IV545 - June 2020

In a major event in Scotland, one person was killed by armed police in a Glasgow hotel used to accommodate asylum seekers. The call ‘not to politicise’ the incident from SNP and Labour politicians is completely misplaced.

The construction of a motorable road by the Indian government, towards the Chinese border and near the disputed Kalapani area on the Indo-Nepal border sparked off a diplomatic row. Although there were minor complications in the past around such isssues, the situation has worsened rapidly since Modi came to powerin 2014.

The Labour Party’s antisemitism witchhunt has just claimed its highest profile victim, with the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from Starmer’s shadow cabinet for the crime of tweeting a link to an interview with the actor Maxine Peake in the Independent. This decision, taken just a few hours after a peremptory demand by the unrepresentative Board of Deputies of British Jews, makes a mockery of Starmer’s claim that he intends to “reunify” the party.

In the middle of a pandemic, with the global economy crashing and a US Presidential election in the offing, George Floyd’s murder by police sparked protests across the globe. The movement is led by Black Americans and unites in solidarity people of many ethnicities, colours, and religions who have had enough of police brutality, and police murders of Black Americans.

Hector A. Rivera is the editor of Punto Rojo, a review of the Latin and Chicano socialist left in the United States. He was interviewed on 9 June 2020 by Marine Benjelloun and Alex Guérin for Contretemps.

This article examines the particular situation of Chile, a country which has been going through one of the biggest popular revolts in the region for months, while being one of the flagship countries of neoliberal capitalism in worldwide terms.

Intellectuals, social activists and public officials in Europe and Latin America have expressed their support for Hugo Blanco in the face of attacks by the extreme right in Peru. In less than 48 hours, more than two thousand people have signed a Manifesto in support of one of the historical leaders of the peasant, indigenous and environmental movement in Peru and Latin America, the legendary left-wing political activist Hugo Blanco, who has been vilified, defamed and reviled by sectors of the far right in the Peruvian army, police force, press and politicians.

The future is taking shape around us, but the past continues to exert its pull. This is a time when everything is in contention; new social forces emerge, while old reactionary forces double down. Three Mutiny writers joined three protests reporting back from the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in London and Cardiff, drawing lessons from these historic events. It felt like 1968. It looked like the birth of a new mass movement of the oppressed.

Thanks to the Black Lives Matter mobilizations against racism in general, and racism against black people in particular, becoming an international phenomenon more and more people are seeking to know the truth about the dark past of the colonial powers and the continuation of neo-colonialism up to the present times. Statues of emblematic figures of European colonialism are being debunked or are the subject of salutary denunciations. The same is true of statues of people who in the United States symbolize slavery and racism. The CADTM welcomes all initiatives and actions that aim to denounce colonial crimes, seek to establish the truth about past atrocities, highlight the instruments of neo-colonialism and all forms of resistance from the past to the present.

US police have used rubber bullets against civilian protesters on a massive scale. These projectiles actually originated in Northern Ireland — and their history is anything but "nonlethal." There can be no justification for police use of rubber bullets.