Global Left Midweek – May 7, 2025
- Internationalism at the Heart of May Day
- May Day ’25 Photos
- National Strike in Panama
- Israelis and Palestine’s Freedom Fight
- Cuba Up Against It
- Italian Unions Hit Amazon Where it Hurts
- Myanmar and China
- From the European Left Party
- Turkey: Öcalan’s Strategy
- Wilfred Burchett and Portugal’s Brief Revolution
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Internationalism at the Heart of May Day
Ben Hayes / Labour Hub (London)
A clear majority of the 25 largest protests recorded in the UK to date have been called over issues of foreign policy and peace. And, while some seek to portray it as being a weak point when it comes to winning popular support, the left’s involvement in the campaign against the Iraq War proved one of its most effective campaigns in recent history in terms of shaping public opinion.
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May Day ’25 Photos
Reuters
From Manila, Paris, Jakarta, Istanbul, Seoul, Dakar, Rome and more.
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Panama: Workers Strike for Rights and Sovereignty
Pablo Meriguet / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)
A week since the indefinite strike began, several unions, guilds, and Panamanian citizens continued to demonstrate against the right-wing government of José Raúl Mulino. They are striking against the social security reform law, which, according to the demonstrators, allows the privatization of the social security system. The strike has taken on an anti-imperialist and sovereigntist tone.
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Israelis and Palestine’s Freedom Fight
Fadi Shabita / +972 (Tel Aviv)
Just like young Palestinians did not choose to be born in the West Bank, in Gaza, or in exile, young Israelis, some already the third or fourth generation of colonial settlement, did not choose to be born into this political reality. Nevertheless, they must choose how to respond: Will they take part in it? Or will they choose to resist it — and potentially at great personal cost?
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Cuba Up Against It
Gerold Schmidt / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)
Cuba lacks the necessary funds for investing in vital sectors and cannot obtain further loans due to US sanctions and its already high levels of foreign debt. In the short term, the focus will have to be on how the country’s economy can survive without overstretching the population’s patience.
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Italian Unions Hit Amazon Where it Hurts
Laura Montanari and Jonathan Rosenblum / Truthout (Sacramento)
On Good Friday, April 18, thousands of Amazon drivers went on strike at the company’s 41 delivery stations throughout Italy, jamming up goods delivery in the run-up to the busy Easter weekend. The one-day strike was a show of strength, an escalation of worker demands for job security, safer working conditions, and an end to crushing workloads and relentless speedups.
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Myanmar and China
Kyaw Htet Aung / The Diplomat (Arlington VA)
China sought to preserve the existing power imbalance between Myanmar's military junta and the resistance, ensuring that no single actor could gain enough strength to undermine China’s influence in the region. Using a mix of diplomatic pressure and economic incentives, China succeeded in securing the outcome it wanted.
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From the European Left Party
Uwe Sattler / European Left (Brussels)
The top representatives of the four dozen left-wing and green-left parties – variously affiliated with or linked to the Party of the European Left – assessed: “authoritarian leaders such as Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, and Erdoğan demonstrate through words and actions that fascism is a present and acute danger.” This danger is further driven by the EU’s rearmament and aggressive policies.
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Turkey: Öcalan’s Strategy
Justus Johannsen and Tuncer Bakırhan / Jacobin (Brooklyn)
Abdullah Öcalan, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, made a surprise call in February for the PKK to lay down its arms. Whether there will be a just peace now depends on the willingness of Turkey’s political parties to support the new settlement.
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Wilfred Burchett and Portugal’s Brief Revolution
Daniela F. Melo / Verso (London)
In a style reminiscent of George Orwell’s journalistic output, Burchett offers a mixture of reflection, analysis and intimate interviews with important historical protagonists of the revolutionary process in the capital, Lisbon, but also with average people in the provinces – farmers, fishermen, factory workers. Of all the titles in Burchett’s opus, these two books are the least known.