The official handing over of school furniture to 15 Primary Schools in Tigray took place at the Hawzen Woreda, Koraro Primary OPS representatives, and the Neighbourhood Relation Committee (NRC). The procured furniture items comprise 3,000 desks and 240 blackboards. The procurement of school furniture was funded through the World Bank-financed project: Response – Recovery – Resilience for Conflict-Affected Communities in Ethiopia.
At the handover ceremony, Zegeye Araya from the education bureau on behalf of the regional government emphasized its commitment to ensure access to basic services in the region. He also appreciated the implementation process of the project which involved the community and the regional office and paid due attention to environmental and social factors.
Millions of Ethiopians have been devastated by the fighting in the north, and villages like those in Tigray now lack access to essential services. Educational facilities have suffered significant damage, with schools, furniture, textbooks, and laboratory equipment destroyed, forcing many children out of school. Consequently, approximately 2.4 Million school-aged children have been affected.
School furniture for 15 primary schools
USAID donates medical equipment worth $84,000 to restore basic health services in Afar
The United States Agency for International Development in Ethiopia (USAID/Ethiopia), through its Health Workforce Improvement Program (HWIP), donated more than US$84,000 (4.5 million Birr) worth of medical equipment to help restore basic health services in health facilities in Afar Region that were affected by the northern Ethiopia conflict. During an event at the Regional Health Bureau compound in Samara, USAID/Ethiopia Acting Deputy Mission Director Thomas Staal handed over the equipment to Yassin Habib, Head of the Afar Regional Health Bureau.
Acting Deputy Director Staal also visited Dubti Hospital, which was impacted by the conflict, to see USAID’s post-conflict support to revive its essential health services. The USAID Health Workforce Improvement Program worked with Dubti Hospital and other health centers in the region to build their capacity to plan, recruit, and manage their respective health workforce.
“Trumpists” And Globalisation
In 2017, Donald Trump rode his “anti-globalist, America First” campaign message all the way to the United States presidency. In essence, Trump declared anything and anybody who was not blatantly an American nationalist a “globalist.” A number of political analysts adamantly stressed that the key reason why Donald Trump and his message mavens deployed the term in that manner was to shield the candidate against predictable charges that it was preposterous for a billionaire, and one truly given to the gilded lifestyle, to get to the White House by pretending to save the common folk.
Manfred Steger in his book titled “Rethinking Globalism” stated that at its most basic level, globalism is very simply a philosophy dedicated to bringing people closer together all over the world. It is fundamentally about learning from each other’s successes or failures and promoting cooperation as well as prosperity. Self-styled “anti-globalists” have tended to flatten the definition conveniently into something more specific – in the sense of defining it as whatever it is that they oppose in the world.
On the left, anti-globalism has focused on trade deals and the abuses of hypercapitalism by a wealthy few individuals and multinational corporations. On the right, especially in the United States, anti-globalists run the gamut from Americanists, who would prefer a world led and dominated by the United States, to libertarians or small-government conservatives. They all like to misconstrue globalism as a movement for a “world government.”
Manfred Steger noted that there are also far-right critics who view globalism through the lens of conspiracy theories that purport to identify shadowy cabals pulling the strings of world events. These conspiracy theories, over the centuries, have at various points been anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, anti-Semitic or all of the above. It is difficult to tell where exactly on the conservative-to-far-right spectrum President Trump himself places his anti-globalism. To be sure, his anti-globalism bears little resemblance to the left’s anti-globalism, not least because his administration is filled with the plutocrats they abhor. He also very much seeks to project the U.S. hegemony they abhor as well. But again, none of these anti-globalist definitions of “globalism” truly capture the spirit of the philosophy at its root.
It is true that international cooperation doesn’t equal world government. The pursuit of international cooperation and the attempt to shape an equitable form of global governance do not equal world government. There are problems to solve that are bigger than any one sovereign state. And as regards global governance, one can have a de facto version of it, traditionally called imperialism, or a more enlightened, better balanced one. That is the one the democratic world is struggling to establish today.
Quinn Slobodian in his book titled “Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism” stated that any constructive vision of globalism, which we have always embraced, simply means finding ways to bridge the cultural and political, even civilizational, divides between governments on areas of common need or concern. To bridge those gaps, this inclusive kind of globalism dispenses with the belief that any one area of the world is by nature superior to the others and that it has all the right answers. It also militates against the Trumpian notion that nothing positive can be gleaned from other cultures or governing styles.
Quinn Slobodian noted that in the 20th century, this kind of globalism saw a shift toward flexible supra-national forms of cooperation and alliances. Extending that arc of cooperation goes well beyond the oft maligned EU. The 21st century is seeing a plentiful rise of city and other sub-national governments as global actors.
John Ralston Saul in his book titled “The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World” stated that in contrasts to the zero-sum worldview of the “Trumpists”, there is no upward or downward transfer of power in globalism. There are simply ever more actors at the table to work with and learn from each other. And there are many more stages to act on. According to him, our globalism is also, contrary to the narrowly defined leftist version of the critique, far from the multinational hyper-capitalism of today and the heinous colonialism of the preceding era.
POPULISM VS ELITISM
The current ascending populism is a reaction to the heavy handedness of global dominant interests. These interests impose and enforce their desires (on all and sundry), amongst many ways, through the overt/covert operations of their powerful states. The ‘deep state’ plays noticeable role in this regard. To recall; by the deep state we mean, the military-intelligence-industrial-banking-media-complex of the (mostly) powerful states of the world system. To be sure, the current global status quo is the reign of the elites, or ‘elitism’ for short. Its nemesis is the rising ‘populism.’ The confrontation between these two camps might well end up shaping the disintegrating phase of our modern world system, which has been around for over half a millennium!
The current divisive ‘elitism’ is the manifestation of late modernity, which is grounded on the ambitions of monopoly capital/crony capitalism and its attendant lopsided governance. Reductionist neoliberalism anchors its economic ideology. By and large, elitism is a socio-political diktat privileging those who believe they are in the know. All institutions of our world system effectively operate under this well-established regime. From institutions of learning to that of global governance (economic, political, cultural, etc.), all conduct their affairs by abiding to the logic of the elites. NATO, WB, IMF, EU, WTO, etc., are some of the institutional tools of global elitism. Inequality, instead of equality, undemocratic, instead of democratic, disempowerment instead of empowerment, etc. are some of the visible features of the reigning elitist global order, however camouflaged these obvious dispensations are (by TPTB=the power that be)! Current elitism is based on the greed system. If truth be told, it has little appeal to the global sheeple. If humanity is honestly allowed to express its wishes, hopes, fears, etc., it will definitely opt for a more holistic life than what is currently delivered by the reigning hyper elitism. By contrast, the misguided elitism of our day doesn’t really have a clear picture of what life is and should be, outside of the universe of accumulation. Existing elitism is possessed by the now and now! For instance, what the cumulative effects of our incessant manipulation of nature will bring to life and the planet itself is not a burning issue to existing elitism!
The destructive nature of the current elitism has yet to be (fully) exposed by the ascending ‘populism.’ As we said earlier, elitism’s irrational behavior, particularly in regards to natural resources, ecosystems, life and the general well being of our blue planet is abysmal! It is like a kind of mission to nowhere. At the end of the day, this dead end objective cannot appeal to any human, let alone the global levelheaded sheeple. Critical thinking is systemically shunned (by the global elitism) so that sugar coated anti-life discourse can go on unabated. Nonetheless, the old trick of numbing/indoctrinating the sheeple seems to run out of steam. Even the power that be (TPTB) of the industrially advanced states of the OECD (rich countries) are facing this backlash from their increasingly agitated sheeple. Many pretexts are being used to challenge the heavy handedness of institutions like EU, NATO, etc. Brexit itself is a populist reaction to EU’s preponderance. Greece, Spain, Germany and many of the east/central European countries are having vibrantly ascending populism eager to challenge the elitist status quo. Only last week another of the OECD country went populist, so to speak. Mexico elected, by a wide margin, an avowed socialist to its highest office. Over ten politicians are killed on a monthly basis, in Mexico! One wonders why?
To go forward, populism has to rethink many of the things the world has been taking for granted, under the current reign of destructive elitism. Populism should be everything that the current elitism is not! For example, stupid economic doctrines, like infinite growth on a finite planet, must be discarded. We believe, the ideology of the new populism must be derived from the following two foundational principles. Respect for all life and life support systems! Peace and equity for all! To some extent, justice and other democratic notions are espoused (mostly) to secure the above lofty objectives. We also believe, the dynamic dichotomy of left and right populism can be managed as long as we adhere to the above basic principles. For example, we now have a coalition of left and right populists running one of the G7 countries–Italy! Be that as it may, some serious debates need to be conducted (on a continuous basis) before conclusive assessment can be made about the rising populism of our time.
This was first published in July 2018
