IV599 - December 2024

It is that time of year when we reflect on the key events of 2024. Unlike the mainstream mass media we are interested in examining what happened from the point of view of the current and historic interests of the working class. Our task is to deconstruct the ideology that focuses on the visually dramatic, political or cultural personalities or the trivial.

“There is now a space, with its contradictions and challenges, for Syrians to try to rebuild popular civil resistance from below and from alternative power structures. And that is already a great hope compared with the past.”

The opposition Progressive Alliance defeated the outgoing government’s Lepep coalition in the Mauritian elections held on 10 November 2024. The results are indisputable. With 62% of the vote, the opposition parties won almost all the seats in the assembly, in accordance with the “winner takes all” rule.

Will France have a government at Christmas? That was the question in September. We didn’t think we’d reach the same point on Christmas Eve. With more weariness, however.

Bashar al-Assad has fallen. No one will regret it. In twenty years of dictatorship and ten years of civil war, he and his clique succeeded in transforming Syria into a hellish dystopia, doubtless worse than Iraq under Saddam Hussein, although the latter had set the bar very high. Syria, or at least what was left of it, had become nothing more than a huge Captagon laboratory, run by dealers as corrupt as they were vicious. They left the Syrian people who had not left this undead country with only one prospect, misery and suffering, and only one choice: become a victim or an executioner.

This was US President Joe Biden’s first and last trip to Africa, just a few weeks before the end of his mandate. His visit to Angola at the beginning of December was not insignificant, as the country is the centrepiece of a major investment for the USA and the European Union (EU): the Lobito Corridor. The Lobito Corridor project, from Zambia to Angola, is part of a heightened inter-imperialist competition for control of Africa’s critical resources.

The advent of “Trump 2.0” poses dangers and challenges in U.S. society as well as globally — including the non-trivial problem of surviving environmental catastrophe — and most certainly to the social movement and socialist left. We will attempt here to sort through those elements of the swirling chaos that are pretty well known, and suggest where the uncertainties may lie. We know for sure that all our movements will be under attack — and it’s absolutely essential to stand together and refuse to be intimidated or divided. How extreme the assaults may become isn’t certain, and the strength of immediate resistance can make a big difference.

“Ireland’s anti-Semitic actions and rhetoric against Israel are rooted in the delegitimisation and demonisation of the Jewish state, and in double standards.” This is how Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs, announced the closure of the Israeli embassy in Dublin on 15 December, 2024.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with $430 billion in personal wealth, became an advisor to president-elect Donald Trump a few months ago. Now he is something more. Politicians and the media now refer to him as the “shadow president,” “co-president” or even call him “president Musk.”

The 47 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong charged in 2021 with trying to overthrow the government by running an unofficial primary to pick opposition candidates for local elections were sentenced on 19 November. Au Loong Yu was interviewed by the World of Labour, Germany about the trial.