IV513 - October 2017

IVP513 October 2017 PDF magazine available to download
IVP513 October 2017 PDF magazine available to download here

The Philippines are going through a double, mutually reinforcing crisis. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is responsible for a so-called “war on drugs” that is costing thousands of lives and is increasingly concentrating power in his own hands.

As the catastrophes pile up — natural and unnatural — each new one tends to knock the previous out of the news cycle. In the wake of Hurricane Maria’s near-destruction of Puerto Rico, how much endless “breaking news” coverage is left for Florida and Houston after Irma and Harvey? By the time this issue of Against the Current reaches our readers, Puerto Rico and the devastated Caribbean islands may be mostly relegated to the archives by California wildfires and new calamities and scandals. One disaster at a time, if you please!

As the crisis in Catalonia deepened with the proclamation of independence and the Spanish government’s decision to dissolve the Catalonian government on Friday 27 Ocotober Andreu Coll of Anticapitalistes (Fourth Internationalists in Catalonia) spoke to Antoine Larrache of l’Anticapitaliste. Translation by International Viewpoint.

In October 1983 an abortion ban entered the Irish Constitution - the infamous 8th Amendment was born. The main conservative parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, promoted the ban, prompted by the Catholic Church hierarchy and members of the medical profession, most of them powerful male gynaecologists.

This text is intended as a contribution to in a strategic debate opened on the left around the Catalan referendum of 1 October 2017, but which we think goes further. We will not go into the history of the formation of the Catalan independence process. We will limit the discussion to proposing a characterization of what is called ‘the process’ and try to provide arguments as to why leftists who are not pro-independence should actively promote 1-O as a moment of rupture.

During this year’s camp we talked with Thomas about the basis for the camp, the historical development and where the camp is now. Of course we had time to take a trip down Memory Lane, for Thomas to share some of his experiences from the camps with us.

An Interview with Au Loong Yu

The Sri Lankan government recently released its ‘Vision 2025’ manifesto, aiming to revive the momentum of pro-market reforms. Its timing coincided with the 40th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s embrace of deregulation, trade liberalisation and privatisation, well ahead of the rest of South Asia.

1. The invoking of Article 155 by the Rajoy cabinet is a coup d’etat in Catalonia. This attack aims to dissolve an elected government and impose elections on an autonomous region, ignoring the democratic mandate of October 1 and the appeals for dialogue. It is an attack that is also directed at the public media in Catalonia that have already stated that this is a violation of "freedom of expression and information" and that they will not comply.