Thursday, April 09, 2020

WAR AND OCCUPATION OPENED THE DOOR TO IRAQ'S VIRUS PANDEMIC


David Bacon Fotografias y Historias
WAR AND OCCUPATION OPENED THE DOOR TO IRAQ'S VIRUS PANDEMIC
To fight COVID-19, Iraqi workers want political change
By David Bacon
The Nation,  4/8/20
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/iraq-coronavirus-pandemic/
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/



Union leader Falah Alwan, president of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq, and leather goods factory workers argue with the plant manager about their union rights in 2003.  


Solidarity, Then the Virus

Many U.S. union activists remember Falah Alwan.  As the occupation of Iraq unfolded in the summer of 2005, he and several Iraqi union leaders traveled here to make clear the impact of sanctions and invasion on his country's workers.  From one union hall to another, on both coasts and through the Midwest, Alwan and his colleagues appealed for solidarity.

In the end, the war's damage went virtually unhealed, but the ties forged between workers and unions of the two countries have remained undiminished.  Last week, as both face the coronavirus pandemic, Alwan wrote to the friends he made in those years.  "The news from New York is horrible," he commiserated.  "I believe the days to come will be much worse than they are now, not only in Iraq but for you also."

In 2005 the Iraqis effectively dramatized the human cost of U.S. policy.  Today, as both countries face the coronavirus, the devastating situation of Iraq's people calls for revisiting that question of responsibility.

On paper, the virus’s toll in Iraq today stands at 1,031 officially confirmed cases, with 64 deaths.  While Iraq's per capita count is still much smaller than that in the U.S. - 22 cases per million people to the U.S.' 910 - the numbers don't tell the real story.  In Iraq very few people can access medical treatment, and the number of infections and deaths is much higher than that given in official statements.

This past week Reuters reported that confirmed cases numbered instead between 3000 and 9000, quoting doctors and a health official - a report that led the Iraqi government to fine the agency and revoke its reporting license for three months.  The higher figure would give Iraq a per capita infection rate higher than South Korea, one of the virus' early concentrations.

Unions and civil society organizations must now try to make up for Iraq's political paralysis and the partial dysfunction of its government.  "Because of our ruined healthcare institutions," Alwan explains, "the government hurried to impose a general curfew [a stay-at-home order] to stop the outbreak and a rapid collapse in the whole situation."

That had an enormous impact, especially on workers.  Public employees encompass 40% of the workforce, and in theory should still be receiving salaries.  But Hashmeya Alsaadawe, head of the country's union for electricity workers and Iraq's highest-ranking woman union leader, points out that eighty thousand of her members have already gone without wages for months because of the country's economic crisis.  Yet they are expected, and do, show up for work to provide essential services.  In oil refineries and state-owned factories it's the same situation - essential and unpaid - one of the reasons for the huge demonstrations that have challenged the government since last October.




Hashmeya Alsaadawe, President of the Electricity and Energy Union in Basra and the Basra Federation of Trade Unions in 2005, the first woman to be elected as a national trade union leader in Iraq's history.  


In the meantime, to stop people from moving within the country, "the main roads were barricaded by concrete blocks," she says.  "While this is necessary, the government did not provide anything for those who earn their living on a daily basis.  Shops and markets simply closed."

"There's not even a promise of pay for workers losing jobs in the private sector," Alwan adds.  "And more than seven million Iraqis only have informal work.  To survive, they're obliged to violate the curfew, especially in the slums where three million live in Baghdad alone.  Authorities have detained more than 7000 people there, and fined more than 3000 in Najaf."  Iraq's population is about 40 million.

[. . .]



TAKE A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH
at the History Museum of Tijuana

HAGA UN RECORRIDO VIRTUAL DE LA EXPOSICIÓN - EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
en el Museo de Historia de Tijuana



https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=659536991515786
 

TARTINE HARDSHIP FUND
Newly organized Tartine Bakery workers in the Bay Area need your help and assistance!  This fund, supported by the International Longhsore and Warehouse Union, will help hose workers unable to collect unemployment insurance.  

The exhibitions in the following list were scheduled before the current COVID-19 crisis.  Public gatherings are not now taking place and these exhibitions have now been postponed or rescheduled.

Stay healthy!

DOCUMENTING RESISTANCE -
Community Organizing Beyond the Farmworkers' Movement
Photographs by David Bacon

February 18 - March 27
Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA

IN WASHINGTON’S FIELDS: Photographs by David Bacon

February 1-May 10, 2020
Washington State History Museum
1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, WA

IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE

March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock

MORE THAN A WALL - THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE BORDER

August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library

DEPORTATIONS

April 10, 2020 - May 1, 2020
Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago
 

In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)

order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code  16M4197  at checkout, receive a 30% discount

En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx

Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - click here
 

 "The Criminalization of Migration: A Socialist Perspective" with David Bacon and Rafael Pizarro.
http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/David-Bacon-The-Criminalization-of-migration.mp4 
 

En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos -
Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia
http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos

Entrevista en la television de UNAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o

David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia
http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18

Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte”
Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos
http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/

"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido"
Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.htmlDie Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE:  Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.be
 
THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
Books by David Bacon

The Right to Stay Home:  How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration  (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350

The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726

En Español:

EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA  (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html

HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1

For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums


















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