It is not everyday that an obscure topic like the origins of the Indo-European languages gets mentioned in the news. A topic that requires the increasing cooperation of disparate fields such as ancient DNA, genetics, linguistics and archaeology does not make news headlines in our short-attention span commercial media culture. However, it was with great enthusiasm that I read a news article about advances in the debate regarding the origin of Indo-European languages.

As a person of Armenian background, I get asked about the language and where it comes from. Armenian is a branch of the Indo-European language family. About 40 percent of the world’s population speaks an Indo-European language. That family includes English, Russian Kurdish, Sanskrit, Latin – just to name a few.

Yes, another name for Indo-European is Aryan. No, it does not mean what you think it means. Aryans are not a race, let alone a blond-haired, blue-eyed ethnicity. No, the Nazis mangled archaeology and ancient history. The term Aryan refers to the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European family. No, it was never used to identify the entire collection of languages and peoples designated under the term Indo-European.

The French racist theorist, Arthur Gobineau (1816 – 1882) created an Aryan racial category to provide a pseudoscientific basis for his contention that human races were unequal. We all know who picked up on that invention and took it to the extreme.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, there have been numerous attempts to identify the origins of Indo-European languages. Two major scenarios have been put forward to provide an explanation. The Steppe hypothesis suggests that peoples north of the Black Sea, the Pontic-Caspian steppe lands, spread out from their homeland, and were the originators of the proto-Indo-European language. Their culture is known as the Kurgan culture.

The other compelling hypothesis is called the Anatolian. First formulated by the English archaeologist the late Colin Renfrew, the latter suggested that farmers on the Anatolian peninsula – present day Turkey – spread agricultural practices as they moved, and brought their Proto-Indo-European language with them.

Renfrew identified Neolithic Anatolia as the birthplace of the original Indo-European speakers. Hittite, an extinct language, was spoken by the farmers on the Anatolian peninsula. The Hittites, mentioned in the Old Testament, were an Indo-European people, and one of the first major civilisations in West Asia.

Which scenario is correct? That debate has simmered, and intermittently erupted with volcanic force, since the first attempts to identify the similarities between, and common origins of, words from different languages. The Dutch, and then the English, while on their colonising adventures from the 16th century onwards, noticed similarities between geographically distant languages.

For instance, English philologist and judge William Jones (1746 – 1794) noticed similarities between Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. He theorised that these languages must have had a common ancestral tongue. Earlier, Russian scientist and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov (1711 – 1765) compared different language groups – Slavic, Baltic, Finnish, Latin, Greek, Russian, German – and suggested a common ancestor for the languages of his day.

Comparative linguistics can only take you so far. The advent of ancient DNA analysis opened up a whole new avenue of investigation into the deep human past.

The Yamnaya culture, which occupied the Pontic Caspian steppe, was identical from ancient DNA as being the people who initially spread the original Indo-European language. However, the Hittites, the Anatolian branch of Indo-European speakers, did not have any Yamnaya DNA. Archaeologists know from cuneiform tablets that the Hittites spoke an Indo-European language. Was there another ancestral people that unites these disparate groups of ethnicities?

Recent DNA studies, examined by Carl Zimmer. NY Times science writer, identifies the Caucasus Lower Volga (CLV) people as the ancestors of the original Indo-European language. Being nomadic, they spread their agricultural practices and culture throughout the territories now comprising southern Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey.

The migration of the CLV people was not singular nor linear, but occurred in uneven waves. Some branches of the CLV people settled into a sedentary lifestyle, encouraged by the development of agriculture. The CLV people lived in a territory stretching from the Volga river to the Caucasus mountains about 7000 years ago.

The Black Sea and its environs forms a kind of Southern Arc of migratory channels. Branches of ancient peoples travelled to Armenia, the Balkans, Greece and Anatolia.

Before we definitively claim that the mystery of the origins of Indo-European languages is solved, let’s sound a word of caution. Perhaps I am demonstrating my inherently cautious disposition, but let’s remember one crucial fact – language dispersal and ancient DNA are not directly linked. Language is transmitted culturally and socially; DNA is obviously genetic.

If we are tracing the origins of blood groups, ancient DNA indicating migratory patterns would provide a firm tracing tool – blood types are determined by your genes. Language is socially transmitted. Human language is a distinctive feature of human culture. Animals certainly communicate, in many sophisticated ways, but they do not have words or language.

Yes of course, people who share DNA are related, and more likely to speak a shared language. Ancient DNA can resolve questions about ancient peoples and their intermixing. But language is a cultural transmission, and a person’s DNA does not nearly equate with the culture in which they are raised. It is in the intersections of life that we will find ultimate answers for our questions about language.

The US Agency for International Development (USAid) sounds innocuous and benevolent – a charity dispensing financial help to those in need overseas. Indeed, there are humanitarian programs within the purview of USAid, and the staff working on those initiatives are motivated by integrity and a genuine desire to help the less fortunate globally.

Being fair and reasonable regarding the financially helpful features of USAid programs should not blind us to the underlying reality – this organisation is an instrument of US soft power and regime change. Its top personnel have never been altruistic humanists, but cynical and politically calculating realists who have leveraged US assistance to the goals of extending American political and economic power.

No, this is not meant to intentionally sound conspiratorial, but rather encourage readers to engage in a critical analysis of the instruments and role of US soft power.

Forgive me for feeling schadenfreude at this moment; viewing the paroxysmal hysteria of centrist and liberal imperialist security state political tribes lamenting the shutdown of soft power regime vehicle of US foreign policy makes me smile.

Chris Hedges, long term activist and scholar, who can hardly be called a friend of the Trump-Musk-MAGA cult, wrote the following regarding US foreign aid:

Foreign aid is not benevolent. It is weaponized to maintain primacy over the United Nations and remove governments the empire deems hostile. Those nations in the U.N. and other multilateral organizations who vote the way the empire demands, who surrender their sovereignty to global corporations and the U.S. military, receive assistance. Those who don’t do not.

Founded in 1961 by former US President John Kennedy, USAid’s mission was always the soft power promotion of US capitalist power. Spending millions on NGOs, ‘independent’ media networks, and humanitarian programmes, USAid was an instrument of the cultural Cold War. US imperialism, in line with previous empires, does not rely exclusively on brute force to expand, but also through cultural domination.

Noam Chomsky understood, in the 1970s, that USAid is the friendly face of US soft power imperialism. Chomsky, a veteran leftist critic of US foreign policies, cannot be considered politically adjacent to the far right Trump administration, by no means. Yet, he understood and wrote about the machinations of USAid, stating that it was hard to know when official CIA influence ended, and USAid began, in nations targeted for regime change.

He wrote about his experiences in Laos, where USAid was directly contingent on Laotian ruling parties following US interests in the region. And Laos was not the only place where financial support came with strings attached. In the early 1990s, USAid promised to finance the rebuilding of the international airport at Port-au-Prince, with one condition; that Haiti vote against Cuba’s bid to become a member of the Organisation of American States (OAS). The Haitian authorities duly obliged.

We can all see the immediate and devastating consequences of cutting off USAid to millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Recipients of humanitarian aid in Africa face famine, with crucial food supplies left undistributed in warehouses. HIV patients, millions in Nigeria for instance, rely on USAid-supported clinics to access antiretroviral treatment. Currently, 25.6 million people live with HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is still prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Cutting of their access to medical treatments will only worsen the occurrence not only of HIV/AIDS, but also cholera, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases.

In fact, it is the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO) which delivered the crucial blow to HIV patients health care in Africa. Canceling its international commitments and finance from the WHO represents a serious deterioration in health care provision both in the US and globally.

I am not oblivious to the unfolding humanitarian disaster which is a predictable consequence of shuttering USAid funding. It is not being heartless or cruel to recognise that USAid, far from being an innocuous charitable organisation, is a sharp spear in the effort of US soft power regime change. It is not just me saying this; leftist former President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, demanded that USAid be expelled from his nation in 2023, citing its role as an interventionist instrument of US foreign policy.

Former Bolivian president, the socialist and indigenous activist Evo Morales, expelled USAid from his country back in 2013, citing its role as a key financial of Bolivian right wing and oligarchic figures dedicated to the overthrow of his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. The MAS party has consistently opposed the exploitation of Bolivia’s natural resources by rapacious foreign (namely American) corporations, and defended the lives and welfare of the working class, the peasantry and indigenous people.

From 1996 until 2003, USAid was instrumental in funding, to the tune of millions of dollars, the seemingly benevolent Democratic Development and Citizen Participation programme in Bolivia. One of numerous NGOs funded by USAid overseas, it played a pivotal role in agitating against MAS.

The Trump administration, staffed by an assortment of MAGA cultists, religious fanatics, corporate leeches, Christian fascists and psychopaths, is engaging in a cannibalistic intra-security state warfare to cut government spending. Free market fundamentalism is what unites the MAGA cult. Any kind of government spending on social programmes is immediately denounced as ‘Communism.’ Indeed, Musk himself made this point clear, attacking USAid as being staffed by radical Marxists.

That is news to me. As Professor Vijay Prashad has stated, it is a viper’s nest of imperialists.

USAid has fallen victim to the relentless free market fanaticism of the MAGA cultist camp. Vilifying government spending for decades as a uniquely burdensome economic evil, whether it be on health care, education or scientific research, has now rebounded on the liberal imperialist segment of the US financial elite.

In Australia, the term ‘foreign aid’ gets a bad press. The underlying xenophobia of cutting Australia’s already measly contribution is rationalised with the simplistic claim ‘we should be helping Aussies’. Overhyped concerns about alleged corruption in foreign aid organisations divert the conversation from the fact that those who state ‘we should be helping Aussies’ do not help neither Australians nor the foreign-born.

Rather than lament the demise of USAid, let’s focus our energies on countering the oligarchic policies which continue to impoverish the majority of the world’s population; unceasing overseas wars, foolish spending on harebrained military fantasies, and the merging of IT tech companies with global surveillance.

It is curious and oddly funny in a way to watch multiple mainstream media outlets sanitise the Nazi salute given by Elon Musk at the post-inauguration ceremony of US President Donald Trump.

No, it was not a Nazi salute, we are assured, but a ‘Roman’ one….no, it was because Musk got overexcited due to autism…..no, he was indicating the height of the trees in his backyard…..no, he was signalling the arrival of his Uber.

Are we supposed to believe that Musk Nazi salute was just a case of an eccentric making a nervous twitch arm movement? Musk’s maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, a Canadian doctor with Nazi sympathies, moved to apartheid South Africa in the 1950s. Becoming active in supporting white supremacy, Haldeman denounced the hordes of coloured people who, controlled by an international cabal of Jewish bankers, intended to overwhelm the white Christian civilisation of South Africa. Statements like these are hardly the product of a nonpolitical arm twitch.

No, we cannot visit the sins of the grandparents onto the grandchildren, but Musk grew up in an environment with unmistakable fascist sympathies. The grandparents made white supremacist rants in the age before social media.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named after the Polish-born lawyer of Jewish background who first coined the word genocide, issued a red flag warning for the United States, urging all of us to exercise skepticism when it comes to attempts to whitewash or explain away Musk’s supposedly awkward hand gesture.

We cannot lightly dismiss an unmistakable gesture indicating support for, and boosting, an antisemitic genocidal ideology as just an unfortunate accident. This was not the sadly unintended antics of a publicity-seeking egomaniac. Musk is very close to the Trump administration, influencing its economic, technological and civil policies.

When Musk was a rising star of the IT/Silicon Valley complex, touting electric cars as an environmentally friendly replacement for the polluting and outdated internal combustion engine, numerous favourable comparisons were made between him and Henry Ford, founding father of Ford Motor Company.

Henry Ford (1867 – 1943) was an industrialist and car manufacturer famous, not for inventing the petroleum engine itself, but making it affordable to millions of working class and middling Americans. His innovative production techniques, today collectively known as Fordism, revolutionised not only the automotive industry, but also factory production generally. Fordism provided the template for automotive manufacturing, and this impacted production techniques across manufacturing industries in the twentieth century.

The availability and ubiquity of the household car can be attributed to the widespread success of Fordism. However, let’s also remember another vital reason for the general use of the motor car; the deliberate running down of electric-based transportation, including public trams and trains.

Automotive and oil companies, starting in the 1940s, deliberately gained control of public transit systems to run them down. Enforced decrepitude of public transport only encouraged consumers to rely on motor vehicles. Creating a market for your product is just as important as technological innovation in persuading people to purchase your product.

In Sydney and Adelaide, the extensive networks of electric trams were ripped out to make way for the now ubiquitous motor vehicle.

Musk’s purchase of Tesla corporation back in 2008 was greeted with enthusiasm by industry commentators. Just as Henry Ford revolutionised automotive assembly line production in the early twentieth century, it was hoped that Musk’s energetic commitment to electric cars would similarly revolutionise the car market, heralding the move away from the petroleum-based engine.

Comparisons between Ford and Musk were made, and they were usually favourable. However, the similarities between the two industrialists is not what most media commentators would have us believe.

Both men were/are critical agents of industrial and economic change in their respective eras – that much is true. Although we have to add a caveat here; the electric car is gradually superseding the internal combustion engine, but not due to any innovation by Musk, but because of the robust commitment by China to move away from fossil fuel dependence.

Strong government subsidies for electric vehicle production, cheaper prices, and lithium battery support has made China the global leader in EV sales.

Be that as it may, there is a strong similarity between the two car manufacturers – and it is not complimentary. Both entrepreneurs are allowing (in the case of Ford, did allow) antisemitic conspiracy theories, prejudice and support for ultranationalist racist parties to dominate their lives. Ford, a dedicated antisemite and supporter of the Nazi party, used his financial power to circulate anti-Jewish racism, buying space in newspapers to publish articles promoting Nazi-adjacent ideology.

Elon Musk, the preeminent car manufacturer of our era, is walking down the same ultrarightist pathway. Expressing support for the far right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Musk has platformed attacks against multiculturalism, denouncing what he calls the ‘woke mind virus’. The AfD, a vehemently anti-immigrant organisation, traces its ideological lineage to the Nazi party.

The techbro of Silicon Valley once hailed as an ecologically responsible progressive entrepreneur, has revealed himself to be the purveyor of ultranationalist grievance politics, directing resentment at the gains made by civil rights and migrant organisations for racial and educational equality. In this regard, Musk is adopting the same culturally and politically reactionary role that Ford played in his era.

A star addicted to fame and publicity, fellow MAGA cult follower Kanye West can be considered an appropriate parallel example to Musk. West, about whom I have written before, is obsessed with being in the spotlight. Musk definitely enjoys being the centre of attention, that is for sure. However, Musk has gone further than Kanye, and clearly chosen to align his politics with the inhabitants today’s ultrarightist cesspit.

Musk and Ford demonstrate that billionaires are not only conspiracy peddlers, harmful as that is. They also provide validation and political support for the anti-immigrant and fascist movements. The billionaire class provides a conveyor belt for the neoliberal white supremacist Right. Musk and Ford do not want to abolish government spending, they re-engineer the state’s functions to make the economy conducive to the conduct of big business.

The purpose of a good investigative writer is to explore what others ignore. What constitutes newsworthy items is not always determined by the mainstream media. Sure, the latter guarantees widespread exposure for issues it deems important, but also ignores those topics which shed light on the machinations of imperialist-corporate power.

I have deliberately chosen not to write too much about Syria just yet. That is not because the toppling of the former Ba’athist government in Syria is inconsequential, but because there has already been extensive coverage of the topic, accompanied by mandatory celebratory pictures of the downfall of a brutal regime.

I also do not wish to participate in the interminable, emotionally draining inter-Left debate on Syria which only recycles cliches on road trodden by numerous commentators in the past.

The Nazification of Arab nationalism

I never begrudge anyone their release from prison. Opening up the dungeons of the Ba’athist regime is a relief to its victims. Please, let’s stop using the word Assadist – there is no such thing. What I am concerned about, and was waiting for, is the anticipated Nazification of the Ba’athist regime and its leaders, both Hafez and Bashar Al-Assad. It is easy, and lazy, to deploy the Hitler analogy when an authoritarian leader is overthrown, and it plays directly into a view of the world our corporate-managerial masters want us to adopt.

Alois Brunner (1912 – 2001 or 2010) was an Austrian SS officer responsible for the deaths of thousands of European Jews. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he fled accountability for his crimes, and settled in postwar Syria. The Ba’athist government gave him sanctuary, and he spent the rest of his life in that nation. He is buried in Damascus.

Our toadying corporate media, sensing an opportunity to kick the Ba’athist party while it is down, gave publicity to this sordid episode. Making the Arab-Nazi connection even more explicit, Al Jazeera claimed that Brunner advised Syrian security forces in setting up prisons and torture techniques.

Making the Arab-Nazi connection serves to further the false claim that Arabs – and Palestinians in particular – oppose the Israeli state on the basis of irrational antisemitism. The Ba’ath party advocated a pan-Arab nationalism which respected the rights of non-Arab ethnic minorities. It proposed the building of a socialist economy, not Soviet nor Marxist. Its ideological mix of pan-Arabism and ethnic inclusivity made it inhospitable to the racialist, ethnically paranoid hypernationalism of the Nazi party.

One wonders what the reaction of the mainstream media would have been if Syria, or another Arab nation, had provided sanctuary for thousands of Nazi war criminals. Actually, we do not have to look too far for such a scenario. Canada provided safe haven for thousands of Ukrainian (and Eastern European) wartime Nazi collaborators, who were the recipients of Ottawa’s considerable largesse.

Worthy refugees

When Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian man who served in the Waffen SS (Galician) was given two standing ovations in the Canadian Parliament in September 2023, it was inadvertently providing the tip of an iceberg. Thousands of Ukrainian SS troops were quietly provided sanctuary by successive Canadian governments after the Second World War. One of the Trudeau government’s most prominent figures, Chrystia Freeland, is herself a grandchild of Mykhailo Chomiak, a propagandist for the Ukrainian Nazi administration during the war.

No, we cannot hold the grandchildren responsible for the sins of the grandparents. Freeland, who has used her ethnic background as a platform to climb the ladder of Canadian politics, has never distanced herself from her white supremacist grandfather. Indeed, Chomiak helped a white supremacist regime massacre the grandparents of today’s Holocaust survivors.

Trudeau and Freeland should face the consequences of the Hunka affair. They should admit the ethical bankruptcy of Canadian foreign and domestic politics – turning away Jewish refugees from Europe during the war, but then providing sanctuary for their white supremacist killers, is the height of moral decrepitude and cynical political expediency.

Both Trudeau and Freeland are intelligent, articulate politicians. Trudeau specifically has marketed himself as a reasonable centrist, removed from the rancorous, divisive Left vs Right paradigm. He should have known better than to sweep criminal and shameful episodes of Canadian history under the carpet.

We must highlight the words of Judi Rever, journalist from Montreal who wrote that:

Freeland knows full well that soldiers from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) collaborated with the Third Reich and took an active part in the Holocaust in Ukraine and Poland. She would also know that the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a paramilitary group, carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, and hunted down and killed several thousand Jews during that period. More than any other Canadian politician today, Freeland knows this history. Canadians should ask what was going through her mind as she bestowed praise on a man who fought the Russians during that pivotal time, a man we now know was part of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS whose troops were involved in the mass murder of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians in the 1940s.

Canadian politicians, including whomever replaces Trudeau and Freeland, should read a new book that explores this underreported chapter.

Published in 2024, Peter McFarlane is the author of a new book called Family Ties: How a Ukrainian Nazi and a living witness link Canada to Ukraine today. The author elaborates the history not only of Ukrainian Nazis, but their Jewish victims as well. For instance, traveling to the Eastern European town of Brody, a city in Western Ukraine, McFarlane found that out of a prewar Jewish population of 10 000, only 88 Jewish persons survived.

There is a museum in Brody today, which does commemorate the Second World War. No, not the Holocaust victims – the Holocaust is not even mentioned. It is a memory lane for the Galician Division; its history, uniforms, insignia, Nazi-aligned personnel and conduct. The government in Ottawa provided refuge for these personnel, but subjected Jewish refugees to bureaucratic obstacles and official resistance.

War crimes trials are something we regard as quite remote, from the Australian perspective. Indeed, our direct experience of war crimes relates more to the cruelties inflicted upon Australian and British soldiers by Imperial Japanese troops. We are more likely to remember the Burma death marches and the thousands of died building the Thai railways, rather than Auschwitz.

We are reasonably free in liberal democratic Australia, and I can do what I want in my front garden. How would it be if I erected a statue to former Japanese emperor Hirohito, in my front yard? Am I not exercising my right to free speech?

I raise this hypothetical example to highlight the similar kinds of issues being debated by antifascist Canadian communities today. No single person can be an expert on every historical issue. We do expect our political leaders, however, to exhibit better conduct and be held to a higher standard. The foreign and domestic policies of Anglophone nations are allegedly motivated by respect for the law, and not by manipulative and deceitful political calculations.

Lack of accountability is a poor lesson to pass on to future generations, especially when covering up shameful episodes from recent history.

Scientific literacy is a skill to which all of us nonscientists can aspire. I was good at science and mathematics at school; but not so outstanding as to consider a career as a scientist. As we age, we regard science as something for students, children and boffins at universities. This is rather disturbing, because all of us are impacted by the findings and applications of the sciences.

If you regard scientific issues as outside the purview of the general public – think again. It is true that scientific research is nonpolitical – the physicists examining the nature of subatomic particles are far removed from the everyday thrust-and-parry of parliamentary politics. Nuclear power, however, is not.

Be that as it may, let’s focus on a recent and worrying development. The new authorities in Syria, from the fundamentalist organisation Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) have revised school textbooks and curricula by removing all references to evolutionary biology, and the Big Bang, the current paradigm for the origin of the cosmos. The new HTS regime wants to repudiate the more secular platform advocated by the previous ruling party in Syria, the Ba’ath organisation.

It is their country, to be sure, and the Education ministry can modify the curricula at all levels of education if it so decides. However, there have been strong protests by ordinary Syrians against this revision of the curricula. This measure, deleting evolution and Big Bang, places the HTS authorities squarely in the same camp as the fundamentalist religious right in the United States, who intend to replace scientific theories in biology and cosmology with creationism and its modernised cousin, Intelligent Design.

Of course there is debate about evolutionary biology. Charles Darwin was extremely worried about the reception of his theories by the scientific community. The most preeminent paleontologist of his time, Louis Agassiz (1807 – 1873), world-renowned expert on the natural history of life, strongly opposed evolution. When Agassiz spoke, people listened. Darwin and his supporters in the scientific community responded to all the objections launched at evolutionary biology. Agassiz, the ‘great man’, was proven wrong, back in the nineteenth century.

The material, natural causes of the biological and geological worlds has been a sore point for many religions since then. Darwin was not the first, nor the last, to navigate what is broadly termed the culture wars.

Being a materialist, in the philosophical sense, does not automatically make you correct. There is currently a strong materialist explanation for the origins of human behaviour – DNA. The claim ‘it’s in the genes’, has become a standard explanation for every aspect of human social behaviour, from war-making to mathematics. As we can all see, attributing human and animal behaviour to genes is seductively simple, yet wrong. Ok, if the word wrong is too strict, let’s say simplistic instead.

The late Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002), American paleontologist and historian of science, wrote regular science and natural history columns which, among other things, attacked the genetic reductionist view of human nature. Originally called sociobiology, and now repackaged as evolutionary psychology, Gould heavily criticised his fellow scientists, such as Konrad Lorenz, for falling into a genetic determinist trap.

The sociobiology trend went against the rising demands for gender and social equality advocated by the Left in the 1970s and 80s. Sociobiology’s proponents, such as the late great Edward O Wilson (1929 – 2021) responded to critics by suggesting that they were motivated by preconceived political prejudices, not pure science. Gould demonstrated that the practice of offering supposedly scientific rationales for existing inequalities goes back centuries.

Gould’s approach to science could hardly be labeled anti-scientific. He helped to communicate biology and natural history to the public.

Abiogenesis, the origin of life itself, is not part of evolutionary biology. It is however, a growing topic of interest to biologists and geologists. While the first materialist, nonsupernatural explanations for the origins of life go back to Ancient Greece, it is the work of Soviet Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin (1894 – 1980) that must be singled out here.

Working on the origins of life from chemical processes, he was the pioneer in formulating a scientific approach in explaining how pro to life forms could arise in the conditions of life in the Earth’s early history. Amino acids formed from the chemical and highly volatile conditions prevalent on Earth – the prebiotic soup – was the theory formed independently by Alexander Oparin in the Soviet Union, and J B S Haldane, a British scientist investigating the same topic. Known as the Oparin-Haldane theory, it blazed the trail for other scientists to follow.

Oparin’s initial findings got a recent boost, when researchers recreated the high levels of radiation and electrical energy conditions of the early Earth in a laboratory. The gradual changes of lifeless chemicals into self-replicating nucleotides, combined with enzyme catalysts, has been reproduced by researchers.

American scientists from the 1950s were able to recreate the spark of life – the famous Miller-Urey experiment. Recreating the conditions that gave rise to the earliest organic molecules is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Scientists are now looking for life in places which we would initially consider too hostile for organic matter to form. Hydrothermal vents, located at the bottom of the ocean, are a place where mineral-rich fluids bubble up and interact with CO2, and that combination forms long chains of fatty acids.

When examining science news, it is important to remember that no single person can be an expert in every branch of scientific endeavour. We can however, aim for a scientifically literate population, and make ourselves immune to rampant misinformation circulating in the toxic ecosystem of social media. No one person possesses the gateway to an ultimate truth. All of us must come together with the scientific community for the purpose of reaching greater understanding.

When examining the Holocaust, a recurring and important question arises; ordinary Germans knew what was occurring in the death camps, so why did they do nothing? The full horrors of the industrialised mass slaughter in the camps were publicised by scholars, escapees, journalists and other anti-Nazi figures. Why did ordinary people remain complacent?

That question acquires contemporary importance and relevance when we examine the details of the Israeli government’s genocidal violence against the Palestinians of Gaza. While the criteria of what constitutes genocide may be subject to debate, there is no question that Israeli actions amount to genocide.

Amnesty International is just one of numerous human rights organisations that has used the description of genocide to reflect what West Jerusalem and its Zionist supporters are committing in Gaza. Indeed, multiple statements by current Israeli government politicians reveal the genocidal intent of Zionism with regard to Gaza. Threatening to cut off water, food, electricity and medicine to the Palestinian population in Gaza is a very clear statement of genocidal intent.

The very suggestion that the Israeli military is carrying out a genocide in Gaza prompts a furious reaction from Zionist supporters across the world. Indeed, Zionism’s partisans have become effective Holocaust deniers, excusing and rationalising the crimes of Israeli forces in a manner reminiscent of traditional Holocaust revisionists of old.

The late Raul Hilberg (1926 – 2007), the great Viennese-born historian and pioneering scholar in the field of Holocaust studies, examined this politics of memory in his 1996 memoir. Denouncing those who persisted in Holocaust denial, he engaged in documenting the sophisticated bureaucratic machinery of mass killing in Nazi Germany.

Yet, Zionism’s fervent supporters, including their followers in Australia, respond with vitriolic fury at the mere comparison of Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza and the Holocaust.

Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian American scholar and writer, travelled to Gaza to write an on-the-ground report about what was happening there. She described Israel’s scorched earth tactics as comparable to the Holocaust of World War 2. Her article, originally commissioned by The Guardian US, was denied publication. The main objection of the Guardian’s editors was Abulhawa’s use of the Holocaust as a comparison with Israel’s ongoing attack against the Palestinians of Gaza.

Here is where I get a bit confused. Hilberg made quite clear, in his magisterial books on the Holocaust, that the industrialised mass killing of people involved numerous and meticulous bureaucratic measures, without which mass murder of an ethnic group would be impossible.

In covering the issue of Beijing’s policies towards the Uyghurs in China, the imperial governments of Washington, Ottawa, London and so on quickly and forcefully made clear their contention that Beijing is guilty of genocide. Why? Beijing is accused of carrying out forcible sterilisation of Uyghur women. Whether that is true or not, I do not know.

What I do know is that Washington, Ottawa and London immediately accused Beijing of genocide. No, Uyghurs are not being rounded up, stripped of their clothes, force-marched and shot, such as the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Yet, the imperialist trio had no hesitation in launching the politically and emotionally charged claim of genocide at Beijing. It appears the charge of genocide is to be used as a political football against governments deemed hostile to Washington’s interests. However, the mere suggestion of a using the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza elicits a furious reaction from Zionists and their supporters.

In Hilberg’s preeminent study, Perpetrators, Victims Bystanders (1992), he provided useful and necessary categories of participation when examining genocide. He elaborated on those communities and persons who, while not actually pulling the trigger in shooting people, carried out the policies and actions which facilitated the Holocaust, and comparative genocides such as the Armenian mass killings of 1915.

Keep in mind the categories described by Hilberg, when considering the following news item. The Dutch government released the names of 425 000 Nazi collaborators during the German occupation of their nation. These archives were released in early January this year.

The Dutch authorities promised to release the relevant documents from the archives back in 2023. They kept their pledge, in an effort to confront the distressing aspects of their own complicity in the genocide of European Jews.

We regard these collaborators as accomplices, helping to grease the wheels of the genocidal Nazi war machine. What does it say about the governments of Washington, London and Ottawa who consistently and unfailingly supply weapons and armaments to the Israeli authorities, enabling the latter to prosecute their genocidal campaign in Gaza?

As Joe Biden’s term in office comes to an end, it is important to reflect on his legacy – as an enabler of genocide. During his presidency, he never hesitated to send millions of dollars worth of armaments and ammunition to West Jerusalem, thus assisting Netanyahu’s government in its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

In December 2024, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSN), released a report highlighting the prospect of famine in northern Gaza. With the total blockade of food aid to northern Gaza, FEWSN warned that 75 000 Palestinians were at risk of undergoing famine conditions, and all the diseases consequent of mass starvation. The FEWSN is an organisation funded by the US Agency for International Development.

Not only did the Israeli government of Netanyahu denounce the FEWSN report and its findings, it demanded – along with the US government – that the original report be retracted. Its demand was granted earlier this month. I thought only totalitarian dystopian regimes, such as Stalinist Russia, engage in famine denial?

It is incumbent on all of us to meticulously document and expose the genocidal policies of the Israeli state, and expose the deceitful rationalisations offered as excuses by Zionism’s mouthpieces. We must condemn the governments which act as accomplices to genocide. Demolishing the entire conditions of life, and undermining the ability of the entire Palestinian population in Gaza to live and sustain itself, qualifies as ethnic cleansing.

We have all heard of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519) the great Italian inventor, painter and scientist. That is the way it should be; there is no doubting his unparalleled genius. But how many of us know that the person, who can rightly be called the father of automation predated Da Vinci by two hundred years, and was a Muslim? Ismail Al-Jazari (1136 – 1237), a mechanical engineer and scientist, laid the foundations of automation and robotics through his prodigious inventions.

In fact, it is more chronologically correct to call Da Vinci the Al-Jazari of Europe. Today, we worry about robots taking our jobs, and automation has definitely undermined the need for manual workers in many industries. Anxieties about automation go back centuries, and indeed, Al Jazali invented machines that were not just playthings for the rich, but devices with practical applications.

First, we need to make some observations about our own Anglophone culture, so we can better approach an enormous gap in our understanding of science and society.

In our Anglophone nations, we regard ourselves as the products, and inheritors of, western civilisation. We have defined our origin story from the philosophical and cultural legacies of Ancient Greece and Rome. We like to think that our contemporary philosophy, for instance, traces its origins back to the thinkers of ancient Athens and Greek city states.

That is all well and good – and we have gained numerous insights from the cultural and scientific contributions of Ancient Greece. Marx and Engels themselves were fascinated by the achievements of Greece, and the associated Greek city states that made up Ionian civilisation. However, this point of view completely ignores the historic and no less remarkable contributions of non-European and nonwhite civilisations.

In our time, if there is one nonwhite culture that is demonised and vilified, it is the Islamic world. Maligned by harmful stereotypes of bearded fanatics waving guns, the Muslim communities in the West are targeted as an ‘enemy within.’ This rampant Islamophobia, heavily promoted by a corporate media owned by a financial oligarchy, blinds us to the incredible innovations, both scientific and philosophical, of the Islamic civilisation.

Ismail Al-Jazari, a mechanical engineer by trade, lived through turbulent political times as a loyal servant of the Artuqid dynasty. The latter was a 12th century Islamic Turkmen dynasty that ruled in what is today central southern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria. Al Jazari’s birthplace, Diyarbakir, was a central stronghold of the Artuqids.

Every car driver today can tell you all about the crankshaft, a crucial feature of the internal combustion engine. Al Jazari was the first to design a basic crankshaft, elaborating the mathematical principles in converting reciprocating motion into rotational motion. His purpose in designing such a device was to come up with an effective water-drawing machine to assist farmers with irrigation.

Using a wheel which set in motion several crank pins was an innovation of Jazari’s. While wheels and crank pins had been used for centuries, it was Jazari’s connection of transforming rotary motion into linear movement that was crucial for the future emergence of steam engines as well as the internal combustion engine.

It is true that Jazari built upon the inventions of his predecessors. He was familiar with engineering techniques in China, Persia and so on. But it was his unique mindset and toolkit that made possible innovations which had a lasting impact. He documented his extensive efforts in a book of knowledge that has survived and been translated down the ages.

He also invented what can be regarded as the world’s first ‘robot’ – a musical device that automated the different functions of a musical quartet. Well, okay, he designed four robot musicians; a flautist, a harpist and two drummers. Much like a modern day music box – prior to digital music and Spotify – Jazari’s contraption could be programmed to play different melodies and tunes. This musical robot band, operated by hydraulic switching, is the earliest example of a ‘programmable’ instrument.

He also designed a water-driven hand washing device, with humanoid type servants offering soap and towels. The ‘peacock fountain’ was a hydraulic automaton, an early ‘robot’ to assist in the function of handwashing hygiene. A major portion of Jazari’s Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices was devoted to fountain mechanisms.

All this groundbreaking work and innovation in the field of mechanical automata make a strong case for regarding Al Jazari as the ‘father of robotics.’

Before any readers through seemingly clever yet monotonous retorts my way – ‘what about Al Qaeda?’ is one screaming red herring that gets tossed around when talking about Islam – denunciations of jihadist groups is not my concern. If you wish to condemn Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram – be my guest. You may find shrill denunciations of these groups in the mainstream media echo chamber provided by Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corp propaganda outfit.

In our Anglophone community, the Global South is largely ignored, or treated as just a passing curiosity. Sure, we hear about Israel in the Middle East, particularly in the context of that nation’s military attack on Gaza. Maybe South Korea and Japan get a mention, because they are integrated into the US military apparatus.

This deliberately manufactured systemic cultural ignorance deprives Anglophone audiences of information regarding the accomplishments of nonwhite cultures. Redressing this imbalance is a necessary component of challenging the dysfunctional role of the corporate media in our hyper-consumerist society.

No disrespect is intended to Leonardo Da Vinci. Let’s give Ismail Al-Jazari the credit he deserves.

Rebranding is a PR/marketing strategy that has taken the world by storm. Obviously the corporate sector is most impacted by rebranding. As the media-political world has become increasingly privatised and subject to shareholder interests, PR and marketing strategies have made their way into the political-media arena as well.

Today, we are all familiar with Amazon; do a quick Google search and you will seen thousands of results regarding the company. Funny how we have forgotten the actual rainforest in South America with the same name.

The purpose of this example is not to make us feel ashamed, but to emphasise an insidious effect of rebranding. It makes us see what the corporation wants us to see as consumers, and to forget those things that are important to us as people, but unimportant to the transnational corporation.

In Australia, and similar Anglophone nations, immigration is a hot button issue. It arises at every election time, and politicians make immigration – or rather anti-immigration – a political football. The mainstream parties attempt to outdo each other on being perceived as ‘tough on immigration.’ That stance usually leads to the conflation – and apportionment of blame – for crime on immigration.

Just as a matter of interest, conservative politician Peter Dutton, who is currently angling to be the next Australian version of Donald Trump, failed to stop criminal activities when he headed the relevant government department as its minister. Dutton, as head of the conservative coalition, makes securing our borders a top priority. He failed to achieve that as Home Affairs minister.

Diaspora existence

What gets lost in the noise regarding immigration is the sequel – diaspora communities and intermixing. Diaspora existence is the inevitable consequence of migration, and that experience requires further examination.

Across the world, successful examples of diasporan assimilation abound. Consider the nation of Brazil. In the Anglocentric nations, Brazil is hardly on the radar, yet it has numerous similarities with other settler-colonial nations. Outstripping its former colonial master, Portugal, in both geographic size and population, Brazil is home to the largest Lebanese community outside of Lebanon. It is also home to the largest diasporan Japanese community.

Lebanese in Brazil

Numbering around 7 million, more than in Lebanon itself, Lebanese Brazilians have established a bustling, thriving economic and social community. Arriving in Brazil in the 1870s and 1880s, these Syrians (today considered Lebanese) were mostly from the Maronite Catholic faith. These Lebanese/Syrians soon established themselves in the economic and political life of the nation. There are Lebanese-descendant Brazilians in the national parliament.

Let’s also highlight the two million Japanese-descendant Brazilians, who have also contributed to the melting pot culture of modern day Brazil. Arriving in the early 1900s from Okinawa, the Japanese descendant population has made its own imprint in Brazil. Okinawan language and culture has not only survived, but thrived in its new Brazilian home. Japanese influence is evident in the culinary sphere, technology, and the visual arts.

Ukrainians in Canada

Whenever a politician raises anti-immigrant sentiments, the most obvious and recent example being Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs, a response from pro-immigrant parties is to raise examples of migrant and refugee success stories. Pointing to high profile examples of migrants who have ‘made it big’ in their adoptive homeland, it is hoped, will undermine the anti-immigrant attitudes and prejudice. Attacking xenophobia by highlighting the inspirational journey of successful migrants is one tactic in defending migrant communities.

Exposing the lies and fakery of xenophobic politicians is always commendable. Sharing migrant success stories is one way of uplifting the spirits of those who are marginalised by anti-immigrant parties.

Ukrainians in Canada are an example of a migrant success story. They have assimilated very well into the corridors of economic and political power in their adopted nation. Ukrainians in Canada were labour organisers and workers. After the end of World War 2, the Canadian government flung its doors open to members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an ultranationalist and Nazi collaborationist group, whose members fought for an ethnically uniform Ukraine.

Rebranding Nazi collaborators as ultra-patriotic freedom fighters

Ethnically cleansing those regions of western Ukraine occupied by their Nazi German allies, these ultrarightist collaborators were surreptitiously given sanctuary in Canada (and other Western nations) as a bulwark against the Left. Their crimes as members of the Waffen SS were overlooked, as they formed effective right wing shock troops in their adoptive homeland.

In a remarkable example of rebranding, Ukrainians who committed crimes against Jews, Poles, Russians and socialist Ukrainians were transformed into freedom-loving ultra-patriotic anti-Stalinists. Gaining control of community organisations, these Ukrainian ultranationalists, with the help of the Canadian authorities, established newspapers, sports clubs, folkloric dance, scouting groups and a historical perspective which whitewashed their previous criminal activities.

I am not here to attack multiculturalism; every ethnic group has the right to settle and live in peace. I am not interested in promoting one type of nationalism over another. I am highlighting the fact that in Canada, statues of Nazi collaborators did not emerge out of nowhere. They were erected in an ultranationalist conservative community cultivated by Ottawa in a cynical exploitation of multicultural sentiments.

Let’s draw a rough parallel example; if the main source of French migration to Australia were Vichy French Nazi collaborators, and statues of Marshal Petain popped up in Sydney, what kind of message would that send to the next generation? We cannot express our support for multiculturalism while at the same time denying the validity of other marginalised groups.

National self-determination is a fundamental principle of international and domestic politics. Every nationality has the right to determine its own future. Every politician pays lip service to national self-determination; even Adolf Hitler, in the 1930s, loudly supported that right – of the Sudeten Germans. Employing agents within that particular community, he used the Sudeten Germans as a cudgel to break apart Czechoslovakia.

Diaspora communities must not become transformed into political auxiliaries, but allowed to articulate their grievances without their cynical manipulation by big powers.