On this March 8th, a women’s strike is being organized in several countries, in particular in Italy where the movement "Non una di meno" (“Not one more”) involves thousands of women. This interview with Marta Cotta, a member of Degender, the feminist collective in Rome of Communia (Italian section of the Fourth International), was conducted by Pauline Forges.
“The feminists are here”
20 March 2018, byThe fact that this March 8th was going to surpass all our expectations was clear when we looked back on the weeks that preceded it. No one, however, seemed capable of anticipating the scale of the mobilization that we finally witnessed. Fortunately, the wave swept over us all.
Beginning on November 7th, 2015, there have been more and more analyses of the women’s movement in Spain. In the international context marked by the rise of the far right and the reflux of social mobilization, many people have sought to interpret the why and the how of a movement that is capable of drawing in more and more young women, getting them to mobilize in the streets and to question the traditional logics of struggle and conflict. In addition, the feminist movement seems to possess a global dimension and a strategic horizon, building itself as an expression of generalized contestation of the capitalist system. With time it will be possible to grasp to what extent this potential will develop. For the moment, here are some elements of analysis to try and arrive at a collective understanding of what has happened this week.
Victory of Assad Regime in Ghouta Is Major Defeat for Those Fighting Racism and Capitalist Authoritarianism Globally
19 March 2018, byThose who oppose both the Assad regime and the Jihadists and all the imperialist powers, need to focus on a glaring fact: Support for Assad and Putin has become a rallying cry for Western white supremacist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic organizations and parties. We need to show that opposing the Assad regime’s war on the Syrian masses is absolutely necessary for fighting the growth of white supremacy in the U.S. and other Western countries. Indeed it is necessary for challenging the growth of capitalist authoritarianism around the world. Assad’s Syria could be our future.
Ramaphosa and Gigaba have allowed a good crisis to go to waste
18 March 2018, byGigaba and Ramaphosa have set us on a path of economic regression. The 2018 budget will hit poor and working class people harder.
YPJ as a symbol of women’s resistance
17 March 2018, byHawzhin Azeez is co-founder the non-governmental organization Hevi (meaning hope in Kurdish). The NGO provides humanitarian aid to the people of Rojava (three autonomously run cantons located in northern Syria). Hawzhin is the creator of the Middle Eastern Feminist on Facebook. She writes passionately and eloquently about the Rojava Revolution, feminism and Kurdish issues.
Our comrade Marielle Franco murdered
16 March 2018Activist of the LGTB movement, the World March of Women, City Councilor of the Party Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) in Rio de Janeiro and in charge of the commission of inquiry into the violence perpetrated by the army and the police against young people Afro-descendants in Rio, Marielle Franco was murdered the night of March 14, 2018.
Decree 66 and the Impact of its National Expansion
15 March 2018, byOngoing discussions regarding the now famous Syrian legislative law, Decree 66, continue and its recent expansion and approval by parliament in January 2018, is waiting to be officially implemented to the rest of the country. Decree 66, which entered into law as of September 2012, allowed the government to “redesign unauthorized or illegal housing areas” and replace them with “modern” real estate projects with quality services. The possible expansion of Decree 66 could have important consequences on the reconstruction process and the consolidation of the political and economic power of the regime through crony capitalist linked to it, while providing foreign allies with a share of the market to reward them for their assistance.
New rise of women’s movement puts women at forefront of fightback
13 March 2018, by– The cycle of women’s mass mobilizations opened in recent years has kept its dynamic and organized once again an international women’s strike this 8 March in more than fifty countries from Argentina, to Italy, from France to the United States, from Brazil to Britain from Iceland to Iran, as well as mobilizations in countless countries on all continents.
A new phase of economic governance?
13 March 2018, byThe European Union, after several serious economic, geopolitical and institutional upheavals, whose consequences are not at an end, and after a period of blockade and paralysis, may be moving to a new phase of revision of its model of economic governance. The institutional paralysis of the EU, in terms of the financial capacity of those institutions at least, could be to some extent unblocked after the settling of some unknowns, with what may be a soft Brexit and with the foreseeable formation of a CDU-SPD government in Germany.