For some years now, lamentations about the "rise of fascism" on a global
scale have flourished in circles ranging from the moderate left to
libertarians. Depending on the moment or the prevailing trend, examples
are then cited, of course, Trump and Putin, but also Bolsonaro and
Miliei in Brazil and Argentina, Orban's Hungary, Meloni's Italy,
Poland's opposition to abortion, and everywhere the significant gains of
the far right. This wave is labeled, depending on the school of thought,
technofascist, populist, neoconservative, nationalist, etc. In France,
this picture, however accurate it may be, has been used by a moribund
social democracy and a far-left, green-red movement attempting to
replace it, to spread the idea that a republican front against the
National Front should be built rather than destroying a business class
openly advocating for a strongman regime, whatever its label.
To this grim picture, we must add China, which is no exception to the
rule in terms of avant-garde totalitarianism, control, and repression of
its population; the countless quasi-traditional dictatorships in
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, etc.); not forgetting
Africa, where regimes born of colonialism compete in ever-renewed
despotism; and, of course, the Islamist regimes, which are no exception
to this grim picture.
It seemed there was no longer any room or hope for popular uprisings.
Yet, at the dawn of the century, we had the color revolutions. The
bulldozer revolution in Serbia in 2000 (already!), which forced
Miloshevic to relinquish power. The "rose" revolution in Georgia in
2003, the "orange" revolution in Ukraine in 2004, the "tulip" revolution
in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, and the "denim" revolution in Belarus. The hope
they inspired was short-lived. Orchestrated by the US, these popular
uprisings were the last gasp of the fall of "real communism" and only
allowed new/old bureaucrats, each more corrupt than the last, to come to
power.
Even in Lebanon, following Hariri's assassination, the "Cedar"
revolution against the Syrian presence in the country yielded little
more, as we know today!
A little later, the Arab Spring uprisings followed one another from 2010
onward in various places. Then, in 2020, came Black Lives Matter in the
United States and, to a lesser extent, the Yellow Vests in France. These
movements were incredibly important because they were far more
autonomous than the color-based movements of ten or fifteen years
earlier, and because they deepened promising and lasting cracks in these
countries. However, they were not enough to counter the feeling of
powerlessness in the face of a fierce and impassioned
counter-revolution. We should also mention the first signs of a
counter-counter-revolution with the 2019 pot-banging protests in
Colombia and the ongoing repression in Iran aimed at quelling the
uprisings against the ayatollahs. People began to speak of a "springtime
of the peoples."
But it would be another five years before, in 2025, revolts erupted
almost simultaneously in various places, taking many forms but all
sharing common threads: the denunciation of political corruption, the
emphasis on horizontal organization within the movement, and perhaps
most importantly, the fact that each revolt identified with those
erupting on the other side of the world, regardless of their specific
context or history.
The starting point was an event that might have gone unnoticed amidst a
continuous stream of scandals, but which, this time, proved to be the
final straw: an increase in the allowance allocated to elected
officials, followed by the death of a young man killed by a police truck
in Indonesia, where unemployment and mass layoffs were being denounced;
water and electricity cuts in Madagascar, where the entire workforce
mobilized; The government's shutdown of social media in Nepal, where
riots left around a hundred dead; the threat of privatization of the
pension system in Peru, where workers, the unemployed, and poor farmers
forced the bourgeoisie to oust President Boluarte despite the violence
of government commandos; the deaths of eight women in hospitals during
cesarean sections in Morocco (see article in this issue of CA); the
collapse of a train station roof in Serbia, killing 15 people and
sparking an unprecedented student mobilization that led to a
proliferation of residents' committees throughout the country.
Another common cause of these uprisings is identified: the corruption of
government elites. In addition to the countries mentioned above, we can
add the Philippines, where massive demonstrations denounced the
embezzlement of funds intended for flood relief projects. Or, in Latin
America... Or, in Latin America: In Paraguay, farmers, students, and
workers organized days of protest against the lack of public services
and government corruption; in Brazil, popular mobilizations prevented
the adoption of a constitutional amendment aimed at protecting
politicians from prosecution. In Argentina, mobilizations against Milei
prevented her party from holding rallies in Tierra del Fuego, Rosario,
Corrientes, and several cities in the province of Buenos Aires. In
Uruguay, mobilizations are taking place against a national budget that
allocates a significant portion to repression and minimal funds to
social policies.
And then there's East Timor, Kenya... not to mention the exceptional
mobilizations in Italy and Spain against the genocide of Gazans
perpetrated with impunity by the State of Israel. And we're certainly
forgetting some.
Surely, it's a vicious cycle, or at least we want to believe so. The
counter-revolution is not as strong as she believed; the people are far
more resistant than anyone thought, and the working and peasant classes
are still largely present in the struggles.
A few remarks.
It should be noted that in many of these countries, the safety valve for
poverty that emigration to Europe represented has become more difficult
due to increased control of migration flows.
These very recent mobilizations are taking place in a geopolitical
context very different from those of the beginning of the century. There
is no longer an imaginary camp to turn to when one is suffering. No
regime truly inspires. One can only rely on oneself to approach a
solution that is truly one's own; horizontal organization is the winning
formula, and if there is to be a model, it is to be found in the
struggles of others.
The goal of the bourgeoisie's watchdogs-journalists, sociologists,
political scientists, and politicians-is to obscure the class struggle
aspects of these revolts as much as possible, cloaking them in
cross-class definitions.
The invention of the "Generation Z" concept to disguise this
transnational rebellion is a convenient tool for muddying the waters. As
if young people aged 13 to 18 were immune to class conflict! As if only
"young graduates with solid technological expertise who can't find their
place in society" were taking to the streets. Of course, this segment
exists and is very present in this movement, but the claim that the
demands expressed have nothing to do with the rest of the working class
is an assumption refuted by the massive presence of workers, the
unemployed, and farmers in the streets.
It is true that Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms have played a
significant role in disseminating and coordinating these movements. But,
again, prioritizing this explanation ignores the fact that real
encounters and collectives have formed everywhere, in workplaces and
villages. Of course, the "observers" aren't there, but they are online.
They construct the world in their own image, for the greater good of the
system.
Three articles in this issue of CA address these questions: in Morocco,
Syria, and Iran. Others will follow in future issues. We don't claim to
offer "fair" and "definitive" analyses of these rebellions. They are
taking place in countries we know little about and in which we have few
or no contacts. The libertarian movement has identified a major weakness
in internationalist practice. This provides an opportunity to partially
fill that void. Let's not forget that recognizing ourselves, at least in
part, in many struggles around the world is an important element for
taking action where we live. When belonging to a world in struggle
replaces belonging to nationalist fiction.
OCL Poitou
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4555
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
scale have flourished in circles ranging from the moderate left to
libertarians. Depending on the moment or the prevailing trend, examples
are then cited, of course, Trump and Putin, but also Bolsonaro and
Miliei in Brazil and Argentina, Orban's Hungary, Meloni's Italy,
Poland's opposition to abortion, and everywhere the significant gains of
the far right. This wave is labeled, depending on the school of thought,
technofascist, populist, neoconservative, nationalist, etc. In France,
this picture, however accurate it may be, has been used by a moribund
social democracy and a far-left, green-red movement attempting to
replace it, to spread the idea that a republican front against the
National Front should be built rather than destroying a business class
openly advocating for a strongman regime, whatever its label.
To this grim picture, we must add China, which is no exception to the
rule in terms of avant-garde totalitarianism, control, and repression of
its population; the countless quasi-traditional dictatorships in
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, etc.); not forgetting
Africa, where regimes born of colonialism compete in ever-renewed
despotism; and, of course, the Islamist regimes, which are no exception
to this grim picture.
It seemed there was no longer any room or hope for popular uprisings.
Yet, at the dawn of the century, we had the color revolutions. The
bulldozer revolution in Serbia in 2000 (already!), which forced
Miloshevic to relinquish power. The "rose" revolution in Georgia in
2003, the "orange" revolution in Ukraine in 2004, the "tulip" revolution
in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, and the "denim" revolution in Belarus. The hope
they inspired was short-lived. Orchestrated by the US, these popular
uprisings were the last gasp of the fall of "real communism" and only
allowed new/old bureaucrats, each more corrupt than the last, to come to
power.
Even in Lebanon, following Hariri's assassination, the "Cedar"
revolution against the Syrian presence in the country yielded little
more, as we know today!
A little later, the Arab Spring uprisings followed one another from 2010
onward in various places. Then, in 2020, came Black Lives Matter in the
United States and, to a lesser extent, the Yellow Vests in France. These
movements were incredibly important because they were far more
autonomous than the color-based movements of ten or fifteen years
earlier, and because they deepened promising and lasting cracks in these
countries. However, they were not enough to counter the feeling of
powerlessness in the face of a fierce and impassioned
counter-revolution. We should also mention the first signs of a
counter-counter-revolution with the 2019 pot-banging protests in
Colombia and the ongoing repression in Iran aimed at quelling the
uprisings against the ayatollahs. People began to speak of a "springtime
of the peoples."
But it would be another five years before, in 2025, revolts erupted
almost simultaneously in various places, taking many forms but all
sharing common threads: the denunciation of political corruption, the
emphasis on horizontal organization within the movement, and perhaps
most importantly, the fact that each revolt identified with those
erupting on the other side of the world, regardless of their specific
context or history.
The starting point was an event that might have gone unnoticed amidst a
continuous stream of scandals, but which, this time, proved to be the
final straw: an increase in the allowance allocated to elected
officials, followed by the death of a young man killed by a police truck
in Indonesia, where unemployment and mass layoffs were being denounced;
water and electricity cuts in Madagascar, where the entire workforce
mobilized; The government's shutdown of social media in Nepal, where
riots left around a hundred dead; the threat of privatization of the
pension system in Peru, where workers, the unemployed, and poor farmers
forced the bourgeoisie to oust President Boluarte despite the violence
of government commandos; the deaths of eight women in hospitals during
cesarean sections in Morocco (see article in this issue of CA); the
collapse of a train station roof in Serbia, killing 15 people and
sparking an unprecedented student mobilization that led to a
proliferation of residents' committees throughout the country.
Another common cause of these uprisings is identified: the corruption of
government elites. In addition to the countries mentioned above, we can
add the Philippines, where massive demonstrations denounced the
embezzlement of funds intended for flood relief projects. Or, in Latin
America... Or, in Latin America: In Paraguay, farmers, students, and
workers organized days of protest against the lack of public services
and government corruption; in Brazil, popular mobilizations prevented
the adoption of a constitutional amendment aimed at protecting
politicians from prosecution. In Argentina, mobilizations against Milei
prevented her party from holding rallies in Tierra del Fuego, Rosario,
Corrientes, and several cities in the province of Buenos Aires. In
Uruguay, mobilizations are taking place against a national budget that
allocates a significant portion to repression and minimal funds to
social policies.
And then there's East Timor, Kenya... not to mention the exceptional
mobilizations in Italy and Spain against the genocide of Gazans
perpetrated with impunity by the State of Israel. And we're certainly
forgetting some.
Surely, it's a vicious cycle, or at least we want to believe so. The
counter-revolution is not as strong as she believed; the people are far
more resistant than anyone thought, and the working and peasant classes
are still largely present in the struggles.
A few remarks.
It should be noted that in many of these countries, the safety valve for
poverty that emigration to Europe represented has become more difficult
due to increased control of migration flows.
These very recent mobilizations are taking place in a geopolitical
context very different from those of the beginning of the century. There
is no longer an imaginary camp to turn to when one is suffering. No
regime truly inspires. One can only rely on oneself to approach a
solution that is truly one's own; horizontal organization is the winning
formula, and if there is to be a model, it is to be found in the
struggles of others.
The goal of the bourgeoisie's watchdogs-journalists, sociologists,
political scientists, and politicians-is to obscure the class struggle
aspects of these revolts as much as possible, cloaking them in
cross-class definitions.
The invention of the "Generation Z" concept to disguise this
transnational rebellion is a convenient tool for muddying the waters. As
if young people aged 13 to 18 were immune to class conflict! As if only
"young graduates with solid technological expertise who can't find their
place in society" were taking to the streets. Of course, this segment
exists and is very present in this movement, but the claim that the
demands expressed have nothing to do with the rest of the working class
is an assumption refuted by the massive presence of workers, the
unemployed, and farmers in the streets.
It is true that Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms have played a
significant role in disseminating and coordinating these movements. But,
again, prioritizing this explanation ignores the fact that real
encounters and collectives have formed everywhere, in workplaces and
villages. Of course, the "observers" aren't there, but they are online.
They construct the world in their own image, for the greater good of the
system.
Three articles in this issue of CA address these questions: in Morocco,
Syria, and Iran. Others will follow in future issues. We don't claim to
offer "fair" and "definitive" analyses of these rebellions. They are
taking place in countries we know little about and in which we have few
or no contacts. The libertarian movement has identified a major weakness
in internationalist practice. This provides an opportunity to partially
fill that void. Let's not forget that recognizing ourselves, at least in
part, in many struggles around the world is an important element for
taking action where we live. When belonging to a world in struggle
replaces belonging to nationalist fiction.
OCL Poitou
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4555
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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