Hundreds of shack dwellers descended upon the Durban High Court recently, in support of the court appearance of South African Shack Dweller Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo as it defended its right to remain on state-owned land.
Source: ProPublica
The neighborhood of Campeche sprawls up a steep hillside in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Goats rustle in trash that goes forever uncollected. Children kick a deflated volleyball in a dusty lot below a wall with a hand-painted logo of the American Red Cross.
In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which was hit hard by the earthquake that struck Haiti the year before. The main focus of the project — called LAMIKA, an acronym in Creole for “A Better Life in My Neighborhood” — was building hundreds of permanent homes.
Source: Pambazuka
The construction of geo-political inequalities between the nations of the North and those of the Global South are inherently racist. The relationship has been forged by the historical problematics of colonisation – the ongoing pillage of economic, cultural and social resources by countries of the South by the North.
Colonisation was not only enabled by the North’s military expertise in conjunction with unfettered greed, but also because of its illusions of cultural, racial and religious supremacy. Indeed, the trafficking of Africans to the colonies of Europe- where they were barbarically traded as slaves – was founded on the same racist philosophy. This geopolitical experience is reflected by international treaty bodies, global trade and economic relations, which emphasise the hierarchies between colonisers and colonised countries.
Source: In These Times
To break from the program of brutal austerity that has been imposed on Greece, its leaders have no choice but to take radical action.
When Syriza won Greece’s parliamentary elections in January of 2015, much ado was made in the international press about the rise of a new radical Left in Greece—a development that had punctured Greece’s longstanding two-party stalemate and opened up the possibility of rolling back the brutal austerity measures imposed upon it by “the troika,” the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. The upstart Leftists, born of anti-austerity social movements, won by running on a platform that highlighted two central positions. First, they would end the austerity that was driving Greece deeper into a humanitarian crisis. Second, they would keep the country in the European Union.
Source: Pambazuka
Big mining firms in the Democratic Republic of Congo are worried. For the past decade they’ve made good money from the country’s huge reserves of cobalt, diamonds, gold and copper, and now the government wants to grab more of the action: a document leaked to Bloomberg reveals plans to raise royalties and profit taxes, and increase the state’s share in any new ventures.
This is so-called “resource nationalism” in action, and the DRC is far from alone in seeking greater economic control of its natural resources. The state is back, the theory goes, and it’s taking on the multinational. From Scotland to Namibia, Zambia to Ecuador, resource rich nations throughout the world are rhetorically reclaiming gas, oil and minerals as their own.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019