IV518 - March 2018

IV518 March 2018 PDF magazine available to download
IV518 March 2018 PDF magazine available to download here

Macron’s government has, since it won the elections last year, undertaken a forced march, on the one hand implementing step by step a project of fundamental liberal reforms, and on the other reducing taxes for the capitalist class (abolition of the wealth tax, a flat rate of 30 per cent on the revenues of capital).

ESSF has received this call to support the Char Conference from Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF) and Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (BKS). The occupation of fallow land and Char (small islands) goes back to 1992. The five objectives of the conference are: Declaration of a ‘National Land Action Day’, compilation and preservation of the history of Khasland movement, chalking out the planning and strategy of taking possession of new Khasland, a brochure on the wounded and dead in the Khasland movement including Abbus Satter Khan who was the pioneer of Khasland movement, a policy paper on protection of landless people and livelihood in the context of global climate change.

On March 3rd, 2018, the main pre-election rally for Vladimir Putin took place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Tens of thousands of public sector workers were brought in from various regions of the country and were expected to listen to the President’s speech as well as those of actors and singers who came out in his support. Not long before Putin himself appeared, Grigory Leps, a popular singer with a criminal past, performed his song “The Very Best Day.” Precisely six years previously on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Elections, Leps had also sung “The Very Best Day” at another meeting in support of Putin. The script had hardly changed, as though confirming the victory of the immutable political regime over the passage of time.

As the #MeToo movement has swept America, it has also made waves in greater China. On the mainland, the most widely publicized incident involved Luo Xixi’s allegation in a January 2018 Weibo post that her professor at Beihang University, Chen Xiaowu, sexually harassed her over a decade ago. The allegation lead to Chen’s dismissal.

The controversial announcement by the African National Congress that land will be expropriated without compensation has raised contentions on land reform in South Africa. Land is symbolic of the discontent at post-apartheid transformation but it is real agrarian reform to improve income and livelihoods that is desperately needed for the black majority that are living below the poverty line.

The president and his party-gang are directly responsible for the economic crisis and the violence that tears the social fabric of Rio de Janeiro and which also allowed the political assassination of Marielle and Anderson.

After participating in the international colloquium that we coordinated last June on “Progressive governments and post-neoliberalism in Latin America: the end of a golden age?” at the University of Grenoble, France, Frank Gaudichaud spoke to the sociologists Edgardo Lander (Venezuela) and Miriam Lang (Ecuador).

The South African parliament has voted for a motion to amend the constitution that will allow the government to expropriate private land without compensation. However, a true resolution of the land question must be in accordance with the needs of those who work and live off the land. This means the destruction of all existing tribal and feudal relations in the rural areas and the nationalisation of the land.

In Catalonia, the two most important news items of the first week of March have been (1) Carles Puigdemont’s withdrawal of his nomination for President of the autonomous region’s government in order to propose Jordi Sànchez as a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat and (2) the refusal of the CUP to support Sànchez.The investiture therefore remains bogged down.