International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Hong Kong

  Two Narratives on the Hong Kong Fire

  24 December, by Au Loong-Yu

  The 26 November 2025 Wang Fu Court fire has a lot of similarity with London’s 2017 Grenfell fire. In terms of scale, the former was much bigger – instead of just one building there were seven on fire, and instead of 72 deaths there have been 160 deaths as of now. However, the combustible materials used in renovating the outer walls were the direct cause of both.

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• Japan

  Takaichi Administration’s Two Months

  23 December, by Toshizo Omori

  While LDP-JIP coalition government has been trying to promote right-wing policies, how should the left forces fight against them?

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• Indonesia

  When past and present collide: Indonesia 1965-2025

  22 December, by Adam Novak, Pierre Rousset

  “At the time of the US escalation in Vietnam, Indonesia was the scene of one of the worst bloodbaths in modern history, committed under the auspices of Washington and London. Sixty years later, the archipelago is at the heart of youth revolts against the privileges of the oligarchy and corruption, in defence of a democracy dearly won back since 1998.”

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• USA-Venezuela

  Trump reveals the real reasons behind the war on Venezuela

  21 December, by Luís Bonilla-Molina

  Venezuela and its people are the first direct victims of the "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine." This war, which has already been declared, is not against drug trafficking or the Maduro regime, but rather for oil and rare earth minerals, military bases, information, and misgovernment. All democratic, progressive, popular, and leftist forces must denounce and confront the US offensive against Venezuela, which in no way means defending the Maduro government.

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• Chile

  Kast: Chile’s “democratic route” back to Pinochetism

  20 December, by Karina Nohales, Pablo Abufom

  With José Antonio Kast’s victory, Pinochetism returns to power through electoral means, articulating neoliberal restoration, moral authoritarianism, and anti-communism as a response to Chile’s crisis.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Mexico

  “Generation Z” and the advance of the far right in Mexico

• Portugal

  The general strike demonstrates that struggle can open up paths for the left

• Belgium

  After three days of strike, a vast social movement with no political alternative

• USA

  The US strategy, a threat to the peoples of the world

• USA

  Starbucks Workers Continue Strike for Union Contract

Recently posted Features

• DSA Two Years Later: Where Are We At? Where Are We Headed?

  15 January 2019, by Dan La Botz

  It has been two years since the explosive surge of the Democratic Socialists of America, now the largest socialist organization in the United States and the largest since the 1940s. And DSA has had some remarkable successes. Today as the country turns its attention to the presidential election of 2020, we ask: How DSA is doing? What is it accomplishing? And where is it going? What do the various caucuses and political tendencies within DSA propose as a future direction for the group? Is there a genuine left wing of DSA, and if not, what is the alternative?

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• International politics

  Water as a Form of Social Control

  13 January 2019, by Julia Kassem

  From Detroit and Flint, Michigan to Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine, those struggling against institutionalized racism and apartheid are no strangers to water struggles.

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• 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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