Category: Human rights

Coronavirus Pandemic Exposes Inhumanity of Capitalism. What Can Socialists Do?

We need to change the dominant discourse from one focused on fear of “the other” to one that challenges the capitalist system’s failure to put humanity and nature at the center of our concerns. There are structural reasons that prevent capitalism from prioritizing public health.

Uyghur Self-Determination in the Great Game

Wang Ke, tr. Carissa Fletcher. The East Turkestan Independence Movement, 1930s to 1940s. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2019. 384 pp.
The horrific oppressive order in China’s far-western Xinjiang region—with perhaps a million or more ethnic Uyghurs (and members of other . . .

Read more ›

Indigenous Resistance Shakes the Canadian State

In early February, the RCMP, Canada’s colonial police force, raided the land defender camps of the Wet’suwet’en people in British Columbia, in order to clear the way for pipeline construction. Clearly, none of the political decision makers responsible for this . . .

Read more ›

Nine Years Against Assad

As Bashar al-Assad brutally crushes the last areas not under his control, Joseph Daher, Syrian socialist activist, gave this wide-ranging interview to the UK-based journal Socialist Resistance.

IASWI’s Statement on Assassination of Qasem Soleimani and its Aftermath

Say no categorically and proactively to U.S. warmongering and stand firmly in solidarity with the working class and the poor and oppressed people of Iran, and not the tyrannical Iranian regime, and help strengthen anti-capitalist, anti-poverty and social and economic justice movements in Iran and across the region.

El violador en tu camino

“El violador en tu camino” (“The rapist in your path”), a song written by Lastesis, a feminist theatre group based in the city of Valparaíso, has been sung and danced by women around the world since . . .

Read more ›

Beyond Impeachment: Challenges Facing the U.S. Left in 2020

While the effort of House Democrats to impeach Trump has not undermined his hold on power, the real test lies in taking the battle against him beyond the confines of the impeachment process.

A Juarez Refugee Christmas

As temperatures dip near or below freezing, scores of Mexican refugees huddle in their makeshift tents of layered plastic sheeting at the foot of the Santa Fe Bridge that connects Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, with El Paso, Texas. Many small children . . .

Read more ›

Where Is Iranian Socialist-Humanist Intellectual, Yashar Darolshafa?

On Thursday November 21, five days after the outbreak of a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Yashar Darolshafa was violently arrested by government authorities at a friend’s home and taken away. Since then, family and friends have . . .

Read more ›

Call for Solidarity with Uprisings in the Middle East & North Africa

This is a critical moment in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2019, uprisings have emerged in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. All have opposed authoritarianism, neoliberalism, poverty, corruption, religious fundamentalism and sectarianism. Women have been active participants . . .

Read more ›

“Letter Against US Imperialism” Damages Left by Supporting Iranian Regime Against a Popular Uprising

A “Letter Against U.S. Imperialism” has been circulating in leftist circles. It views the protests in Iran in a reductionist manner and unequivocally rejects them.
The Letter has been signed globally by well-known leftist organizations, activists and academics including Vijay Prashad, . . .

Read more ›

Book Review: Paradoxical Politics of Protest in China

Teresa Wright, Popular Protest in China, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2018
and
Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Teresa Wright’s concise but comprehensive overview, Popular Protest in China, has only become more relevant in the . . .

Read more ›

Stand by the Protesters in Iran!

“We are protesting against problems in the whole system in general. We reached a crisis where we noticed that the system cannot handle it anymore.”
— a protester in Chile.
Our world is on fire. Not only forests but also cities are . . .

Read more ›

The Politics of Citizenship Registration in India from the Perspective of a Bengali Refugee

Human beings have been repeatedly subjected to mass displacement and migration due to war, strife and conflict originating on the grounds of religion, race or ethnicity. If a “sneak peak” is taken into the pages of documented human history of . . .

Read more ›

Unrest in West Papua

Resistance to the Indonesian government continues in West Papua, and it has a history.
Shortly after declaring independence in 1961, following the departure of the Dutch (who controlled the region), West Papua was invaded by Indonesian forces—Indonesia felt as though the . . .

Read more ›

Bolivia: Evo’s Fall, the Fascist Right, and the Power of Memory

After nearly 14 years in power, the government of Evo Morales fell in a little less than a month, due to allegations of fraud and the desire to remain in power. Previously, Morales was a campesino leader, but this time . . .

Read more ›

Idlib Resists

Over the past few days a popular uprising has broken out across Idlib against the hardline Islamist group HTS (formerly Al-Qaeda linked Nusra) which is militarily dominant in much of the province.
The recent uprising began when HTS increased Zakaat (taxes) on a . . .

Read more ›

Will Evo’s resignation lead to Pinochet or resistance?

The coup d’état against Bolivian president Evo Morales has generated the kind of anguish that great defeats of revolutionary struggles evoke: Allende’s fall, Che’s death in combat, defeat in the Spanish Civil War. “Criticism is no passion of the head, . . .

Read more ›

The Lebanese Intifada

Most news sources are construing or minimizing the Lebanon uprising by claiming it’s only due to a monthly Whatsapp fee, but it is much much more than that. Systemic issues are being raised, sectarian divides are falling, and the wall . . .

Read more ›

The Anti-Migrant International

In early December of 2017 the Trump Administration officially withdrew the United States from the UN Global Pact on Migration, claiming the 2016 accord “undermine[s] the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” . . .

Read more ›

Sunday Nov. 3: Livestream Dialogue on Kurdish Self-Determination and Socialism

Two hours of discussion with Kurdish Turkish, Kurdish Iranian, Syrian Swiss socialists to be followed by 30 minutes for Q and A with the Facebook audience.

Top