Global Left Midweek — December 3, 2025

Europe is erupting

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A woman holds a sign that reads "We want investments in the railway network" as union members protest against the government's austerity measures, outside the government headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, November 12, 2025. | AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru
  1. Trump’s Peace, Lenin’s Test
  2. Cameroon: Leading Leftist Dies in Prison
  3. Europe is Erupting
  4. Rage in Philippines
  5. Venezuela Stands Against US War Moves
  6. Indonesia Counterinsurgency in West Papua
  7. South Africa: A Dairy Strike Unites Movements
  8. Labor/Community Rally in Montreal
  9. Movement Responses to COP30
  10. Free Marwan Barghouti!

 

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Trump’s Peace, Lenin’s Test

Dmitry Pozhidaev / Links (Sydney)

Invoking Vladimir Lenin is not nostalgia; it is a way to keep analysis from collapsing into moral binaries or great-power fandom. He forces us to focus on two disciplines: first, to read war as the continuation of class policy; and second, to hold together the inter-imperialist struggle for redivision and the national liberation struggle of oppressed peoples. That applies to the Ukraine war and any externally brokered “peace”. 

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Cameroon: Leading Leftist Dies in Prison

Jude Ndeh Asaa / Pan African Visions (Hyattsville MD)

Cameroon is reeling from shock, grief, and mounting political tension after the death of Anicet Georges Ekane, at dawn on December 1, 2025, while held under military detention. The 74-year-old president of the African Movement for New Independence and Democracy, Ekane was the architect of the Union for Change coalition that powered Issa Tchiroma’s 2025 presidential campaign.

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Europe is Erupting

 • Italy/Palestine   Mohammad Jamoul / Al-Akhbar (Beirut)

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 • UK Your Party Conference   Steven Methven / Novara Media (London)

 • Ukraine Sotsialnyi Rukh Appeal   European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (Brussels)

 • Slovakia LGBTQ+   Diana Burgerová / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (Paris)

 • France Insoumise   Clémence Guetté / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

 • Russia’s Peace Movement   Simon Pirani and Ivan Rechnoy / Posle (Berlin)

 • Belgium Showdown   Daniel Kopp / Progressive International

 • Spain: Rise and Fall of Podemos   Lilith Verstrynge / The Guardian (London)

 • Germany: Emancipation via Transformation   Klaus Dörre / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

 • Poland’s Fractured Left   Adam Novak / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières

 • Portugal: General Strike in Sight   / Portugal Pulse (Lisbon)

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Rage in Philippines

 • Video Overview   / Al Jazeera (Doha)

 • Divided Movement   Paterno R. Esmaquel II / Rappler (Manila)

 • Bottom Line: Marcos and Duterte Must Go   Walden Bello / via Facebook

SQUARING THE CIRCLE
I admire the passion of Cardinal David in raging against corruption during his speech last Sunday.  Unfortunately, that passion emerged only in the latter part of his intervention.  For most people, the main takeaway was what he said in the first few minutes, which was to characterize those who went to Luneta and Mendiola as misguided or being witting or unwitting instruments of the forces of darkness and disorder.  
Cardinal David is a good and intelligent person, and I’m really sorry that the organizers of the EDSA Trillion Peso Rally tasked him with doing the impossible, which was to square the circle. 
Here’s the problem, dear Cardinal.  People are really, really angry with a system that has facilitated mega-corruption.  Junior [President Marcos] has come to represent the primordial evil at the heart of that system, especially after Zaldy Co’s revelation he pocketed 50 billion pesos, with Co personally delivering one billion to his house.  But you’re telling the people they should not demand that the symbol of systemic corruption take accountability and resign, because you say there’s a greater evil--some hypothetical event like a military coup or civil disorder-- that could ensue.  Instead, you appeal to this symbol of corruption to lead in reforming the system!
Dear Cardinal, there was neither rational nor emotional logic to your speech, so it is not surprising that it has triggered confusion rather than inspiration.  
To make things worse, instead of building a bridge to the people at Luneta and Mendiola who also want to end corruption as much those in EDSA, you burn the bridge by telling them they are abetting disorder and those who would bring about the “greater evil,” characterizing those angry young people at Mendiola last September 21 as “throwers of Molotov Cocktails.” You belittled the real anger of the people who went to Mendiola and Luneta, on September 21 and last Sunday, painting them simply as instruments, witting or unwitting, of dark forces that want to install a dictatorship.  You just wrote them off, saying, you were wrong in demanding mass resignation last September 21, and you’re still wrong today. “You should just fold up your banners and posters, like you did then.”
Cardinal David said that people like him can play an important moral leadership role in the difficult process of rooting out corruption.  I fully agree.  But I would appeal to him and other moral and political leaders to unite, not divide those who are seriously committed to throwing out the villains like Junior and Sara [Vice President Duterte] and transforming the system.

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Venezuela Stands Against US War Moves

Pablo Meriguet / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)

On November 25, tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched to defend national sovereignty. The event, dubbed the “Great Civic-Military, Police March for our National Flag and the Sword of Bolívar”, brought together various groups of military personnel, police, and civilians who demanded an end to Washington’s pressure on the Caribbean country.

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Indonesia Counterinsurgency in West Papua

Kristo Langker / Drop Site News (Washington DC)

The West Papua National Liberation Army has resisted counterinsurgency in the Star Mountains for decades. Drop Site spoke with guerilla leader Lamek Taplo a week before he was killed.

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South Africa: A Dairy Strike Unites Movements

Maya Bhardwaj / openDemocracy (London)

From 2021 to 2022, workers from the Clover dairy company went on strike across South Africa. The trade union GIWUSA supported rank and file activists to demand fair pay, better working conditions, and worker protections. Striking workers were also joined, somewhat unusually, by Palestine solidarity activists.

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Labor/Community Rally in Montreal

CTV News (Toronto)

Quebec’s major labour unions marched in downtown Montreal, their members expressing anger over the Quebec government’s legislative agenda which includes a number of measures aimed at the labour movement. Tens of thousands of Quebecers armed with noisemakers and signs marched to Premier François Legault’s offices, condemning an assault on workers’ rights, collective bargaining and public services.

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Movement Responses to COP30

 • Peoples’ Summit   Ben Radford / Green Left (Sydney)

 • Ecosocialists   / Links

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Free Marwan Barghouti!

Patrick Wintour / The Guardian

A global campaign is being launched to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian prisoner seen by many as the best hope of leading a future Palestinian state, as negotiations continue in the context of the current Gaza ceasefire. The campaign, being led by Barghouti’s West Bank-based family with UK civil society support, is seeking to put the 66-year-old’s fate at the centre of the next stage of the ceasefire.