For going on 50 years, the left and workers’ movement has been in retreat. There have been important upsurges and small victories, but there has not been a revival of working-class power and radical politics equivalent to that of the 1960s and ’70s in the decades since. Many of the 1960s radicals moved to the right and were absorbed into the system, whether via academia, the media, NGOs or mainstream politics, while countless others have quietly given up on the hope of radical social transformation. The governments and institutions that briefly seemed vulnerable to challenge by mass movements have reasserted their dominance, to terrible effect.
This shift has been reflected at an ideological level. As the possibility of radical change has retreated, so too has confidence in the ideas that underpin it. What was self-evident in the 1960s and ’70s—that the working class has the power to transform society and solidarity is possible and powerful—today seems implausible and, to some, like nothing more than apologetics for those who are part of the problem. Unsurprisingly, then, contemporary progressive sensibility is often characterised by a sense of powerlessness, scepticism and suspicion towards attempts at solidarity, and bitterness at the world’s injustices rather than a confidence they can be challenged and changed. 
This is reflected in a number of what have come to be seen as truisms among progressives in the West. These include that movements against oppression are legitimate only if they are led by the oppressed and informed by “lived experience”; that people who don’t experience oppression are inherently privileged and therefore cannot be reliable allies; that the integrity of movements depends on “centring” or “elevating” the right voices; and that expressions of solidarity are at best paternalistic and at worst do more to perpetuate oppression than ameliorate it. From suffering, in other words, comes truth, and those who don’t suffer are part of the problem. 
In an article written at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, British writer Sam Kriss highlights the paralysing nature of this approach, characterising the movement leaders’ contradictory commandments to would-be supporters this way:
“DO the important work of interrogating your own biases and prejudices. DON’T obsess over your white guilt—this isn’t about you! 
“DO use your white privilege as a shield by standing between black folx and the police. DON’T stand at the front of marches—it’s time for you to take a back seat. 
“DO speak out against racism—never expect activists of colour to always perform the emotional labour. DON’T crowd the conversation with your voice—shut up, stay in your lane. 
“DO educate your white community by providing an example of white allyship. DON’T post selfies from a protest—our struggle isn’t a photo-op.”
There is on the one hand an acknowledgement that wider support is needed—after all, no oppressed group other than the working class is capable of liberating itself—but at the same time a dogged insistence that such support is insincere or a threat. 
The movement in solidarity with Palestine, which has been one of the most prolonged and widespread in recent history, blows all of this nonsense out of the water. 
It has overwhelmingly not been led by those with lived experience of Israel’s genocide, and nor has it been strongest where Palestinians are the most concentrated. 
Palestinians in Gaza have understandably been focused on survival rather than taking responsibility for an international protest movement. But it is not as though the countries that have mobilised the most for Palestine are countries with a large or particularly well-organised Palestinian populations. Of the ten countries which have had the most “large-scale” protests for Palestine since October 2023 according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, only one—Yemen—is even in the Middle East. Australia is second, and the rest are in Europe. 
The country that organised a historic general strike in support of Palestine—Italy—does not have a particularly large Palestinian population (0.002 percent of the population), and nor does Spain, where the strike has now spread. Likewise, the many hundreds of people involved in the various flotillas to Gaza, which provided an important focal point for the movement, were drawn from all over the world. 
The movement’s success therefore cannot be explained by reference to the prevalence of those with lived experience, although undoubtedly many Palestinians have been involved. Millions, if not tens of millions, of people with no direct experience of Israel’s violence have mobilised for Gaza—they’ve given up their weekends, foregone pay and, in some cases, risked their jobs and freedom to make a stand. They have decidedly not stayed in their “lane” or taken a “back seat”. 
Needless to say, this has not been to the detriment of the Palestinian cause. There has been no unnecessary burden of emotional labour placed on Palestinians, it has not crowded out their voices and it has not made the struggle about white people. Instead, it has helped bring the issue of Palestine to the fore everywhere, has made Western government military and political support for Israel more difficult and it has solidified a new generation behind the Palestinian struggle. 
The movement also demonstrates in living colour the underlying premise of solidarity: that an attack on one is an attack on all. Of course, the scale of the horror inflicted on Gaza is a major factor compelling people to act. But so too is a recognition that we all face a common enemy: the same governments lining up to cheer on Israel impose austerity and wage cuts at home. And their willingness to accept atrocities in Gaza when it is politically expedient indicate a degree of callousness that can just as readily be applied domestically. Solidarity is not and has never been about “taking over” struggles. It is about identifying and fighting a common enemy.
Much more than insights gleaned from lived experience then, the movement’s strengths have been drawn from the political culture and traditions that already existed among workers in different parts of the world: the level of union organisation, the political history of the working class, the degree of repression faced and the size and nature of the political organisations on the ground. 
In other words, political consciousness and organisation, rather than personal experience, have proved decisive to building movements that can make an impact. In Italy, the existence of more radical unions independent of the established and conservative union leadership was a key factor in bringing about the momentous and historic general strike in support of Palestine, which has now spread elsewhere in Europe. Here in Australia, the presence of Socialist Alternative clubs on a critical mass of university campuses enabled the Gaza solidarity encampment initiative at the University of Sydney to become a national phenomenon and, later, mass student meetings in support of Palestine. As did the existence of off-campus campaign collectives committed to regular and continued street demonstrations, which have proved important in past campaigns. 
These organisations, and the political activists who constitute them, don’t all exist for the sole purpose of liberating Palestine. But they were nevertheless able to mobilise and make an impact when needed. The strength and organisation of our side, therefore, are crucial to liberating the oppressed and resisting injustice whenever and wherever it emerges.
Of course, the political content of these traditions and organisations matters. Slavish loyalty to the Labor Party on the part of the mainstream union movement here meant the pro-Palestine mobilisations weren’t as strong or as workplace-based as they had the potential to be. On the other hand, this enabled the sort of smaller political forces that weren’t going to be placated by the government’s empty gestures—most importantly its bleating about recognising a Palestinian state once Israel had made it patently unviable—to wield more influence, which was positive. 
Revealingly, those subscribing most strongly to the idea that movements are best led by those affected (Hamas-aligned Palestinians in Gaza) tended to promote the most self-defeating positions, including illusions in the “axis of resistance” (which did precious little to actually resist the genocide) and that the Palestinians were likely to emerge stronger from the supposed tactical masterstroke that was Hamas’ 7 October attack (self-evidently untrue). This is in effect a continuation of the sort of thinking that has long proved disastrous to the Palestinian cause: that fellow Arabs—whether they’re the king of Jordan or a textile worker—will act to liberate the Palestinians. Illusions in solidarity around an Arab identity, rather than a class one, have let down the Palestinian movement repeatedly, from the Black September 1970, when the Jordanian regime drove the Palestine Liberation Organisation out of the country, to the complete inaction in the face of genocide today. 
The flip side of this argument—that privilege creates a conscious or unconscious bias towards the oppressor rather than the oppressed—is likewise not borne out by events. In the US, it has ironically been Jews who have disproportionately been at the forefront of Palestine solidarity actions—the very people in whose name Israel’s war has ostensibly been waged. Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, has organised more than 1,000 protest actions in the US and doubled its dues-paying membership since the genocide began. 
Supposed “privilege” in this particular case is the very thing that has politicised a new generation, understandably horrified at their religion being invoked to justify genocide. This again contradicts a core tenet of modern progressivism: that the division is between the oppressed—whose suffering automatically endows them with unique political insights that must be deferred to—and the non-oppressed, whose privilege automatically ties them into the status quo and the supposed benefits it brings them. 
If we are serious about changing the world and ending oppression, we need to learn from this experience and draw the appropriate conclusions about what actually makes a successful movement, not what makes us feel morally superior or momentarily powerful in a society that systematically disempowers us. 
Part of that is recognising that a perfect level of consciousness about oppression is not actually a precondition for resistance. A far-reaching and nuanced understanding of oppression is of course desirable, but what really makes a difference is having a sense of what side you are on, and our side being organised. 
The millions of people around the world who have marched for Palestine are not experts on the political dynamics or history of Gaza. What sets them apart is their refusal to look away when genocide is going on with Western backing, to keep coming out week after week, to not be intimidated by disingenuous denunciations of antisemitism and their willingness to see Palestinians as fellow human beings, not nameless, faceless terrorism sympathisers, as they have long been portrayed.
The politics on our side will not always be perfect, but this doesn’t mean successful movements can’t or shouldn’t be built. The progressive obsession with policing the ideas, language and actions of people attempting to show solidarity, however imperfectly, gets us nowhere. We need to focus our fire on the powerful: the governments and bosses who run the world. We need to understand what makes them tick, and how they can be stopped.
For all its strengths, the Palestine solidarity movement did not stop Israel’s genocide. To achieve that would have taken a threat to the imperial order and capitalist system on a much more significant scale. But the awesome gains it did make—opening the eyes of a new generation to the brutality and hypocrisy of Western imperial power, discrediting some important tenets of ruling-class ideology and making it clear that, although weakened, our side of politics still has the potential to mobilise and resist—are profoundly important. And, like all struggles whether they win or lose, the movement has been a testing ground for ideas and organisations, with important lessons to teach us. They are lessons we need to learn if we want to have a better chance of winning next time.

Louise O'Shea

How the Palestine solidarity movement discredits identity politics

The term “new world order” (not the conspiracy version) generally refers to a major shift in world politics, in which the old economic, political and social structures are reshaped to fit the demands of a new era. 2025 is shaping up to produce precisely this—a more violent, authoritarian, hierarchical alternative.
The United States under Donald Trump’s regime is the prime case in point. Trump has unleashed ICE agents pumped up on unbridled power, deployed National Guard troops to the streets of major cities, weaponised the Department of Justice against his personal enemies, enacted the largest cuts to health care in US history, attempted to scrub trans people from public life, imposed steep tariffs on dozens of countries, rebranded the Department of Defense the Department of War and much more. It is possibly the most rapid political transformation the world has ever seen outside of a major war.
But it’s not just the United States. The far right is in power in Italy, Hungary and Finland, is the main opposition party in France, Germany, Portugal, Austria and Belgium, and is an established part of the political furniture everywhere else. In the United Kingdom, polls indicate that Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK would win a general election if it was held today. 
The situation is admittedly less severe in Australia, although there is clearly a coterie of wannabe führers waiting in the wings, from the ragtag group of March for Australia organisers to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson (who is rising in the polls) and Liberal MPs Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Politics is happening at a much faster rate than normal. A major new policy or directive is announced almost every day in the United States alone. Trump’s fascist former chief strategist Steve Bannon calls it “flooding the zone”: a deliberate strategy of overwhelming the media and public with a constant barrage of announcements and controversies, making it difficult to focus on any single issue or broader strategy. It’s like being punched repeatedly in the face so badly that it’s impossible to string together a coherent thought or exit strategy.
But there is a method amongst the madness. Conservatism is driven by a reverence for capitalism and its foundational inequalities between the rich and the poor. They rule over us on a macro level by wielding state power, and on a micro level in every workplace. Conservative ideologies are derived as a defence of this status quo. That is why they so strongly venerate hierarchies in all social spaces—bosses rule over workers in the economy, powerful countries rule over the weak geopolitically and men rule over women in the home. One of the best ways of naturalising a historically specific social phenomenon is by reproducing it in all walks of life, thus making it feel eternal. 
Capitalism is also an extraordinarily violent society, from the everyday violence of poverty through to the violence of the police and imperialist war. Conservatives, again, venerate this state of being—there’s the stereotypical tough guy protecting his weak, fragile woman; the ICE agent bashing down doors and pelting with rubber bullets anyone who tries to get in his (occasionally her) way; and the warped world of the UFC.
You might have noticed I’m talking about conservatives, rather than singling out the far right. The latter exist in the world of the former, and the lines between traditional conservatives and the new far right are murky. There’s a tendency to look at the conservatives of yesterday (pre-Trump) as though they were more palatable (pretty outrageous if you’re old enough to remember George Bush, the butcher of the Middle East). 
While it’s the case that some modern far-right parties and leaders were previously fascists on the margins, there’s also a general shift within conservatism further to the right—like the Republicans of old who have fallen in behind Trump. There’s also a through line between the generations, brilliantly depicted in Ali Abbasi and Gabriel Sherman’s 2024 film The Apprentice, which chronicled how Donald Trump was mentored and moulded by conservative lawyer Roy Cohn, who famously prosecuted the Rosenbergs during the height of McCarthyism.
Conservatism is shifting in this direction because of a series of political, social and economic ruptures that have engulfed the globe over the last fifteen years. Every period of capitalist crisis has produced a new political form as the system tries to stabilise itself and adapt to new conditions. Out of the Great Depression and Second World War came an era of greater state intervention into the economy and increased social spending—all based on the new riches flowing from the postwar boom. The economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s produced the neoliberal era, as states and bosses privatised public assets, cut social welfare, intensified the exploitation of workers and opened the global South to even greater plunder.
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 heralded a new, prolonged period of instability. The state bailed out the wealthy and paid for it through waves of austerity that slashed workers’ living standards. Consequently, the traditional parties of the political centre were discredited across much of Europe and took a beating in the US (hence Hillary Clinton’s failure and Trump’s ease in sweeping away the mainstream Republicans). Out of the ensuing polarisation emerged the far-right politics that dominate today, and waves of progressive social movements and new left-wing parties.
A series of further crises compounded all this. The COVID years produced a new anti-lockdown, anti-vax conspiratorial audience for the right and the radicalisation of billionaires like Elon Musk, and was followed by years of steep inflation. Catastrophic climate change is no longer a concern for the distant future, but a reality bearing down on the world right now. As temperatures keep rising, a new series of crises will emerge as millions—and then billions—are forced to relocate, supply chains break down and crops fail. Even as our rulers fail to act on any of this, they are no doubt anxious about what it will mean for their system in the future.
But the major global development is the rising imperialist conflict between China and the US and its Western allies. To put it simply, all things being equal, China is on track to overtake the United States economically, including in the most innovative high-tech industries. Economic might creates military might, and together they create global domination. That’s how the US rose to the top of the imperialist pecking order. This is a serious long-term crisis for the US ruling class, and every other country still betting on and benefiting from the Western alliance. 
The old order is no longer working for those who created it. Hence, a new world order is necessary. It’s impossible to understand anything about the political chaos of today without this context. 
Take Trump’s tariffs, which have been imposed on friends and foes alike, and decried by many as economic irrationalism. It’s an attempt to force companies to bring production back on shore. Why is this necessary? Here’s one pertinent example: shipbuilding has all but disappeared from the US, but naval power will be crucial in any future conflict in the Asia Pacific. There’s a method to the madness.
Then there’s the crackdown on undocumented migrants, who compose a key part of many low-wage US workforces. To prepare a civilian population for war is to imbue them with a vicious nationalism and hatred towards perceived foreign enemies. Endless headlines and speeches about “a war on US borders” and “illegal aliens invading the US” are part of that ideological conditioning.
There’s also the broader “war on woke”, which is a major offensive against the rights of the oppressed. Basic notions of fairness, equality, diversity and acceptance might be tolerated when the ruling class is trying to convince us that the entire world is fair and equal. But it’s antithetical to the conservative belief that “might is right”. 
It’s been obvious for years that the chaos of modern capitalism would produce a new (if partially reheated) form of politics. But 2025 has made that form a whole lot clearer. It includes rising militarism, the fortification of borders, state authoritarianism and the junking of progressive liberal values. To caveat this a little—it’s still early days, and we don’t have a crystal ball. But it would be wrong to ignore the reality unfolding around us. To change the world effectively, we must understand what is happening.
One counter to the notion that we’re living in a new world order is that it is purely a product of the Trumpified Republican Party and its international allies: if Trump is booted in three years, then this will all be over. There are a few things that suggest the situation is not so simple.
First is that when Joe Biden was president, he attempted to chart a different course. He used subsidies to entice industry to reshore, proposed a major spending package to rebuild America’s decaying infrastructure (both of which, it was argued, would create well-paying jobs to alleviate trashed living standards and social chaos), and imposed targeted tariffs on China and other adversaries, while putting serious effort into strengthening economic and political bonds with US allies. It too was a plan to strengthen US imperialism, but with more carrots and fewer sticks. It bombed. Much of the spending was blocked by Congress (including some Democrats) and the US capitalists made no serious attempt to discipline the detractors into supporting it. The “other way” failed.
Second, aspects of the new approach are being adopted by parties not of the right, most notably UK Labour, which has imposed a harsh new border policy, cut social spending, designated Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist organisation (which has led to the arrest of thousands of supporters) and continued the Tories’ fight against trans people.
Third, the wheels Trump has set in motion will not necessarily just stop spinning when he leaves the White House. Some aspects of his program will probably be dropped, such as the open hostility to traditional allies. But some things can be so utterly transformed, or destroyed, that they are not easily reinstated. Take USAID: it could take years to rebuild the structures and networks of international aid distribution that have been obliterated by Trump, and there’s no certainty that any future administration would see this as a priority. Not to mention that we have no idea what will happen at the next election; Trump might seek an unconstitutional third term or successfully pass the crown to J.D. Vance. 
Finally, moments in which liberal centrism has stabilised in the past fifteen years have done nothing to stave off the radicalisation of conservatives and their quest for power. Joe Biden, after all, was followed by Trump 2.0 and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is warming the seat for Nigel Farage. 
More importantly, we should not desire to return to the old order. That one sucked too. It was an order in which Wall Street was bailed out while the poor were evicted, the US enforced its supremacy by dropping bombs on the Middle East, historic numbers of immigrants were deported and billionaires bought super yachts while millions went hungry. 
There is, however, another way, one that does not rely on bankrupt politicians and parties. We can instead look to the power of workers and the oppressed to fight the right, overthrow the billionaires and build a genuinely new world order based on equality and human liberation. 
There has been no shortage of mass struggles in recent years. More people protested in the 2010s than any other decade in human history. In just the last month, Gen Z protesters have overthrown governments in Nepal and Madagascar, and mobilised in Indonesia, Morocco, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Peru.
And in the last few weeks, mass workers’ struggle has returned to the streets and workplaces of Europe, with the Italian general strike in solidarity with Palestine, a similar general strike scheduled for Spain and general strikes against austerity in France. 
The people are furious, and rightly so. What we need is a politics that can draw together all these struggles, direct them against the rich and powerful and fight for a socialist society that replaces hierarchy with equality and violence with peace.

Eleanor Morley

Are we living in a new world order?

Morocco is one of the latest countries to erupt under the “Gen Z” banner. Young people, organised largely through anonymous social media channels, have taken to the streets to demand an end to corruption and inequality. The hashtag #freekoulchi (free everyone) has also been a rallying cry for the release of political prisoners.
The government in Morocco is made up almost entirely of wealthy capitalists, while most of the population increasingly struggles to survive. The president, Aziz Akhannouch, has a net worth of US$2 billion, and is the current CEO of the Akwa conglomerate, jointly owned by the Akhannouch family, which is a major player in several key sectors of the economy. As agricultural minister from 2007 to 2021, Akhannouch allegedly stole $2.2 billion of public funds. Akwa has colluded with other corporations to keep the prices of fuel and other essential goods extortionately high, and the company was one of the targets of a 2018 boycott organised to protest these practices.
Morocco has the largest wealth inequality in North Africa. The government maintains control by criminalising dissent, controlling the media and arresting journalists who criticise the government. While social services have been pushed to the brink of collapse by insufficient funding, the government is spending $3.3 billion on lavish stadiums and beautifying tourist areas of major cities in preparation for the African World Cup later this year and the FIFA World Cup in 2030. A primary school Benslimane, a city in the country’s west, was recently demolished to make way for a stadium. The former pupils were left without access to education.
The national unemployment rate was <a href="https://sonofgao.substack.com/p/stadiums-are-cool-but-where-are-the">13.3 percent last year</a>, but among 15- to 24-year-olds it was 36.7 percent and as high as 48.4 percent in cities. This age group makes up a quarter of Morocco’s total population (in Australia, it makes up half that). <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?locations=MA">There are only 7.7 doctors for every 100,000 people</a>, according to the World Bank, and in poorer areas like Agadir, on the southern Atlantic coast, it drops to 4.4, well below the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of 25.
Neglect of public services has deadly consequences, especially in the most deprived cities. Last month, eight women died in a maternity ward in a public hospital in Agadir. After the deaths, residents held a small protest outside the hospital, unfurling a banner that read “Hospital of death”. The image and story spread across the country. On 29 September, an anonymous collective on social media called for protests across the country under the banner of GenZ 212 (+212 is Morocco’s country code), inspired by similar youth rebellions in places like Nepal.
Protests began in the largest cities—Casablanca, Marrakech and Rabat—but soon spread. Young people gathered and marched, chanting, “The people demand the end of corruption!” and “The stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” In Agadir, protesters blocked the central highway, and in smaller rural cities, riots broke out. In Ait Amira, just south of Agadir, a bank branch was set on fire and police cars were overturned.
The government’s response was severe. More than 500 protesters were arrested; many were beaten by police. But this only inflamed the anger. Protests and riots continued nightly, even after a 19-year-old student in Oudja, a town near the Algerian border, had his leg amputated after a police car drove into a crowd.
On 1 October, three young men were shot and killed in Lqliaa after allegedly trying to storm a police station. The victims’ families have denied the allegation, pointing out that one of the victims—24-year-old Abdessamade—was a filmmaker documenting the movement to share with the world.
A 22-year-old protester who is facing up to six months in prison <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/14/this-generation-is-defiant-gen-z-protests-set-to-resume-in-morocco-despite-deaths-and-arrests">described</a> his motivations to the Guardian: “I went to protest because I’ve seen government violence all my life; not physical, but psychological. In hospitals, there are no doctors. In schools, classrooms are packed with over 50 students”.
The GenZ 212 Discord channel, launched on 18 September, now has more than 200,000 people in it. Members discuss religion, key demands, and tactics and strategy. There is a main announcements server, in which only the anonymous admins can post, a general chat where anyone can message, groups for localities and districts, press videos, resources, and much more. Decisions on whether to protest, and the time and location of the protests, are decided in real time through voting in the general chat. There is a heavy emphasis from the anonymous admins on peaceful tactics and on rallying rather than rioting.
I attended a rally in the north-western city of Tangier on 2 October. It was in a park in the middle of the city, and police and military personnel, in uniform and plain clothes, were everywhere. Small groups of young people were scattered around, but, initially, there was no obvious congregation. In the Discord chat, people began to ask where the rally was going to be, and, if people were in the park, who was going to start it. Other messages, probably government and police bots, argued that there was no point rallying, that the king would listen to young people, that the movement was over, along with other generally derailing efforts. An hour and a half passed like this, with messages getting more frustrated and urgent.
Eventually, five young men in their late 20s stood up in the square and began to chant. Instantly, twenty or so of us surrounded them and formed a circle, clapping and chanting. More people joined, mostly young men and boys, some who looked no older than four.
The chants were themed around the movement’s demands: “The people demand the end of corruption!”, “The people demand Alhannouch leave!”, “The people want the king’s intervention!”. The rally slowly grew to a couple of hundred, all encircling the initial leaders and almost all young. A woman also arrived and led the chanting, and more young women joined. Some people wore Palestinian scarves.
The police watched on, surrounding the action and likely outnumbering the protesters even at the rally’s peak. There were no arrests.
At midnight on the Discord channel, a meeting discussed the demands the movement should make to the king. The next day, the admins shared a draft, and debates about the demands began. While there were disagreements about emphasis (many people wanted health care to be the focus), most people seemed to agree that dismissing the current government and implementing some reforms would be enough to resolve Morocco’s crises.
There were also suggestions to create an organising committee and an electoral political party. However, these were not taken up and the general mood was strongly in favour of a leaderless, anonymous movement. Political parties were banned from participating.
Notably, there was no criticism of the king, which may be because such criticism can result in fifteen years’ imprisonment. However, it is a shift from earlier protest movements that called for an end to the monarchy. King Hassan is the fifth richest monarch in the world, and the richest in Africa, with a net worth of US$8.2 billion, according to Forbes. He is Morocco’s leading businessman, the Moroccan royal family holding the majority of stakes in <a href="https://businessempires.africa/king-mohammed-vi-moroccos-reclusive-ruler-with-6-billion-deep-pockets/">Al Mada</a>, a previously state-owned conglomerate with holdings in almost every major part of the economy, from mining and banking to food processing.
King Hassan has long been suspected of corruption. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/239525">WikiLeaks cables</a> previously revealed that he used his power to solicit bribes, especially in the real estate sector. To say the least, he is an unlikely ally in the fight against inequality and corruption, but his ability to dismiss the government seems like the easiest way forward from the point of view of many protesters.
A rally the following evening started in the same way as the 2 October protest, but in a more prominent place close to the tourist area around the medina. Again, police and military personnel swarmed surrounding streets. The same five men from the night before began the chanting. It grew more quickly this time, and people were more confident.
A woman in her 20s arrived halfway through. It was her first time at a protest, because her mother hadn’t let her attend initially because of the violent police response. But once the rallies seemed safe, she felt she had to come.“No one is going to help us, we have to fight for ourselves”, she said.
The rally was bigger this time, although still less than a thousand, and much more visible to cars and pedestrians, which meant it attracted many honks of support, curious tourists and locals, and a significant media presence. There were also many more women than the previous night, making up probably half the demonstration, and they again led chants.
At one point, a Berber (an oppressed indigenous group in the region) flag was raised alongside the Moroccan flag. Protesters broke out into wild cheers. More people were wearing and waving Palestinian scarves. People had placards calling for the president to step down, for an end to corruption and to free all the political prisoners. After a couple of hours, people dispersed without any arrests or confrontations with police.
On 3 October, an <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2025/10/261456/moroccan-gen-z-212-issues-open-letter-to-king-mohammed-vi-demanding-accountability-and-reform/">open letter</a> to the king from the GenZ movement was released. It asked the him to use his power to dismiss the government, and for decent health and education for all, an end to corruption and the release of all political prisoners. <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2025/10/262656/genz212-over-60-intellectuals-artists-and-activists-address-open-letter-to-moroccos-king/">An open letter from 60 journalists, artists and other key figures in Moroccan society</a> was also released in solidarity with the movement, calling for a complete overhaul of government practices and priorities.
A boycott of corporations linked to the president was also initiated through social media. King Hassan’s annual <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251010-morocco-king-calls-for-social-reforms-amid-youth-led-protests">address</a> on 10 October reflected the pressure he was under. He called for more investment in social services and announced an initiative to create rural jobs, although he did not address any of the movement’s demands specifically.
Through discussion and voting in the Discord channel, the protests then moved from nightly to specific dates. The next was called for 18 October, with a call out for everyone, not just young people, to attend. There were also calls to expand the resistance into other areas, like deepening the boycott movement.
The GenZ212 movement is a beacon of hope for workers and young people around the world struggling under capitalism. The global Gen Z movement shows that many young people are prepared to resist in the face of deepening crises.

Elliott Shaw

Protesting with Gen Z in Morocco

The ceasefire in Gaza is bringing blessed relief to 2 million Palestinians whose lives have been made a living hell by Israel’s genocidal war. For now, Palestinians can wake without dreading imminent bombing. 
But nothing guarantees that Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will not resume attacks as it did when it broke a previous truce in March. Supporters of Palestine must demand complete withdrawal of the Israeli military from Palestinian territory and an end to military, economic and diplomatic relations with Israel. This is no time to be easing up on our demands.
Halting the violence is only the beginning. Western and Arab governments need to deliver large-scale humanitarian aid—food, water, medicine and housing supplies. They certainly have the resources: the United States has spent at least $18 billion arming Israel since the war began.
An end to the war demands more than only peace. US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan keeps Gaza under Israeli control. The IDF may be “withdrawing” but still controls 60 percent of the territory, with no schedule for final departure. Even if fully enacted, this plan leaves a buffer zone in Israeli hands, granting control over supplies, movement and military incursions. Gaza remains the world’s largest open-air prison.
Under Trump’s plan, Palestinians lose any prospect of democracy. It installs a committee of unelected Palestinian technocrats and “international experts”, overseen by a “board of peace” chaired by Trump. No part of this scenario allows Palestinians to freely choose their future.
Even as Gaza’s ceasefire stands, Israel’s annexation of the West Bank proceeds unchecked. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to intensify this process to keep far-right coalition partners happy, meaning further dispossession for Palestinians.
Given the appalling nature of Trump’s plan, the support of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong is no surprise. They lavish praise on Trump for “leadership” and “the biggest contribution to peace in the Middle East for a generation or more”. These are the same leaders who have stood behind Israel since the start. Satirical website the Onion sums up the result: “Israel agrees to go back to killing Palestinians on less frequent basis”.
Justice also means that those responsible for this genocidal war should pay for their crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. ICC member states must arrest them if they enter their territory.
Israeli leaders were supported by many, not just the United States and its allies, but also by governments in Russia, China, Arab and Muslim countries—whether supplying weapons, providing diplomatic cover or simply doing nothing. If Netanyahu belongs in The Hague, so do fellow war criminals Trump, President Joe Biden, British Labour leader Keir Starmer, Prime Minister Albanese and the complicit Arab and Muslim leaders.
The widespread complicity of governments with Israel reveals much about capitalist priorities. Capitalism breeds wars, tramples on human rights and destroys livelihoods. Trillions are wasted on weapons, while millions go hungry.
Governments backing Israel include democracies, dictatorships and military regimes—liberal, conservative and social democratic. Even supposed democracies have used Israel’s war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties at home. 
The genocide in Gaza exposes the reality of capitalism. Yet global resistance to the war has also pointed to an alternative. The mass antiwar marches since October 2023 show that millions of people will not simply sit back and watch as a genocide takes place. They have learned the power of solidarity on the streets. 
In recent weeks, workers’ power has come to the fore. Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla in early October has been the catalyst for mass strikes. In Italy, millions of workers and students took part in four days of mobilisations, including a 2 million-strong general strike and a million marching in the streets. On 14 October, Greek workers will be out in their millions; the day after that it’s the turn of workers in Spain. In every case, they are demanding, and through direct action halting, the movement of weapons for Israel.
These strikes arose from years of mass demonstrations against the war but also rising anger at government austerity.
Workers see the connection: the same forces behind war in Gaza are those cutting wages and services at home. A Greek socialist explained: “An Italian striker sent us a message and said, ‘The hand that bombs the Palestinians, is the hand that exploits us in our workplaces’, and that is really felt here”. This is why anti-austerity demonstrations in France that began on 10 September under the slogan “block everything” featured Palestinian flags alongside union banners. Struggle on each front helps the other: the Greek strike for Palestine on 14 October builds on big strikes against government plans to lengthen the working week.
Collective working-class power can stop wars and austerity. But lasting change requires much bigger socialist organisations, forging ties between progressive causes and putting workers at the centre. Protest matters, but strikes can grind the system to a halt—and ultimately, lead to its overthrow. That is what’s needed as capitalism drags society ever deeper into barbarism.

Tom Bramble

Ceasefire in Gaza: relief, but not enough

An illegal invasion unleashes mass slaughter in the Middle East. Western leaders clamber to justify the horror. Those responsible commit untold war crimes but never face prosecution from spineless international courts. When the occupation finally ends, airstrikes, disease and malnutrition will be estimated to have killed a million people.
This is not 2023 in Gaza. It’s 2003 in Iraq. The perpetrators are not the openly fascistic ethno-state of Israel, but the “civilised” rulers of Britain, the US, Australia and others like them. 
The chief ideological <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blair-defends-war-on-iraq/">spokesperson</a>
and international defender of this massacre was Tony Blair, British Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, whose notorious <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/6/8/dodgy-dossier-haunts-blair">“dossiers”</a>
claimed the Iraqi government was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
While the US provided the main military force behind the invasion, Blair supplied troops, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36712735">false justifications</a>
and rhetorical ammunition. Twenty-two years later and still dripping in blood and complicity, this butcher of Iraq is returning to the Middle East to oversee a so-called peace process in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump’s “20-point peace plan” for Gaza—a document that Blair himself <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-02/leaked-document-reveals-details-of-trump-peace-plan/105839640">helped</a>
to develop—specifically designates a role for the former prime minister. Under the proposal, he will serve alongside the US president on a transitional body that overrides any Palestinian representation and indefinitely dictates the future of postwar Gaza.
Disturbingly, the White House <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70155nked7o">directs</a> this “Board of Peace” to “create modern and efficient governance that ... is conducive to attracting investment” into a low-tariff “special economic zone”. This is business shorthand for low wages, corporate handouts and violations of workplace rights.
Such a task could find no more enthusiastic enforcer than Blair. Indeed, Trump’s previous dystopian vision for a free-market Gaza “Riviera” first <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/06/tony-blair-think-tank-worked-trump-riviera-plan-for-gaza/">originated</a>
from the twisted hive mind of the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change”, one of the ex-Labour leader’s numerous think tanks and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37416855">consultancy</a> firms.
Well before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Blair government’s priority was “ensuring British companies benefit from any post-war reconstruction contracts,” as was <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/in-lead-up-to-war-u-k-officials-and-businesses-planned-on-dividing-the-spo">revealed</a>
in a 2002 telegram brazenly entitled “Iraq: Dividing the Spoils”.
Blair’s appointment is a deliberate message from the Trump administration that Western imperialism’s arch-criminals still reign supreme and that Gaza’s reconstruction will be pounced upon as a shameless profit-making exercise.
All this is familiar ground for Blair, whose ten years in government hinged on market deregulation and the privatisation of Britain’s public infrastructure. Upon losing power in 2007, Blair was immediately appointed as Middle East envoy by fellow warmonger George W. Bush, and turned his attention to merging his political responsibilities with private business ventures.
While serving in Jerusalem, Blair took up a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jan/10/blairjpmorgan">part-time position</a> as senior adviser with investment bank JP Morgan, for which he quickly brokered a deal between the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government and Wataniya Mobile to establish a privately run cell network in the West Bank, according to UK current affairs program Dispatches.
Jacobin magazine <a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/09/the-ghoulish-post-politics-career-of-tony-blair">reported</a>
in 2017 that Blair had also used his connections as envoy to orchestrate the development of oil fields off Gaza’s shoreline under the aegis of the British Gas Group, another JP Morgan client.
All told, Blair has leveraged the political ties he developed as UK prime minister and peace envoy to win lucrative deals and amass a personal fortune of £60 million as of 2015, according to the Telegraph’s <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11670425/Revealed-Tony-Blair-worth-a-staggering-60m.html">analysis</a>.
And while he continues to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tony-blair-putin-cant-use-iraq-to-justify-ukraine-invasion/a-65037323">insist</a>
that invading Iraq was about spreading “democracy” to the Middle East, he’s had no qualms accepting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/12/tony-blair-institute-continued-taking-money-from-saudi-arabia-after-khashoggi">sizeable donations</a> to his “Global Change” think tank from US-aligned dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/27/tony-blair-conflict-interests-middle-east">Gulf states</a>. He has long fostered personal and political ties with tyrants from Muammar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/23/-sp-blair-gaddafi-letter-thanks-spy-cooperation-libya-uk-dissidents">Gaddafi</a>
to Hosni <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/02/tony-blair-mubarak-courageous-force-for-good-egypt">Mubarak</a>.
Whatever form Gaza’s postwar governance takes, this man’s involvement ensures Western and Israeli interests will be imposed on Palestinians as ruthlessly as decades of occupation and neoliberal ransacking were forced upon civilians in Iraq. As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/29/tony-blair-gaza-strip/">Washington Post</a> last month, “the Israelis ... respect him”.
Tony Blair is an unindicted war criminal and foremost embodiment of rapacious capitalism. A gold-class seat in hell is waiting for him.

Ruby Healer

Tony Blair: war criminal in charge of Gaza peace

Most of us have lived most of our lives under a one-sided class war. 
The billionaires have built fortunes while the poor have been screwed. Governments the world over have bent over backwards to facilitate this. The result has been a world in which the rich stomp over everyone with few repercussions. The apex of this laissez-faire attitude to the abuse of power is Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians. 
People have rebelled. In the 21st century, we have seen some truly enormous demonstrations: against the Iraq War, the Black Lives Matter movement, the climate strikes and now the global Palestine movement. 
However, a fundamental weakness of these movements has been the lack of action by workers. This is crucial because only the working class has the power to challenge the ruling class’s real source of power—its control over the economy. 
The decline in working-class activity had a devastating impact on the left. The idea that socialism was about building a mass popular movement of ordinary people who could unite and take power into their own hands was forgotten. Many socialists lost confidence that workers would ever move again. This helped open the space for the far right to masquerade as the new champions of the working class.
This is why what has happened in Europe has been so invigorating. 
On 3 October, a nationwide general strike shook Italy. Hundreds of thousands of workers shut down the country, demanding that their government cut all ties with the Israeli government.
This is unprecedented. General strikes aren’t unheard of in Italy, and particular sections of workers have taken strike action against militarism in recent history. But a mass general strike, backed by the mainstream unions, over a political issue like Israel’s war, is a different matter.
This action by workers grew out of the mass movement of blockades and street protests that has intensified in recent weeks. Since then, Madrid metalworkers have moved to take indefinite strike action over the links between their industry and the Israeli military. On 15 October, a massive demonstration is planned in Spain, various trade union federations planning strike action. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans are discussing the need for strike action to support Palestine. 
This marks a huge qualitative step forward both in the struggle to isolate Israel and in regenerating a radical working-class movement that can challenge capitalism. 
The genocide has “produced a new awareness, which took time and energy to take root, a lot of time, probably too much for those who are prisoners in Gaza, but which has distorted Western political coordinates”, argues the editorial of Italian magazine il manifesto. “[M]ultitudes in every corner of the planet are bringing together their apparently particular claims within a global paradigm that has found its own flag.” 
This is a watershed moment that demolishes much of the so-called common-sense thinking about workers and capitalism. 
For decades, it was common to think that the industrial working class didn’t exist any more, that white collar workers were, in the words of philosopher Slavoj Žižek, the “salaried bourgeoisie”, that those who had insecure work were incapable of taking any action and that those workers who had stable employment wouldn’t take action because they were a privileged aristocracy bought off by the ruling class. The workers of the Western world were seen as the beneficiaries of the imperialist machinations of their rulers. Within the Palestine movement, it has been common to condemn them as “settlers”, complicit in the oppression of the Palestinians. 
The general strike in Italy shows what rubbish this all is.
The striking dock workers of Genoa, Livorno, Ravenna, Venice and other cities confirmed that, while automation has reduced the number of workers in these ports, it has not reduced their industrial power. Vast numbers of workers joined the strike from hospitals, schools and universities, confirming that these are central nodes of the modern economy. 
This revealed the latent power that the working class possesses, not just in Italy but around the world. It also reinforces the core arguments that socialists have made for why the working class is the force that can fight for human liberation. 
The working class encompasses everyone forced to sell their ability to work, no matter what that work is or whether the employer is a private businessperson or a government department. 
It is the activity of the working class that moves the gears of capitalism. Workers are concentrated in semi-automated industrial factories, in schools, hospitals and government departments, in the ever-expanding “knowledge” industry of universities, while others are dispersed into millions of smaller businesses, all of which are connected by intricate transportation, energy and communications systems.
Because workers are at the centre of this vast behemoth of global capitalism, they have the potential to understand the way in which the system facilitates genocides and exploitation, and the power to shut it down. After all, workers are not just cogs in the machine. They are humans who are inspired by the determination of others and appalled by moral tragedies like the genocide in Gaza.
We can see this in a direct way when the Genoa dock workers strike to stop their ports from being used to send shipments to Israel, or when Spanish metalworkers demand an inquiry into their industry over fears that European arms production is being used to help Israel. 
The potential for workers’ action against genocide goes beyond those whose work is immediately tied to Israel’s war machine. The general strike also showed how workers have the power to severely disrupt the businesses and governments that depend on their labour.
When workers are passive, the innumerable differences among them make it seem unlikely that they can move into united action. But once they do, it seems so obvious. This is because the action is based on something that really unifies people—their common experience as workers exploited by the capitalist system. 
The Italian events also reveal the dialectical relationship between the power of workers and the activity of other social groups. The general strike would not have occurred without the two years of activity by young people and the Palestine solidarity campaign. There has been an accumulated impact of the involvement of hundreds of thousands of people in protests, despite the ebb and flow of the movement. This has produced the context in which left-wing workers felt more confident to take action, and in which the mainstream trade union leaders couldn’t hold back the tide. 
Italy also shows that to regenerate working-class self-activity, we need a sharp break with the established trade union leaders and the official left parties. 
Some socialists, scarred by the years of isolation, believe that the only way to rebuild working-class politics is by sucking up to union bureaucrats and reformist political parties. Often this is dressed up in talk about “united fronts” or “mass work”.
Yet the Italian general strike was not achieved because Palestine activists pleaded for trade union leaders to do the right thing. After a number of smaller left-wing union federations called for strike action on 22 September, pro-Palestine organisations and left-wing currents within the trade unions mercilessly and savagely criticised the mainstream trade union leaders who tried their hardest to avoid taking action. 
“The people protesting in the square, let’s be clear, literally can’t take it any more”, explained a statement from Unione Sindacale di Base, a left-wing union federation, “but since they have not found any support in the political and trade union world, they have remained silent for a long time, passively suffering the decay of political life, the decline of rights and the worsening of social conditions”.
It was not only the far-right government and the media that fundamentally misunderstood the shift in mass consciousness.
This is being repeated in Spain with the debates over the 15 October day of action. While smaller left-wing and regional union federations have endorsed the general strike call, the main Spanish trade union federations are trying to limit industrial action to only two hours. 
A key factor helping to facilitate action has been the militant activity of young people, particularly students. This has given a huge boost to all of those in the workers’ movement and the left pushing for more serious action against the resistance of the trade union leaders. 
This all has an echo of the past. When the workers’ movement and the radical left have gone forward, it has been in a form of a sharp break from the present and in revolt against established traditions and organisations. It can’t be otherwise. How else can we begin to break up the years of passivity and conservatism?
The events in Italy are exciting, but they also throw down a serious challenge to the left everywhere. 
The space to re-popularise the idea that workers are the agent of social change has grown larger. The actions in Italy didn’t come out of nowhere, and support for Palestine is not the only factor behind it. The cumulative impact of years of inequality, of militarism, of the elitism of the establishment, has shattered people’s confidence in capitalism. There is a strong polarisation across the world between progressive left-wing people who want to free Palestine, reject the far right and abolish the billionaires, and those who look to ultra-reactionary nationalist politics.
The possibilities are most obvious in Europe. Beyond the Palestine issue, there was a massive general strike in Greece in October against changes to the labour laws. France has been rocked by huge days of protests and blockades against its unstable neoliberal government. In Germany, there have been significant demonstrations against the far right.
The growth of left reformist parties is also an indication that a space has opened. La France Insoumise has shifted to the left in recent years and consolidated into the largest radical left party in Europe, with almost 400,000 members. The German Die Linke party has grown from 58,000 to 112,000 this year. Some 800,000 people have signed up for Your Party in Britain.
These are the strongest signs in years that a revival of radical left and working-class politics is possible. The world is rapidly changing. Now is the time to seize the moment.

Jordan Humphreys

The revival of the radical left and working-class politics

“From there we came outside and saw the stars.” 
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno
After two years, Israel’s genocidal campaign of bombing in Gaza could be over. In the days since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was signed in Egypt, videos have emerged of children roller-skating through the ruins of Gaza City and hundreds of thousands of people making the long march northward along Rashid Street to return to blasted homes and ravaged land.
For millions across the world who have fought for the Palestinians, time seems to have a different quality, no longer measured by videos of ashen limbs and wrecked bodies. While Palestinians rightly celebrate the reprieve, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s statement calling this ceasefire the “biggest contribution to peace in the Middle East for a generation or more” recalls the words of the Roman historian Tacitus: “They make a wasteland and call it peace”.
The fate of Gaza is being decided by the very people who imposed starvation and approved the bombing of homes, schools and hospitals. The global Palestine movement must push for the right of Palestinians to self-determination, not a future designed by their killers.
Of course, Israel could break the agreement—just as it did both previous ceasefires, in November 2023 and March 2025. Under the “Phase One” arrangement, Hamas will release all Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Israel will release thousands of Palestinians from its prisons, and the Israeli military will withdraw from cities. Once the Israeli hostages are released, Hamas will have no leverage left.
At this point, the ceasefire looks likely to hold. The US military is sending 200 troops to oversee it, unlike the last ceasefires. And key US regional aims have been met, with blows struck against Hezbollah and Iran. Gershon Baskin, a US negotiator, wrote for the Times of Israel
that Hamas agreed to something like the current deal in September 2024, and for more than a year, the outcome depended on whether the US government would push Israel to sign on. The role of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration in this genocide must be remembered.
But it’s important for those who stand with Palestine to be clear that Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians will never end until Israel is defeated. Israel is fundamentally expansionist. Since its foundation, its rulers have aimed at the creation of Greater Israel, incorporating Gaza, the West Bank, and sections of Lebanon. In that sense, any ceasefire is only a pause and we can be certain that the barbarity will resume.
While President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan has been widely publicised, it’s unlikely to be fully implemented; a special economic zone among rubble and devastation is far from reality. Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada said, based on discussions with mediators involved in the negotiations, that he’s certain the plan is a propaganda exercise.
While the details are yet to be settled, it’s clear that if President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get their way, life in Gaza will remain unbearable for decades. Before 7 October 2023, Gaza was already an open-air prison, besieged by land, air and sea. Israel staged regular bombings and restricted construction materials, so rebuilding was impossible. Israel even calculated calories to allow in only enough food to keep people barely alive.
The West Bank is broken up into isolated villages, fenced off and blocked to control Palestinian movement. Israeli settlers regularly seize land and commit atrocities. Now, conditions are even worse. Half a million Gazans face famine, disease is spreading, and all of the key infrastructure has been destroyed. 
In an 8 October Fox News interview, Trump claimed that he phoned Prime Minister Netanyahu and told him, “Israel cannot fight the world, Bibi, they cannot fight the world”. Who is this world he’s referring to? Not the Western and Arab governments, which have watched the genocide play out without lifting a finger. Even small gestures like statehood recognition were won only by the Palestine solidarity movement. Israel hasn’t been fighting rulers; it’s been fighting the masses.
The movement for Palestine has opened the floodgates in country after country, unleashing workers and young people into the streets.
Israel and the US now have reasons to end the genocide. Hamas is militarily defeated and Gaza’s population is decimated. But the movement seems to have played a role in Trump’s push for an end, against Netanyahu’s wishes, and created a political cost to continuing. In silence, Netanyahu might have kept destroying Gaza and seizing the West Bank.
We can’t stop now. 
The Palestine movement worldwide must keep marching, striking, occupying and sailing for a complete end to genocide—not just what Israel started fast-tracking in 2023, but the longer-term genocide of Palestinians it’s been carrying out since 1948. Gaza must be rebuilt on Palestinian terms with freely given food, medicine and building supplies. The blockade must end. The illegal settlement of the West Bank and the apartheid system must be dismantled. War criminals must be held accountable.
But more is needed. An international working-class revolution must overthrow the capitalist system that produced this genocide. Every grave in Gaza is an indictment of the capitalist institutions that brought us here: from the market, which incentivises imperialist domination of oil-rich regions and rewards the creation and sale of weapons, to the capitalist governments built to put the flow of profits before every single human life. 
“Never again” means little in a system soaked in violence. Destruction of the oppressed has happened, again, before our eyes, and will again, unless socialists build a movement strong enough to finally replace capitalism with a system organised for collectivity and human liberation—a world where no-one wakes to the sound of bombing or the barrel of a gun. It’s time to step out of this hell and see the stars.

Jasmine Duff

The Palestine solidarity movement must continue

Italy’s Autumn of mass protests and strikes for Palestine boiled over into four days of rebellion following Israel’s attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla. This culminated in a general strike and millions on the streets on 3-4 October. The explosion of popular struggle, with the working class and the strike now placed at its centre, accompanied by a mass, militant student movement, is a hugely significant development in the fight for Palestine, and the broader fight against the capitalist and imperialist system.
A rising tide of struggle in Italy has been set in motion since 1 September, when 50,000 people marched in Genoa to accompany the launch of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Genoa hosts one of Europe’s most important ports, and the protest sent off the Flotilla with mass support and a warning: if the Flotilla were attacked, then dockworkers, along with other workers, and backed by a mass movement, would strike and “block everything”—blocchiamo tutto! 
The declaration was initially made by the dockworkers organised in the Autonomous Port Workers Collective (CALP). It was quickly taken up by the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), one of Italy’s many so-called base unions which have been set up in recent decades to organise rank-and-file workers into class struggle in opposition to Italy’s traditional trade union federations which, like Australian unions, are dominated by institutionalised, do-nothing bureaucrats. 
The base unions directly organise only a small minority of Italian workers, so their ability to implement serious industrial action without the main union federations is usually very limited. But now, the boldness of the slogan—blocchiamo tutto—combined with rising anger at the situation in Gaza and the Italian government’s complicity with Israel’s genocide, sparked a surge of energy, confidence and mobilisation. Along with the base unions and the growing calls for strike action, this has been fuelled by growing mass Palestine rallies, a youth radicalisation centred on high school and university blockades and occupations, and countless smaller actions, including rallies, local blockades, encampments and so on, often organised by Italy’s social centres. At the core of most of this upsurge in spontaneous activity are Italy’s various far-left and communist organisations.
The date was set for a general strike, called by the base unions, on 22 September. To try to undermine this call, and to give itself some much-needed left cover in the face of growing pressure, Italy’s main union federation, the CGIL, called a last-minute strike for 19 September. A cynical manoeuvre, this strike was not intended to be widespread, and indeed it wasn’t, outside of some transport and education workers. Yet, contrary to the wishes of the CGIL leaders, it helped to legitimise the idea of a general strike for Palestine, and helped to lay the basis for the success of the 22 September general strike.
This strike involved many more workers than 19 September and unleashed a confident mass movement prepared to defy the police and new anti-protest laws, to block ports, train stations, highways, schools and universities. Without the backing of the major union federations, many workers did not participate in the strike, or participated as individuals without much economic impact on their workplace. But the momentum was building.
With the attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla on 1 October, a new peak of mobilisation was unleashed. Snap protests drew thousands into the squares of every major city late at night and with no notice. I eventually found the tail-end of the protest in Florence, where hundreds were still in the square at 1am. In some bigger cities, clashes with police and blockades of stations and roads were already beginning and raging through the night.
Crucially, on the night of 1 October, the CGIL now backed the call for a general strike on 3 October. The momentum was such that there was no way they could avoid such a call at this point without losing all legitimacy in the eyes of the working class. Forcing the CGIL into such action was a major victory for the movement and ensured 3 October would be a historic day.
The day before, still in Florence at this point, I headed at 8am towards what I’d been told was going to be a university blockade. On the way, I happened to run into something else—hundreds of high school students standing in the street outside their school in the centre of the CBD. The entrance was being blockaded by a combination of school and uni students. The high school students seemed very happy about this situation, with support for Palestine ubiquitous among their cohort, and any waverers won over by the fact that this was much more exciting than school. They could name at least three other high schools in Florence alone that were also being blockaded that morning.
Half an hour later, and following people wearing keffiyehs, I found my way to the blockade of the University of Florence. The student activists had chosen the via Laura campus due to its ongoing ties with Israel. The entrance was blocked, and protesters chanted and made speeches outside. As more students arrived, many presumably expecting to go to class, they instead overwhelmingly joined the protest. When a critical mass was reached, the blockade became an occupation. Hundreds of students marched into classes to shut them down, chanting, singing and pulling the students out to join the protest. 
One of the songs was clearly a bit new and took a while to catch on, but soon hundreds were singing it on repeat. I was told it was an adaptation of a workers’ song associated with an important strike a few years earlier. Some of the lyrics translate as: “Forward together; united in the struggle; against imperialism; there will be victory!” A mass assembly was held to discuss the politics and organisation of the occupation, before the students then led a march into the city centre, stopping by every blockaded high school along the way, whose students joined the march. At the time of writing, the occupation at via Laura is ongoing.
That night, I joined another mass demonstration in Florence. This time, thousands marched through the city centre before heading to Florence’s main train station, Santa Maria Novella. Everyone knew what was coming: the night before, stations had been stormed and blockaded in Milan and Turin. We faced a line of fully decked-out riot police. As the crowd swelled and surged, a series of explosions rang out—smaller fire crackers thrown by protesters, I think, followed by thunderously loud explosions from police flashbang grenades. But no one was deterred; the crowd grew, the chants grew louder, and soon the police retreated. Thousands stormed in, occupying the train platforms and tracks. These scenes were playing out across Italy. A 24-hour strike on the railways began at 9pm that night.
The 3 October general strike is an incredible and perhaps unprecedented achievement. A purely political strike, and a general strike, carried out with massive, active participation, as a result of a surging movement from below, which was declared illegal by the Italian government, given no real support from any of the entire official opposition of the political establishment; and all for an international cause that does not seemingly directly affect Italian workers. And not just any international cause, but that of the Palestinians—a people systematically demonised and dehumanised as Islamic terrorists.
The general strike and mass mobilisations were a big victory over the far-right Meloni government, which serves the interests of Italian capitalism, the third biggest exporter of arms to Israel after the US and Germany. Like governments around the world, Meloni wants to impose further austerity on the working class to fund obscene increases in military spending. She derided the strikers as people just seeking a “long weekend”, and her government declared the strike illegal, threatening unions and individuals with repercussions. She also recently passed laws to punish protesters who block important infrastructure. This all failed miserably.
The CGIL reported the strike as a widespread success, with 60 percent participation. It was particularly strong in the education, transport and logistics industries, and among metalworkers. Mass demonstrations accompanied the strike, with perhaps 2 million people mobilising across the country, including 300,000 in Rome. Along with this went an enormous wave of blockades, often led by student activists who swarmed past police lines to block, occupy and shut down ports, train stations, major highways, even airports, warehouses and distribution centres, along with schools and universities. The blockades made the strike massively more disruptive. Long-distance trains, for example, were announced by the CGIL as not being affected by the strike. But occupations of the train tracks meant that everything was stopped—something I can attest to, as I was trying to get to Rome for the huge national demonstration the next day. I’ve never been so happy to wait several hours for a train!
It’s incredible to think that after all this frenetic activity, the very next day, 4 October, 1 million people took to the streets of Rome for Italy’s biggest demonstration since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I made it into town the night before, and Palestinian flags and keffiyehs greeted me everywhere. The metro on the way to the protest’s starting point was packed with rally-goers—I remember thinking that there were more people on this single train, two hours before the march was even due to start, than I’ve been with at many Palestine protests over the decades.
It felt like the whole world was protesting there in Rome; a never-ending sea of humanity which, despite walking up and down for hours, I never saw the start or the end of. Every side street of the official march route was jam-packed. It was so big you could easily go and line up for a pizza and beer, sit for two hours, rejoin the demonstration and still be nowhere near the end of the march. As we marched past the Colosseum, I couldn’t help but think of the petty attempt of NSW police and Premier Chris Minns to stop us in Sydney from marching to the Opera House on supposed “security” and “safety” grounds. What a joke.
There are a few important points flowing from the events in Italy. First, the global complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza has encapsulated so much about the morally bankrupt world we live in. In the last two years, every institution of this system has utterly debased itself in the service of genocide, from the Labor Party to the ABC, and so many more. In Italy, this includes all the so-called opposition parties. I say “encapsulated” and not revealed, because for so many workers and students, this system has already been failing them year after year, while its politicians and ideologues become less and less credible.
This partly explains the explosion of struggle in Italy. The banner of Palestine has become a symbol and a unifying rallying cry for everyone fed up with a system of shameless liars, hypocrites and murderers, who preside over an economic system of inequality which keeps us poor, locked out and with nothing to lose.
Second, while socialists have been saying for some time that Israel’s barbarism is a product of an entire sick system of capitalism and imperialism, and that the road to Palestinian liberation was inseparable from a working-class struggle against that system, nothing makes the case quite like a general strike. Italian workers and students have planted the flag, and it’s now up to the rest of the world to emulate these efforts. Mass, militant class struggle is the way forward for Palestinian liberation, and the liberation of us all.
Third, Italy shows that in circumstances of widespread discontent, a bold minority—in this case comprising relatively embryonic rank-and-file workers’ organisations and a radical student movement—with an orientation to mass action and class struggle, can galvanise millions into struggle and transform the situation, precisely because they called for militant, determined action. They didn’t do it by moderating their demands or sucking up to the likes of the Italian Democratic Party or the CGIL leaders, the rough equivalents of our Labor Party and ACTU. This should be a huge inspiration for us all, as it shows that a movement that is both mass and militant is not only what is needed, but is clearly possible.

Josh Lees

Italy’s general strike shows the way forward

Widespread government corruption in the Philippines meant that recent <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/mass-protests-rock-indonesia">mass protests in Indonesia</a> and <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/nepals-gen-z-revolution">Nepal’s so-called Gen Z revolution</a> resonated with Filipinos. Tens of thousands were expected at a nationwide protest on 21 September, coinciding with the anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’ 1972 declaration of martial law, after corruption scandals related to flood control infrastructure projects took over the national spotlight.
However, many more turned out. The most significant rallies were held in Metro Manila, the national capital region consisting of sixteen cities. At Luneta Park in Manila, a symbolic site of the independence struggle from Spain, the morning crowd reached close to 80,000, according to organisers. Across town in Quezon City, an afternoon protest along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA—a major highway at the centre of protests that ultimately brought down the Marcos dictatorship in 1986—reportedly grew to 100,000 people, including those who started at Luneta Park.
A smaller, younger crowd confronted police barricades along Mendiola Street and Recto Avenue, a road leading to the presidential palace, where police arrested more than 200. Locals have referred to the confrontation as the “Mendiola riots”, harking back to the state violence of the 1987 Mendiola massacre, when protesters demanding land reform were gunned down by security forces under the new democratic government of Corazon Aquino.
Protests began days before 21 September outside government offices and construction firms. University walkouts nationwide involving thousands of students, staff and service workers also occurred. For weeks, public hearings in the Senate and Congress investigating flood control projects saturated the media. Environmental NGO Greenpeace, using estimates from the hearings, calculated that 1 trillion Philippine pesos (around 26 billion Australian dollars) may have been lost to corruption since 2023. More than half may have come in 2025 alone, through ghost projects, half-done construction and substandard work, resulting in dike breakdowns that leave residents stranded in floodwaters during major storms.
Politicians and the companies to which they awarded flood control contracts are bound together as shareholders, campaign donors and/or family businesses. One illustration is the rise of the billionaire Discaya couple, dubbed the “King and Queen of flood control”, who own six construction companies—and 40 luxury cars worth around 465 million pesos (A$12 million).
The crisis has been dubbed “<a href="https://situationreport.net/commentary/kleptospirosis-when-corruption-becomes-a-public-health-crisis">kleptospirosis</a>”. Combining “kleptomania” (the irresistible urge to steal) and “leptospirosis” (a bacterial disease), the term refers to a public health emergency caused by rampant corruption. The monsoon season and frequent exposure to flooding across the country this year led to thousands of cases and numerous deaths from the disease. The National Kidney and Transplant Institute’s gym even had to be converted into an extension ward to accommodate the extra patients. Leptospirosis thrives in conditions of poverty: inadequate housing, unsafe water and limited health care. It is a recurring danger in a city with failing sewerage systems that frequently expose residents to knee-deep floodwaters.
Both the president and vice president voiced support for the protests, but they are hypocrites. With relatives in Congress and local government, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr (son of former dictator Ferdinand) and VP Sara Duterte (daughter of the last president, Rodrigo) hail from “fat dynasties”—families whose members hold several public offices simultaneously. 
Both received millions in contractor donations for their 2022 election campaign, despite provisions banning such graft. Their donors were rewarded handsomely. One Marcos sponsor, Quirante Construction, gained contracts worth a billion pesos (A$26 million) just a year after the election. The sole corporate donor of Sara Duterte’s campaign is linked to Genesis88, the top flood control contractor in Davao del Sur, a municipality on the southern island of Mindanao, with projects worth 2.9 billion pesos (A$75 million).
It’s not just Marcos and Duterte. According to a study published by Manila University’s Ateneo School of Government, 80 percent of congressional representatives and more than 50 percent of local government officials hail from political dynasties. 
The overarching demand of the 21 September protests was to jail the corrupt. However, those in the highest levels of government will not be held accountable without significant escalation. High-profile corruption scandals in the Philippines follow a predictable script: hearings are sensationalised, but the biggest thieves eventually get away thanks to their powerful allies. 
For example, the broadcasts of President Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trials were one of the most watched programs on TV and led to mass protests along EDSA, triggering his ouster in January 2001. The disgraced ex-president was convicted of plunder and sentenced to life in 2007, but was pardoned a month later by his successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. 
Accused politicians often book VIP escapes to private hospitals abroad due to sudden bouts of illness. Arroyo was charged with plunder, attempted to fly to Singapore and spent almost five years in hospital detention until being acquitted in 2016 by her Supreme Court appointees. Beforehand, then-President Duterte gave his blessing by offering a pardon. Congressman Zaldy Co, at the centre of today’s controversy, went “missing”—until the House confirmed he was in the United States for medical treatment.
Mounting public pressure continues, however. In early September, the Senate president was removed; later, the speaker of the House resigned. The president announced that the government would not include new flood control projects in the 2026 national budget, redirecting funding to education and health. After 21 September, nearly 36 billion pesos (A$940 million) were reallocated to social programs.
The Philippines is one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia. But the political dynasties have ensured that the growth primarily benefits private corporations at the expense of the vast majority. Regarding the share of wages in the national economy, the Philippines ranks as one of the lowest in the region, at 35 percent—even lower than the capitalist haven of Singapore (38.5 percent). Further entrenching inequality, big business recently defeated proposals to raise the minimum wage by 200 pesos a day (roughly A$5). It is no wonder that the three richest Filipinos increased their wealth by 563 percent over the last decade, reaching 1.8 trillion pesos (A$47 billion). 
As revealed by the flood control scandals, profit-making and state politics are irrevocably linked, the political dynasties being organised precisely for that end. The setup made the Marcos and Duterte dynasties, alongside eighteen others, even fatter—securing “obese” status by obtaining five or more seats in the May midterm elections. 
Profits and political power are the lifeblood of political dynasties. Mass disruption of cities, campuses and workplaces—like in the <a href="can%20tip%20the%20balance%20by%20demanding%20to%20alleviate%20the%20impacts%20of%20rampant%20theft%20and%20for%20the%20freedom%20to%20organise%20for%20such%20demands.%20Taxing%20the%20rich%20can%20address%20intense%20inequality%20and%20rising%20cost%20of%20living%20while%20universal%20social%20protection%20and%20improvements%20in%20public%20services%20and%20wages%20are%20indispensable%20measures%20for%20environmental%20hazards%20to%20come.">“Block everything” movement</a> in France and Italy—is how profits and political legitimacy can be undermined. But the extensive influence and organisation of the political dynasties and their local machines remain key to their lasting electoral victories.
An enduring challenge to dynastic rule in the Philippines requires an equally powerful anti-capitalist political organisation, wielding its power in elections, on campuses, in workplaces and on the streets. The continuing outburst of mass action since September needs to be harnessed to the end of building the organisation and confidence of working people as they fight to ensure that public wealth goes to public good: securing concrete improvements in public services, infrastructure, wages and universal social protections. These are not only indispensable measures to protect against the environmental hazards to come; they would strike at class inequality, the foundation of the political dynasties.

Yen Llanes

Mass protests and ‘kleptospirosis’ in the Philippines

A wave of censorship and political intimidation is sweeping the United States. Led by key figures in the Trump administration, including the president, the country’s vast far-right movement is pressuring employers to sack or silence left-wing workers and to purge outspoken political progressives from state and state-funded institutions. One of the latest casualties in this war on the left is a history professor in Texas, Tom Alter, who was fired last month for speaking, in his own time, at a socialist conference. 
A judge has since <a href="https://www.puntorojomag.org/2025/09/27/judge-rules-for-tom-alter-as-battle-against-university-continues">ordered the university to reinstate Alter</a>, but management has indicated that it will continue investigating him. The following is the original statement and call for solidarity released by his organisation, <a href="https://socialisthorizon.org/">Socialist Horizon</a>.
--------------------
Defend free speech! No to fascists! Reinstate Professor Tom Alter Now! 
Beloved tenured history professor and Socialist Horizon member Tom Alter was summarily fired on 10 September by Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse for expressing his views in a virtual conference unrelated to the university. This action cannot stand. Socialist Horizon calls on people everywhere to join us and demand that Professor Alter be reinstated to his tenured position.
President Damphousse fired Dr Tom Alter based solely on a video published online by an extreme right-wing provocateur who infiltrated and secretly video-recorded segments of a virtual socialist conference with the intention of publishing information to slander and attack conference participants. In videos posted on their website, this person declares that they are a proud fascist who tries to monetise exposure of the left as an “anti-communist cult leader”. This grifter publicly exhorts followers to embrace fascist ideology and take action, is an antisemite that states that Jewish people “chose to die in the Holocaust”, is a self-declared racist and xenophobe, a homophobe and a transphobe that spews hate speech throughout their platform that is solely designed to inflame and incite.
After the fascist’s “exposure video” reached President Damphousse, he summarily fired Dr Alter, a tenured professor, without questioning or investigating the content, without considering its authenticity or validity, without any form of due process, and violating existing state law and campus policy, which requires a formal due process procedure.
What did Alter talk about that triggered fascists, and that Damphousse considers so unacceptable? 
The statement issued by Damphousse to terminate Dr Alter unambiguously affirms that he fired Alter for what he said at that conference, stating no other reason, and accusing Alter of “inciting violence”. But his speech, a transcript of which can be viewed <a href="https://universitystar.com/32736/news/texas-state-terminates-history-professor-over-comments-made-at-conference/">here</a>, in no way calls for violence. 
Alter spoke against this cruel and unjust system and argued in favour of replacing it with socialism, and he advocated organising politically to achieve this. Alter’s political views <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx">reflect</a> those of nearly half of the total US population. Almost half now oppose capitalism and 40 percet favour socialism over capitalism. Alter’s views are far from subversive; they reflect the mainstream. It is a just cause that more and more people are joining, one people believe to be worth fighting for, and represents a change in thinking that is scaring the bigots, fascists and capitalists. 
It is in fact the fascist infiltrator who incites violence against oppressed people, and in this case, directly against Alter. It is Alter’s employer, Texas State University, that inflicted violence: stripping Alter of his job, refusing him any due process, casting him and his family into the uncertainty of unemployment and making them a target for the extreme right, while slamming the door shut on his free speech and academic freedom. Alter’s First Amendment right to speak, guaranteed by the Constitution, has been violated, as has his academic freedom—a protected right developed by his national faculty union, the American Association of University Professors.
The fact that a marginal fascist streamer with a dangerous and extremist ideology can pressure the president of a prestigious public university system to illegally fire a tenured professor for his opinions is alarming. Most concerning, if we do not stop this, it will set a precedent that will embolden the most dangerous bigots, right-wing extremists and fascists who will continue to target people across the country. If they can influence and direct the president of the Texas State University system so easily—who else will they go after?
We call on President Damphousse to stop this flagrant attack on constitutionally-protected free speech, to undo this wrongful termination, and to immediately reinstate Dr Tom Alter to his teaching position. 
The termination of Dr Alter is a serious attack that upends his livelihood, his professional and academic career, and sets a very dangerous precedent. President Damphousse’s actions appear to be in accordance with the far-right politics of Texas politicians Greg Abbot and Ted Cruz, as well as being in line with that of Donald Trump, who has used the office of the presidency to wage war on his political opponents. 
Damphousse’s actions align with Trump and the far-right forces trying to impose and enforce an authoritarian regime that wants to silence critics, crush political dissent, and attack anyone they perceive to be oppositional to their project. Even more threatening, Damphousse’s actions strengthen the power and influence of fascists and enable the most violent and reactionary groups to also attack and take action against anyone they deem to be part of the left. 
It is Trump who inflicts violence against millions through his authoritarian political attacks that target people of Colour, women, transpeople, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, impoverished and unhoused people, and the working class as a whole. It is the far right and the fascists who are building movements to harm innocent and vulnerable people. It is this capitalist system that Alter spoke against that inflicts mass violence, condemning billions to hunger, poverty and war, while a handful accumulates ever-growing obscene amounts of wealth that is stolen from the rest of us.
Alter is being attacked because he is telling a truth that many people in the United States believe today: that capitalism is ruining their lives and that socialism is a better system. If Dr Tom Alter can be fired for expressing his personal beliefs and principles, then people everywhere are in danger. If he can be fired for expressing a point of view at a conference, away from his work and in his daily private life, then none of us are safe. 
His case must draw support from people of all sectors of society: workers, teachers, nurses, students—anyone and everyone who upholds the value of free speech. As the great anti-slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”.
We call on everyone to join us in building the broadest possible solidarity campaign to win this decisive battle.
The attacks on Dr Tom Alter and socialist politics will not intimidate Socialist Horizon. We will defend our comrade and we will continue fighting for the very cause he is being attacked for: justice, freedom and equality. We will also continue building the organisation that it will take to win it.
Dr Tom Alter is not only a beloved faculty member at Texas State but also an advisor to several student organisations. He is the author of a celebrated history of socialism in the American South, Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas (University of Illinois Press). He is also the father of two children. Socialist Horizon demands that Texas State University immediately restore Tom Alter’s position as associate professor of history. 
Socialist Horizon also calls on all organisations and individuals that defend the basic democratic right to free speech and reject fascism and authoritarianism, and all socialists in particular, to join this fight. This is an attack on all of us. We need to confront it with the broadest unitary campaign for Alter’s immediate reinstatement, in defence of free speech and against fascism.
Follow the <a href="https://socialisthorizon.org">Socialist Horizon website</a> for campaign updates.

How the Palestine solidarity movement discredits identity politics

Are we living in a new world order?

Protesting with Gen Z in Morocco

Ceasefire in Gaza: relief, but not enough

Tony Blair: war criminal in charge of Gaza peace

The revival of the radical left and working-class politics

The Palestine solidarity movement must continue

Italy’s general strike shows the way forward

Mass protests and ‘kleptospirosis’ in the Philippines

Socialist professor targeted in US censorship campaign

Other Media

Shop

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us