IV530 - March 2019

Revolutionary struggles erupt with their own dynamics. The legacies, such struggles leave behind are often symbolised by iconic figures. According to the mainstream myths, Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and other such leaders belonging to the native bourgeois fostered by the Raj led anti-colonial struggle in the Indian subcontinent.

Dani Domínguez interviews Gonzalo Gómez

Algeria is experiencing a popular uprising that is unprecedented since the proclamation of national independence. Since 22 February 2019, following calls launched on the Internet, large rallies, with a massive presence of women, have been organized in all cities, followed by workers and young students

The far right swept to record success in last week’s Dutch elections. Yet the vote also saw Geert Wilders’s PVV overshadowed by more traditionalist reactionary forces.

Prefatory Note:The following post contains my responses to questions posed by Sputnik News Agency a few days ago. The effort to warn European countries not to use equipment from the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, is part warning and part threat. It claims to be a matter of security, but seems like an effort to avoid the competitive challenge posed by the superior technology of Huawei by claiming a threat to the security of European countries because China will be able to engage in unauthorized data surveillance. Waiting for American counterpart technology is a way of saying our surveillance will be less of a problem in the future than would a comparable Chinese capability. Underneath, one wonders whether this is a matter of protecting American business interests. In any event,

The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) have won a big, although limited victory, as detailed in Peter Olson’s on-the-ground account in this issue of Against the Current. The strike is part of a nationwide teachers’ upsurge that began with, and was largely made possible by, the 2012 strike of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

You’ve heard the news: on March 15th, 2019, Aotearoa/New Zealand experienced its largest mass shooting since the colonial massacres, a coordinated terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch. Throughout the day the death toll climbed; first 6, then 27, then 40, and finally 49 (with more passing away in hospital beds in the ensuing days). Victims included resettled Syrian children, fleeing terrorism in one place only to encounter it in another.

Politicians have expressed “horror” and “shock” at the attack in New Zealand and now are scratching their heads, asking, “Who could have predicted this?”

In the aftermath of the Christchurch terrorist attack, the International Socialist Organisation National Committee in Aotearoa/New Zealand released the following statement.

As we know, the left-wing parties of Western Europe, such as the German party Die Linke, play a folkloric role or, in the best of cases, that of a moral corrector and have very little influence on political events. Their parliamentary work is mostly limited to agitation. In Eastern European countries, these parties often fail to enter Parliament.