Category: Social protests

(Marabá, April 17, 2016) We are more than 130 representatives of La Via Campesina member organizations and allies from four continents, 10 regions and 28 countries of the world. We are here in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, to analyze, reflect and continue our collective processes to develop our ideas, proposals, and alternative projects for confronting the offensive of global capital against the peoples and natural goods of the countryside, coasts and seas. More than anything, we come together to struggle for our territories, and for a different kind of society.

While in Paris in mid-April, I had conversations with a number of mostly older, leftist intellectuals: professors, publishers, editors and writers. These are men and women who historically have had close ties and involvement in the labor and social movements. I also went to political protests and attended a socialist meeting. Here are my impressions, just impressions of a few days in Paris.

Recent mass movements in Middle Eastern and North African countries, despite their defeats and failures, showed prospects and possibilities of a progressive change or a progressive mass organization in the region.  Fulfillment of these possibilities requires concentrating on attaining a comprehensive, critical knowledge of the region’s social, political, economic and cultural mechanisms and relations. To achieve these initial goals, Problematica has started a series of interviews with progressive or leftist Middle Eastern and North African intellectuals, activist and MENA scholars. In this interview over Skype, we have put some questions to Gilbert Achcar, Marxist intellectual and scholar of Middle East Studies and Professor of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. He has published in 2013 The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising. A sequel will be coming out soon under the title of Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising.

When the head of al-Nusra declared back in November that the Free Syrian Army didn't exist, journalist Rami Jarrah went to north Aleppo and asked people what they thought about that and found that despite the claims of al-Nusra and some leftists who should know better, the FSA was still around.

The Paris Agreement is being hailed as a great success. But will it deliver climate justice? After two weeks of tortuous negotiations – well, 21 years, really – governments announced the Paris Agreement. This brand new climate deal will kick in in 2020. But is it really as ‘ambitious’ as the French government is claiming?

Almost a century ago, the socialist journalist John Reed wrote of the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as the Wobblies, “Remember, this is the only American working-class movement which sings.  Tremble then at the IWW, for a singing movement is not to be beaten.”  On the other hand, the sheriff of San Diego complained of his jails filled with Wobblies, “I do not know what to do.  I cannot punish them.  Listen to them singing all the time, and yelling and hollering, and telling the jailers to quit work and join the union.”

In response to the failure of the state to manage and dispose of accumulated trash, a series of protests erupted in Lebanon in August 2015 demanding the toppling of the Lebanese corrupt regime and the basic rights for water, electricity and a clean healthy environment. This article provides an overview of the strategies used by the state to dismantle the protest movements, a class reading of the social movements three months into the protests, and an analysis of the strengths and achievements of the demonstrations.

The radical left strategy of working within broad left parties has suffered a major setback after SYRIZA´s capitulation. The answer to this crisis lies neither in continuing “business as usual,” nor in ignoring the question of political power. SYRIZA´s capitulation to the austerity diktat, the ensuing emergence of Popular Unity and the fresh elections looming ahead, have brought the question of organization for the radical left at the forefront of debate. SYRIZA, which used to be the prime example of left unity against austerity, is giving way to an increasingly fragmented political landscape of the Greek left, as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declared his will to implement the new memorandum.

Lebanon had experienced some major protests in early 2011 against the sectarian regime following the regional popular uprisings, but the movement unfortunately ended a few months later, especially after the sabotage of several religious and reactionary parties against the movement and with the complicity of leftist movements of Stalinist tradition.