Sponsored by: Northeast Los Angeles Alliance for Democracy
A panel of Iranian feminists will speak about how U.S. activists can take a principled stand against the violations of human rights by all the powers involved and defend progressive, life-affirming forces inside Iran, the Middle East region and the United States.
Speakers:
Elahe Amani, Chair of Women’s Intercultural Network; board member, National Association for Community Mediation, Emerita, California State University; and editor of the women’s section of the monthly journal, Peace Mark, a publication of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA).
Frieda Afary, Iranian American librarian, translator, author of Socialist Feminism: A New Approach (Pluto Press, 2022) and producer of Iranian Progressives in Translation.
This statement is an invitation to think about responsibility and agency in the current momentous situation. The signatories call on all to open an alternative pathway to counter both the Iranian regime’s warmongering and those who have set their hopes on foreign invasion and encourage it.
The war has started. Every war has a background and various causes. Highlighting this or that cause should not lead us to ignore the immediate cause. If so, all wars become inevitable. The immediate cause that has made this war inevitable is Israel’s attack on Iran. This attack was launched with the knowledge of the U.S., and has relied on U.S. intelligence sharing and what Trump called “great American equipment” which makes the U.S. a partner. It has been praised by the president of the U.S.
Israel’s pretext for this attack was to counter a nuclear threat from Iran. Let us not forget that Israel itself is a country that has been pursuing a secret military nuclear program and has not joined the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It is currently promoting the biggest mass slaughter of the century and has become infamous for its brazen and rogue behavior in international relations. Therefore, it should be the last country entitled to opine on the nuclear programs of other countries, much less use this as a pretext to engage in military action against them.
Iran’s rule by Islamic Jurisprudence shows off its power by repressing women, workers, retirees, university students, intellectuals and others who seek freedom, justice and an end to discrimination. Although it cannot match the wave of Israeli assaults which might soon expand through direct U.S. collaboration, it continues its warmongering.
The regime of Islamic Jurisprudence resorted to uranium to survive. What started as a strategy for survival, gradually expanded. A large security, technological and economic establishment was built around it. The ruling class benefited from it. When sanctions were imposed on Iran, it viewed them as an opportunity to make money by smuggling goods in and out, raising prices in the production and distribution network, and increasing the intensity of exploitation. The cult of uranium and its enrichment organization was placed at the center of the military-ideological-economic multiplex of the rule of Islamic Jurisprudence. This regime gambled the entire wealth of the country on uranium enrichment. The obvious result of uranium enrichment became the impoverishment of the county and the further impoverishment of the dispossessed. The economic and security benefits of the ruling establishment created a stagnation force which led to the regime’s rulers not recognizing the gravity of the latest situation. And now the regime is doing irreparable damage to the country with its warmongering.
However, we also need to view the problem from the vantage point of the responsibility and agency of civil society and political forces that demand freedom, justice and peace. It is regrettable that Iran’s nuclear program did not become a major issue in the public sphere. This is due to the lack of sensitivity to the topics of nuclear militarism, environmental pollution, and war in general. We can also attribute this to nationalist thought that considers nuclear capacity “an absolute right” and to the paucity of theoretical and analytical discussion concerning the role of the cult of uranium in the repressive establishment and political economy of the regime.
We should have turned Iran’s nuclear program into a topic of discussion and enlightenment at the public level. We should have consistently highlighted the connection between uranium enrichment and the impoverishment of the county. We should have tied every protest against poverty and deprivation to this issue. At opportune moments, we should have demanded referenda on the nuclear program, as the program on which the regime is gambling the entire wealth of the country. Now we need to make up for this negligence.
War darkens and polarizes the political atmosphere. The regime will continue its usual style of polarizing the environment and will present itself as the side which can defend the country and win the war. We should not side with the regime. Instead, we should consistently remind people about its warmongering, the failure of its authoritarian plans in the region and its baseness and bullying.
However, there is another effort at polarization which presents itself as the alternative to the Iranian regime’s war of “right against wrong.” In this alternative, Netanyahu and Trump present themselves as “right.” Simply saying that people’s desperation makes them set their hopes on foreign invasion does not take away from the stupidity of this “alternative.” From the time of the Constitutional Revolution [1906-1911] to the present, the people of Iran have struggled for freedom and equality. It is beneath them to set their hopes on killers, authoritarians, racists and enemies of democracy and human equality.
Confusion in taking positions has a long history, and all of us have contributed to it by not doing enough critical thinking. This confusion has become very dangerous. We must play a decisive role in clarifying and distinguishing positions, and shed illumination on the reasons which have brought about the current situation. We call on all to comment on this by focusing on the current war. The main question is how to achieve peace and freedom.
Our specific demands:
End the war: Put pressure on the Iranian regime and international pressure on Israel and the U.S. and their allies who promote war.
End the insane nuclear program. We need to demand a referendum inside Iran.
Strengthen ties among forces who demand an end to the rule of Islamic Jurisprudence but also rely on the people and foundational norms of freedom, equality and an end to discrimination.
In the alternative politics that we seek to strengthen, the principle of coming together is the means and ends. We believe that war and setting hopes on foreign military powers is definitely not compatible with the goal of freedom, justice and independence.
At least five million people participated in 2,000 “No Kings Day” protests in big cities and small towns in all 50 states, the largest yet in a series of national demonstrations. In a festive but defiant spirit, with bands and drummers, the marchers chanted, sang songs, and waved their signs with slogans like “No Kings since 1776” or signs opposing President Donald Trump’s attacks on health care, food programs for children and the elderly, or his attacks on education and science. Some banners read “Fight Oligarchy.” More signs than in earlier protests said, “Fight Fascism!” In all of the protests there were more American flags and chants that expressed a desire for national redemption. Where I protested in New York City people chanted, “Whose country? Our country!” In Philadelphia, the flagship of the demonstrations, historian Timothy Snyder, repeatedly said, “No Kings” as the crowd responded “Freedom!”
These were almost all peaceful demonstrations with virtually no incidents. In Riverside, California a counter-protestor pursued by police was found to have a gun in his car. And in Virginia a man drove a large car into the marchers, injuring one person. Only in Los Angeles where conflict had gone on for days did a few protestors throw things at police and police responded by beating and arresting some, and that was only a small incident in a massive march there.
No Kings Day coincided with the military parade organized by Trump to celebrated the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, but which also coincided with his 79th birthday. Trump spent $45 million dollars for the demonstration of military might that included 6,700 soldiers, tanks from several wars and other military vehicles, while flying overhead were helicopter gunships, and descending from the sky the Golden Knights Parachute Team who presented the president with a flag. Fences had been erected to protect the parade and Trump had warned that any protests would face “very heavy force.” To avoid conflict, the No Kings organizers did not plan any protest in D.C.
The No Kings Day marches culminated a week of protests in Los Angeles and in 40 other cities in 23 states against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, arrests, and deportations as well as Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and the Marines to L.A. ICE is attempting to arrest and deport 3,000 people per day, picking up undocumented immigrants at workplaces in neighborhoods, and even arresting children at schools. In these earlier protests authorities in some cities fired tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets and arrested hundreds of protestors. The raids and immigration local protests continue.
Organizers cancelled the No Kings protests in Saint Paul, Minnesota because of the political assassination in the area of two Democratic Party legislators and the wounding of two other people. There was fear because an active shooter who had been disguised as a police officer was still at large. Police are searching for Vance Boelter, a 57-year-old white man, who is a strong opponent of abortion and also criticized LGBT people. He voted in the last election for Trump, owned several guns, was the head of a private security company and he also had led a Christian non-profit. As I write he is still a fugitive. President Trump, who himself was the target to two assassination attempts, condemned the killings in Minnesota and offered federal resources to the state.
The anti-ICE protests and No Kings Day represented another step forward for the resistance to Trump. Once again, the demonstrations in some places, as in NYC lacked proportional Black and Latino participation. And a movement like this needs more power, needs strikes and mass civil disobedience. The next national march against Trump is planned for Juneteenth, that is June 19 there is a national celebration of the end of the enslavement of Black people.
[The article below by Mariano Rosa is followed by the manifesto issued by the International Socialist League.]
We are going through a stage marked by Trumpist aggression against Latin America, and Mesoamerica in particular, in a sort of 21st century Monroe Doctrine. Undoubtedly, this element is an important factor to take into account when analyzing everything politically and constructing an orientation for intervention in the region. However, we cannot look the other way in the face of the reality experienced by the peoples of three countries where alleged political formations govern, with supposedly leftist, anti-imperialist, even socialist projects, which in reality have been transformed into real odious gendarmes and adjusters of their peoples. For this reason, organizations from the three countries in question, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, as well as from Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico and other parts of the world, have agreed to promote an International Campaign for the Freedom of political prisoners and against the repression in these countries. This initiative arose as a campaign voted unanimously in Colombia, in November of last year, in a Mesoamerican and Caribbean regional meeting of the International Socialist League, with the purpose of being the starting point for a very broad call. From there we advanced towards the Forum that we held last week, where we carried out an exchange and defined the approval of a manifesto and an international call. This important and representative Forum was attended by organizations such as Socialistas en Lucha from Cuba, Marea Socialista from Venezuela, Alternativa Anticapitalista from Nicaragua, members of the articulation of social movements, human rights activists, intellectuals, critics from the countries of the region, who assumed the commitment to be promoters of this proposal. That is why the start of the campaign fills us with expectations that it will be transformed over the weeks and months into a highly convening confluence of collectives, organizations and personalities from all over the world.
Two precedents: campaigning for the freedom of political prisoners in Nicaragua and against the persecution of Jean Mendoza in Venezuela.
This initiative has two very important and successful immediate antecedents, which are an accumulation of experience to be taken into account, promoted by the International Socialist League and the collectives and referents with which we carry them forward in common. On the one hand, the International Commission, with left-wing parliamentarians, social leaders, politicians and collectives of Latin America, with whom in 2022 we promoted the so-called International Commission for the freedom and health of political prisoners in Nicaragua, and the Caravan for Life that mobilized to the border by land from San Jose, Costa Rica to Peñas Blancas, on the border with Nicaragua in July of that year. This initiative, whose first merit was to unify the majority of Nicaraguan exiles in Costa Rica, had the support of groups such as the articulation of social movements, the Nicaragua Never Again collective, the Mothers of April and various organizations of relatives of people murdered, assisted or imprisoned by the dictatorial regime of Ortega and Murillo. In addition to a high regional repercussion that ended up leading to the decision to release a few months later more than 200 prisoners, and later several dozen more. A relative of a political prisoner summarized the experience with the international commission by saying textually “that the International Commission and the LIS had done more for the freedom of his imprisoned relatives in one week than the so-called organizations of the international community had done in four years.”
The other positive experience that we have to take into account was the campaign, first for freedom and then against the persecution and criminalization of the labor leader Jean Mendoza of the Guayana region of Venezuela. Jean Mendoza is secretary general of the Union of Woodworkers and a worker of the MASISA factory, a multinational company of Chilean capitals that, invoking the so-called “Law of Hate” of the Maduro government and the protection of its justice system, has been criminalizing the union protest led by Mendoza for wages and working conditions for the workers in the wood industry. He was first imprisoned for a time and since then he has been persecuted and criminalized by the bosses who act in this way under the complicit silence of a regime that claims to be socialist, Bolivarian and anti-imperialist. The international campaign promoted by the LIS together with union, student, political and social leaders, intellectual, cultural and human rights collectives from different parts of the world, was decisive in the first place, to roll back the imprisonment and achieve the freedom of Jean Mendoza. And since then, at the same time that a trial is taking place against him, the campaign has been maintained to achieve his definitive acquittal and to defeat by putting a stop to the persecution of the workers’ leader. Still today, according to Jean Mendoza himself, the campaign that won his freedom is remembered by the workers of the factory and the union, who made a concrete experience of internationalist solidarity with the LIS, recognizing the merit of that orientation. In short, that is what it is all about. To make practical internationalism, militant, not declarative, to achieve beyond borders, to take in our hands just causes, independently of any imperial interference or capitalist power, and at the same time deploying a broad unity of action in the field of mobilization to carry them forward.
We cannot be indifferent
Faced with the situation of a real open-air prison that the peoples and activism in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba are living, we have decided, as we said at the beginning of this article, to promote a campaign for the freedom of political prisoners and against the repression of these three regimes. There are points of contact between the reality that these three peoples are living and in particular the repression exercised by the governments currently in power. They also have to endure the terrible economic and social situation of tremendous precariousness and poverty, as well as the concentrated privileges of rulers who profit under the protection of power. For all these reasons, beyond the nuances or differences that these countries may have in their recent or past histories, it is clear that anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, true socialists, democrats and defenders of human rights around the world, we cannot look the other way in the face of the reality that they are living. That is why this campaign has a concrete purpose, which is to achieve the freedom of all political prisoners, and to exert international pressure to collaborate in the difficult, laborious resistance, in total clandestinity, in semi-clandestinity, or in conditions of enormous persecution, that the courageous activism that still exists in the three countries is carrying out. And also to put on the agenda and unmask the complete falsehood and swindle of the leftist narrative with which these regimes cover up, trying to confuse, regimes that have absolutely nothing left-wing and are rather their negation. You cannot be a leftist and profit under the protection of power, be a leftist and persecute your own people, be a leftist and do business with local bourgeoisie and imperialists of different stripes. All this has nothing to do with socialism or with anti-imperialism or with the anti-capitalist identity that we do claim. So, although our starting point is to denounce and confront the global and regional ultra-right and the aggressive Trumpism that threatens the region, it is no less important to unmask this false left that does nothing else, in short, than giving arguments to the right wing all over the world to amalgamate the banners of socialism, anti-imperialism and the left to the worst expressions of privileged regimes, privileged bourgeoisies or bureaucracies reconverted into privileged bourgeoisies that repress their peoples, persecute and kill. That is why we rebel against the complicit silence of those who invoke the logic of the lesser evil and the repeated argument of not playing into the hands of imperialism. Thus, by action or omission, they are accomplices to the brutality that the peoples of these three countries are suffering. We do not remain silent, we do not look the other way, we are not indifferent.
Manifesto and international call
We are launching this campaign, expressed in the Manifesto which we reproduce below and which we call for adherence, dissemination and activation throughout the world. In trade unions, the student movement, intellectual and cultural collectives, human rights organizations, social movements and political forces. This is the first task that we propose as a stage of installation of the initiative, for several weeks we want to collect hundreds of adhesions that allow us to add critical mass, and then move to a second stage where with all these regional adhesions in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean and around the world, activate protests, actions and visits with representations of human rights referents, parliamentarians and political, social and civil leaders, to embassies and consulates of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. To request again to those governments the authorization to enter their countries and to be able to verify with a commission of personalities with international recognition and unsuspected of relations with any imperialism, to have access to visit political prisoners and to be able to meet with those who denounce systematic violations of human rights.
In addition, finally, we also propose to form an international independent investigative commission to which we invite independent jurists, personalities from the field of culture and human rights to be part of, to collect testimonies and information directly and to advance in substantiating or taking steps to substantiate what we consider essential: to set up an international tribunal of the peoples to judge in an independent and truly impartial manner, from below, what we are denouncing in relation to the persecution, imprisonment and systematic violation of the most elementary freedoms in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. We want, in short, to set up a true international movement, from a unitary, plural and broad position at the same time, that acts with total independence from the State Department and from any foreign power intervention. The freedom of prisoners and the cessation of repression in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, will ultimately be a task to which we can contribute with this type of initiatives across borders, and which the peoples of these countries will finally have to take in their hands, to self-determine and emancipate themselves completely, opening the way to a transition to a social model that reorganizes on new bases the economy, social relations and the political system, to truly realize social equality and democracy for the majorities for which we are fighting. This is our highest aspiration and the strategy that mobilizes us.
Freedom for Political Prisoners, Down with Repression in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela
We have always carried Nicaragua, Venezuela, and of course, Cuba in our minds and hearts. The rebellions of their peoples against sinister dictatorships in the past, against the subjugation of imperialism and the injustices committed by the privileged classes, were points of reference for entire generations around the world, where solidarity among peoples was the driving force behind victories small and great. Cuba in the 1960s, Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s, and the Bolivarian people rising up in the 2000s against the nefarious neoliberal decade of the 1990s. But today these peoples live under and suffer dramatic realities. And we cannot look the other way; on the contrary, we must activate the solidarity that has done so much good and continues to be vital to the peoples.
Governments and regimes that usurp a false leftist identity are, in reality, executioners of their people. They censor, persecute, repress, imprison, condemn to exile, or kill off every voice of opposition, regardless of ideological affiliation. In all three countries, activists who reclaim their rebellious and revolutionary past have faced and continue to face repression, imprisonment, and death. That past has been co-opted by the current leaders.
The governments of Ortega-Murillo, Maduro, and Díaz-Canel, beyond any differences or nuances that may exist between them, are not leftist, nor rebellious, nor anti-imperialist: they are executioners of their people. They represent economic privileges built under the protection of the power they maintain with repression.
The context is aggravated by Trump’s aggressive interventionism, his threats to take over the Panama Canal and his brutal anti-immigration policy. Precisely, in the face of the threat posed by this global neo-fascist movement, whose apex is the current US president, regimes like the ones we denounce do nothing but fuel the repudiation and confusion they generate with their false leftist narrative.
Therefore, we reject all imperialist interference, which also includes all sanctions or blockades that always end up harming the people, not the dictatorships.
We call on human rights activists in Latin America, the Caribbean, and around the world, especially the youth, intellectuals, critical voices in the cultural field, and socio-environmental, territorial, labor, and political groups, to establish a broad international movement against repression and in favor of the freedom of all political prisoners in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, as well as against all imperialist interference.
As part of the actions that express solidarity with the peoples of Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, this International Movement raises the banner of truth, memory, and justice and promotes the construction of an Independent Investigative Commission to decisively judge these regimes for all the abuses and crimes reported in these countries through a People’s Tribunal and human rights organizations.
This is the justice we believe in: the justice of the people, from below.
We call on you to join us, from wherever you are in the world, in saying with one voice: we accuse the governments of Ortega-Murillo, Maduro, and Díaz-Canel of censoring, repressing, imprisoning, forcing exile, and killing their own people. Solidarity is our banner, because we cannot remain indifferent in the face of injustice.
Man builds a barricade in Paramount, California during anti-ICE protest.
In response to peaceful protests against ICE raids in California, President Trump sent in the troops, saying, “We’re going to have troops everywhere.”California state Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat,said, “This is what fascism looks like.”
In the last three days thousands of protestors against ICE raids in Los Angeles have blocked streets and freeways and set cars on fire. Their actions have been a response to ICE raids, the mobilization of the National Guard, and the violent response protestors have faced.
Protestors have been facing severe repression from Los Angeles police, sheriff’s deputies, ICE, FBI and from the National Guard who have fired various sorts of crowd control weapons from tear gas and flash-bang grenades to rubber bullets..Governor Gavin Newsome , criticizing Trump’s sending the National Guard to California against the state government’s wishes showed that he was a “dictator.” The story below was written on May 8. – DL
As widespread, militant protests against immigration raids have mounted in southern California, home to large immigrant communities, President Donald Trump has ordered the mobilization of 2,000 California National Guard troops, part of the U.S. Army, to suppress the demonstrations. Trump posted on social media, “These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that if the violence continues. U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton, 82 miles south of Los Angeles, would be deployed, though the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military as a domestic police force.
Trump’s act is a legal but extraordinary act, since the Guard is usually mobilized only at the request of the state governor and no president has done so on his own initiative since 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.
California Governor Gavin Newsome, a Democrat, said of the president’s action, “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tension. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.” He said the Trump administration was deranged.
The protests in San Diego, Los Angeles, and New York are a result of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on workplaces and immigrant communities by masked agents wearing military gear, carrying rifles, and accompanied by armored trucks. ICE’s goal now is to arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day and one million this year. Police attempted to suppress the protests and dozens were arrested, put into unmarked vans and taken away.
“Our community is under attack and we are being terrorized. These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers. And this has to stop,” said Angelica Salas, the executive director of CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in L.A.
Caleb Soto, of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said that the 70 to 80 arrested at one raid in L.A. had been “kidnapped” by masked men who had shown no arrest warrants.
“As Mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place,” said Democratic Party Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, referring to the recent raids. “My Office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.” Over a third of the population of Los Angeles, 1.5 million people, are immigrants and the city council voted to make L.A. a sanctuary city in 2024 but have refused to cooperate with immigration authorities since 1979.
“While the LAPD will continue to have a visible presence in all our communities to ensure public safety, we will not assist or participate in any sort of mass deportations,” Police Chief McDonnell said. And he added, the department would not attempt to determine anyone’s immigration status.
Protests took place at the sites of the raid, at federal immigrant detention centers, and federal administration buildings. Union activists came out to support the immigrants. David Huerta, California president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was arrested by the police at one such protest for allegedly blocking an ICE vehicle. His union says he was “peacefully observing” the raid. SEIU, which represents healthcare workers, janitors, social workers, and city and state employees, has 750,000 members in California.
Dozens of people have been arrested, some on serious federal charges.
In the Los Angeles suburb of Paramount, protestors barricaded streets as they confronted Border Patrol agents in military gear. The air was filled with teargas and pepper spray, protestors stoned ICE and police vehicles. Protestor Ron Gochez, an award winning public school teacher said that the protests were necessary. He called it, “A beautiful day of resistance.’
Suddenly, the resistance is real, in the streets, and fighting.
I first met Jorge Mújica about forty years ago when my wife and I were living in Mexico. I was working with and writing about Mexican workers and their unions and my wife Sherry Baron was studying workers’ health and safety. Jorge was then organizing workers just as he is today. I remember he gave the two of us a wonderful educational talk about mapping health and safety hazards in the workplace.
Since 1987 he has lived in the United States and for more than a dozen years, he has worked for Arise in Chicago as a strategic campaign organizer with immigrant workers. It is estimated that Chicago has 820,000 Latino immigrants and that the metropolitan area has over two million. Three quarters identify as Mexican. Most are workers, many of them employed in service industries, manufacturing, warehouses, construction, landscaping, and cleaning. Employers often take advantage of immigrant workers and today the U.S. government is threatening to deport undocumented immigrants. Jorge and his colleagues teach them their rights and help them find union representation.
I interviewed him for a Swiss organization interested in knowing more about and supporting the immigrant movement in the United States. – Dan La Botz
In my view, his piece attempts to dampen or minimise criticisms of the increasingly authoritarian and regressive course taken by the Venezuelan political system under Nicolás Maduro. His defence of the Maduro government also reflects a broader problem among some sectors of the left: a tendency to remain tied to decaying regimes, while lacking any ideas and imagination to chart out alternative paths that are both critical and rooted in popular struggles. Such political clarity is urgently needed in a world where far-right movements and authoritarianism are gaining ground.
Ellner’s central argument is that criticism of Maduro should be more contextualised and nuanced, and that greater rigour is needed. However, his article simply amounts to a series of so-called “nuances” to Hetland’s arguments that, in effect, justify Maduro’s repression of workers, destruction of wages and implementation of a highly aggressive neoliberal regime. Paradoxically, Ellner’s own arguments lack nuance. He makes glaring omissions on issues that are essential to any analysis seeking to avoid simplistic binaries, especially one grounded in solidarity with popular struggles. In the end, Ellner falls into the very trap he criticises. As for rigour, it is worth noting Ellner often fails to provide any of the data he demands of Hetland. In some cases, his sources are no more than statements from Venezuelan government officials. For this reason, it remains necessary to carry out the work of critical nuance that Ellner claims to value — but unfortunately does not practice.
Sanctions as a tool to silence criticism and dissent
Ellner raises several key issues. For example, he argues international sanctions should be central to any analysis of the situation in Venezuela. I want to make my position clear from the outset: these sanctions are entirely condemnable, especially coming from a government such as the United States, with its long-standing tradition of interventionism and neo-colonialism. I would also add that this is an almost universally shared position on the Venezuelan left — diverse as it is — which has consistently rejected sanctions. In fact, these measures are broadly unpopular across Venezuelan society. Even some liberal scholars, intellectuals and opposition figures have spoken out against them, though others have not. The problem, however, is that Maduro’s government has turned the issue of sanctions into a tool to suppress criticism and debate, and the perfect excuse to justify an ongoing series of economic and political abuses.
If we are going to talk about nuance and rigour in relation to sanctions, then it is only fair to ask whether these measures actually triggered the worst crisis in Venezuela’s history, and to what extent they have shaped its course. Ellner refers to the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in 2015, but those were limited to freezing assets and bank accounts in the US, as well as revoking visas and restricting entry for Venezuelan government officials and key figures. What he does not mention is that by 2017 — when the first sanctions targeting Venezuela’s economy were introduced — the country’s GDP had already plummeted by 31.9% from 2013, imports had collapsed by 81.76% compared to 2012, inflation was the highest in the world at 438.1%, and external debt had soared to a staggering $148.3 billion.1 In fact, the slow decline of oil production, along with the deterioration of numerous state-run industries and key agricultural sectors such as sugarcane and corn, began during the Hugo Chávez years. Something was already deeply wrong then, stemming from the deepening of Venezuela’s oil rentier model during Chávez’s government together with a disastrous administrative and economic management. This all unfolded at a time when Chávez enjoyed nearly 70% popularity and benefited from record-high oil prices, years of unprecedented revenues, control over state institutions, and significant regional influence and alliances.
Ellner fails to mention this context, as well as the rather significant detail of the huge corruption scandals that drained public coffers and harmed the population. These include: foreign exchange fraud through Cadivi; multiple large-scale corruption cases within the state oil company PDVSA, the state food supply network PDVAL and the China-Venezuela Fund; various infrastructure project scams; and a long, ongoing list of other such examples. Ultimately, the widely-promoted narrative of an “economic war” was, in reality, the work of a network of actors that included government officials (sometimes at the highest levels), working in conjunction with international and business-sector elites. This process has continued under Maduro’s government — something even authorities have acknowledged, with the arrests of several high-ranking officials (including multiple presidents of PDVSA) and the revelation of more recent scandals involving the oil company and the state’s cryptocurrency regulator, Sunacrip, that entailed more than $21 billion in uncollected revenue. Given the scale and continuity of this plunder, it is hard to see this as just anomalies or the work of a few unscrupulous individuals. A truly critical thinker must recognise it as a systematic and large-scale mechanism for the illicit appropriation of wealth.
Some may wonder how the Chávez government, which enjoyed huge popularity during the first decade of this century, sank to a disapproval rating hovering between 70-80% under Maduro. The immeasurable suffering of Venezuelans — soaring poverty, collapsed hospitals and basic services, etc — stands in stark contrast to the luxurious, excessive lifestyles of the ruling elites. These elites have luxury apartments in Dubai or Europe, ride around in high-end SUVs, dine in gourmet restaurants, and throw extravagant parties. This reality is deeply rooted in the consciousness of the Venezuelan people and embedded in the national imagination. It explains the widespread loathing of Maduro’s government, the hollowing out of popular support, and the huge voter turnout for the July 28, 2024 presidential elections by a population desperate to end what they perceive as a nightmare. It also helps explain the protests that erupted on July 29-30 against electoral fraud — mobilisations that were primarily driven by working-class neighbourhoods such as Petare, La Vega, El Valle and Catia.
I watched in astonishment as these protests were criminalised by sectors of the international left who, with chilling ease, labelled them as demonstrations by “people from the far right,” thereby legitimising the brutal repression that unfolded in the days and weeks that followed. We have seen a similar criminalisation of popular protest under right-wing presidents such as Iván Duque in Colombia and Sebastián Piñera in Chile during the huge 2019 protests. If we are to talk about nuance, then there should be deep reflection on the reasons behind the huge public discontent in Venezuela. Followers and supporters of Maduro’s government seem to always prefer to look for external scapegoats and criminalise dissenters rather than take a hard look at how and why they lost the support and connection with the population.
Sanctions have had a subsequent negative impact on the course of the crisis and indeed made recovery from Venezuela’s economic free fall more difficult. But they do not explain the root causes of the societal collapse we have lived through. Nor the fact that this entire process has unfolded within a framework that both triggers and enables wealth appropriation, and that emerged from the heart of the Bolivarian government itself. The official sanctions narrative functions as a powerful mechanism for neutralising debate and criticism — and has unfortunately been adopted by a section of the international left to avoid confronting our reality.
Clinging to narratives of the past to justify the disaster of the present
There is a persistent tendency to cling to arguments from the Chávez government era — when oil revenue was widely distributed throughout society, the nominal monthly wage was US$400, and popular participation in politics was encouraged — and transpose them onto a present reality that has dramatically changed. Several examples can be mentioned. Ellner refers to the communes, even though he himself acknowledges that under Maduro they were marginalised for years. He refers to a “renewed push” to support communes, but does not mention that this marginalisation was part of a broader process of demobilisation and hollowing out of popular organisation, which had very harmful effects, such as stripping the communal idea of its original meaning, with the concept reduced by Maduro to the CLAP food distribution system. Today, the commune proposal has been reinterpreted as an instrument to facilitate the state/government’s territorial control within a political system that has evolved into a kind of neopatrimonial model.
When people talk about the “Bolivarian process,” we are no longer referring to a system based on a national-popular alliance with an emphasis on the most disadvantaged classes. That formula has been drastically reconfigured: the alliance with the military has multiplied the presence of security forces throughout the state, while priority is given to coordinating with the main national business federation (Fedecámaras), working with evangelical church elites, strengthening partnerships with US oil corporation Chevron and Chinese capital in the Orinoco Oil Belt, and supporting bankers and new elites born from within the so-called “revolution”. Importantly, practically all capitalists operating in Venezuela are profiting from the country’s wealth under shamefully preferential conditions, with generous advantages and without any restrictions or mechanisms of accountability. Laws such as the Anti-Blockade Law, the Law on Special Economic Zones, and the Law for the Protection of Foreign Investment, along with tax exemption decrees for companies, backdoor privatisations, Chevron’s License LG41, and the agreements with the China National Petroleum Corporation, among many other examples, demonstrate this reality. What is striking is not that most leftist forces in the country — especially the most combative — have strongly opposed this surrender of national assets, but that the only left still supporting, and even applauding, all this is the pro-Maduro left.
Another example of the disconnect between an outdated narrative and the current regime is Ellner’s insistence that we must not forget the role of the (traditional) Venezuelan opposition when understanding the “scope of the war against Venezuela.” Undoubtedly, this opposition has played a part in the country’s political decay — through certain insurrectionary cycles driven by its more radical wing having further degraded political life, and with its minimal grassroots organising and very few efforts to build real alternatives. What the author fails to explain is how the government ended up crushing not only the right-wing opposition — which lies in ruins, helping explain the rise of María Corina Machado — but also any political or social force that dared oppose it. This included intervening into and splitting traditional parties, such as Acción Democrática and Copei, to impose new leaderships handpicked by the government. The end result is the kind of “opposition” we now see presented to the public. It also included the persecution and imprisonment of union members, community leaders, social organisations and NGOs. Ellner should have highlighted the arrest of grassroots Chavistas and communal organisers, the use of torture in Venezuelan prisons, the crackdown on the Communist Party of Venezuela and the chilling effect of the “Law Against Hate.” But on such sensitive issues, there are no “nuances” in his text — and that is a serious omission.
Ultimately, Ellner does not acknowledge that Venezuela today is not the Venezuela of 2017 or 2019. We face a different scenario today — one shaped by a system of power without any real checks and balances. Any analysis must evolve, just as history does.
Nuancing the destruction of a country? On the limits of the unacceptable
One of Ellner’s conclusions — in my view quite striking — is that Maduro’s mistakes were forced by Washington. This kind of argument reflects a Manichaean outlook, in which a dark, malevolent force (the US) pushes Maduro into wrongdoing. Seen this way, the other side is not truly “bad,” it is merely forced to act that way. It is the kind of reasoning you would expect from someone who follows a leader out of sheer faith. It is difficult to respond with reason to someone who portrays the Maduro government as a victim while failing to mention in the same article the victims within Venezuelan society — those produced by the regime’s decay and predatory turn. Ellner — and here I agree with Hetland — ends up constructing a narrative of justification. For example, Ellner justifies the new alliances with Fedecámaras and their policies, but says nothing about the deliberate destruction of wages or the persecution and imprisonment of workers.
Perhaps at the heart of all this is the question of the limits of the unacceptable. That there are things that quite simply no longer allow for nuance. That there are things that have come to embody the very worst of the horrors the left once spent decades denouncing. That today’s geopolitical dynamics — as abominable as they may be — are not enough to “nuance” the barbarity and devastation of a country carried out by its own government, and in the name of nothing.
Those who advocate for a supposed “critical support for Maduro” are not far removed in their logic from those who might claim critical support for El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega or Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In the end, anything can be nuanced, anyone can be made a victim. Donald Trump, for instance, can be the victim of the US “Deep State”, Benjamin Netanyahu a victim of Hamas. The argument can be stretched to cover anything — but it always only serves to justify abuse. In the end, such a path can only lead us astray — into a world where we relativise barbarism and plunder, turning them into the new global “normal”. Once there, the left will have lost its way forever.
Epilogue
One of the many questions that can be raised about Venezuela is this: if that section of the international left that supports the Maduro government is fully aware of the regime’s abuses and corruption but considers it a matter of “honour” to not support traditional opposition leaders or parties, why not instead dedicate their energy, resources, support and advocacy to strengthening a left-wing opposition that might someday challenge for political power? If it is truly about preserving a leftist identity with integrity, why not build bridges with sections of the left opposition inside Venezuela? Why not help develop an alternative that is not neoliberal, but rooted in popular demands — a political project with national reach, capable of uniting diverse organisations and defending wages, workers, popular sovereignty, public education, and other historic demands?
These questions seem crucial to me and open the door to other much-needed debates.
International Children’s Day is June 1 in Ukraine, Russia, and 47 other countries. This Children’s Day, the Ukraine Solidarity Network (US) calls for the freedom and return of the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children whom Russia has kidnapped and for ending the mass starvation of millions of children in Palestine, Sudan, and other sites of widespread child hunger such as Haiti, South Sudan, and Mali.
Kremlin documents dated a week before the full scale invasion on February 18, 2022 detail plans to abduct Ukrainian children and bring them to Russia under the guise of “humanitarian evacuations.”
Ukraine has verified Russia’s deportation of 19,456 children to date, but Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab places the number of deported children closer to 35,000 as of March 19, 2025.
Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, are under indictment by the International Criminal Court for abducting children.
Russia says it “accepted” 700,000 Ukrainian children between February 2022 and July 2023.
Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has documented 43 Russian children’s camps housing deported children: at least 32 are explicitly for “re-education.” Ukrainian children are indoctrinated, punished for Ukrainian language and culture and forced to participate in “military-patriotic” training courses.
Abducted teenage Ukrainian boys forced to accept Russian citizenship face conscription into the Russian army to fight against their fellow Ukrainians. https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/fact-sheet-russias-kidnapping-and-re-education-of-ukraines-children/
Trump has cut funding for a program that tracks abducted Ukrainian children, and DOGE may have permanently deleted a database with crucial information.
A negotiated outcome to the war on terms other than Ukraine’s will result in an irreversible loss of Ukraine’s children and its future and irreversible harm to the children.
Russia’s war against the children of Ukraine joins the war against Palestinian children being conducted by the Zionist regime of Israel, with the full support of the Trump regime in the USA, as a ghastly crime against children and humanity.
As of this writing, every child in Gaza is severely undernourished and facing imminent death by starvation due to Israel’s having prohibited entry of food, water, and other necessities into Gaza.
According to the UN, at least 100 children have been killed or injured every day in Gaza since Israeli strikes resumed on March 18, even as the United States underscores continued support for Israel.
From October 2023 to Palestine Children’s Day on April 5, the Palestinian Ministry of Education on Saturday said more than 17,000 children had been killed in Gaza, about 1,100 children had been detained by the Israeli army, and about 39,000 others had lost one or both parents.
Israel detained 1,200 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank in the same period.
More than 9,500 Palestinians including women and over 350 children are currently held in Israeli prisons under harsh conditions.
Since October 2023, around 1.9 million people – including thousands of children – have gone through repeated forced displacement amid bombardment, fear, and loss according to UNRWA.
Israel has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians and wounded 118,366 in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children. Thousands of others missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
The atrocities that Palestinian children have undergone since October 2023 are but a continuation of decades of deprivation and attacks by Israel.
Sadly, the horrific civil war in Sudan may have even deadlier results than either Russia’s war against Ukraine or Israel’s war against Palestine.
Sudan is becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history as the ongoing protracted famine puts hundreds of thousands at imminent risk of death.
24.6 million people are acutely food insecure and 638,000 face catastrophic levels of hunger.
Over 1 in 3 children face acute malnutrition.
12.5 million people have been forced from their homes.
The World Food Program (WFP) is supporting over 3 million Sudanese people each month, but the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid will cause radical cuts in this aid. WFP spent $9.8 billion on aid last year, and nearly half of the funds were contributed by the U.S. This year, it’s facing a projected 40% reduction in funding.
Israel must immediately end its blockade and its war on Palestine!
All US medical and food aid for children and others in Sudan and everywhere else must be immediately restored!
The Ukraine Solidarity Network (US) calls on the US government and the international community to insist that Russia adhere to international law and return Ukrainian children to Ukraine and to sanction Israel diplomatically, economically, and militarily until its food blockade of Gaza is lifted. We also call on the US government to restore its funding to the World Food Program to feed hungry children in Sudan and other famine areas.
We call on the United States and European nations to cease providing weapons and other help to Israel’s war on Palestinian children and adults and send military aid to Ukraine for its self-defense.
In the face of the ongoing genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza, with Human Rights Watch warning “Latest Israeli Plan Inches Closer to Extermination,” it is not surprising that people with decent instincts would feel desperate to do something to stop the carnage. But the path chosen by Elias Rodriguez, who shot and killed two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, was not the solution. On the contrary, it was a tragedy and wrong on multiple levels.
Most people are not absolute pacifists, but believe that there are times where violence is morally justified. But the moral bar for using violence is a high one, and violence must be focused on those who bear particular responsibility for harm. That’s why international humanitarian law makes a crucial distinction between combatants and noncombatants—a distinction that has been violated by Israel on a vast scale. Low-level embassy employees are not combatants nor are they policymakers. Killing them was morally wrong. That they worked for the foreign ministry of a state engaged in mass crimes was condemnable, but not a capital offense.
Moreover, to be just, violence must offer the best chance of stopping the harm. Yet there is no chance at all that the deaths of the staffers will cause Israel or its American enablers to reverse course. On the contrary, the incident is already being used to justify further repression of the pro-Palestine movement.
From the reports of the shooting, one wonders whether Rodriguez even knew for certain that his victims worked for the embassy. The crowd leaving the event at the Capital Jewish Museum included diplomats, young Jewish professionals, and keynote speakers from two aid organizations, one of which suffered the loss of three volunteers in Gaza, killed, in the organization’s words, “when their residence was attacked by Israeli forces without any warning.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the “terrorist who cruelly gunned [the pair] down did so for one reason and one reason alone—he wanted to kill Jews.” This is preposterous. Nothing in Rodriguez’s “Explication“ or his social media history that has been extensively pored through shows that he held any animus toward Jews qua Jews rather than towards the Israeli state and its terrible crimes. It’s hard to imagine that he would have acted as he did in the absence of Israeli atrocities that have reached the level of genocide. He shouted his support of Palestinians, not antisemitic slogans. On his window in Chicago he had a sign reading “Tikkun Olam means FREE PALESTINE.”
But still, by targeting a mostly Jewish meeting organized by the American Jewish Committee held in a Jewish space without an explicitly pro-Israel agenda, Rodriguez has blurred what should be a bright line between anti-Jewish and anti-Israel actions. Israel apologists have long been working to deny the distinction; unfortunately Rodriguez has muddied it further. Whatever his intentions, his victims will not just be the two staffers, but the people of Palestine. As a result of his actions, attention will be diverted from the ongoing mass slaughter in Gaza to the deaths of the young couple.
The pro-Palestinian movement had been making important strides in recent weeks. The latest Gallup poll showed that fewer than half of Americans support Israel, and that among those who identify as Democrats, Palestinians were supported over Israel by an incredible 59% to 21%. According to an Economist-YouGov poll, a plurality of voters want to decrease military aid to Israel, particularly among Democrats. And though Congress lags far behind the public, opposition has been slowly growing there to the U.S. blank check to Israel and to the enforced starvation.
Now, however, the killing of the staffers will be used to try to discredit the Palestinian cause. There will be all sorts of further clamping down against activists: more weaponized charges of antisemitism, more surveillance, more arrests, more deportations. This repression will not be new. But it will have more public support than before. Already the print New York Times has run a story on its front page:
“Attack Tangles Pro-Palestinian Movement’s Path”
“The slaying of two Israeli Embassy workers cast[s] a harsh spotlight on pro-Palestinian groups in the United States. Activists, who were already being scrutinized, could face further pushback.”
And on the op-ed page, they offered up a piece by the media director at the Consulate General of Israel in New York with the print title “This Is the Tragic Consequence of Conflating Jews and Israel”—ignoring the strong presence of Jews and Jewish organizations in the movement for Palestinian liberation.
To be sure, terrorism has sometimes “worked,” particularly when carried out by powerful states (think of Guernica or Hiroshima). But the historical record of terror by Palestinians has been to strengthen the Israeli right. Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians in the mid-1990s or during the Second Intifada, or rockets fired at Sderot, led not to justice but to more repression, the disappearance of the Israeli left, and greater racist intolerance among the Israeli public. Likewise, October 7 did not advance the Palestinian cause, but set it back horribly. And the assassinations of low-level Israeli officials in the United States will certainly not help in furthering Palestinian interests.
The survival of the Palestinian people will alas depend on political change in the United States. That will require the growth of the U.S. pro-Palestine movement, building support as widely as possible. Such a movement needs to maintain its moral clarity—both for its own sake and to have any chance of success.
This spoof image found on Facebook, based on Trump’s “Liberation Day” presentation of new U.S. tariffs, only spplying them to other-worldly places, captures the sense of astonishment in the public as he announced them, and then post-poned them, them, and then restored them, and then….
Trump’s April 2025 tariff blitz ignited market chaos and deepened rifts within his own coalition. Beneath the turmoil lies a battle between technocrats, ultranationalists, and anti-imperial populists, all vying to reshape—or destroy—American global power.
On April 2, 2025, Donald Trump declared a “Day of Liberation” and slapped massive tariffs on most countries—excluding Russia but including a 50% tariff on Lesotho. The standard Left argument is that Trump’s tariffs represent capital’s warfare against the working class in response to the crisis of global capitalism. Of course, there’s some validity to that view, but it tends to operate at an excessively high level of abstraction.
More immediately, it doesn’t explain the ferocious backlash to tariffs from multiple fractions of capital, both within and beyond the Trump coalition. After the tariff tsunami, Elon Musk called Trump’s economic advisor Peter Navarro “a moron and dumber than a sack of bricks.” Meanwhile, liberal mainstream media outlets screamed bloody murder, portraying Trump not only as dumb but deranged. The frenzy only intensified when the stock market meltdown carried over into the bond market, which, as financial orthodoxy tells us, isn’t supposed to happen.
Trump responded by postponing most of the tariffs for 90 days, even as he ramped up the trade war with China. In just over a week, Wall Street went ballistic, the dollar rapidly devalued, Trump’s approval ratings tanked, and much of the Republican Party—and key fractions of capital—went into panic mode, even as they remained terrified of crossing him. These dynamics remain ongoing.
Trump’s tariffs are not merely erratic protectionist gestures. Rather, they form part of a blunt and confused arsenal aimed at dismantling post-Second World War US imperialism and replacing it with a brutal new form of nationalist global domination—one stripped of the trappings of “soft power” such as USAID. This multi-sided project emerges from factions within the New MAGA Coalition, and takes different—and often contradictory—forms.
Understanding these contradictions in their specificity is essential, not just for critique but for posing questions about new possibilities for organizing and alliance-building—not only in South Africa, but working towards a concrete internationalism, a topic to which we’ll return later.
It also encompasses elements of the petty bourgeoisie and working class that go beyond Trump’s earlier mostly white cross-class base, as the late Mike Davis described in Catalyst in 2017. Most notably, sizable Latino communities in some US regions have come to identify with MAGA—vividly documented by Paola Ramos in her recent book on the Latino far right. Another notable addition in 2024: disaffected, mainly young Black men who joined the MAGA coalition.
What knits this awkward coalition together is a powerful anti-woke sentiment and a ferocious opposition to liberal DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives that proliferated after the nationwide Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020. David Walsh describes “woke” as a “catch-all specter that could variously connote the ravages of state planning, the anarchism of street protests, or the godlessness of modern secular society—not an empty vessel, exactly, but a foil and common enemy against which a political coalition of often diametrically opposed interests could congeal,” as he writes in Boston Review.
Also traveling under the anti-woke banner is unfiltered racism, patriarchy, and vicious heteronormativity—especially targeting trans people—all of which underscore the limits of elitist liberalism, as discussed on The Dig. These brutalities are now wrapped in a (mostly white) Christian Nationalist package that stretches back to Trump 1.0, but is being significantly re-elaborated in Trump 2.0.
What also distinguishes Trump 2.0 is its rooting in a far more coordinated and organized project of dismantling and privatizing the state, one that’s been in formation for several years. Its blueprint is a 920-page document titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” published in 2023 by the Heritage Foundation. It has come to be known as Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project.
During the campaign, Trump denied having read it (probably true), but the steaming pile of executive orders he gleefully signed post-inauguration came straight out of it and continues to do so. Unlike Trump 1.0, Trump 2.0 has determined and coherent operatives behind it. They’re driving the juggernaut of destruction—most notably Russell Vought, head of the powerful Office of Management and Budget—despite the clown-car nature of most of Trump’s cabinet. Even if Musk were to depart for Mars brandishing his chainsaw, the scaffolding of Project 2025 appears firmly in place, at least on the surface.
But look a little closer and you’ll find that this scaffolding had a fatal weakness from the start. Scroll down to Chapter 26 on trade, and two sharply opposed visions emerge.
In the section on “fair trade,” Navarro—Trump’s key pro-tariff advisor in both administrations—concludes that “America gets fleeced every day in the global marketplace, both by a predatory Communist China and by an institutionally unfair and nonreciprocal WTO.” Focusing on the large trade deficit by which the US imports significantly more than it exports, he asks: “Might America even lose a broader hot war because it sent its defense industrial base abroad on the wings of a persistent trade deficit?” The answer, for Navarro, is clear: tariffs are imperative to “restore American greatness, both economically and militarily,” by bringing manufacturing back home.
In the opposing section, “The Case for Free Trade,” Kent Lassman presents the classic conservative argument against protectionism. Declaring that “American manufacturing is currently at an all-time high,” he slams tariffs as a lose-lose-lose scenario: the tariff raiser loses access to affordable goods, the target country loses export markets, and retaliatory tariffs punish the instigator yet again. He also warns of the hidden costs of tariff dodging. For Lassman, recent departures from free trade have damaged the US economy and “weakened alliances that are necessary to contain threats from Russia and China.” He calls for reaffirming “openness, dynamism, and free trade” as the pillars of continued US dominance into the next century.
These splits and contradictions have carried over into the tariff wars erupting within the MAGA coalition itself. There are now two distinct pro-tariff projects, both aimed at reconfiguring US imperialism. One is the so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The other is a far more radical vision pursued by Steve Bannon and the wide array of popular forces he continues to mobilize.
Before unpacking these competing projects and their wider implications, it’s important to sketch briefly the key contours of US imperialism. The main pillars of American global power are a specific configuration of finance capital—with the US dollar as global reserve currency—backed by overwhelming military force.
Because key commodities such as oil and gold are priced in US dollars, all countries must hold dollars. Small open economies like South Africa operate at a distinct disadvantage. Meanwhile, the US can accumulate massive debt by issuing Treasury Bonds—a privilege no other country enjoys. Since the end of the Cold War, the US has spent over $30 trillion more than it has taken in.
China has played a key role in underwriting this system, using export earnings to purchase US debt, thereby lowering the cost of borrowing. At the same time, shrinking employment, stagnant wages, and rising inequality since the 1980s pushed much of the US population into a frenzy of consumption and spiraling personal debt. This dynamic relies on large trade deficits—precisely what significant factions of the MAGA coalition see as the greatest threat to American power.
Back in 2019, historian Adam Tooze asked, “Is this the end of the American Century?” His answer: not quite. Financial and military power remained intact. But what had collapsed was any claim that American democracy could serve as a political model. What we were facing, he wrote, was “a radical disjunction between the continuity of basic structures of power and their political legitimation.” When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he sought to resuscitate the liberal international order—an order whose cruel hypocrisies are now starkly exposed in US support for Israel’s war on Gaza, as Adam Hanieh has brilliantly analyzed. Trump 2.0, through its tariffs and trade wars, is in effect attacking the financial pillar of US global power with a sledgehammer—even if this is not quite what some of his pro-tariff advisors intended.
Tariffing the end of empire?
Unlike Navarro and others who see the trade deficit as the central existential threat to the US, the authors of the so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord are primarily concerned with what they regard as the gross overvaluation of the dollar. Their aim, per a New York Times report, is to use:
tariffs and other strong-arm tactics to force the world to take a radical step: weakening the dollar via currency agreements. This devaluation, the theory goes, would make US exports more competitive, put pressure on China, and increase manufacturing in the United States.
In addition to Treasury Secretary Bessent, a key figure is Stephen Miran, who Trump appointed as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in March 2025. Just after the 2024 election, Miran published “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System.” In dense, economistic language that Trump has almost certainly never read, the 41-page document lays out the justifications and strategies for devaluing the dollar using threats of tariffs and defense pact withdrawals—country by country.
In short, Bessent and Miran envisage tariffs as part of a coercive negotiation strategy: to pressure countries into raising their currency values relative to the dollar, and to relocate key industries to the US. These include sectors deemed vital to national security, such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and military equipment. While the “User’s Guide” insists the dollar must remain the dominant currency, it also acknowledges growing efforts to find alternatives, such as the Chinese renminbi or a potential BRICS currency. Though such efforts are deemed doomed to fail, Miran asserts, “alternative reserve assets like gold or cryptocurrencies will likely benefit.”
The Mar-a-Lago Accord, when read alongside the “User’s Guide,” affirms the substantial advantages of the US’s reserve currency status—cheap borrowing and global power projection among them. But it argues that the costs are now outweighing the benefits. “As the economic burdens on America grow with global GDP outpacing American GDP,” Miran writes, “America finds it more difficult to underwrite global security, because the current account deficit grows and our ability to produce equipment becomes hollowed out.” Hence, the push for policies that “recapture some of the benefit our reserve provision conveys to trading partners and connect this economic burden sharing with defense burden sharing.”
Even so, the “User’s Guide” issues a sharp warning against disruption and volatility: “There is a path by which the Trump Administration can reconfigure the global trading and financial systems to America’s benefit, but it is narrow, and will require careful planning, precise execution, and attention to steps to minimize adverse consequences.”
Naturally, the preposterous tariffs that Trump unveiled on April 2 (reputedly dreamed up by Navarro) run directly counter to these cautious recommendations—leaving Bessent and Miran to bluster about the President’s “extraordinary negotiating skills.” As the markets melted down and Trump threatened to sack the chair of the Federal Reserve while ramping up attacks on China, Bessent increasingly found himself in the awkward position of having to leash the rampaging orange bulldog.
In the ensuing economic, political, and military chaos, the technocratic pipe dream of an orderly reconfiguration of US imperial power has imploded, leaving the remains of the Mar-a-Lago Accord scattered across the manicured grounds of the White House. What persists, however, is a hard core of MAGA support for a far more radical popular project: one aimed at dismantling US imperialism as we’ve known it.
Nationalist-populist opposition to US Empire
In a striking profile from October 2024, James Pogue shows how Stephen Bannon “has turned his immensely influential War Room show … into a cross between a daily troop muster and a policy training school, which he uses to tutor millions of “peasants,” as he likes to phrase his target demographic, on how this global power structure actually functions.”
He quotes Bannon insisting, “To be serious, you’ve got to be anti-imperial.” People are waking up, he claims: “Once you talk about how the system is financed, they are fucking furious. A working-class audience can understand that something’s not right with the system, but they can’t put their finger on it.” Calling his listeners “the army of the awakened,” Bannon has made it his mission to lay it all bare, Pogue reports.
Before unpacking the substance of this anti-imperialism, some context matters. Bannon is not best understood as a singular “great man” but as a figurehead within a global network of right-wing Christian nationalist forces, rooted in the US and deeply embedded in the MAGA bloc. He’s also closely allied with Peter Navarro—both were jailed in 2024 for contempt after refusing to testify in the January 6 congressional inquiry. While Navarro maintains Trump’s ear despite mockery from parts of MAGA, Bannon is far more articulate and intellectually potent, and actively shapes the movement’s populist base.
In an article from 2020, I outlined how Bannon was instrumental in constructing the popular forces that helped propel Trump’s 2016 victory. First, he hijacked the anti-Obama Tea Party from the Koch brothers and delivered it to Trump. Second, he played a major role in stoking backlash to bipartisan immigration reform efforts in 2013—linking xenophobia to anti-trade sentiment and mobilizing it before these issues had fully entered the political mainstream. In a 2017 interview, Bannon recalled saying:
I said, look, trade is number 100 on the list of issues, nobody ever talks about it, and immigration is like two or three, but if we ran a campaign that really focused on the economic issues in this country and really got people to understand how trade is so important, and immigration are inextricably linked … we could really set this thing on fire.
Trump, he claims, became the mouthpiece for these ideas by “[deploying] a very plain-spoken vernacular.”
Third, Bannon seized control of key media outlets—including Breitbart News, massively funded by the Mercer family—which he used to destroy enemies both inside and outside the GOP, while pushing his conservative, anti-globalist, traditionalist nationalism. By the 2016 election, Breitbart had far outstripped Fox News, dominating the right-wing media ecosystem. Today, Bannon reportedly believes he wields more power through War Room than he ever did as Trump’s campaign architect or White House strategist.
The “anti-imperial common sense” Bannon communicates to his “peasant” audience includes—but far exceeds—Navarro’s tariffs, which he supports. It also goes well beyond the Mar-a-Lago Accord. Rather than merely twisting global systems of finance and military power in America’s favor, Bannon and his fellow hyper-nationalists seek to obliterate altogether the post-1980s form of US imperialism.
What exactly does this anti-imperialism consist of? It has a solid—and glittering—material base. Bannon’s worldview is reportedly detailed in a multi-volume report titled The End of the Dollar Empire, available only via the Birch Gold Group, a firm that offers not just a gold-backed ETF but actual physical gold. Downloading the report requires entanglement with Birch Gold, so I passed. But listening to War Room podcasts, one can’t miss the constant exhortations to secure your IRA with Birch Gold in anticipation of a dollar collapse.
Bannon isn’t focused on trade deficits or dollar valuation alone. He’s obsessed with the entire dollar-based global order. As Pogue notes, it creates a perverse military incentive: “It lets us finance huge expenditures on hypercomplex weapons and allows us to toss off hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine’s and Israel’s wars”—even as it hollows out America’s ability to manufacture basic war matériel. Biden’s attempt to weaponize the dollar during the Ukraine war failed to crush the ruble, and raised a new alarm: that others might now see it’s possible to abandon the dollar entirely.
Pogue also interviews Samuel Finlay of the IM-1776 project, whose views align with Bannon’s. Finlay emphasizes “rootedness” and “tradition,” which he connects to a hatred of global capital and resistance to the military-industrial complex—a position that directly contradicts decades of Republican orthodoxy. People like Finlay, Pogue writes, have come to the same “awakening” Bannon is fomenting: that the system has betrayed those who believed in and served it—leaving them with NAFTA, fentanyl, and an elite that views their values as backward and dangerous.
War Room weaves these insights into a broader narrative. Disaffected veterans and others are fed a critique of “the lords of Wall Street” and “the apartheid state of Silicon Valley.” The message: elites own everything and have sold out to the Chinese Communist Party—thus funding the very forces attacking America. According to Bannon, we are now in a “Time of War,” one that dwarfs debates over trade, inflation, or price hikes.
So, how do the wild gyrations of post–Liberation Day fit into the Bannon-Navarro worldview? From their perspective, the unraveling of the “Dollar Empire” since April 2 looks like progress. As Pogue notes, Bannon and fellow populists across the West have come to embrace a multipolar world modeled on Russia’s strategic vision—one that displaces the American-led order Bannon believes has ravaged the US. On an April 25 episode of War Room Battleground, Bannon claimed that we are “moving toward a new geopolitics of blocs.”
Yet the very Americans Bannon sees as crushed by the Dollar Empire are also most exposed to its chaotic dismantling. First, prices for the cheap imports that sustain the US economy—and low-income Americans in particular—are spiking. Second, as the dollar declines as reserve currency, government spending will be slashed. And who bears that burden? Early signs include proposals to gut Medicaid to help fund tax breaks for the rich. Third, rising automation will sharply undermine promises that reindustrialization will yield secure, high-wage jobs and revive devastated regions.
In short, the idea that a protectionist, isolationist, national capitalism—mashing up xenophobia, anti-globalism, Christian nationalism, and anti-elite rage—can deliver liberation is just as much of a pipedream as the Mar-a-Lago Accord.
Which brings me back to the central claim: understanding Trump’s tariffs as blunt weapons aimed at either reconfiguring or shattering US empire matters deeply for the Left, both in the US and globally. What we need is not nostalgia for the collapsing liberal order, nor Kamala-style “politics of joy” in the face of atrocities in Gaza. Instead, we need what Stefan Kipfer calls “concrete internationalism.” He develops the analysis with reference to current conditions in Canada, but with much broader transnational relevance. Distinguishing between nationalism and national-popular democratic projects, he insists that “left national-popular projects can offer alternatives to nationalism only if they are components within larger internationalist strategies” that reject the tendency of all nationalisms “to demote emancipatory social questions of class, gender, and race.” In South Africa, we are, of course, sharply aware of these dangers.
Trump’s tariff debacle and the ensuing meltdown have exposed the fragilities of the liberal international order, the absurdities and devastations of global capitalist dynamics, and the dangers of resurgent nationalisms and forms of fascism. Grappling with the limits and contradictions of a Bannonite “anti-imperial common sense” can help, I hope, to make space not only for protest and resistance, but also for envisaging and building toward a very different project of concrete socialist internationalism.
After the April 22, 2025 Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians, the ruling ultra-right BJP government vowed to retaliate and strike hard at terrorist hideouts in Pakistan. The Pakistani government—or more accurately, the Pakistani Army, which acts as a shadow government and is known within the country as “The Establishment”—has a long history of nurturing and supporting Islamic fanatics, aided by CIA and Western funding dating back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. Yet, Pakistan continues to feign innocence and victimhood. The war began, and although a ceasefire is currently in place, the specter of conflict still hangs over both nations.
As an Afghan with leftist ideals, I have witnessed my country burn in the inferno of war for over four decades. Every day, I walked to school in fear of being struck by missiles fired by jihadist factions, who targeted Kabul from the surrounding mountains to pressure the pro-USSR government of Najibullah. When I was in my first year of school, I had to run home during the 1990 failed coup attempt by Shahnawaz Tanai, the Chief of General Staff and Minister of Defense, a member of the Khalq faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Tanai, with the support of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s notorious Islamic Party and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), tried to overthrow President Najibullah, who belonged to the Parcham faction.
By the time I reached 4th grade, I was forced to stop going to school. The jihadist parties had taken over power in 1992, leading to street-to-street battles among rival Islamist factions—chaos that Afghan citizens grimly refer to as the “Jihadist Dogfights.” These battles killed more than 80,000 people in Kabul alone, led to an unknown number of rapes, looting, and the destruction of both public and private institutions, leaving the entire city and country in ruins. Even 35 years later, the scars of that era are still evident throughout Kabul. Anyone who reads Human Rights Watch’s report Blood-Stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan’s Legacy of Impunity might develop psychological trauma from the horrors described.
In 1995, I had to leave Afghanistan and my parents behind to continue my education in Pakistan. But a new country brought new suffering. Even after living there for 15 years, from the first day to the last, my fellow Afghan refugees and I had to endure taunts and insults, often being called Mahajir—the refugee—and were frequently forced into physical confrontations with classmates and neighbors.
Long story short, the suffering of the Afghan people continues.
The reader might expect to read about the recent India-Pakistan war, but here is an Afghan recounting the pain of his people—and his own.
My aim is to warn ordinary people, especially in India and Pakistan, not to be fooled by the jingoism of their ruling elites. Knowing the languages of both countries, having spent time in each—15 years in Pakistan and many visits to India—and closely following their local and international media, I am familiar with both nations. I say this with confidence: the ruling class in both countries is either pushing for war or pretending to do so in order to extend their own power. They are manipulating the mentality of their suffering citizens, using war as a convenient excuse to avoid facing the uprisings sparked by broken promises made during elections—much like what happened in Bangladesh last year, a country which once shared land with both countries and is now close in culture, language, and history.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been in power since 2014. Modi, once a member of the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has campaigned on false promises of “Clean India” and “Abolishing Poverty.” However, since coming to power, the reality has been the complete opposite. He and his party have given free rein to the capitalist elite to exploit the people of India. In 2024, we witnessed the second round of the largest protest in the world by Indian farmers, which later grew to include industrial workers, after Modi’s government failed to fulfill promises made in 2021. While 1.77 million Indians have no place to live in the searing heat of the country, the richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, owns Antilia, the most expensive house in the world, valued at $4.6 billion in 2023. India’s mining industry continues to wreak environmental havoc. In 2023, Indian wrestlers protested against a BJP member of parliament for sexually harassing female wrestlers during his tenure as president of the national wrestling federation. Cases of rape by high-ranking members of the ruling party go unpunished. When I interacted with Indian humanitarian workers during a workshop, I was shocked to learn about the dire poverty and hunger that force people to eat rats, grass, or the liquid extracted from cow dung. The BJP openly espouses Hindutva, a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy over India.
The Situation in Pakistan is equally dire. The country is burdened by crippling international debts. Minister Shehbaz Sharif himself stated: “Today, when we go to any friendly country or make a phone call, they think we have come [to them] to beg for money.” Due to widespread poverty and hunger, there are numerous reports of fathers killing their wives and children by poisoning them before taking their own lives, or people exhuming dead bodies to eat the flesh. Religious fanaticism, which began during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s era and was amplified during General Zia-ul-Haq’s rule with CIA funding, has transformed Pakistan into a place of intense religious intolerance. Entire Christian communities have had their homes burned to the ground, and Pakistan’s national cricket team members often appear more like religious missionaries than sportsmen, frequently attributing wins and losses to Allah as if god is a team member.
I remember when I was a student, asking my classmates where they were from, and most didn’t even understand the meaning of my question, replying simply that they were from Pakistan. But today, separatist movements are gaining momentum in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Southern Punjab. It has become common in Pakistan for the military establishment to topple a prime minister, prosecute them for corruption, exile them to luxury villas—often in London—and then later reinstate them to power. I recently visited Islamabad after 12 years. Once one of the cleanest cities, it is now filled with trash on the streets and highways.
Both countries, under feudal-capitalist governments, have no solution for the suffering of their people except war—just as all reactionary regimes do. People die of hunger in both countries, but who cares? The generals and the elite class profit from the war, while the rest of the population bears the cost. In the coming years, the war started by the ruling elites will be blamed for all the shortcomings they caused. The people will endure all the hardships, while the ruling class continues to live luxurious lives, either within their own countries or abroad. I write this from the perspective of Afghanistan, where no war criminals have been brought to justice. As regimes have collapsed, those responsible for decades of suffering simply moved to offshore countries to live out their lives comfortably, or to await a return to power.
As a progressive Afghan, I’ve shared a glimpse of the miseries we, Afghans, have faced. Therefore, the people of India and Pakistan should not fall into the trap set by their war-mongering elites. They must choose peace over war because the true winners of this war will be the elite class, while the rest of the population will be the losers.
In Socialist Feminism: A New Approach, Frieda Afary looks to “conceptualize an enriched emancipatory socialism with transformed gender relations at its heart.” She does this by examining four socialist feminist theories of gender oppression: (1) theories of social reproduction, (2) theories of alienation, (3) intersectionality, and (4) queer identities.
The book contains useful literature reviews of socialist feminist theories, in particular queer theories and social reproduction, which she also subjects to friendly critique.
She correctly identifies that in its quest to produce a Marxist theory, socialist feminism has become over-reliant on social reproduction theory, which can tell us much about the relationship between paid and unpaid labor and women’s role in the home, but is not an all-encompassing theory of sexism under capitalism.
Her own explanation for the missing piece of socialist feminism is the relation of alienation to sexism: “Capitalism affects and alienates the mind and body and human relations in insidious ways that are not simply caused by private property and the market. Its alienated mode of labor affects all human relations and most deeply intimate and sexual relations.”
In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx discusses the various ways in which workers are “alienated” under capitalism. Opportunities for workers’ creativity are shut down. Routine and repetition increase as work is specialized, to extract more and more profit from more and more intensified work.
Marx explains how this can “mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man.” Our project is to return human freedom to those whose labor makes the world run.
Yes, what Marx described as the working class’s “loss of self” must clearly have some effect on our gendered relations. The coercion inherent to broader society is certainly replicated within our family structures. But the nature of capitalism’s effect on the worker is contradictory, and those contradictions aren’t just waiting within us to be resolved after the revolution. Many aspects of gendered relationships have improved through collective working-class struggle under capitalism.
It is important not to lean too far towards Marx’s idea of capitalism dehumanizing us; it gives us chances to be humanized too, and Marx identifies those tendencies alongside the dehumanizing ones.
“Modern Industry, indeed, compels society, under penalty of death, to replace the detail-worker of to-day, grappled by life-long repetition of one and the same trivial operation, and thus reduced to the mere fragment of a person, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labors, ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different social functions they perform, are but so many modes of giving free scope to their own natural and acquired powers…” (and Marx cites testimony from a migrant worker in the capitalist USA on actually achieving that through varied work).
Realized
Capitalism brought with it the humanist conceptions of reason, universality and solidarity, but it also prevented them from being fully realized. We can realize movements not possible before capitalism. Men under capital are neither machines nor animals, but people.
I’m unconvinced too by Afary’s declaration that the end of alienation will bring the end of the unconscious mind. I suspect that human minds will change considerably (as they already have). But the fact will remain that there are things of which we are aware, and other things of which we are not aware, and we will not change so fundamentally that all implicit mental processes will disappear.
Even where capitalism does brutalize us, it is not right to situate sexism as flowing from alienation. What about the systemic oppression of women that occurred in pre-capitalist societies before capitalist alienation began? In part the working-class family under capitalism derives structures from the ruling class (from the bourgeois family). Both as a conscious ruling-class project of control, and through workers’ understandable desire to emulate lives which look better and more comfortable. Families do not just produce workers, they have an ideological function for capitalism: the reproduction of the relations of production through the socialization of children within the family hierarchy.
As women have entered the workforce in greater numbers and experienced greater alienation there, we haven’t noticed sudden spikes in women committing rape or domestic violence. In part, Afary gets around this by situating alienation as primary within capitalism. Everything else stems from alienated labor, because alienated labor is essential to the system. To identify alienation as the one decisive element of capitalist exploitation, and ignore its interactions with ever-shifting elements of the capitalist system and changing social forces, seems undialectical.
Afary argues that we are facing a new model of state capitalism, with the state and military having more and more control over the direction of companies even when there is no direct full ownership. She at one point (borrowing from bourgeois economist Joshua Kurlantzick) defines state capitalism as state ownership or significant influence over more than one-third of the 500 largest companies (by revenue) in a country. It is a very broad definition. She jumps from this to predicting a move to an authoritarian state capitalism, and its potential gender implications. She posits a capitalist future with the state in charge of all aspects of life, including the family: children brought up in care facilities and adults working in workcamps. This seems fantastical.
There is a blur between “free” wage labor and wage labor in work camps or super-exploited migrant labor in capitalist economies. But workcamps and political labor are not the economic norm. They are exceptions to the wage system. Were the economy not to depend on wage labor, and transition instead to being based on some form of prison labor, I don’t see how you could describe it as capitalist. There are real threats of rising authoritarianism to gender relations, but fringe exceptions do not affect the majority of the workforce. The authoritarians are politically motivated to strengthen gender relations and the family.
Afary has a commendable humanist and internationalist perspective on the liberation of women. She references Black liberation struggles in US led by women and uprisings in Sudan, Algeria, Hong Kong, Iraq, Lebanon, Chile, and Iran, as well as mass protests and labor strikes in France, Haiti, and elsewhere which had women at the forefront.
She is not afraid to call out those leftists who are so adamant that imperialism is a western phenomenon that they fail to fight for liberation elsewhere: “Although the Occupy Movement was inspired by the Arab Spring, many of those on the Left who called themselves anti-imperialist supported the Assad regime in Syria because it claimed to be against U.S. imperialism, and its regional imperialist backers Israel and Saudi Arabia. Some leftists also openly supported Russian imperialist intervention in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as Iranian regional imperialist intervention in Syria and in Iraq. This unprincipled and inhumane attitude, this failure of those who claim to be against capitalism to see the connection between capitalism and the rise of imperialist powers other than those in the West…”
It would be good to see more books trying to move socialist feminism beyond current approaches. Dual-systems feminism, a perspective within Marxist feminism, argued that women’s oppression stemmed from the intersection of two distinct systems: capitalism and patriarchy. The swing back to social reproduction theory has somewhat overcorrected. The role of women in reproducing workers is part, but not all, of the material basis for sexism, and taking that as the explain-all can be economistic.
Though I am unconvinced by the way Afary situates sexism in alienation, considering oppressive practices in the context of the dehumanizing nature of capitalism as a political/economic system is necessary too. More discussion is necessary on pre-capitalist gender oppression, which continues not just through human practices being slow to change, but also by their embedding into the material lives of workers.
This article originally appeared on Workers Liberty, 14 May, 2025.
In The Wretched of the Earth, anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon warned that Africa’s postcolonial bourgeoisie would co-opt the symbols of Black liberation to advance their own narrow agendas, ultimately failing to break both the psychological and material chains of colonialism. Fanon’s prophecy has proven true: African political leaders not only have seized power to replicate colonial structures of oppression through extractive capitalism and corruption, but also found willing collaborators among the African diasporic elite, distorting pan-Africanist ideals for personal gain.
There is a longstanding legacy of celebrity being used as soft power in cultural warfare to sanitize and exploit Africa, ultimately manipulating the postcolonial divide. As noted by author Frances Stonor Saunders, the US government recognized the role of music and the arts as a covert strategy to win hearts and minds, resulting in a “cultural Cold War.” This took place in1960, referred to as the “Year of Africa” against the backdrop of 16 African nations gaining independence, as African leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah became global icons of postcolonial freedom. Fearing a united African front, as well as the perceived growing threat of communism, the CIA deployed musicians like Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone as “jazz ambassadors” of goodwill and freedom to counter the Soviet’s message highlighting the racism in America.
This stirred an ethical dilemma for Black American artists, who were tasked with presenting a false image of racial harmony in the US which didn’t reflect their lived experience or moral standings under Jim Crow racism. Armstrong initially refused to participate in the state-sponsored musical tours of Africa until legal progress was made on civil rights. The jazz ambassadors’ contradictions between being civil rights activists while playing a role in continental Africans’ plight was shown brilliantly in the critically acclaimed documentary Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat. Though these events didn’t happen in succession, the film’s timeline brilliantly links events such as Armstrong’s visit to Congo just as Lumumba was placed under house arrest and the CIA invaded Congo. This provides both a striking and useful analysis of how these musicians potentially provided a smoke screen for the CIA’s foreign interference, leading to Lumumba’s assassination.
These celebrity-backed private-public partnerships have recently been reignited by Ghana’s Year of Return in 2019, a government-led initiative positioning Ghana as a premier destination for African Americans and the African diaspora to reconnect with their ancestral roots after four centuries of separation due to chattel slavery. In 2019, tourism in Ghana accounted for 10.3 percent of the GDP, a significant increase from 3 percent in 2016. Soon, the Ghanaian government began welcoming high-profile celebrities such as Chance the Rapper and Meek Mill as unofficial ambassadors, promoting “experience-based tourism” through festivals and restored historical sites.
Kenya does not have a documented dedicated tourism strategy targeting the diaspora in the same fashion as Ghana, who launched a dedicated diaspora affairs unit under the oversight of former President Nana Akufo-Addo. In 2021, however, Naomi Campbell—who has frequently associated with infamously corrupt members of the global elite such as Jeffrey Epstein and former Liberian president Charles Taylor—was controversially appointed Kenya’s tourism ambassador at a time when the sector was struggling due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Campbell is far from the exception in recent controversial investments from celebrities throughout Southern and East Africa: British actor Idris Elba, who has advocated for building Africa’s film industry, was allegedly awarded over 80 acres of land in Zanzibar by the Tanzanian government to construct modern film studios, during a political context where political freedom is critically absent for Tanzanians, especially those arrested on petty pretenses such as using “strong words” when simply criticizing President Suluhu Hassan. Moreover, John Legend also chose to perform at the Global Citizen festival in Kigali, despite the Rwandan government’s involvement in the M23 rebel takeover in Congo. By contrast, Tems canceled her headline show in Kigali around a similar time, as she recognized it would be insensitive to Congolese people.
In defence of his decision, Legend said the following, “I don’t believe that we should punish the people of Rwanda and punish the people of other countries when we disagree with their leaders.” While it is certainly true that not all Rwandans support their government’s political choices, cultural boycotts have proven to be highly significant in holding oppressive regimes accountable, such as the boycott that led to the apartheid South African government’s exclusion from the Olympics. Congolese people’s need for solidarity at a time when Rwanda’s role in the conflict is still invisibilized is markedly more urgent than the Rwandese people’s desire for a glamorous multimillion-dollar concert. Given the context, these high-profile moves reinforce the perception that their governments prioritize wealthy outsiders over their own citizens, an all-too-familiar pattern reminiscent of gentrification.
American singer and farmer Kelis is the latest celebrity to venture into East Africa, purportedly under the guise of sustainability. She often markets her videos on her instagram account through short-form reels wearing no makeup and casual clothing, coupled by hashtags like #SupportBlackFarmers and #FarmLife, presenting herself as a relatable “girl next door” type of favorite lifestyle influencer. The artist and businesswoman recently expanded her entrepreneurial efforts after purchasing land in Kenya with the stated intention to establish a large-scale commercial farm surrounded by wildlife. To honor this announcement, she took to social media once again, branding herself a “pioneer,” and wearing a T-shirt labeled “Original Farm Owner” to emphasize this persona. On cue, this provoked mixed reactions, particularly among Kenyans concerned about farming close to endangered wildlife and disrupting natural ecosystems. While a minority of people welcomed Kelis using her platform to showcase Kenya in a positive light—arguing that she should be crowned as the new tourism ambassador for the country—amongst detractors, Kelis was quickly labeled a neocolonizer. Speculation began to spread that the land she acquired was reservation land, given its proximity to wildlife, and that she likely leveraged government connections to secure the purchase.
Though the exact whereabouts of Kelis’s farm are unknown, it’s most likely situated around Naivasha, a town named after its freshwater lake, originally inhabited by the Maasai tribe until it became a significant area for colonial development in the late 19th century. At present, the remnants of settler colonialism persist, as the area is now characterized by vast floriculture farms owned by white settlers. In response to these criticisms, Kelis clarified that the land was privately owned and purchased from a previous landowner, not from a wildlife reserve.
This defense misses the fundamental issue. Regardless of whether the land was legally available, the concern remains that these celebrity acquisitions reinforce existing patterns of wealth accumulation and land concentration. Kelis’s actions are perceived as emblematic of a broader lack of solidarity from diasporic Africans and the greater Black diaspora, who, in their pursuit of economic opportunity and connection to the African continent, risk becoming the “new wave of gentrifiers.” As Kelis continues to promote her farming enterprise, large-scale farming in Kenya remains largely reserved for white settlers and the Kenyan elite, while indigenous farmers in Kenya are disproportionately impacted by droughts and flooding, resulting in the loss of arable land for livestock and family. Moreover, Lake Naivasha’s water levels have been declining, with floriculture being the major contributor. How sustainable is Kelis’s new business venture when this land and resources could be maximized to achieve food security in a nation where more than 13 million lack secure access to food?
Beyond the material consequences, these celebrities also aid African governments to craft a progressive, aspirational image that conceals deep-seated class inequalities and the dire material conditions of ordinary Africans. In this distinctively diasporic African imagination, Kenya and other African nations become idyllic homelands, fertile lands of possibility, sanctuaries from the racial injustices of the West, and places where lost ancestral connections can be miraculously restored. “Rwanda! It feels a Utopia like #wakanda truly stunning! So lush and Beautiful! The people here <3,” said Kelis in the caption of one of her other Instagram reels, captured on a hill overlooking vast farmlands. She expresses fascination with the young children “helping and carrying stuff”—not taking into account the implication of young children carrying firewood passing by who were unknowingly featured in the video like props.
The reel feels reminiscent of a scene from a modern Out of Africa remake, bringing to mind Black feminist historian Jade Bentil’s coinage “Wakandification” to capture this “process through which Africa *as a product* is reimagined to serve the interests of representation, nation, and capital.” This romanticized Africa is depicted as pure and unspoiled, populated more by wildlife than by people, perpetuating a colonial-era narrative that erases the lived realities of African citizens. It is the Africa of book covers—the Africa of bold colors and baobab trees, devoid of the humanity that lives alongside the vegetation.
On one hand, it is understandable that diasporic Africans, after centuries of dispossession and racism, are drawn to the aspirations of returning to the African continent. Long before 2019, African Americans have relocated back to Africa, drawn and inspired by these nations’ liberation movements, including prominent academics such as Maya Angelou and W. E. B. Du Bois, who made Ghana their home under the invitation of Nkrumah, while members of the Black Panther Party sought refuge in Tanzania, influenced by Nyerere’s embrace of pan-Africanism under his Ujamaa framework. Even then at the height of the pan-Africanist movement, however, there were noted tensions between these expats and indigenous Africans, as noted in Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, where she notes how Ghanaians resented expats for occupying land and “presuming to know what was best for Africa.”
These diasporic frictions have persisted to present day, as some African Americans have made direct attempts to claim African citizenship. While the bulk of the efforts have taken placein Ghana, one US citizen who has lived in Kenya since 2008 petitioned for recognition as a Kenyan citizen, citing ancestral rights. While most African Americans who are descended from enslaved people trace their lineage to West Africa, his choice of Kenya as his ancestral home was informed by the Abuja Proclamation, a pan-African declaration sponsored by the African Union in 1993. This proclamation calls upon all African states “to grant entrance as of right to all persons of African descent and right to obtain residence in those African states if there is no disqualifying element on Africans claiming the right to return to his ancestral home”—an idyllic goal that has yet to be sustainably implemented in reality beyond catering to elite classes of the Black diaspora
As the push for economic growth continues, African nations such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, where tourism is central to GDP, are likely to begin marketing themselves as relocation destinations for the Black diaspora. While African Americans may not have explicit ancestral ties to East Africa, the region’s infrastructure and perceived stability may attract more returnees. It would not be surprising to see these nations adopt policies similar to South Africa’s “digital nomad” visas to facilitate long-term diaspora migration.
Given the circumstances, it is easy to direct anger towards the incoming communities of Black expats, who seem to be reaping the benefits of this current incentivized hierarchy. Most of these newcomers, however, are also victims of the neoliberal structures of class exploitation that disenfranchise Black communities across the globe, particularly in America. The real culprits remain the African political and economic elite and the Western powers, former colonizers, and financial institutions who shape their self-interest and continue to amass capital at the expense of genuine racial solidarity, distorting radical unifying principles through the sanitizing process of elite capture.
In the case of Kenya, the cost of living remains at an all-time high following the country’s #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests against neoliberalism and poor governance, with Kenya’s debt-to-GDP ratio projected to reach 70 percent. Meanwhile, the Kenyan government remains mired in scandals, from selling fake fertilizer to farmers, to a defunct Social Health Authority (SHA) system leading to a public health crisis. Even more concerning, Kenya’s current administration seems to be deepening economic ties with oppressive regimes, recently hosting Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the same military group responsible for war crimes in one of the most devastating civil wars in recent history, allowing them to charter meetings aimed at forming a parallel government in Sudan. In retaliation, Sudan banned all Kenyan produce imports, disrupting Kenya’s tea trade and further destabilizing the economy. Describing Kenya as a “paradise” of any kind, farmland or otherwise, requires a willful ignorance of the circumstances that Kenyans are fighting to survive in.
What history warns us is that the pivotal issue lies at the feet of economic mismanagement and lack of structural economic reforms to uplift local African societies. For instance, Nigeria’s Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77) was a billion-dollar celebration of Black pride, but failed to deliver lasting economic benefits for Nigerians, with massive shanty towns surrounding the display and famed Nigerian artist Fela Kuti declining to participate, calling the event a propaganda exercise. As Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah pointed out in a 1985 essay “The Festival Syndrome,” such festivals risk becoming “wasteful demonstrations of intellectual bankruptcy” rather than vehicles for meaningful change. As African countries continue to find ways to participate in the global community and diaspora, Africa’s resources must be used to address pressing issues like famine, poverty, and economic inequity that persists within its borders.
Kwame Nkrumah understood the importance of cultural exchange and its practical benefits. “You must not be content with the accumulation of knowledge about the arts,” he declared at the opening of the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies in 1963. “Your research must stimulate creative activity; it must contribute to the development of the arts in Ghana and in other parts of Africa.” Tourism and long-term diaspora migration do not need to be inherently exploitative; they could be a dialogue in service of national needs and true local development. This could mean skills training for locals, fostering job creation and economic sustainability.
Moreover, diasporic public figures genuinely interested in engaging with the continent should not only seek to develop profit making opportunities that burnish their own reputations, but also make a point to support local grassroots initiatives as opposed to enabling the celebrity-washing practices of corrupt governments. Initiatives like Noname’s book club which builds community through political education, provides a model for ethical engagement—the Chicago rapper and avowed anticapitalist does not center herself with her platform but rather is currently partnering with local African bookstores in places like Nairobi, Accra, and Lagos to host a book club tour.
The question is not whether the African diaspora has a place on the continent—they always have. As the writer Shamira Ibrahim succinctly puts it, the Black diaspora does not deserve to be turned into “shields for administrative neglect.” Rather, it is about ensuring that their return does not reproduce the same exploitative dynamics that colonialism and neoliberalism have long upheld. True pan-Africanism must be built on mutual solidarity, land equity, and economic justice, not on elite-driven spectacles that serve the privileged few.
This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
May Day is not a holiday in the United States. In most states and cities, it is not celebrated. In some places, in schools or public parks, people put up a May pole and danced around it to celebrate the arrival of spring. We did that in my elementary school in Chicago when I was a child. The official Labor Day in the United States, which is a national holiday, is celebrated on the first Monday in September and marks the end of summer and students’ return to school. But maybe this year things finally changed.
On this May 1, International Labor Day, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined scores of rallies and marches in all 50 states to protest President Donald Trump’s devastating first 100 days in office. They protested the shutdown of government departments, the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers, the ending of food programs for children, the disabled, and the elderly, cuts in health care, the illegal deportation of immigrants, and tariffs and the trade wars, and the many other terrible things Trump has done.
This is the latest in a series of national protests against Trump and this one had a different character. When I joined the protest in New York City there were many unions present: the Transportation Workers Union that run’s the city’s subways, the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the Communication Workers, the Professional Staff Council of the City University, and others. The presence of the unions meant that there were more Blacks and Latinos in this protest than in earlier ones. And so, the protest had a different feel, a working-class character.
Unions marching on May Day is something rare in the United States and in most places something relatively new. In 1882, before the Haymarket events in Chicago, New York unions who were fighting for the eight-hour day, organized a labor day march in September. Then the national union federation called for strikes in May to win the eight-hour day. On May 1, 1886 German anarchists in Chicago organized prolonger workers strikes and protests in support of the eight-hour day, but on May 3 the police attacked the demonstration. The next day there was a protest rally at Haymarket Square, but police attacked it too. Then a bomb was thrown either at the police or at the workers, and eight radicals were arrested, tried and convicted of the bombing, and four eventually hanged. To honor the martyrs of Chicago, the International Socialist Conference of 1889 adopted May Day as the International Workers Holiday.
American workers then had two options, the September Labor Day, which became a national holiday in 1894, or May 1. Where the Socialist or Communist Parties had a presence, there were May Day celebrations, but in most places the September holiday prevailed. When after World War II the Cold War broke out accompanied by an anti-Communist crusade and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s persecutions of Communist, May 1 celebrations waned. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as Law Day. At the same time, the Soviet Union turned the holiday into a demonstration of its military might with parades of tanks and missiles in Red Square in Moscow.
In the 1960s and 70s, it was Latino immigrants, Puerto Ricans in New York City and Mexicans in San Francisco and Los Angeles who began to reintroduce May Day workers rallies and marches in their communities. In 2006 in a fight for immigration reform, hundreds of thousands of Latinos demonstrated in Los Angeles and Chicago on May Day, giving the event the character of a general strike. But still the holiday didn’t catch on among the rest of the population.
This year’s protests against Trump, against his authoritarianism, and his reactionary agenda may have put this holiday back on the national calendar as American workers join the rest of the world’s proletariat in the streets on May 1. We’ll see next May 1.
The intricate path of negotiations between Iran and the United States, coupled with their fluctuating rhetoric, offers a crucial lens through which to understand the Islamic Republic’s (IR) position within global power dynamics. These events reveal the unique characteristics of the IR and its historical trajectory in relation to the foundational aspects of the global order, not in isolation or opposition as often portrayed. This essay examines the implications of the context surrounding these negotiations for the IR’s position in the ongoing realignment of inter-imperialist relations.
The central premise of this analysis is that the IR’s emergence and its subsequent evolution are intrinsically linked to its functions within the framework of imperial power relations in reproducing the global order. This essay aims to substantiate this starting point. The insights gained from recent events concerning the IR’s nature stem from the pressure of historical developments rather than solely from the efforts of opposition forces. The inherent contradictions within the IR’s history and strategies sometimes manifest in ways that exceed the regime’s capacity for management and representation, even though these consequences are often addressed through further contradictory actions.
1. When You Are Helpless, Be Submissive, But Boast and Deny!
The trajectory of these negotiations was initiated by continuous threats from Trump, which gained prominence with developments in Syria and Lebanon and solidified into a tangible danger for the IR following the deployment of U.S. warships and bombers in the Indian Ocean.[1] Trump’s dominance in determining the negotiation process undermined the Iranian regime’s aspirations for “indirect and unconditional negotiations.” Moscow’s lack of anticipated support further limited the IR’s ability to insist on its terms through aggressive political maneuvers.
On the same day Russia approved a strategic cooperation treaty with Iran, the Russian Foreign Ministry clarified that this treaty did not entail military support for the IR in the event of foreign aggression[2] (by the United States). Similarly, Beijing, another eastern ally, could not prioritize further support for the IR due to its trade war with Washington. Consequently, the Iranian leadership found itself isolated in the face of a potential confrontation with Trump.
This situation acutely highlighted the internal disagreements within the IR regarding over-reliance on Russia and the Eastern global power center. Russia’s perceived abandonment of the IR in Syria (leaving it to Turkey on behalf of the West) seemed to be repeating itself, with the IR facing the United States alone. This validated the pessimism and warnings from certain elements within the IR who viewed Iran as merely a pawn in Russia’s broader interactions with the West.
Ultimately, the very entities (Beijing and Moscow) once revered in Iran’s foreign policy have now been openly or implicitly repudiated, leading to an embrace of the West. Consequently, the beleaguered IR leadership swiftly moved to meet key preconditions for negotiations set by Trump. While this option may have been a long-standing contingency plan, the IR withdrew its advisory and military forces from Yemen[3] and instructed its Yemeni proxies to de-escalate. Similarly, its Iraqi proxy forces[4] (Hashd al-Shaabi, among others) were ordered to adopt ‘heroic flexibility.’[5] Finally, Hezbollah in Lebanon,[6] the IR’s ideological-military stronghold, was directed to prepare for disarmament.
These preconditions were rapidly fulfilled to demonstrate the IR’s seriousness and goodwill to the United States, with the underlying hope of avoiding future constraints (like relinquishing missile and drone capabilities) and potentially gaining concessions on ‘peaceful’ nuclear technology. To manage domestic and regional public opinion regarding these ‘heroic compromises,’ the IR orchestrated significant attention on the ‘indirect’ format of the negotiations, presenting this as a crucial and ‘prestigious’ matter. The regime aimed to downplay the fundamental strategic shift and its perceived humiliating retreat, concealing its inherently subordinate position in these negotiations despite its prior aggressive rhetoric. They later boastfully will claim that nothing had been imposed upon them and that the IR was the victor in these ‘indirect’ discussions. However, Trump’s direct announcement of the negotiations’ form disrupted these calculations, negating the possibility of indirect talks. This forced the IR to defend its claims about ‘indirect negotiations,’ which were intended to provide a minimal facade for its power assertions, even resorting to convoluted and sophistical interpretations of ‘indirect negotiations.’[7]
Beyond the regime’s propaganda regarding the negotiation format for domestic and regional consumption, the recent ‘heroic flexibility’ extends beyond previous understandings. The context and progression of events suggest potential future scenarios for a reconfiguration of the IR’s relationship with the West and a reassessment of Iran’s position in the global market. For instance, the official announcement that the IR and its Supreme Leader have no objections to future U.S. investments in Iran’s economy[8] signifies a substantial shift.
The IR’s consistently aggressive posture in the Middle East, coupled with strong anti-U.S. imperialism rhetoric, has obscured the more critical reality of the Iranian regime’s subordinate position in the fluid dynamics between global power centers. Recent developments in Syria and Lebanon provide significant evidence for this, suggesting that the IR’s function has been to advance certain proxy battles (primarily on behalf of Russia) in the Middle East as long as the power dynamics allowed. These proxy conflicts have contributed to the perpetuation of a ‘Global War Regime’ and ‘militarized accumulation,’ while simultaneously strengthening Israel’s capacity for aggressive expansion. However, the prolonged nature of this proxy role and the self-aggrandizement of the IR’s rulers have led to a perceived (pseudo-)agency for the Iranian regime in global and regional power relations, a perception that has, in fact, benefited both Western and Eastern centers of power.
Acknowledging the IR’s subordinate status in global power relations does not diminish the devastating consequences of its regional interventions for the people of the Middle East, nor does it absolve the IR’s rulers of their direct responsibility for these disasters. The role of a proxy power in the region has been facilitated by the military-ideological ambitions and political-economic interests of the IR’s rulers. The alignment of these roles with the interests of the ruling classes in both ‘metropolitan and peripheral’ states has necessitated a certain degree of power and privileges for the Iranian regime. Furthermore, in a multipolar global order, the ability of states to maneuver within the rivalries of imperial power centers has expanded the scope of these powers and privileges, transforming the IR into a regional sub-imperialist power (see appendix).
The advancement of ‘proxy wars’ by a regional power like the IR is merely the most visible aspect of its ‘proxy roles,’ overshadowing their broader functions. The ‘proxy roles’ of a regional power generally contribute to the reproduction of the entire system underpinning the global order. For instance, the IR, as a sub-imperialist power, has facilitated the realization of global power relations regionally, thereby contributing to the continuity of the global order, despite its limited ability to determine global macro-relations. Beyond aiding the expansion of the ‘Global War Regime’ and ‘militarized accumulation,’[9] the IR’s most significant role in maintaining the global order has been to perpetuate mechanisms of oppression over the subjugated masses within this order. This has been achieved through consistent repression within Iran and the transnational extension of these repressive measures. The ultimate aim of this repression is to impede the development of critical consciousness and anti-capitalist collective subjectivity among individuals and groups. This is evident in the continuous suppression of political currents (especially leftists) and progressive social movements, alongside the creation of reactionary tendencies and movements.
This aspect of the IR’s sub-imperialist functions in maintaining global order can be summarized in two interconnected elements: (a) preventing the formation of class consciousness and suppressing progressive political forces and social movements, thereby bolstering limited and even reactionary collective tendencies; and (b) obstructing both the mental and material possibilities for solidarity among the oppressed, whether within the country or transnationally in the Middle East.
2. Where you have power, be ruthless: kill and intimidate!
How has the IR managed to conceal its overarching function in assisting the reproduction of the capitalist order and imperialist relations? Primarily through the long-standing pursuit of proxy wars in the region, ideologically framed as a struggle against Western powers, specifically as anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism. The aggressive rhetoric, slogans, and actions of the IR’s rulers towards Western powers, along with their sustained opposition to the Israeli state (a key imperial stronghold in the Middle East), have provided sufficient material for this concealment. Notably, in recent years, leftist forces (both aligned with and independent of the IR) have also promoted an anti-imperialist and heroic interpretation of the IR’s foreign policy. Understandably, these claims have resonated with Arab opponents of Zionism in the Middle East. Interestingly, mainstream media in both Western and Eastern societies have facilitated this concealment by endorsing and amplifying the IR’s propaganda.
Consequently, the protracted political-ideological polarization surrounding the IR’s relationship with the West (or the Western-dominated global order) has obscured their fundamental affinities and mutual benefits. Furthermore, the entrenchment of this image, coupled with the IR’s global position, has made ‘opposition to the West’ a fundamental aspect of the IR’s identity. This has deepened the IR’s rulers’ reliance on this image. Historically, this identity component has significantly influenced the IR’s governance style, serving to project internal contradictions and crises onto external factors and to establish a ‘perpetual state of emergency’ to justify and expand militarization. The expansion of militarization within this state of emergency has fostered the growth of military-economic complexes (led by the Revolutionary Guards), increased the political influence of the military oligarchy, and led to the unrestrained growth of the repressive security apparatus.
This context explains the IR’s frantic and chaotic efforts to maintain its established image (especially domestically and regionally) while facing its inevitable subordinate position following a strategic shift in global imperialist relations and potentially standing on the verge of a significant deal with the West under Trump. This struggle is most evident in the obsessive focus on whether negotiations with the United States are direct or indirect, a farce that became particularly ridiculous after Trump’s announcement of direct talks. However, this should not distract from the fact that the IR’s rulers are (a) persistently using their extensive propaganda to maintain the regime’s ideological unity around national sovereignty and anti-imperialism, and (b) intensifying public intimidation through security and judicial apparatuses[10] and increased executions to remind the oppressed masses of their absolute power and brutality.
The conventional image of the IR presented by mainstream media—centered on “opposition to the West” and Shia fundamentalism—not only reflects the regime’s claims but also serves additional functions. Given the role of these outlets in shaping public opinion, this representation has effectively concealed the inherent contradictions within the IR’s “opposition to the West” by obscuring its broader roles as a proxy power facilitating the reproduction of the global order. One consequence of this has been the reaction of the IR’s opponents and dissatisfied masses: facing the disastrous outcomes of the IR’s constant opposition to Western imperialism and Israel, and in despair from their prolonged struggles, a significant portion of the oppressed population has begun to praise the free market, Western powers, and the Israeli regime. Undoubtedly, the transformation of the consciousness and agency of the oppressed in alignment with the foundations of the existing global order represents the most significant service a proxy power like the IR can offer in the reproduction of that order.
However, the subjugation of the oppressed within Iran has never relied solely on ideology and propaganda. State repression in Iran has consistently included overt and direct aspects, such as economic repression and the imposition of severe livelihood crises on the lower classes, depriving them of essential means of survival—an application of “necropolitics” by the IR’s rulers. Furthermore, state repression is carried out through public intimidation, particularly through daily executions of prisoners, both political opponents and social offenders. This explains the noticeable increase in executions by the IR’s judicial system amidst the rulers’ claims that negotiations with Trump would lead to peace for Iranians.[11]
The human rights news agency HRANA reported a significant increase in executions, with at least 28 prisoners executed in the first five days of a recent week,[12] averaging five executions per day. Amnesty International’s annual report[13] (April 8, 2024) indicated that while global executions were at their highest since 2015, the Iranian regime was responsible for 64% of all recorded executions (excluding countries with unavailable reliable data). The report stated that Iran’s executions in 2024 reached 972, a 14% increase from the previous year, and highlighted the regime’s use of the death penalty against political opponents, protesters, and ethnic or minority groups.
Executions are not a novel phenomenon under the IR; they are deeply ingrained in the regime’s history. The use of executions for public intimidation has a grim history dating back to the early years after the 1979 Revolution, with periods of fluctuation. However, since the middle of the Jina Uprising and leading up to the negotiations with the West, this practice has re-emerged prominently. The common thread linking the regime’s resort to this intimidation mechanism in these historical periods is the fragile state of the IR at those times. A key difference is that public intimidation through executions has now become an automated means of regulating political pressure in society to an unprecedented degree.[14] The IR’s structural reliance on killing its citizens, its death-centered existence, is more evident than ever, indicating an escalated level of fragility, though not necessarily implying imminent collapse.
Alongside direct public intimidation, the Iranian regime continues to employ social repression through strict measures, such as cracking down on women’s dress code, to assert its authority. The threatened implementation of the “Hijab Law,” passed after the Jina Uprising, promises more severe crackdowns to revert society to pre-uprising norms. However, some high-ranking officials have stated that its enforcement has been suspended “for national security concerns.” This threat gains deeper significance when viewed alongside warnings from Fars News Agency (close to the Revolutionary Guards) about the potential for mass unrest if negotiations with the United States fail, and Tehran’s municipality’s announcement[15] of installing approximately 15,000 surveillance cameras. These developments suggest that the IR’s “heroic flexibility” towards its “foreign enemy” is accompanied by an intensified “iron fist” policy against the “internal enemy”—the oppressed masses.
Conclusions:
The intensified reliance on “public intimidation” and the increased executions underscore that the IR’s rulers, while facing various political opponents, rightly perceive the oppressed masses as their primary adversaries. Recent events have demonstrated the IR’s readiness to negotiate with its so-called “sworn foreign enemies” from a weaker position, making significant concessions (abandoning proxy forces). Simultaneously, the IR’s rulers show no flexibility towards the oppressed masses (“internal enemies”), intensifying the “iron fist” policy and using their power over life and death as a tool for public intimidation. This reaffirms that for the IR’s rulers, “the main enemy is at home.”
The IR has played specific roles in the reproduction of the global order, shaped by historical trajectories and the political-economic interests of its rulers, defining its fundamental characteristics. The overarching goal behind the IR regime’s complex maneuvers, including negotiations with the United States, is the preservation and reproduction of the state itself. The IR strives for survival like a living organism, employing all means to ensure this goal, a desperate endeavor now more evident in its brutality. Similarly, the global capitalist system struggles for survival, with its efforts becoming increasingly aggressive and destructive. While the focus on survival is inherent in any state institution, within the IR, this has been sanctified as an unconditional principle[16] since Ayatollah Khomeini’s declaration: “The preservation of the [Islamic] regime is the most important obligation.” This religious legitimization removes any boundaries from the IR’s survival efforts, partly explaining its reckless use of propaganda and repression, its conciliatory foreign policy coupled with uncompromising domestic policy, and its disregard for human life, confronting opponents solely with death-oriented mechanisms.
From this perspective, the justice-seeking movement for the victims of the IR regime and the “No to Executions on Tuesdays Campaign”[17] represent significant achievements deserving of strong support and solidarity. This support is crucial not only morally (defending the right to life) but also strategically, as a form of resistance against the IR regime, targeting the very foundation of its repression and existence as a death-centered entity.
Appendix:
IR as a Sub-Imperialist Power
The Iranian state has been described as a sub-imperialist power in some analytical and political writings. While a detailed theoretical discussion is beyond the scope of the text, the following outlines the justification for using this term.
Despite the inherent tendency of capital to expand beyond national borders, the historical development of capitalism involved establishing and solidifying nation-states to overcome pre-capitalist forces and mechanisms. Since the rise of capitalism, nation-states have been responsible for ensuring the conditions necessary for their national capital to prosper. This occurred in two main ways: Domestically: Primarily through controlling labor and suppressing any resistance from it. Externally: By facilitating access for national capital to limited global resources and markets. Consequently, the historical development and continuation of the capitalist system have resulted from the interaction between the internal/national functions of capitalist states and the unavoidable competition and conflicts among them. If we understand global imperialist relations as the power dynamics essential for the continuation of the capitalist order, structured by national borders and competing states, then these imperialist relations cannot maintain their global reach without the active involvement and mediation of national states, especially regional powers. Therefore, when we specifically identify global power centers (the imperialists), we can justifiably consider regional/middle powers (like Iran) as sub-imperialist states because the global power centers rely on these regional powers to pursue and advance their objectives. Historical evidence shows how countries such as Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and even the United Arab Emirates have acted as sub-imperialists in their surrounding regions. This is evident through: The ideological, political, and military aspects of their interventions and aggressive influence in various regional countries. More importantly, economic factors such as exporting capital (or attracting capital from major global centers) and establishing various means for economic exploitation.
To validate this claim, an analysis of the economic roles and functions of the Iranian regime in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen would be necessary, along with similar analyses[18] for Saudi Arabia’s, Turkey’s, and the UAE’s involvements in their respective regions. In simpler terms, while there are major global powers (imperialists), these powers rely on regional actors like Iran to help them maintain their influence and the existing global capitalist system. These regional actors, therefore, act as “sub-imperialists,” promoting their own interests and exerting influence in their regions, which in turn supports the broader goals of the dominant global powers. This is seen not just in military actions but also in economic activities that facilitate exploitation and maintain the existing power structure.
[1] According to a report by BBC Persian, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, in response to a question about the message conveyed by the deployment of B-2 strategic bombers to Iran, said: “The decision regarding this is up to them…. These bombers are excellent tools and carry a message for everyone.”
[2] After the Russian parliament (Duma) approved the comprehensive strategic treaty of political, military, and economic cooperation with Iran, Andrei Rudenko, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, told Duma representatives that, according to this treaty, in the event of an attack on one of the two countries, the other party is not obligated to provide military support. (State news agency TASS, April 8). See also: Newsweek: Russia Says It Won’t Have to Defend Iran in Win for Trump. Apr 08, 2025.
[3] Iran is withdrawing its military forces from Yemen; Source: Radio Zamaneh, April 4, 2025.
[4] Reuters: Islamic resistance groups in Iraq have expressed their readiness for disarmament. (Quoted from Radio Zamaneh, April 7, 2025)
[5] The term heroic flexibility was first introduced in 2015 by the religious leader of the IR to describe the nuclear agreement with global powers, which represented a strategic retreat for Iran’s leaders. Since then, it has been applied in similar contexts.
[7] For instance, Hossein Mousavian, a former member of Iran’s nuclear negotiation team and a current researcher at Princeton University, wrote: ‘Both sides are correct. There is no contradiction. … It seems that on Saturday in Oman, Mr. Araqchi and Mr. Witkoff will initially start negotiations indirectly, and if the initial atmosphere is positive, after an hour or two, direct talks between the representatives of the two countries will begin.’ [Source: Rokna News Agency, April 8, 2025].
[8] Pezeshkian, the President of Iran: ‘The Leader has no objections to American investments in Iran.’ (Source: Radio Zamaneh, April 9, 2025)
[9] The concept militarized accumulation was first developed by William I. Robinson. See: Robinson W. I. (2014): Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity, Cambridge University Press.
[10] In Iran under IR, the judiciary has never been independent. However, in the past two decades, alongside the deepening antagonistic divide between the IR-regime and the oppressed, which has been accompanied by the expansion of militarization and the security apparatus of the regime, the judiciary has disgracefully become an extension of the security forces.
[11] The message from Major General Baqeri, the Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces, delivered by in front of Persepolis for Iranian New Year, serves as a striking example in this regard. (Farhikhtegan News, April 7, 2025)
[12] Hrana: “In Iran, at least 28 prisoners have been executed in the past six days.” Source: Radio Zamaneh, April 10, 2025.
[14] The Islamic Republic, on the verge of forced retreats in its dealings with the international system, resorts to intensifying domestic repression, including a significant increase in the number of executions. The repetition of this pattern in the current situation may somewhat remind one of another historical event: the massacre of political prisoners in 1988. Shortly after the IR accepted the UN resolution for peace (Resolution 598) to end the eight-year war with Iraq, the Islamic Republic secretly executed thousands of political opponents (leftists) in Iranian prisons. This crime occurred just before the ruling authorities began the voluntary establishment of a neoliberal model for the Iranian economy (or its aggressive imposition on the underprivileged). A significant difference is that while the rulers at that historical moment carefully concealed the mass killings of political opponents from public view, today they loudly announce the daily executions (which mainly involve social offenders, particularly from minority groups) in the media. Whereas the primary goal of the 1988 massacre was the physical elimination of opponents, the main objective of the recent daily executions is to intimidate the entire society.
[15] According to the CEO of the Tehran Municipality Traffic Control Company (in his interview with ISNA on April 8, 2025), “One of the municipality’s urgent projects is to complete the video monitoring system and use artificial intelligence equipment to detect violations that lead to accidents and illegal activities. For this reason, this year, fifteen thousand cameras are set to be added to this system.”
[16] The approach of “sanctified targeting” is similarly observable in the political sphere of Israel, particularly within Netanyahu’s coalition government: where the extremist right-wingers in Israel justify any means, both in thought and action, to preserve the state of Israel and achieve the sacred goal of a Greater Israel.
[17] This campaign, despite all the tangible threats and security pressures over the past year, has involved a large number of prisons in Iran and a broad array of political and non-political prisoners. (Telegram page of the campaign “No to Execution Tuesdays Campaign.”)
[18] For example, this website contains numerous well-documented reports that provide empirical data regarding the regional interventions of Middle Eastern sub-imperialist powers: https://migration-control.info/en/
Two years have passed since the war broke out in Sudan between the two sides of the military regime that the country inherited from the infamous Omar al-Bashir. While the situation in Sudan does not get even a tenth of the global media attention that the ongoing Zionist genocidal war in Gaza receives, the scale of the human catastrophe there is equally horrific. The death toll from the military-on-military war is estimated at more than 150,000, while the number of displaced people stands at approximately 13 million, and the number of those threatened with severe famine reaches 44 million—a record number that makes the war in Sudan the greatest humanitarian crisis in today’s world.
Of course, it is easy to understand the geopolitical factors that make the war waged by Israel in Gaza and the rest of the Middle East a major international concern, not to mention the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the racist inclination that dominates the global “spontaneous” ideology cannot be denied. It has always made the extent of global media attention to wars inversely proportional to the degree of blackness of the skin of those involved. A striking example of this is the five-year war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) between the summer of 1998 and the summer of 2003, which claimed approximately six million direct and indirect victims. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the world turned a blind eye to events in the Congo, while paying far greater attention to events with far lower death tolls, such as the Kosovo War (1999), the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington (2001), the subsequent US intervention in Afghanistan, and the subsequent US occupation of Iraq (2003).
In general, wars in which white soldiers from the global North—whether American or European, including, of course, Russians—do not directly participate receive very little global attention. This is the case of Sudan, which is witnessing a war between two exclusively local parties, even if fueled by regional parties, particularly through their support for the genocidal Rapid Support Forces militia. The most dangerous role in this regard has been played by the United Arab Emirates, in alliance with a global player, Russia. This is the same duo that played the primary role in supporting Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan civil war.
The truth though is that Western countries, even if they have had no direct role in the Sudanese war, bear primary responsibility for what has befallen the country. The UN Special Envoy to Sudan, from early 2021 until his resignation in September 2023, the German Volker Perthes, played the role of the “white man” in his assignment with a stench of colonialism, and acted disastrously, flouting the principles to which Westerners are supposed to adhere, perhaps because he believed the Sudanese are not worthy of democracy.
When the coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which disrupted the democratic process resulting from the 2019 revolution, occurred in the autumn of 2021, it was during Perthes’s watch as UN envoy to the country. Perthes sought to reconcile the military and the civilian leadership they had overthrown, instead of taking a firm stance against the putschists and calling on the international community to exert maximum pressure on them to return to their barracks and allow for the continuation of the democratic process. This leniency toward the military and the attempt to reconcile them with the civilians, rather than taking a harsh stance against their coup, encouraged them to covet maintaining their complete control over the country. This led, two years later, to the outbreak of fighting between the two factions of the military, the regular forces and the Rapid Support Forces, each side vying for sole control of the country.
The reality is that the war in Sudan faces only two possible outcomes: Either the United Nations finally assumes its responsibility, organizes the intervention of international forces, imposes a ceasefire on both warring parties, and then forces them to retreat to their barracks while allowing the democratic process to continue and providing it with full support, including the necessary means to disband the ill-fated Rapid Support Forces and impose radical changes on the Sudanese regular forces, transforming them from the army of a military dictatorship into one subject to civilian authority. Or Sudan heads toward partition, which would perpetuate military rule in its eastern part and allow the Rapid Support Forces (formerly the Janjaweed militia) to impose complete control over the Darfur region, enabling them to continue the racist genocidal war that they began waging at the beginning of the current century under Bashir’s leadership (he rewarded them in 2013 by granting them official status as a faction of the Sudanese Armed Forces).
Finally, regarding Sudan’s great tragedy, it is necessary to also point out the failure of international solidarity with the afflicted Sudanese people. While we warmly welcome the tremendous development witnessed by the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people against the Zionist genocidal war in Gaza, we can only regret the continued dependence of global solidarity on the shaping of media attention described above. There is utmost urgency for a broad solidarity movement with the people of Sudan to emerge, particularly in Western countries but also in all regions of the world, including the Arab region, pressing for United Nations intervention to halt this great tragedy.
Translated from the Arabic original published in Al-Quds al-Arabi on 22 April 2025. Originally published in English here.
Netflix’ Adolescence is a flawed but powerfully crafted drama. The acting and particularly the dialogue is superb – its poignant, witty in places, and offers up a powerful evocation of working-class family life. The existential flaw in the program, however, lies in the premise. It is endeavoring to grasp the real problem of toxic masculinity/online incel culture purveyed by figures such as Andrew Tate. But, while this is an incredibly important issue, the program approaches it in a rather liberal and one-sided way.
For the type of violence which the thirteen-year-old boy commits against his female classmate presents as something of an anomaly. If you look at children who commit these types of crimes, the short history they have had in the world is always unremittingly bleak and horrifying, accompanied by extreme forms of abuse or neglect. One need only reference the cases of the boys who murdered the toddler James Bulger or the case of Mary Bell (who in her adult life was able to enjoy a wonderful rehabilitation).
Bulger’s killers were Robert Thompson and John Venables who were both ten at the time they tortured and murdered the toddler. Thompson had grown up being brutalized and molested by his father, and seen his alcoholic mother and siblings endure the same fate. Venables came from a highly unstable family where both mother and father had histories of clinical depression, where the upheaval caused by their fights meant that he and his siblings were always being shunted from home to home, school to school, and in such a context his mother had been observed physically and verbally abusing him. All of which translated into anti-social behaviour and a violent acting out on his part long before Bulger’s murder.
Mary Bell had strangled a four-year-old boy when she was ten and a three-year-old boy when she was eleven. Her mother had neglected Mary and very likely physically abused her as Mary had been prone to all sorts of ‘household accidents’ as a very young child. Mary’s mother worked as a prostitute and would allow her clients to sexually abuse her child.
In Adolescence, however, the child in question has a loving family who are also present in his life, he has stability and support and a secure place in the world. It is true that he has been bullied at school, but what shapes his murderous rage most fundamentally is his experience of the online world, spending the early hours imbibing the misogynistic politics of the men’s rights movements in the guise of figures like Andrew Tate.
And this – as a political premise – is fundamentally liberal in tone; that is, by and large, it disregards the broader sociological content, more general forms of exploitation, anomie, deprivation and substance addiction which, at their most extreme, are concentrated into some of the worst types of abuse against children in the home. The writers simply replace such social content with internet culture in abstraction.
In this respect, the politics of Adolescence is the inheritor of the whole ‘video nasty’ moral panic of the 1980s, the sense the most grievous crimes, especially those committed by children or young adults, could be understood because the individual in question had been exposed to violence on screen, had watched a film such as Child’s Play 3 (this was a key component in the way the media framed the perpetrators in the James Bulger case for example). It is perhaps no coincidence, therefore, that one of the writers of Adolescencehas called for teenagers to be banned from social media as a whole, much the same as those cultural critics of the eighties deciding the best way of solving the problem of violence in society is to ban those films which depict extreme violence.
That there is a deeply disturbing online culture of misogyny and toxic masculinity, and this is highly damaging (especially to children) is without a doubt the case. But such online culture is only a symptom of deeper issues about how society is structured and where power lies. The politics of Adolescence are classically liberal, in that they emphasize the first moment while allowing the second to recede from sight.
And this bleeds into the quality of its aesthetic. The ‘touching’ scene at the end where the mother and father open up about what has happened is actually a little empty and meandering – “We should have stopped it, seen it and stopped it … it’s not our fault, can’t blame ourselves … You were a good mum. You are a good mum … You are good dad. A great dad. But we made him. So if my dad made me … how did I make that? … Should we have done more? … We should’ve done.”
The rather nebulous and rambling exchange occurs because the parents are not responding to a genuine content at all. The basis for their son’s violence has not been derived by the writers as an aesthetic necessity which flows from his broader social existence, but merely by the fact that he has wandered down the wrong internet rabbit hole. The parents are unable to coherently get to grips with the nature of their son’s mental deterioration because the source of such deterioration has only ever been posed by the writers by way of an empty abstraction (it was all the dark web).
Ditto with the scene with the boy in the institution being interviewed by the psychiatrist. In terms of dialogue and drama, it is excellent. But it doesn’t really add to the character development of the boy in any meaningful way. We don’t see him finding a new understanding of himself, we have no real sense of what lies ahead for him in the future – i.e. how he might begin to overcome the issues which set into motion his crime, for those issues were never truly adduced from the development of himself as living personality, but simply stamped on his character from without by the presence of the most unsavory aspects of the internet.
I think too that the writers intuit this aesthetic lacuna, this absence of broader social content. Which is why the story of the bullying is brought in. The young teenager who commits the crime is bullied at school; indeed the young girl he murders is the person who has been bullying him. She has taunted him as an ‘incel’ (an involuntarily celibate man) in online fora. And yet, this strand of the story is not just incongruous but also problematic. What makes Adolescence so relevant, one feels, is that it purports to show the way in which the misogyny of internet culture and men’s right’s group’s spills into the life of a young boy who then lashes out in a murderous act, killing a female victim because he has been acculturated to hate women per se, women as women.
And yet, it now turns out that misogyny is not the true motivation here. It is because he is being bullied. It might just as easily have been a boy who taunted him as an ‘incel,’ and he might just as easily have killed his tormentor in a similar fashion. The work that the writers are doing to demonstrate the toxic masculinity of aspects of internet culture on the lives of the young is undone with this alternative and contradictory plot line which has no real bearing on these central themes.
In fact, it is more than just undone, it is subverted, for it now turns out that rather than being the victim of patriarchal power and hatred – rather than being attacked simply for being female, the victim herself has actively antagonized her aggressor. The power relation has been inverted; she is made into the bully and he the victim. I am not saying there is anything in the program to suggest that Katie, the victim, deserved what happened to her. There definitely isn’t. But neither is any great attempt made to flesh out her life. As Ross Clark points out, the devastating effects of her loss on the people around her are barely referenced; “there is the gaping gap of the victim’s family. What are they thinking, how are they reacting to this cataclysm? We never find out because we never see them. We do see her best friend, briefly ….”
In depicting Katie as the bully and her murderer as the victim of such bullying, the writers upend the very same processes of patriarchal power and abuse they are endeavoring to describe. By so doing, although this purports to be a series providing an acute criticism of toxic masculinity, our sympathies as an audience are recentered on the boy who commits murder rather than the girl who is the victim of it.
As he is arrested, the police seem extraordinarily attentive to his vulnerability and his confusion, and throughout, the audience are continually invited to adopt an attitude of ‘if only’ – as in, “if only this clearly bright but lonely boy had not found his way into the darker recesses of internet culture, if only such a promising future hadn’t been snatched away.” The damage to his family is depicted in a vivid and palpable way. And his voice comes through, resonant and tragic.
But the girl who has no future remains mute. And I wonder if this doesn’t say something about patriarchal culture too.
Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, and Varisheh Moradi
At first glance, the death penalty might appear to be a matter of law or human rights, rather than a feminist concern. But in Iran, where gender deeply shapes legal outcomes, the question becomes urgent: why should feminists care about capital punishment? The answer lies in how the Iranian judicial system applies the death penalty—often through a lens that erases the lived realities of women, particularly those who have endured abuse, trauma, and systemic violence.
Women who resist the regime, speak out for their rights, or challenge patriarchal structures face a unique and brutal form of repression. Feminists—across their many perspectives—are committed to justice that is nonviolent, equitable, and conscious of how power operates along gender lines. By engaging with the death penalty, they expose not only its cruelty but also its gendered application, framing it as a tool of state control that intersects with issues of gender, class, race, and sexuality. Feminism opposes the death penalty because it reinforces violence, denies justice to the most vulnerable, and forecloses the possibility of healing and transformation.
Iran’s human rights record has come under intense scrutiny due to a disturbing rise in death sentences. Amnesty International in a report published on April 8th on death sentences and executions globally shockingly report that recorded executions hit their highest figure since 2015. In 2024, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for 91% of all recorded executions, and were among the five countries with the highest number of executions. The report also states that while “ Iran executed 119 more individuals than last year (from at least 853 to at least 972) – accounting for 64% of all known executions” globally.
At least 54 individuals have been sentenced to death on political or security-related charges, with numerous cases tainted by due process violations and unfair trials.
At least 54 individuals have been sentenced to death on political or security-related charges, with numerous cases tainted by due process violations and unfair trials. This alarming trend is particularly concerning for women’s rights activists, who are increasingly targeted by the regime. Among the most notable cases are those of
Pakhshan Azizi, a humanitarian worker and civil society activist sentenced to death for her involvement in protests and activism;
Sharifeh Mohammadi, a human rights defender facing the death penalty for her activism; and
Varisheh Moradi, a women’s rights advocate sentenced to death for her membership in an opposition group to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
These cases not only highlight the regime’s brutal suppression of dissent but also underscore the growing risks for women who dare to challenge the state.
The post-“Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising has seen a significant increase in harsh sentences, with many prisoners facing execution. The Iranian government’s use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression has raised concerns about its human rights record. Iran has long been notorious for its high number of executions, but in 2024, the country has seen an unprecedented increase in the application of the death penalty, with 972 executions recorded, making it the world’s leading executioner per capita. While many of these executions have been carried out for alleged drug-related offenses, which do not meet the international legal thresholds for capital punishment, an increasing number of political prisoners have also been sentenced to death, reflecting a dangerous shift in the Iranian regime’s approach to dissent.
The case of the three women—Azizi, Mohammadi, and Moradi—serves as a stark reminder of how political repression is increasingly intertwined with gender and how the Iranian state uses the death penalty not just as a tool of state control, but as a means to silence the voices of women who dare to challenge the regime. The political executions in Iran, particularly of women, demonstrate the convergence of the state’s misogynistic and authoritarian tendencies, where women’s political agency and activism are punished with violence.
The feminist perspective on the death penalty in Iran reveals a complex interplay between gender, power, and the legal system. Feminism has always been about more than just gender equity. At its core, it is a struggle against all forms of domination. It represents an ongoing pursuit of justice, autonomy, and dignity for all people, especially those who have been pushed to the margins of society.
The death penalty in Iran is applied disproportionately to women who are involved in political activism, particularly those who challenge the status quo of patriarchal governance. The three women currently facing death sentences—Sharifeh Mohammadi, Pakhshan Azizi, and Varisheh Moradi—are emblematic of this broader trend. They were all arrested in 2023 during the crackdown of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, which have been a significant source of dissent against the oppressive policies of the Iranian regime.
The involvement of women in political movements is seen as a direct challenge to the patriarchal order in Iran. Women like Mohammadi, Azizi, and Moradi are not only protesting against policies that restrict their freedoms but are also asserting their right to exist as equal and autonomous individuals. This act of defiance against the state’s patriarchal control over women’s bodies, voices, and lives can be interpreted as a feminist act in itself.
However, the Iranian state does not tolerate such defiance. Women who engage in political movements are often labeled as threats to the nation’s stability, branded as enemies of the state, and subjected to extreme punishments, including the death penalty. In this context, the death penalty serves a dual purpose: it punishes political dissent and reinforces the state’s control over women by attempting to silence those who challenge gendered power structures.
In many cases, the death penalty in Iran is disproportionately applied to women who are themselves victims of gender-based violence. The women who are sentenced to death penalty are not simply cases of crime, but often stories of survival in the face of deep, systemic harm. The Legal and Judicial Magazine of the Iranian Lawyers Foundation, in an article titled “The Most Famous Cases of Iranian Female Murderers,” notes that “the story of Iranian female murderers has a strange and complicated story, with many cases taking years to reach a conclusion.” Behind these delays are lives marked by child marriage, domestic abuse, and long histories of violence. Rather than acknowledging these structural injustices, the legal system often punishes women harshly, failing to consider the contexts of their actions or the traumas they have endured.
According to Iran Human Rights, approximately 70% of women executed for murder had killed their male partners, frequently in acts of desperation after enduring prolonged abuse. In 2024, at least 31 women were executed in Iran—the highest number in 17 years—many of whom faced charges stemming from situations like domestic violence or forced marriage. These cases underscore how the Iranian judicial system often disregards the lived realities of women, punishing them harshly without adequately considering the contexts of their actions or the traumas they have endured.
The death penalty sentence of political prisoners, including those of the three women, are part of a broader strategy by the Islamic Republic to quash dissent and suppress any opposition to the government. The regime has increasingly used the death penalty as a tool to intimidate protesters and activists, using the threat of execution to create an atmosphere of fear and silence those who speak out against it. Feminists argue that the criminalization of political activism and the subsequent use of the death penalty reflects a patriarchal attempt to control and erase the voices of women who dare to oppose the regime.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Islamic Republic’s use of the death penalty is the lack of due process and the frequent reliance on forced confessions extracted under torture.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Islamic Republic’s use of the death penalty is the lack of due process and the frequent reliance on forced confessions extracted under torture. Political prisoners are often denied access to legal counsel and subjected to sham trials, which violate international standards of justice. In many cases, the “confessions” used to convict individuals are obtained under duress, highlighting the regime’s systematic disregard for human rights.
The death penalty in Iran is disproportionately applied to members of ethnic and religious minorities. As noted in the case of the three women, those facing execution are often part of marginalized communities, which have historically faced systemic discrimination in Iranian society. These minorities, including Kurds, Baloch, Turks, Arabs and other nationality and ethnics communities, are often targeted by the regime for their involvement in political activism, and the death penalty is used as a means of further suppressing their voices.
The intersection of gender and minority status makes the experience of facing the death penalty even more complex for individuals like Mohammadi, Azizi, and Moradi. These women, as members of minority communities, are subject not only to gender-based violence but also to ethnic and political persecution. Their executions would serve as a warning to other women and minority communities that resistance to the regime is not tolerated.
The use of forced confessions extracted under torture is a hallmark of the Iranian judicial system, particularly when it comes to political prisoners. The regime often uses these confessions to justify the death penalty, despite their inherent unreliability. For instance, the cases of Mohammadi, Azizi, and Moradi are likely to involve confessions that were coerced under duress, and the trials that led to their death sentences were marred by serious due process violations. Feminist scholars argue that these confessions are particularly problematic when applied to women, as they often involve the criminalization of women’s political agency. In the case of the three women, their participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests was not only a political act but a direct challenge to the patriarchal control that the regime seeks to maintain. The forced confessions extracted from them serve to criminalize their resistance, effectively punishing them for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association.
The execution of political prisoners in Iran, especially women, is a gross violation of international human rights law. Iran’s continued use of the death penalty for political crimes is condemned by international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human rights watch and United Nation Human Right Council which have repeatedly called for the abolition of the death penalty and the release of political prisoners.
However, international governments, particularly those engaged in diplomatic relations with the Iranian regime, have largely remained silent in the face of these executions. The silence of the international community only serves to embolden the Iranian government, allowing it to continue its brutal campaign against dissent.
Feminist activists and human rights organizations argue that global pressure must be applied to Iran to end the use of the death penalty for political dissidents. Governments must speak out against these executions and demand an end to the systemic persecution of women and minorities in Iran. The international community must hold the Iranian regime accountable for its violations of human rights, particularly its abuse of the death penalty as a tool of political repression.
The increasing use of the death penalty in Iran as a means to silence political dissent and marginalize women is a deeply troubling practice of Islamic Republic of Iran.
The increasing use of the death penalty in Iran as a means to silence political dissent and marginalize women is a deeply troubling practice of Islamic Republic of Iran. The cases of Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, and Varisheh Moradi highlight the intersection of gender, politics, and state violence, with the death penalty being used as a tool to maintain patriarchal control and suppress women’s rights. Feminist activists and human rights organizations must continue to push for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran and for the release of political prisoners who have been unjustly sentenced.
The struggle for women’s rights in Iran is intrinsically linked to the fight for justice and human rights for all. The death penalty sentence for political prisoners, particularly women, are not just a violation of individual rights but a direct attack on the feminist movements that are challenging the oppressive structures of power in Iran. It is time for the international community to act, to demand an abolition and an end to executions, and to support the women and men who continue to fight for freedom, dignity, and equality in Iran.
In conclusion, the death penalty in Iran, particularly as it relates to all political prisoners and women, is not only a matter of legal justice but one of feminist struggle. The execution sentence of Azizi, Mohammadi, and Moradi highlight the intersection of state violence, gender inequality, and political repression, and the fight to end these death penalty sentences is a fight for justice, equality, and human rights. Feminists, both within Iran, in Iranian diaspora and internationally, must continue to demand abolition of the death penalty in Iran. Abolishing the death penalty is not just a legal reform, it is a commitment to a more humane and hopeful tomorrow.
This article has been re-posted from LA Progressive. The opinions expressed here are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.
As a Black worker I felt a need to attend the April 5th National Day of Action “Hands Off Protest” in downtown Los Angeles where there were an estimated 10,000 plus participants, all there to protest the reactionary right-wing agenda of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
I felt a need to attend this particular protest because of all the hype telling the Black masses that we should sit this action out because it doesn’t concern us, how this protest is just a fight between white people, between the Democratic and Republican parties, and also that the white Left has forgotten us as well.
There has been a strong campaign on YouTube from certain individuals who consider themselves speaking for the Black community. I found the language of these podcasts offensive to the point of anger. In one of the videos I saw, the language was very patronizing to Black people, telling us to stay home and “sit your Black asses down” and not go out in protest as if the attacks upon DEI, federal job layoffs, possible social security and Medicaid cuts, etc. do not affect us.
This is what MAGA would do to confuse and disarm the Black movement. The language I heard in these videos would never have been used by Black people who knew and understood the Black experience. “Sit your Black ass down” is disrespectful to what historically we have fought for, for new human relationships. To say that it’s not our fight but a fight among whites is to erase the recent history of the Black Lives Matters protests where many whites were on the front lines nationwide fighting alongside us against the police and some of those whites were jailed and even killed.
Why should Black folks follow the lead of the MAGA Right? The Black movement has historically pushed American society forward, including pushing the Left movement. The white working class that voted for Trump en masse needs to realize their class interest as being against the billionaires like Musk and Trump who feed off the racism found within the American working class. This problem with a long history in America needs to be solved if we as a country are to move forward.
Having separate movements inflames racism. This is not the time for the Black movement to take a back seat when many of the whites on the Republican and Democratic side are questioning the direction of this country. The time is now to strike for a new direction.
The fearmongering of these YouTube videos claiming imminent attack upon Black protesters was a false narrative. I was at Pershing Square in Los Angeles for the speeches and the rally where a Black veteran spoke about the need to fight Trump and DOGE over benefits that helped to save his life from drug addition, imprisonment, and PTSD after he got home from Afghanistan. An African woman immigrant spoke, sang, and danced for the protesters with her demand to reinforce immigrant rights by showing how important diversity has been to making America strong economically and to reinforcing our freedom. Another speaker spoke for Latinx immigrant workers who are at the top of the Trump hit list for deportation, some of whom have been abducted or disappeared. Immigrant students’ visas have been revoked for protesting against Israel’s continuing genocidal war against the people of Gaza.
We as African Americans came to America as slaves. We as Black slaves survived the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, and we survived a fistful of atrocities against us as a people, and we will survive Trump’s authoritarian agenda. But that doesn’t mean we want to live off the scraps from the “master’s” table. Never again. We as a people know that the Trump administration’s agenda has made us invisible.
I read a statement on Facebook from a Black youth whose mother said that this was a fight between “white folks,” not our fight. But this is our fight. Historically, the American Civil War could be seen as a fight between white folks with Black slaves being the spoils. But that was our fight too. We are in the middle or at the bottom as Black folks in America today. And the middle or the bottom is where you’re most likely to get hit.
I don’t think the Democratic or Republican Parties want to represent the Black masses as we continue to present ourselves as a historic and often revolutionary problem for the system. The Trump campaign began as an attack upon the electoral success of the Obama presidency and his expansion of health care for the poor. Trump’s success was built on racist attacks against Obama and Trump fed off the racist backlash. What direction will the Black masses go in? I don’t know. It has yet to be determined, but the Black masses need to be front and center in the fight against fascism if we are to win.
Africa today stands at a crossroads, caught between internal crises, shifting global power dynamics, and the slow unraveling of the post-liberation political order. Across the continent, ruling parties that once commanded legitimacy as national liberators are losing their grip; yet the opposition remains fragmented, offering little in the way of alternative governance.
The Mozambican elections of 2024 provide one of the starkest examples of this decline, as the ruling Frelimo party declared victory in a process widely condemned as fraudulent. Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane was running under the newly formed Podemos. He accused the government of orchestrating a massive electoral manipulation after parallel vote counts suggested he had actually won. The ruling party responded to mass protests with a violent crackdown. This continued a trend of suppressing political dissent while maintaining control through increasingly authoritarian means.
The growing illegitimacy of these liberation-era governments is not limited to Mozambique. In South Africa, the ANC has lost its outright majority for the first time since 1994, securing only around 40% of the vote in the 2024 elections. After decades of political dominance, the party now finds itself in an uneasy and deeply fragile coalition with the Democratic Alliance (DA), its long-time rival. This has forced the ANC into a more centrist governing position, limiting its ability to pursue policies that its traditional base might expect.
While some within the ANC view this coalition as a necessary compromise to maintain stability, others see it as a betrayal of the party’s historic mission, particularly given the DA’s neoliberal policy orientation. The consequences of this arrangement remain uncertain—whether the coalition will last, whether it will further fracture the ANC, or whether it will give rise to stronger opposition movements outside of the mainstream electoral process.
The ANC’s decline follows a broader trend in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF remains entrenched through repression rather than popular support, using the judiciary and electoral commission to block serious opposition challenges. Meanwhile, Namibia’s Swapo and Botswana’s BDP have both faced unprecedented electoral challenges (with the BDP losing an election for the first time since independence), signaling that even once-stable ruling parties are no longer guaranteed easy victories. The unraveling of these movements suggests that their once-powerful liberation credentials no longer provide a sufficient mandate for governance.
Conflict
The weakening of these governments is unfolding against the backdrop of worsening conflict and instability elsewhere on the continent.
Sudan remains locked in a devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces..
Sudan remains locked in a devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. This is a conflict that has displaced millions while becoming increasingly internationalised, with Egypt and the UAE backing opposing sides. The war has not only deepened Sudan’s economic collapse but also threatens regional stability, with spillover effects in Chad, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to struggle with armed insurgencies, particularly the resurgence of the M23, whose support from Rwanda has exacerbated regional tensions. Accusations of cross-border interference are further straining diplomatic relations.
These crises are not isolated; they reflect a deeper failure of governance across Africa, where the state is often unable to resolve social and economic grievances without resorting to violence.
The Trump effect
Amidst these crises, Africa is also navigating a shifting international order. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has already begun to reshape US-Africa relations. There has been a turn toward more transactional engagement and a renewed emphasis on security over development. One of Trump’s first major foreign policy moves was slashing foreign aid, dismantling USAID, and cutting funding to key health programmes, including PEPFAR. This left millions without access to HIV treatment and other critical services.
This has been felt most acutely in countries where health systems are already under severe strain, exacerbating public health crises that could have long-term destabilising effects. The administration’s rationale for these cuts is rooted in its broader ‘America First’ ideology. This sees foreign aid as an unnecessary expenditure rather than a strategic investment in stability.
And this has coincided with a hardening of US immigration policy. The administration is considering a sweeping visa ban that could affect dozens of African countries, restricting travel for students, workers, and tourists alike. This approach is reminiscent of Trump’s first-term travel bans. It signals a deepening of US isolationism in relation to Africa, treating the continent more as a security and migration risk than a diplomatic or economic partner.
Trump and South Africa
The administration’s hostility toward South Africa has been particularly striking. Trump expelled the South African ambassador and imposed sanctions. This was in response to Pretoria’s land expropriation policies and its foreign policy positions, particularly its efforts to hold Israel accountable for its genocide in Gaza. The administration brands this sympathy for Hamas and Iran.
These punitive measures reflect the administration’s broader discomfort with governments that challenge US hegemony, particularly those within BRICS. By framing South Africa’s policy positions as “anti-American,” Trump has effectively severed one of the most significant diplomatic relationships between the US and an African power. This also plays into his administration’s broader emphasis on privileging right-wing, authoritarian-aligned states while isolating governments perceived as left-leaning or independent.
US, China and African resources
At the same time, the Trump administration is pursuing a different kind of engagement with other African states, particularly in the resource sector. The administration is currently negotiating a minerals-for-security agreement with the DRC. They are offering military assistance in exchange for exclusive access to critical minerals, essential for advanced US industries, particularly in technology and defense. The deal would grant US companies extensive control over cobalt and other essential minerals. It reflects a shift in US strategy from development aid to direct economic extraction.
Trucks transporting minerals from a pit in Tenke Fungurume Mine in southeastern DRC. The US is offering military assistance in exchange for exclusive access to critical minerals, essential for advanced US industries.
The administration argues that this partnership will help stabilise the DRC by providing security assistance. Critics warn that it risks deepening neocolonial dynamics by prioritising resource extraction over genuine economic development.
At the same time, China’s approach to Africa is also changing. For two decades, Beijing was the continent’s dominant economic partner, financing infrastructure and trade at a scale unmatched by any other external power. However, with China’s domestic economy slowing, its willingness to provide large-scale loans to African governments has diminished. Countries like Zambia and Kenya, heavily indebted to China, have already felt the pressure of Beijing’s recalibrated lending strategy. The days of China offering easy credit for grand infrastructure projects may be coming to an end, leaving African states in a precarious position. Many governments, having structured their economies around continued Chinese investment, now find themselves struggling to adjust to this new reality. The shift leaves Africa with fewer external financing options, as Western financial institutions have also tightened lending conditions, particularly for heavily indebted countries.
A possible new politics?
For African governments, these developments raise difficult questions about political and economic strategy. The decline of national liberation movements has not yet resulted in the emergence of viable progressive alternatives. Opposition parties across the region have largely embraced neoliberal governance models rather than articulating new visions for economic transformation. Instead of a decisive shift toward democratic renewal, much of the continent appears to be veering between increased state repression and fragmented opposition. Many opposition parties, while vocal in their criticism of ruling governments, have failed to offer economic programmes that break with the dominant neoliberal paradigm. This has meant that, even where ruling parties face electoral decline, there is little indication that their replacements would fundamentally alter the political or economic landscape.
While movements rooted in labour and grassroots struggles continue to push for change, their ability to challenge entrenched power structures remains uncertain. The weakness of Left alternatives in Africa today reflects broader global trends, where socialist and social-democratic forces have struggled to reassert themselves in a world shaped by finance capital and corporate power.
However, there are signs that this could change. Across the continent, there are growing calls for economic sovereignty, demands for stronger social protection programmes, and increased resistance to external financial dictates. If these struggles coalesce into more coherent political formations, they could provide the basis for a new kind of politics—one that breaks with both the failures of post-liberation parties and the limitations of liberal opposition forces.
The post-liberation political order in Africa is coming apart, but what comes next is far from clear. The erosion of ruling party legitimacy has not yet translated into meaningful systemic transformation. In many cases, it has simply opened the door for new forms of elite maneuvering. In this moment of transition, the real battle is not just over elections but over the very nature of the state, economic governance, and Africa’s place in a rapidly changing world order. Until alternatives emerge that challenge the continent’s dependence on global finance, resource extraction, and debt-driven growth, Africa will remain locked in cycles of instability, with or without the old liberation movements at the helm.
The New Politics Summer 2026 issue is now in the hands of subscribers, featuring articles on Democracy versus Degeneration in the United States (with contributions by Dan La Botz, Ellen Schrecker on McCarthyism Then and Now interviewed by Elizabeth Rapaport, Ben Silverman on the fascism debate, Samuel Farber on free speech, Samuel Barney on rural prisons, and Raoul Cansino and Bill Kelly on nativism), Imperialism Around the World (with articles by Lisbeth Moya González on Cuba, Husam Mahjoub on Sudan, Siyavash Shahabi and imperialism and the working class, and Matt Benson on the Mapuche in Chile), interviews on labor struggles and Russian political prisoners, a history of the International Socialists, review essays by Frieda Afary on AI, Javier Sethness on Western Marxism, and Peter Drucker on Molly Crabapple, as well as reviews on Ukraine, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, white rage, South Asia, and Afghanistan, plus a letter on women under the Taliban.
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