https://portside.org/2025-09-10/global-left-midweek-september-10-2025

1. Via Campesina: Reclaim Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power!
2. “Block Everything!” France Ignites 
3. Xi Platforms East and South Unity
4. Bolivia: MAS Era Ends
5. Gen Z Rebellions Are Making History Today
6. Feminist Fights
7. Global Protests for Myanmar
8. UK Palestine Action Shuts an Arms Facility
9. Puerto Ricans March for Independence
10. If We Must Die

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Via Campesina: Reclaim Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power!

La Via Campesina

The most concrete step towards tackling corporate impunity at the international legal sphere lies in elaborating an effective legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations in international law. The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity is the next step.

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“Block Everything!” France Ignites

Khyati Rajvanshi / The Indian Express (Noida)

France witnessed widespread unrest on Wednesday as protesters launched a nationwide day of action dubbed “Block Everything”, disrupting roads, schools, and transport hubs. The movement, which began online in May, has grown into a broad expression of discontent against President Emmanuel Macron’s austerity plans.

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Xi Platforms East and South Unity

 • Geopolitical Scenario   Matteo Meloni / SpecialEurasia (Rome)

 • China’s Grand Global Plan   Brian YS Wong and Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa / Asia Times (Hong Kong)

 • A Copernican Revolution?   Pablo Pillaud-Vivien / Regards (Paris)

[Translated by Portside. Read the original here.]

In Beijing on September 3, it was not only the memory of the 1945 victory that was evoked. By inviting Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and other leaders to attend the largest military parade in Chinese history, Xi Jinping sent a clear political message: the world's center of gravity is shifting. Or rather, it is splintering—and it will no longer be in the West.

A few days earlier, in Tianjin (China’s fourth largest city), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting had already brought together a gathering unprecedented since Donald Trump’s election: Putin and Xi, but also Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko, India’s Narendra Modi, and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif. This diverse but significant Eurasian assembly says something about a world undergoing rapid change. It coexists with the BRICS, which also includes South Africa and Brazil. By inviting Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and other leaders to attend the largest military parade in Chinese history, Xi Jinping sent a clear political message: the world's center of gravity is shifting. Or rather, it is splintering—and it will no longer be in the West.

This is not about proclaiming an artificial unity of the Global South: each of these countries follows its own logic and pursues its own interests, which are sometimes conflicting. But they all share the same desire: to regain their place in the concert of nations after decades, even centuries, of subjugation and sometimes humiliation. They reject the Western universalism imposed as the only horizon since colonization and intend to reaffirm that their long history establishes another legitimacy.

The banner chosen to illustrate this event (and which we have chosen to illustrate the article) is revealing. Unlike in previous years, the inscriptions are in Sanskrit, Russian, and Chinese. There are no Roman letters, no words in English. For a Westerner, it is unreadable. This is exactly what billions of human beings experience in the face of the dominance of English: the impossibility of reading, understanding, or accessing. Yet this symbolic reversal marks a setback, albeit temporary, for the Latin alphabet, which has structured part of global exchanges for centuries. For how much longer?

This shift is accompanied by others: China is now one of the world’s leading scientific and technological powers, filing more patents each year than the United States or Europe. The challenge to the dollar's dominance is being discussed among countries that do not speak English. This is happening without the West. It is not only the decline of France or Europe that is at stake, but the destabilization of the global architecture that emerged in 1945. In other words, it is American hegemony itself that is faltering. Hegemony that Europe had placed itself in the wake of. Donald Trump’s arrival in power has acted as a catalyst, as well as a symptom, precipitating the affirmation of another possible order in the South.

Should we support Chinese, Russian, Turkish, or Iranian projects? No. All these countries are questionable in their consideration of human rights and are not without imperialist ambitions. But we must not consider them our inevitable enemies. Because there will be no solution without these countries, without their peoples. The idea of forcing Russia to back down or keeping China at bay is a harmful illusion that only leads to violence.

The danger for us Europeans would be to react by becoming tense, withdrawing, thinking that all this is robbing us of something. This is one of the root causes of the rise of the far right in all Western countries. However, this movement is not primarily a divestment of the West: it is the affirmation of peoples who have long been despised in the great concert of nations and the world and who are now regaining power.

We must accept this as a Copernican revolution. Just as women have fought for equality with men, the peoples of the South are reminding us that Westerners are not superior to others. They are our equals. The challenge now is to understand each other—and above all, to want to understand each other.

 • Development Bank vs Sanctions   Farwa Sial / IDEAs (Oxford)

 • Xi’s Statement   Xi Jinping / Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China (Beijing)

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Bolivia: MAS Era Ends

Linda Farthing and Benjamin Swift / NACLA Report (New York)

A nearly two-decade era of Indigenous-oriented governance and anti-neoliberal politics has come to an end in Bolivia. The Movement towards Socialism (MAS) government, which launched in the early 2000s with great hopes and optimism, is closing with disappointment and economic chaos.

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Gen Z Rebellions Are Making History Today

 • Fury in Nepal   Jayanta Roy Chowdhury / The Wire (New Delhi)

 • The Indonesia Crisis   Natasya Salim / Australian Broadcasting Corporation (New South Wales)

 • Serbian Students vs Police   Milica Stojanovic / Balkan Insight (Belgrade)

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Feminist Fights

 • Ukraine: The Feminists of Bilkis   Patrick Le Tréhondat and Yana / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (Paris)

 • China: Feminists Fighting Back   Jinhan Li / Deutsche Welle (Berlin)

 • Anti-FGM in Gambia   Kaddy Jawo / Al Jazeera (Doha)

 • Afghan Women Persevere   Sarah Hamidi / Feminist Majority Foundation (Washington DC)

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Global Protests for Myanmar

Mong Palatino / Global Voices (The Hague)

Protests were held in Myanmar and various cities across the world to mark the 37th anniversary of the August 8, 1988, uprising for democracy (which came to be known as “8888”) and to call for the ousting of the junta, which grabbed power through a military coup in February 2021.

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UK Palestine Action Shuts an Arms Facility

Haroon Siddique and Jamie Grierson / The Guardian (London)

An Israeli arms manufacturer’s facility in Bristol which was repeatedly targeted by Palestine Action appears to have closed unexpectedly. The Elbit Systems UK site in the Aztec West business park was the subject of dozens of protests, including on 1 July, days before the direct action group was banned under the Terrorism Act.

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Puerto Ricans March for Independence

Alberto C. Medina / The Latino Newsletter (Boston)