Global Left Midweek – July 3, 2024
- How Bolivians Defeated the Coup Attempt
- Readings on France’s New Popular Front
- The Fate of the Iranian and Palestinian Left
- Reclaiming Congo’s Riches
- Argentina: Feminist Mass Movement
- News from Myanmar
- Tesla Strikers Standing Strong
- Tokyo Governor Race
- Europe: Public Sector Unions’ Energy Demands
- Palestine: Culture of an Embattled People
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How Bolivians Defeated the Coup Attempt
Marcela Heredia / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)
Several factors came together so that democracy and the legally constituted government did not suffer a coup d’état by some military officers. President Luis Arce stays, confronts, faces the coup general and orders him to retreat. Second, the rapid response of the people who moved by the thousands towards the seat of government, towards the Casa Grande.
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Readings on France’s New Popular Front
- Second Round: Center With or Against the Left? Cole Stangler / The Guardian (London)
- Block, Build and Win? Clément Petitjean / Convergence (Oakland)
- Necessary Struggles Francesco Brancaccio, Andrea Di Gesu, Davide Gallo Lassere, Sara Marano, Sandro Mezzadra, Filippo Ortona, Matteo Polleri and Carlo Vercellone / Historical Materialism (London)
- Offering Hope Where There’s No Hope Ugo Palheta and Elsa Gautier / Jacobin (Brooklyn)
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The Fate of the Iranian and Palestinian Left
Omid Montazeri / Verso (London)
The genocide in Gaza has created new fault lines within the global Left. Friendships, families, relationships and solidarities have been cut through. Palestine was once the beating heart of a united front, a “national liberation movement”, shared by many factions of the left in Iran. Returning to their shared history may open the path for reclaiming the abandoned legacy of the left.
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Reclaiming Congo’s Riches
Vijay Prashad / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
The struggle of the Congolese people today has centred on establishing sovereignty over their territory and ensuring human dignity. This struggle for liberation cannot be waged solely on a national level, given that the forces keeping the Congolese in bondage operate globally.
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Argentina: Feminist Mass Movement
Malena Nijensohn and Luciana Serrano / NACLA Report (New York)
As a far-right, denialist government threatens to roll back hard-won gains, Argentine feminists and the mothers and grandmothers fighting for justice for the disappeared remain linked in a decades-old friendly bond of struggle.
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News from Myanmar
- Changing Military and Political Dynamics in Arakan Naing Lin / Transnational Institute (Amsterdam)
- Flower Strikes Mong Palatino / Global Voices (Amsterdam)
- Union Leader Speaks Khaing Zar Aung / Global Labour Column (Johannesburg)
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Tesla Strikers Standing Strong
Guillaume Amouret / Equal Times (Brussels)
Citizens and trade unions in Europe continue to fight against the methods employed by the American company Tesla. While plans to expand the company’s German production site at Grünheide, near Berlin, are still being contested by local environmental activists, Tesla mechanics in Sweden have been on strike for the last eight month. They have been supported by a large cross-industry boycott.
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Tokyo Governor Race
Justin McCurry / The Guardian
The contest between incumbent Yuriko Koike and Renho Murata is being seen as a proxy war between the governing Liberal Democratic party [LDP], and the main opposition Constitutional Democratic party [CDP]. Renho, who left the CDP to run as an independent, has the support of her former party and, controversially, the Japanese Communist party [JCP].
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Europe: Public Sector Unions’ Energy Demands
Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (New York)
The European Public Service Union (EPSU), representing the continent’s public service unions, met to discuss the European Parliament election outcomes, and the importance of rescuing the EU’s ambitious climate commitments embodied in the 2019 European Green Deal.
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Palestine: Culture of an Embattled People
Decca Muldowney / New Internationalist (Oxford)
Palestine’s poets, novelists, musicians and journalists have not only voiced their people’s liberation struggle but also driven it. The tragic irony is that the Palestinian narrative is louder now than it has been in decades. Despite the lack of Western media access to Gaza, for example, the work of Palestinian journalists on the ground has found an enormous international audience through social media.