International Viewpoint


Second-Wave Feminism: Accomplishments & Lessons
“Today is the beginning of a new movement. Today is the end of millennia of oppression.”
— Kate Millett, feminist author, speaking to 50,000 in New York City, August 26, 1970.
Genderquake: socialist women and the Paris Commune
“[T]his brief but inspiring example of workers' power could have won more time and so provided us with many more examples of how working-class people can organise together to create a socialist society.”
- Feminism / Marxism, France, Women, Historical events and figuresThe Second International Socialist Congress of Women in Copenhagen
The socialist women's young international has but one slogan: ‘Forward!'
- Feminism / Marxism, Women, Historical events and figuresStatement Women's March Tokyo 2021 Organizing Committee
“We call all of you to draw a new vision of society and express them.
Let's believe in ourselves and move forward.”
- IV554 - March 2021 / Women, Japan8 March: all on strike!
“There is a challenge to keep alive a massive and popular feminist movement, but also a movement that is able to make the link with anti-racist, antifascist and LGBTI movements.”
- IV554 - March 2021 / France, WomenOn COVID and the Plague of Capital
“Industrial agriculture, habitat destruction, global commodity chains and the travel network have set up this perfect storm of conditions, not just for COVID, but also for future pandemics.
How can we get a wider systemic perspective on the current crisis? How vulnerable will we continue to be when we hopefully vanquish COVID-19?”
- IV554 - March 2021 / USA, Covid-19 PandemicDon't let Dimitris Koufodinas die!
“In order to prevent this foreseeable crime, everywhere let our voice be heard for the respect of human rights, the respect of prisoners' rights!”
- IV554 - March 2021 / GreeceTransition, Trauma, and Troubled Times
“The most important place for activists is on the ground, building movements and grassroots forces that can force “the institutions” to address the mammoth crises facing us, and in the process fight to expand a democracy based not on ritual form, but substance.”
- IV554 - March 2021 / USAThe Historical Significance of the 2019 Hong Kong Resistance Movement
On February 19, 2021 Lausan, along with several other organizations including Solidarity, held a webinar book launch for Au Loong-yu's book, Hong Kong in Revolt, The Protest Movement and the Future of China (Pluto Press, 2020). The following are the author's slightly edited introductory remarks.
- IV554 - March 2021 / China, Hong KongMyanmar Workers and Unions on the Front Lines in Fight Against Coup
Workers in Myanmar have demonstrated that direct actions are powerful and they work. … They need—and deserve—our support.
- IV554 - March 2021 / Trade unions/workplace organizing, MyanmarCorporate giants censor the internet and control the news
“Radicals are going to have to take seriously the challenges of organising to disseminate and discuss information using diverse technological platforms.”
- IV554 - March 2021 / AustraliaIn Kosovo, unprecedented victory of Vetëvendosje
In a crucial event in the political history of post-war Kosova, Movement for Self-Determination (Vetëvendosje - LVV) won the elections by a massive landslide
- IV553 - February 2021 / Kosovo, BalkansThe Wonder That Brings Hope: The Union Candidate in Albania's Parliamentary Elections
“The history speaks the language of battles despite triumph or defeat. In this sense, Elton is the voice that echoes the common social aspirations for radical change.”
- IV553 - February 2021 / AlbaniaSolidarity with Mamadou #Mamadoumuststay
“Ba is one of a number of public figures who condemned this tribute to a war criminal who collaborated with the fascist regime of Salazar. But as a Black activist he is the target of the sharpest vitriolic campaign.”
- IV553 - February 2021 / Portugal, Anti-racismHow Can We Revive Herd Immunity to Fascism?
“There is a clear correlation between the neoliberal onslaught that started in the 1980s and the rise of neofascism and religious fundamentalism.”
- IV553 - February 2021 / USA, Far RightClimate Change Comes to Republican Texas Producing a Disaster
Climate change and Republican policies combined in Texas last week to produce a disaster that left millions without power, without heat, and without water as temperatures fell below freezing and snow and ice covered the state, leaving at least 50 dead. The state's rare severe cold is another example of the extreme weather in the form of floods and forest fires that climate change has brought to the United States.
- IV553 - February 2021 / USA, Public servicesSolidarity with the hunger striker Dimitris Koufodinas!
This motion was adopted by the International Committee of the Fourth International on 23 February 2021.
- News from around the world / GreeceGeneral strike against Mynamar junta!
The success of 22 February shows that the resistance movement against military rule has grown even stronger.
- IV553 - February 2021 / MyanmarMillions Expected to Join General Strike in Myanmar on Monday to Oppose Regime
“We can't collapse. If we drew back at this point, the military regime would intensify its crackdown. Therefore, I think it is important to unite between organizations and intensify the strike.”
- IV553 - February 2021 / MyanmarDefend Pablo Hasel the rapper, defend democratic rights in the Spanish State
“What we do urgently need is to turn these protests onto the offensive. This means avoiding the isolation of the protests, broadening them and involving more and more social sectors.”
- IV553 - February 2021