IV520 - May 2018

Looking back on nearly 25 years of involvement in the LGBT movement, and 45+ years in the labor movement, I am struck by the way those paths have crossed, intertwined and separated over the long term. This arc took me into unexpected territory, where queer identities, once deeply hidden and guarded, have achieved wide mainstream acceptance and support, while organized labor, once powerful and self-confident, now struggles to maintain its existence.

On 25 May, the long-awaited and campaigned-for referendum on changing Ireland’s very restrictive abortion law – encapsulated in the 8th amendment to the constution – will finally be held. The very broad-based Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the 8th launched a tabloid campaign newspaper on 1 May. You can see the publication Yes Repeal
here.

Below we reprint one of the articles, a hard-hitting analysis of the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar by Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumuran, who chaired the HSE Inquiry into her death. He is also is a former president of the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 2012-15 and of the British Medical Association 2013-14.

We will be reprinting further articles over the days ahead. Repeal the 8th!

DONALD TRUMP’s WITHDRAWAL of the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement has set a path toward another Middle East war. It is not necessarily a war that will erupt right away or in the short term, and it may be averted if the United States is politically isolated and there’s a mass revival of an international antiwar movement. That’s what every sane person, and certainly every socialist and peace activist, should hope and work for.

The Syrian Civil War continues for 7th year, and it is still not clear when it will end. During the war, over half a million people have died and about 10 million people, about half of the Syrian population, have been displaced. On the occasion of the bombing of Syria, targeting the military bases of the Damascus regime, by US forces, the UK and France, the debate was renewed; anti-war strikes were organized and demonstrators even attempted to throw the statue of Harry S. Truman in Athens, Greece.

Amidst the swirling chaos of the Trump White House, with scandals and coverup and threats of firing the investigators, and Cruise missile launches to gratify the big twit’s ego, let’s not lose sight of the underlying fact that what’s called “American democracy” really is under attack — and not from the outside.

Nicaraguan Government Kills 24 – Students, Farmers Call for National Strikes.

The British Home Secretary Amber Rudd was forced to resign on the evening of 29 April 2018 after a tumultuous period in which she had made a number of statements to Parliament and to the media that were latter proved inaccurate. These concerned immigration policy and deportations and followed revelations in the mass media, spearheaded by the Guardian newspaper, of the scandalous treatment of long-term residents from the formerly British Caribbean. Rudd has been replaced by Sajid Javid, the first BAME (Black, Asian, Middle Eastern) politician to hold the post.

The “Windrush generation”, (the term comes from HMS Windrush which brought servicemen from Jamaica to Britain in 1948) is a term used to refer to people from the Caribbean who came to Britain between 1948 and 1971 to work notably in the British public services, transport and the health service. Although they arrived with the right to live and work in Britain as British and Commonwealth citizens they have been impacted by the “hostile environment” for immigrants current Prime Minister Theresa May created when she was Home Secretary. [International Viewpoint]

The reasons for the success of the 5-Star movement (M5S) in the elections of 4 March were grasped five years ago during the assessment of this unprecedented phenomenon. As I wrote in Inprecor at the time "although Grillo’s movement plays a decisive role today in a parliament where there is no clear majority, he is not in a hurry to harvest what he sowed and prefers to leave his opponents, more and more confused and incapable to predict his next moves, to stew in their own juice.” Naturally, it was difficult to forecast the use that would be made of such a solid parliamentary delegation, even though it was already foreseeable “that he will not agree to sacrifice his troops in return for a or two ministerial seats. He aims much higher: he thinks not without reason that if the centre-left coalition is still torn a little and that new elections are convened quickly, he could well be this time the absolute winner.”

On December 27th, 2017, on the eve of popular protests in which many women participated, Vida Movahed mounted on an electricity box, a few steps from the University of Tehran, without a veil and with a white cloth hanging at the end of a pole [1].

An interview with Sônia Guajajara, an indigenous woman running for Brazil’s presidency.Interview by Sabrina Fernandes for Jacobin.