International Viewpoint

In the aftermath of the Christchurch terrorist attack, the International Socialist Organisation National Committee in Aotearoa/New Zealand released the following statement.

As we know, the left-wing parties of Western Europe, such as the German party Die Linke, play a folkloric role or, in the best of cases, that of a moral corrector and have very little influence on political events. Their parliamentary work is mostly limited to agitation. In Eastern European countries, these parties often fail to enter Parliament.

Narendra Modi has from his childhood been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which had links to Italian fascism and Nazism; from the period when Modi was chief minister to this day, school textbooks in Gujarat, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, an affiliate of the RSS), praise Hitler to the skies. The RSS has an expansive notion of Indian territory, encompassing Pakistan, Bangladesh and beyond, and it aims to set up a Hindu Rashtra – an exclusively Hindu state – in this territory.

The economic outlook of post-independence Zimbabwe resembles a fading cloth: with each wash it has lost its lustre, and as time goes on it threatens to disintegrate into a rag. After inheriting a sound economy – albeit one with deep socio-economic disparities – on gaining independence in 1980, the government of Zimbabwe has instituted decades of economic decline and ever widening inequality by prioritising political and economic capital over everything else.

March 1 2019 marked 100 years since the March 1st Movement began in Korea, a movement that helped to coalesce the burgeoning Korean resistance to Japanese colonial rule. In this article, Boduerae Kwon places the movement in the context of national liberation struggles of the years after the First World War.

Land distribution in Pakistan is highly unequal as five percent large landholders possess 64 percent of total farm land and 65 percent small farmers hold 15 percent of such land.

The local government election is an important factor in Bangladesh. It takes place every five years. However, it does not take place at the same time.

The popular movement has just registered a first moral victory by forcing the regime to abandon the 5th term and to cancel the elections of April 18, so much denounced by the people.

This 14 March 2019 marks a year since the brutal and planned political assassination of Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes.

1. Once again, the ruling classes of India and Pakistan are on the brink of war. The Pulwama attack has given them both the occasion to beat the drums of war, and to engage in hostile actions against each-other. Already, dozens of lives have been lost.

Last December 4th educators at the Acero charter chain in Chicago became the first charter teachers in the country to go on strike. This was both stunning to the charter industry, which was created in part to avoid the inconvenience of unionized educators, and revelatory to educators across the country.

In one more of his war-media machinations in the service of the great U.S. capital, Donald Trump is using the new political balance of forces in Latin America – where the pendulum has turned to the right – to take his most enthusiastic puppets, Duque, of Colombia, and Bolsonaro, of Brazil, to lead a political offensive, military blackmail, to topple the Venezuelan government. The goals could not be more evident: reclaiming for the big oil companies of the United States and the West control of the largest oil and gas reserves of the planet, today in the sovereign hands of the Venezuelan state, thus closing, with violence, the chavista cycle in the country from which the call for 21st century socialism came.

Hats with the inscription “Turkish” in runic letters, wolf head tattoos – a rallying sign of ultra-nationalism – pendants and bracelets in the shape of a swastika openly sold on the street. The symbols of a nationalism of ethnicist and racist inspiration are in vogue especially among urban and secular youth anxious to differentiate their patriotism from the Islamic-Turkish nationalism of the Erdogan regime.

Since December 13, 2018, an impressive popular uprising has emerged in Sudan, and has continued to unfold ever since, with the primary slogan "Tasgut bas" (overthrow, that's all!).

The reviewer approached this book with some anticipation. I knew a number of the authors personally, many have a high reputation as anti-imperialist activists and trade unionists and I had worked with some as a member of the Irish Workers Union.

On Friday, February 1, 2019, the nine leaders of Catalonia's 2017 independence bid were transferred to Madrid, to face charges of rebellion, or rebellion and embezzlement, that can lead to prison sentences of 156 years. On the same day, mobilizations began in Catalonia. In the morning they were transferred to Madrid, support for the prisoners was shown on the roads and in the afternoon there were rallies and demonstrations in many cities.

Since 12 February, the electronic site of news and popular debates Aporrea.org has been blocked for access inside Venezuela by the state company CANTV - Movilnet.

I would like to thank everyone who has signed the petition or attended a protest for our release. I am encouraged to note the valour with which a new generation of community leaders and activists are fighting. I ask you to remain steadfast, dedicated to the community, and despite any provocations to remain civil and non-violent.

Five decades ago, a brilliant young African-American professor of philosophy and Communist, Angela Davis was the United States' most prominent political prisoner, on trial for her life in a notorious frameup murder trial as a supporter of the Black Panther Party. She won that case with brilliant legal defense, and the help of a mass outcry of international and Black community support.

Angela Davis deserves a shoutout this Women's History Month, and every month. Active and influential in international freedom struggles for nearly six decades, her speeches and writings have valuable lessons to teach us about the major injustices that we face in this era of heightened racism, xenophobia, and reactionary violence.