#Worldwide Information Blogger Luc Schrijvers: PART1 Update: #anarchist information from all over the #world - SUNDAY 31 MAY 2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  anarkismo.net: Is the Republican Party Fascist? by Wayne
      Price (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, Class War Daily 27 MAY - The weekend after lockdown
      ends, we must take back the streets of London 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
  
 3.  [Italy] Project "Torce nella notte" By ANA (pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  [CGTPV Media](Press release) CGT is ratified (ELAI) as the
      Space Free of Israeli Apartheid (ca) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Bangladesh AnarchoSyndicalist Federation - BASF: Coronavirus
      crushes Asia's garment industry (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira - CAB:TRADE UNION AND
      WORK IN THE ANARCHIST VIEW ? (pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  freedom news: Organise or Starve: Life under lockdown in
      South Africa's shackdweller movements (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #305 - Ecology,
      Colonialism: Caribbean areas to defend (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1



Do Trump & the Republicans Threatern Democracy? ---- Donald Trump is the culmination of how the Republican Party has been developing for
years. Together they threaten to establish an authoritarian state in the service of big capital. They endanger the lives, health, and living
standards of the working class and the rest of the population. But supporting the Democratic Party is not the solution. ---- Noam Chomsky
writes somewhere, "The Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in the world." (I am quoting from memory.) Is this true? If it
is, does it mean that the Democratic Party is the last, best, hope for the world? In my opinion, it is mostly true, but the Democrats are
not the answer.
This view of the Republicans as an especial danger is developed by the liberal economist, Paul Krugman, in his latest book, Arguing with
Zombies. "The modern Republican Party...is...just one part of a highly organized movement that includes the Murdoch media empire, a dizzying
array of think tanks and advocacy groups that are mostly financed by the same group of billionaires, and more....[This is]'movement
conservatism'...Democrats had moved only slightly to the left-but Republicans moved very far to the right. There is polarization in our
politics but...it's ‘asymmetric'." (Krugman 2020; 297)

Writing of the Republican's rejection of global warming: "We're now ruled by people who're willing to endanger civilization for the sake of
political expediency, not to mention increased profits for their fossil-fuel friends." (2020; 329) Further, "The history of Republican
climate denial...looks a lot like Trumpism. Climate denial...was the crucible in which the essential elements of Trumpism were
formed....Take Trump's dismissal of all negative information about his actions and their consequences as either fake news...or the products
of a sinister ‘deep state.' That kind of conspiracy theorizing has long been standard practice among climate deniers...." (335-6)

This brings further danger: "Trump has brought a new level of menace to American politics, inciting his followers to violence against
critics and trying to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey. But climate scientists have faced
harassment and threats, up to and including death threats, for years. And they have faced efforts by politicians to, in effect, criminalize
their work." (336) This was written before Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr corrupted the Department of Justice in several high visibility
cases (and many lesser noticed cases).

In summary, "Corruption, willful ignorance, conspiracy theorizing, and intimidation...[is]specifically a problem of the Republican Party....
Donald Trump isn't an aberration, he's the culmination of where his party has been going for years." (337; my emphasis)

Krugman does not see the Republican Party as currently managing an authoritarian, dictatorial, state. Instead, he claims that "the G.O.P. is
an authoritarian regime in waiting, not yet one in practice." (347) He notes that in Poland and Hungary, right-wing, nativist, nationalist,
pseudo-populist, parties have been elected to power, only to establish effective "one-party rule for the foreseeable future." These parties
"maintain the forms of popular elections, but have destroyed the independence of the judiciary, suppressed freedom of the press,
institutionalized large-scale corruption, and effectively delegitimized dissent." (358)

Krugman fears, "It could all too easily happen here....The Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and
Justice or Fidesz, exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule....." (358) "The Republican assault on health care is
just the leading edge of an attack on multiple fronts, as the G.O.P. tries to overturn the will of the voters and undermine democracy in
general." (367)

As evidence, he cites the Republican drive to limit and suppress voting, especially by People of Color and poorer working class people. This
includes a years-long effort to gerrymander the states, to manipulate the voting process, to fight against all efforts to expand voting, and
to close voting places. Currently the Republicans are bitterly opposed to voting by mail, even in a pandemic. This anti-voting effort has
been carried out through Republican-led state legislatures, the Republican-controlled Senate, and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court
majority (which gutted the Voting Rights Act). All levels of the Republican Party have given total support to Donald Trump, even in his most
outrageous and despicable actions. They have defended Trump's overriding of Congress, denying its subpoenas, rejecting its oversight, and
violating its laws. Krugman also mentions various undemocratic actions at the state level, such as North Carolina, where a Democrat was
elected governor but the Republican legislative majority voted to strip the office of much of its power. And so on.

To return to Noam Chomsky: "Both parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period of the past generation....The Republicans have
pretty much fallen off the spectrum, becoming what respected conservative political analyst[s]...call a ‘radical insurgency' that has
virtually abandoned normal parliamentary politics....The Republican Party's dedication to wealth and privilege has become so extreme that
its actual policies could not attract voters." Therefore it has crafted an appeal to "evangelical Christians...,
nativists,...unreconstructed racists, people with real grievances who gravely mistake their causes, and others like them who are easy prey
to demagogues and can readily become a radical insurgency." (Chomsky 2017; 232)

David Frum, a former conservative, is quoted by Krugman, "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will
not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." Krugman adds, "That's happening as we speak." (369)

Is It Fascism Yet?

Not long after the 2016 election, John Bellamy Foster, editor of the Marxist Monthly Review journal, wrote: "Not only a new administration,
but a new ideology has now taken up residence at the White House: neo-fascism." (Foster 2017; 19) Is this a useful way to conceptual what is
happening? (Krugman does not use the term "fascism.")

What is fascism? It is one form of state which exists together with a capitalist economy. When World War II was over and the Nazi regime was
gone, most of the same German big businesses which had existed before the war were found to still be in operation, ready to continue. Nazi
rule had only strengthened German capitalism. But fascism is a different type of government from a bourgeois ("representative") democracy. A
bourgeois democracy has multiple parties, elections, free associations, freedom of speech, workers' unions, or a free press (all within
limits and exceptions-this is bourgeois democracy after all). The people can vote out the ruling party and replace it (although with a
limited choice of alternate parties, such as Democrat or Republican).

Obviously, the U.S.A. is still a bourgeois democracy. Trump and the leading Republicans might wish for some sort of dictatorship (at times
Trump has claimed that he has "total power"). But they do not have it. What Krugman and others are worried about is that the Republicans
have taken significant steps in that direction, and that, under certain circumstances, they might go all the way, even while keeping the
trappings of political democracy. Foster points out that both Mussolini and then Hitler came to power by appearing to rely on Italian and
German constitutional procedures. (Mussolini was appointed by the Italian king; Hitler was appointed chancellor by the elected president.)

Fascism is different, not only from bourgeois demcracy, but even from more traditional authoritarianisms, such as monarchies or traditional
military juntas. To completely crush their popular enemies, including the unions, fascists organize mass movements. Historically, these have
been based in the lower middle classes. These contain the people who feel most threatened by economic and other crises, fearful of being
driven down further into poverty, but still with anger against the "elites" above them.

The Republican Party has become a popular movement, a "radical insurgency." This can be seen in their mass rallies for Trump and in their
primaries where they punish any politician who is a little bit independent of the Trumpian agenda. "Trump's electoral support came mainly
from the intermediate strata of the population, that is, from the lower middle class and privileged sections of the working
class....Nationally Trump won the white vote and the male vote by decisive margins...." (Foster 2017; 20-1) Despite their past (relative)
privileges, these had often lost incomes or jobs in the last decades. They are overwhelmingly evangelical Christian. Some are rabid racists,
while many are not but neither are they turned off by Trump's racism. They are nativists, hating and fearing brown-skinned or non-Christian
foreigners. Aside from a hard core of neo-Nazis, they do not think of themselves as "fascists." Overall, they are about 40 percent of the
population-a minority, but a big and motivated minority.

Central to the victories of the Italian Fascists and German Nazis were their extra-legal military forces: blackshirts and brownshirts, the
stormtroopers and the fascisti. This does not exist for Trump or his party. There are no volunteer forces marching with colorful uniforms.
But, as has already been mentioned, Trump has encouraged violence at his rallies and elsewhere. There has been an armed "militia" movement
as well as people who are committed to carrying guns to demonstrations. Right-wingers have repeatedly threatened to use "second amendment
remedies" if they are denied their way. There have been repeated confrontations between police and armed demonstrators, in which the police
handle them with kid gloves. (Imagine how the police would treat armed African-American demonstrators!)

In short, the Republican Party and its current leader shows many similarities to fascist policies. But they also show certain key
distinctions. There is a difference between cheating in elections, gerrymandering, and suppressing the vote-and cancelling elections,
outlawing all but one party, and declaring Trump president-for-life. There is a difference between encouraging armed demonstrators to
violate the laws-and organizing armed, uniformed, stormtroopers. These are steps toward fascism, which are bad enough, but they are not
there yet. This might be called "neo-fascism" or "quasi-fascism" or "not-yet-fascism."

Foster concludes, "If the White House is...neo-fascist in its leanings, this does not extend to the entire U.S. state....Still, there is no
doubt that liberal or capitalist democracy in the United States is now endangered...We are, as political scientist Richard Falk has put it,
in a ‘pre-fascist moment.' At the same time, the base still exists within the state and civil society for organized, legal resistance." (23)

The Democratic Party?

Krugman plainly thinks that electing the Democrats is the solution. His book has a chapter on the greatness of Nancy Pelosi. He describes
the Democrats as having "always been a loose coalition of interest groups...." (Krugman 2020; 297) While the Republicans have been moving
sharply to the right, the Democrats have been trailing after, moving slowly to the right, under the leadership of Carter, Bill Clinton, and
Obama. "Mainstream Democrats are now pretty much what used to be called ‘moderate Republicans.'" (Chomsky 2017; 232) They have generally
moved away from their appeal to the unionized, mostly white, working class, and turned to middle class, more educated, white-collar workers
and better-off suburbanites for votes.

But in society at large, younger adults and sections of the working class have become interested in "socialism." For the first time in
decades, there has been a revival of a "socialist" movement, as demonstrated by the growth of the Democratic Socialists of America and by
Bernie Sanders' campaign. So the Democrats have swung back a bit to their left, at least in rhetoric. "Democrats had moved only slightly to
the left." (Krugman 2020; 297) Contrasted to the Republicans' ultra-right orientation, this can seem very progressive.

Krugman does not regard any of the Democrats, including Sanders, to really be "socialists"-which he defines as government ownership of the
economy. (I am a libertarian, anti-state, socialist-which is to say, a revolutionary anarchist.) Instead he says the Democrats are "social
democrats," as in Europe: advocating taxes on the rich, regulation of business, and a welfare safety net for all. He does not note that the
European social democratic parties have been pulling back from their reform programs, while the European right has been vigorously attacking
the social democratic benefits of the people.

Four Crises

To develop a strategy for dealing with Republican attacks, we have to understand how this developed. Krugman writes, "‘Movement
conservatism' barely existed before the 1970s and it didn't fully take over the G.O.P. until the 1990s...." (297) What happened in this
period? "What paved the way for Trump's neo-fascist strategy and gave it coherence was the deepening long-term crisis of U.S. political
economy and empire, and of the entire world capitalist economy....The system[was]in a state of economic stagnation, with no visible way
out." (Foster 2020; 45-6)?

The 1970s was the end of the prosperity which followed World War II. The capitalist economy began to decline, to stagnate, and to lose
profitability in the real economy while an inflated financialization bloomed. The U.S. economy and national state began to lose their
international dominance to other countries. Beginning then, and expanding in the 90s, there was an attack on the working class, decreasing
their benefits and weakening their organizations. The Republicans were the cutting edge of these attacks but the Democrats also
participated. Unions shrunk to a fraction of their size in the work force. Inequality zoomed. "We live in an era of soaring inequality and
growing concentration of wealth at the top....[in]our march toward oligarchy...." (Krugman 2020; 348-9)

Right now we are living through four interconnected crises. There is the covid-19 pandemic. How long it will last and how bad it will get
cannot yet be foretold. It has triggered a second, international economic, crisis. Even "after" the plague has been reasonably controlled,
the world may be in a major recession or depression. Meanwhile the climate cataclysm continues to advance. There are floods in the Midwest
and gathering hurricanes off the Atlantic coast, while other environmental disasters hit the rest of the world. The eventual threat of human
extinction still hovers if nothing is done. Finally, in a political crisis, all this is happening while the U.S. government is being managed
by a completely incompetent, delusional, and narcissistic freak. Similarly, several of the state governments are led by incompetent,
ignorant, and deluded governors-courtesy of the Republican Party.

It was not inevitable that these four crises would hit at the very same time. (It was not inevitable that a conservative president would be
such a total jerk. Consider Germany's Angela Merkel.) But they all are products of this extended period of capitalism, with its basic
decline, at home and abroad.

Strategy Against Fascism

All of which indicates that fascism (or some sort of authoritarian government) cannot be prevented without fighting capitalism. The current
Republican Party is a symptom of the chaos and decline of industrial capitalism. The Democratic Party cannot fight it effectively because it
too is committed to the same rotting system. (I am not discussing here the need to combat openly Nazi and Klan groupings.)

For decades, the liberals, the unions, the leaders of the African-American community, and other progressive forces have thrown their human
resources and money behind the Democrats. And repeatedly, reactionary Republicans (Nixon, Reagan, G.W. Bush) have been replaced by
"moderate" or even "liberal" Democrats (Carter, Clinton, Obama). But this did not solve the problem. These "moderate"/"liberal" Democrats
were invariably followed by other reactionary Republicans. Until now the Obama administration has been replaced by the most reactionary
president yet! There is no reason not to assume that another Democratic president (the pro-business, militaristic, gaffe-prone, Biden) would
not be followed again by a terrible Republican. No Democrat can solve the social problems which will once again drive many U.S. citizens to
look towards the alternate party of our two-party system.

This is not a discussion of how (or whether) any particular individual should vote in 2020. But a strategy for preventing "neo-fascism" from
taking over requires a different approach from electoralism or trust in the Democratic Party. There needs to be a mass movement of the
working class and all oppressed people, of everyone who is outraged by the capitalist class' mishandling of the covid plague, of the
economic collapse, of the ecological cataclysm, and of all the other evils of this society. There needs to be a replacement of this ruling
class and its state by a revolutionary libertarian, radically-democratic, cooperative, nonprofit, ecologically sustainable, society of free
and equal humans.

Conclusion

The Republican Party is an extremely dangerous organization. Culminating (so far) in the Trump presidency, it wages war on the environment,
threatening all human life. It threatens the public's health and lives. It threatens the jobs and incomes of the working class and the
rights of women and People of Color. It threatens political freedoms and democracy, however limited these are in a capitalist state. It has
not yet established a fascist dictatorship but is "an authoritarian regime in waiting."

The Republican Party cannot be defeated by building up the Democrats. This has never worked. Fascism can only be fought by fighting
capitalism. In the long run, the greater evil cannot be defeated by the lesser evil. Things just get more evil. All parts of the system have
to be opposed, on every issue.

References

Chomsky, Noam (2017). Who Rules the World? NY: Picador/Henry Holt.

Foster, John Bellamy (2017). Trump in the White House; Tragedy and Farce. NY: Monthly Review.

Krugman, Paul (2020). Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future. NY: W.W. Norton.

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31901

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Message: 2



So the anti-elite have been revealed by Piers Morgan and the Daily Mail not to be the antielite after all. They are in fact the elite. As
Private Eye used to say: "shurely shum mishtake." ---- It turns out that the Maoist sounding "Two working classes theory" is bollocks and
thankfully it's now consigned to the dustbin of history. There is no Northern working class with separate interests from the Southern
working class. Thatcher did her damned best to convince otherwise but the con artists that followed had no belief in it. ---- They simply
swindled the election and waited to be found out. Covid has done that quicker than we imagined. The slogans are everywhere: One law for them
another law for us. ---- Cummings house under attack: One law for them another war for us. ---- The mood may pass - even return again as
some new political quack appears with snake oil answers.

We must seize the time.

We must organise a vast
poll-tax style action in
London. Opportunity for
the relatives and friends
of the (probable) 60,000
dead to come together in
sorrow and anger. And
anger is not a dirty word
but the correct response to
this mass murder.

We will have speeches
from everyone who wants
to speak.

Let it go into the night and
beyond. And let us name
the guilty.

When?
We think the weekend
after lockdown ends.

So spread the word

WE ARE CLASS WAR

https://classwar.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Mock-15.pdf

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Message: 3



The project "Torce nella notte" ("Torches in the night") was born to keep alive the memory of people who changed the history of humanity,
often sacrificing their own lives. To keep that hope alive, like a glow in the darkness. The characters I speak of are: without national
pride, timeless and without gender. The idea was born during the siege of Afrin. The Rojava revolution marked me and I want to do my part,
so I started to write and paint. ---- The title of the project was inspired by Virgilia D'Andrea's prose autobiography. Initially, this book
gave me many names related to the development of the project. In a second moment, the project grew considerably beyond my original
intentions, because each subject is linked to another, they are connected by a red thread in the struggle and immortality. Immortality will
last as long as they are remembered and their fight will continue as long as we continue their battles.

Excluding one of them seemed unfair to me; this work will probably never end, so i am also looking for collaboration with people from
different countries. I am trying to spread the fundamental issues of internationalism, libertarian thinking, gender equality,
anti-militarism and social ecology. And about the importance of the fight against the capital Hydra and the heteropatriarchy. I want to tell
the forgotten stories of unknown characters, trying to humanize them as much as possible.

I don't want to talk about ineffable heroes, but about human beings who changed the history of humanity. I believe that the revolution does
not necessarily need blatant gestures or flashy flags, but consistency, humility and good intentions. As anarchist partisan Lorenzo Orsetti
said: "Every storm begins with a single drop. We can all be that drop ". We must not allow other people to tell us that we are powerless,
useless. We can all do something. The results are unlikely to be immediately evident, so don't be motivated by vain personal returns. Most
of the characters I speak of die before they see their "dreams come true", but they make this Earth a better place. It is a long and
complicated road, but it is the only way to go.

I choose characters from historical times and the present to raise awareness of the comrades who are fighting NOW. With special attention to
the Internationalist Revolution of Rojava, which I consider the engine of our revolution. Perhaps, as Bookchin argued, it doesn't work, but
there is no alternative, capitalism is leading us to an inevitable mass suicide, so we have to try. With this project, I am trying to make
my contribution to the Revolution not only with propaganda, but also with an economic contribution. The proceeds of the painting will be
donated to the International Commune of Rojava. I sent them the first bank transfer a few weeks ago.

Facebook: Torce nella notte

Translation> zucchini

anarchist news agency-ana

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Message: 4



The General Confederation of Labor ratifies its position of solidarity with the Palestinian people as an Israeli Free Space of Apartheid. /
---- The General Confederation of Labor declares itself as a "solidarity, internationalist and combative against all kinds of inequalities
against the working class "and for this reason, as an active member of the Boycott Movement, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) against the
Zionist State, ratifies its declaration of Free Space of Israeli Apartheid (ELAI) on the people Palestinian. ---- ELAI spaces are part of
the global, non-violent and anti-racist citizen solidarity campaign of Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions against Israeli Apartheid, with
them they intend to create islands of political consciousness. The BDS campaign was born in 2005 within Palestinian civil society, with the
publication of a manifesto signed by almost 200 social organizations, NGOs, parties and unions, taking as reference the international
boycott campaign against South African Apartheid, which It was essential to end this racist regime.


CGT recalls that they continue to denounce and protest for decades the progress in the "construction of a Zionist state based on the
extermination of the majority of the native people who inhabited those lands, the expropriation and occupation of them and the subordination
of the existence of other lives in the occupied territories ". The anarcho-syndicalist organization considers that only for these reasons
"it should be sufficient reason for both the international authorities to ensure the safety and integrity of the Palestinian People in their
lands, and for the rest of the world to isolate and boycott the companies that profit of this situation of exploitation and plundering of
the Palestinian people".

With this ratification as an ELAI space, the General Confederation of Labor CGT wants to denounce "all forms of social and political
organization that are not based on equal rights, respect and freedom, both for the peoples and the people who inhabit the territories ". For
these reasons, they explain from CGT that they are joining the "international denunciations of the authoritarianism, supremacism,
colonialism and increasing racism of the successive Israeli governments as well as of international immobility, as well as of the companies
that profit from this policy based on a genuine "Apartheid" of the Palestinian people "and reiterate their" denunciation and rejection of
the massacre and extermination of the Israeli army mandated by the Zionist regime, on the Palestinian people ".

 From CGT they announce that they will continue to show solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and join the calls for solidarity and
support for the international movement for a free Palestine.
-
* Communication Office of the General Confederation of Labor of the Valencian Country and Murcia *

Avenida del Cid, 154 C.P. 46014 Valencia

Tel 693926678-963834440 / Fax 96 3834447

* www.cgtpv.org <http://www.cgtpv.org> *

------------------------------

Message: 5



Garmentworkers returning from a workplace as factories reopened after thegovernment has eased the restrictions amid concerns over the
coronavirusdisease (COVID-19) outbreak in Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 4, 2020. ---- Zarchi Lwin pawned her only two gold banglesfor $140 when the
owner of the Myanmar factory where she sewed wintercoats for British retailer Next Plc shut it down after orders dried updue to the
coronavirus. ---- She is one of hundreds of thousands of garment workers across Asiawho have been laid off, according to the Workers' Rights
Consortium, alabour rights campaign group, and are now struggling to survive withlittle welfare support, mired in debt and in many cases
reliant on foodhandouts.
"If I have a job and an income, I can pay for medical treatment formy mother," Zarchi Lwin, 29, told Reuters from the home she shares
withher 56-year-old mother, who has lung disease, in a shanty town on theoutskirts of Yangon. "Now no income, no job," she said, fighting
backtears. "We don't know what to do."

Next temporarily closed allits stores in Britain in March due to the coronavirus. The company saidin a statement it had only cancelled some
orders and "endeavoured to befair" to its suppliers. KGG, the factory where Zarchi Lwin worked, didnot respond to requests for comment.

Since the 1960s, Asia has grown into the world's garment factory,sending about $670 billion worth of clothes, shoes and bags a year
toEurope, the United States and richer Asian countries, according to theInternational Labour Organisation, a United Nations agency.

After non-essential stores were closed in many countries and peoplewere told to stay at home to prevent further spread of the
disease,international retailers from ASOS Plc to New Look said they cancelledorders with garment makers. Factory owners in Myanmar,
Bangladesh andCambodia immediately shut down thousands of factories and sent homeworkers with little or no pay.

Retailers generally place orders at least three months ahead ofdelivery and pay for the finished product when it is delivered.Initially most
retailers cancelled all outstanding orders, but manyadjusted their position in March and April after a public outcry,agreeing to pay for
goods that had already been manufactured or weremid-production.

To finish pending orders, about half of Bangladesh's 4,000 garmentfactories have reopened, according to garment manufacturer
associations.About 150 of Myanmar's 600 or so factories have shut down, while 200out of 600 or so are closed in Cambodia.

Many factories that have reopened are struggling to enforce socialdistancing and good hygiene practices in often cramped conditions,
twounion officials told Reuters. "Most of the factories are not complyingwith the safety guidelines," said Babul Akter, president of
theBangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, adding that dozensof garment workers had been infected with the virus. "Just
placinghand-washing systems and checking temperatures at the entrances will nothelp. Inside the factories, when the workers work so closely,
how willthey maintain safe distancing?"

A garment worker wearing a protective mask, returns from a workplaceas factories reopened after the government has eased the
restrictionsamid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Dhaka,Bangladesh, May 4, 2020. REUTERSA garment worker wearing
a protectivemask, returns from a workplace as factories reopened after thegovernment has eased the restrictions amid concerns over the
coronavirusdisease (COVID-19) outbreak in Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 4, 2020.REUTERSSome orders have been trickling back. Swedish fashion
retailerH&M said it only paused orders for two weeks at the height of thevirus outbreak. U.S.-based Walmart Inc, the world's largest
retailer,said it placed new orders with Asian manufacturers last month.

For a list of retailers and the status of their orders with Asian garment makers, see FACTBOX

STAY OR GO BACK HOME?

Despite the new orders, several garment manufacturers said the lowvolume of work on the books means many factories in Myanmar,
Bangladesh,and Cambodia will not be viable, which means many of the young womenwho make up the majority of the workforce will no longer have
jobs. Thatleaves them torn between returning to families in the countryside,where there are few employment opportunities, or enduring life
in thecity in the hope that factories will reopen at full capacity.

The European Union has created a wage fund for workers in Myanmarworth 5 million euros ($5.3 million) to pay a portion of the salaries ofthe
most vulnerable for three months. Myanmar has promised to cover 40per cent of the salaries of laid off workers. More than 58,000 have
beenlaid off, according to the country's garment manufacturer association.

In Bangladesh, one million workers were furloughed or laid off bylate March, according to the Penn State Centre for Global Workers'Rights,
although some have since returned to work. About 75,000 have notbeen paid for March, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturersand
Exporters Association (BGMEA), which estimates tens of thousandsmore will not be paid wages owed to them.

The government has announced a $588 million aid package for itsexport sector to help pay employees. Garment manufacturers, whichestimate
they have lost almost $3 billion in exports since the start ofApril, said the funds are not enough. Foreign-owned firms and jointventures
are not eligible for payments.

In Cambodia, where about 60,000 garment workers have been"suspended," according to the country's manufacturer association,workers have been
promised $70 per month - $40 from the government and$30 from the employer - but that amounts to just over a third of thecurrent minimum wage.

In that country's capital, Phnom Penh, 39-year-old Rom Phary said sheand her husband had racked up $550 of debt and interest since she
losther factory job in early March, several times her monthly salary. Shesaid she and her family are living off rice donated by an NGO,
theCentre for Alliance of Labour and Human Rights, which is working inCambodia. Phary said she persuaded her landlord to let her
stayrent-free rather than forcing the family to return to relatives in theprovinces.

"If we go back, it would be shameful. We don't know what we would do," she said.

'IF SHE DIED, IT WOULD BE A RELIEF'

In Myanmar the garment industry was the fastest-growing sector of theeconomy, accounting for about 10% of the country's exports and
offeringan escape route from extreme poverty for hundreds of thousands ofpeople, many of them migrants from rural areas.

In Dagon Seikkan, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Yangon thatis home for many migrant workers, local officials have been giving
outrations of free rice to those who have been without jobs for some time.But Zarchi Lwin said she did not qualify as she was employed up
untilrecently.

She and her parents left their small village in the central Magweregion six years ago after selling their house to pay for treatment forher
brother, who eventually died from kidney disease. At first, theyworked as cleaners and lived in a dormitory. Then Zarchi Lwin trainedherself
to sew clothes and secured a sought-after job at one of thenearby factories, earning $146 per month: enough for food, rent of asmall wooden
shack, and medical treatment. She saved up for a year tobuy the bangles she pawned, she said.

Sobbing, she recounted how her mother told her she wants to die inorder to lessen the financial burden on the family. "Sometimes I want
tokill myself because of this situation," she said. Her father, a guardat a furniture factory, has also lost his income.

Before the new coronavirus, garment workers in Yangon and theneighbouring province of Bago were sending more than 40 million euros($43
million) in remittances to their hometowns and villages across thecountry each month, said Jacob Clere of SMART Textile and Garments,
aEuropean Union-funded project.

"Education for children who would otherwise not have it. Medicinefor grandmothers who would otherwise go without. Healthy food.
Bettershelter," said Clere, describing how that money helped ruralcommunities. Many are now at risk of being forced into early marriage
ortaking on debt from loan sharks at very high rates, said Mike Slingsby,a regional urban poverty specialist.

HIGH-INTEREST DEBTS

In Bangladesh, the world's second-largest garment maker behind China,4.1 million workers or 2.5 per cent of the population worked in
garmentfactories, many of which are now closed. About 70 per cent of Dhaka'sgarment industry workers left the city to return to their
villages, saidTuomo Poutiainen of the International Labour Organisation, although hesaid some have since returned after some factories
reopened to finishwork on existing contracts.

Orders for June are down 45 per cent from a year ago, according to Rubana Huq, president of the BGMEA.

Banesa Begum, a 21-year-old worker laid off from a Dhaka factorymaking clothes for Zara, among other brands, said she had nothing tosend to
her parents, subsistence farmers in the northern district ofRangpur. "I know they are starving," she said.

Inditex, the owner of Zara, told Reuters it will pay for orders fromgarment makers, whether finished or in production, according to
theoriginal payment schedule.

Begum's salary also paid for her two young brothers to go to school."I don't know how I'll manage money to continue their study," she
said."All my dreams are shattered."

https://bangladeshasf.org/coronavirus-crushes-asias-garment-industry/

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Message: 6



Live organized by the Anarchist Organization Maria Iêda (PE), this Thursday on the CAB channel on Youtube. ---- "Dan gives continuity to the
activities of the Workers' Month, we at MARIA IÊDA / CAB invite everyone to our live whose theme will be" Unionism and Work in the Anarchist
Vision ". ---- Our activity will be held on Thursday, May 28, 2020, at 7 pm, on the YouTube channel of the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination
- CAB[youtube.com/federacaoanarquista]and will include the following guest and the following guest: Leilane Cruz , administrative technician
at UFPE and union activist at SINTUFEPE / UFPE, and Bruno Fontan, physician in the public network of the state of Alagoas and union director
at the Regional of Camaragibe Headquarters of SINDPREV - AL.
Now, in this moment of financial and health crisis, where we see several workers losing their jobs, thus being left to their own devices, it
is even more necessary for the organization to fight for a dignified and just life. Those people who have not lost their jobs and who are in
melee at their workplace, join those who have no fixed income source and resort to informality to earn their daily bread, thus exposing
themselves to contamination by Covid -19, where certainly, if contaminated and contaminated, they will resort to SUS, which has long been
scrapped under the explicit intention of finally being handed over to private initiative sharks.

Knowing the importance that the workers' movements and organized workers can exert in the transformation of society, see its importance
throughout history, as in the Spanish Revolution of 1936, and considering all the attacks and demobilizing actions suffered in Brazil today,
we will then make this talk together and together we discuss the vision and strategy that anarchism presents to strengthen this sphere of
social struggle.

So ... until Thursday, compas!

Expensive life, life is not for sale! Fight for a Dignified Life!
Up those who fight! Up those who fight! "

https://www.facebook.com/cabanarquista/photos/a.1510561962492285/2601904533358017

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Message: 7



Abahlali baseMojondolo write on the solidarity being shown in the face of State and capital's violence against impoverished South Africans.
---- Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic social movements have been in the forefront of building networks of mutual aid and
solidarity. In Brazil our comrades in the Landless Workers' Movement, the MST, have already provided more than 40 000 food baskets to poor
neighbourhoods. Here in South Africa our movement has been providing food to branches across the country, running community kitchens and
growing organic and heathy food on occupied land in Durban. In Cape Town activists have formed Community Action Networks. Around the country
there have been important local initiatives.
These networks have been of great assistance in distributing food, forming community kitchens and also, in some cases, democratising science
by educating people about the virus and combatting fake news. In Cape Town these networks have often been formed by young people who are
willing to risk their own health despite the increasing numbers of infections in the province. Unlike the state progressive grassroots
activists make no distinction between people based on the country in which they were born when building solidarity and organising mutual aid.

Before the lockdown millions of people in South Africa were impoverished with the result that they were living in life threatening
conditions in shack settlements and often going hungry. Many families have spent their whole lives living under inhuman conditions. It must
be clear that the issues that have risen to public prominence during this period are not new. They have always been there. People who are
not well organised have been unable to voice them beyond their own communities because the media was not there to report on them.

The lockdown has pushed millions more into impoverishment and radically worsened the situation of already impoverished people. Hunger has
become an everyday reality for millions. Our comrades in Cape Town tell us that people get hugely anxious and stressed when the food
provided by activists runs out before their turn comes. They don't know what they will say to their children when they get home.

In this situation of serious crisis impoverished people have been criminalised by the state. The police and the army have humiliated and
beaten large numbers of people. Two weeks ago it was reported in the media that 11 people had been killed by the police and the army during
lockdown operations. Once again we have been reminded that our lives do not count to this society.

As everybody knows Collins Khosa was killed in Johannesburg on Easter Friday after being severely assaulted by soldiers. Members of the
Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department were also present during the assault. After Khosa's family successfully won an urgent
application against the ministers of the police and the army Bheki Cele tried to get the family to abandon the most important part of the
court order that they had won. As the proverb says, the fish rots from the head.

The abuses that we have seen during the lockdown are not a new experience for impoverished black people. We are generally treated as if
being poor makes us criminal and as if we don't count to the law. People are illegally and violently evicted from their homes all the time.
Grassroots activists have often been assaulted by the police, tortured in police stations and murdered by the police on protests. In Durban
political assassinations were an everyday bread when Jacob Zuma was President.

The problem of serious abuse and criminality by the police is also not new. All that has changed is that the media is now taking this
seriously. Before the crisis the media would often ignore abuse and violence against impoverished black people by the police, or just report
police press statements as if they were the truth. Even well organised communities have faced this.

When Nqobile Nzuza, an unarmed teenage girl, was murdered by the police in Cato Manor in 2013 the police claimed that they were the victims
and most news reports repeated this without seeing any need to speak to anyone who witnessed the murder. This was despite the fact that we
had issued a clear press statement, the truth of which was later confirmed in court when the police officer who murdered Nqobile was found
guilty of murder and given a prison sentence.

The programme by the state to provide food in this time of crisis has been too late, too little and clouded by corruption and nepotism. Once
again this is not new. The provision of food parcels, support after shack fires, government jobs and government houses has always been
inadequate and distorted by corruption and party politics. Usually the media ignore the corruption by ward councillors and their committees.
But in this crisis the corruption and politicisation of access to food parcels is being covered.

Despite the relief that has been made available by the government, people continue to starve. Many people have had far more support from
social movements, religious organisations and progressive NGOs than from the government. This is because social movements and some religious
organisations and progressive NGOs have always been on the ground with communities. We are not aware of anyone in our movement or any of our
communities who has received the promised R350 special grant. There are cases where ward councillors and ANC branch executive committees
have had the names of well-known members of our movement scratched off lists of people due to receive the vouchers for retail outlets
Shoprite (R650) and Spar (R600). They make it clear that if you are with "the red shirts" you will not get support.

This crisis doesn't only mean State violence and starvation. It also means that many people are being retrenched. Some experts think that
millions of people could lose their jobs and that many people in the middle classes could find themselves falling into impoverishment.
Progressive trade unions are doing their best to resist the wave of retrenchments but the neoliberals in government have made it clear that
they will sell out the workers. For them the interests of the capitalists always come before the interests of workers. In this situation it
is essential that progressive trade unions and poor people's organisations unite in struggle to insist that social concerns are given
priority over the interests of capital and that the state puts the interests of impoverished and working-class people before those of the
predatory elite within and around the ruling party.

Another problem faced by the working class is that many employers are rushing to open their businesses even though there are no safety
measures in place. This is putting employees at serious risk. We have seen in the United Kingdom and the United States that the people most
at risk from this virus are poor and working-class people of colour. But despite this our government has failed to put directives in place
to force the bosses to ensure the safety of all workers. The inaction by the government makes employers feel that they can get away with
exploiting workers and putting their health at serious risk.

Our government represents the interests of an elite. Since 1994 they have consistently sold out the interests of impoverished and
working-class people to advance their own interests by making their own deals with capital and looting the state. In this crisis the
situation of impoverished and working-class people is getting worse by the day. Many middle-class people will soon taste the bitterness of
poverty too. Things will get much more difficult in the next few weeks and months.

There is always the risk that the government and the politicians will try to survive the hard times that are coming by turning the oppressed
against each other. We have already seen a highly disturbing escalation in xenophobic rhetoric by senior people in the ANC. It is vital that
all progressive organisations work together to build unity among the oppressed and to resist all attempts by the state and the ruling party
to encourage xenophobia.

One good thing about this crisis is that, at last, issues like police brutality and the politicisation and corruption of welfare are
starting to get taken seriously by the media. Another good thing is that a new generation of young activists is emerging in response to the
crisis and the corruption and violence experienced from the state. When people started rebelling against their councillors and organising
big protests from shack settlements around the country from 2004 a new generation of young activists came to the fore. Now we are seeing
another new generation of young activists coming to the fore.

The only way out of this crisis is for impoverished and working-class people to build democratic popular power from below and to insist that
we begin the process of building a genuinely just, equal and democratic country. The state and the economy must be brought under democratic
control. Land, wealth and power must be shared. As the trade union slogan says we must organise or starve. If we fail to do this we will be
destroyed by the coming storm.

The time to organise is now.

Yonk' indawo umzabalazo uyasivumela.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/organise-or-starve-life-under-lockdown-in-south-africas-shackdweller-movements/

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Message: 8



The so-called overseas territories have only French bananas and sugar cane produced by the descendants of master slavers and the flow of
tourists in search of an exoticism fashioned from scratch. Intensive monoculture, air and sea traffic, the driving forces of the colonial
and capitalist economy, destroy land, bodies and ecosystems. To be saving, ecology must be decolonial and anti-capitalist. ---- The reality
of the West Indies under French domination is comforting more and more of its inhabitants in the idea of making them areas to defend. The
living, human or not, is exploited there, sacrificed by France, the Békés [1], the European Union, large private investors.
For the white man, the destruction of the Caribbean territories is customary. In 1900, 99% of the primary forest of Puerto Rico had
disappeared, in favor of colonial plantations [2]. The same phenomenon is observed in Martinique.

The banana plantations extend there for kilometers, just like the sugar cane fields which, today, are ablaze due to an extreme drought. To
these monolithic landscapes responsible for deforestation and the poisoning of populations are added the artificialisation of the soil and
the erosion due to the establishment of hotel establishments on the coast.

Tourism in the sights
Although mashed, the thick plant cover of Martinique somehow remained until the 1950s. But, the tourist could not spread his towel on a
beach covered with Ipomoea pes-caprae [3], a creeping creeper to stabilize the sand, our politicians saw fit to uproot them to plant coconut
palms, and to replace the black sand of certain beaches with white sand, leading to sedimentary destabilization [4].

These decisions were able to satisfy a Western clientele able to "energize the space" [5]Martinique, to the detriment of its inhabitants,
its fauna and flora.

The tourism sector carries a heavy responsibility. On an area of 1100km² live 376,480 Martiniquaises and Martiniquais who, in 2018, had to
face a surge of 1,046,735 "visitors", cruise passengers or staying ten days, not among but next to us, thus maintaining the racial apartheid
and the colonial economy in which we have been immersed for four centuries.

There are around 2.8 tourists for 1 Martinican, and the potential inclusion of Mount Pelee as a UNESCO World Heritage site risks doubling
this ratio. In 2018, tourists offered € 57.3 million to car rental agencies, owned by Békés, whose number has doubled since 2011.

Traffic jams and deplorable air quality are part of everyday life, decision-makers refusing to set up efficient public transport services,
preferring to protect the interests of car dealers and beké importers. New vehicle registrations increased by 20.4% in 2018. The pollution
generated accumulates with that of maritime traffic.

It has been seven years since I had returned home, and the Eden of my childhood has turned into a playground, an aquatic park for tourists,
mostly metropolitan. Corals are dying, fish are fading, while reddened bodies and diving masks appear by the hundreds.

Tripadvisor invites us to discover beaches and forests, but also the emblematic places of colonial history. It becomes an attraction and my
homeland, a postcard, before being an environmental jewel to preserve the idleness of some, the venality of others. The locals inevitably
end up refusing this tourist colonization.

In the West Indies, when politicians are concerned with preserving the coastline, it is above all in the interests of economic profitability
and tourist interest. One can wonder about a preservation of the coastline of which tourism, at the origin of its destruction, is the only
motivation.
Capitalist "protection" of the environment
Faced with criticism, the tourism sector has responded since the early 2000s, through concepts full of contradictions. So supposedly
sustainable and ethical ecotourism often goes hand in hand with cultural tourism, both involving (too) large flows of visitors to natural
sites, threatening the biotopes [6].

And when our policies are concerned with the preservation of the coastline, it is above all in a concern for economic profitability: the
55km² of coral reefs and the 20km² of mangroves (on part of which the Bernard Hayot Group has established a huge shopping center ) of our
island must be preserved because they generate services whose annual value is estimated at 250 million euros [7]; mainly generated by
leisure activities. One can wonder about a preservation of the coastline of which tourism, at the origin of its destruction, is the only
motivation.

A maintained outbuilding
The Antilles however depend on maritime traffic, and therefore on the Hexagon, because we do not eat what we produce (99% of banana
production is exported). The Békés, masters of mass distribution, sell basic necessities at usurious prices, partially justified by the
granting of sea, a colonial tax on products arriving from the sea formalized in 1866.

We ruin ourselves for eating because we live on an island, while chemical inputs can be exempted from granting sea fees by local
authorities, for large planters [8]. Our lands are polluted ad vitam aeternam by chlordecone, and more than 92% of Martiniquaises and
Martiniquais, Guadeloupéennes and Guadeloupéens are contaminated. In 2018, imports of "fertilizer" increased by 13.2%, due to the banana
industry, claiming however to convert to sustainable agriculture.

The mass tourism and colonial agriculture are "live" the Martinique though they devastate the. The Antilles under French domination must
assume their autonomy. We must strive towards food independence to get rid of the yoke of France.

There will be no ecology in the West Indies as long as mass pleasure flights, cruises and intensive import-export continue ; that the West
Indians will not be in charge of defending the environment, and therefore of the destruction of the capitalist system, of the corruption and
cronyism that maintain it. Ecology must be decolonial and anti-capitalist, without which it will not exist.

Canoubis (anti-colonialist, environmentalist and feminist activist from Martinique)

Validate

[1] In the French West Indies, a Béké is a Creole inhabitant with white skin from Martinique and Guadeloupe, descendant of the first
European settlers.

[2] Romain Cruse, A popular geography of the Caribbean, Inkwell memory, 2014.

[3] Named potato in Durand in Réunion, potato-seaside in the Antilles.

[4] Saffache, 1999.

[5] Laetitia Dupuis, "The erosion of the coves of the city of Schoelcher: determination of the dynamics and processes involved. Environments
and global changes", research dissertation from the University of the Antilles, 2016.

[6] Biological environment hosting a set of life forms composing the biocenosis: flora, fauna, snow, and populations of micro-organisms.

[7] Coral Reef Conservation, program for Ifrecor.

[8] Opinion of the Competition Authority n ° 19-A-12 of July 4, 2019 concerning the functioning of competition in Overseas.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Colonialisme-Zones-antillaises-a-defendre

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