of it, or the importance of the whole interdependent web of species life on earth needed by the human as well as by all other species. The planetary biosphere, including its air, water and land and all that lived within it and on it, was in previous generations considered to have a lasting – even eternal – stability, resource-wise.

For generations it appeared beyond the ability of human beings to disturb that life – supporting biosphere stability by anything they did or didn’t do. Indeed, that is still often the default position of the present day millions who base their denials of climate change and ecological extinctions on exactly that eternal type supposition. This is also the case with regard to those many humans who have a favourite species they wish to conserve but do not understand that the iconic Whales, Tigers or Pandas they favour also need the oxygen and food, provided by the mature plants and algae which are being destroyed or depleted by humanities ever increasing production and consumption – now on automated robotic steroids. Saving such iconic species requires saving all the planets species, particularly those at the base of supplying all the air we (and they) breath and the food chains we are all part of, such as the billions of insect larvae and plant seeds.

I suggest we revolutionary anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists need to free ourselves from the ideological confines experienced by and imposed upon our teachers – even the great ones – and begin working things out for ourselves. We need to commence and continue our own research and base it on the latest verifiable forms of evidence available to us. This evidence is much greater than was available to previous generations, we ignore it at the cost of seeing no further and perhaps understanding even less than our previous generations. The human brain is an amazing organ which is capable of examining evidence in detail in order to separate fact from fiction.  However, unfortunately the human brain is just as amazing at being used to invent evidence or distort it in order to turn elite preferred fictions into politically popularised facts. Consequently the task is to focus on the former and minimise the latter. In this regard Marx practiced what he once advocated in a letter to Arnold Ruge in 1843.

“I am speaking of a ‘ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of it’s own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.” (Marx)

Marx included in the category of ‘the powers that be’ those of the religious, political, economic and social elites, their tame media supporters and even those he classified as ‘dogmatists’ and ‘crass socialists’ among the liberals, lefts and anti-capitalist sectarians. I suggest that the above quote is one of the many suggestions by Marx that remains entirely relevant and one which is well worth adopting however, uncomfortable it makes others feel.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2024)

For the fourth time in almost as many months, the international elite collusion to actively support the genocide perpetrated by Jewish Zionism in Gaza has struck yet again. Not content with its many months of supplying weapons and other military support to the Israeli apartheid state, this genocide collusion was compounded by yet another to continually obstruct the UN resolution for a cessation of Israel’s shelling and bombing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank. This was followed by a third notable occurance of international elite collusion with the almost total official silence about (and an abscence of recognising) the provisional judgement made against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Beyond quickly giving outright support for Israeli crimes against humanity, the elites of major international countries, headed by the US, UK and Germany have been outstanding by sitting on their hands and keeping their mouths shut with regard to the vast number of Palestinian civilian deaths. This is despite the most blatant, openly admitted and media documented, mass elimination of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. However, the fourth international elite collusion by a collective  suspension of UNRA relief funds has demonstrated how quickly the genocide alliance can move when it comes to actions which are aimed at the ordinary people of Gaza.

Last week, a day after the ICJ ruling against Israel, unsubstantiated accusations were made and promoted by Israel that a dozen members of United Nations Relief and Works Agency, took part or were supportive of the Hamas  attacks on October 7th 2023. Imediately, the international elite genocide alliance sprung into action. In the USA, the UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan their respective elites immediately withheld relief funds for supplies to Gaza by (UNRWA). When doing so they knew that this organisation was the only source of supplies of aid getting into Gaza.

This action involves an obvious tactical support strategy by the international elites of the above named countries to the Israeli genocidal strategy of restricting relief convoys and thus starving and damaging the health of all the people of Palestine. Israeli elites have been doing this for months and they have now been joined by many western government elites. In this way the European and Western genocide alliance of elites will be complicit in causing the deaths of  those Palestinians who have so far avoided the bombs, shells and bullets supplied to Israel by the same alliance of elites. This  international elite support for Israel did not wait for proof or confirmation for the as yet unproven allegation involving just 12 people.

Yet even if this is true, it would still be a crime of collective punishment, and if it is false, then it will be a crime of falsehood on top of a crime against humanity. The infamy of this pattern of blatent elite collusion in the elimination of civilian people in Palestine must be breathtaking for those who naively believe that politicians have humanitarian principles guiding their actions. Clearly, the elites who continue to collude with Israel are socialised by the same or sufficiently similar political processes, as those of the Israeli Zionists and this should not be ignored or forgotten. Indeed, this pattern of dishonesty and perfidy is reminiscent of the worst aspects of elite inhumanity and collective punishment  demonstrated by the Hitler and Stalin political regimes in 20th century.

Politics of all shades, is once again demonstrating its pernicious inhumanity along with its class nature in that the elites in collaborating nations, stand together even when they are committing deadly crimes against other human beings. If the openly advocated and perpetrated  genocide by Israel, is not enough to stir any symptom of humanitarian condemnation or to motivate any form of preventative action, then there are clearly no lengths to which such elites would not be prepared to go. This entire episode should register as a warning to those who as the multiple crises become graver, are likely to be forced to defend themselves against future elite attacks upon their jobs, livelihoods and communities.

The current state of the political elite and their supporters internationally, demonstrates more than it just being a international fraternity club of privileged elites, who collude in the acquisition and accumulation of global wealth. It also reveals the decadence and stupidity of their system of choosing their leadership candidates. Just consider, the two contestants for the coming American presidential election, who should both be being supported and entertained in retirement villages or care homes, rather than being pressured or persuaded to pretend to be in charge of leading a country struggling with economic, financial, ecological and climate crises.

The situation is no less dire in Europe, the UK and the rest of the world, with candidates for office everywhere, who for decades have been a mixture of inept, discredited and out of their depth, ‘chancers’, more concerned with their own personal wealth accumulating situations than the dire straits of the millions they pretend to be serving. It is almost impossible to find any politician anywhere, with more than a temporary rhetorical commitment to integrity, humanitarian values or concern for the whole community.

If the 21st century  state of the world, politically, militarily, ecologically, environmentally and climatically wasn’t so serious, the current situation would resemble research material for series of incoherent film scripts and tired jokes, reminiscent of a Pinewood Studios  ‘Carry On’ film’ comedy. In this case  a ‘Carry on Governing’ would be an apt title.  But of course this doesn’t mean that there isn’t yet worse to come with a possible sequel – ‘Carry on Governing -Part 2. (Return of the Inept).

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2024)

In the early 20th century, an influential section of the German elite faced with a severe economic and financial crisis decided to back the rising violent ambitions of the Nazi movement in order to control the civil unrest of their population and to resist the demands of the poor and oppressed for less harsh and precarious working and living conditions. Room to expand the socio-economic system was an elite idea for the solution to this crisis and Lebensraum (living room) was the term used by the Nazis who had inherited it from the German intelligentia of the late 19th century. The idea was given a turbo boost as the Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) by the Nazis, but neither elites had actually invented it.

The idea had become widespread among the European elite and was based on the concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ popularised by the European settlers in the USA. The settler conquest of North American territory from sea to sea, (the Atlantic to the Pacific) was the ‘destiny’ imagined by those who thought themselves superior to the indigenous peoples. The poor and desperate of Europe were encouraged to ‘go west’ and remake the New World in the image of the European old one. In utilising this form of racist ideology, the 20th century fascist movement, (Part 1) was developed in most European and western countries. Over many years these movements demonstrated an elite based racist supremacist set of ideas and actions and were prepared to injure or kill those who opposed them.

This ruthless determination of the Nazis clearly impressed certain sections of the ruling elites of that period and not only in Germany, but also in Italy, Spain, France, UK and North and South America. Each of these countries had for a time their own openly fascist movements. However, only in Germany, Italy and Spain did the openly Fascist elite gain sufficient total control of a state to declare war. From any form of Humanist perspective these elites in these latter three countries clearly backed the wrong movement and the ultimate result was the Second World War. This was another world war in which millions died, a comprehensive socio-economic destruction of German, French and UK society again took place and during which three communities were singled out for particularly savage treatment.

In Germany, the Nazis first went for the Communists and Trade Unionists, and practically destroyed them, then they went for the Jews and practically destroyed them, next they moved east and practically destroyed the slavic peoples encountered during their effort to invade and conquer Russia as far as Stalingrad. The high-tech machinery of military destruction developed by each country was used with very little or no regard for civilian populations as a whole. The working classes became cannon and bomb fodder yet again!

At the end of the Second World War, the remnants of Nazified German elite were put on trial for a list of their crimes against humanity that were eventually codified and encapsulated in the term and conditions now falling under the description of Genocide. Revealingly, the mass crimes against humanity of the winning side (the Allies) were never admitted or classified as crimes against humanity and no one was seriously criticised for fire – bombing the enemies German or Japanese civilians or for frying them alive on mass by Atomic bomb explosions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Truth nearly always loses in wars and the winning side writes their own version of history!)

At the end of that war, the previous elite based systems personel in Germany were declared guilty as charged at the Nuremberg Trials and although many Germans accepted this guilt, not all were so inclined. Some lower level Nazi regime supporters still remained unrepentant and still accepted the hierarchical mass society logic of the exceptional needs required of a successful and an imagined superior hierarchical mass society. And, because such societies were (and are) unequal and unjust, the elite knew they would need to be held together by a strong leadership that exercised a firm hand to control populations who might think differently. The fascistic idea therefore didn’t die – it just went dormant.

However, after that war, the remaining extreme practitioners of this ideology, the Nazi Party members, were officially banned from holding office in Germany. So the question; ‘were the lessons of the Fascist experience not learned, by European elites?’ is not the appropriate question. This is because the ideological assumptions of all hierarchical mass societies are not based upon moral issues but on the hierarchical needs of these type of societies. Fascist and totalitarian ideas are not simply ideas floating around the intellectual spheres of political life but are products arising from the hierarchical mass society form itself. Therefore, these elite needs and aspirations, are reborn within every new generation when a new elite is formed within them.

So it should come as no surprise then that the US, UK, France and now the current German elite have decided to back a Zionist movement that has for years demonstrated their racially based supremacist ideas and actions in injuring and killing those who opposed them or simply stood in their way. This time standing in the way of the Israeli exceptionalists are the Palestinians, some of whom still live on remnants of the former Ottoman territory of Palestine. Most of the latter want nothing more than better living and working conditions and their stolen property back. So this time it is the western empowered Zionist Jews who are committing the most genocidal of crimes against humanity, but amply provisioned and actively supported by US, UK and Europe.

It appears on the surface, that the new German elite are committing the same type of mistake as their predecessors in backing a reactionary movement that is quite prepared to commit genocide and even go as far as provoking another huge war in order to establish themselves as the sole possesor of someone elses, land and homes. But as noted above there is something deeper than guilt motivating the latest German elite support for the genocide in Gaza by Israel. The new elites in Germany are simply following the same hierarchical mass society logic as their Weimar Republic predecessors. Since the logic of expanding hierarchical mass societies is known to their elites and it is to obtain enough land along with sufficient human and natural resources as are necessary to support a growing hierarchical mass society, then to maintain that hierarchical system expansion becomes a necessity.

Theirfore, the hierarchical elite imperative entails encroaching upon and controlling extra land, labour and resources at sufficient levels to also create enough surplus production, to feed, house and entertain the elite in the manner they have become accustomed. Moreover, they also need to provide resources for sufficient armed forces to ensure they retain power and privilege over their own mass societies and over those forces of rival hierarchical mass societies. Since military forces are unproductive their provisions must be supplied by the efforts of productive working class civilians.

Furtheremore, in a system containing rival hierarchical mass societies, many seeking to expand their territories and gain privileged access to key resources, will need to seek alliances with other such countries in order to be strong enough to overcome any opposition and ensure they win. This system of alliances to enable resource acquisition dates back to the ancient Mediterranean hierarchical mass society kingdoms and confederacies. For those who doubt this historical connection, it is extensively described by Thucydides in his lengthy history of the Polepennesian Wars covering early, Egypt, Persia and Greece. Among the many examples of allies and conquests he provides this following brief one, which should suffice to illustrate the pattern.

“The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary , had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos.” (The History of the Pelopennesian War. Thucydides. Chapter 1.)

That one book in its 26 chapters provides more than enough historically probable evidence of the hierarchical mass society aims and objectives (including genocidal brutality) during the middle period of their ancient Mediterranean development. Although the primary reasons then (and now) for state orchestrated alliances and wars of conquest are predominantly economic, other factors are frequently involved. In this modern case of alliances of capitalist led hierarchical mass societies exercising dynamic control over the Middle East, there is an added religious dimension to the economic one. Europe desired effective economic control and domination of the Middle East from the moment they realised the benefits of oil over coal in providing motive power for industry, commerce and transport and for powering modern military equipment.

Forward looking state elites, before, during and at the end of the 1st World War, reasoned that only unlimited access to oil would keep Europe, North America and the UK competitive in the global markets for commodity production, resources and markets. They therefore installed puppet regimes of Arab elites in most oil producing Middle Eastern countries. However, the only way to really guarantee this continuous supply of oil well into the future was to have a loyal, like-minded, well militarised ally in the middle east. It would need to be an ally sufficiently powerful to be able to help forestall or suppress any anti-European, and anti-US liberation movements who might try to overthrow the puppet regimes and cut off or reduce the supply of cheap oil.

The Jewish Zionists of the immediate post Second World War offered to be that reliable ally, provided they were allowed to form an exclusively Jewish State. Hence they were backed up to the hilt, politically, economically, militarily and financially by the West from 1948 onwards. The US alone provides billions of dollars value yearly to Israel, in one form or another. This is not done out of sheer benevolence, but as a kind of insurance premium paid for a definite service of present and future  asset protection. The additional dimension that has now occurred within this largely economic scenario is the fact of the different religious traditions of the elites and their citizens within the various countries.

The western US, UK and European Christian, Abrahamic monotheistic countries have become predominantly secularised and modernised in granting women’s rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of unlimited wealth accumulation, the right of all to education etc. However, whilst the Islamic countries after the First World War, had started to liberalise they have under the impact of western exploitation and injustice, begun to progressively fall back upon more fundamentalist interpretations of the Islamic Abrahamic version of monotheism. In the 20th century Women’s Rights, have been curtailed, in most Islamic countries, freedom of criticism has also been curtailed, freedom of religion is not as well tolerated as in the West and the Religious elite Patriarchs have a definite secular elite-frustrating political power within many of these states.

It is the religious fundamentalist leadership of countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, India and other Gulf States that is privately and publicly viewed as threatening to the elites Israel, the US, UK, Europe and the West. This adds a dimension of existential fear in Europe and the west on top of their racist characterisation of Muslim peoples as inferior to Christian peoples. The coincidence of these two elements of the current western Capitalist psyche; the desire for effective economic control of strategic Middle Eastern resources; and the fear of and resistance to, Islamic patriarchal religious forms of domination has ramped up elite  existential concern. These twin concerns have become a double incentive for some elites (and for some of their citizens) to side with Israel in its destruction of Hamas and other Islamic militant leaderships.

However, it is a serious miscalculation to allow this dynamic combination of elite fear and elite greed to justify crimes against humanity or genocide. It is a mistake for general humanitarian reasons; humans did not evolve over millions of years on the basis of routinely destroying each other on a huge scale. That is not a natural form of evolution but a social form degeneration. And the mass killing of Islamic believers is also counterproductive anyway, for it drives many of the women, youth and liberal minded adults of these countries back into the ideological swamp of religious fundamentalist patriarchy. In this way it furthers the risk of increasing fundamentalist terrorist type revenge actions, the loss of actual and potential economic assets, and through some unforseen and unintended consequences of military action – the possibility of yet another world war.

Again from a humanist standpoint this European and Western elite strategy of support for the genocidal strategy of the Israeli elite is particularly counter productive especially currently. It is occuring when many of the younger generations of Islamic countries, (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine, etc.), particular young women and young men are themselves beginning to refuse to obey the dictates of religious patriarchy in its fundamentalist forms. The elites in the US, UK, France, Germany etc., by their support for Israeli Zionist fundamentalism in Palestinian territories, has given in the past, and is now giving in the present, the example that the western forms of secular patriarchal world governance are not very much better (and in some cases such as their invasions of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Gaza), much worse than the Islamic patriarchal elite in their own communities.

But that human based value judgement doesn’t really concern the capitalist elite because their priority is for their system of resource acquisition and labour power exploitation to be viable and operational into the future. And that future for them is best served by loyalty to allied elites, not loyalty to humanity or loyalty to working class hope’s of not being forced into becoming canon fodder – yet again. In a way similar to the situation in the early 20th century, the hierarchical mass society system in the 21st century is in deep crisis yet again, and its elites are indicating that genocidal solutions to serious hierarchical mass society problems for them is not going too far or going beyond their predecessors promises of ‘never again‘. Hence, the possibility of a re-badged – FASCISM: TAKE TWO – involving everyone at a global supply level should not be dismissed as impossible.

Thus, the recent decision of the German state elite to stand alongside the Israeli defence team in the International Criminal Justice court to deny genocide, is, as noted above, not so much a second mistaken answer to a painfully clear lesson from history. It is simply the logic of the elite system of alliances between hierarchical mass societies operating within the modern historical context. The only alternative to the four or five thousand year old self-destructive rut and routine pathway of territorial direct (or indirect) expansion, war and genocide, is to create different forms of mass societies without including the deforming characteristics of hierarchical elites. It is the latter, who lead the rest of societies citizens in directions beneficial to their class but disastrous to the rest of the hierarchical mass society citizens and disasterous to nature in general.

Only non-hierarchical societies geared to production for general need rather than production for private profit and personal greed will end this cycle of elite sponsored war and genocide. Moreover, it is only radically different kind of societies which could also end and reverse the other unfolding crises facing humanity. Climate change, ecological destruction, wholesale pollution to land sea and air, cannot be ended by societies led by elites continually requiring and obtaining wealth and power, beyond the average needed for the rest of their own communities and also well beyond the needs of the rest of humanity.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2024)

The above noted ‘application’ to the International Court of Justice, complaining of genocidal acts by the nation of Israel against Palestinians, comprises of 84 extremely detailed pages containing 150 paragraphs, some of which are sub-divided into numerous sections and contain detailed references to 574 sources of information. The sheer length of this application will be something of a barrier to many people giving this important document the time and consideration its content deserves. For this reason I have decided it may provide a useful service to visitors to this blog to provide at least an overview by means of a few selected extracts from various sections of the document.

SECTION I.
Introduction
This section contains 20 paragraphs including the following;

“The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’)” (para 1)

“South Africa is highly cognisant of the fact that acts of genocide are distinct from other violations of international law sanctioned or perpetrated by the Israeli government and military in Gaza — including intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, civilian objects and buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected; torture; the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; and other war crimes and crimes against humanity….For this reason it is important to place the acts of genocide in the broader context of Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-yearlong belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.” (para 2)

“..Israel, since 7 October 2023 in particular, has failed to prevent genocide and has failed to prosecute the direct and public incitement to genocide. More gravely still, Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Those acts include killing them, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group.” (para 4)

“Civilian fatalities [in Gaza] lay bare the lie that the war is against an armed group. Rather, it is a collective punishment and genocide against the Palestinian people.” (para 12)

“.. at least 21,110 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and over 55,243 other Palestinians have been wounded, many severely. 56 The death toll includes over 7,729 children,57 not including the 4,700 women and children still missing, and presumed dead under the rubble.” (para 19)

“In 2019, the then Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) held that “there is a reasonable basis to believe” that the Israeli army committed “war crimes… in the context of the 2014 hostilities in Gaza”, in particular.” (para 31).

“Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes and military raids on refugee camps in the West Bank, killing many Palestinians, bulldozing roads, and imposing severe restrictions on movement.154 There have been 236 attacks on ‘healthcare’ — including hospitals — in the West Bank, with Israeli forces detaining health staff and ambulances and preventing ambulances from accessing the wounded.155 Armed Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians — overtly supported by Israeli politicians — have also escalated dramatically.156 Settlers — often accompanied by Israeli soldiers — have killed at least eight Palestinians and injured at least 85 others, instilling terror among Palestinians, especially farming communities, and damaging property.157 2,186 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 1,058 children, have been internally displaced since 7 October 2023 as a result of extreme Israeli settler violence, alongside punitive or administrative house demolitions carried out by the Israeli army and damage caused to homes during Israeli military raids and operations” (para 38)

SECTION B
Historical Background.

This section contains (Paras 21 to 36) giving further detail on the historical Background to Israeli occupation, prior to 7th October 2023 and this includes six extracts from Special fact-finding reports from international organisations, plus the following.

“Entry and exit by air and sea to Gaza has been prohibited since the early 1990s, with Israel operating only two crossing points – Erez (pedestrian) and Kerem Shalom (goods) – through which Palestinians could access the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for business, trade and healthcare and social and family functions.” (para 25)

Between 29 September 2000 and 7 October 2023, approximately 7,569 Palestinians, 102 including 1,699 children,103 were killed, including in those “four highly asymmetrical wars”, as well as other smaller military assaults, with tens of thousands of others injured. A further 214 Palestinians, including 46 children were killed during the ‘Great March of Return’,104 a large-scale peaceful protest along the separation fence between Gaza and Israel, in which thousands of Palestinians participated every Friday for over 18 months, demanding that “the blockade imposed on Gaza be lifted and the return of Palestinian refugees” to their homes and villages in Israel.” (para 27)

“The institutionalised regime of discriminatory laws, policies and practices applied by Israel subjects Palestinians to what constitutes an apartheid regime.140 Palestinians in the West Bank are contained behind a segregating Wall, subjected to: discriminatory land zoning and planning policies; punitive and administrative house demolitions;141 violent Israeli army incursions into Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps, including in Area A;142 routine violent Israeli raids on their homes; arbitrary arrests and indefinitely renewable administrative detention (internment without trial)”. (para 35)

SECTION C.
Genocidal acts.

This section contains 57 paragraphs including the following:

“Humanitarian veterans who have served in war zones and disasters around the world — people who have seen everything — [say] they have seen nothing like what they see today in Gaza” (para 44)

“Israel is said to be dropping ‘dumb’ (i.e., unguided) bombs on Gaza,195 as well as heavy bombs weighing up to 2,000 lbs (900 kgs),196 which have a predicted lethal radius “of up to 360m”, and are “expected to cause severe injury and damage as far as 800 metres from the point of impact”.197 This weaponry is being deployed in one of the most densely populated areas in the world” The level of mortality in Palestinian families is such that medics in Gaza have had to coin a new acronym: ‘WCNSF’, meaning ‘wounded child, no surviving family’.” (para 47.)

“To date, Israel has killed: over 311 doctors, nurses and other health workers, including doctors and ambulance drivers killed on duty; 103 journalists, amounting to over one per day, and more than 73 per cent of the total number of journalists and media workers killed globally in 2023; 40 civil defence workers — responsible for helping to dig victims out of the rubble — killed while on duty; and over 209 teachers and educational staff. 144 United Nations employees have also been killed, the

“highest number of aid workers killed in UN history in such a short time”. (para 49.)

“For many Palestinians, the forced evacuation from their homes is necessarily permanent. Israel has now damaged or destroyed an estimated 355,000 Palestinian homes — amounting to 60 per cent of the entire housing stock in Gaza. The extent of the destruction in the North of Gaza, in particular, has rendered it largely unliveable, with the destruction in the South reaching a similar level.” (para 60)

“The lack of water is severely impacting lactating women, in particular, who, even if undertaking only a moderate amount of exercise, require a supply of 7.5 litres of water a day for drinking, sanitation and hygiene to keep themselves and their babies healthy.” (para 67)

“Almost above all else, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has been an attack on Gaza’s medical healthcare system, indispensable to the life and survival of the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel “has declared an ‘unrelenting war’ on the health system in Gaza”, as observed by the United Nations Special Rapporteur ..” (para 76)

“In addition to the war wounded, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who still need routine medical care for conditions such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease or diabetes.380 Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are also in need of urgent care for kidney disease and cancer, and an estimated 130 premature babies are dependent on incubators for survival at any given time.381 Many of them are now unable to receive medical assistance. (para 85.)

“Along with its destruction of the physical monuments to the history and heritage of the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has sought to destroy the very Palestinian people who form and create that heritage: Gaza’s celebrated journalists, its teachers, intellectuals and public figures, its doctors and nurses, its film-makers, writers and singers, the directors and deans of its universities, the heads of its hospitals, its eminent scientists, linguists, playwrights, novelists, artists and musicians. Israel has killed and is killing Palestinian story-tellers and poets, Palestinian farmers and fishermen, alongside Gaza’s local legends: pastry chef Masoud Muhammad al-Qatati,” (para 93)

“An ever-increasing number of Palestinian babies in Gaza are reportedly dying from entirely preventable causes, brought about by Israel’s actions: newborns up to three months old are dying of diarrhoea, hypothermia, and other preventable causes.” (para 99)

SECTION D.
Evidence of Genocidal Intent.

Section D of the ‘Application’ contains six paragraphs dealing with evidence related to not only the actual, but to the verbal intent to commit genocide which came from within the elite leadership of Israel and from others in Israel. Among them the following;

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 3 November 2023. “In a letter to Israeli soldiers and officers also published on the platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter); the letter asserted that: “[t]his is the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. We will not let up on our mission until the light overcomes the darkness — the good will defeat the extreme evil that threatens us and the entire world.” (para 101)

President Isaac Herzog: 12 October 2023. “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.” (ibid para 101)

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. 9 October 2023. “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.” (ibid para 101)

Minister for National Security: Itamar Ben-Gvir. 10 November 2023. “To be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.” (ibid para 101)

Minister of Energy. Israel Katz.13 October 2023, “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.” (para 101)

Israeli Minister of Finance: Bezalel Smotrich. 8 October 2023, stated at a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that “[w]e need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.” (para 101.)

Israeli Minister of Heritage: Amichai Eliyahu. 1 November 2023  posted on Facebook: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes …” (ibid para 101)

Israeli Minister of Agriculture: Avi Dichter. 11 November 2023. “[w]e are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” (para 101)

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee: Nissim Vaturi. On 7 October 2023. “Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” (para 101)

Israeli Army Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories: Major General Ghassan Alian. 9 October 2023) “Human animals are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage.” (para 102)

Israeli Army Reservist Major General, former Head of the Israeli National Security Council, and adviser to the Defence Minister: Major General Ghassan Alian. 7 October 2023. “The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave….When the entire world says we have gone insane and this is a humanitarian disaster — we will say, it’s not an end, it’s a means.” (para 102)

Israeli Army reservist “motivational speech”: On 11 October 2023, 95-year old Israeli army reservist Ezra Yachin — “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children.Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live.” (para102)

Assorted other public comments made in Israel are included in Paragraph 103 to 106 some of which are as follows;

“Destroy everything”; May their villages burn; May Gaza be erased; turned into a slaughterhouse;

“I tell you, in Gaza without exception, they are all terrorists, sons of dogs. They must be exterminated, all of them killed. We will flatten Gaza, turn them to dust, and the army will cleanse the area. Then we will start building new areas, for us, above all, for our security.” (para 106.)

SECTION IV.
The claims of South Africa against Israel.

(a) failing to prevent genocide in violation of Article I;
(b) committing genocide in violation of Article III (a);
(c) conspiring to commit genocide in violation of Article III (b);
(d) direct and public incitement to commit genocide in violation of Article III (c);
(e) attempting to commit genocide in violation of Article III (d);
(f) complicity in genocide in violation of Article III (e);
(g) failing to punish genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, attempted genocide and complicity in genocide, in violation of Articles I, III, IV and VI;
(h) failing to enact the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the Genocide Convention and to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, attempted genocide, and complicity in genocide, in violation of Article V; and
(i) failing to allow and/or directly or indirectly impeding the investigation by competent international bodies or fact-finding missions of genocidal acts committed against Palestinians in Gaza, including those Palestinians removed by Israeli State agents or forces to Israel, as a necessary and corollary obligation pursuant to Articles I, III, IV, V and VI. ( all in para 110)

SECTION V.
Declaration and Relief sought by South Africa from the ICJ.

a) Israel has breached and continues to breach its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Article I, read in conjunction with Article II, and Articles III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI; ” (para 111)

(b) must cease forthwith any acts and measures in breach of those obligations, including such acts or measures which would be capable of killing or continuing to kill Palestinians, or causing or continuing to cause serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians or deliberately inflicting on their group, or continuing to inflict on their group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and fully respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI;

(c) must ensure that persons committing genocide, conspiring to commit genocide, directly and publicly inciting genocide, attempting to commit genocide and complicit in genocide contrary to Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d) and III (e) are punished by a competent national or international tribunal, as required by Articles I, IV, V and VI;

(d) to that end and in furtherance of those obligations arising under Articles I, IV, V and VI, must collect and conserve evidence and ensure, allow and/or not inhibit directly or indirectly the collection and conservation of evidence of genocidal acts committed against Palestinians in Gaza, including such members of the group displaced from Gaza

(e) must perform the obligations of reparation in the interest of Palestinian victims, including but not limited to allowing the safe and dignified return of forcibly displaced and/or abducted Palestinians to their homes, respect for their full human rights and protection against further discrimination, persecution, and other related acts, and provide for the reconstruction of what it has destroyed in Gaza, consistent with the obligation to prevent genocide under Article I; and

(f) must offer assurances and guarantees of non-repetition of violations of the Genocide Convention, in particular the obligations provided under Articles I, III (a), III (b), III (c), III (d), III (e), IV, V and VI. ” (all in para 111)

The remaining paragraphs of the Application’ cover a request for provisional measures to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians, notes the jurisdiction of the Court and states the common humanitarian ideals which underpin the establishment of the United Nations, the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2024)