When the first full lockdown began in Britain, on 26 March 2020, it would have been hard to imagine that over a year later restrictions on travel and socialisation would still be the norm, face masks would be required to… Continue Reading
Large, youth-led pro-democracy protests hit the Thai military junta in autumn 2020. Crowds of up to 50,000 started to gather around the Democracy Monument in central Bangkok in August. By 19 September—an important anniversary marking a military coup against an… Continue Reading
For several weeks in October 2020, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Nigeria to protest against police brutality. The protests came after news circulated that the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) had killed a young man… Continue Reading
Much of the United States breathed a collective sigh of relief on Saturday 7 November as Donald Trump’s electoral defeat became clear. People posted reactions on social media immediately after the results were announced. In New York City, as in… Continue Reading
A year is a long time in pandemics.1 It is a little over 12 months since the first victims succumbed to Covid-19. By the time of writing, the global death toll had reached 1.5 million, a figure likely to rise… Continue Reading
It is sometimes tempting to see 2020 as a ghastly aberration, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the multifaceted crisis it has engendered an interruption to “normal life”, which will eventually resume.1 However, whatever part ill-fortune played in the emergence of… Continue Reading
Nelson Mandela used to say: “I never lose, I either win or I learn.” That is our motto. A striking RATP worker addresses an interprofessional assembly.1 While announcing the closure of schools and nurseries in a speech on the evening… Continue Reading
Marx says that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by the passengers on this train—namely, the human race—to activate the emergency brake. Walter Benjamin, 1940, Notes for “On… Continue Reading
Zuerst auf Englisch erschienen in International Socialism 165—http://isj.org.uk/socialism-in-a-time-of-pandemics/. Aus dem Englischen von David Albrich. Es ist verlockend, Pandemien als unvorhersehbare, unheilvolle Eingriffe der Natur in die menschliche Gesellschaft zu betrachten.1 Der Ausbruch der Coronavirus-Erkrankung (Coronavirus Disease 2019, kurz COVID-19) ist… Continue Reading
It is tempting to see pandemics as unpredictable, cataclysmic incursions of nature into human society.1 Yet the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) is anything but a “natural” phenomenon. Epidemics and pandemics happen in a social, political and economic context,… Continue Reading