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Interview with Iranian socialist feminist activist

Featured article, Socialist feminism, PRMI, Middle East, Uncategorized 18 June 2025

18 June 2025 After 620 days of aggression and genocide in Palestine, the genocidal state of Israel drove the region further into despair and instability by launching attacks against Iran. Our comrade Shayda, an Iranian socialist feminist activist currently living outside Iran, answered some questions that give an insight to the situation. PRMI: First of all, solidarity with you, your friends, and family and all those in Iran living through this devastating and traumatic time. I can only imagine the fear, horror and anxiety people are living in right now. What is the current mood in Iran? Shayda: Tehran, with just above 17 million inhabitants (London and New York City combined), is the second largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, making the evacuation orders (read: methods of psychological warfare) all the less realistic. Additionally, the most exploited layers of the working class who are already struggling to put food on the table, cannot stop working for even a day which means they are unable to evacuate. This inability to evacuate also extends to prisoners, disabled people or those with immediate medical needs such as chemotherapy and dialysis, and those with pets. Furthermore, fuel and gas are being rationed which makes evacuation more difficult, and even impossible for those living in farther cities. And finally, Israel has also been bombing roads out of Tehran – a tactic straight out of their Gaza handbook. “I’m scared of evacuation. All I can think about is Palestinian people who held onto their keys for decades and never returned.” This was one of the very first messages I received from my best friend in Iran after the attacks. Her family had to evacuate a few hours after this. The mood is somber, filled with terror, and uncertain. But Iranians are a resilient bunch, and I hope they persevere. PRMI: There is a lot of propaganda from the Zionist regime on the purpose of these attacks and who they target. What is the goal of Israel’s attacks? Shayda:The illegitimate, genocidal, and bloodthirsty state of Israel has long craved a regional war and a ‘Greater Israel’. Israel has no interest in ‘freeing Iran’, and they made that abundantly clear less than 24 hours after the first attack, with tweets so clearly out of their Gaza handbook, stating anyone who does not condemn the Iranian regime is complicit in the deaths of Israeli civilians and will be attacked by Israel. First, they wanted Palestinian people to use their dying breath to condemn Hamas, then they wanted Lebanese people to make dying declarations condemning Hezbollah, and now it’s Iran’s turn. Furthermore, Netanyahu claims to be preventing a “nuclear holocaust” by attacking Iran while having already dropped the equivalent of 6 nukes on Gaza. On top of that, Israel has been saying Iran is dangerously close to obtaining nuclear weapons since the 1980s, this is all a ruse. What were ‘tunnels’ and ‘human shields’ in Gaza, are now ‘military bases’ and ‘nuclear sites’ in Iran. For decades, civilians have paid and continue to pay the price of imperialist divisions and wars in Palestine, and now they will in Iran, too. Additionally, I think these attacks are serving as a mask off moment for Israel among ordinary Iranians whose abuse by the Iranian regime has led them to Zionism, and non-vocal support for Palestine in fear of their solidarity being co-opted by the regime that oppresses them. It has also been preyed upon by opportunist, pro-Zionist royalists for decades – attempting to brainwash them into thinking their enemy’s enemy is their friend. But it is becoming clear to the world and to Iranians that Israel’s ultimate dream is to exterminate innocent civilians across the Middle East and drive the region into a full-blown, further destabilising war, and no country can ever be bombed into freedom. And of course, we have seen how such attempts and imperialist interventions pan out before: in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in Afghanistan, etc. – dictators more ruthless than before, infrastructures non-existent, and lives lost, worlds ruined. PRMI: Iran has retaliated. It’s understandable that after more than 600 days of Israel’s unrelenting genocide many will cheer on any potential blow against the Zionist regime. But what do you say to those on the left who see the Iranian state as a genuine form of resistance? Shayda: I want to preface this by saying there is a big difference between the problematic cheerleading of the Islamic Republic (IR) by many on the global left and the celebrations by people affected in the region, especially in Gaza. In the context of the endless horrors of occupation and genocide and the fact that Arab regimes have not only abandoned Palestinians but are actively complicit in the extermination campaign we have to understand why any perceived blow against Israel would be welcomed and applauded. But then there are many on the global left commenting from afar who theorise and defend this as the IR being a bastion of anti-imperialism – they are my audience here. I think ironically the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality is peeking through here as well. As those residing in the belly of the beast that is imperialism and neo-colonialism, we must not forget how this regime came to power by hijacking a workers’ revolution and has done everything in its power to ruin the Iranian left, and any voices of dissent, in the decades that have followed. Activists, scholars, and ordinary people are still missing, assumed dead as a result of the 1988 Mass Executions which systematically targeted leftists and revolutionaries. Political prisoners taken hostage at various points during this regime’s rule are still being tortured in their prisons. And the courageous people who took it to the streets in 2022 and during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolt are still paying the price: some blinded by the regime’s rubber bullets, some imprisoned for decades, and some given the death penalty. On top of this, the IR is actively occupying and oppressing people

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Socialist Feminism against Repression, Impunity and Transphobia in Mexico

Workers' struggle and solidarity, Americas, Socialist feminism 9 June 2025

By Rosa México. 9 June 2025 The 8th of March, International Women’s Day, is a day born out of the exhaustion and pain of thousands of working-class women who faced exploitation, the double burden of waged and domestic labour, lack of political rights, and systematic violence. Today some of the conditions that gave rise to this day not only persist, but are more cruel than ever. Last year’s landslide victory of MORENA and the election of Claudia Scheinbaum – the first woman president in Mexico’s history – certainly reflected the radicalisation and progressive aspirations of millions of working class women. The significance of this victory cannot be downplayed. But while some significant reforms are being introduced we also see the contradictions of operating within the confines of capitalism and its inherently patriarchal state apparatus. Mexico is a country where being a woman means living under the constant threat of violence. Every day, thousands of women are assaulted, murdered and threatened in the country. What’s more, when we go out to demand respect for our rights and our bodies, we face criminalisation and repression. This year’s International Women’s Day once again demonstrated the great strength of the feminist movement, but it also exposed the systematic violence of the state against our struggle. The mobilisations during 8M were once again repressed with tear gas, beatings, unjustified arrests and harassment in several cities of the country. Instead of listening to our demands, the state responded with violence and stonewalling. In Chihuahua, comrades were dragged away by the police; in Oaxaca they were gassed; in CDMX they not only gassed the demonstrators, but also turned off the street lights to force them to disperse. In San Luis Potosí there were no physical confrontations, but there was a threatening military presence. The compañeras were harassed while government buildings were guarded by soldiers. In Saltillo, police sprayed fire extinguisher powder in front of the Palace of Congress, tear gas was thrown into a play area where children were gathered, and a transgender compañera was assaulted by the authorities, who also used overtly transphobic discourse. The case of Nicola, who was assaulted in Saltillo, highlights the reality that many transgender women face. Being a trans woman in Mexico means living exposed to hate crimes, impunity and job insecurity, violence that is replicated by the State and by the authorities. According to the National Observatory of Hate Crimes against LGBTIQ+ People, in the last three years more than 200 trans people have been murdered. Furthermore, most cases go unpunished and the authorities do not even attempt to investigate from a gender perspective. Impunity for sexual violence While the movement is repressed, the state continues to protect sexual abusers. The most recent case is that of politician Cuauhtémoc Blanco who, despite being accused of rape, was protected in the Chamber of Deputies, where they voted against removing his immunity to prevent him from answering for his accusations before the law and his victim. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened: Senator Félix Salgado Macedonio, who, despite the public accusations and the accusation of rape, has been able to live quietly, protected by his political influence. These cases represent not only the way in which political structures protect aggressors, but also the hypocrisy of the state in condemning women for protesting or defending themselves, while rapist politicians are protected at all costs. How can we trust a state that refuses to punish the aggressors in its ranks? Nor can we ignore the role of the female MPs who openly supported Cuauhtémoc, those who call themselves feminists but chose to protect a sex offender rather than believe the victim. It is clear that the fact that a woman holds political office does not guarantee a real commitment to the feminist movement; a perspective born out of the struggles of oppressed women is needed to achieve real change. In the face of this reality, we need to question the system that exploits and violates us. Machismo is one more tool of capitalism to control our bodies and our lives, that is why we need more than reforms, we need to transform the system from its deepest roots. In addition to this situation, the recent tariff disputes and Donald Trump’s accusations of drug trafficking have led Claudia Sheinbaum’s government to give in on migration issues, for example, with the establishment of more elements of the National Guard on the southern border or mass detention in immigration stations. In this situation, we cannot forget our fellow migrant women: they are the ones who suffer most from the escalation of border violence and militarisation. Many are detained in immigration detention centres, some even with their children (which is illegal), and in these spaces the violence that migrant women already face is intensified, as they are exposed to sexual abuse, physical and emotional violence, and extremely precarious conditions. Women’s Bill of Rights and dual pensions Last March, the president and the women’s secretary, Citlalli Hernández, presented the Cartilla de Derechos de las Mujeres, an initiative to inform women about their rights, including health, political participation and other key issues. In addition, during the same month, the Pensión Mujeres Bienestar began – a pension programme aimed at women aged 60 to 64. This programme aims to support a sector historically plagued by inequality and precarity. Although these initiatives represent a step forward in the recognition of women’s rights, the dissemination of this information does not guarantee the structural changes necessary to eradicate deep-rooted gender inequalities (we saw this days later with the rejection of the desafuero of Cuauhtémoc Blanco). As for the women’s pension, while it is a support that can temporarily alleviate the situation of many women, it is necessary to ask whether such programmes transform the structures that perpetuate women’s economic and labour inequality. Although it is a significant step forward, they only represent a temporary band-aid on a capitalist system that perpetuates male violence. Therefore, in addition to these measures,

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Turning back the clock: Trump launching war on progress

LGBTQIA+, Americas, Imperialist conflict and war, Socialist feminism 31 March 2025

By Harper Cleves, Socialist Party Ireland. 31 March 2025 Trump’s resounding victory in the 2024 election was a huge blow to millions living in the United States and around the world. From promises of deporting ‘one million immigrants,’ to spending tens of millions of dollars in the final weeks of the election campaign on ads with anti-trans messaging, Trump’s presidential campaign was shot through with hate and bigotry.And yet, the reality of a Trump presidency is proving to be even more harrowing than his campaign threats. We must ask ourselves: what do Trump’s actions entail concretely for people living in the United States and around the world, and how can his significant popularity be undercut? Trump’s first 50 days: A dizzying assault on the senses Since Trump took office on 20 January, 2025, he has signed 72 Executive Orders, the first 40 of which were signed within the first week. Most executive orders are typically made within the first 100 days of a presidency as a tone-setter and a way to create a sense that the recently elected president is abiding by election promises. Even so, Trump’s barrage of executive orders has already exceeded the highest number ever signed within the first 100 days of a presidency, with over 50 days to spare.These orders, which range from designating English as the official language of the United States to ‘reducing the federal bureaucracy,’ to ending school COVID-19 vaccine mandates, to ending ‘radical’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes – have wide-reaching implications. They are also designed to be an overwhelming assault on the senses, demoralising people, spreading confusion and fear – and diverting the attention of Trump supporters away from directives that might negatively impact their lives, and focusing their anger dislocation instead towards other vulnerable, oppressed and exploited people. White supremacist in chief Trump’s racist rhetoric was a central feature of his campaign and has continued to be a central feature of his presidency. Since acceding the presidency, Trump has vowed to remove birthright citizenship, deployed US troops to the US-Mexico border. He has halted the processing of migrant and asylum seeker applications, cancelled all existing immigration appointments, and expanded the powers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – in particular allowing immigration raids to happen at previously protected places including schools, churches and hospitals. While his average monthly rates of deportation still fall far below his promised figure, he has still successfully stoked a culture of fear amongst immigrant communities. In one harrowing example of this, in Texas, a young 11-year-old girl named Jocelynn Rojo Carranza tragically took her own life after being relentlessly bullied in school by peers who were going to report her parents to ICE. Such a horrendous bullying dynamic and deadly outcome were absolutely fuelled and normalised by Trump’s far-right and racist rhetoric.Another example of Trump’s racist policy can be seen through his disdain for diversity. One of Trump’s first executive orders calls on federal agencies to dismantle DEI programmes. According to the Trump administration, “merit-based” hiring should be race, gender, and ability blind. The inherent structural and personal biases against people of colour, women, LGBTQIA+ folk, and disabled people mean that slashing DEI programmes will privilege the hiring of white, cisgender men. This is not an accident. Trump and his administration seek to reassert gender and racial hierarchies in order to exploit but also to divide working class and oppressed people from one another to keep them from realising their collective power. Gender trouble and reproductive justice Some of Trump’s most virulent attacks have been targeted at the trans community. Among his first executive orders is one disgracefully titled; ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’ This executive order rolls back policies which would have provided on paper legal protections to trans people and takes steps to bar trans folk from entering ‘single-sex spaces’ such as prisons, sports teams, toilets, and domestic violence shelters. It also provides a directive to only issue identification cards that correspond to a person’s assigned sex at birth. Not only is this a violent act of erasure, but also this change will likely put trans folk in tangible danger. TSA agents, bar staff, bouncers, future employers and whomever else might need to check their IDs will now be able to easily spot a difference between someone’s outward appearance and their government-issued sex markers. Being publicly outed in this way, in a context where everyday people are fed poisonous myths about trans people being abusers and groomers, will lead to instances of verbal and physical abuse. This executive order also has potential implications for reproductive rights. The document defines ‘female’ as ‘a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell (emphasis ours).’ Defining sex and personhood as beginning at conception, lays the basis for establishing ‘fetal personhood’ – an aspiration long held by anti-abortion advocates who would like to ban abortion outright.Such underhanded additions to an already destructive directive make the promise of the document to ‘defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience’ ring hollow. Attacks on trans rights are a gateway to attacking bodily autonomy more broadly, as well as pushing all of us into our gendered boxes so that we are more easily exploited and controlled. Trump’s foreign policy has promised destruction and instability for millions around the world.One of the most stark examples of this is the slashing of the US Agency for Aid and Development (USAID). Critics have referred to USAID programmes as a form of ‘soft imperialism,’ a charity-based model which allows countries like the US to continue to exploit the neocolonial world, preventing the development of local infrastructure and internal stability. This critique is true. And yet, the reality of the situation is that locales around the world rely heavily on this aid in order to mitigate health crises, and its sudden collapse promises death, as well as potentially the return of epidemics. For instance, 17% of the funding for South Africa’s HIV/AID

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Review: Adolescence by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham

Reviews, Socialist feminism 31 March 2025

By Manus Lenihan – Socialist Party Ireland. 31 March 2025 Adolescence is shaping up to be one of the most talked-about TV dramas of the year. Partly this is down to the performances and production. Each episode unfolds in real time, and in a single take. But it is really resonating with audiences because of its themes, especially masculinity, misogyny and gender-based violence, which are of burning relevance in 2025. The series is set in the aftermath of a murder. A 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper in an amazing debut) is alleged to have stabbed to death a girl of the same age. Such crimes are not as rare as you would hope; the idea for the show came from two similar real-life crimes in Britain. Irish viewers will be reminded of the horrifying murder of 14-year-old Ana Kriégel in Lucan in 2018. The boys convicted of her murder, like the fictional accused Jamie, were just 13. This set-up hits viewers hard, especially parents: what if you lost a loved one, not due to them being a murder victim, but due to them committing a murder? In addition, any viewers who have worked in or around education, law or social services will have uncomfortable déja-vu moments as the camera roams around a police station, a school and a ‘training centre’ – actually a prison. Adolescence stands in the powerful tradition of British social realism. Episode Two is spent entirely in the school that victim and perpetrator both attended. The police visit to search for the murder weapon. But they come to understand a great deal about the background to the crime just by experiencing life in the school. Teachers bark orders and over-rely on videos. Students bully one another and are contemptuous and callous. The crime was gestated in this underfunded institution, staffed by teachers too overworked and burned out to give kids the care and attention they need. But it could be argued that this episode is inauthentic: even the most deprived school would be subdued by profound shock immediately after the murder of a student. The show taps into anxiety about how Big Tech is worming its way into the minds of children and how far-right ‘influencers’ are working around the clock to take advantage of boys’ insecurities. Tiktok, for example, will actively promote misogynistic videos to young boys the first time they sign in to the app. Adolescence addresses this explosion of online misogyny in the last ten-plus years. By half-way through, it’s clear that the ‘manosphere’ and ‘incel’ culture have lined up many of the dominoes for this murder. The third episode, where the accused murderer Jamie sits down with a psychologist, hammers home how this culture grooms kids at a vulnerable age. The revelations come out slowly but with explosive impact, such as the role of image-based abuse in the lead-up to the murder. We see how the online hate preachers have told Jamie he’s worthless, which is largely left unchallenged in school and at home. He truly believes he will never have a girlfriend or have sex unless he resorts to manipulation and violence. When Jamie’s sister (Amélie Pease) asks him, in a desperate attempt at a joke, if he will become a bodybuilder in prison, his reply is a flat no. That’s a sore point: Jamie is not an athletic kid, not the type of cocky, physically strong male valued by traditional gender roles. He has learned to hate himself for falling short of society’s expectations of boys / men according to the rigid gender binary promoted at all levels of society. He idolises his father, who superficially hews closer to the ‘man’s man’ stereotype. Many of our expectations are turned on their head. The accused is not a glassy-eyed psychopath, but a child who can be by turns cheeky, pitiful or terrifying. Likewise we assume there must be dark secrets in Jamie’s home life, but his father Eddie (Stephen Graham, who also co-wrote) comes across as a decent person. We feel for him keenly as the police subject their home to a terrifying invasion minutes after he returns home from a night shift; when he bravely protests at his son being strip-searched in front of him; as the evidence mounts up and he flinches away from his son’s outstretched hand. Eddie is overworked and he and his wife (Christine Tremarco) have lost touch with their son’s emotional life, but they are not abusive or negligent. Eddie was beaten by his own father and attempted to break the cycle of abuse. However, patriarchal gender roles are evident in the family unit with negative consequences. Jamie has a formative memory of his father unable to look him in the eye when he fails to perform well in a football match, and another of his father tearing down a shed in a fit of rage. Still, Jamie’s shocking misogynistic violence cannot be explained without looking outside at the broader culture. Eddie is not a saint and his character flaws are clear in the final episode, which highlights how his temper and emotions are carefully managed by the mother and daughter. While his temper was not directed at them, the threat of aggression hangs in the air because that is how Eddie learned to cope, and the consequences of this are felt by women and children in particular. It is true, as the show’s co-writer Jack Thorne has publicly argued, that children are particularly vulnerable to having their lives destroyed by toxic online communities. But it’s worth bearing in mind that people of all ages do irresponsible and harmful things on social media. Those adults who verbally abuse strangers, repeat obvious lies and share faked images have no right to scold teenagers. Obviously, murderous sexism was claiming the lives of women and girls long before the internet. Online communities can be a wholesome and positive lifeline for many young people. The problem is not that social media sites exist, but that they are owned privately and run for profit.

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Rage against rape spread across South Asia

Socialist feminism, Asia 17 March 2025

Joint statement by Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International Sri Lanka and Socialist India Warning: the content within refers to harrowing cases of sexual assault, and could be potentially triggering. Rage is boiling over across South Asia as women refuse to be silent in the face of repeated horrific acts of sexual violence. Last Monday, doctors at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province walked off the job upon learning that one of their female colleagues had been raped at knifepoint after finishing her night shift. The attack was not just an individual crime—it was a brutal reminder of the systemic insecurity faced by working women, including those in the medical profession, who are expected to serve society in what are supposed to be places of care and healing, but are too often exposed to the same dangers of harassment and violence that pervade society at large. By Wednesday, the doctors’ action had ignited a countrywide 24h-strike to show solidarity with the victim and demand greater workplace safety. The echoes of last year’s uprising in India are unmistakable. When a young trainee doctor was brutally raped and murdered in a hospital in Kolkata, mass fury erupted into strikes by medical workers and waves of protests and vigils across the country. Only a few days after that case, a nurse in Uttarakhand endured a similar fate. Such atrocities are disturbingly common, even though many of them never reach national headlines. In both Sri Lanka and India, these harrowing crimes were indeed no isolated incidents, but breaking points of a deeply entrenched reality of gendered violence enabled, normalised and excused by a system that is failing millions of women and girls every day. The fact that endemic gender-based violence and the mass anger against it transcend national borders was further underscored by the parallel explosion of protests in Bangladesh, where an 8-year-old girl’s rape and subsequent death triggered mass outrage. For over a week widespread demonstrations and student boycotts have been rocking the country. There again, the spark of this movement is not a standalone case, but the reflection of a common and terrifying occurrence. Since the protests begun, already several other rape cases involving minor victims have come to light, exposing just how deep the rot runs. According to the Law and Arbitration Center’s data, 3,438 child rape cases have been registered in Bangladesh in the past eight years —and this almost certainly just scratches the surface, as many such cases go unreported due to social stigma, fear of retaliation, and lack of faith in the justice system. A systemic problem Across South Asia, women and girls are forced to live in fear, both inside and outside of their homes. From domestic abuse and honor killings to workplace harassment, gangrapes and public assaults, no space is truly safe. As if this was not enough, when sexual violence occurs, it is not just the act itself that terrorizes—it is the near certainty that the state will respond with indifference at best, and complicity at worst, whether through obstructing justice or shielding perpetrators —when it is not engaged in the abuse itself. In Sri Lanka, the perpetrator in the Anuradhapura case is an ex-soldier —a fact that carries chilling significance in a country where the state institutions, and the military in particular, have a long and well-documented history of systematic rape and sexual abuse, particularly targeting Tamil women. Decades of war crimes, enforced disappearances, and gendered atrocities in the North and East have entrenched a culture of impunity, where perpetrators of sexual violence—especially those tied to the state—are rarely, if ever, held accountable. A similar pattern exists across the region: from Adivasi women routinely abused by paramilitaries in India’s so-called “counterinsurgency” zones, to female protesters subjected to gender-based harassment and violence by security forces during Bangladesh’s uprising last year, women are being taught in the cruelest terms that the State is not a solution, but an integral part of the problem. While governments may occasionally pay lip service to women’s rights, they have consistently failed to address the deep-rooted misogyny that permeates their legal systems, law enforcement, and political and military institutions. Worse still, they often serve as direct perpetrators of violence, reinforcing patriarchal dominance through force and repression. In India-occupied Kashmir, for example, since 1990 Indian troops have gang-raped over 10,000 women, using sexual violence as a weapon of terror for decades. This epidemic of violence is also shaped by caste, ethnic and religious oppression, which intersects with gender to produce particularly brutal forms of subjugation. Dalit women in India, for example, face disproportionately high rates of sexual violence, most often at the hands of dominant-caste men who see such brutality as a means of asserting their social superiority. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Dalit women are raped at more than twice the rate of non-Dalit women, yet the vast majority of cases go unpunished due to the casteist bias of police and the judiciary. Likewise, in Bangladesh, the indigenous Jumma women of the Chittagong Hill Tracts have long been targeted for sexual violence by both the military and Bengali settlers in what human rights groups have described as a campaign of ethnic and gendered terror. ‘Liberty from rape and oppression’ The ongoing waves of protests, strikes, and student mobilizations show that women are refusing to accept the status quo, and in doing so, they are forging new forms of collective resistance. When workers walk off the job, when students shut down universities, when entire communities take to the streets, their latent collective power is being asserted against both the rapists and perpetrators of gender-based violence, and the institutions that have failed the survivors. But a fundamental question remains: how do we break the cycle where we are forced to return to the streets after every horrific act of violence? How do we make ‘liberty from rape and oppression’—as chanted by the students in Dhaka—not just a slogan, but a reality? The challenge is to deepen

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IWD25: Urgent storm of feminist, anti-racist and socialist resistance is needed

Young Kurdish women in mass demonstration

Workers' struggle and solidarity, Socialist feminism, PRMI 7 March 2025

To mark International Women’s Day 2025 By PRMI supporters 7 March 2025 As International Women’s Day approaches, we face a world where the forces of misogynistic reaction are sharpening their knives. With Trump back in power, the most openly sexist, racist, and authoritarian administration in modern U.S. history has started an all-round assault on women, LGBTQI+ generally and in particular trans people, migrants, People of Colour, those with disabilities, and the oppressed in general. This is both a symptom and an accelerator of an emboldened far right that is on the offensive across many other parts of the world. It is out to shore up the same rotten system of capitalist exploitation that has division, oppression, violence, colonial subjugation and genocide in its backbone. “Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes,” Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, said when addressing the ‘March for Life’, the nation’s largest anti-abortion gathering in Washington in January. This “pro-life” rhetoric is aimed at stripping away women’s control over their own bodies and lives, going hand-in-hand with championing policies that destroy lives at every turn. It shamelessly promotes ethnic cleansing in Gaza, ramps up immigration crackdowns that tear families apart and leave migrants to die at the border, while slashing USAID funding which threatens the lives of millions of people living with HIV across Africa. Meanwhile it imposes economic decisions that will cut healthcare, education, food assistance, and social services essential for working class people —and women, children and marginalised communities most of all. Protecting women—or controlling them? Trump himself has declared that he will “protect women whether they like it or not” —a chilling statement that lays bare the patriarchal, authoritarian core of his rule. This is a pretext for domination and control, a refusal to see women as autonomous individuals capable of determining their own lives. And from whom, exactly, does Trump claim to protect women? His own administration is stacked with abusers, including himself, men accused of sexual misconduct, assault, rape, and even sex trafficking of minors. Within weeks of his return to office, Trump reinstated the deadly ‘Global Gag Rule,’ cutting off funding to any organization that so much as provides information about abortion overseas. This is not just an attack on abortion access—it is a direct assault on reproductive healthcare, contraception, and maternal health, putting countless lives at risk. Trump feeds reactionary trolls… While Trump drapes himself in the language of “defending women,” he weaponizes it to ramp up attacks on trans and queer people. In the process he reinforces reactionary gender roles that assign women a subordinate place in society. In a similar vein, the government of Hungarian President Viktor Orban recently cited “child protection” as a pretext to ban the public Pride march —which has been running in the country for almost three decades. As it stands, Trump and his allies are not only echoing but amplifying the queerphobia of the far right globally, providing it with new momentum and legitimacy. They have already undertaken brutal attacks on trans rights: attempts to curb gender-affirming care, bans on trans women’s and girls’ participation in female sports, and the effective criminalization of trans identities. This is a deliberate strategy of social erasure and forced conformity. Trump’s so-called war on ‘woke’ isn’t about merit. It is about entrenching structural oppression and dismantling any policies that give ordinary people even a fighting chance. It is about using bigotry to turn workers against each other all while his billionaire buddies hoard even more obscene wealth at everyone else’s expense. …while workers pay for tariffs As for the mounting tariff and trade war, though it is mostly framed as an economic conflict between major powers, its real burden will fall on millions of working-class people. Rising prices on imported goods, layoffs, and harsher exploitation at work will be among the consequences, as bosses shift the costs onto workers and working class families. Women will be among the hardest hit both as workers —earning less on average and overrepresented in precarious and low-wage jobs— and as the gender carrying the heaviest load of unpaid work in the family. However, these attacks transcend one man, or one election. They are the product of a deeper disease—one rooted in capitalism itself. When the system enters crisis, it takes off its mask, exposing and magnifying its most brutal, violent, oppressive and exploitative tendencies. This is why attacks on the rights of women and marginalised genders, bodily autonomy, and democratic freedoms are escalating across the board. Global war on women Nowhere is this more obvious than in Gaza, where the Israeli state’s genocide has massacred tens of thousands. It has subjected Palestinian women to unbearable conditions of suffering. With hospitals systematically bombed and maternity wards obliterated, pregnant women have been forced to give birth in rubble-strewn streets without medical assistance. Newborns have perished in incubators due to fuel shortages caused by Israel’s siege. Cases of miscarriages and stillbirths have skyrocketed due to starvation, stress, and injuries inflicted by relentless bombings. Women searching for food or water for their families have risked being gunned down by Israeli snipers. The very fabric of Palestinian society has been shattered, with women left to grieve for their murdered children, struggling to feed the living, and surviving in a landscape where Israel has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure. The ceasefire is practically collapsing in front of our eyes as the Israeli regime tightens its stranglehold. Once again, it is blocking all humanitarian aid into the Strip. An increasing number of babies are freezing to death. While Gaza has been subjected to an all-out genocidal war, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank now face an escalating campaign of terror as well. The Israeli army, hand-in-hand with settlers, has been ramping up attacks, invading homes, terrorizing communities, and sexually harassing and humiliating women with impunity. This gendered violence is not incidental—it is part of a broader strategy of colonial domination, aimed at breaking the resistance of an entire

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Malcolm X: Hard Lessons from his Life and Death

Workers' struggle and solidarity, Racism and fascism, Socialist feminism, Anniversaries 21 February 2025

By Drew Frayne, Socialist Party Ireland, 21 February 2025 Sixty years ago el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, known to the world as Malcolm X, was murdered. His life is a map of 20th Century racism, and resistance to white supremacy, in the US and across the world. The personal and political life of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, known to the world as Malcolm X, is a map of 20th Century racism, and resistance to white supremacy, in the US. His powerful life holds many lessons for revolutionaries today – particularly “the white man” (which includes the author of this article). From his childhood experiences with white supremacist violence and state oppression and evictions, to his rejection of soft-left reformism of JFK, he understood that the existence of Black oppressed class in the U.S. was not an accident—it was a necessary foundation for the U.S. empire. Unlike liberals and even many on the left, he refused to argue for what was merely “possible” under the system; he fought for what was necessary. His evolving politics later in his life – embracing a more internationalist, multi-racial, anti-imperialist, and pro-women perspective – demonstrated a radical clarity that remains essential for revolutionaries today. Malcolm’s deep distrust of white liberals and the left was well-earned. Marxist organisations struggled to recruit Black members – Stalinist and Trotskyist alike – largely due to internal racism. Unions historically sidelined Black struggles, treating them as secondary to economic issues, and failing to confront racism within their own ranks. During his lifetime, major unions locked Black workers out of economic power, helping to create divisions within the working class. Today, Marxists tend to focus on correcting his ideas, speculating on whether he would have become a socialist, rather than grappling with why he never did. The consequences of the left’s failure to integrate race and class have only deepened in the 21st century. The subprime mortgage crisis disproportionately targeted Black communities, widening racial and economic inequality. The Great Recession fractured the working class further. The absence of an organised and militant left in the U.S. has allowed reactionaries like Trump to exploit resentment while billionaires like Elon Musk posture as anti-establishment figures. The left’s failure to prioritise Black struggles isn’t just a moral failure—it’s a strategic one. Without rebuilding trust and making antiracism central to working-class politics, the left will remain irrelevant, ceding ground to reactionary forces. The state’s repression of Black anti-capitalist movements, from the Black Panthers to MOVE (the Philadelphia based Black anarcho-primitivist group bombed from a helicopter by Philadelphia PD in 1985), should make it clear—antiracism combined with anticapitalism are the ruling class’s greatest fear. Yet there is hope. Young white people today, particularly young women, are more anti-racist than ever, and their understanding of intersectional oppression gives them a powerful foundation for solidarity. The Black Lives Matter movement showed that meaningful unity is possible, with young white activists taking real risks alongside Black organisers. Now, the global movement against the genocide in Gaza is radicalising another generation, exposing the hypocrisy of liberals and the deep ties between imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. We are not in a revolutionary moment like the 1960s—we are in a period of far right, racist and misogynist authoritarianism ascendancy. But that only makes the stakes clearer. Malcolm X’s greatest lesson was that the struggle for liberation demands organisation, clarity, and action. The power to smash racism and capitalism lies in our hands. We must seize it and organise. Malcolm’s Early life up until Prison Sentence Starting before he was even born, Malcolm X’s family was on the receiving end of white supremacist terror. His father, Earl Little, was a Garveyite, a believer in Black self-separatism, and African repatriation. The simple Garveyite creed, of advocating that Black people build an independent life for themselves, made him a target. The Ku Klux Klan harassed the family in Omaha, Nebraska, circling their home on horseback, smashing windows, and threatening violence. They were forced to flee to Lansing, Michigan, but safety never came – not even in one of the most Northerly states in the US. Their new, predominately white, neighbours objected to having a black family living nearby and after they took a court case against the Little Family, a county Judge ruled to evict them. The land was for whites only. Earl Little of course refused to move and the situation escalated. In 1929, their home was burned to the ground, likely by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group active in the area. Earl Little was accused by police of setting the fire himself, in another act of intimidation, although the charges were later dropped. Two years later, Earl Little was found dead, his body mutilated on train tracks. The police called it a suicide, and the insurance company refused to pay out. Left with nothing, Malcolm’s mother, Louise, struggled to keep the family together for several years, but the state stepped in—not to help, but to tear them apart. She was declared “unfit” and institutionalised, while Malcolm X and his siblings were scattered into foster care. The young Malcolm X excelled in school, often the only Black person in his class, but racist teachers imposed limits on his future. When he said he wanted to be a lawyer his teacher called him racist slurs and told him to be a carpenter. The message was clear: America had no place for Black ambition or intellect. Disillusioned, he dropped out of highschool, pushed toward the only paths society left open — cheap labour or crime. At 20, Malcolm X was arrested for burglary and sentenced to ten years at Charlestown State Prison, Boston, Massachusetts. The sentence was far harsher than the white women who were caught with him. He wasn’t just sentenced harshly, he was made an example. He was given a decade behind bars, not just for burglary but for daring to cross racial lines. The police pressured the white women he was arrested with to accuse him of rape, but they refused. It

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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 20 January 2025

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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Discussing the global situation – report of PRMI meeting

News and analysis, Socialist feminism, Imperialist conflict and war, PRMI, Global economy 9 January 2025

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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