For three beautiful days in Philadelphia, Palestinians celebrated their writing, history and culture at the University of Pennsylvania campus at the second Palestine Writes Literature Festival. For three beautiful days in Philadelphia, Palestinians celebrated their writing, history and culture at the University of Pennsylvania campus at the second Palestine Writes Literature Festival
Tras años de intensas protestas y revueltas conocidas como el “estallido social”, los chilenos votaron a favor de escribir una nueva Constitución en octubre de 2020 por un margen del 78% frente al 22%. La “Convención Constitucional” elegida como resultado de este referéndum estaba dominada por representantes de la izquierda. Parecía inevitable que la reaccionaria constitución impuesta por el ex-dictador Augusto Pinochet iba a ser sustituida por una de las constituciones más progresistas del mundo, que garantiza diversos derechos sociales
After years of intense protests and upheavals known as the estallido social (social outburst), Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in October of 2020 by a margin of 78 percent to 22 percent. The Constitutional Convention elected as a result of this referendum was dominated by left wing representatives. It seemed inevitable that the reactionary constitution imposed by former dictator Augusto Pinochet would be replaced by one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, which guaranteed a variety of social rights and recognized indigenous autonomy. Instead, the final draft was dramatically voted down in a second referendum in September of 2022. Now, a new body has been elected to replace the failed Constitutional Convention, this time dominated by the far-right Republican Party. It is essential for the global left to learn from this catastrophic turn of events, but a recent article by comrade Marcelo Casals in Jacobin and Jacobin America Latina draws some mistaken conclusions.
by Zack Frailey Escobar · Published March 3, 2023 · Last modified April 11, 2023
On December 7th, Peru’s embattled head of state, the left-populist Pedro Castillo, declared a state of emergency and called for Congress to be dissolved and replaced with a newly elected constituent assembly, which would draft a new constitution. The same day, the Peruvian Congress voted to impeach Castillo. After the impeachment, Castillo was arrested on charges of sedition and treason and his vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed office. The vast majority of Peruvians oppose the impeachment and arrest of Castillo and hundreds of thousands have gone on strike, protested, and set up blockades to resist the power grab of the Congress and Boluarte.
To date, the police and military have murdered at least 47 demonstrators. Boluarte and her new right wing allies want to hold new elections in the midst of rampant political repression under the guise of “restoring democracy”, but the protesters are demanding a new constitution will transform the state itself and deliver real democracy to Peru.
More than 76 people have died and hundreds have been arrested during two weeks of protests in Iran. Protests broke out on September 17, the day the funeral was held for Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman killed while in the custody of the morality police (the baseeji). She was arrested on September 13 for not properly covering her hair as mandated by Iranian law.
Protests have spread to over 80 cities in Iran and across all 31 provinces, with students striking to join the protests and oil workers threatening to strike if the government doesn’t end its repression of the protests.
The recent defeat of a proposed new state constitution by voters in Chile was a setback for Left forces. The Constitution, which would have enshrined new rights for Chile’s multiple indigenous populations, guaranteed national health care, granted rights to the environment, and affirmed gender and sexual self-identification; was the product of Chile’s left-center government which won state elections last year.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published July 19, 2022 · Last modified August 5, 2022
As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explained in their foundational exposition of historical materialism and the dialectics of social transformation, a mode of production in crisis does not collapse under the weight of its own malfunction; it has to dismantled and replaced through the self-conscious action of a rising revolutionary class.
The multiplying crises of capitalism have led to internal dysfunction and debilitations that render its operations increasingly out of sync with the needs and basic sustenance of the vast majority of humanity and the rest of the natural world. It is rapidly reaching the limits of its own capacity for self-reproduction, and cannot seem to persist without inducing even greater calamity and instability. As the capitalist system trudges on in this linear trajectory, a cumulative transformation is well underway: where more will have to be sacrificed so that capitalism may live on.
by Zack Frailey Escobar · Published June 30, 2022 · Last modified July 19, 2022
In a historic outcome, Gustavo Petro, a self-declared socialist and former guerrilla, has been elected president of Colombia. After decades of bloody repression against the left, Petro is considered to be Colombia’s “first leftist president.” While the mainstream press is rushing to stoke fears of Petro as a threat to democracy in Colombia, some on the Left are eager to hail the victory as a model for an electoral path to power for “left populism” and a vindication of the politics of “pink tide” social democracy.
by Gianpaolo Contestabile · Published April 17, 2022 · Last modified May 13, 2022
Una caravana indígena, campesina y popular recorre México. En cada etapa, desde la sierra hasta la costa, desde las montañas hasta los suburbios urbanos, le dan la bienvenida comunidades en resistencia quienes con el puño en alto la saludan gritando “el agua no se vende, se ama y se defiende”. En algunos territorios se detienen a hablar con unos pocos campesinos y trabajadoras que luchan contra un basurero contaminante, una granja intensiva o el avance de la agroindustria, en otras comunidades la acogida es ofrecida por cientos de personas organizadas según el principio neozapatista de “mandar obedeciendo”.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published March 15, 2022 · Last modified March 22, 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the quickening of a regionwide war assemblage presents itself in classical Euro-Atlantic form as the dress rehearsal for the next world war. The incessant building up of the stage and setting that counters the rival imperial houses, the alignment or realignments of supporting actors and bit players, and the clichéd tonalities of righteousness and evil; all giving way to the thunderous violence of death and destruction in an enlarging war theater.
