January 2025

The electoral failure, and ongoing threat, of the Irish far right

News and analysis, Racism and fascism, Europe  

By Drew Frayne (Socialist Party – Ireland) 31 January 2025 Bucking the international trend of far right electoral gains, the Irish electorate by and large rejected the far right’s programme of anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, ultra conservative policies. The surge in anti-immigration protests in the preceding year, the momentum built in the local elections in June and the apparent support on social media, failed to translate into general election gains.  Despite fielding over 70 candidates, no far-right parties or independents were elected in the 2024 general election. Right-populist parties, Aontú and Independent Ireland (II), only managed to win two new seats (Aontú in Mayo, and II in Cork North Central) on top of their existing TDs.  Despite their own failures, however, they have managed to shift the main establishment parties to the right, particularly on immigration. Likewise the main opposition party Sinn Féin, which often tries to paint itself as an anti-establishment party of progress. All of these parties put forward more hard-line immigration policies in the course of the two 2024 elections. Of course, as global trends signify, most notably in the election of Trump and his new billionaire regime, far-right ideas and forces are on the rise. In Ireland, they are emboldened, and have learned many valuable lessons from their foray into mainstream politics. The relatively large share of votes they received, especially in the local elections, compared to previous elections when it was virtually nil, serves as a serious warning.  The new right-wing government coalition of FF, FG and Regional Independents, will continue to preside over policies that created fertile ground for the far right, and indeed will be even more susceptible to their rhetoric – whether racist, islamophobic, transphobic, misogynistic or climate change-denying. Socialists, leftists, and trade unionists of all colours must organise against these ideas and the increasing sophistication and organisation of extremist right-wing groups.  How the various groups performed Overall, the far right’s focus on immigration did not chime with the dominant mood in society – just 6% cited immigration as their main issue in the RTE exit poll. Voters were far more concerned with housing and the cost of living. Attempts to connect those issues to immigration largely fell flat given the huge budget surplus going into the election, with all parties making unusually large spending commitments – resources clearly aren’t scarce. Of course, in a different future context of economic recession, they may then get more of an echo for their divisive propaganda.  Still, almost 20 candidates got a higher than 2% of first preference during the GE, which is 20 more than the far-right’s previous electoral attempts. The National Alliance, comprising the National Party, the Irish People, Ireland First, and some independents, implemented vote management strategies to optimise their electoral performance, and avoid competition, which occurred during the local elections. However, even prominent figures like Cllr Malachy Steenson in Dublin Central and Derek Blighe in Cork North-Central garnered less than 5% of the vote, indicating limited public support, but still a firm start on their electoral ambitions, and a foundation for future attempts. The Irish Freedom Party, which didn’t join the alliance, also failed to win any seats. Led by Hermann Kelly, a former protege of Nigel Farage, they tried to distance themselves from the other far-right parties. Over half of their 15 candidates won 1,000 or more first preference votes. Since the election the IFP has gone into major crisis, however, with a significant section, including some who would prefer to take their politics in a more vigilante direction, splintering off and others being expelled.  A new split-off group, Sinne Na Daoine (SnD), are establishing “community safety” patrols, targeting asylum seekers and immigrants. This is in tandem with the recent proliferation of illegal road checkpoints in some rural areas. Founded by Anthony Casey, a failed IFP candidate and one of those expelled, SnD claims to act as a “watchdog tool for communities”. The development of this group, and the likely increase of far-right vigilantism is a consequence of the state’s softly-softly approach. If any other grouping, be they socialists, republicans, trade unionists, or God forbid immigrants, had attempted similar practices, the response from the state would be swift and brutal.  Aontú doubles vote Aontú, the anti-abortion, right-populist party returned its leader Peadar Tóibín, and secured a second seat in Mayo. Tóibín said after the election that “The story of this election is the growth of Aontú”, which is obviously ridiculous, although they did double their vote. This was mostly due to Tóibín’s media-savvy approach and emphasis on “economic justice” issues like housing. Indeed, he was given an undue amount of media attention during the election campaign. For the most part in this election, Aontú had a strategy of not emphasising their anti-choice and conservative views.  Their ambiguous stance on immigration, relying on racist innuendos rather than overtly racist rhetoric, was an attempt to distance themselves from the blatantly racist forces of the far right (which has seen them marked as a patsy for the establishment in far-right forums). However, the high transfer rate between the far-right candidates and Aontú shows that their vote contains a definite hard-right element. Aontú’s ability to skillfully pose as reasonable right-wing critics of the government parties, while concealing their more offensive positions, makes them one of the more capable – and therefore potentially dangerous – right populist parties, who will no doubt attempt to bring about ultra conservative policies by stealth.  Right wing’s influence on Irish politics Despite their lack of electoral success, far-right groups have influenced public discourse, particularly on immigration. Their lies about refugees have gained traction on social media, and the three big parties have adopted more stringent immigration policies. It’s likely that targeting trans rights will be a focus of the far right, which can also see the political establishment shift backwards here too. Disgracefully, Sinn Féin is already leading on this, with its support for the cruel puberty blockers ban being extended from the UK to the North.  In response to their electoral failures, some far-right candidates have propagated

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“Shame must change sides” –  The vital case of Gisèle Pelicot

Uncategorized  

First published by Socialist Party (Ireland), 26 January 2025 Warning: Article contains distressing details of r*** and abuse In a stunning decision, Gisèle Pelicot faced down the rape culture that demands survivors of abuse carry the burden of shame and secrecy. She refused a closed trial, demanding that the public join her in confronting the truth about her abuse by more than 70 men, one of whom she shared a life with.  Gisèle was drugged and raped repeatedly by her long-time husband over the course of almost a decade. He invited dozens of men into their home and filmed them as they also rape her unconscious body, causing her to contract several sexually transmitted infections. She fought for the videos of her abuse to be shown in court, forcing the world to reckon with the truth of men’s violence against women – including those they claim to love. Normal men The men came from all walks of life – lorry drivers, soldiers, firefighters, security guards, farm workers, a supermarket worker, a journalist and unemployed. The youngest suspect was 22 when he entered Ms Pelicot’s bedroom, while the oldest was in his early 70s. Many had children and were in relationships. Most lived within a 50km radius of the Pelicots’ village of Mazan. Unlike many victims of abuse, Gisèle had ‘hard evidence’ that demonstrated clearly that she was raped according to the legal definition of rape in France. She was so heavily sedated she could be heard snoring in the videos. This did not prevent the legal defence for many of the perpetrators from using misogynistic tropes to try to claim that it wasn’t rape.  Bravely waiving anonymity  There are many valid reasons why survivors of abuse need anonymity and do not want evidence or details of their case to be shared with the public. Abusers are often family members. Survivors often have children to consider. Abusers can be powerful people capable of waging a social media / media campaigns of hate against their victim. Stigma can be mobilised at any moment to cause further destruction to the lives of survivors forcing them to be silent and ashamed in a society that routinely subjugates survivors and protects abusers.  In fact, victims of abuse are essentially shunned from society in a myriad of ways. The toll can lead to physical and mental health issues that make life even more difficult.  Deeply misogynistic culture Gisèle did ‘everything right’. She settled down in a monogamous marriage with a ‘good man’ who she described as “perfect”. And yet, it was this man who brutalised her in the most inhumane way. How can we understand this? How can we understand that it was possible to find so many men in such a small catchment area who would do this?  We would like to believe that there is somewhere in this unjust, cruel, profit-driven system that is safe, warm and loving. A place we usually call ‘home’. Unfortunately, the culture that emanates from the economic and political structures of capitalism seeps into even our most intimate personal settings and relationships. The most ordinary of men are not immune from the toxic impact of misogyny and rape culture. And yet we need ordinary men to stand against misogyny and violence against women if we are to collectively struggle for a society free from exploitation and oppression.  A heroic symbol Gisèle Pelicot (72) has become a symbol of courage and power, admired by survivors the world over. It is essential that ordinary men also see that they have a vital role to play in combating gender-based violence on an individual level, in close relationships, in movements, in left political organising and in workplaces. The hate, violence, misogyny, exclusion, racism, transphobia that is required for this system to rule and profit will chain us to our own defeat in the fight for a better life if we do not reject it all.

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Musk leads the MAGAfication of corporate America

News and analysis, National politics  

By James McCabe (Socialist Party Ireland) 23 January 2025 The year began with numerous grim reminders that the normalisation of the far right is accelerating. On 2 January, Elon Musk, 59% of space satellites, called for the King of England to dissolve the Westminster parliament. The same day, when many of us were either working or seeking some respite from the chaos of 2024, Musk was Tweeting “Free Tommy Robinson”.  Imagine if someone had told you in the 2010s that by 2025 the world’s richest man would be publicly extolling the virtues of English Defence League, fascist thug Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), and calling for his immediate release from prison.  Corporate welfare safety net You could be forgiven for harking back to a simpler time when Musk was just another nepo baby who generally shunned the limelight, despite the odd cameo in nerdy sitcoms and Hollywood films. He made an appearance in Iron Man 2 in 2010, for example. Back then, he was focused on presenting an inoffensive, clean-cut image to help him attain lucrative contracts from the US federal government to fund his prestige projects. He now has at least 100 different contracts with the federal government, including tens of billions of dollars of state funding for his SpaceX rocket company. The financial security he experienced as the son of an emerald mine owner in his youth in apartheid South Africa has been superseded by the security the US government provides to his profiteering today. And behind the glamour of electric Cybertrucks and Mars exploration, he’s a racist, misogynistic, narrow-minded oligarch.  A master of disinformationIn July 2020, when many Twitter users called out the role of the US in an attempted coup in Bolivia, (home to some of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, used in electric car batteries), Musk’s response was: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” When racist riots erupted in Southport last year, Musk Tweeted that civil war in Britain was now “inevitable”. His propensity for alarmism was also on display at a hard-right festival in Rome where he claimed that the world’s population will be one-tenth of its size within three generations. In fact, the population is due to rise to ten billion by the year 2058. However, he reached a new low with his fawning interview with German far-right AfD leader, Alice Weidel. He repeatedly underlined his recommendation for Germans to vote for the AfD, stating: “Only the AfD can save Germany, end of story!”. The two agreed on all major political issues: tax cuts for the rich, deportation of migrants, support for the Israeli state’s genocide in Gaza and so on.  Musk also agreed with Weidel’s outrageous claim that: “Hitler was a communist and he considered himself as a socialist.” The Nazis were rabidly and violently anti-communist in both actions and words. And like the far right today, they were funded by big business. US car manufacturer Henry Ford admired Hitler because his regime safeguarded and boosted the profits of German capitalism. The fortunes of many German billionaire families today can be traced back to the Nazis – some of whom have donated to the AfD. Tesla’s an anti-union shop  For his part, Musk spent $277 million bankrolling Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 elections – a fraction of his obscene fortune of $437 billion. As a reward for his support, Trump has allowed him to sit in on meetings with many world leaders and he’s been living in a cottage in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence for the past couple of months. Like Trump, he’s anti-worker and anti-union to his core. In conversation with Musk before the election, Trump praised him for firing workers who threaten strike action: “You’re the greatest cutter… I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say: ‘that’s OK. You’re all gone.’” Musk fired 75% of Twitter’s staff after his takeover, many after searching through the messages of workers to see who badmouthed him. Tesla is a non-unionised workplace and workers there are even banned from wearing union t-shirts. Trump and Musk are aspiring to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Anything close to this level of cuts would require the loss of hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs. These billionaires could be in for a surprise when public sector workers resist through strike action. Corporate America goes MAGAIt’s scary to see how several white South African far-right billionaires like Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sachs have so much influence in the White House now. But what’s more worrying is that they are no longer fringe figures. The CEOs of Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple have each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.  We cannot accept a handful of billionaires owning and controlling the major tech companies and the media platforms, dictating what we see via their algorithms and influencing what we think. These resources must be seized from their hands, taken into public ownership, democratically controlled, and used for the benefit of all. Before the election, Trump’s other top billionaire donors came from four specific industries: casinos, finance, oil and gas. We can see a clear convergence of the interests of big tech and the fossil fuel industry with a boom in gas power plant construction in the US to facilitate data centre energy usage. Entergy, a US gas company recently announced a $3.2 billion plan to build three new gas plants to serve Meta’s AI data centre. This expansion of fossil fuel usage takes place at a time of historic climate change-related natural disasters! From Silicon Valley to the mainstream media, the liberal status quo is being dropped to adapt to Trump’s reactionary regime. The rise of Musk, Trump, Vance and Thiel situates us firmly in the era of monsters.  Never have the words of James Connolly rang more true: “The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.” 

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Scorched earth capitalism: Wildfires bring apocalyptic scenes to Los Angeles

Environment  

By Isi Stewart Duran (Socialist Party Ireland) 23 January 2025 At the time of writing, firefighters in Los Angeles are warning of ‘explosive fire growth’ and ‘critical fire weather’ in the city and its surroundings, where at least 27 people have been killed and at least 31 people have been reported missing since wildfires began on Tuesday, 7 January. Two hundred thousand residents have now been ordered to evacuate and hundreds of thousands more living in high-risk and elevated-risk areas could be told to leave their homes for safety in the coming days.  Unending catastrophes  The west coast of North America is one of the worst affected areas by wildfires. The combination of dry vegetation and strong winds means that any ignition can spread rapidly. With climate change-induced rising temperatures and prolonged periods of drought on the increase, places like Palisades in LA are particularly vulnerable. In 2020, one million acres in California caught fire in one week, dwarfing all previous records. Of course, the US isn’t the only country affected by worsening wildfires: Portugal, Canada and Brazil were other countries hit by particularly severe uncontrolled fires in 2024, the warmest year on record. 2024 was the first year to exceed the key milestone of 1.5C above the pre-industrial global temperature level, the limit set by climate experts who have warned that it could trigger multiple climate tipping points with ‘abrupt, irreversible and dangerous impacts for humanity.’ Annual breaches of the 1.5C limit do not necessarily indicate that we have reached this milestone yet, as it is usually calculated on decadal timescales. Still, it shows that the climate crisis is worsening at pace.  Climate researcher Peter Thorne described it as a ‘wake-up call to the world’. Wildfires are one consequence of this, and they are also accelerating it, by decreasing the effectiveness of carbon sinks (i.e. vegetation), which play a vital role in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Profiting from disaster  The destructive drive for profit above all else, which is the raison d’être and driving force of capitalism, is the cause of the increased extreme weather events that are already impacting millions of people’s lives. Unfortunately, this cruel logic does not pause in the event of climate disaster. Still, it continues to extract as much wealth as possible from ordinary people and the earth, even in the most dire of circumstances.  In response to thousands of people losing their homes, landlords in surrounding areas have already hiked rents by thousands of dollars. Similarly, greedy speculator companies were on the ground within days of the fires trying to exploit traumatised residents to buy land at cut prices (a practice the Governor was forced to temporarily ban).  Furthermore, insurance companies like Allstate and State Farm have refused to issue new property insurance policies or renew existing ones in California due to ‘significant losses’. This shows once again that the insurance industry is never about protecting people, and as more communities become vulnerable to extreme weather events, the less accessible insurance will become.  Disaster capitalism  Last year, the annual cost of property insurance in the Pacific Palisades soared from $4,500 to $18,000. And despite California being so vulnerable to wildfires, fire protection services are chronically underfunded. Instead, the state depends on the cheap labour of prison firefighters who are paid way below minimum wage to work in life-threatening conditions. Currently 950 prison firefighters have been deployed to contain the fires, on a wage of $10.24 per day.  ‘Disaster capitalism’ was the term popularised by writer Naomi Klein to explain how the rich and powerful profiteer from crises. We can see this in action in California, where the devastating wildfires are already generating enormous profits for the capitalist class, despite it pointing to further climate breakdown and destruction for all humanity and wildlife globally.  To save our futures, working-class and oppressed people the world over must heed this wake-up call and fight to defend our habitual ecosystem from the capitalist system which is waging war on it. ‘Green capitalism’ was always a con, but even this pretense of concern for the environment is being dispensed with by our maniacal rulers, following Trump’s rallying cry of ‘drill baby drill’ as the world around us burns. The only thing capable of taking on the fossil fuel industry and the major corporate polluters, the disaster capitalists, and their whole system is an international eco-socialist force fighting for a just transition based on public ownership and democratic, rational and sustainable planning of the economy. 

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Brazil: Between Barbarism and Dismay, Conciliation and Coup-Plotting

News and analysis, Racism and fascism, Americas  

By PRMI reporters in Brazil, 23 January 2025 This article can also be accessed in Portuguese here 2024 was an apprehensive and discouraging year for left-wing and progressive people in Brazil. In the midst of so many crises, such as the environmental one, and the urgent need for social transformation, the conservatives and the right were the big winners in the municipal elections. There was also Trump’s landslide electoral victory in the US, warning of the return of the far right – the same one that attempted a coup d’état in our country. Despite all this, hope for change remains alive and the left and the working class must continue to analyze these events, but on the condition that this analysis can turn into action to radically transform our society. The last 15 years in Brazil have been intense, with great struggles by the working class, many twists and turns, actions and reactions. After so much struggle, it’s discouraging to see the right’s electoral victory in city halls and conservative projects advancing, such as privatizations, including of schools, as in São Paulo, the “Rape Bill”, which bans abortion in any circumstance, fiscal adjustments with budget cuts to rights and pressure from the big bourgeoisie for them, among many others. But why are we in this situation? Brazil is being governed by Lula yet nothing seems to be moving forward. What is needed is a concrete analysis that avoids some of the simplistic statements that are so often made, especially on social media – for example, about “poor right-wingers”, “uneducated people”, “Brazilians are really conservative”, “we lost because the left cares too much about identity politics”, etc. Lula government: “broad alliance” in which only the powerful win After the nightmare years of Michel Temer’s coup government (2016-2019) and Bolsonaro’s extreme right-wing and genocidal attacks on working people, there was hope that Lula’s return would mean a big change, especially for the sectors that suffered the most during that period. However, even though the defeat of the far right at the polls was hugely significant, Lula is not delivering on the promises of improvement that were the hallmark of his campaign.  The main achievement of the Lula government, halfway through its mandate, is the installation of the new fiscal framework, or the new Spending Ceiling, i.e. a harsh fiscal adjustment policy that drastically reduces  budget spending on social rights, such as education, health, social security, housing, etc. Such a measure has historically been criticized by the left and the working class organized in movements and unions. On the other hand the  entire bourgeoisie, from foreign billionaires to the average countryside businessman, from the financial sectors of Faria Lima Avenue to the mainstream media has demanded it as something naturally essential for the economy. Now, it has become the main banner of the Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.  Nothing differentiates the PT (Workers Party) government in economic terms from any other neoliberal government: it will take money away from education and health, removing the current minimum investment requirements, it will tamper with the BPC (the meager aid for vulnerable elderly people) meaning no real increase in the minimum wage, among other compulsory expenses. The bill, despite altering the military’s pension and raising the income threshold for paying income tax to 5,000 reais, still has an undeniable essence: to take funding away from public services and the rights of the poorest population so that there is money left over for the financial market. Even so, “the market” is still dissatisfied and is putting pressure on the government to back down from modest measures that could benefit the population and to further advance austerity. In the end, the bill approved in Congress is far worse than the original bill. The government’s few progressive projects and actions, especially at the beginning of 2023, are now being blocked by Congress, such as taxing large fortunes. Meanwhile, pro-market consensus and far-right projects are being approved at a rapid pace. With these results, the question remains: what is the point of the PT government’s many agreements and alliances with the traditional right?  The PT’s narrative is repeated in many media outlets and by many voices: we need to make broad alliances to defeat Bolsonaro, not to mention the number of right-wing and far-right sectors that are part of the executive and run ministries (União Brasil, Republicans, PSD, etc.).  The truth is that these groups  have grown stronger over the last two years. There were almost 63 billion reais in parliamentary amendments alone, a scheme where federal money is passed to members of congress and the senate to be ‘distributed’ in their constituencies that is riddled with corruption. Most of this money went to the deputies and senators of the right-wing parties that are part of the broad alliance. These amendments are used at will by these parliamentarians, strengthening their local electoral fiefdoms. In essence they privatize public policies, since the money technically doesn’t come from the government, but  individual politicians with “good intentions.” This can range from populist measures like buying  ambulances for small towns and supplementing public service budgets, or  for personal favors and in some cases  to strengthen militias and buy weapons to execute indigenous people and rural workers.  Despite all this, the economy has shown good signs: there has been economic growth, around 4% in 2024, one of the highest rates in the world, inflation is under control (although it accelerated at the end of the year and exceeded the target, at 4.7%) and unemployment is at its lowest level in history, at 6.1% in the quarter to November.  The government wonders why the people don’t see this. For the masses who suffer the daily onslaught of informal and poorly paid work, expensive, crowded and time-consuming transportation, shattered mental health, growing social violence, especially from the police, machismo, racism, lgbtphobia, among other daily miseries, it seems that the pretty indices of economic analysts won’t move anyone. And, in fact, what we have seen is that these

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The return of Trump and the fascistic billionaire regime

News and analysis, Americas, National politics  

By Donal Devlin Socialist Party Ireland, first published 19 January 2025 Two related stories featured in the news in the weeks before arch-climate change denier Donald Trump was sworn in to serve his second term as US President: 1.     In 2024, the global average temperature crossed a crucial barrier, exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a level agreed by the world’s governments in 2015 as crucial to remain under to prevent irreversible, runaway climate change. 2.    The terrifying reality of this global warming was brought to bear as Los Angeles was devastated by an inferno of unrelenting wildfires, resulting in tens of thousands of homes being destroyed, 27 (at the time of writing) dead, and countless livelihoods ruined.  “Drill, Baby, Drill” One of Trump’s first acts will likely be to withdraw the United States, the world’s second-largest polluter after China, from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement for the second time. Unlike other governments, his administration will not even make a nominal commitment to tackle climate change; on the contrary, he boasts of his desire to wage war on nature – his characteristically crude campaign slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill” exemplified this. His Presidency will give oil and gas companies free rein to engage in unlimited extraction and fracking regardless of its deeply destructive cost.   Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy is fracking evangelist Christ Wright, CEO of oil and gas company Liberty Energy. In his eagerness to prove its safety, Wright drank fracked fluid in a video posted on Facebook in 2019. Like most Trumpians, he seems blissfully ignorant of the science of climate change. Liquified natural gas from fracking contains 85% methane, which is 80 times more potent than CO2. Trump’s billionaire appointees More generally, Trump’s cabinet is filled with billionaires and Wall Street executives who espouse toxic racist, transphobic and misogynistic ideas and conspiracy theories. These include his pick for Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr, who has spread the disgusting ableist myth that vaccines cause autism. His ambassador to the UN will be Elise Stefanic, who has echoed the racist ‘great replacement theory’, including in her campaign ads for Congress. The new ambassador to the Israeli State is Mike Huckabee, who has spouted the Zionist trope that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” – an argument used to justify 76 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing, occupation and genocide.  Trump is also threatening to impose sanctions, such as travel bans to the US, on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in retaliation for its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister for Defence, Yoav Gallant. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head the new, euphemistically titled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency likely to be filled with Silicon Valley bosses. The agency’s purpose is to devise a plan to cut federal government spending, with a target of $2 trillion—fulfilling the neoliberal fantasy of reining in “big government” spending. They have set their sights on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Fundamental political barriers exist to such a programme. For example, many Trump supporters have expressed sympathy for Luigi Mangione’s actions and hatred of private health companies, which indicates opposition to the gutting of the state’s role in providing health services. Moreover, in an era of inter-imperialist rivalry, notably with China, US capitalism needs a ‘big government’ to continue investing in crucially strategic industries such as the semiconductor sector. Far right emboldened Like in 2016, the re-election of Trump will further embolden the far right globally, given the position he occupies and the racist rhetoric and policies he espouses. He is committed to ending birthright citizenship (that you have a right to US citizenship if you are born there) – criminalising the children of millions of so-called ‘illegal’ immigrants, and vows to deport 11 million of them. Criminalising migrants is not only blatantly racist, it is utterly hypocritical. The fear of deportation and arrest means they can more easily be used as a source of super-exploited labour, which is crucial for US capitalism and undoubtedly part of the calculation. Trump’s election has been met with a real sense of trepidation on the part of trans and queer people in the US and beyond. This comes against the backdrop of a vicious onslaught on their rights and attempts to whip up LGBTQphobia in what are misleadingly called “culture wars”. Trump has vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” and withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide gender transition treatment to minors. This comes as 26 Republican-led state legislatures have already enacted such legislation. Capitalist rule exposed With his victory, Trump is now being embraced by different sections of the US ruling class, including those who would have previously supported Democrats. Time magazine proclaimed him “Man of the Year.” After being banned from Meta in 2020, one of his top supporters, Dana White, CEO of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), has been brought onto its board. Mark Zuckerberg promised to abolish ‘fact-checking’ on Facebook and Instagram, paving the way for them to be awash with racist and backward conspiracy theories. Amazon, Uber, Google and Microsoft, and Apple CEO Tim Cook have all donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. In a period of crisis and systemic decay, capitalist leaders are more and more dispensing with a thin progressive or “woke” veneer that it was forced to put on in the context of the anti-oppression revolts of the last decade. Trump is their new representative in the White House, and he is the living embodiment of everything rotten about this system. His election is a wake-up call. In the face of rising racism, LGBTQphobia, genocide, climate catastrophe and massive wealth inequality, the need to build a multi-gendered, multi-racial and international movement for socialism is more urgent than ever.

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A critique of ‘Analyzing an Age of Imperialism, Nationalism and Militarism’

News and analysis, Imperialist conflict and war, Socialist feminism, PRMI  

By PRMI reporters 20 January 2025 This rather unusual article is published as a contribution to the process of clarifying how we as a revolutionary Marxist, feminist, antiracist organisation in the process of reflection and reconstruction understand and orientate ourselves within the world today. Introduction In 2024, after five years of existence, the International Socialist Alternative (ISA) suffered an existential crisis. A small majority of its international leadership participated in a cynical cover-up, including with the use of gaslighting and falsified documents, of the mishandling of a serious safeguarding case. This alone justifies the decision by a majority of sections and groups to leave ISA and launch the Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International (PRMI).  The participants in the PRMI are fully convinced of the need for a revolutionary international, and understand that to establish one in this current period needs a period of serious preparation, of discussion and analysis to develop a programme capable of meeting the challenges of this epoch.  Disagreements on perspectives, and consequently on programme were growing in ISA before the safeguarding crisis. If it had been a healthy, democratic organisation, debating them would have been a positive process leading to an improved analysis and a sharper programme. But the safeguarding failure, and the flawed response of the leadership demonstrated that ISA’s core leadership was politically rotten, and incapable of making the changes needed.   The remnants of the ISA have now published an article “Analyzing an Age of Imperialism, Nationalism and Militarism”. It demonstrates a one-sided, impressionist and superficial analysis of the global situation which is both based on and in turn enhances the increasingly dogmatic and sectarian approach by those who now claim the mantle of the ISA.  A serious approach to revolutionary politics requires the drawing of clear redlines with that approach – our justification for this article.  Lessons of the safeguarding scandal.  In 2023, the leadership of one of ISA’s largest sections took the decision to take no effective action against a leading member who had been accused of serious acts of gender-based violence, on the basis that he was too important for the section’s work. This was first kept from the elected leadership of ISA, and when that became no longer possible, a rearguard campaign with the participation of the International Executive majority to hide the truth of what happened was conducted. Those involved refused to take responsibility for their actions, promising only to “learn lessons”.  Instead of learning lessons, the rump ISA has amended its Code of Conduct (CoC) in such a way as to legitimise their previous actions. These amendments include one which opens the door to members of a body participating in the investigation of other members of the same body, which clearly undermines the impartiality of an investigation.  Another limits the cases in which members are expected to recuse themselves from decision making on cases in which they are involved only to those in which there are close personal relationships outside of the political work of the organisation – excluding a range of other scenarios where bias and conflict of interests may arise, such as the one that occurred in ISA. A third amendment opens the door to further abuse and damage to transparency by granting the body that made the original decision full discretion over how information is more widely disclosed, enabling it to withhold anything that might expose wrongdoing. These amendments completely undermine the original intent of the Code of Conduct developed when the ISA was launched and are intended to retroactively legitimise the serious safeguarding failures made by the ISA majority. Doubling down on a one-sided analysis The PRMI is taking time to thoroughly discuss all the issues needed for the launch of a revolutionary international.  Not so the remnants of ISA who held a rushed “World Congress” in November 2024 to discuss a long document entitled  “Analyzing an Age of Imperialism, Nationalism and Militarism” outlining their view of current “world perspectives”. It is a distilled version of the one-sided “geo-political analysis” that had created so much disagreement when debate was still possible in ISA – that is, before the unveiling of the safeguarding mishandling sparked a campaign of political mud-slinging against the minority in the leadership who opposed it.  The document is marked by political laziness, accepting at face value statements from bourgeois analysts and commentators. For example, they uncritically quote a NATO communique criticising China’s role in the Ukraine war with the absurd claim “both sides tell the truth about each other’s role in the war” – as if each side does not use selective and distorted narratives that serve their own interests.  It is marked too by theoretical laziness – having long ago ditched a dialectical analysis of events, now, as later explained in this text, the authors introduce a strong undercurrent of idealism – as opposed to materialism – in their analysis. There is a superficial and misleading understanding of “Bonapartism”. A transitional approach is largely missing.  Most incredibly, given the centrality of socialist feminism and all struggles against oppression in the disputes in ISA over the past years, it is thirty pages into the text before women are even mentioned, and the analysis of womens’ struggles is one sided and overwhelmingly negative. LGBTQIA+ and trans rights are mentioned only in passing, and not in the context of any real struggle.  There is not the space, nor probably much value in deconstructing the degeneration of the ISA over the past couple of years, which has left it with a collection of yes-people who simply vote uncritically without seriously assessing the content. So, we will restrict this review to a few general themes.  Dramatic twists and turns Although written just a few months ago, the authors have had to write a new introduction, in which they comment: “We feel that the dramatic twists and turns which have taken place since this text was drafted — most notably the re-election of Donald Trump and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria

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Ceasefire in Gaza: The struggle against Genocide and Occupation isn’t over

Destroyed areas of Gaza
News and analysis, Imperialist conflict and war, Middle East  

By PRMI reporters 18 January 2025 “This is a day of happiness, and sadness, a shock and joy, but certainly it is a day we all must cry and cry long because of what we all lost. We did not lose friends, relatives, and homes only, we lost our city, Israel sent us back in history because of its brutal war” (reaction of a displaced Gazan mother to news of a potential ceasefire, one of more than 1.9 million Palestinian men, women and children displaced since 7 October, 2023).  These words provide an insight into the spectrum of emotions gripping the residents of the ravaged Gaza Strip after the news of a ceasefire broke on 15 January. Widely shared videos of jubilant celebrations drove home the sense of relief at the prospect of reprieve from the 15-month genocidal nightmare. A potent display of defiance, they show the determination of Palestinian people to remain on their land in the face of such unimaginable horrors. It also speaks to their broader and unbreakable desire to refuse to abandon their national identity and aspirations that the Zionist project and its imperialist backers have historically sought to destroy, to win their freedom from occupation and apartheid, and for millions of Palestinian refugees to be given the right to return to their historic homeland after 77 years of exile.  The possibility of receiving aid, medical attention and reuniting with relatives is an enormous source of hope. After 15 months of unimaginably horrific bombardment carried out by the Israeli State, Gaza’s population may be afforded a temporary reprieve from the constant fear of death and destruction, and space to mourn. For many, even the opportunity to properly bury the perished is a small but important solace. But with this comes reflection on the sheer scale of the devastation, loss and trauma that will forever change the lives of those who survive the Israeli state’s murderous campaign.  Fragile and Tenuous Deal  Yet, casting a shadow over the cautious optimism is the intensification of the genocide that has killed more than 150 people since the ceasefire’s announcement, and the knowledge that hundreds more Palestinians will likely be murdered before the agreement becomes effective on 19 January.  The parameters of the accepted deal, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US, were already laid out by the outgoing Biden administration in May 2024. While the latter claimed that Hamas blocked its implementation, allowing the slaughter to drag on for a further eight months, this week, in a case of saying the “quiet part loud”, Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir revealed that it was his party and in turn, the Israeli Government, that prevented a ceasefire from coming into place. This is yet another example of how Biden and his criminal gang have continuously provided cover for the Israeli regime in the context of this genocide.  The deal will, in theory, be implemented over three phases. In the first 42 days of the ceasefire, 33 hostages will be released in exchange for 737 Palestinian prisoners ; it also stipulates the daily entry of 600 trucks of humanitarian aid and a partial withdrawal from the populated areas of the Strip —although Israeli forces would maintain a so-called ‘buffer zone’ inside Gaza which would take about 60 square kilometers out of the enclave. This could amount to a de facto annexation of Palestinian land, further shrinking the space available for Gaza’s population while allowing Israeli forces to maintain military control deep inside the Strip.   On the seventh day of this first phase, Palestinians displaced in southern Gaza would allegedly be allowed to return to the north and by the 16th day, negotiations regarding the second phase of the deal are supposed to begin, pertaining to the exchange of the remaining hostages and of further batches of Palestinian prisoners, a “lasting halt” to the fighting, and a supposed total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip.   A halt to the bombing of Gaza, the release of abductees on both sides and a scale-up of humanitarian assistance into the Strip will undoubtedly be welcomed by millions; but skepticism about the deal’s implementation and outcomes is more than warranted, and any illusions in the ‘sincerity’ of the bloodthirsty Israeli regime and its accomplices must be cast aside. True to its nature, the risk of the regime exploiting the initial phase of the deal to extract what it can, only to derail the remainder when it no longer serves its interests, is high.  Trump’s Foreign Policy  Despite attempts to claim credit for the ceasefire, Biden will not shed his rightful title of ‘genocide Joe.’ His unconditional support for U.S. imperialism’s most vital ally in the Middle East has been repeatedly tested by mass opposition in the US and internationally, yet each time he has run roughshod over it. This likely cost the Democrats the presidential election; a recent survey of 19 million people who voted for Biden in 2020, but did not do so in 2024, identified the ongoing onslaught in Gaza as the top reason for not doing so (above both the economy and immigration). But aside from periodic and mealy-mouthed condemnations of Israeli atrocities, claims to “tirelessly” be working for a ceasefire, and frayed relations with Netanyahu, this never translated into real pressure through, for example, the halting of financial and military aid. Biden’s support for Israel remained ironclad. That Trump so easily strong-armed Netanyahu is a massive blow to the prestige of the Democrats, consolidating their image as a party of war and imperialism. The Biden administration did not ‘fail’ to achieve a ceasefire earlier, nor did it work “tirelessly” to achieve one; it deliberately chose not to leverage its influence, instead actively enabling Netanyahu’s genocidal cabinet to prolong the slaughter for months on end by generously supplying the means to carry it out. The Biden administration also vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on four separate occasions.  Trump is taking credit for an “EPIC deal” as he

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Syria after Assad: rising from the ashes, the struggle for liberation continues

News and analysis, Middle East  

By Serge Jordan 12 January 2025 The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long dictatorship last December has dramatically reshuffled the cards of Syria’s future. A sense of freedom and jubilation broke through among many Syrians following over five decades of tyranny. However, it is tempered by fear and unease, as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), now the self-proclaimed authority in Damascus, starts exposing its true nature, while imperialist vultures of all stripes circle once again, eager to tear off their piece of flesh from the country’s battered remains. It was a military offensive by right-wing militias that precipitated Assad’s downfall. However, this outcome was rooted in the regime’s profound internal decay, the evaporation of its social base, and the inability of its foreign backers—Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah—to gather the necessary forces to keep it standing. As Talleyrand (Napoleon’s foreign minister) is often quoted, “You can do many things with bayonets, but you cannot sit on them.” The Assad regime’s reliance on brute force and external support proved incapable of compensating for its eroded legitimacy and internal weaknesses. The House of Assad has disintegrated at a stunning speed, its torture chambers flung open, its mass graves exposed, and its obscene wealth laid bare—a ruling dynasty reveling in grotesque opulence while the Syrian masses endured abject poverty. Testament of the regime’s cruelty and unpopularity, the unveiling of these facts are also a damning verdict on all those on the supposed ‘left’ (like British politician George Galloway, American journalist Max Blumenthal and the Grayzone website, and various stalinist currents around the world) who for years, under some twisted ‘anti-imperialist’ logic, have supported a regime drenched in the blood of hundreds of thousands of people. Now they use their loud critique of HTS as a smokescreen to conceal this unforgivable complicity. Assad’s systematic decimation of much of the Syrian left and organised labour was in fact a key factor enabling the rise of right-wing Islamist forces, who filled the opposition void in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising.  What about Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham?  This said, while HTS exploited the Assad regime’s crumbling state and the momentum of vulnerability of its foreign allies, it is no force for progress. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Assad’s apologists stand the ‘left’ cheerleaders of reactionary Islamist outfits, who now give the benefit of the doubt to Abu Mohammed al-Julani’s group. Abdusalam Dallal, writing for MENA Solidarity Network, claims for example that “Trust-building among communities and promoting tolerance will be essential for a unified Syria. The new administration in Syria has already taken promising steps that align with these revolutionary principles.” Al-Julani may now sport a suit and tie, projecting ‘moderation’ and advocating for a respectful approach to minorities, but his organisation is indissociable from its brutal history of sectarian violence, gangsterism and subjugation of women. Barely two days after the German and French foreign ministers had travelled to Syria’s capital to meet its new de facto rulers —with Annalena Baerbock even declaring Germany’s desire to “overcome scepticism” about HTS— a video footage appeared online showing the Justice Minister in the new HTS-led administration, Shadi Al-Waisi, personally overseeing the execution of two women in Idlib province in 2015. Further underscoring HTS’ entrenched bigotry, a spokesperson for the new government declared that women’s “biological and physiological nature” made them unfit for some government jobs. Economically, as indicated by both its record in Idlib and public pronouncements from its leaders, HTS promises more of the same “free market” recipes that were the hallmark of Bashar’s regime. The finance minister’s announcement of a 400% wage hike for public sector workers next month, partly bankrolled by Qatari funds, seems to be of a different nature. While a relative improvement, wages would still amount to about $125 a month—in the face of runaway inflation and the collapse of the Syrian pound, this barely scratches the surface of what would be needed for a decent standard of living. This one-off measure deepens Syria’s reliance on foreign donors while ignoring the structural problems at the core of the Syrian economy. The experience of Egypt, which has been heavily reliant on Gulf financial injection, demonstrates that this approach not only comes with ‘strings attached,’ but offers no path out of the unrelenting cycle of poverty for the majority of the population. Besides, some figures from Assad’s economic elite, architects of mass impoverishment, subsidy cuts, and the dismantling of public resources for private gain, are still occupying their positions, when they have not been recycled into new roles under the new administration —such as the former deputy governor of the Central Bank, now promoted to the institution’s highest office. More generally, HTS has incorporated a cohort of opportunists and bureaucrats from the disgraced regime, proving itself not a genuine force for change but the custodian, under a new flag, of the same predatory class policies that have ravaged Syria’ social fabric for many years. Among the country’s patchwork of religious and ethnic minorities, few take the HTS’ newfound preaching of inter-communal tolerance at face value. While mostly in check for now, the spectre of sectarian reprisals or reignited tensions remains acute, a tool HTS could wield to consolidate its power and deflect from its inability to address the population’s pressing needs. Meanwhile, remnants of the former regime and social media accounts sympathetic to the ousted president are also actively involved in stoking sectarian discord, trying to tap into the legitimate fears of HTS’ rule among sections of the Alawite population. These forces represent a threat especially in the coastal areas where many high-ranking military officers, security officials, pro-Assad militia and ex-regime loyalists are concentrated.   As for the democratic rights that millions of Syrians are yearning for, al-Julani has declared that the preparation of a new constitution could take up to three years, and elections up to four. These are not timelines of a democratic process but stall, top-down tactics designed to entrench HTS’s grip on power. While much attention has focused on the release of prisoners

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Discussing the global situation – report of PRMI meeting

News and analysis, Socialist feminism, Imperialist conflict and war, PRMI, Global economy  

PRMI Reporters At the end of December, an international meeting of organisations and supporters from twenty-two countries was held to discuss the current global situation and take a series of political decisions concerning the work of the Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International [PRMI].  Just a week before the meeting, the sixty-year long Assad dictatorship was overthrown. The South Korean President had attempted to declare Martial law. The French and German governments were in the process of collapse, while the world was bracing its shoulders to prepare for the second Trump term as US President.  This was the background to a very rich discussion, which is intended as one of a series to review and correct the one-sided “geo-political” analysis which became the hallmark of the ISA majority. As Jagan said in his contribution: “There is a sort of complex, intermingling of progressive and reactionary openings in this new situation. This is the dialectic that underlies the need to resist simplistic geopolitical determinism”. In her introduction Liv from Sweden spoke of the scenes of joy and celebration and loss of fear as the Assad regime was overthrown, tempered by a growing worry about what the future holds. The HTS does not have a good record after ruling the Idlib region, but at the same time the spirit of the 2011 revolution still lives on. She warned that there is nothing automatic about developments, but “we should never forget the key factor is the presence of working class people, of oppressed peoples, not least women and gender oppressed people, and of the massive contingent of young people in this region”. She pointed out that the imperialist and regional powers, including Israel and Turkey, are exploiting the situation to reinforce their positions in Syria. But what makes the situation different today is the mass accumulation of grief, rage and radicalisation caused by the ongoing genocide of the people of Gaza. Even though there is the lack of independent working class and left organisation here at the current time, the populations are young with little to lose, there are layers that lived through the experience of 2011. This means “The process of revolution and counterrevolution remains alive under the surface, and can break out in different ways in the space that is now opening up.” Liv’s full introduction can be accessed here: Ndumiso from South Africa introduced the situation facing the continent, which he said, is facing not just the effects of the developing new cold war, but the growing competition between regional powers. As none of the world’s major economies, the US, EU and China are achieving the growth they want, they are stepping up their squeeze of the Global South.  As inequality is reaching untenable heights, anger within the working class is growing. But the masses are turning their backs on the former leaders of liberation movements who, having been in power for decades and are no longer interested in helping the masses, are only rushing to defend each other as countless waves of mass opposition develop to inequality and increasingly, illegitimate elections. This is reflected in the description of the South African  ‘Government of National Unity’ as the “Government of No Understanding”.   The conflict between imperialist powers is playing a really destructive role in Africa. Russia for example is funding both sides in the Sudan conflict. But the masses themselves often take matters into their own hands, as was seen recently in Kenya and in Mozambique. As more than half of the continent’s 1,4 billion population are under twenty years of age, while many of the dictators such as Cameroon’s 91 year-old Paul Biya are old, Ndumiso highlighted the important roles young people are playing in the fight against injustices and inequality in Africa.  Ndumiso’s full introduction can be accessed here: Christian from Mexico’s introduction concentrated on the consequences of Trump’s second term. In the context of crisis and conflicts escalating across the world, Trump’s victory is seen in a period which is also one of mass mobilisations and actions by the working class. Trump is not simply an individual, but represents the interests of a section of the American bourgeois. The nominations he is making – Rubio, Waltz et al suggest they want a more aggressive approach to US’s rivals China and Iran in particular. Although, Chrisian said, Trump’s cabinet will continue Biden’s pro-Israeli policy, it contains a number of extreme hawks, which might take pressure from other arenas in the world.  Latin America though is definitely going to find itself under threat by Trump. Not only is Rubio a virulent anti-Cuban advocate, Trump himself sees Mexico as responsible for the influx of drugs and ‘illegal’ immigrants, as well as being responsible for the entry of Chinese products to the US market. His promise to treat Mexico’s northern border as the first line of defence against China does not bode well.  Trumpism too could seriously affect US-EU relations. His boast to solve the Ukraine war in 24 hours and threats to defund NATO are themselves disruptive, there is too the danger of a trade war if Trump implements the tariffs he promises. Whatever his promises though, Christian underlined that to achieve his goals, he will have to confront the working class. It is precisely the struggle by the working class, youth and women that will limit the extent of Trumpism.  Christian’s full introduction can be accessed here: A number of important themes were raised by other participants during the discussion. The depth of the crisis faced by the bourgeois and their institutions in different countries was raised by Philipp from Austria. He pointed out that the new Barnier government lasted just three months, the shortest in French history. As the capitalists are not prepared to accept the New Popular Front into government in part because of its promise to repeal the pension reforms, the government they now propose has moved further to the right. But it faces serious economic difficulties, with 300,000 job losses already announced or expected.

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What has just happened shows that “nothing is forever”

News and analysis, Middle East  

By Liv from Sweden Published 09 January 2025 This is the transcript of the introduction by Liv to the discussion on the global situation held during the meeting of the PRMI on 14 December 2024. It has been slightly edited for stylistic reasons.  I am going to focus on developments in the Middle East. I think all comrades have been observing and been moved by the scenes of joy, relief, celebration, and liberation from Syria. Only a stone could remain unmoved watching the grip of fear losing its hold on thousands and thousands of people in the streets. Or the grief, as people have looked for their loved ones, some who have been lost for decades, or have been thought dead. Looking for them amongst the thousands who have been streaming out of the torture houses and prisons of the Assad regime, where an estimated 13,000 people were killed over the last 13 years.  At the same time, as we share the joy and welcome the breathing space, we of course, have no trust in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham [HTS]. It doesn’t reassure us when its leader, Al Julani, puts up this rebranded image of a more civil, a more western-palatable statesman. As we mentioned in the article, the HTS has been running Idlib province for the last years, running it as you know as a right-wing Islamist, dictatorship, where over a 180 people were disappeared last year, where torture, executions, and repression against protests are standard.  But protests have been happening, something barely reported on in the Western media, a significant protest movement from February this year running up at least until September with women, young people being amongst those playing important roles. They are protesting against torture and effective executions by the HTS in power and calling specifically for Al Julani’s resignation. Whatever the aspirations of Al Julani and the opportunistic hopes of the various imperialists and regional powers are at this point, there is nothing automatic about developments ahead of us. No certain scheme that we can rely on in predicting them.  And while our familiarity with the situation on the ground in Syria and in the Middle East generally is very weak, to put it mildly, it’s really necessary to recognise that the key factor is the role of working-class people, of oppressed peoples, not least women and gender oppressed people, and of the massive contingent of young people in this region.  The people who are out on the streets celebrating today are a factor that can disturb the plans, the trajectory that would see the HTS establish a right-wing Islamist regime across Syria in cooperation with or tolerated by the western powers, or as a cooperation between Al Julani and the various regional powers. The old inter-imperialist framework is not as simple as a chess game where we can declare, as some on the left seem to be doing, that this offensive by the HTS  was a US, Israeli or Turkish orchestrated manoeuvre.  Of course, geopolitical contradictions will also be a factor in creating unpredictability and complications for HTS as we see with Israel’s offensive and the Turkish offensive against Kurdistan. I will definitely not repeat the points that we made in the article that we rushed together. But we cannot boast about having foreseen this lightning offensive and the fall of Assad. Like most we were caught by surprise, caught very much behind on developments. We have not discussed world perspectives on an international level for at least a year. And that points to this discussion being quite initial and underlines the need for urgency in catching up, but also patience with where we are at. I hope that today and going forward, we can really help one another clarify and deepen our understanding, which has many, many gaps. Not only because we have not been discussing perspectives, but because the way we were doing them has had a number of weaknesses that we need to be reviewing as we go.  So my lead off, and further pieces from other comrades, is not going to be covering nearly a fraction of what we want to cover and what we need to aim for going forward. But I still hope that it can be useful.  I’m going to quote some of the things that were being said and chanted in celebrations across Syria, in the last couple of days. Someone who just had their family member let out of prison after decades kept repeating that what has just happened shows that “nothing is forever”. I don’t feel particularly confident in predicting any precise developments in the Middle East in the next weeks or years. But one thing that is certain is that this region after the last week is in motion. And what seemed fixed and hopelessly immovable can collapse. And just the levels of violence and suppression in Syria and across this region are an important factor in themselves. The violence pressing down on millions of super-exploited workers, on the discarded unemployed millions, on young people, who feel the only future they have is dystopian. Especially as millions are massively oppressed as women, as racialized people, as gender nonconforming people, as ethnic minorities and religious minorities, this is bound to be pushed back at some point.  Another thing that was being chanted yesterday, in Friday prayers and celebrations in Syria was “the people want to bring down the regime”, the slogan of the 2011 revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East. Although what we have just seen in Syria has not been a revolution with the masses setting the scene, it is part of the aftermath of 2011 playing out.  In our recent articles, we’ve been quoting this political analyst whose name I cannot remember, but saying that there’s no doubt about it, that a second so-called Arab spring is coming. He points to all the factors still being present – the inequality, the poverty, the oppression. I can’t mention too many examples

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Young people do not trust the former liberation movements still in power today

Africa, Workers' struggle and solidarity, News and analysis, PRMI  

By Ndumiso from South Africa Published 9 January 2025 This is the transcript of the introduction by Ndumiso to the discussion on the global situation held during the meeting of the PRMI on 14 December 2024. It has been slightly edited for stylistic reasons.  I want to focus my introduction on developments in Africa. Generally, we are in a period that is marked by war, genocide, The fallout from the climate catastrophe is growing. This year has been the hottest this year on record due to capitalist activity which thrives off of destruction of the natural environment. The new cold war is still a factor in the situation alongside competition from and between the different regional powers. Economic growth across the world is still quite slow following the pandemic. Many economies in Europe, for example, have not grown at previously expected rates. And the same can be said for China and the US. So, the imperialist powers are looking to squeeze more out of the global sound. 40 years ago, a play was published by Zakes Mda. The play was titled “We shall sing for the fatherland” and described how inequality and injustice continue in post-colonial countries. It described how the leaders of liberation movements turn their backs on even their own freedom fighters once they get into power. In 2024, the same processes are still being played out. Inequality is quite visible across Africa, and it’s a reminder that under capitalism, wealth is concentrated in fewer hands. For example, in 2023, the richest 1% in South Africa controlled 55% of the wealth in the country. This made the country the most unequal society in the world. But there is a similar trend visible in other countries in sub–Saharan Africa. Statistics suggest that last year, across Sub Saharan Africa, the highest 10% received 56% of the total income. This means that people living in extreme poverty are confronted with lavish displays of wealth. This obviously sustains anger within the working class. Furthermore, the poly crisis that the capitalist system is in at the moment means that the ruling class has been adding pressure on the working class. Basically, they have been offloading their responsibility for fixing the system onto the most oppressed in society. So as in other parts of the world, the elites have been relying on using brutal violence to maintain control. And, also, they have been manoeuvring so that they can remain in power in the face of countless waves of mass action. The manoeuvrings of imperialists such as those in Russia have also had an impact on other regions, for example, in Syria. While the Russian imperialists have tried to replace France as the dominant power in parts of Africa, their defeat in Syria has now opened up new questions. It still remains to be seen what impact the toppling of Assad will have on other regions. But the message is so far that it is possible for regimes that seem too big to fail to be overthrown. This year, significant protests took place in many countries, including Kenya, that show how unsatisfied young people are with the current old leadership. In addition to femicide, the youth took to the streets to condemn proposed tax increases in Kenya. Their struggles are no different from the hardships that have been felt by people in a place like Bangladesh, where they’re suffering the effects of the debt crisis. More than half of the 1,4 billion people living in Africa are around or under 20 years of age. And predictions suggest that there will be more than 2,4 billion people living in Africa by 2050. But despite the youthfulness of the population, many countries on the continent are ruled by old leaders. For example, the dictator in Cameroon Paul Biya is 91 years old. Inevitably, it is difficult for many young people to trust the former liberation movements that are still in power today. The government in South Africa, the ruling party has been in power for 30 years. And the ruling party in Zimbabwe has been in power for 44 years. Many young people feel that the leaders from these sort of movements are too old to care about the challenges such as gender equality or climate change. This is because they will most likely not live long enough to suffer the full consequences from these catastrophes. And, secondly, they have been shown to be power hungry and corrupt, just focusing on personal gain. Thirdly, they have failed to improve the living conditions of the populations in general. This year, there have been public demonstrations led by thousands of people outraged by the political elites’ attitude to the disastrous conditions that women face in Kenya, for example.  Attempts to vote out these leaders out of power this year have been met by election rigging in many countries. This includes through the buying of votes and creating ghost voters.  In Mozambique there were places that had 105% voter turnouts, as an example. And this has been met by protests, which have been escalating. They were kicked off after 2 members of the opposition were murdered. And today, more than 100 people have lost their lives in those protests. So, the message from the regime is clear. They are willing to use violence to maintain their decades-long rule. The protests have led to the closing of borders, with other countries such as South Africa. This has impacted countries like South Africa and Zambia since the protest began. There is a long history of these governments protecting one another after allegations of illegitimate elections come out. This is part of the reason why there has been such a determination from the people to continue with the protests. People have called out that the ruling party in South Africa has often protected these governments in other countries. Instead, they focus on scapegoating poor migrants who are just trying to make a living in South Africa, from countries like Nigeria. Between January

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