International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Brazil
  

  The strategic stakes of Brazil’s October elections in the international situation

  18 August, by Israel Dutra

  A victory for the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”) in Brazil’s October 2026 presidential election and an increased vote for the left wing Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) would constitute points of support for coordinating an international anti-fascist movement, combining the fight against the global far right with the defence of the sovereignty of the peoples.

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• Iran
  

  Resumption of Bombing and Internal Crisis in Iran

  17 August, by Babak Kia

  The ceasefire between the US and Iran was shattered around the question of control of the Strait of Hormuz. As the US bombing resumes, divisions are deepening at the top of the Islamic Republic, with no way out for the people of Iran.

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• USA
  

  Revoking TPS: Trump Escalates Racist Assault

  16 August, by Malik Miah

  TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitians living in the United States was overturned by the government, following a June 25 ruling by the Supreme Court to allow the termination.

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• Latin America
  

  The spectre of the far right is haunting Latin America

  15 August, by Eduardo Lucita

  Far-right movements have come to power in numerous countries across the region. They are linked to Trumpism; resisting them requires the broadest possible coordination of these resistance movements at both local and regional levels.

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• Spanish State
  

  Ceuta: the boundary of the right to have rights

  14 August, by Miguel Urbán Crespo

  Last Friday [31 July], thousands of people swam across the border to reach the autonomous city of Ceuta. This enclave of some 83,000 people received, in a matter of 24 hours, just over 50,000 more people, exhausted from a migratory journey that has caused the deaths of at least 100 in the last two days. In summer, arrivals in Ceuta and Melilla by sea increase significantly, as sea fog hinders early detection on the coast by the Civil Guard. But no one in the government seemed to foresee a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude, with significant political repercussions that extend far beyond the usual media headlines.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Ukraine

  The Wrong Lever: Europe, Ukraine, and the Refugee Question

• Ukraine

  In Kyiv, the street makes its voice heard

• Italy

  The battle for the beaches in Italy

• Morocco:

  New escalation of repression in the face of rising resistance

• Tunisia

  Mobilizations amid water and electricity crisis in Tunisia

Recently posted Features

• International

  Building A Global Democratic Movement to Counter Authoritarianism

  11 January 2019, by Jan Malewski

  Bernie Sanders has so far received little attention for his internationalist positions, even though he spoke out and voted against the war in Iraq, proposed a drastic reduction in US military spending, strongly criticised the coups d’état organised in Latin America by the CIA and opposed US support for the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The US left generally considers that in foreign policy he has not deviated from the consensus between Democrats and Republicans, criticizes him for his lack of involvement in the BDS movement (boycott, disinvestment, sanctions) and recalls that during the decades he has been in the Senate he has sometimes voted in favour of military intervention or spoken of the need to preserve US power. Even if in his youth he applied to be a conscientious objector during the war in Vietnam, he went to Cuba after the revolution and organized diplomatic meetings with the Sandinist revolutionaries, since he has been in the Senate his dissent in the Democratic Party has been limited to domestic political issues, with few exceptions.

  It is also true that since the end of the Vietnam war, there has not been a strong left-wing internationalist current in the United States and that many of those who, on the margins, within the radical left, identify as such, are at the same time bogged down in an alignment with so-called "socialist states" or at least with the "enemies" of American imperialism. Bernie Sanders was therefore not isolated by not promoting internationalist solidarity.

  Since his campaign for the Democratic primaries two years ago - during which he also abstained taking any notable internationalist positions - and with the resurgence of a new left, however, the construction of mass internationalism in the United States seems necessary. Especially since Donald Trump is taking a caricatural chauvinism forward at a great rate. And that on a global scale the dangerous resident of the White House serves as an example for the resurgence of state authoritarianism and a kind of neo-fascism. Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil is only the most recent example of this danger.

  It was precisely in the aftermath of the neo-fascist candidate’s success in the first round of the Brazilian presidential election that Bernie Sanders delivered a speech in Washington calling for "building a global democratic movement against authoritarianism". He picked up and built on what he wrote on 13 September 2018 in an editorial published by the Guardian, where he stated that "It should be clear by now that Donald Trump and the rightwing movement that supports him is not a phenomenon unique to the United States," and that "All around the world, in Europe, in Russia, in the Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power."

  Sanders’ proposal to the global left deserves to be taken seriously. Today, internationalism is not on the rise and the fact that a world-renowned personality is calling for the reconstruction of bonds of solidarity to fight authoritarianism together can have an impact. Faced with the multiplication of authoritarian regimes and the rise of extreme right-wing movements, the resurgence of an internationalist movement is the task of the moment. As Bernie Sanders says in his speech "We need a movement that unites people all over the world who don’t just seek to return to a romanticized past, a past that did not work for so many, but who strive for something better,"; that it is not enough to defend what has been achieved but that we must "reconceptualize a genuinely progressive global order based on human solidarity," and "reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values, and who are fighting for a better world." It is a good basis for opening the discussion on how to build an international movement. Jan Malewski

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• Nicaragua

  Nicaragua: The other revolution betrayed

  6 January 2019, by Nathan Legrand, Éric Toussaint

  The violent repression against demonstrators protesting brutal neoliberal policies, which has resulted in more than 300 people being killed by regime forces since April 2018, is just one of the reasons why different leftist social movements have condemned the Nicaraguan regime led by President Daniel Ortega and Vice-president Rosario Murillo. The Left has many more reasons to denounce the policies of the regime. To understand this, we must go back to 1979.

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• Hungary

  The Political Economy of Hungary’s New “Slave Law”

  5 January 2019, by Ágnes Gagyi, Tamás Gerőcs

  Demonstrations erupted on the streets of Budapest after the Hungarian parliament—controlled by the fourth consecutive super majority of Fidesz government—had just passed three crucial laws in a rapid parliamentary voting on 12th December, which oppositional parties claimed unlawful. The three major elements in the government’s package were the Overtime Act, which quickly became better known as the “Slave law”, the centralization of the courts nomination procedure, and educational amendments, which permit the privatization of public universities.

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• Obituary

  Helena Lopes da Silva (1949-2018)

  31 December 2018, by Mariana Carneiro

  Helena died on September 8, 2018 at the age of 69, after a life dedicated to socialism. In the early 1970s, she was in Lisbon one of the few activists of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the party that led the armed struggle against the Portuguese colonial regime. She also joined the International Communist League (ICL), which became the Portuguese section of the Fourth International (after 1979 the LCI took the name Revolutionary Socialist Party, PSR).

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