WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, UCADI #189 - DRAGON (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 For those who really think that the government team can be in any way

declined with the term "sovereignist" (whatever that word means) and
minimally critical of the absolute dominance that capital has achieved
in the last 30 years, I would like to focus on some specific
characteristics, which really seem to represent a textbook case. ---- As
we know, capital, in order to function, needs a specific legal framework
that first of all protects private property, that puts citizens (but not
all, and I will return to this below) on the same level (legal equality
as neutralization of class diversity) and that guarantees above all,
from the bottom up, property rights and profit against any limitation,
both from the State and from small and medium producers. The "natural"
tendency of capital to monopoly will mean that, in the eyes of the law,
the multinational that invoices more than a State will be equal to the
individual citizen damaged by it, to the small business that has ended
up in its coils, or to the public interest that is opposed.
This aspect of ordoliberalism (i.e. the State that manifestly
facilitates capital with its action[1]) has created a class enemy that
is much less easy to fight than the old liberalism. Ordoliberalism
arises from the awareness that the capitalist method of production is
historical and not immanent, and this awareness has meant that,
paradoxically (but not so much) by fully enlisting the State, no longer
the "minimal" nineteenth-century State, capital has been presented as
"the natural order of things". A hegemonic method that seems to have
worked wonderfully.
However, as is obvious, the legal construction, the propaganda of
soft-power and the enlistment of embedded troops at all levels have not
been able to eliminate reality. And in capital, reality is given by the
objective presence of class conflict. As has already happened in
contemporary history in these cases, politics also goes beyond the role
envisaged by ordoliberalism and attempts to bring the class conflict
back into a "national" and "popular" logic.
This is what this government is trying and is trying.
As already happened with Berlusconi in previous decades, the right
presents itself on the Italian political scene as an "outsider". This
self-representation has in fact corresponded to reality, given that
Italian capital, the old one, of the Agnellis, so to speak, was much
better off with the old Christian Democrat and even Communist ruling
class, within a panorama that is completely different from the one that
has been structured since the digital revolution.
As in the USA, with Trump (but perhaps more with Reagan) Berlusconi, a
global capitalist, but apparently not "internal", had managed to
represent well a middle class (in Italy traditionally reactionary and
subversive on the level of social rights but not on that of "personal
freedom") that was starting to be frightened by global changes.
The current right, on the other hand, is doing something different.
Having acknowledged the absolute impossibility of Italy to carve out any
role for itself within global capital (since the "globalist" left and
right from Ciampi to Monti, from Draghi to Renzi have completed the
demolition of Italian manufacturing, perfectly carrying out the orders
of the transnational financial world) and having certified the
subordinate role of our country in all fields (except tourism, typical
of a State destined for underdevelopment), it must therefore operate, as
mentioned above, a twist that is neither new nor original. That is,
bring the intercapitalist and class conflict back into the national
fold, to be understood in the sense of blood and soil.
A kind of nationalization of the masses that is a bit of a bungler, but
effective, for which I would avoid comparing it with Mussolini, who,
coming from Italian socialism, knew much better how to work with the
masses and the Italian bourgeoisie.
In this context, the 2 truly exemplary cornerstones of Matteo Salvini's
statements and the new "security" decree fit in. Salvini is being
investigated for a specific crime, that of kidnapping, which is one of
the 'as always personal' crimes provided for by the Penal Code. The
politician's response, neither casual nor passionate (Salvini is a
terrible actor but has a team of excellent communication professionals)
ignores this aspect, rather it bypasses it and instead speaks directly
to the "people". This pre-Roman and even proto-Nazi "right"[2], is a
different right from the abstract one on which the West has based its
history. Indeed, not everything, because in what Canfora defines as "The
Far West", or the US empire, this aspect of "popular consensus" and
"revenge", permeated by a biblical culture that stopped at the Old
Testament, is absolutely present. And if the homeland of capital happily
coexists with this type of "Teutonic" law, as long as it maintains the
cornerstones we talked about above.
So Salvini can act and speak calmly in a subversive manner, with respect
to our legal system, confident that the dominant classes (who do need
immigrants to work, but are certainly not known for their ability to be
moved and, indeed, the illegal immigrant is for them an absolutely
positive declination), will have nothing to object to (unlike the jokes
about the abolition of the Fornero law - which this government has
instead worsened).
So we speak directly to the "people", to the gut, to criminal law that
must respect consensus, must adapt to the spirit of the times, above and
beyond the principle of legality. How devastating this aspect can be for
the subaltern classes, I believe that the left that is still alive has
not yet understood.
And it seems to me that he has not even understood the new security
decree: a totally classist decree, where, in the face of the gag on the
press for the high-profile suspects and the defense to the hilt of every
dirty trick done by the ruling classes (the dominant ones, as I said
above, don't give a damn), penalties and repression for criminal
behavior are dramatically increased, especially related to protests,
demonstrations, minor crimes. After, obviously, an impressive hype on TV
(all of them: public and private) in the "give it to the thief" and a
crime news that (in the face of statistics that do not record any leaps
forward in crime, but, you know, reality is what is constructed) has
become the main part of newspapers and TV news, with morbid and hateful
details, all aimed at creating a climate of consensus for a repression
that is expected to be very harsh, given the real social and economic
conditions of a large part of the population. Obviously this aspect:
repression, racism and authoritarianism go hand in hand with obedience
to the ordoliberal and financial diktats of "Europe is asking us to do
so" (that is: cuts to healthcare, pensions and a perpetual austerity
that the boss of bosses, Draghi, would like to fight - it is really the
case to say it - by increasing military spending).
But the left is doubly blind. It fails to see that the internal Meloni
is the mirror of the external one and that the two aspects touch. But
the external one, prone to the wishes of the liberal EU, cannot be
criticized since everyone or almost everyone agrees with those policies
and therefore the attack on that "fascist" Meloni is a blunt weapon.
Just look at the conditions in which the left arrives on the war and on
the Middle East, where Tajani seems more moderate than a significant
portion of the PD, in full war euphoria, while there is silence on the
genocide in Gaza.
After all, Meloni is Draghi's daughter. A minor daughter who breaks some
toys, but obeys her father. If it weren't so terribly tragic, we would
be looking at a new successful TV series.

Andrea Bellucci

[1]A fundamental text still remains that of P. Dardor and C. Laval "The
new reason of the world. Critique of neoliberal rationality", Derive
Approdi, 2019 (original edition 2013). In this regard, among the many
points touched upon by the complex, debated, volume there is one that
perhaps has not had the attention it deserved. Namely, the abnormal
growth of bureaucracy that the ideology underlying the EU has brought
into being with the idea that everything must be in competition,
including and fully entitled to public institutions (leveled on an
"equal" basis with private ones). This has led not only to the monstrous
levitation of increasingly complex and self-referential documentation
(hence the new professions aimed at "decoding" this inextricable jungle
of rules, guidelines, FAQs, very often in conflict with each other) but
also to the exponential recourse to judicial practice, making litigation
the normal path followed by administrative proceedings. This has given
rise to the development of "defensive" conduct that the various
institutions have implemented, which are still added to the increasingly
inextricable "regulatory" network. This type of hyper-bureaucracy,
however, has not been the object of the fierce criticisms that in past
years had attacked the "state" one. On the contrary. This is because it
is an integral part of the neo-liberal and ordo-liberal ideology and
practice. This confirms that the State has become a fundamental
component of the same pro-market twist of the entire society.
[2]See in this regard the notable essay by Johann Chapoutot, "The Law of
Blood. Thinking and Acting Like Nazis", Einaudi, 2016.

https://www.ucadi.org/2024/09/28/dragoni/
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WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI - Umanita Nova: In the long hot summer, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers broke all records of desertion growth (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Donations to support the authors are possible at this link. Many thanks

to everyone for the great contribution! ----- Since the morning of
August 6, when Ukrainian troops broke through the border and occupied
several border settlements in the Kursk region of Russia, the debates
about the military-political significance and consequences of this
sortie have not subsided. The end of the battles for this territory is
still far away. At the moment, it is clear that such an attack, against
the backdrop of the collapse of Ukrainian defense in the Donetsk region,
came as a complete surprise to many.

In particular, attention was focused ... on the border gas metering
station in Sudzha (Suja), through which Russian gas is supplied to
Europe. Its continuous work, despite the hostilities around it, has
become another symbol of the fact that war is war, but international
business is as usual. From the posts of the Dutch emigrant from Donetsk
Andrey Shokotko:

"Dutch families will be warm this winter. With full gas reserves, the
chances of an extreme increase in energy bills are limited." Thanks to
Zelensky and Putin, whose reliable partnership (so brilliantly confirmed
in Sudzha) does not allow us in Europe to freeze. But it is not entirely
clear: why do they send their serfs to kill each other? And why do the
slaves, knowing about the Russian-Ukrainian business partnership, go to
kill each other? Ukraine and the Russian Federation categorically refuse
to formalize the war as a war. They are sophisticated in inventing
terms. All for the sake of continuing mutual cooperation, maintaining
trade relations, earning money together for the "elite". The slaughter
of slaves only helps business, in this case by raising gas prices. In
general, it is also right that the slaughter of serfs is not registered
as a war. After all, there is no war between the "elites", and the
states of the Russian Federation and Ukraine do not belong to the serfs.
In these territories, serfs are a resource. Consumable material. After
Sudzha, only the mentally retarded will want to go to this war
voluntarily. Or those who suffer from severe forms of patriotism, which
is the same thing. The fraternal partner regimes of the Russian
Federation and Ukraine get rid of their slaves, earn money together, are
close friends with their organisms and easily agree on everything that
brings income. At the same time, they set patriotic hamsters against
each other to maintain power and earnings."

Secondly, the Kursk events have once again demonstrated that the
gigantic bureaucratic apparatus, which functions well by plundering the
budget or persecuting dissidents, is completely helpless in the face of
a real threat.

"In the border areas of the Kursk region, where fighting has been going
on all week, there is no police, no firefighters, no doctors, no
representatives of the administration. According to official
information, more than 76 thousand people have left the settlements
(most of them left on their own, as there was no organized evacuation,
contrary to the statements of the authorities), but there are still
people, mostly elderly people. The devastation of villages and towns has
become a catalyst for widespread looting. Shops are being robbed, there
is a collapse in Korenevo, the Magnet supermarket was simply destroyed.
No water, no gas, no electricity. "There was no organized evacuation,
and if there was, then why didn't we hear about it?" writes a local
resident. A similar situation is occurring in other border
municipalities. Kursk residents are sure that the representatives of the
administration, having abandoned people to their fate, have provoked the
collapse in the border areas. At the moment, it is impossible to reach
the administration of the Korenevsky district of the Kursk region by
phone. People are forced to self-organize to protect themselves and
their property and essentially perform law enforcement and state
functions," one of the largest Russian political Telegram channels said
on August 11. The same scenes occurred at the beginning of the Russian
invasion of southern Ukraine, when the Ukrainian authorities had already
disappeared and the Russian ones had not yet been established.

Third, the invasion of the Kursk region has caused enthusiasm among
Ukrainian patriots that has not been seen since last year's "Crimean
Coffee in the Late Spring." We have devoted a separate material to this
topic: "The Volcano of Patriotism . " Someone from the Ukrainian project
on monitoring street kidnappings for military service responded: "There
is an opinion that the Kursk offensive is diverting people's discontent
and distracting from the topic of TCRs[territorial recruitment centers].
And I tell you, it is very noticeable. Videos about TCR scum have
decreased by about five times. People are distracted by looking at maps
of the offensive. But the TCR tormentors have not disappeared anywhere.
And they catch people on the street at the same rate."

However, the absence of queues of people wanting to join the army
suggests that the patriotic surge did not occur among conscientious
objectors (as per the Manifesto of the Recalcitrant
https://assembly.org.ua/totalitarizm-zhara-iyul-manifest-ukhilyanta-i-dve-nedeli-do-nachala-golodnyh-igr-po-ukrainski/
sent to us by an anonymous anarchist reader this summer), but among
those who supported Ukraine from the couch long before this, and were
simply demoralized by its constant failures.

Finally, the rapid advance of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region in
August and the rapid advance of Russian troops in the Donetsk region
have clearly demonstrated that both states lack soldiers who are
sufficiently battle-savvy and motivated to die for one or the other
Vladimir[Putin and Zelensky, Translator's note]. Who, if not the
military themselves, can stop the carnage when the politicians' peace
talks are once again indefinitely interrupted? Due to Russia's
reluctance to transfer large forces from the Donbass to the defense near
Kursk, conscripts are starting to be recruited en masse. The Kremlin's
promises not to use 18- to 20-year-olds, who often lack military skills
and were not going to fight, do not apply to this territory. Those who
survived the border breach are forced to sign contracts to be sent back
to the front line. The mother of one conscript, named Yulia, told the
Russian peace Telegram channel ASTRA in mid-August: "My son and his
comrades were miraculously taken out of the front line by their
commanders, where they were before the invasion. The military
prosecutor's office forced them to return to their posts, but the guys
flatly refused. Now they are in Kursk, in a military unit. They want to
send them to the third defense echelon behind the assault groups in the
Kursk region."[...]

Another Russian collective, "Go by the Forest," helps Russian civilians
and soldiers avoid participating in the war. The spokesman for this
organization Ivan Chuviliaev told us for the article "Long Hot Summer"
that during the 4 months of the hot season from May to August they
provided assistance to 120 deserters, and that most of the deserters do
not contact activists[...]On August 24, they published a letter from a
woman: "My son was arrested for helping deserters and was held for three
weeks in an unknown location. He is not a military man. They staged a
raid and arrested him. They took him with them in their car and are
holding him in an unknown location. We have not been able to find him
for three weeks. According to rumors, the military commandant's office
arrested him, although he is not a military man. We called the
commandant's office, they told us that they do not have him. Kidnapped
in a way that the FSB[Federal Security Service]has banned. We are
knocking on everyone's door. Yes, you are right, it is a real organized
criminal group." Also in August, "Go by the Forest" received more than a
hundred inquiries on various issues related to the refusal to fight in
the Kursk region.

The most fertile ground for desertion, of course, is the forced
mobilization of "free people in a free country." The Associated Press
described these preconditions in an Aug. 22 story: "As Ukraine continues
its incursion into Russia's Kursk region, its troops are still losing
valuable ground along the country's eastern front - a serious erosion
that military commanders attribute in part to poorly trained recruits
drawn from a recent mobilization, as well as Russia's clear superiority
in ammunition and air power. "Some people don't want to shoot. They see
the enemy in firing positions in the trenches, but they don't open fire.
... That's why our men are dying," said a frustrated battalion commander
from Ukraine's 47th Brigade.

Will the understanding that both sides are enslaved lead to
fraternization among the soldiers? For now, they prefer to save
themselves separately, although one of the exceptions may be the
following story . A Ukrainian army instructor told one of Ukraine's
leading political Telegram channels about mass desertions from the
training unit. In a post on July 17, he said: "A couple of months ago,
reinforcements arrived: seafarers were taken off the ships and sent to
serve in the marines. These are contractors, who at the beginning of the
war, when signing a contract, the command of the Ukrainian Navy promised
that they would serve only on ships. But recently, the command removed
personnel from several ships at once. They were transferred to marine
brigades. On the way from the ships for training, some of these guys ran
away. Almost none of the fugitives were found. I think many have already
fled from Ukraine." The location of the events is not specified.
However, since we are talking about mid-May, it is likely that the
events took place when Ukrainian troops were hastily gathering reserves
to stop the Russian offensive north of Kharkov. Marines of the 36th
brigade are now fighting there. And the Telegram channel of the Atesh
movement, which works for Ukrainian military intelligence in Crimea,
wrote on July 15 about the 810th Marine Brigade in Sevastopol: "After
numerous failures in Krynki, part of the brigade has already advanced to
the Kharkov section of the front. Due to heavy losses in the Kherson
direction, more than 100 people refused to take part in further combat
operations. The wounded are left in hospitals in Henichesk and Skadovsk.
They do not have time to replenish the staff with new people, and the
command declares 75% of the combat readiness of the brigade." If sailors
on both sides refused to shoot each other, could this be considered a
kind of long-distance fraternization?

On August 6, the following question was asked in the largest Telegram
chat that provides assistance to those seeking to flee the country:
"They will take my friend abroad for training at the end of the month.
After being thrown there by force, he obviously did not become a patriot
and wants to leave. They are taking him to Britain, they will put him on
a plane. They will transport him through Poland, any ideas how he can
get out?[...]". One of the moderators responded as follows: "There have
been cases when people left right on the road in Poland. It is possible
to leave from any country... Only in the last half year, I have
communicated with people who left while they were in Slovakia, Germany,
Poland and Britain[...]. Let him try to leave on the road in Poland, by
all means. There are a couple of training camps in Britain: on the
mainland and on some separate island. Accordingly, it is impossible to
leave the island[...]. Even if they take away his documents, he calmly
leaves the Poles for Slovakia and legalizes himself with a photo".

And an August 2 article on Deutsche Welle's website made a lot of noise
last month, noting that nearly a fourteenth of Ukraine's military had
fled during the full-scale war: "The problem of military personnel
fleeing the Ukrainian army has reached alarming proportions. Unable to
punish deserters, the government is ready to pardon them, if only they
would return to duty (...) The policy of strict discipline, which the
Ukrainian Armed Forces command insisted so much on during the first year
of the full-scale war, has obviously failed, and desertion from the army
has become widespread and unpunished - almost all DW interlocutors
interviewed for this article agree with this. The shortage of personnel
is pushing the new leadership of the General Staff to use not only the
stick, but also the carrot. Now unit commanders, who previously tried to
quickly oust deserters from their positions, are calling everyone,
asking about the problems and reasons that prevent them from returning
to duty. Personnel officer Victor Lyakh traveled to five regions in May,
finding several dozen fighters from his 28th separate mechanized brigade
at their home addresses. "The order was: persuade everyone to return.
But how can I, an old man, persuade that young man when his wife is
standing behind him, and with a child in her arms? I promise that
furloughs will be granted, that the criminal case will be closed. Well,
he says, when they close me, then maybe I will return." The harsh
sanctions that did not prevent servicemen from fleeing are now
dissuading them from returning, DW interlocutors from several units confirm.

[...]What was said in the revelations of the Kharkov people from our
publications "The Time of Fragmentation"? and "SZCh as a New Trend" has
been confirmed: no matter what kind of authoritarianism the state
implements, it cannot cope even with such a protest, if it is
widespread. Therefore, on August 21, the parliament adopted bill No.
11322, according to which a person who left his unit without permission
or deserted for the first time can return to the same unit with the
consent of the commander without any punishment. The seriousness of the
current situation of the troops can be judged by the haste of the vote,
which was supported in the first reading only a month earlier, on July 16.

Kiev journalist and military man Volodymyr Boiko writes on August 20 in
his blog: "The author predicts that in the summer there will simply be
no one to defend the Ukrainian positions. Since the beginning of a
full-scale war, at least 150,000 servicemen have deserted from the
Ukrainian Armed Forces, mainly in the last half a year. And every day
the rate of desertion is increasing. In the Toretsk and Pokrovsk
directions[in the Donetsk region], the defense of 1 km of the front is
often held by only 3-4 soldiers. Well, how to do it - they sit in a
trench covered with boards (called "blinding"), hiding under the
incessant fire of mortars. After the protection is destroyed by a mortar
strike, 5-8 Russian infantrymen enter the position and thus the enemy
passes. It is impossible to organize a normal defense, not for those who
do not have armor, but for those who do not have enough people:
riflemen, machine gunners, grenade launchers."

Finally, on the night of August 27, an unknown person opened fire on the
TCR security post in the city of Lutsk in western Ukraine. Senior
soldier M. was wounded and taken to hospital for treatment. Despite the
return fire, the attacker managed to escape. People in local chats
suggested that it could be a conscript who escaped with a weapon. Not
long before that, our magazine published a video by a Kharkov resident
about how in the same Lutsk two kidnapped people unsuccessfully tried to
incite others to rebel against the mobilizers. On September 4, news came
about the arrest of a 40-year-old suspect. He did not explain the
motives for the act: he faces life imprisonment.

If you are facing a prison sentence for desertion or SZCh (unauthorized
exit from a military unit), you can wait out the trial at home. With
competent lawyers, the trial can last a year or more. But if you take
the bait and go back, they can immediately send you to hell where your
chances of survival are slim. So think about whether or not to use the
new law.

Partial abolition of criminal punishment can also increase the flight of
the military. For example, the Provisional Government of Petrograd
declared the democratization of the army and amnesty for deserters. As a
result, the collapse of the army accelerated so much that it demobilized
and ceased to exist in early 1918. Unite! Demobilize! Do not fight!

 From Libcom:
https://libcom.org/article/long-hot-summer-ukrainian-and-russian-soldiers-broke-records-growth-desertions

Assembly, Kharkiv, September 6, 2024 assembly.org.ua
https://libcom.org/tags/assemblyorgua

https://umanitanova.org/nella-lunga-estate-calda-i-soldati-ucraini-e-russi-hanno-battuto-tutti-i-record-di-crescita-delle-diserzioni/
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WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE GERMANY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Germany, Die Platform: Report: The platform at the System Change Camp in Erfurt (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The System Change Camp took place in Erfurt just over a month ago.

Hundreds of people from all over Germany and beyond came together for
seven days on a meadow in the Thuringian capital to learn from each
other, discuss and make plans. One of the main focuses of the camp this
year was the fight against the rise of the extreme right, the need for
which has become even more acute with the recent electoral successes of
the AfD.

Another focus was the ongoing acute capitalist destruction of the
environment. After all, the System Change Camp was originally launched
by the climate justice movement. In addition to anti-fascism and
ecology, other topics and overlaps with other questions were also
addressed during the camp days.

This year, we were represented at the camp as a platform for the first
time in an organized form. Members from three local groups traveled
there to contribute to the content of the camp with a total of three of
their own lectures and to attend the discussions at the camp. Our first
lecture dealt with the question of how we analyze fascism historically
and currently and what path we as revolutionary anarchists propose in
the fight against it.

With the second event, we followed on from our ongoing solidarity
campaign with Sudanese anarchists. We gave an insight into the history
of Sudan, the revolution that swept away the old regime in 2019 and the
war that has been drowning the successes of this revolution in blood
since 2023.

In view of the rise of the extreme right, in view of wars and crises all
over the world, we are convinced that a revolutionary alternative to the
status quo is essential. But in order to fight for it, we must organize
ourselves. The last lecture that we brought to the camp therefore
introduced two anarchist organizational approaches - platformism and
especifismo - which are of great importance to us as a platform. We held
it together with our comrades from Perspektive Selbstverwaltung.

All three lectures were well to very well attended. We would like to
thank everyone who attended for their interest, especially for the
lively discussions and questions afterwards. We would also like to thank
the entire System Change Camp for allowing us to be there and to put our
ideas forward for discussion. A special thank you goes to the many
people who made the camp possible in this form by taking on cooking,
awareness and protection shifts. We look forward to hopefully being able
to be there again next year.

https://www.dieplattform.org/2024/09/22/bericht-die-plattform-auf-dem-system-change-camp-in-erfurt/#more-3347
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WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE SPAIN - news journal UPDATE - (en) Spain, LISA, Regeneracion: 1st Meeting of Specific Anarchism in the Spanish State By REGLIB (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We are pleased to announce the first summer meeting of specific
organizations in Spain. For this inaugural occasion, promoted by Embat,
Batzac, FEL and Liza around the means of disseminating the
organizational and revolutionary current of anarchism, Libertarian
Regeneration, we will have spaces for debate and organization, training
and creation of links between militants and guests. ---- This first
meeting is part of the process of building an ideological and strategic
coordination for the political intervention of libertarian principles,
objectives and means. We are moving towards the consolidation of our own
political space, of an internationalist, anti-authoritarian and
revolutionary nature.

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/06/24/io-encuentro-del-anarquismo-especifista-en-el-estado-espanol/
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WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #352 - Politics, Mpox: Capitalism, a breeding ground for epidemics (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 On August 14, the WHO triggered its maximum alert level following a

resurgence of Mpox, previously known as monkeypox. An epidemic that
deserves to raise the question of the conditions of its emergence and
evolution. ---- On August 14, it was through the voice of its Director
General that the WHO announced that it was triggering its highest level
of international alert, following the discovery of a new clade (variant)
of Mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The geographical
location of the country, surrounded by neighbors with international
airports (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, etc.), raises fears of a global
spread of the virus. Unsurprisingly, it was not until it threatened to
leave the African continent that international institutions became
seriously concerned about the subject.

Repeated epidemics
The epidemic started in Kivu, a region affected by a complex civil war
situation for more than twenty years. The conflict, fueled by the
region's immense wealth of raw materials, creates conditions that are
particularly favorable to the emergence of this type of situation. The
huge refugee camps are conducive to the spread of diseases, with
extremely difficult and limited access to care. Local populations, in
situations of great poverty, are often led to consume makeshift game
such as small rodents, facilitating zoonotic transmission, i.e. through
an animal. Finally, the significant development of prostitution in the
region creates the conditions for strong transmission between humans: it
is likely in these networks that the current epidemic started. In 2019,
the region had already been affected by an Ebola epidemic, facilitated
by the same factors.

But outside of this local context, largely linked to the post-colonial
situation and the monopolization of natural resources, there is also the
question of the overall management of health issues. Indeed, the WHO is
limited to emergency management, intervening only when these situations
threaten to degenerate to the point of affecting Western countries.

No vaccine despite requests
No serious and consistent prevention and care policy is thought out in
advance. After the Mpox epidemic of 2022, several African countries
issued requests for access to vaccines available in the West. But due to
a lack of international aid and because of the all-powerful patents,
this was not the case. In the absence of widely supported surveillance,
screening and vaccination policies, we have to wait for epidemic
outbreaks for international responses to be timidly put in place.

And even when facing the wall, the organization stutters: at the time of
writing, the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC)
has recorded 22,000 cases and 622 deaths, but the DRC is still not
supplied with vaccines, despite the manufacturers' willingness to begin
deliveries. This is due to Kafkaesque bureaucratic procedures within the
WHO, which is blocking the supply process, despite having declared the
alert more than two weeks ago.

Health issues cannot be considered from a global perspective, and cannot
be satisfied with short-term management. It is urgent to extract them
from capitalist operations and include them in our internationalist ideals.

N. Bartosek (UCL Alsace)

For information on prevention and vaccination against Mpox:
Actupparis.org/prevention/mpox

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Mpox-Le-capitalisme-terreau-fertile-aux-epidemies
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