International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
Fascism has been, over the last decade, and especially more recently, an object of vigorous debate on the left. But, as a long editorial from the Salvage collective bemoaned about debates over what to make of Russia’s war on Ukraine, much of this debate has been stuck in the ditch of historical analogy. Is Trumpism more like Mussolini’s or Hitler’s fascism? When we stack up all the measures of rights violated and attacked, does the far right today pass the test of comparison with major fascist events of the 20th century?
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The Together Alliance march against the far right on Saturday, 28 March, was probably the biggest anti-fascist protest in British history. It was comparable to some of the early Palestine solidarity demonstrations.
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Local elections were held in France on 15 March (first round) and 22 (second round). The confusion that has emerged, one year before the presidential election, is a sign of a fragmentation of the central bloc and the right, which is likely to produce a shift towards the far right and, in the face of this, a splintering of the forces of the Nouveau Front populaire (New Popular Front - NFP) which compromises the construction of a unitary alternative.
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Never had a military initiative of the Lebanese Hezbollah (literally, Party of God) been so much repudiated in Lebanon as its decision on March 2 to launch rockets across the country’s southern border with the Israeli state, in retaliation against the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This opening salvo was immediately seized upon by the Zionist state as a pretext to launch a long-premeditated invasion of southern Lebanon.
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Land Day, on 30 March, marks a central moment in Palestinian history: in 1976, a general strike broke out in historic Palestine against the confiscation of land belonging to Arabs by the state of Israel. It was the first mass mobilization of Palestinians in the 1948 territories, where they are supposed to be “equal”. The targeted lands are located in particular in Sakhnin, Arraba and Deir Hanna, as part of the policy of “Judaizing Galilee”. On that day, six unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations. 50 years later, the Palestinians are still there and continue to fight against the confiscation of land and the bloody repression of the Israeli state.
read article...Movements always arrive unexpectedly. And those who have worked hardest in previous years and months to push towards an escalation of struggles and mobilizations are usually the most surprised by a movement’s arrival. In spite of the many surprises — Who would have imagined that the occupation of Tahrir Square was possible? Who would have imagined the Spanish acampadas? — Leftist activists tend to insist in thinking that movements and the specific forms the movements take can be predicted. The reality is that one can predict that there will be a struggle, for class conflict is inscribed in the capitalist relations of production. But when, where, and which form this struggle will take is impossible to predict. The impossibility of predicting the specific constellation in which those who are below decide that the situation is simply not acceptable any longer does not mean that movements explode like lightening in the sky.
The political dynamics of contemporary South Africa are rife with contradiction. On one hand, it is among the most consistently contentious places on earth, with insurgent communities capable of mounting disruptive protest on a nearly constant basis, rooted in the poor areas of the half-dozen major cities as well as neglected and multiply-oppressed black residential areas of declining towns. On the other hand, even the best-known contemporary South African social movements, for all their sound, lack a certain measure of fury.
Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades, under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello, 2009). [1]
Felipe Calderón’s six-year term as president, which began to come to an end in 2011, represents one of the worst periods in modern Mexican history. The war on the drug cartels has taken 50,000 lives while failing to win a decisive victory against the cartels. The economy continues to experience very low growth while workers suffer unemployment or labor in the informal economy. The government’s war on the workers continues unabated, with no resolution of the earlier attacks on electrical workers, miners, and airlines employees. The failure of Calderón and the National Action Party (PAN) to successfully resolve the country’s most pressing problems while aggravating other issues has led to a decline of the PAN and the resurgence in recent years of the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), known for its powerful political machine based on patronage and corruption.
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.
- read article...The majority of the party votes to maintain its autonomy and a commitment to social change.
- read article...After 59 days of unjust imprisonment, Lyes Touati has finally been acquitted - 59 days of waiting, mobilization, solidarity and determination.
- read article...International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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