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...Whatever the (well deserved) derision heaped on the head of Francis Fukuyama for his ‘end of history’ thesis, he has the merit of posing the big questions. In his ‘The Future of History’ article (Foreign Affairs, Jan-Feb) he poses two big questions that are vital for Marxists: Is the neoliberal undermining of the social position of the employed working class and poorer sections of the middle class compatible with liberal democracy? and What explains what he calls the ‘absent left’ – the lack in theory or practice of a powerful left/populist alternative to neoliberalism in a period of such drastic economic collapse and moral bankruptcy of the dominant neoliberal model?
Dave Packer’s life was one of triumph – over disability, over ill health and the kind of personal and political adversity that would have immobilised less determined comrades. His tenacity enabled him to apply his sharp analytical and propagandistic abilities to fight for revolutionary Marxism over four decades. To the end he was engaged in a sustained effort to analyse to new situation in world capitalism and the international left and apply the lessons for the socialist movement in Britain and elsewhere. For more than 30 years his work was sustained by a close political collaboration with his partner Jane Kelly.
I am going to concentrate more directly on Dave’s political contribution. I only hope it will be as interesting as the fascinating tributes we have just heard.
As a protest space created by men and women, 15-M has repeated the mistake of its predecessors, fearing that feminism would divide the movement, instead of strengthening it. 15-M has not developed tools for recognising the patriarchal logic to be found at its heart, and transforming them from a feminist perspective. The result has been to render violence invisible and to silence women’s voices.
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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