Charles Darwin's contribution to Patagonia's grim history
In 1989, the year of Chatwin's death, President Menem decided to have Rosas's remains repatriated as a gesture of national reconciliation. Their arrival was greeted by mounted lancers wearing Rosas's signature red uniform. But his bones were still contentious. W.H. Hudson's great-niece told us that the original grave in Southampton – Rosas ended his days as a dairy farmer in nearby Swaythling – had been destroyed by bombing in the second world war that had killed some stray cattle. The returned relics were unlikely to be Rosas's. 'People say they are the bones of a cow.'
To read Matthew Carr's 'grim history' of Patagonia is to realise how much of our understanding of this evocative region has been based on a succession of monstrous misidentifications and misconceptions. As the author does not flinch from reminding us, the vast territory which Rosas had sought to subjugate in his Desert Campaign (1833-4) – and which Chatwin's 1977 travel book In Patagonia resuscitated as a mysterious, exotic wilderness – was misunderstood by outsiders from the start.
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New Statesman
05-08-2025
- New Statesman
It's time for angry left populism
Illustration by Rebecca Hendin / Ikon Images 'Populism, I'm very sceptical of,' said Adrian Ramsay in the New Statesman's Green Party leadership hustings. 'I… don't want to see the kind of politics you get from populism which often brings about a divisive, polarising approach: Green politics is about bringing people together, respecting different views, having respectful discussion,' added the MP, and current party co-leader. On the contrary, countered Zack Polanski, the party's current deputy and London Assembly member, who's running for the top job promising 'bold leadership' and 'eco-populism'. 'Populism just means the 99 per cent vs the 1 per cent,' he said. He was reviving the old slogan of the Occupy movement. But he was also stating a clear position on a debate which has wracked the intellectual left for more than a decade. If Polanski's right, and if he wins, then there's more at stake than the leadership of England's fifth party. Should they adopt the attitude of their insurgent new political star, then the Greens have an opportunity to change the political climate in Britain, pointing the way to a durable populism of the political left. It's not just the Green Party; a similar phenomenon is emerging across civil society. Under newish, millennial co-directors, Greenpeace UK have adopted an angrier, anti-elite tone. 'Did you know that one of the richest billionaires in the UK is destroying our oceans with plastic?' the NGO asked in one recent online post, linking a traditionally soft-focus issue to spikier class politics. The most significant academic advocates of left-populism have been the Belgian political scientist Chantal Mouffe and her late husband and academic collaborator, the Argentine philosopher Ernesto Laclau. They saw populism as 'a political strategy based around constructing a frontier' between the privileged and the downtrodden, and 'appealing to the mobilization of the 'underdog' against 'those in power''. Mouffe argued that neoliberalism has impoverished not just the working class, but also the middle class, has depoliticised the bulk of the population, and produced what she calls 'oligarchisation' – that is, both radical wealth inequality, and also the political dominance of a growing international billionaire class. This context, she argued in 2016, produced a 'populist moment', one which led to radical political changes on right and left: as well as Trump, Brexit and (later) Johnson, there were Corbynism, Syriza, Bernie Sanders, Podemos, and Jean Luc Mélenchon. Even the more successful centrists of that era – Emmanuel Macron (during his first election) and Nicola Sturgeon – painted themselves as direct opponents of 'those in power'. Nearly a decade later, much of that post-2008 context remains, to which we could add the surge in anxiety about the environmental crisis in 2019, the anger with elites which emerged from the pandemic, and the daily nausea millions of us feel watching a Western-backed genocide livestreamed through our phones. In this context it's absolutely vital, as Mouffe argues, that the left try to mobilise the overwhelming majority of people together against that oligarch class and those in power who protect them. Doing so will require telling clear political stories about the world, which express the tension between 'us' – the majority of people – and 'them' – the oligarchs and their allies. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe This is not a time to tell citizens to 'calm down, dear'. It's a time to focus righteous rage into change. This will require rhetorically 'constructing a boundary' between 'the 99 per cent' and 'the 1 per cent' and their outriders on the right. It's drawing this boundary to which Ramsay and, in another debate, his running mate Ellie Chowns, object when they describe populism as 'polarising'. But any good story needs conflict and villains, and the real world has plenty for Polanski to point to. Oligarchs and their allies must be curtailed, and we're not going to do that by 'having respectful discussions' with them. Anger has to be focused upwards, or the political right will channel it down. In the context of environmental crisis, economic inequality becomes even more urgent. As Oxfam calculated in 2024, billionaires emit more carbon every three hours than the average British person does in a lifetime. The richest 1 per cent of humanity are responsible for more emissions than the poorest 66 per cent, and are increasingly insulating themselves from the impact of the disaster they've created, flitting around between air-conditioned mansions in private jets while the rest of us swelter. Despite this, Reform's fossil fuel financed anti-environmental populism has managed to rhetorically spin action on climate change – framed as the technocratic sounding 'net zero' – into an 'elitist' project, one which they can blame for rising energy bills, neatly deflecting blame from the fossil fuel industry and energy companies. As Polanski himself pointed out during the New Statesman debate, Ramsay is happy to call for a wealth tax, and clearly wants to curtail the oligarch class. So what's he's afraid of? Perhaps the most articulate intellectual opponent of populism is the Dutch social scientist Cas Mudde, who defines it as an ideology which divides society into two groups, 'the pure people' and 'the corrupt elite', and which regards politics as 'an expression of the general will of the people'. While he sees it has a role in bringing issues that elites don't want discussed to the fore, he worries that it ultimately undermines systems of liberal democracy. And it's this that Ramsay and Chowns really fear: if you channel anger at elites and the system which sustains them, you risk attacking those systems of democracy that we have, and replacing them not with more democracy, but less. But to me – certainly in Britain and the United States – this fear is itself dangerous. Britain has astonishingly low levels of trust in our political system for a simple reason: Westminster stinks. Too often, in Britain (as in America), the left ends up defending that system from right-wing attacks, because the right wants to replace it with authoritarianism, or market rule. Which means voters see us propping up an obviously rotten system, and turn to the right to replace it. This is how Trump won twice, it's how Johnson crushed Corbyn in 2019, and it's why Farage is ahead now. For an alternative strategy, look across the Channel. In France's 2024 legislative elections, the left-wing New Popular Front came first after making radical constitutional change a central message, promising an assembly to write a new constitution, and launch a sixth Republic. Progressives – including Greens – shouldn't fear hatred of our politics any more than we should worry about anger at our economic system, rage at rising bills, or horror at genocide in Gaza. We should express that collective fury, and channel it into serious ideas for the radical change we need. 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Libya Herald
31-07-2025
- Libya Herald
Libya's Union of Chambers of Commerce participates in the South-South Dialogue held in Italy
Libya's General Union of Chambers of Commerce reported last Sunday (27 July) that its President, Mohamed Raied, participated in the work of the South-South International Cooperation Dialogue, held in Italy. The dialogue was with the participation of the Argentine Ambassador to Tunisia and Libya, in addition to a group of economic experts from different continents of the world, where most of the attendees were from South American countries, Tunisia, Senegal, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. Within the framework of strengthening international partnerships The General Union of Chambers said this participation comes within the framework of strengthening international partnerships and expanding the fields of economic cooperation between the various countries. It also comes in the context of the efforts made by the General Union to enhance Libya's role in international platforms for cooperation between developing countries and activate its role in building strategic partnerships that contribute to stimulating trade, transferring expertise and developing shared value chains. During the meetings, Raied held several coordination meetings with participants from various countries, in addition to working meetings with institutions concerned with supporting development and investment projects. Libya a gateway between Africa and Europe During these meetings, mechanisms to facilitate the involvement of Libyan institutions in South-South cooperation initiatives were discussed. Raied stressed in his official speech the importance of Libya's role as a gateway for Africa to Europe as a link between countries, and to promote the exchange of expertise and successful experiences to serve the goals of sustainable development. He pointed out that Libya possesses the elements and strategic location that qualifies it to play a pivotal role in the region. Raied also extended an invitation to the officials of the German Conrad Organization, which organized this event, to visit Libya and open an office in Tripoli and hold some dialogue sessions there in the future.
Reuters
28-07-2025
- Reuters
U.S. to help Argentina reenter visa waiver program, DHS says
BUENOS AIRES, July 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is taking steps to bring Argentina back into its visa waiver program in the coming years, the agency said on Monday during Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's visit to Buenos Aires. Argentina was part of the program between 1996 and 2002. The scheme allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the U.S. for business or tourism for up to 90 days without a visa, if their home nations meet counter-terrorism, law enforcement and immigration requirements. Noem in a statement said that Argentina had the lowest visa overstay rate among Latin American countries, and that Argentine travel to the U.S. had been increasing. She noted that Argentina had become an "even stronger friend" to the United States under President Javier Milei. Libertarian Milei has sought to align himself with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has lauded Milei's deregulation efforts and called the Argentine leader his 'favorite president." The DHS announcement comes shortly after Argentina decided to loosen visa requirements for Chinese visitors, saying those with valid U.S. entry visas would not need Argentine visas to enter the country for tourism or business.
