ORIGINS.

According to the fideist current of fascist mysticism, faith and reason are incompatible: for such reason, faith trumps all else and establishes fascism as ‘’a religious concept of life’’, constituting a ‘’spiritual community’’ as defined by Benito Mussolini in 1932.

Be it from a purely biological (Giovanni Preziosi) or idealistic-mythological point of view (Julius Evola), the fascist doctrine is founded upon the assumption of a hypothetical ‘’italic race’’, as a constituent part of the greater indo-european family. Niccolò Giani envisioned Europe as closed within a struggle between the Mediterranean world, close to the ancient Greek and Roman traditions that centered on the spirit (‘’Europe of the Aries’’), and the materialistic world born from the French revolution (‘’Europe of the Taurus’’). Whilst the latter was home to the ‘’semitic’’ theorists of both liberalism and communism, as in Russia, Great Britain and France, the former brought together Italy and Germany in ‘’this Europe of the aries that is arian, mediterranean and latin, and at the same time is Egyptian and Greek, fascist and nazist’’, in the very words of Giani. In other words, a conceptualisation that turned Italy in a war against the allies and in collaboration with the axis powers.

Due to this ‘’historical continuum’’, sprouting from the Roman empire, the civilising force of Rome was reinstated through the idea of a pagan imperialism that was inherently racist and antisemitic. With this epistemic premise, Fascist mythology was to be accepted as a ‘’metareality’’. 

FASCISM AND THE STATE.

‘’The fascist mystic is faith and action, a dedication that is absolute but at the same time conscious’’: this is how Guido Pallotta described the nature of this school of thought. Profoundly rooted in faith, this proposed a vision of the world built upon Roman-catholic religion and a hierarchy represented by the traditional motto of ‘’God, Fatherland, Family’’, precisely in this order. The perfect fascist man had to be firstly a servant to god, then to his political leader (il Duce), then to his familiar sphere.

According to these ‘’mystics’’, the New Man was one ‘’who does not want to be a twig at the mercy of cosmic laws, but rather a capable will’’, able to readily respond to adversities. He is one who is able to resist the scepticism, the materialism and the hedonism, that ‘’mortify the spirit of other contemporary peoples’’, in order to ensure the continuity of the fascist regime. The connections that deeply intertwine the fascist school with Roman-catholic religion are evident, in spite of their often-difficult relationship, as Pietro Misciattelli clams that the ethical ends of Fascism correspond to the ethical ends of the catholic church.

Although objectionably a contributor to the fascist mystic school, Julius Evola himself wrote that nonetheless it was not possible to speak of a ‘’mystic’’ but rather an ‘’ethic of fascism’’: this movement did not respond to questions of higher values, of sacrality, which are essential components of any mysticism, but rather remained ‘’vague and conforming to the dominant religion’’.

THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT.

The one certainty that underlay fascist mysticism was that the sole source of the fascist doctrine was the thought of its leader: not only politically, but also spiritually, the Duce had the power to determine the truthfulness or falsity of his followers’ beliefs by his own will. As Giani stressed in his manifesto for the School of Fascist Mysticism, founded in 1930 and ceased in 1943, ‘’fascism has its 'mystical' aspect, as it postulates a complex of moral, social and political, categorical and dogmatic beliefs, accepted and not questioned by the masses and minorities. [...] A Fascist puts his belief in the infallible Duce Benito Mussolini, the fascist and creator of civilization; a Fascist denies that anything outside of the Duce has spiritual or putative antecedents.’’ Obedience thus becomes the demonstration of collective faith. In a polity where one has the power to determine the ideology of all, obedience becomes the coin for survival.
 
In this sense, as reported by the Fascist National Party in the Dictionary of Politics, Vol. III (1940), ‘’fascist mysticism’’ becomes both the firm belief in the absolute truth of the Duce’s doctrine and the firm belief in its necessity for national strength. The mystique of fascism is defined therein as ‘’the most energetic and blazing preparation to action that tends to translate the ideal affirmations of Fascism into reality’’, thus the cult of one man through the study of his writings and speeches, accompanied by an absolute and faithful commitment to living in accordance with his word. Rather than contributing to the political sphere through constitutional means, under Fascism the sole expression of political dignity becomes the ability to make oneself a good servant to the government, to obey, ‘’to march in order not to rot!’’.
 
Political action in this sense, however, was not the expression of one’s true being, outwith the space of necessity, as in the Aristotelian conception of philosopher Hannah Arendt: rather it is the will to conform, to assent, to surrender one’s political being to the shadow of authority. In his essential essay ‘’On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’’ (1849), Henry David Thoreau writes that ‘’disobedience is the true foundation of liberty’’. To challenge the laws or authorities that are in place in any political space must be a fundamental condition of any political system. In a political space, when the will of the authority is taken to be the law, then we assist to the mortification of civil rights and society. This is what Arendt calls the ‘’banality of evil’’: it is merely rooted in the inability to think for oneself in the face of authority. (Are we doing this because it is right, or because one is telling us to?) Yet evil has shallow roots, ‘’it can bever be radical, it can only be extreme, for it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension’’. Evil comes from the failure to think for oneself as separate from one’s appeals to authority, and a doctrine such as the fascist, constructed upon the cult of one man and the loyalty to his word, can in no way present a philosophical structure that survives any ethical or methodical scrutiny.
 
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The warfare, violence and militarisation taking place on our continent today, due to the Russo-Ukrainian war, all sprout from the same root. As in yesterday’s words of ANPI president Gianfranco Pagliarulo ‘’the peace that was granted in Europe for more than 70 years was the result of a long political, institutional and juridic journey, following the devastation of two world wars. We must immediately reclaim that vision and that project, result of the Resistance to nazi-fascism, and legacy of our resisters and our partisans.’’ To understand the viciousness and atrocity of fascism means also to understand how we, today, may change the turning of our times. To understand is our moral duty.

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THE POLITICS OF MODERN SLAVERY

The term ‘modern slavery’ has been utilised as a broad but controversial definition which incorporates many forms of exploitation of people. Since the Western abolition of slavery in the twentieth century, slavery has not vanished but has adapted and taken on different forms which have shaped our contemporary demographics and political-legislative realities. According to the researcher and community activist Gary Craig, slavery has changed to better accommodate an increasingly industrialised and globalised world where the migration of people to new contexts contributes to exacerbating their vulnerability to enslavement (Craig et al, 2019). Today, slaves can be defined as people who are held captive and coerced to work without compensation, and can be grouped in three main categories, as subdivided by the researcher and activist Siddharth Kara: bonded labour, trafficked slaves and forced- labour slaves (Kara, 2017). These include different sorts of phenomena, ranging from very modern practices to continuous historical ones such as debt bondage, serfdom, human trafficking, sex slaves, forced marriage or organ harvesting. Although abolished in name, slavery persists within modern society: an example of this, as the CEO of Anti-Slavery International claims, is 'the rate of British children trafficked in the UK [which] has more than doubled in a year.’ (Craig et al., 2019). The lack of awareness and the weak political discussion regarding these hidden chains, which are often overshadowed by the stature of history, have made all these individuals not only silent but also invisible. 


FORCED LABOUR AND THE ROLE OF BUSINESS

With the proliferation of free trade, global value chains and multinational corporations, economic practices have extended to include ethical approaches (such as corporate responsibility or environmental standards) in business supply chains. Historically, the protection of human rights was the responsibility of the state; however, as businesses have  gained more power outside of the control of international laws, they have been able to invest in practices that do not make them legally accountable nor require a moral commitment for the provision of responsible and transparent behaviours. This has led to appalling work conditions, wages and contracts for workers, which often include the exploitation of children or women in precarious occupations for salaries below the minimum wage, as well as unsustainable abuse of resources and environment (Craig et al, 2019). 

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), forced labour is ‘all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.’ In estimates by the ILO, at least 20.9 million people were victims of forced labour in 2012, 90% of which were subjected to individuals or enterprises in the private economy (ILO, 2012). Furthermore, profits per slave generally range from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars a year, with total profits estimated to reach $150 billion (ILO, 2014). The market for forced labour surpasses all others both in supply and demand, promoting a low-cost manufacture to maximise profits and pressuring suppliers to provide the cheapest products (Banerjee, 2021). Today, most industries which dominate our Western world, from mining to textile industries to coffee and cocoa harvesting, are able to profit thanks to the exploitation of forced labourers. As consumers, it is our moral duty to be aware of the conditions and injustice involved in the production of foods such as chocolate, coffee and bananas, as some of the closest to our everyday lives.

THE CASE OF BANANAS

The banana industry presents itself as a clear case to explore how, politically and historically, one fruit can change the economic and ecological reality of many people. This case highlights how morality is deeply embedded in the food choices we make, which always affect and interact with a wider environment. The following analysis addresses some botanical and environmental factors which are structural to the cultivation of this plant and preliminary to its economic understanding before attending to the socio-political consequences for communities who cultivate bananas at a local level, as well as communities which import and consume these after their journey. 

Native to South-East Asia and brought to South America in the sixteenth century by Portuguese colonisers, bananas are fruits of the world’s largest herbs which come in approximately 1,000 different types (Rainforest Alliance, 2012). In the twentieth century, these are cultivated predominantly in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean islands. The most prominent in export trade and the variety most commonly found in Western supermarkets is the Cavendish banana, which is the fruit of a long process of domestication which made it compatible to its environment and more resilient to the climate. Nonetheless, as banana production is based on genetically restricted and inflexible clones, this monoculture is particularly sensitive to pests, diseases, and ecological change (Perrier et al, 2011). For instance, the plant has remained vulnerable to the black sigatoka disease, which alone requires fifty aerial sprays and threatens the health of workers, soil and water. This cultivation also comes with the risks of unsustainable practices and the reduction of bananas’ agrobiodiversity as a species (van Niekerk, 2018). Although there have been some successful attempts in induced mutations and genetic modifications to make bananas more disease-resistant, these remain merely technological fixes: instead, we argue that what should be changed is our relationship with food and the food production system itself.
The economy of bananas includes many countries in spite of its specific geographies. In fact, the EU and the US are the biggest importers of bananas, accounting for an annual average of 57% of global imports, as of 2017 (FAO, 2017). Bananas are also the second most sold product in UK supermarkets. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), only 15% of the total banana production is traded on the international market, while the rest is retained locally and constitutes a great part of people’s diets. Considering the fact that half a billion people rely on bananas for half of their daily calorie intake, particularly in countries such as Uganda and Cameroon, bananas contribute not only to food security, but also to substantial household income in many countries such as Ecuador or Costa Rica (FAO, 2017).

Inevitably, the incredible demand for this product by supermarkets in the West has a great impact on the food sovereignty of many local communities. Food sovereignty is defined by Jaci van Niekerk (2018), in her research regarding the inauspicious development of a “new” transgenic fruit, as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems’. Our demands for products which have large environmental and social impact enables slavery’s assault on human dignity on an individual, but also communal dimension as entire communities become unable to provide the necessities for themselves and for this reason become dependent on external bodies. For this reason, it is crucial to frame this issue within local food and cultural systems, also recognising that malnutrition and hunger are not merely technical or biological issues but social problems originating from poverty, inequality, and an unfair distribution of resources. Ending hunger or promoting food sovereignty thus cannot be limited to a matter of gene transfers (van Niekerk, 2018), but must aim to address socio-economic and agroecological aspects first. These bio-technical approaches must be implemented and followed in parallel by socio-ecological considerations, such as land ethics or the empowerment of farmers and women, that reconnect them to the local dimension, otherwise they may risk undermining local food systems or traditional cultures.

In a 2008 interview by Lesley Grant, the manager of banana growers’ association in St. Vincent and Grenadines speaks of the human cost of ‘cheap’ bananas produced in Latin America, compared with the better conditions of the small-scale, family-run Caribbean banana industry. In his words:

All of this nonsense you hear of ‘cheap’ [bananas]. Someone has to pay upfront. They have to pay in blood or in terms of poverty. Because the person who comes and works for you for less than a US dollar a day, he is giving you his wealth. He is giving you the wealth of his children (Fridell, 2011).

The cost of large-scale farming, as opposed to smaller productions, is stimulated by global demand and economic competition, thus a driver of strife and insecurity for many local families and communities. In fact, although Latin America and the Caribbean islands are the main producers of bananas, they present very different histories and models of production. In the Winward Islands of the Caribbean, for example, bananas provided one-third of all employment as well as half of their export earnings, before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules promoted global free-trade at the human cost of the islands’ small economy in 2005 (Myers, 2004). Through the dismantling of the EU-Caribbean agreement, where the EU removed non-tariff measures designed to enable this trade, communities were marginalised and the attempt to alleviate poverty and promote development though preferential treatments was abandoned by Western countries (Fridell, 2011). This became a problem from a Caribbean perspective, as the industry would not have been able to compete with the cheaper bananas of Latin America. 

The fair-trade movement therefore helped revitalise the banana industry in these smaller and more vulnerable countries in the face of the free market (Robbins, 2013). On the other hand, fair-trade companies dominate the market with very little commitment to ethical standards, such as the international company Chiquita, involved with the destruction of democratic movements in Latin America and perhaps also implicated in the overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954 (Robbins, 2013). The case of bananas shows how the moral behaviours of markets can profoundly affect the biology as much as the social or environmental aspects of a place. 
THE FAIR TRADE MOVEMENT

Fair trade appears to dominate the modern market in an effort of moral amelioration. However, the ethical foundations of this market approach have transformed throughout time to the point this is compatible with businesses’ logic of profit. Fair trade involves an attempt to combat inequalities and establish a network of solidarity, particularly between poor and rich countries, through ethical trade standards. In order to be officially considered fair-trade, goods must be produced by poor communities through cooperative democratic organisations and employ sustainable means for both workers and the environment (Fridell, 2007). Yet, as supported by Robbins (2013), it is currently questioned whether fair-trade certifications should be extended to multinationals or not. The dangers of doing so include the possibility of companies such as Starbucks or Nestlé, renowned for their very low standards, selling themselves as socially responsible bodies while in fact committing to very little (Robbins, 2013). The fair-trade movement was born in Latin America, to Liberation Theology priests and radical-liberal groups in Europe and the US. This was intended to represent a combination of Christian and liberal values directed towards labour, human rights and social justice (Lyon and Moberg, 2010). As presented in Gavin Fridell’s history of the fair-trade coffee market, this developed as an alternative network of trade organisations in the 1940s and 1950s. The fair-trade labelling system was consequently introduced in the 1980s, in the hopes of inducing bigger corporations to keep up with ‘ethical consumer’ markets in the West (Fridell, 2007). However, although producers of fair-trade coffee received higher wages than conventional producers, the difference was not enough to lift them out of poverty. This also came at the cost of increased labour, awareness of environmental impacts and a longer-term commitment for the workers, expected to carry a heavier burden of responsibilities (Robbins, 2013). 

The fair-trade movement today labels many common foods on the market. In spite of its moral foundations, to many this appears to be consistent with a neoliberal agenda, which defends the self-regulation of markets as the best way to promote social and environmental solutions as if they were commodities. In fact, according to Paige West (2012) in her analysis of New Guinea organic coffee production, fair-trade coffee is neoliberal coffee. This is because the farmer is seen as an object of empowerment whilst the consumer is the agent of such empowerment (Robbins, 2013). The exercise of responsibility is thus cast only on one side of the supply chain, prioritising the consumer’s moral comfort at the expense of the producer. By putting a price on fair wages, democratic means and sustainable practices, fair-trade certifications are merely commodifying morality.
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THE COMMODIFICATION OF MORALITY

As consumers proceed through their meals, biting into another banana or sipping fair-trade coffees, many remain unaware of the slavery that is woven into the fabric of their daily lives, blinded by an economy of ignorance. What has been defined by Richard Robbins as the ‘commodification of morality’, echoing the words of both Fisher and Henrici (2013), represents a marketing strategy to increase the value and profit margin of final products at the end of their supply chain. Our commitments to fair trade should not aim to merely serve people’s consciences in this moral commodification, where they are able to buy their way out of the gap between morals and actions, but rather to provide a real positive impact, which today is clearly not fulfilled by fair-trade certifications.

Returning to the ethics that underpin fair trade, which were originally rooted in Catholic social thought (Robbins, 2013), the correlation of consumption and communion is an important factor to consider as individuals have a moral obligation to think about their eating habits and shape practices in relation to their impact on others. According to the theologian and social ethicist Julie Hanlon Rubio, this could be interpreted in a theological perspective where consumers find themselves compelled to consider their personal role in global economic systems in which humans are exploited, and ensure that their actions are ‘not contributing to the maintenance of evil, when they could be contributing to the good’ (Rubio, 2016).

The question of food justice must be interrogated on many levels: it departs from the preference, taste, or nutritional needs of any individual and approaches a communal dimension. Here, shared meals become a site of hospitality and solidarity, as well as ethical deliberation, creating strong foundations for these to interconnect with the global context. In this way, one’s personal and local choices are capable of shaping the lives of people on the other side of the world. In the twenty-first century, the role of educated consumers is thus crucial in the larger project of human liberation (Flores, 2018). A critical understanding of the places and commodity chains that our foods have to cross before coming to our plates is essential to empower and unchain individuals from their unawareness, as well as promoting a more positive relationship with producers and local communities. Through action, which should coherently accompany one’s moral choices, one is able to transform from a consumer to an agent of positive change. These considerations regarding our table ethics are crucial not merely “to eat our way to justice” (Flores, 2018), but rather to change the moral psychology of an economic order which is governed, in the words of Flores, by ‘the tragedy of consumer participation in the enslavement of others in the name of economic freedom’ (Flores, 2018). 

PROSPECTS
After evaluating both the economic and moral implications of our consumption, particularly through the case of bananas, it is essential to realise that the (im)morality of actions contributes to many social issues and that food choices, more specifically, contribute to the maintenance of slavery. Solutions to modern slavery and market behaviours which enable the phenomenon must be found at multiple levels concomitantly, starting from the macropolitical and descending to the micropolitical. The reliance on moral solutions alone will not function if these are not also implemented at a macropolitical level, where the imperatives of profit maximisation and cost minimisation can fundamentally influence decision-making at a governmental level. The defence of social standards and welfare for both poorer and richer countries must be implemented with the same rigour, something that has not been applied to Western corporations who would otherwise not agree to participate in fair trade (Fridell, 2007). 

As Pogge (2005) claimed, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is ruled by a handful of developed countries implementing policies that profoundly impact poorer countries. He believes that the hypocrisy of these global institutions, who downplay the severity of hunger and rather commit to minor charitable assistance, is a direct cause of global poverty. Change must happen not to include poorer countries within the neoliberal development project, but to structurally change the way in which countries interact with each other across the global North-South divide, promoting an economy that is able to produce wellbeing for all rather than profit for few. This should also happen at a theoretical level, where more developed countries engage in research which could potentially benefit the poor (such as research on drought-resistant crops) rather than simply giving food aid in case of a natural disaster (Ouko, 2009). This approach can help some countries become more self-reliant, not merely relying on export as a fundamental source of income. 
At a macropolitical level, consumers must demand more accountability from the companies that produce their products in a way that goes beyond mere corporate social responsibility, through the introduction of third parties such as the judiciary. In this way, ethical discourse cannot be contradicted by corporate praxis, as happens with fair-trade certifications or ‘greenwashing’ advertisement where companies deceptively portray themselves as environmentally friendly for marketing purposes, and extreme biases and conflicts of interest can be avoided in an adequate way (Jones, 2019). Thus, ethical consumerism must not become a substitute for the civic action which is needed to create effective change through a change in governmental regulation at a national level. As well as this, it is crucial to note that the neglect of social relations of production is also followed by a failure to address unequal gender relations (Fridell, 2007). It is of utmost importance to note that the discrimination of women underlies every other form of discrimination. For this reason, the empowerment and protection of women’s rights must also be addressed as a fundamental issue in the food and agriculture supply chain. Therefore, civil society and intergovernmental organisations have a fundamental role to play in the greater political framework, demanding transparency and ensuring that political-economic institutions do not promote harm to farmers and producers in developing countries. Only through what Gavin Fridell defines as a ‘democratic political process’ (Fridell, 2007), producers and consumers can be given equal say and equal responsibility for decisions regarding the production and distribution of goods; something that is denied within the limitations of the global market.

Ethical reflections must take into account that food is a basic human right which requires a combination of political decisions, technological solutions, social cooperation and individual actions to be ensured (Ouko, 2009). At an individual level, consumers must engage in informed practices, engaging with products that avoid moral commodification and advance positive impacts. As described by Benjamin Garner in his research on farmers’ markets (2015), these sites of direct farmer-customer relationships enable for community ties and social interactions to flourish in ways that are able to resist commodification. Through a sense of geographic embeddedness, consumers are able to reconnect to the natural environment and appreciate the specificities of their land through distinctive local products. As well as this, buying foods close to their sources promotes active engagement with the producers and consequently fosters a stronger sense of community, which is by nature ‘contingent and not commodifiable’ (Garner, 2015). Although the fair-trade movement originally attempted to construct such moral economy, moving away from the market to promote micro-interactions within and between communities, this has currently diverted towards the model of ‘isolated consumers’ (Fridell, 2007) due to neoliberal constraints. In an economic order driven by consumption, it will always be possible to purchase morality through ethical products: for this reason, it is crucial to cultivate alternative market models founded on mutual communication and collaborative human relationships, which are inherently non-commodifiable. In this way, local food systems such as farmers’ markets, local businesses and social enterprises become spaces of constructive economic interdependence between consumers and producers, on both an ethical and social dimension. The individual and global dimensions must be interlocked through the local: by promoting smaller systems of food production and trade, along with a community-based approach to food, the individual can develop an integral food ethic and the current global order of human domination and exploitation can be changed. 
To conclude, it is essential to recognise one’s role in the greater social and environmental picture. As consumers in the capitalist system, it is then of utmost importance that one’s practices promote local trade, direct relationships on the market and aim to avoid services which do not in fact reflect the social and environmental cost of production. It is crucial to remember that when one is not paying for this, someone else is (Fridell, 2011). Indeed, as modern slavery presents itself as the systematic denial of human agency, one’s ethical responses should aim to re-evaluate consumptive choices on an individual dimension, through reflection, understanding and responsibility, and promote new forms of interaction on a social dimension, through solidarity, mutuality and active democratic participation. 

It is the duty of all citizens who proclaim themselves against injustice and oppression to be aware of the hidden chains that still hold individuals hostage to the economy and question what small steps one can take towards an alternative market model that values people over consumption.


Originally published by University of Glasgow's [X]position, Vol. 6, issue 2, 2021, available at: https://www.talkaboutx.net/xpositionvolume/6-2/Erin-Rizzato-Devlin/.

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A wave of dissent and protests has swept over the country to challenge the power of capital. As flags red with blood and wet with sweat have risen, workers of all trades have begun to leave their workplaces and organise in the face of rising living costs and the energy crisis, with an enthusiasm not seen in decades. Their strikes have proven the very fact that without the presence of working hands, labouring and toiling away, the functioning of society as a whole would not be possible. The workforce has the power to reinstate this claim each time it decides to withdraw its labour and disrupt the flow of social life: but what is the value of strike in a world that encourages competition over cooperation, harsh individualism over caring alliance, laxness over resistance? Is protest useful today, when algorithms govern and control our lives?
 
In Strike Strategy, the radical union organizer John Streuben defines the strike as ‘’an organized cessation from work. It is the collective halting of production or services in a plant, industry, or area for the purpose of obtaining concessions from employers. A strike is labour’s weapon to enforce labour’s demands” (1950). The first recorded strike action in history dates back to around 1170 BCE, when tomb workers’ in Deir el-Medina, Egypt refused to work due to a lack of wheat rations. Since then an immense number of workers have employed strikes as a strategy for achieving basic needs and rights denied by their hostile environment.
 
The history of Scotland’s strikes goes back a long way, and is distinguished by its radical nature. In 1787, the first major industrial action of the county saw the Calton weavers as its first working class martyrs. Since then, a number of both national and imperial strikes led by coal miners, ship builders, engineers, transport and heavy industry workers and many others have spread and risen to this day. One of the most notable in the history of the Red Clydeside being the Battle of George Square, in 1919, causing 34,969,000 working days lost in the year before the workers returned to work with a guaranteed 47-hour week.
 
As the ‘hot strike summer’ keeps getting hotter due to increasing industrial action, it seems that teachers, nurses, civil servants and firefighters may soon join the ranks as the cost of living crisis becomes incumbent. Conveniently, the government has stopped sharing strike data through the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website for the last three years.
As mountains of waste begin to occupy the streets, the signs of changing times become all the more pressing.
 
Under capitalism, the value of humanity is reduced to that of economic advantage, of money. Socially, hierarchies structure our relationships and perpetuate injustice as strata that sediment beneath layers of resentment and angst. James Connolly once wrote, in his 1915 The Re-Conquest of Ireland, that “the worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female is the slave of that slave”. Immorality on an individual scale breeds injustice on a social scale. By eradicating this from our very spirit, thus also striking from the industry of discrimination and exclusion, our choices can prefigure what our society ought to become. The worker movement towards fairness and equality and welfare, and against the supremacy of private property rights, must find its completion in the practices of the everyday, in the hope of liberating not only the direct slaves of the market economy but all of those subjected to its normalisation in the form of consumerism, individualism and commodification. We cannot commodify our political struggle in exchange for the petty comforts of convention and consumption: these come at the cost of our very rights, beings and liberties.
 
Indeed, the strike is the sharpest tool workers have to fight against the logic of profit and for a future that is more fair, collective and solidary. Freedom shall come only when, in the words of James Connolly, the people will own ‘’everything from the plough to the stars.’’
 
Ye wouldnae hae your telly the noo, if it wasnae for the union!

​
The question concerning technology does not merely concern human artefacts, but it is also a question of ethos, of reverence, of gratitude. We forget to hold our phones as miraculous shrines that incapsulate sound from one side of the globe and transfer it to the other; to fly across countries realising we are merely mimicking the flight and composition of birds; to turn the lights on reminiscing the struggles of fumbling in the heart of the night, whilst the aid of sunlight is brought to life on command. Thanks to human brilliance, life is made easy by artifice. It is made easy, but not simple. Through technology, we have accommodated our needs and dangerously transformed them into necessity. The attitude of humanity remains stolid in the face of the wonders it has created.

In the words of Hannah Arendt, ‘’the more highly developed a civilisation […], the more it will resent everything it has not produced’’ (1951). Everything that humankind has not produced or created, but merely received as an element of its environment has increasingly become stigmatised within the contemporary construction of our reality, where technic has come to prevail as an absolute language. By distancing ourselves from our given environments, we have come to despise those things that are outwith human control, irreducible to technical solutions. This moment in time can be seen as a crisis of reality, where the lack of imaginative and creative power leads us to a view of our world that is sterile, disintegrating, unchangeable. We should never forget, on the other hand, that it is always in our power to reimagine and thus recreate alternative reality systems: renewing our cosmologies can radically give birth to new ways of conceiving of our individual existences, as well as organising our socio-political lives.
 
It is true that throughout our existence, we take place: we cross sites, navigate geographies, belong to expansions by ‘’taking place’’. Thus, by contributing, changing, affecting our environments. Every action, no matter how small, has an impact that never truly transcends its space: even a prayer for instance, remains rooted in the territory of its utterance or contemplation, which in turn becomes a sacred space. We make place, as we take it. The dangers of technology are that it gives us the illusion of transcendence, where space becomes meaningless as we create a global network of scientific, political, technological, administrative that are thought to address the environmental catastrophe we have created, as well as aid our survival in the world. However, we have yet to learn that a dynamic ‘system’ such as nature cannot be managed as if it were a machinery system: by translating all we know to the language of science and technology, we overlook the very needs of our biosphere. We must remember that nature, society and machines require different languages.
 
From here, the distinction between ‘complexity’ and ‘complication’.  In the words of Kvaløy Setreng (2000), ‘complexity’ is the ‘’dynamic, irreversible, non-centrally steered, goal-directed, conflict-fertilised manifoldness of nature and the human mind/body entity’’. On the contrary, ‘complication’ is the ‘’static, reversible, externally and unicentrally steered, standardised structure-intricacy of the machine’’. Whilst complexity is merely a property of the natural world, where ecosystems are intertwined and co-dependent, different species and languages survive amongst each other, complication is the man-made construction of a reality where the standardisation of scientific and technological language is applied to all things. We expect to treat the brain as though it were a computer. We wish to solve homelessness by applying spikes to park benches. We cure depression with chemicals, rather than looking to the greater environment of reasons and causes within which this happens. If we limit ourselves to the complications we create, rather than recognising and accepting the potentially enriching complexity of our world, then we will constantly live in a world of edges and obduracy where technological-fixes become the only way of solving our problems, yet creating more on the long run.
 
Although we are systematically taught to accept the age of technologisation and computerisation as something intrinsically positive, we must not forget to balance its scientific and developmental advantages to its social, political, ecological risks. The way we ease a complicated world can shine light on the way we overlook the possibilities of the reality that surrounds us, helping us consider the political and social consequences of such devices and ‘augment’ our reality without resorting to digital means. 

To be easy is not to be simple: sometimes the small rituals of cutting wood or lighting a fire to keep warm and cook food can help us feel awe at the magic of a mobile phone that can reach the opposite side of the globe. Our brains are not machines, and as such it remains in their deepest power to break through the language of our times and touch the flesh of another world.

In the last few days, we have been bombarded with photos of destroyed buildings looking onto the streets of Kyiv; footage of young Palestinian girls being violently attacked by the Israeli police force; stories of massacre and suffering as the future of an Ethiopian political community perishes; accounts of people with no home, people preparing to wage war, people waving their uncertain farewells as half their families have to rush onto a train leaving their men and streets behind. Hands waving, eyes tearing, hearts pounding in the face of the immediate imposition of the future, opening as a wound in their existence. People are the victims of war, not nations or ethnicities or religions. There is no segregation when it comes to such violence, no differentiation between cultures, no dissociation in terms of feelings. Amongst all the visions that have occurred to me in the last few days, one has remained with me particularly: a vision of ‘peace’, written in a Nigerian dead language on the breast of a friend. Perhaps the symbols of a dead language can keep us from despair, more than those prolific spiels of words that attempt to accuse, defend, justify what is happening around us in the public space. There is nothing but an exercise of humanity to be made to save us from capitulating into the pits of brutality.
 
For this reason, instead of providing the politics, the deliberations, the intentions of violence that have occupied the pulpits of government in the last weeks, however useful this study may be for understanding the reasons of many such occurrences, these present words are an emotional response to the circumstances. To attempt to legitimise the facts through their mere political explanation, is to legitimise the very logic of warfare. In this, I believe there is no logic. There is no sanity, no empathy; there is not love for one’s nation nor one’s people. There is strategy or tactic conducted in the name of power. The study of ‘warfare’ and ‘security’ can risk romanticising the issue or alienating people from the emotions of those who are affected by their consequences. It is good to be reminded, that the fact we are not currently surrounded by the blasting screams of warfare is a pure matter of luck. It could be us, our family, our homes torn to pieces by the decisions of men sitting around a table from their thrones of egoism.
 
War merely redefines spaces, powers, dialectics. The cost of this, however, is humanity, both physical and spiritual. There is no other prayer one should undergo in these times but the relentless commitment to kill the seeds of hatred and violence that may inevitably arise within us, and to defeat them by desperately searching for ways to communicate and compromise with the other. It is from this very choice that our survival may depend.
 
In such disheartening situations, it is important not to despair, and to remember that this is not the first nor last, nor only war that is tearing people and lands apart. As warfare is nothing but a performance of humanity at its worse, it seems appropriate to solely mention one of the greatest play writers of the last century. Thus, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, we must remember that in each war there will be losers and victors: amongst the losers, those who will suffer from hunger will always be the poor people; amongst the winners, those who will suffer will be the poor people. By realising that war is not a matter of power over an invisible ‘Other’, but an attitude towards how we treat human beings as a whole, we will be careful not to ‘’sit on the wrong side because all the other seats were taken".

Each place has a voice. No matter where we find ourselves, the search for the sacred has belonged to human culture since the beginning of time. Along with this search, the building of sacred places has been an essential part of the pursuit of religion. The rising of these physical idols, these dwellings of the divine, are what the ancient Greeks used to call ‘temenos’, meaning a piece of land dedicated to a god or sanctuary. Within this holy precinct, the land is allowed to sing, voicing its quiet hymns to reclaim the air itself. This momentum, defined by space rather than time, is what allow humans to enter into contact with a reality greater than themselves. In fact, it should not be regarded as a breach in the veil of reality but rather as a transversal distention that coincides with the land itself, that follows its gentle swellings and its grieved recesses. In the Western world, we have reached an age where religion, according to some, has been relocated. In this sense, ‘religion’ has not been lost: it has just changed its form to reach a state in which we do not recognise it as such anymore. The human search for sacredness, however, makes it impossible to abandon the need to transcend one’s self and rip open the burning hole at the heart of the ego.
 
Transcendence is a concept which has been recently developed by the Austrian philosopher Alfred Schutz. According to his phenomenological view, transcendence can be conceptualised as a multi-levelled mode of human experience, which reaches into a reality greater than its own. In this sense, transcendence should be envisioned as a span which is shifting from a greater to a smaller level in the modern world. Small transcendences, according to Schutz, are thus similar to the experience of forgetting a book in another room: this transcends us because we cannot reach it immediately, but it is within potential reach and the boundary is easily crossable. Intermediate transcendences, on the other hand, relate to other human beings whose experience we cannot know as our own, but whose understanding we can share through communication and sympathy. In our everyday experience, we constantly tread the path of otherness, by crossing the bridge to the other person’s experience. At last, great transcendences are defined as experiences which go beyond the everyday, such as art, myth or religion itself. These lead us to different states of consciousness beyond our usual, engaging us with realities bigger than those of the inner self.
 
In the mundane reality of our modern Western world, the primacy of the self has taken root. We no longer question our experience of reality nor the legitimacy of its pre-eminence, but we take this for granted. The triumph of the ego has killed some gods, the weakest and most human-like. Nonetheless, some others have learned to survive in a hostile world: nature, amongst other things perhaps, has collected their weight and significance to repropose them in a new light. The secular society that is being fostered today often pours its religiosity into various things: some hear the calling of art, others answer the thrills of nature. Everyone, however, is searching for the same thing: that is, for something that reaches beyond us, that gives meaning to the whole, the sacred thread that pulls reality together into sense. 
 
The antipode of transcendence is immanence, which the history of humankind has left behind in a presumed march towards progress. With the rising of modernity, guided in particular by the Judeo-Christian notion of linear time, cultures have abandoned the primitive beliefs of magical immanence where the cosmos is interpreted as a fusional relationship between nature and its components, the divine is depicted through anthropomorphic and monistic features, and the monolith of society is unravelled as a myth. This recent ‘techno-spiritual monoculture of our species’, as defined by Viveiros de Castro et Danowski, has also neglected the notion of space, creating a multitude of ecological concerns as a consequence of such conception. Space has in fact been regarded as a pagan, hence unsound, dimension in se, incapsulated by Hegel’s claim that ‘’The truth of space is time’’. In this sense, time as a linear (not circular) conception has trumped all power that was given to space in the past, thus bringing forth the values of celerity, productivity, praxis. Time as a circular notion, brought forth by Buddhist or Taoist religions for example, has also been problematic and excluded from the metaphysics of modernity as this collapses time and eternity, thus violating the superiority of a god that exists in eternity, not in time. As a consequence, the finitude of these notions is in such a great opposition to eternity, that transcendence is not destined to the world we inhabit. Also the notion of spatiality, which is connected to different techno-spiritual values, has been severed in its entirety and put to rest by a general secularisation of social living. 
 
This opposition of chronos and topos, kairos and chora, time and necessity, need not become a conflict: the urgency of space, however, must remind us of our place, of the here and now that we stand upon regardless of the time frames we envision. Space, in its material certainty and its visible body, grants us the touch of truth. Perhaps this may be why some of the most secular societies of the modern world have rendered the mountain their religion. May it be a church or a forest, we must learn to root our religion in the spaces we inhabit, where the divine is allowed to survive and flourish as the wild stalks that fight their way through the cracks in the cement of unquestioned existence.
 

 
Georg W. F. Hegel, 1972. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972.

Viveiros de Castro, E. and Danowski, D., 2020. The Past is Yet to Come. e-flux journal, 114.

Thurfjell, D., Rubow, C., Remmel, A. and Ohlsson, H., 2019. The Relocation of Transcendence. Nature and Culture, 14(2), pp.190-214.

Space is the foundation of life. The spaces we inhabit throughout our experience have however become a manuscript we are unlearning to decipher. Somehow, there is something more fundamental to the notion of space than there is to the self: we belong to the places that have forged us with the anvil of their soil, with their winds hammering us onto their hillsides or shores. Our feet take the shape of the ground we stand upon, melting like sand against the ancient necessity of having somewhere to be, somewhere to belong. Within this, when man begins to create stories of meaning for his places, rising walls and building fences, severing armies of forests and harbouring the wild sea, other things begin to happen. In these human spaces, the geometries of power begin to unfurl their shapes, and the horizontal bridges of cooperation begin to emerge. Our relationships to others, as well as ourselves, owe so much to the places we stand and dwell upon. With each step, we carry not only ourselves but also the environments that we cross and part with, the landscapes that begin to crush their waves against the little stone of identity that we wish to be defined by.
 
Space, as opposed to place, can be considered in a more objective, cartesian interpretation which has dominated the analytical imagination in the last centuries: in this sense, space is defined as an inertial frame of reference within which objects are distinguished by their dynamical properties. This is also combined with time, in order to measure uniform and accelerated motion of bodies. However, this definition is not able to contain the notion of an ever-changing space which is constantly moving with and transforming through its parts. The body of a mountain in fact, although living more unhurriedly than that of a human, is yet mutating each day. There is no such thing as a space that does not at least show the marks of change upon its surface, as it breathes and migrates away from itself.
 
Place can also be a controversial concept, representing a sense of collectivity, of belonging, of shared identity, but also a spirit of conflict, a wall of separation, a weapon of discrimination. To ‘belong’ can be as comforting as a roof, or as hostile as a barricade. It is not the place itself that takes on such nature, but what we decide to do with it, how we culturally decide to conceive of it. Our conceptualisation of space is implicit yet can lead to different consequences: the choice of viewing space as a surface transforms land questions into mere property issues, where the European coloniser is able to reach an unknown territory across the ocean and claim it as inferior, underdeveloped, thus his own to domesticate.
Even in the modern definitions of ‘underdeveloped’, ‘developing’ or ‘least developed’ countries, which are employed as technical idioms in the political sphere, such thoughts are implicit. When we are defining other places as such, we are fundamentally implying that they are short of what the ‘developed’ countries have defined as a successful journey of development, which each nation should aim for in its ripening. In this sense, they are backwards in a timely manner on the route towards progress, where space and time are merely conflated into one concept.
 
This lacking recognition of these ‘contemporaneous heterogeneities of space’, as Doreen Massey defines them, reflects a lack of attention and respect towards the multiplicity and diversity of trajectories that geography may take. This is a lack of political and spatial imagination. In the opening lines written above by the Gaelic poet Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, also known as ‘Big Mary of the Songs’, the land is seen as a contending space between the populace and the Highland landowners: the former cultivating meaning and ‘value’ upon it, the latter transforming it into a commodity through the ‘law’. Her poetic voice thus delivers not only a personal topography of her island Skye, but also the landscape of power relations at a time where the land reform movement was fermenting in Scotland. In this scene, two different interpretations inhabit the same land, at the same moment in time, and lead to two different outcomes: collective land ownership on the one hand, and private ownership on the other. 
 
The need to reimagine space as a lived, but also living thing is crucial. Only through the recognition that land issues are not merely issues of property, but also wells of value, mountains of meaning, rivers of identity, we will be able to conceive of space as something beyond mere surface. We will be able to recognise alternative ways of employing our spatial imagination to create new moral and social landscapes, where in the words of Màiri Mhòr, ‘the truth will triumph, despite the ingenuity of the wicked’.

What is COP?

The COP that took place in Glasgow, in accordance with the pre-COP Summit and other preliminary events that took place in Italy, was postponed from 2020 after the Coronavirus pandemic broke out. According to COP26’s negotiation plans, the key goals were:

1. All countries to secure global net zeroand limit global warming by the middle of the century through more ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets, NDCs, investments in renewables;
2. Urgently adapting to promote the phasing out of coal;
3. Mobilising finance to meet commitments, fulfilling the $100bn a year goal for climate finance.

What does it mean?

• Global Net Zero: a state in which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and any ongoing emissions are balanced by removal out of the atmosphere. At this point, it is though that at least for CO2, global warming will stop.

 

• NDCs: Nationally Determined Contributions, at the heart of the Paris Agreement, represent the national effort that each country undergoes to reduce its emissions and transition away from fossil fuels to mitigate climate change.

 

• Phase Out: to discontinue the practice, production and use of coal as an energy resource. This is involved with the transition towards renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind or hydropower.

 

• Climate Finance: this can refer to the role of finance in facilitating efforts to address climate change, or the financial obligations owed by rich countries to poorer countries to promote environmental investments in these developing countries.

What are the outcomes?

After two weeks dedicated to finding climate solutions in Glasgow, almost all countries have agreed to commitments in order to cut carbon emissions, phase out of coal and increase climate finance. Within this discussion, there has been a recognition of the role of the pandemic and the need to ensure a sustainable and resilient global recovery. Along with this, the need to address human rights such as those of indigenous communities, migrants, children, but also gender inequalities, the right to development and the right to a future for the coming generations have been acknowledged. Although this has been noted in the name of energy justice and science, the pact has proven to be insufficient for the world to remain on track and avoid global warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, as establish in the first binding agreement in Paris (2015), nonetheless some may argue this is a significant step on the way towards a more sustainable future.

What’s next?

​Whatever the outcomes, in the words of the MSP Patrick Harvie, head of the Scottish Greens, it is essential to neither fall into complacency or abandon oneself to defeatism. If the outcome is deemed positive, one ought not to consider this pact as a solution, but as a first step towards a target that requires relentless effort and commitment. If the outcome, on the other hand, is regarded as detrimental, one ought not to be defeated either: whatever the case, the road is still long. Scotland has been the home of such essential debates and must now become the cradle of renewed hope. Now more than ever, we’ll have to grasp the thistle. 

The Glesga Powerhouse
 
By the early XX century, the industrial revolution swept over Scotland. During these times, the Glaswegian population grew tenfold, following the surge of industry and welcoming many immigrants, particularly from Ireland (in fact, in 1851 20% of the population was of Irish birth), who helped fill the ranks of labour force in shipyards, factories and mines. Deindustrialisation was delayed by the Second World War, as the need to provide armies was fruitfully supporting the Scottish heavy industries. By the 1950s, the UK had consciously chosen to keep using steam locomotives rather than transitioning to electric and diesel, as in the rest of Europe, to maintain its railways. The economic predominance of the Clydeside was starting to decline, as it had remained unaltered in the face of worldwide changing technologies. Deindustrialisation was thus bringing forth a decline in production and profit, but also in employment, as the economy was becoming increasingly service and market-based. The distant administration of Thatcher’s government promoted an immorally unmanaged deindustrialisation, which was acutely felt by Scotland’s economy in particular as this was far more dependent on nationalised industrial jobs that the rest of the Kingdom. To this day, Glasgow still bears the scars of an industrial power which was never renovated in light of a changing economy. It’s industrial past remains the architect of its present, as the city was relatively small but crucial in driving major economic trends. The capitalist paradigm of production has thus had profound impacts on the local environment and public health (giving birth to the well-known phenomenon of the ‘Glasgow effect’, for instance), yet also created the space for a deep sense of collectiveness and solidarity.
 
Freedom Come All Ye! 
 
This had a great impact on the thick layer of the working class which inhabited the banks of the river Clyde. As well as feeding into the rising economic machinery, workers were fervently active between 1910-1930 in a phenomenon which has been called the ‘Red Clydeside’: one of the most radical political movements in Scottish history. After protesting against the participation in the First World War, the long radical tradition of the land was exacerbated and brought back to its zenith by the Industrial Revolution and the struggle for workers’ rights. The deep poverty that inevitably follows from the unearthing of great economic wealth, was touching the political consciousness of Glaswegian inhabitants. As unions were betraying people’s trust, as the political class was distancing itself from its commitments, people were slowly moving away from the liberal government of the time and embracing socialist ideals. The success of industrialisation along the Clydeside led to declining working conditions and precariousness, intensifying the undying struggles of women and men who were leading protests and strike across the Central Belt, from Clydebank to Greenock, Paisley and Dumbarton. In 1915, the rent strikes were also led by women such as Mary Barbour and Helen Crawfurd, supported by the labour party (the first was in fact born in Scotland), by trade unions and by the suffragette movement. 
 
The political and industrial identity of this city bears unmeasurable consequences on its shape today, as ‘the tears that made the Clyde’ incessantly flow across Glasgow with all their hope and impetus, ploughing the field for fresh seeds of change in the coming weeks.

In a time of deep uncertainty, where each person’s boundaries have been re-dimensioned, the mind of a child can be the clearest place to retreat to, in order to find some answers. As the pandemic restrictions have been moving between zones of different colour, from yellow to red (in Italy), this has profoundly impacted the relationship we regularly establish with our sense of space. In a child’s mind, this may translate into a secluded island of fear and danger that circumscribes one’s hometown, as the rest of the world basks in its usual wild freedom or perhaps remains safely on its tiptoes. Almost like an untouchable otherworld that lies at the opposite side of the borders, within which one identifies himself as the plagued. This dichotomy of confined and unrestricted, of stillness and motion, of the dreadfully known and the gladly unknown, creates a logical vocabulary of comfort in the imagined.

The distance, if allowed to breed, builds a dividing line of which we become the main interlocutors, softly pulling the strings of the marionettes responding to us in that language we ourselves have constructed. The perception of silence is not something that comes with life, where the rustle of touched skin resonates as loud as a pile of old leaves, where the murmur of a river can bring us the cleansing stories of someone else’s mud. There is blood in everything, but mostly in the silence.
​
As contained in the treatise of Rosinus: 
‘’This stone is something which is fixed more in thee than elsewhere, created of God, and thou art its ore, and it is extracted form thee, and wheresoever thou art it remains inseparably with thee… And as man is made up of four elements, so also is the stone, and so it is dug out of man, and thou art its ore, namely by working; and from thee it is extracted, that is by division; and in thee it remains inseparably, namely by knowledge.’’
It appears that through this knowledge of the stone, implanted in man by God, man remains bound inseparably to the self, to the latent content of his unconsciousness. 

​In fact, if we did not have the knowledge of conscious concepts, according to Carl Jung, we would not be able to possibly conceive the unconscious. For this reason, he also believes that it is crucial to tell children fairy tales and legends, as these are symbols which can be used to shift the unconscious contents of the mind into consciousness, integrated into one’s being. The failure of this brings mental disturbances such as phobias, hypochondriac ideas and obsessions, as the already conscious contents become targeted with overflowing energy, thus giving attention to things that are not usually emphasised.
Within our very minds we create this geomancy, a ‘foresight by earth’, which contributes to shape the clay of our being. In this realm where human consciousness meets and dialogues with the spirit of the Earth, particularly in the times we are living, it is important to give space to the faerie world of our mythologies and feed our inner child in order not to fall prey of circumstances. By overthinking our idea of separateness, rather than oneness, we obtain an identity that stands on poor feet. The only ticket home we are allowed to get, in order to leave that place of isolated being, is the sacred touch of exchanged word, reaching us as a prayer. The sands of despair vanish in the grasp of shared existence and the stories that come with it.

In a time where the clouds seems to be sustaining our very grounds, all we can do is search for a mountain amongst them, shining the torch of faith until it hits a safe rock and hope it walks with us.