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GLOBAL LEFT MIDWEEK – APRIL 17, 2024  
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April 17, 2024
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_ Internationalism and democracy _

Activists burn a copy of Modi's anti-Muslim law during a protest in
Kolkata, India, on March 12, 2024. Credit, AP Photo/Bikas Das

 

* Message From GLM Moderator
* Ukraine and Palestine
* Key Town Falls to Myanmar Resistance
* Three Wakeup Calls from South Africa
* Who Killed Marielle Franco? 
* The Struggle for Sudan
* More Surprises From Austrian Voters
* Environment Defenders in Bosnia
* Ugandans Resist LGBTQ+ Criminalization
* Poems That Challenge Modi’s Hate
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MESSAGE FROM GLM MODERATOR

_Ethan Young_ / xxxxxx (New York)

May Day is soon. The holiday is probably the US workers movement’s
most important contribution to internationalism. But our left’s
understanding of internationalist solidarity is more polarized now
than it has been since the height of the last cold war… 70 years!

Case in point: Ukraine. An influential part of the antiwar movement
believes that the path to peace is to get Washington to step out of
the way and just let the Russian army finish its work.

And Kurdistan. Revolutionaries have pushed the ethnic struggle in that
region to create a breakthrough experiment in communitarian politics,
the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, aka Rojava. It
faces violent repression from anti-Kurd authorities in Turkey. But
it’s scarcely known or recognized on the left.

Perhaps most questionable – and revealing – is the left’s
failure to support, or even acknowledge, the revolution taking place
in Myanmar. The people’s resistance there brings to mind the classic
mass uprisings in the ’70s, including Vietnam. It involves a broad,
rural-urban alliance engaged in guerilla war, nonviolent
demonstrations, strikes, and a shadow government, against an
increasingly isolated military junta. The country has the fifth
largest population in Southeast Asia. Why is this uprising ignored?

The answer is: politics.

The theme of multipolarity is gaining influence on the left. It
counterposes combined pressure of states whose fate was previously
tied to the US and/or European colonialists, against US/NATO
strategies. From here comes the view that movements that are outside
the frame of multipolarity are only sideshows in the big picture.

To the contrary, these popular movements taken together are in
themselves becoming a new global power going in the opposite
direction. Recognizing this is a different kind of solidarity than the
anti-interventionism of the ’60s and ’70s.

In Ukraine, Rojava and Myanmar, US imperialism is a secondary factor
at best. In all three, armed popular resistance has broken out to
defend democracy, against enemies that have little in common besides
the shared authoritarianism of Putin, Erdogan and the Myanmar junta.
At present, none of the rival blocs support the Kurds or the
Myanmarese insurgents. All these struggles deserve support or at least
attention from the left. 

There are competing ideas in the global left about internationalism.
There has been a convergence around opposition to Netanyahu’s
genocide campaign, but underlying tensions reflect different world
views that will be hard to reconcile. They raise core questions: How
have geopolitics changed since the collapse of the Soviet bloc? Is
imperialism still defined by the power of the US and allies? What do
we mean by democracy? How do we understand socialism as a goal? And
what does this mean for international solidarity?

Each of these questions leads into serious and necessary discussion
and debate, as we turn a crucial corner in history. US imperialism
still dominates. New forms of resistance to colonialism appear around
the world, as any reading of Global Left Midweek will tell us. But the
alignments and goals of these various fronts are new. The US and
allies are not always centrally involved. The frontline could be
Canadian campuses, South American indigenous areas, streets where
women mobilize in Poland, Indian farms or Iranian steel mills. The
strength of left parties in various governments reflect the growth of
these insurgencies.

What bridges them is a demand for democracy. Not the superficial
models of the Cold War years – for the east, anti-fascism, and for
the west, the freedom to exploit. For authoritarian states, democracy
is considered moot, or it is distorted in nationalist rhetoric. For
liberal democracy, it's a closed club running an open society, about
to face its primary contradiction.

A demand for direct democracy, rule by the majority, is rising
worldwide. This can take the form of fights for climate justice,
gender justice, land justice, basic life security, or freedom from
militarism, corruption, and the lingering relations rooted in
colonialism. In each case, the solutions require more organized,
popular political power. Ultimately, this means imposing the will of
the majority over the ruling minority. In socioeconomic terms, that
majority is the international working class.

There is also the demand for autonomy and sovereignty among states.
China is leading the way in that direction, though they have their own
problems in areas where people feel dominated by China’s claims to
ownership in various regions. Yet, the demand for sovereignty is a
democratic demand, even when it comes from states that are not so
democratic. The problem for the left is determining when that fight
supercedes other fights on behalf of the majority. It begs the
question, if/when US domination is curtailed, who will then call the
shots?

States under capitalism are always in conflict. Undemocratic states
are by design antagonistic in the long run. The antiwar movement of
this century can push for peaceful resolutions, but only if we can
focus on the political potential of the vast majority in every
country, and recognize the need for solidarity to make it real. Or as
we used to say, all power to the people.

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UKRAINE AND PALESTINE
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_Simon Pirani_ / Anti*Capitalist Resistance (London)

Putin’s regime is a frankenstein monster that has turned against the
American empire that once fostered it. The western powers, to justify
their opposition to Putin and support for Netanyahu, say they are
defending “democracy” from an “alliance of authoritarian
powers” including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. This is a
false dichotomy.

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KEY TOWN FALLS TO MYANMAR RESISTANCE
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_Helen Regan, Teele Rebane, Kocha Olarn and Sandi Sidhu_ / CNN
(Atlanta)

Last month, ethnic rebels in northern Kachin state seized a key
trading town on the Myanmar-China border, along with dozens of
outposts and bases, local media report. The fall of Myawaddy to the
resistance forces is the latest humiliating defeat for the junta,
which has been losing control of towns, bases and territory across the
country, as it grapples with troop losses and reports of mass
defections. 

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THREE WAKEUP CALLS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

* THE LEFT MUST REGROUP
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Editors_ / Amandla! (Cape Town)
 
* ANC’S CRISIS
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  _Gunnett Kaaf _/ Amandla!
 
* TALKING LEFT, WALKING RIGHT
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  _Niall Reddy _/ Amandla!

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WHO KILLED MARIELLE FRANCO? [[link removed]]

_Cynthia Rachel Pereira Lima_ / RioOnWatch

Six years ago, a barbaric crime took the lives of Rio de Janeiro
Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. To this
day, her political femicide remains unsolved. There have been many
allegations that authorities have been hindering investigations into
this heinous crime. 

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THE STRUGGLE FOR SUDAN
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_Khalid Mustafa Medani_ / Middle East Research and Information
Project (Chicago)

The revolution of late 2018–2019 promised to usher in a new, albeit
fragile, era of democracy after three decades of authoritarian rule.
Instead, the current protracted conflict in Sudan is threatening the
very foundation of the Sudanese state and hence the stability of the
Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

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MORE SURPRISES FROM AUSTRIAN VOTERS
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_Ines Schwerdtner_ / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

KPÖ Plus (an electoral alliance between the Austrian Communist Party
and the Young Greens) notched up its second triumph in as many years,
following up on the success of last year’s regional elections. It
became the second-strongest party in Salzberg municipal council and
mayoral elections, increasing its 2019 result sixfold. Party seats in
the municipal council rose from one to ten.

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Environment Defenders in Bosnia
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_Peter Lippman_ / LeftEast

All around Bosnia-Herzegovina, ordinary citizens are mobilizing to
fight industrial developments threatening to damage, or have already
destroyed, parts of the environment where they live. There are the
stirrings of a widespread movement to protect the environment in
numerous local situations around the country. 

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UGANDANS RESIST LGBTQ+ CRIMINALIZATION
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_Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu_ / openDemocracy (London)

“Homosexuality” and “promotion of homosexuality” are offences
under Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) that can fetch life
and 20-year jail terms respectively, upon conviction. “The judges
should know that the people they’re trying to bury – they’re
human beings,” said Aggie Nshemereirwe, an activist and head of the
Africa Queer Network Uganda.

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POEMS THAT CHALLENGE MODI’S HATE
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_Krupa Shandilya_ / The Conversation (Waltham MA)

Four years ago, university campuses and Muslim neighborhoods such as
Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh were packed with people who, day after day,
chanted slogans, belted out songs and recited poetry. Poetry seemed
to unsettle the government the most. Dissenters reciting protest poems
were accused of spreading hate against India, beaten and arrested by
the police.

* Internationalism
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* democracy
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* Rojava
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* Ukraine
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* Myanmar
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* imperialism
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* Myawaddy
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* South Africa
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* African National Congress
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* Zabalaza for Socialism
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* Brazil
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* Marielle Franco
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* Sudan
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* Austria
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* Austrian Communist Party
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* Uganda
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* LGBTQ
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* Poetry
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* India
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* Bosnia
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* environment
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* Salzburg
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