IV529 - February 2019

1. The self-proclamation of the right-wing Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela, in a coup d’état led by Trump, to pave the way for direct intervention in the neighboring country, placed Latin America as a center of tension in the global situation. By directly operating this policy, U.S. imperialism once again acts in its supposed "backyard. This change in U.S. policy was made possible by the success of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Duque in Colombia. Without these fundamental supports, the situation would be different.

The vicious, dirty – and bipartisan – smear campaign against the first two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), is just beginning. No one should imagine that Rep. Omar’s dignified apology for her tweets about the Israel lobby, which have been willfully twisted to accuse her of “anti-Semitic tropes,” will put an end to the attacks on her – or that Rep. Tlaib’s calling Donald Trump a “motherf****r” is what anyone is really upset about.

Terrorism is not a reference to any category of persons but refers to a particular method, technique or tactic that involves the killing or injuring of innocent civilians or, outside of a battle or war zone, of even soldiers who by virtue of the distinctive nature of the attack are rendered completely defenceless. Precisely because terrorism is an act of this kind it can be and is carried out by the individual, a group, or larger collectivities like the apparatuses of the state.

Socialists must organize a national movement against Trump’s national emergency.

Truth, as they say, is the first casualty of war. The situation of the ruling classes of India and Pakistan is so disdainful that they cannot go to war nor they can sustain a genuine peace. What they contrive are virtual wars and hoaxes of peace. In the ongoing rhetoric of war and the hysteria being propped up by the subcontinent’s elite, once again truth and sanity are the foremost victims. It’s the organic nature of the region’s postcolonial bourgeoisie being reflected in their hypocrisy, crookedness and deceit of their politics, ethics, morality and character. These odious characteristics stem from their origins.

How can we reconcile social struggle and environmental struggle? This question poses problems for trade unionists. To avoid a climate catastrophe, it would be necessary to reduce economic activity, to suppress useless or harmful production, to give up a substantial part of the means of transport ... But what would happen to employment then? How can we avoid a surge of unemployment, a new rise of poverty and precariousness? In today’s relationship of forces, in the face of financialized and globalized capitalism, these challenges seem impossible to meet ...

Since October 2018, women* from different social and political backgrounds have been gathering together once a month in Brussels to organize a feminist women*’s strike on March 8, 2019. The assemblies are open to all women*, trans, intersex and non-binary people affected and revolted by the violence of the patriarchal system. This system oppresses women* and people with gender identities and sexualities that do not conform to male-heterosexual norms.

Τhe Prespes agreement between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia imposes in the clearest manner the hegemony of the Greek state over the neighboring Macedonian state and constitutes an overwhelming diplomatic and political victory for the Greek bourgeois class. According to the agreement, the Republic of Macedonia was forced to change its constitutional name to Republic of North Macedonia, to refrain from any claim over the recognition and rights of the Macedonian ethnic minority in Greece, to rename its public buildings and infrastructure (national highway, Skopje airport) so as to not include names that are considered part of the Greek history (Alexander the Great etc.), to submit its school textbooks for revision to an equal parity committee with Greek officials and to secure the free right of investment to the Greek capital in the country. In return, Greece consents to the admission of Macedonia to the NATO and the EU, which both the US and European imperialism favor as a means to gain ground in their rivalry with Russia.

On February 14th, a convoy of the Indian paramilitary police (CPRF) in Kashmir suffered a massive attack with a bomb-laden vehicle. The immense coverage of it has eclipsed any analysis of the mass revolt against the occupation and repression perpetrated on the Kashmiris. It once again illustrates how the ruling class uses such acts of terror to justify the brutality and exploitation that has inflicted intense agony on the ordinary Kashmiri people.

The steamroller of the Macron “start-up” seemed to be advancing relentlessly. The Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) movement has thrown his government into crisis, the popular anger has been such that it has been forced to draw back, at least symbolically. It is the first time since 2006, when the massive mobilisation of youth supported by several days of strike action called by the trade unions forced the withdrawal of the Contrat Première Embauche, that a French government has faced a crisis which it can only resolve by abandoning its project.