International

“They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.” These were the final words of Salvador Allende; a socialist President of Chile who was overthrown in 1973 by a right-wing coup organised by Augusto Pinochet and backed by the United States.

After a year of intense struggle, and in the face of harsh repression, India’s farmers’ movement has won a remarkable and inspiring victory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been forced to give in to at least one of its key demands – the repeal of the pro-corporate Farm Laws, which they say his regime had arbitrarily imposed. Some 700 farmers have lost their lives in this year of struggle. Others say they have draconian charges hanging over them.

South Asia Solidarity Group unequivocally condemns the UK government’s new proposed Nationality and Borders Bill.

The bill sets out a range of draconian measures to exclude people from the UK, including a lethal change which allows Border Forces to turn back boats carrying refugees across the Channel.

New York taxi drivers, most of whom are immigrants from the Asian and African continents, went on a hunger strike for two weeks to protest a system of predatory lending that had left drivers crippled by debt.

Beyond the everyday headlines, the United States seems to be heading towards a new wave of labour militancy. Almost every major industry in the US seems to have been hit by the recent mobilization of workers, who are no longer willing to work for poverty wages. While the labour shortage triggered by the restrictions due to COVID-19 is seen as the immediate cause, the roots of the problem lie deep within the economy itself.

Facebook is once again at the center of controversy, this time due to accusations by a whistleblower of prioritizing profit over monitoring hate-groups and hate-speech. The lack of transparency over content moderation has often been flagged as one of the key issues with the social media giant that also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. The Intercept published a 100 page list of ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organizations’, which Facebook circulates among its employees for moderation of contents on its sites .

Afghan women and girls are defying Taliban efforts to render them silent and invisible. They are out on the streets, braving Taliban whips and tasers and bullets, protesting the moves to roll-back their freedoms and rights.

The recent protests in Iran highlight once again how global warming and capitalism induced climate change can increasingly result in an increasingly volatile global political order. Droughts have resulted in exacerbation of political conflicts in places as far flung as the western United States, Syria, and Central Asia among other places in recent times .

At the Afghan Solidarity demonstration organised in Delhi on August 23 (demonstrations were observed at Bangalore, Kolkata, Budge-Budge and Bishnupur in South 24 Parganas, Udaipur and Jaipur), several Afghan women students joined in. Holding a large Afghan flag and placards that said “Burqa is a cage” and “No to Taliban Rule”, these women were eager to speak about their experiences. One young woman student recited a poem she had written in Farsi. Another young woman Sadaf addressed the Indian activists’ gathering to say “Nobody chooses to be a refugee.

(Excerpt from a statement dated 20 August 2021)