Portside

1. How to Counter Fascism
2. Jayati Ghosh: We Are At the Brink
3. Left Views on Trump Win
4. Truth Takes a Side
5. Belgian Workers Party Wins Municipal Seats
6. Argentina’s Student Movement
7. Thunberg in Tblisi
8. Marielle Franco’s Legacy
9. Violence in Mozambique
10. Gisèle Pelicot Becomes a World Symbol

 

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How to Counter Fascism

Walden Bello / Foreign Policy in Focus (Washington DC)

Let’s not fear to see what we can learn from the extreme right, especially when it comes to the politics of passion or the politics of charisma, and see how our values can be advanced or promoted in passionate and charismatic ways. We must unite reason to passion and not see them as being in contradiction, while not violating our commitments to truth, justice, and fair play in the process.

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Jayati Ghosh: We Are At the Brink

Jayati Ghosh / Transnational Institute (Amsterdam)

Ghosh explores the breakdown of the global legal and economic order brought on by the siege of Gaza. Recent political shifts have led to a disintegration of established rules. While the international trade and justice systems are in chaos, only financial regulations remain intact. This creates a peculiar moment in the global economy that opens up opportunities for new ideas and power dynamics to emerge.

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Left Views on Trump Reelection

 • From France   Roger Martelli / Regards (Paris) 

[Translated from French by Portside. Lire l'article original ici.]

Donald Trump prevailed over Kamala Harris. His victory doesn’t just upset American Democrats. We know that he is just one part of a vast planetary movement which, whether fascist, quasi-fascist or fascistoid, intends to turn the page once and for all on a democratic history inaugurated by the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions.

How do we stop the infernal machine? On the left, two antagonistic approaches are proposed to us: reduce the subversive impact of equality to win over the undecideds or, on the contrary, assert the need for radical ruptures to respond to the resentment of those left behind in our societies. The first answer should be rejected: with the prevailing logics of exploitation, domination and alienation at the root of our ills, nothing is more realistic than radically overcoming them. The problem is that invoking radicalism is not enough. Basically, while the liberal capitulations of social democracy have fuelled disillusionment and popular resentment, the alternative lefts have nowhere demonstrated their usefulness in the long term.

To ward off destructive tendencies, there is no other certain solution than to back up anger with a collective hope that distances it from resentment. In societies that today seem to have neither a past nor a future, humanist struggles need to be based on another possible future, one that gives healthy criticism the dimension of a global proposal. This proposal can take the form of a program, but at a time when not many people believe in promises and programs, a catalog of proposals will not mobilize without the introduction of an overall vision, of a grand narrative that restores meaning where there is none.

But what’s the point of a narrative if, in a society that is socially, politically and symbolically dislocated, we don't know how to move from an uneasy jigsaw puzzle of differences and antagonisms to a society that is conciliated and united? Radicality is therefore necessary, to show us how we should go about treating social ills at their root. This is only socially useful if this radicalism also tells us how we can make the aspiration for a clean break become the trajectory of broad majorities.

Proposals, a project, a long-term strategy... In short, we need to oppose the extreme right with a broad left that is firmly on the left, not a left in halftones. It won't come together if there isn't a left political alternative within it. On the condition that the latter never forgets that it has no claim to being the salt of the earth on its own, and that an alternative is only worthwhile if it can ultimately be backed by a majority. A left alternative and a united left. It’s all in the ‘and’.

 • From Sri Lanka  Devaka Gunawardena and Ahilan Kadirgamar / Daily FT (Colombo)

 • From UK   George Monbiot / The Guardian (London)

 • From Italy   Luca Celada / il manifesto Global (Rome)

 • From a Russian Prison   Boris Kagarlitsky / Links (Sydney)

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Truth Takes a Side

John Clarke / Canadian Dimension (Winnipeg)

The dominant ways of thinking may serve the purposes of people like Elon Musk, who refuse to acknowledge the destructive irrationality of their relentless drive to accumulate or question the narrowly individualistic view of society. For those of us who struggle against the system, however, the “ruling ideas” are an encumbrance and we need to develop very different ways of thinking.

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Belgian Workers Party Wins Municipal Seats

Nico Biver / transform! Europe (Vienna)

The party ran in a total of 67 municipalities (compared to 61 in 2018) and won 197 seats (138 in 2018). It suffered slight losses in only seven of the electoral wards involved. In the elections to the ten provincial assemblies its share of seats rose from 11 to 18, with 16 of these in Wallonia.

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Argentina’s Student Movement

Lucas Bricca / NACLA Report (New York)

On October 2, Argentine President Javier Milei vetoed a university financing bill that would have adjusted national university budgets every two months based on changes in the consumer price index, peso exchange rate, and the cost of public services. In response to the veto, students at over 30 universities across the country voted in open assemblies to occupy their campuses, some indefinitely. 

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Thunberg in Tblisi

Rasmus Canbäck / Blankspot (Stockholm)

After a long journey across Europe, Greta Thunberg has arrived in the protest-filled Georgia. Over a pizza, she talks about her criticism of the upcoming COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, her own journey as an activist, and how the climate summit risks becoming a political tool in the hands of regimes that violate human rights.

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Marielle Franco’s Legacy

Bibbi Abruzzini and Clarisse Sih / Global Voices (The Hague)

On the night of March 14, 2018, Brazil was shocked by the breaking news about the execution of a Rio de Janeiro city councilor. Franco was first elected to Rio’s City Council in 2016 with PSOL (Socialism and Liberty), a leftist party. She was a woman of African descent from the Maré favela complex, one of the largest in the city; she was a single mother and a woman in a same-sex relationship. 

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Violence in Mozambique

Ruth Castel-Branco / Africa is a Country (New York)

A decade ago, the kind of protest movement seen over the last few weeks would have been difficult to fathom. Oppositional voices were few and far between, and all the Frelimo regime had to do was persecute an unlucky few in order to restore order. Today, the oppositional voices are too many and too diverse to be silenced. 

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Gisèle Pelicot Becomes a World Symbol

Kim Willsher / The Guardian

Gisèle Pelicot’s dignity during the rape trial of her husband has inspired not just worldwide support but renewed debate about the law. At demonstrations, protesters have held signs reading: “Je suis Gisèle” in support of the woman who has become a national and international feminist figurehead.