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October 2019 - the world in struggle (excerpts) from the Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list, October 31, 2019 The last few months have shown a resurgence of mass protest around the world. October alone has seen the outbreak of gigantic mass protests in Lebanon, Iraq, Chile, and elsewhere. Demonstrators have defied security forces, arrests, and curfews, to shake regimes from Africa to Latin America to Hong Kong. This year saw millions of people demonstrate against governmental inaction about climate change. But it has also seen people rise in one country after another, fed up with unemployment, lack of public services, corruption, and oppression. The people have demanded the fall of corrupt and sectarian regimes (Iraq, Lebanon), the end of austerity and the resignation of conservative presidents (Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Haiti), and the right to self-determination (West Papua, Kashmir, Catalonia). They have brought down two long-standing tyrants (in Sudan and Algeria), and are fighting to prevent the substitution of military regimes for these dictators. They have stood together in defiance of sectarian divisions (Lebanon, Iraq). And this is just a partial listing. It is not an accident that protests break out around the world. Globalization has brought to every corner of the world, not just naked capitalism but also mass protest. The demonstrations in country after country have their own particular triggers -- whether a metro fare increase, a taking away of subsidies, or a racist atrocity. But they are not just demonstrations against this or that individual act; they are mass uprisings against year after year of conservative economics, year after year of privatization, year after year of contempt for the well-being of the people. ... They are a sign of the cracking of neoliberalism. The world tomorrow will not be what it is today. ... The present-day governments are meeting these protests with force, with shootings, arrests, curfews, and shutdowns of mass media. ... So much for international law, which protects corporations but not workers. But in one country after country, the presidents or prime ministers, splattered as they are with workers' blood, have had to make concessions. And in some cases, they have been kicked out, although the whole regime has only been shaken. The leadership of these protests are mainly not the old trends of the left, not the Stalinist, Trotskyist, anarchist, religious sectarian, or nationalist trends. In many places, these long-time trends have dirtied their hands in taking part in the ruling regimes, or making corrupt deals with them. New activists and groupings are arising. In Lebanon and Iraq the slogan of the day is "all means all" -- that is, we want the fall of "all" the politicians in the current regime, they are all corrupt, not just the president or the dominant party. This crisis of the left forces embraces the environmentalists as well. This year has seen mass climate strikes, which are an important part of the world movement, but it is notable that the establishment environmentalists -- or even most ecosocialists -- have little to do with the other movements. The establishment environments look for supposedly realistic deals with the corporations and present ruling forces, and recoil with shock from what is for them, and not just for the tyrants, troublesome mass protests. Indeed, these are protests which, likely as not, denounce governments implementing austerity in the name of carbon pricing. Today's struggles are not the precursor to immediate social revolution or workers' regimes; they are instead important and necessary steps on the road to the working class gaining its political independence. This is a wave of struggle that faces many dangers, and also faces the need to develop its own durable organization and orientation. If the people are rising up around the world, the far right is also organizing around the world, while the clock is ticking on environmental catastrophe. We are moving not towards an inevitable gradual victory, but towards great clashes in the world. But so far, the working masses, while uniting for a time in uprisings against various exploiters, don't have a clear picture of what system should replace them. The old trends are discredited, and a new trend is yet to establish itself. So dealing with the crisis in the left is a necessary part of solidarity with the heroic struggle of the demonstrators around the world. Solidarity with the workers and oppressed people of the world! <> A partial listing of countries where the people have been demanding their rights (Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, West Papua, Haiti, Chile, Honduras, Ecuador, Hong Kong, and Catalonia) Lebanon - Thousands upon thousands of people have been flooding the streets since mid-October, furious at all the ruling parties and the constant austerity and lack of services. They regard all the factions of the government as thieves, and want all the current political leaders to quit. There are chants of "all of them means all", and "the people demand the fall of the regime"; the demonstrators regard all the factions of the government as thieves, and want all the current political leaders to quit. They are also sick of the sectarian constitution in Lebanon, which divides government positions up according to religion rather than popular support. Several days ago demonstrators formed a human chain from the north to the south of the country to emphasize their unity across sectarian lines. While the Shiite parties claim to be different from the others and supportive of the poor, gangs from Hezbollah and Amal have attacked the demonstrations; nevertheless, Shiites continue to take part in the protests. Demonstrators throughout the country have blocked roads and stood firm against security forces. On October 29, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned, but the movement continues--all of them means all!. ....................................... Chile - In the second half of October, large demonstrations, including copper mine stoppages, broke out throughout Chile Triggered by an increase in metro fares, they have been directed against the years and years of austerity and against the conservative government of President Pinera, whose resignation is being demanded. On Friday, October 25 a million people took to the streets of Santiago in protest. Pinera has tried to suppress the movement with force, and at least 19 people have been killed, 2,500 injured, and almost 3,000 arrested. Pinero declared a state of emergency, but the protests have spread to one city after another. In desperation, on October 28, he tried to cool things off by dismissing Interior Minister Andres Chadwick. And then, shaken by the continuation of the movement, he announced on Wednesday, October 30, that Chile couldn't, at this time, host international meetings, and he canceled arrangements for two major conferences which now need to find new locations: the Nov. 11-17 meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the Dec. 2-13 meeting of the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference (also called COP25, for the 25th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). Thus the neo-liberal APEC has to scramble to avoid being caught up in demonstrations against neo-liberalism, while the need to move the UN Climate Change Conference is another sign that the issue of climate change can't be divorced from what's happening to the people's livelihood. .............................. by Joseph Green Full text at http://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-191031.html -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
