Portside

1. Sunflowers and the Revolutionary Party
2. Video: Protests Recall Chile’s 9/11 Coup
3. Hong Kong in Revolt
4. Mexico: Three Sites of Struggle
5. Yellow Vests’ (Temporary) Quarantine
6. Bolivia: MAS Candidate Speaks
7. Delhi Police Target Left Academics and Activists
8. Why Corbyn Lost
9. Kenya: Healthcare Workers Turn Up the Heat
10. No Socialism Without Accountability

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Sunflowers and the Revolutionary Party

Manuel Cabieses Donoso / The Prisma (London)

The editor of Chile’s Punto Final magazine proposes a botanical approach to building the political left. “If it were only necessary to form a party in order to construct a Left alternative, it would have already happened. However, we have spent years insisting on this method with no result.”

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Video: Protests Recall Chile’s 9/11 Coup

Lucia Newman / Al Jazeera (Doha)

After 47 years, many hope that a new constitution will replace the one written during the dictatorship.

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Hong Kong in Revolt

Ivan Franceschini and Au Loong-Yu / Made in China (Canberra)

Hong Kong leftist intellectual Au Loong-Yu retraces the development of the protest movement in his place of birth over the past two decades, setting them within the context of broader political trends in mainland China and beyond. 

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Mexico: Three Sites of Struggle

Feminists in Mexico City  Zoe Mendelson / Hyperallergic (Brooklyn)

Indigenous Environment Defenders  Demetrio Romeo / openDemocracy (London)

Farmers in Chihuahua  Mexico News Daily (Puerto Escondido)

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Yellow Vests’ (Temporary) Quarantine

Francesco Ditaranto / Il Manifesto Global (Rome)

What happened to the movement after the pandemic began? [Portside note: Read the Yellow Vests’ response to this premature obituary.]

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Bolivia: MAS Candidate Speaks

Luis Arce / Jacobin (New York)

Massive protests last month forced Bolivia’s post-coup government to pledge that elections will take place on October 18. But democracy is still in danger, with powerful private interests standing to gain from the continuation of the current regime.

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Delhi Police Target Left Academics and Activists

Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta / The Wire (New Delhi)

Delhi police are charging that well-known activists and academics are part of a conspiracy behind widespread violence as mass demonstrations protested the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act.

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Why Corbyn Lost

Andrew Fisher / openDemocracy (London)

Neither the emergence of Corbynism nor its failure were primarily due to individuals or groups of individuals, but to structural factors that need to be understood.

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Kenya: Healthcare Workers Turn Up the Heat

Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)

Strikes, slowdowns and demonstrations have forced the government to take steps to provide health workers with the medical coverage they demand.

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No Socialism Without Accountability

Alex Demirović / Socialist Project (Toronto)

The ideas and concepts of socialism are the subject of discussion and conflict. There are a range of suggestions for how to define it. If there are differences and contradictions between the claims to universality and the various social groups, their interests, and needs, then there is a need for forms which can mediate contradictions and tensions between the universal and the particular. Democracy is the process through which this happens.