Portside

1. Chile: The Fight for a New Constitution
2. Covid Strategy
3. Abortion Without Borders
4. Labor in South Africa
5. US Excludes Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua From Summit
6. Thailand’s Protest Movement
7. Trinidad and Tobago Unions Throw Down
8. Is it Over for Vanguard Parties?
9. Unsung Heroes of Kenya
10. Greenslide in Australia

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Chile: The Fight for a New Constitution

Javier Pineda Olcay / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

Chile’s Constitutional Convention is consolidating a correlation of forces rooted the political and social field that found expression in the popular revolt of 2019. It is not a maximalist or refoundational project, as the defenders of the old order claim — it is an institutional change pushing to leave behind an exhausted neoliberal model.

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Covid Strategy

• UK: Two Years On   James Meadway / Red Pepper (London)
   
• Latin American Domestic Workers   Jorgelina Loza / LSE Latin America and Caribbean (London)
   
• Heritage Language Schools   Nina Paulovicova, Marta McCabe and Renata Emilsson Peskova / The Conversation (Waltham MA)

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Abortion Without Borders

Anna Louie Sussman / The New Yorker

Abortion Without Borders is sprawling and decentralized by design: it takes advantage of the patchwork of abortion restrictions in different parts of Europe. By varying its tactics based on the availability and legality of different types of abortion, the network builds on each organization’s strengths and compensates for its vulnerabilities. 

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Labor in South Africa

• COSATU   Bheki Mngomezulu / Independent Online (Cape Town)
   
• Fedusa   Riefdah Ajam / Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
   
• Saftu   Ray Mahlaka / Daily Maverick
   
• Steel Workers   Anna Majavu and Magnificent Mndebele / New Frame (Johannesburg)
   
• Gold Miners   Pavan Kulkarni / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)

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US Excludes Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua From Summit

Aileen Teague / Responsible Statecraft (Washington DC)

The Biden administration will lose political capital if it allows its growing tendency to divide the world into “democratic” friends and “authoritarian” states to dictate the invitation list for a forum that is much larger than Washington’s professed policy objectives.

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Thailand’s Protest Movement

Enno Hinz / Deutsche Welle (Berlin)

In 2020, Thai youth sparked the largest wave of anti-government protests since the 2014 military coup. But human rights activists say persecutions and systematic harassment have weakened the pro-democracy movement.

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Trinidad and Tobago Unions Throw Down

Elizabeth Gonzales / Trinidad and Tobago Newsday (Port of Spain)

The National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) has called on government workers to stay away from work and come out in a mass protest through Port of Spain. “We need numbers, we need each of you in the most epic march to organise our strength and end wage slavery. United we stand in the fight for our freedom,” the union said.

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Is it Over for Vanguard Parties?

Cian Prendiville / Rupture (Dublin)

An extended period of relative obscurity brought out some of the worst in revolutionary left groups. Constantly having to ‘protect the ideas’ led to an ideological defensiveness, and hesitancy to engage with newer theories and debate. Perpetually ‘defending the party’ led to a withering of whatever internal democracy existed, and a tendency to excuse the inexcusable.

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Unsung Heroes of Kenya

Gathanga Ndung’u / Review of African Political Economy (London)

We remember three committed activists who gave their lives in the new wave of struggle which has been characterised by extra-judicial executions and enforced disappearances by the police, the shrinking of democratic space, high level corruption, the ever-widening gap between the poor and rich and the privatisation of basic services.

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Greenslide in Australia

Osmond Chiu / Jacobin (New York)

The Labor Party is now on track to form a government, either as minority or a narrow majority, and the election indicates a breakdown of the two-party system. The rise of organized independents and the breakthrough of Greens in the House of Representatives suggests a European-style fragmentation of the party system is happening.