The fatal police shooting of 37 striking workers at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in August 2012 was the worst recorded instance of police violence in post-apartheid South Africa. Five years on, there have been no prosecutions and no real improvements – no compensation for the families living in grief and dire poverty.
Plan for a republic or imaginary republic?
10 November 2017, by“There is little doubt that we are facing a triple strategic dilemma as complex as it is inescapable. The question is whether it is also as unresolvable as it is decisive.”
What’s Happening in Raqqa, Idlib and in Syria
10 November 2017, byYou may have seen the horrible photo of 34 day-old Samar Dofdaa that activists circulated recently. Her family is one of thousands under siege in Eastern Ghouta by Assad forces. The baby was skeletal and in obvious agony. She died the next day. While world attention has left Syria, civilian suffering continues, but so does the remaining popular resistance.
Honduras Since the 2009 Coup
9 November 2017, byOn November 26, 2017 national and local elections are scheduled in Honduras. This will be the third election since the U.S.-supported coup of June 28, 2009. Although more than eight years have passed, both resistance and repression continue. In fact the current coup regime led by President Juan Orlando Hernandez has hardened and tried to institutionalize dictatorship.
Sweden’s Potato Revolution
8 November 2017, byIt seems unexpected — but the effects of the February 1917 revolution in Russia were first felt in neutral Sweden. Together with the other Nordic countries Sweden was spared from the First World War but suffered food shortages and other hardships due to the surrounding conflicts.
The Legacy of the October Revolution
7 November 2017, byA hundred years later, the question of the historical legacy of the October Revolution is not an easy one for socialists, given that Stalinism took root within less than a decade after that revolution and the restoration of capitalism seventy years later met little popular resistance. One can, of course, point to the central role of the Red Army in the victory over fascism, or to the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world that broadened the space for anti-imperialist struggles, or to the moderating effect on capitalist appetites of the existence of a major nationalized, planned economy. Yet, even in these areas, the legacy is far from unambiguous.
Zionism, anti-semitism, and the Balfour Declaration
6 November 2017, byA complementarity between the anti-semitic desire to get rid of the Jews and the Zionist project of sending all Jews to Palestine seems ignored, for example, by Theresa May.
The Korean crisis, geopolitical instability and nuclear proliferation
5 November 2017, byThe United States has gone back on the offensive in East Asia during the Korean crisis; as for China, it has temporarily lost the initiative. US imperialism is far from winning the game, but it has scored significant points whose scope affects the entire region – and beyond, especially because of the acceleration of the nuclear arms race that it induces. The geopolitical power relations are constantly evolving in this part of the world
A coup by the state
4 November 2017, byThe continuing crisis over Catalonia reached a new stage late last week when the Spanish state fired its president and top security officials and dismissed its parliament, setting December 21 as a date for new elections. The hard-line move to impose direct rule over the autonomous region followed a declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament, after President Carles Puigdemont’s offer for negotiations to reach some accommodation with the Spanish state was rejected out of hand by conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Metal Fatigue. Controversies and polemics in the AKP following the referendum
3 November 2017, byEven though the strong suspicions of fraud during the referendum on April 16, 2017 did not get much attention from the supporters of the AKP (the Justice and Development Party), the same cannot be said of the results, which were lower than all the forecasts. In fact, by comparison with previous elections, the bloc for "Yes" to the presidentialist project of Erdogan, composed of the AKP and the far-right MHP (Nationalist Action Party), fell by 10% from 61.5 per cent to 51.3 per cent. It thus had a very fragile majority, especially given the importance of the constitutional amendment, faced with a 48.7 per cent very determined not to give up, in spite of the disparity of its component parts. The victory of the “No” in big cities such as Ankara and Istanbul (which has an AKP mayor) and in the conservative-leaning constituencies only served to increase the uneasiness of the AKP supporters.