International Viewpoint

Elderly women, priests and firefighters among those arrested, charged or ‘harassed' by police for supporting migrants, with numbers soaring in the past 18 months.

The Nicaraguan state has led a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests. Activist Sara Henríquez speaks to Red Pepper about how feminists have been at the forefront of the resistance.

In 2011, a wave of revolutionary struggle swept the Middle East and North Africa, often bringing down dictatorships that had governed for decades. Millions protested on the streets, occupied public spaces and demanded “bread, freedom and social justice”. Having broken through the fear produced by years of repression, the Arab Spring became an inspiration for activists across the world.

On May 15th, Brazilian crowds took to the streets in a demonstration against Bolsonaro. Hundreds of thousands of students, educators and workers from many categories gathered in over 160 cities, including all of the country's state capitals, to demonstrate against the government's several attacks against public education. From schools, technical institutes, universities, unions, and social movements came waves of demonstrators, who built the greatest ever mobilization against this authoritarian far-right government.

Chinese women still face perilous conditions in society and the workplace, often falling victim to sexual harassment. Women are discriminated against in job applications. Research conducted by Human Rights Watch found that almost 20% of civil service positions released in early 2018 either required job applicants to be male or expressed a preference for male candidates, whereas only one job post indicated a preference for females.

Sara Farris recently published a provocative book entitled In the name of women's rights: the rise of femonationalism. In it, she examines how right-wing nationalists, neoliberals, and some feminists and women's equality agencies, all invoke women's rights to stigmatise Muslim men and advance their own political objectives. She argues that there is an important political-economic dimension to this seemingly paradoxical intersection.

“From each, says the slogan, according to her ability; to each according to his needs.” —Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Against the Current interviewed Todd Gordon, co-author (with Jeffery Webber) of Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America about mining operations in Canada and internationally. He is a socialist activist in Toronto and a member of the Toronto New Socialists.

On May 15, the streets of Brazil will be occupied by a multitude of students, teachers, and other education workers and other categories in the struggle against the Bolsonaro government and its recent attacks on public education. In a few months of government, Bolsonaro directly attacked public education and the study of the humanities, disqualifying public schools and universities and politically persecuting students and teachers for their political positions. He wants to suppress careers in sociology and philosophy because he says that there "students are educated in Marxist political thought.

In four years of aggression against Yemen, what has been produced? An humanitarian crisis for the Yemeni people.

“We are not here to parade one day a year, to be one more quota in the spaces of power or to be applauded while we march, while the system that reproduces our oppression remains intact. This is why we resort to the strike: because it is the most powerful tool we have to stop and change everything.” – Manifesto read on March 8, 2019 at the Zaragoza demonstration

The climate movement that has been shaking Belgium since the winter has had a big effect on popular consciousness. After months of mobilization, we propose here an initial progress report as well as elements of a response to the strategic questions for the future of the movement.

Last July, 2018, 89 workers at the Shenzhen Jasic Technology Co. Ltd. demanded the right to set up a workplace union. Although over the past decade there have been a growing number of disputes and strikes by Shenzhen workers, the Jasic case is unusual because it was openly supported by a group of self-proclaimed Maoists and Marxist university students and recent graduates.

A bill has been introduced authorizing the extradition to the Continent of anybody in Hong Kong at the request of the Chinese authorities. Its adoption would mean that the local population would henceforth live under the permanent threat of arbitrary repression. Civic or political, local or regional networks would, among other things, be particularly affected by this threat.

We can expect much commentary on why the socialist left should unite behind the Democrats in 2020 to get rid of the dreaded Trump. The Green Party will be told to stand down in the 2020 presidential campaign.

The following speeches were presented at a panel discussion, “The Global Struggle against the War on Women,” at the 2018 Socialism Conference in Chicago. The audio of the panel is available to download at WeAreMany.org.

Suzi Weissman interviewed Robert Brenner on February 10, 2019, for her “Beneath the Surface” broadcast on KPFK in Los Angeles, released on her Jacobin Radio podcast on February 12. The transcript has been edited for publication here.

“The vicious, dirty — and bipartisan — smear campaign against the first two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), is just beginning.” That's the opening of a statement by the Steering Committee of Solidarity, posted February 14, 2019 (https://solidarity-us.org).

The eruption of resistance that first burst onto the scene in the US with the Women's Marches is part of a global women's rebellion. Cinzia Arruzza has argued that we are witnessing the birth of what she calls a “third feminist wave,” one that “has posed issues such as gender violence, wage inequality, reproductive rights, and women's reproductive work, as well as sexual liberties, at the center of the political and cultural debate of every country hit by the mobilizations.”

An Interview with Gilbert Achcar, originally published on April 22, 2019 in the Moroccan publication Tel quell.