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Seeking optimism in troubling times
2024 made even clear what many of us have been saying for some time: authoritarianism and racism are firmly on the rise, and despite many brave and important struggles against it, definitive responses are yet to be found. Our work throughout the year reflected this ongoing tension; it also shows reasons for optimism, despite the gloomy political outlook.
We exposed, reported on and analysed ongoing attempts to undermine the rule of law, basic rights and liberties, and democratic safeguards: plans to offshore asylum processing; the influencing of police and internal security officials over new laws; increased surveillance powers; and crackdowns on protest and free speech. In doing so, we continued to provide a vital resource for activists, advocates, journalists and others.
That reporting and analysis is, in and of itself, a form of opposition to these nefarious developments. Within the terms of our charitable status, we also gave our support to movements and campaigns seeking to oppose them more directly: amongst others, those demanding that states uphold the rights of refugees and the right to asylum; halt new measures for ethnic profiling; ensure democratic scrutiny of border externalisation policies; ban invasive and authoritarian surveillance technologies; and to halt European governments’ complicity in breaches of international law in Palestine.
That complicity has helped to further derail and undermine the international norms and institutions created to halt military violence against civilians and civil infrastructure. This has had horrifying consequences for those subject to displacement, and to attacks on the ground and from the air. Faced with widespread popular protest against these positions, many European governments have resorted to unjustifiable restrictions on protest and freedom of speech, including through the use of criminal and anti-terrorism laws.
It is however by no means an entirely new situation. Foreign policy has always been linked to domestic repression and rights abuses.
It was demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1968 that led to the formation of Britain’s Special Demonstration Squad, an undercover police unit tasked with infiltrating and undermining left-wing and progressive movements. Europe’s strategic alliance with Turkey means supporters of Kurdish autonomy and independence continue to face suspicion (at the very least) from European authorities. The ‘war on terror’ was and is animated by racism and criminalisation, in particular against Muslims – but it was prefigured by history, such as the British response to campaigns for self-determination in Ireland and other colonies.
As Tony Bunyan, Statewatch’s founder, Director (1991-2020) and Director Emeritus (2020-24) wrote in 2006:
Five years on we know that the ‘war on terrorism’ is going to be permanent, not temporary. This is not just because of 11 March 2004 (Madrid), 7 and 21 July 2005 (London) and terrible terrorist bombings elsewhere. It is also because the pre-conditions for further attacks persist and show no signs of abating – Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, US militarism, Guantanamo Bay, rendition and global free market economics which perpetuate poverty and gross inequality.
In September last year, Tony passed away. Though age slowed him towards the end of his life, his commitment to the cause never wavered: he was constantly planning, plotting and proposing. He was born in 1941, and his early experiences and involvement in political activism in the 1960s and 1970s profoundly influenced his outlook on the world for the rest of his remarkable life. He made profound contributions to the struggle against state secrecy and for civil liberties, and while he himself never set foot outside Europe, he was deeply-aware of and informed by political events and struggles elsewhere in the world.
He took this view with him when he founded Statewatch, along with a similar-minded group of other activists, journalists and lawyers in 1991. We have always been primarily concerned with the state of civil liberties in the European Union and the UK, but Europe is not an isolated island – the very reason it remains one of the richest parts of the world is because plunder, exploitation and expropriation carried out elsewhere.
This history, the present it has created, and the implications of both are becoming increasingly well-known – though there of course legions of people doggedly opposed to honest discussion and dissection of the legacies of racism, colonialism and empire.
It is this latter group that have been in the political ascendancy for some time now. Halting their ongoing attacks on rights and liberties is no small task, but it is more urgent than ever. It would be simple to say that the results of failing to do so do not bear thinking about – but, in fact, the results of failure can already be seen, from Los Angeles, to the Mediterranean Sea, to Gaza.
With that in mind, it might seem difficult to be optimistic. Yet there are still many reasons for optimism. They can be seen throughout the campaigns and movements we worked alongside throughout 2024, and will continue to provide information and analysis to in the future. And they can be seen in the growing number of groups and organisations that, regardless of growing state repression, continue to stand up for the rights of themselves and others.
It is these struggles that Statewatch has always sought to support with its work. Into 2025 and beyond we will build upon our legacy and past achievements, to increase our role in the struggle against state secrecy and repression, for rights and freedoms, and, ultimately, for a better world.
