Another Anzac Day has passed in Australia. There were the established dawn services, commemorations, sporting events piggybacking on the Anzac tradition – nothing unusual. I have mixed emotions and reflections about Anzac Day; in fact, Anzac Day eve, April 24, is the day Armenians worldwide commemorate (if that is the correct word) the start of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

I frequently return to the incisive article by Hans-Lukas Kieser, published in The Conversation in 2015. Entitled “Join the dots between Gallipoli and the Armenian genocide”, the author examines the adoption of a ‘total war’ concept in spring 1915 by the Turkish governing body, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

By that stage, the Ottoman Turkish empire was crumbling, facing invasion by multiple enemy powers. The Armenians, along with Assyrians and other Christian minorities, were regarded as the internal disloyal element in the emerging Turkish Republic.

The CUP authorities took the decision to wipe out the established Ottoman Armenian community, and over the course of 1915 and 1916 between one and one and a half million Armenians were killed. Forced marches, exiled to remote concentration camps, starved, frozen, expelled from their homes – the Armenians experienced the first genocidal total war of the twentieth century. The new Turkish Republic was being built amidst an ethnically cleansed Anatolian peninsula.

As for the Gallipoli campaign, we all know the basic facts. Conceived by Winston Churchill, at that time the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Gallipoli landings were intended to weaken the Ottoman Turkish empire, thus defeating a major ally of Imperial Germany. That plan did not work.

The Australian and New Zealander troops, unaware of global politics or the character of the Ottoman Empire, were used as canon fodder in that ill-fated campaign. We are all aware of the deaths of the Anzac soldiers, but we should also remember that 10 000 French troops died in the Gallipoli campaign as well. French authorities, aware that the Gallipoli adventure did not turn into a large ‘front of the Orient’, have been content to forget about that particular episode of their nation’s military history.

It is one thing to commemorate the war dead; it is quite another to turn Anzac Day into a civic religion. As Binoy Kampmark wrote, the Anzac Day has become transformed into a sacral element of a specific militarist tradition. Aussie mateship, sacrifice, fighting for freedom – these are component parts of an Anzac secular religion. These have become sledgehammers with which to slam anyone who questions the motivations of the politicians who send troops into overseas battles.

Since the Howard years, Anzac Day has become not just an occasion for silent reflection. It has been incorporated into the activities of arms manufacturers to promote the sale of modern weapons. Paul Daley, writing in the Guardian last year, notes that an expanded Australian War Memorial featuring military hardware and exhibits of modern military conflicts flies in the face of solemn remembrance and quiet reflection.

Promoting stories of blokey heroism in today’s conflicts – such as the controversial role of Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan – is a perverse inversion of Anzac Day as a time of honouring those who never returned. And what of the returned veterans – traumatised, suffering from PTSD, debilitated by physical and psychological illnesses? First Nations veterans were basically ignored once they returned from conflict. They had to wage an unceasing battle in peacetime for equal recognition.

The stories of First Nations veterans are gradually coming into the light. Initially barred from enlisting by racist legislation, the Australian authorities relaxed these racially discriminatory criteria by 1917, largely because the British empire needed reinforcements. When Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander veterans returned home, they faced racism and discrimination. This year, at multiple Anzac Day ceremonies, the contributions of First Nations veterans was recognised.

Aaron Smith, writing in the Guardian, notes an important issue – the growing unofficial acknowledgment of the frontier wars. The numerous and horrific massacres of indigenous people waged by the English colonial authorities – an early example of genocidal warfare – has achieved a prominent place in our national conversation, but still lacks official recognition. It is the frontier wars that are the true foundation of the Australian nation, not service in a futile and destructive campaign for imperial British military objectives.

Should Anzac Day include a recognition of the frontier wars? If that is to occur, then we need to expand the conversation about the Anzacs to move beyond slouch hats, beer-drinking and two-up. Precolonial conflicts involved physical and cultural dispossession, trauma, marginalisation and resistance by the indigenous. The frontier wars have more than their fair share of commonalities with the 1915 genocide of the Armenians.

Let us be cautious regarding politicians who gloss over the horrific suffering of war, and promote myths of sacrifice and ‘true blue’ mateship. As Binoy Kampmark notes, Anzac Day is deployed as a parade of historical amnesia, rather than a full reckoning with the war makers, whose decisions lead to criminal blunders and horrific outcomes.

How would you react if a man in his eighties kissed a small boy on the lips, and then asked if he could suck the boy’s tongue? Reactions of disgust and outrage would follow. That is exactly what happened last month – and the man in question happens to be the widely celebrated Dalai Lama.

The office of the Dalai Lama issued a formal apology last month, after video of the incident went viral. I will not link to any video of the incident, but you may find details in the news media if you wish.

The Dalai Lama made these inappropriate advances to the boy at a public event at the headquarters of the Tibetan anti-Beijing opposition in India,. The Tibetan government in exile has tried to rationalise the behaviour as an ancient cultural tradition. However, independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone has reflected the underlying sentiment of the public regarding the Dalai Lama in her article here. What is particularly noteworthy about this incident is that the adult audience did nothing to remonstrate or stop the inappropriate contact.

Free Tibet rallying cry

The demand for a free Tibet acquired enormous traction among Hollywood celebrities (think Richard Gere, Steven Seagal, Sharon Stone, among others) and has reached the corridors of power in the United States, as well as in the UK, and to a smaller extent in Australia. The Dalai Lama personifies the avuncular, spiritually motivated peaceful nature of a Free Tibet government in exile up against the Communist Chinese. However, if we dig a bit deeper, the Tibetan cause has a darker, politically motivated history and agenda.

The purpose of this article is not to advocate for the Beijing government. Let’s acquire a more realistic and skeptical perspective for why this movement to free Tibet has become a cause célèbre, but the equally valid national struggles of other oppressed minorities, such as that of the Palestinians, is ignored. The claim of a free Tibet is predicated on a fictional and romanticised version of pre-Communist Tibet. Rule by the Buddhist lamas was anything but a peaceful Shangri-La for the majority of Tibetans.

Prior to the 1950s, Tibet was very much a feudal, backward society, reminiscent of medieval Europe. Most of the arable land was in the hands of a feudal aristocracy, and the majority of the population were serfs tied to working that land. The lamas of the Buddhist order formed a tiny and wealthy aristocracy, keeping the population down through violence and superstition. Mutilations and torture of rebellious serfs was common, and the sexual abuse of children was frequent among the lama-landholding class.

Buddhism in the west has acquired a kind of cache in contrast to the monotheistic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have long histories beset by sectarian violence, internecine wars and economic exploitation. Buddhism appears to be quite separate from all that – at least on the surface. However, that rosy picture of nonviolent Buddhism does not correspond to the reality of Tibet under the lamas as a repressive and patriarchal feudal society. Theocratic despotism is not unique to Europe or the Middle East.

Buddhism did walk hand in hand with economic exploitation and subjugation of women. Education of serfs, particularly of girls, was forbidden; only the wealthy lamas and their children could acquire literacy. The monasteries, located on large landholdings, had their own private prisons for torturing runaway serfs and rebellious peasants.

Prior to the 1949 Communist revolution, the imperialist powers recognised Tibet as part of China; the latter having a long history intertwined with the former. Indeed, the selection and installation of the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa had to be approved by the then nationalist government in Beijing.

In 1951, Chinese troops did occupy Tibet; and the Maoist government in Beijing pursued a very moderate, gradualist policy at first. No attempt was made to expropriate the ultrawealthy landlords; in fact, Beijing asked for the Dalai Lama’s cooperation. The lama theocracy did not face an immediate threat of extermination. Social and economic changes proceeded cautiously at this time.

From the mid-1950s onwards, with the assistance of the CIA, the Tibetan lamas formed an anticommunist contra guerrilla army, and underground network to resist the Chinese military. Numerous scholars have described the formation and activities of this Tibetan contra network.

This covert operation intended to push Chinese control out of Tibet, and restore that nation’s status as a target of imperialist intrigues. From 1956 onwards, the Lamaist commando activities increased, until there was a large uprising in 1959. Beijing responded with a full scale invasion, and the Tibetan theocracy relocated to India, from where they continued their attacks on China.

That covert operation finally ended in the 1970s, but it served to poison relations between Washington and Beijing. The Dalai Lama and his collection of Tibetan exiles continued their relationship with the US intelligence community. His Holiness receives favourable media coverage, gives talks to international audiences on spirituality and philosophical wisdom. Whether his philosophical output is valid remains to be seen. He still serves as a weapon in the hands of Washington to prod Beijing.

When governmental secrecy is used as a cover for criminal or predatory activities and foreign policies, it is time to remove that secrecy and shine a spotlight on government conduct. We all know the reality of Chinese rule in Tibet. Before we start hoisting the Free Tibet flag, or changing our social media avatars to Tibet-friendly images, let’s be sure about what exactly we are supporting.

The eight year long Saudi war on Yemen looks, at long last, within reach of a resolution. Saudi negotiators will travel to the Yemeni capital for peace talks with their Houthi adversaries. Riyadh has agreed to lift the blockade of commercial imports into Hodeidah, Yemen’s main port, thus easing the humanitarian crisis wracking the Yemeni nation. All of the country’s southern ports will be able to receive commercial supplies.

These negotiations take place in a wider geopolitical context; the increased diplomatic activity of Beijing in the Middle East. Saudi forces, initially expecting a lightning victory, have instead become stuck in a prolonged quagmire by the Ansar Allah movement in South Yemen. The latter have launched large scale retaliatory attacks deep inside Saudi territory.

Riyadh’s losses mounted, and the Saudi rulers decided on rapprochement efforts with Iran and Syria. Those nations are currently under heavy sanctions imposed by the US. Here is where Beijing stepped in to construct region-wide solutions, thus increasing its standing.

Iran, a supporter of the Yemeni Houthi movement, is a long time rival of Saudi Arabia. The Beijing led diplomatic process has brought these two traditional enemies on a path of reconciliation. Whether that reconciliation will last remains to be seen. Riyadh and Tehran are on opposite sides of the Yemeni conflict.

In an article for The Intercept, Murtaza Hussain elaborates the crucial difference between US intervention in the Middle East, and Beijing’s diplomacy:

Recent farcical U.S. diplomatic agreements like the Abraham Accords did not entail any actual cessation of active hostilities and were largely based on U.S. concessions rather than any made by the involved parties. Unlike those deals, the Chinese-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran represents a genuine diplomatic accomplishment in which two rival powers were convinced to make compromises in the name of peace.

Decades of militarised US foreign policy contrasts with the reasonable diplomatic approach of Beijing. The latter succeeded in working out a ceasefire in Yemen – something US President Joe Biden has been promising for the last two years. The US has a long track record of undermining and sabotaging efforts to reach peace agreements between belligerent parties in the Middle East. Indeed, US policy has actively escalated hostilities in the Arab and Islamic worlds, prioritising military sales over respect for human rights.

Ryan Grim, writing in The Intercept, notes that Washington has enthusiastically supported Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen for eight years. There has been an uninterrupted supply of weapons and logistical support to the Saudi military from Washington and London. All efforts at arriving at a peaceful resolution of the conflict were scuttled by Riyadh and its unwavering backer, the United States.

The US-UK supported Saudi war on Yemen has resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. While all the corporate media coverage focuses on the suffering of the Ukrainians – who are white and Christian – the Yemeni population have suffered near-starvation conditions as a result of the Saudi-imposed blockade.

Back in 2020, Kathy Kelly wrote of the Saudi-Yemen war that the US, through its policies, was responsible for prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, declared that the supply of aid and supplies to Houthi controlled areas, limited as they were, should be reduced. Just to clarify, the US intends on starving the Yemeni population, because it opposes the Houthi government…..a barbaric philosophy implemented by regimes guilty of war crimes.

But the Houthi movement are proxies of Iran, aren’t they? No, they are not. While there are ideological similarities between the Yemeni nationalist Houthis and the regime in Tehran, it is a grave error to dismiss the Houthi militia as merely Iranian puppets. They have their own ideological development; a combination of Arab nationalism and Zaidi Shia religious dedication. While they are Shia, they differ from the predominantly Twelver Shia communities that constitute the majority followers of Shia Islam.

Thomas O Falk, writing in Al Jazeera, states that the Houthi movement has launched successful armed strikes not only against Saudi Arabia, but also against the other Gulf partner of Riyadh, the United Arab Emirates. The Emiratis joined the Saudi attack on Yemen, and quickly carved out their own economic and political interests in Yemen. Seeking to establish their own sphere of influence in southern Yemen, the Emiratis quickly became targets of Houthi forces.

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, states that while there are valid criticisms of the Houthis, the latter are hardly Iranian puppets. Indeed, the only reason that Iran has gained influence with the Houthi movement – limited as it is – is precisely because of the Saudi invasion. The Yemeni Houthis are not tied to any Iranian military command structure, or integrated into any Iranian forces.

There is still a long way to go to achieve a durable peace in Yemen. The diplomatic efforts of Beijing in bringing Riyadh and Tehran together does not mean that the Saudis and Iranians will become best friends. The ceasefire will hopefully lead to a political transition phase, thus ushering in a new era of peaceful development for Yemen.

The billionaire space race, which received an inordinate amount of media attention over the last few years, has increased public awareness of space exploration. Each billionaire – Musk, Bezos, Branson and so on – promises to outdo the exploits of their rivals. However, such missions are outsized vanity projects.

These projects will satisfy the overinflated egos of the rocket oligarchs. However, such cosmic parasitism will do nothing to advance our understanding of space, cosmology or fulfil the objectives of planetary missions.

There are more important scientific objectives, elaborated by astronomers and cosmologists, which if fulfilled will deepen our knowledge and understanding of the cosmos.

Venus is sometimes called the Earth’s sister planet – it is of similar size to Earth, occupies an adjacent orbital lane to us, and its atmosphere contains greenhouses gases like ours. In fact, the discovery of the phases of Venus – the stages of reflective lighting on the planet’s surface, just like the Moon – was crucial for Galileo. He contradicted the then predominant Ptolemaic view of an Earth-centred universe. Venusian phases proved that Venus revolves around the sun.

The atmosphere of Venus, and the planet’s surface, is another story. A nightmarish hellscape, Venus is a place which demonstrates the consequences of the runaway greenhouse effect. Surface temperatures reach 400 degrees Celsius, and there are heavy clouds of sulfuric acid circulating in the atmosphere. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead.

In 2021, NASA scientists listed Venus as the next priority target for a new space mission. The intention was to explore the Venusian atmosphere, geology, chemical makeup and any possibility of finding traces of life, however remote. Astronomers, all the while the billionaire egotistical space race was developing, worked out the scientific objectives of VERITAS, a proposed mission to Venus.

In fact, in June 2021, the NASA administrator announced two missions to Venus. One is the above mentioned VERITAS, and the other is DAVINCI+. The names are acronyms derived from the objectives and instrumentation involved in each mission.

Earlier this year, scientists closely examined the images of the Venusian surface taken by Magellan – the last detailed mission to Venus undertaken 30 years ago. The images uploaded by that effort, upon examination, revealed that Venus has active volcanoes. There are only two other solar objects that have active volcanoes – Earth, and Io, a moon of Jupiter. Not much is understood about Venusian geology – other than that it is very different to the continental plate tectonics of Earth.

Things were looking exciting for Venusian space exploration. However, early in March this year, some dismaying news; the budget for the proposed VERITAS mission has been drastically reduced. The initial budget request for the Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, was $US124 ($172) million. This was cut by NASA to $US1.5 ($2) million for 2024.

The VERITAS mission has several objectives, the main one being to map the rock composition of Venus, boosting our knowledge of the geological activity of the planet. This objective is even more relevant in light of the recent discovery of active volcanism on Venus. The viability of the VERITAS mission is now in doubt. Astronomers are left feeling confused by the budget cuts, and are organising to uphold the feasibility of the Venus planetary mission.

Planetary missions, such as the proposed Venusian projects, inspire thousands of young people to take up astronomy and cosmology, and increase awareness of the importance of those subjects – not to mention increased participation in amateur stargazing clubs. In 2015, the New Horizons mission returned masses of data from the planet of Pluto. Never before had any spacecraft flown so close to that planet. Yes, I realise that Pluto is now officially classified as a dwarf planet, or trans Neptunian object – but that is another story.

Pluto, about which little was known, turned out to have a geologically active surface. There are a number of mountain ranges on Pluto, and the ‘heart’ of the planet is Sputnik Planitia, a large ice-covered basin with intricate features. The New Horizons mission was a historic achievement, and opened up new possibilities of space exploration.

It would be an appalling outcome for the planetary science community, and for humanity in general, if such projects are delayed or cancelled outright. Yet the billionaires continue their egotistical ambitions to travel to outer space. Spectacular and cynical outer space stunts by ultrawealthy billionaires may make good television, but do nothing to deepen our understanding of the universe.

The former Soviet republic of Georgia experienced large antigovernment protests in the early weeks of March. These demonstrations received favourable coverage in the corporate media. The protests, the reasons they happened, and why the Georgian political situation is in the news at all forms a multifaceted subject, which we shall untangle here.

Georgia-Russia relations after 1991 have taken many twists and turns. It is necessary to understand this background so we can make sense of current Georgian developments. Since the dissolution of the USSR, Georgian authorities have veered towards the West in their domestic and foreign policies. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first president of post-communist Georgia, was a dissident in Soviet times. Hailed as a hero, he was also a vicious racist and violent ultranationalist, pledging to rid Georgian of all its ethnic minorities.

Provoking the ethnic enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to secede from Georgia, Gamsakhurdia failed to unite his nation. The economic collapse of Georgia, mirroring that of Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, was appalling.

Rival mafiosi groups fought each other for control, and federal governmental authority was crumbling. Ousted in a near civil war by rival Georgian warlord ultranationalists in late 1991, Gamsakhurdia tried to stage a comeback, but to no avail. He was assassinated by his former colleagues in 1993.

From this cesspit of unrestrained privatisation, ethnic conflict and mafiosi wars, Edward Shevardnadze – the former and last Soviet foreign minister – emerged as the new president. Opening up to the west, he allowed a huge network of western NGOs and civil society networks to set up shop in Georgia, on the rationale that this would lead to the construction of an open society. Open for big capital, yes – but not for the vast majority of the Georgian people.

Dealing with a shattered economy, mafia wars, ethnic separatist conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and a Gamsakhurdia-loyalist rebellion, Shevardnadze failed to stabilise the inherent turbulence of Georgian economics and politics. He kept relations with Moscow cordial and friendly, but never abandoned the dream of full Euro-Atlantic integration.

Legitimate anger against the authorities was building. The post-communist politicians failed to solve any of Georgia’s long term sociopolitical problems, and basically presided over a failed state. Georgia has also been a central focus of intrigues by imperialist powers, which intend to install business-friendly governments in Tbilisi.

Georgia, located on the Black Sea, is within reach of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan, with its tremendous oil reserves, has cooperated with foreign oil multinationals to build pipelines to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. These pipelines, originating in the Caspian, pas through Georgian territory – the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline is a major artery for the global oil industry.

The 2003 Rose revolution was a US-orchestrated regime change operation, utilising the soft power of US funded NGOs inside Georgia to push for a more pro-western orientation. Shevardnadze was ousted, and US trained lawyer Mikhail Saakashvili took over as president. From the outset, Saakashvili amplified the pro-imperialist orientation of the nation, supporting the American invasion of Iraq in that year. Preaching a free market fundamentalism, Saakashvili made the Georgian economy dependent on tourism, an outflow of cheap labour, and financially parasitic activities.

Georgia intended to join Nato, an objective set out by Shevardnadze. Saakashvili continued this pro-imperialist course, supporting the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, sending 1000 troops to participate in that effort. Donald Rumsfeld, then US Secretary of Defence, visited Tbilisi in 2003.

The Georgian authorities, since 1991, cast the country as a fundamentally Christian and European oriented nation. They promoted a particular history of Georgia, denouncing Communism as ‘Sovietisation’, portraying Georgia as an eternally Christian, crusader, ethnically pure entity, battling rival empires to find its ‘rightful’ place in Europe.

Buoyed by the visit of then US President George Bush in 2005 to Tbilisi, Saakashvili made bellicose and fanatic promises to reconquer the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia had long been the recipient of US largesse, to the tune of billions of dollars. Saakashvili thought his time had come, to be the ‘saviour’ of Georgia. After a brief war in 2008, Georgian forces were quickly and resoundingly defeated. Saakashvili resigned in disgrace, only to reappear in Ukrainian politics as a supporter of Kyiv.

Since the early 2010s, Georgian politics has been dominated by a coalition of ultranationalist politicians known as Georgian Dream. And what of the current protests? The immediate trigger was a proposed bill by the government to register foreign entities working in Georgia as foreign agents. Any organisation which derives more than 20 percent of its funding from overseas was deemed to be a foreign agent.

The proposed law, withdrawn by the Tbilisi authorities after the widespread protests, is similar to US laws designed to track foreign owned operators. Misleadingly named the ‘Russian’ law, its character was deemed to be authoritarian, targeting the foreign owned NGOs which operate in Georgia. In the US, entrepreneurs who receive income from overseas must register with the Department of Justice, and provide reports regarding their operations to keep them transparent.

The March 2023 protests certainly witnessed the involvement of individuals motivated by legitimate grievances against the government. However, we cannot neglect the undeniable role of US interference in Georgian affairs. The scale and political character of these latest s demonstrations bear all the characteristics of a US sponsored colour revolution, which will take Georgia further down the path of Euro-Atlantic integration.

Integration with the European Union and the NATO imperialist alliance is but a mirage; an ever shifting illusion which serves only to motivate Georgians to work as pawns of outside powers. There are many legitimate grievances to raise against the Georgian authorities. Marching in lockstep with Washington and London will not bring this vaunted integration any closer, but will result in Georgian lives being used as cannon fodder for future wars.

Ancient Egypt has long been recognised as a treasure trove for the archaeologist – no pun intended. The subject of numerous documentaries, popular movies and biblical mythology, the ancient Egyptians have been the target of an enduring fascination. However, one question that keeps arising about that civilisation exposes our own misconceptions about the ancient Egyptians.

What race were the ancient Egyptians? This question is misleading for a number of reasons. Egypt has been conquered by successive waves of empires – Greek Macedonian, Assyrian, Roman – among others. Did these waves of new conquerors change the genetic makeup of the Egyptian population? Ancient Egypt did not think in terms of race; we are applying a misconceived 18th century categorisation and imposing it on a civilisation that was multicoloured in the first place.

To be certain, white supremacists have long deployed pseudo archaeological fantasies to claim that the ancient Egyptians were of white Nordic descent. Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi party ideologist and racist, made the claim in his writings that the ancient Egyptians (including Tutankhamen) were of Northern European white ancestry. Today’s white nationalist groups have followed in his footsteps. In this way, white supremacists seek to illegitimately acquire ancient Egyptian credibility for their ancestry, as opposed to the putatively ‘lesser’ Semitic races.

Sub-Saharan Africa had numerous empires and civilisations for centuries prior to European colonisation. While Europe remained a backwater, Africa had the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, and the west African Malian empire, to name but two examples.

There is the stereotypical image of the African bushman in a loincloth hunting their prey with a spear – but I would venture to suggest that there is no a single iota of difference in intelligence between the Zulu and the Oxford don. The latter possesses technical intelligence; the former possesses a practical knowledge of their environment and culture.

Ancient DNA

Over the last two years, there has been an increase in news stories covering the scientific results of ancient DNA findings. Extracting ancient DNA does pose its own problems, but they are not insurmountable. Egypt is not exactly a hospitable environment for DNA; in the hot Egyptian sun, DNA is usually incinerated. The pyramids, trapping humidity, are also a hostile environment for ancient DNA.

What if ancient DNA could be extracted from mummified bodies? Surely teeth and bones, even preserved hair and skin, can provide DNA from the bodies of ancient Egyptians, thus resolving the question of what racial background predominated? A team of geneticists and researchers did just that.

Johannes Krause, a geneticist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany – and his team – managed to successfully extract ancient DNA from mummified remains. The mummies, ranging from between 2000 and 3000 years old, originated from middle Egypt in a region called Abusir el-Meleq. The remains date from a period of pharaonic Egypt dating from the New Kingdom, up to the time of Roman rule.

What the researchers found was not entirely surprising – the ancient Egyptians were most closely related to the people of the Levant. The latter comprises the current nations of Palestine/Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. In other words, the ancient Egyptians were not black African, but close in genealogy to the Arabic speaking nations.

The conquerors of Egypt did not have a significant impact on the genomes of the population. In fact, the presence of sub-Saharan black African DNA in the Egyptian population increased in the centuries after the Roman conquest had ended. This was due to increased trade and intermixing after the decline of the pharaonic period.

Ancient Egypt was never a black African empire, even though today’s Afrocentric writers have engaged in an exercise in Kemet-speculation. To be fair, the drive by Afrocentric scholars to prioritise the teaching of African civilisations is legitimate and commendable. They are responding to the centuries of European colonial subjugation and denial of sub-Saharan cultures and knowledge.

No, black separatism is not ‘just as racist’ as white nationalism. The latter is the offending structure; black Afrocentrism developed as a response to the suppression and denial of African history. Let’s have a respectful disagreement with Afrocentrism, the latter being a therapeutic mythology, in the words of one expert of African history.

It is completely erroneous to pressure-fit Ancient Egypt into modern racial categories. In fact, Afrocentrism has a distinctive anti-Arab and anti-Muslim undercurrent to it. We have departed a long way from the 1960s, when Malcolm X and W E B Du Bois upheld Nasser’s Egypt, and revolutionary Algeria, as solid Arab allies of the pan-Africanist cause.

The Islamic Arab invasion of North Africa, while violent, did not result in mass racial displacement or the extermination of the original inhabitants. Let’s not overstate the impact of the Islamic invasion. Egyptians were not displaced, but rather absorbed by the new conquerors. The violent replacement interpretation gained traction, in alliance with American evangelical churches, to drive a wedge between the Arab and African peoples.

Progressive and leftist voices are being drowned out by parochial nativists, Afrocentrism in particular being a kind of black Zionism. Do not break down the bonds of solidarity between sub-Saharan Africans and Arabs. Afrocentrism wrongly portrays the Near Eastern Arabs as violent intruders and marauders into an otherwise pristine Africa.

Distorting the history and legacy of ancient Egypt only serves to reinforce divisions between sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab nations of Northern Africa.

At Jubilee Park, Parramatta – western Sydney – the Indian community contributed to the setting up of a statue to Mahatma Gandhi. This statue is in recognition of the courageous and principled struggle of Gandhi and his supporters to establish a culturally tolerant, democratic India. Sadly, the current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu sectarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), follows the ideological tradition of Gandhi’s assassin. Hindutva is steadily making inroads into the Indian diaspora communities in Australia, Britain and the United States.

Hindutva is an ethnonationalist political ideology which advocates for a purely Hindu majoritarian state. An ultranationalist philosophy, Hindutva partisans demand the expulsion of non-Hindu minorities, such as India’s Muslim community, from the lands of historic India. To be certain, Hindutva exploits the religion of Hinduism for political and ethnosupremacist reasons. There is no suggestion that every Hindu is an extremist or fanatic. Please do not conflate Hindutva with Hinduism.

Jacobin magazine has been regularly covering the rise of BJP-affiliated Hindutva lobby groups in the United States. Azad Essa, in an extensive article, details the rise and operations of Hindu sectarian organisations. The Overseas Friends of the BJP, (OFBJP), has been active in projecting a Hindutva image of India externally. Founded in 1991, it has grown into a powerful lobby group in the halls of the US Congress.

To be sure, projecting a Hindutva image of India overseas is nothing new. In the early 1990s, the destruction of the Babri Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya, carried out by Hindu nationalists (under the protection of the authorities), created a public relations problem for India.

The Hindutva supporters overseas quickly mobilised to promote a Hindu supremacist rationalisation of the mosque demolition, framing it as a legitimate reclamation of land by majoritarian Hindu forces. The Indian Muslim community has long been stigmatised as the products of foreign invaders.

Indeed, the main philosopher behind the ideology of the BJP and its associated Hindutva organisations, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883 – 1966) was an outspoken Hindu supremacist. Savarkar, the creator of this ethnonationalist ideology, was anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and anti-British. Let’s clarify that while he opposed Britain, he was never an anti-imperialist. His opposition to Britain was based on his hostility to non-Hindus.

It is no exaggeration to state that Savarkar is Modi’s original inspiration. In fact, Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, was motivated by Savarkar’s vision of a Hindu supremacist India. Savarkar expounded his views, which included the expulsion of Muslims from India.

He sympathised with Nazi and fascist movements in Europe, and expressed his support for Zionism, as an allied ideology committed to building an ethnonationalist state in Palestine. Shared hostility to Muslims contributed to this burgeoning ideological correspondence.

Islamophobia is a potent ideological glue, cementing alliances between various ultrarightist political groups. Hindutva organisations, such as the BJP, have long been Islamophobic, agitating for the violent expulsion of India’s Muslims. However, since 2001 and the launch of the purported war on terror, Islamophobic ideology moved to a new level of state policy.

From Azad Essa’s article, the following observation is directly relevant here:

The War on Terror didn’t merely usher in programs of surveillance and racism against the Muslim community. It also facilitated the cross-pollination of essentially right-wing ethnonationalisms and helped normalize anti-Muslim bigotry in different parts of the globe.

In the 2000s, Hindu nationalist groups have learned from political lobbying organisations, in particular from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Modelled on AIPAC, Hindutva organisations are creating a new generation of politically engaged Indians in the diaspora. One of their main goals is forging agitating closer cooperation between Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.

When Indian PM Modi travels to the US, he is welcomed by a near-rock star reception by Indian audiences. Since becoming PM, the Indian government has oriented strongly towards Tel Aviv, providing support to the Zionist state. Hindutva organisations in the US and Britain have dutifully circulated anti-Muslim and pro-Israeli propaganda, in contrast to India’s traditional support for the Palestinians.

Abdulla Moaswes, writing in 972 magazine, states that in similar fashion to the Israeli government, the BJP intends to make membership of a religion the political basis of citizenship. Modi has constructed the most Israel-friendly government in independent India’s history. Savarkar, the ideological forebear of the BJP and Hindutva organisations, expressed his support for the Zionist ethnostate.

This is not to suggest that there is no opposition to the BJP and its ideology inside India – in fact, opposition to the Hindutva ethnonationalist vision of the BJP is growing. However, we must not allow the Indian communities in the diaspora to become unchallenged partisans of Hindutva philosophy. The ghost of Gandhi’s assassin needs to be exorcised.

The Berlin Olympics of 1936 were a showcase for Nazi Germany, and for Hitler personally. Germany won more medals than any other nation at those games. The most famous story emerging from the 1936 Olympics is the triumph of black American athlete, Jesse Owens. The latter, a star track and field competitor for the US team, won four gold medals, thus demolishing the myth of white Aryan racial superiority. Hitler, incensed at this outcome, snubbed Owens and left the stadium.

A nice story – except that it is not true. Owens, and the 17 other African American athletes, were not snubbed by Hitler at all, but by their own government. Not a single US President, until Barack Obama, acknowledged the accomplishments of these 18 black Olympians. They achieved enormous triumphs and accolades in Nazi Germany, only to be ignored and discriminated against by their home nation. Even Eisenhower, in 1955, nominated Owens as an ambassador of sport. That is all well and good, but hardly recognition for the achievements of the African American athletes.

In one of the great ironies of history, the black American athletes lived in a racially integrated Olympic village for the duration of their stay in Berlin. That state of affairs was impossible at that time in the US. Returning home, they had to go back to the legalised racial segregation practiced by their home nation.

John Woodruff, a fellow athlete, won gold in the 800 meters race in Berlin. He explained in an interview decades after the event the feeling of exhilaration, destroying the widely held myth of white supremacy in the heart of Nazi Germany. Yet, when Woodruff returned to the US, he encountered the following:

After the Olympics, we had a track meet to run at Annapolis, at the Naval Academy. Now here I am, an Olympic champion, and they told the coach that I couldn’t run. I couldn’t come. So I had to stay home, because of discrimination. That let me know just what the situation was. Things hadn’t changed. Things hadn’t changed.

While Owens gained international attention after the Berlin Olympics, the accomplishments of the other athletes faded into obscurity. This is unfortunate – while Owens deserves recognition and admiration, the myth of being ‘snubbed by Hitler’ has served to eclipse the equally remarkable sporting achievements of Owens’ athletic colleagues.

In fact, Owens achieved remarkable popularity among the German crowds during his time at the Berlin Olympics. He received ear-shattering ovations, with chants of ‘Oh-vens!’ reverberating throughout the Olympic stadium. The Nazi government, for its part, toned down the antisemitic rhetoric and propaganda posters for the duration of the Olympics.

Hitler, on the first day of the Olympic competition, congratulated only the winning German athletes. The governing Olympic committee advised him that this was against protocol – receive all the winners or none at all. So from the second day onwards, Hitler did not receive any athletes. Owens, who was gaining popularity and being mobbed by adoring German fans for an autograph, was greeted by a Nazi salute from Hitler in the stands. Owens waved back, and continued with the competition.

As Owens explained in the years after the 1936 Olympics, it was not Hitler who snubbed him, but the American president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt pointedly ignored the black American athletes, and invited only the white athletes to visit him in the Oval Office. FDR did not even send a telegram of congratulations to the African American team, Owens commented.

In the decades after his Olympic career was over, Owens worked various jobs. The commercial endorsements, and mini-celebrity status, achieved by retired athletes, was denied to Owens. There were times when Owens was forced to declare bankruptcy. Becoming a heavy smoker, Owens passed away of lung cancer in 1980.

The story of Hitler-didn’t-shake-hands-with-Owens is one of those comforting urban legends. Taking grains of truth from real events, they achieve a life of their own, snowballing into an agglomeration of untruths and soothing falsehoods.

In 1936, America had no inclination to tackle the rising threat of European fascism; indeed, American companies continued to do business with large German conglomerates implicated in supporting the Nazi party and its war machine. Big American companies, such Du Pont, Coca Cola and General Electric, had investments in Nazi enterprises.

Deflecting attention from US involvement in Nazi Germany’s economy, in particular after the full revelations of the horrors of the Nazi-run concentration camps – and their role in provisioning slave labour – the Owens-was-snubbed-by-Hitler story serves as a retroactive application of moral principles. After all, Owens giving Hitler a reason to be incensed, provides Americans with a salve to their collective conscience.

Who need bother with the story of IBM corporation, and its involvement in German enterprises during the Holocaust, when we can soothe ourselves with the knowledge’ that already in 1936, we knew what a bad man Hitler was by the way he allegedly ignored Jesse Owens?

Yes, we all understand the criminal and racist nature of the Nazi party, and the vitriolic ideology of its chief exponent. White supremacist ideology led to the concentration camps. However, let’s examine the history of the US honestly, and learn the lessons it can teach us today.

The Confederacy – the slave owning plantation economy which was militarily defeated in 1865 after its secessionist war – may seem to be relegated to the status of a historical curiosity. What contemporary relevance would that entity have? Plenty, actually. The rehabilitation of the Confederacy will not bring back slavery, but it serves as a necessary buttress for the low-level white supremacist insurgency, which exploded with various political forces on January 6, 2021.

One of the participants in the attempted coup d’état by ultranationalist forces on January 6, Kevin Seefried, was sentenced to three years in prison for carrying the Confederate flag into the Capitol Hill building. Brandishing it in the face of a black police officer, Seefried claimed in his defence that he never intended to spread a message of hate. Unaware of its true meaning, Seefried’s legal defence team argued, he was only upholding what he believed to be his heritage.

Let’s focus on his legal defence; Seefried’s team was taking a position that has been used by apologists for the Confederacy at least since the 1960s – defence of Southern heritage. That is quite baffling, considering the abundance of materials, including declarations by the Southern secessionist states, that explicitly state the preservation of slavery as the main reason for the 1861 secession and subsequent civil war.

In December 1860, South Carolina legislators held a secession congress where they repudiated the US constitution, and clearly stated that they were leaving the Union because they wanted to keep slavery. Other seceding states, such as Mississippi and Texas, followed the same proslavery logic as South Carolina.

Once again, let’s reiterate; the American civil war was not fought over states’ rights. The excuse of states’ rights as a reason for secession arose, not during the crisis of the 1850s and 1860s, but from the 1890s onwards, long after the civil war ended. The 1890s marked an upsurge in white supremacist rebellion, the building of Confederate statues, and the search for anything-but-slavery reasons to excuse the actions of the Confederacy.

The claim of states’ rights is a convenient nonracial refuge from the morally repugnant underlying reason – the preservation of slavery. The Southern slaveholders were actually quite happy with federal authority when it suited their interests. The 1857 Dred Scott decision by the federal court, denying black Americans citizenship and compelling the return of fugitive slaves in the North to their owners in the South, was welcomed by the Southern slave holding oligarchy.

In fact, Southern slaveholders dreamt of an international slave owning empire. The racialised transatlantic slave trade was global in scope and operations. As the American frontier expanded in the 1840s and 50s, and the gold rushes became prominent, Southern plantation owners desired the expansion of slavery into these newly opened indigenous territories. Expanding beyond the borders of the continental United States was a long sought after objective.

Let’s say, for the moment, that Seefried is telling the truth; that leaves us with another question – are there Americans who matriculate from the school system unaware of the true meaning of the Confederate flag? Is the education system solely to blame? There is a deeper sociopolitical process here; America’s wars overseas are creating a climate of racism and militarisation at home. The Confederacy was a militarised, autocratic society, intent on expanding its economic interests.

Imperialist wars overseas create and reinforce a political dynamic of their own. In the immediate aftermath of the Confederacy’s defeat, the southern secessionist whites were marginalised. However, gradually, as the US developed imperial ambitions of its own, the Confederacy gained a cultural and sociopolitical rehabilitation.

These are not just my sentiments, but rather the manifestation of the fraudulent Lost Cause mythology. As the defeated Southern secessionists launched their own low-level campaign of domestic terror aimed at African Americans, indigenous people and ethnic minorities, they also perpetuated a reframing of the Confederacy.

Matthew Rozsa, writing in Salon magazine in October last year, notes that while Lincoln never pledged to abolish slavery, only limit its expansion, his election as President in 1860 triggered the treasonous secession of the slave owning states. No, Lincoln did not cause the civil war. The southern slaveholding class were intent on preserving and expanding their slavocracy.

Lincoln himself was not an abolitionist, but once the Southern slaveholders rebelled, he committed himself to the defeat of the white supremacist insurgency – and such a victory could not be achieved without the emancipation of the slaves. The defeated Southerners, in their quest to revive white supremacy, resorted to a systematic rewriting of history. The Confederate flag became, not a symbol of racism and hatred, but of an innocuous Southern ‘pride.’

The Confederate battle flag, rather than being a neutral expression of cultural pride, is actually a symbol of white insurrection. It found adherents on January 6 2021, including South Vietnamese Saigon loyalists. Lost causes find common ground in a collective longing for a mythical past.

There are still thousands of Confederate statues and memorials across the United States. It is more than time for Americans to come to grips with their own history of civil war and white nationalism. Engaging in a cinematic Lost Cause, engaging a neo-Confederate perspective of the civil war, will only ensure that more would-be insurrectionists like Kevin Seefried are produced.