capitalism, colonialism, and fascism

By Orla Dwyer - The Conversation, February 5, 2024

From Berlin and Paris, to Brussels and Bucharest, European farmers have driven their tractors to the streets in protest over recent weeks. 

According to reports, these agricultural protesters from across the European Union have a series of concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, rising costs of energy and fertiliser, and environmental rules. 

Farmers’ groups in countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Romania have all been protesting over the past couple of months. 

The UK’s Sunday Telegraph has tried to frame the protests as a “net-zero revolt” with several other media outlets saying the farmers have been rallying against climate or “green” rules. 

Carbon Brief has analysed the key demands from farmer groups in seven countries to determine how they are related to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, biodiversity or conservation. 

The findings show that many of the issues farmers are raising are directly and indirectly related to these issues. But some are not related at all. Several are based on policy measures that have not yet taken effect, such as the EU’s nature restoration law and a South American trade agreement. 

By Nicole González, et. al. - Green New Deal Media, May 7, 2024

By Sabrina Fernandes, Hamza Hamouchene, Miriam Lang, and John Feffer - Institute for Policy Studies, April 21, 2024

By staff - La Via Campesina, April 17, 2024

17 April 2024 – Today is the International Day of Peasant Struggles. A moment when we, La Via Campesina, commemorate the 28th anniversary of the El Dorado de Carajás Massacre in Brazil and denounce the impunity with which peasant and indigenous people are harassed, attacked and criminalized around the world. Every year, our movement dedicates this day to mobilize in support of the ongoing struggles of peasants, rural communities, indigenous groups, pastoralists, fisherfolk, migrants, and rural workers.

As a global peasant movement, we persistently denounce and resist various forms of oppression—genocides, wars, hunger, evictions, persecution, criminalization, and systemic violence—within a geopolitical landscape dominated by the advancing forces of imperialism, neocolonialism, and exploitative capitalism. Our efforts, that also found a full consensus at the recetly concluded 8th International Conference, encompass a diverse set of initiatives, including the UN Working Group to monitor the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the efforts to broaden the global movement for Food Sovereignty by actively contributing towards the Nyéléni Global Forum for Food Sovereignty in 2025, a host of global solidarity campaigns, and our sustained advocacy for an alternative trade framework based on Food Sovereignty. These actions exemplify La Via Campesina’s response to the crisis-ridden context we confront.

On this International Day of Peasant Struggles, our member organizations worldwide are engaged in a myriad of activities. These include demonstrations of denunciation and solidarity, seed exchanges, planting of traditional crops, sale of agroecological products, conferences with other social movements, and various other actions. These efforts nourish global processes and propel collective demands for Food Sovereignty and social justice. Below is a succinct overview of the most notable struggles at the global level.

By staff - La Via Campesina, April 10, 2024

Fully intertwined with current geopolitical dynamics, the anti-(neo)colonial struggle in Haiti is central. Confronting existential challenges, the Haitian people engage in a protracted struggle for emancipation and self-determination. This endeavor necessitates a robust and mobilized internationalist solidarity movement. Dominant imperialist forces persist in asserting control over the small Caribbean island to gain strategic advantages, thwarting Haiti’s path to true independence and national sovereignty.

The current situation in the country is marked by unprecedented violence and systematic human rights violations, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations, particularly those from lower classes and rural communities. With half of the nation now under the sway of criminal gangs, manipulated by the national oligarchy aligned with imperialist interests, dissent is confined and social unrest quelled. In response, Haiti’s social movement, comprising peasant organizations, progressive political entities, unions, and feminist groups, collectively organizes to carve out autonomous spaces for self-centered development. These alternative models to the prevailing racist and neo-colonial paradigm are perceived as disruptive, prompting the targeting of the social movement by imperialist and neo-colonial forces, hence the exploitation of criminal gangs.

In Haiti’s context, the United Nations has historically played a deleterious role. Under its auspices, interventions spanning three decades have exacerbated rather than alleviated the nation’s plight. These so-called “peacekeeping missions,” ostensibly aimed at restoring political stability and combating corruption, have only further destabilized the situation. The UN Security Council’s recent proposal for a foreign military intervention to tackle the country’s gang problem underscores this point.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 31, 2024

There’s a war brewing against dissent.

• In Georgia, lawmakers are attempting to make it illegal for communities to protest and advocate against environmental injustice by labeling protestors as “domestic terrorists.” 
• Bills introduced in legislatures around the country would make it illegal to protest at industrial sites, whether publicly or privately owned. 
• In Congress, two Republican Senators have introduced a bill that would make it a federal offense for protesters to block public roads and highways.
• According to the Protect Dissent Network, at least 22 anti-protest bills have been introduced across 15 states in the last year alone, and more than 45 states have considered anti-protest laws in the last five years.

These bills are often justified as protection against climate protestors. But throughout American history such laws have been used repeatedly to criminalize workers who try to organize and strike. They are designed to threaten both workers and communities mobilizing to protect themselves from threats to labor and environmental rights.

The Labor Network believes that workers and communities have a common interest in preserving the basic democratic freedom to protest.

For more on protecting the right to protest: https://www.rightsanddissent.org/campaigns/defend-the-right-to-protest/

By staff - Serikat Petani Indonesia, March 16, 2024

By Enrico Somaglia - Green European Journal, February 13, 2024

With farmers taking to the streets and making headlines all over Europe, national governments and EU institutions are rushing to make concessions to appease them. But are the solutions offered what farmers and agricultural workers really need? We asked Enrico Somaglia, deputy general secretary of the European Federation of Food, Agriculture, and Tourism Trade Unions (EFFAT).

Green European Journal: Is there a common thread among the farmers’ protests happening across Europe?

Enrico Somaglia: The protests are linked to different national circumstances, such as overregulation, subsidy cuts, or imports of Ukrainian grain to the EU. But there is definitely a frustration towards a common enemy, the European Union, the Green Deal and its Farm To Fork strategy. Of course, not every farmer sees them as enemies: the agriculture sector is very heterogeneous. Small and big farmers are organised in different ways, they have different representatives. A minority within the sector opposes any kind of green policies because it is resistant to change. As trade unions, we firmly reject this stance.

On the other hand, a significant part of the farmers are against the Green Deal because they perceive it as something that has been unilaterally imposed on them. Fortunately, there is still room to improve green policies to make sure they are more socially acceptable. Trade unions see this as the way forward to build a different agriculture sector which is not only more sustainable from an environmental point of view, but is also a better place to work. To achieve that, we need measures for a truly just transition. We should not forget that if the condition of farmers is challenging, that of agricultural workers is simply unbearable. A vast proportion of seasonal workers, migrant workers, and daily labourers still face unrecorded working hours, appalling housing situations, and exploitative working relationships. The green transition can be an opportunity to create better jobs, but it needs to be stronger on the social side.

By Matthew Paterson - The Ecologist, February 12, 2024

Britain’s climate 'leadership' is based on the profoundly unjust and violent transition that was the defeat of the 1980s miners' strike.

Margaret Thatcher is often taken as an early pioneer in climate change among leading politicians. Her speech to the Royal Society in September 1988 helped propel climate change onto the political agenda not just in Britain but around the world. 

But her government was much more important in shaping the course of Britain’s actions on climate change a good deal earlier in her period of office. 

Her decisive intervention was rather in the assault on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), with the strike of 1984-5 as the decisive event.

By Bruno DeBrusen, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, February 8, 2024