Abstract
This second part of our special issue on Popular Movements Today comes amidst the continuous escalation of conflict and imperialist saber-rattling. Yet, a new political fact is the eruption of mass student protests within the United States against the genocide in Palestine. More than any other social force to date within the imperialist centers, this mobilization has undermined the ideological monopoly on Zionism enforced by imperialism, which has also served as a whip against anti-imperialist struggles more generally. The ideological alignment of openly fascistic and liberal elements today around Zionism and its genocide is unprecedented. It has gone far to reveal and confirm to large majorities across the South the flagrant double standards of the West on the fundamental question of colonialism and genocide—so many decades after general decolonization. The fact that the students and their allies among professors and other university community members have claimed space within key sites of ideological production in the West and insisted that universities sever ties with the Zionist state has rekindled a fighting spirit comparable to the anti-war movement of the 1960s.
The Agrarian South Network issued a statement on April 29 as follows:
The Agrarian South Network expresses its solidarity with the student encampments in universities in the USA and around the world held in protest against the genocide in Palestine. We condemn the police repression against students, professors, and other community members. The encampments represent a new phase in the struggle against imperialism by a new generation which refuses to accept the crimes of the US government, its NATO allies, and the Zionist state.
The student protests create a new dynamic of hope and new possibilities for international solidarity based on universal values of justice, peace, and respect for national sovereignty. The Agrarian South Network will remain engaged and continue to provide the infrastructure for autonomous research and debate. This includes this journal as well as our ASN Research Bulletin which carries short articles of a political or theoretical nature every two months. We invite your contributions!
This second part of the special issue on popular movements brings to our readers another five articles which together demonstrate both the universality of anti-imperialist struggles and their diversity at the present juncture. The first article by Archana Prasad, entitled “Proletarian Internationalism in the Contemporary Women’s Movement: A Perspective from India,” discusses the influence of internationalist perspectives on the women’s movement in India. It provides a history of anti-imperialist feminism in general but focuses on some of the major women’s organizations in India. The aim is to trace the legacy of anti-imperialist feminist politics as a response to the strategies of Western imperialist powers to counter the influence of radical and socialist politics, particularly after the Russian Revolution. The article also documents women’s participation in radical and socialist struggles for independence and social transformation, which received strong political support from the Soviet Union in the post-war period, and extends the analysis to the period of neoliberalism and the structural adjustment policies imposed on the South.
The second is the continuation of Max Ajl’s two-part article, “Palestine’s Great Flood.” This second part treats the development and trajectory of anti-colonial nationalism in Palestine, focusing on the post-1970s period in the Gaza Strip. It treats the growth and development of the main armed factions in the Strip, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and then discusses the Israeli policies toward Palestine, broadly, and the Gaza Strip, in particular. It analyzes the closure policy post-2006 and the growth of armed organizing and capacity. It then discusses the regional dimensions. Finally, it engages with differing explanations for US policy toward Palestine, discussing the “Israel Lobby” thesis in its various iterations. It concludes with some reflections on contemporary exile organizing and intellectual production.
The third article by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, “The Revolt against Françafrique: What Is Behind the ‘Anti-French’ Sentiment?,” analyzes the so-called “anti-French sentiment” that many journalists, academics, and political leaders believe they detect in sub-Saharan Africa. It is argued here that the hostility toward the former colonial power, observable for several years in most French-speaking countries on the continent, is the consequence of half a century of neocolonial domination, arrogance, and indifference. The criticism is directed at France for its support for despotic regimes, its continual military interventions, and the maintenance of its monetary supervision through the CFA franc. Long suppressed, these critical voices are now determined to be heard. A new generation of activists using social media has broken through the communication monopolies and appealed to the growing population of youth that sees no future other than through a second independence. The challenge will be to steer this movement toward a project of social transformation in the service of the people.
The fourth article by Sarah Raymundo, “Modalities of the Sacred in the Lumad Struggle for Sustainabilities and Futures,” focuses on Indigenous Peoples’ struggle in the Philippines. Raymundo elucidates the manner in which indigenous struggles enact and cultivate local knowledge based on their own developed practices of resource use, which are entwined with their struggle for national self-determination. This article demonstrates how these actions are configured in multiple ways, focusing on the Lumad of Mindanao. An elaboration of the Lumad-Manobo’s notions of sacred spaces and myths is presented. This includes the production and reproduction of sustenance, resource use, and political mobilization. The study traces the movements and modalities of value as an aspiration among displaced Lumad children and the more concrete forms of labor involved in producing these values in indigenous knowledge of sacred spaces.
The fifth article by Luccas Gissoni, Paulo Roberto de Macedo Soares Oliveira Pires, and Leonardo Griz Carvalheira is entitled “Development Paths in a Colonist Society: The Challenges of the Communist Movement in Brazil.” The authors address the challenges faced by the Communist movement in Brazil by revisiting the enduring contradictions inherited from a colonial mode of accumulation. Originally, this consisted of a class system based on slavery whose contradictions involved the metropolitan colonizer, the settler, and the colonized class. After independence in 1822, which entailed a settler rebellion against the metropolitan colonizer and the continuing exploitation of the colonized, the settlers reproduced the colonial mode of accumulation internally and oversaw the transition to a capitalist mode of production. An interclass, capital–labor alliance occurred in the mid-twentieth century but was limited to the ranks of the settlers and underpinned by the myth of “racial democracy.” This included a degree of confrontation with imperialism coupled with industrial development but reproduced the colonial mode of accumulation internally. The article goes on to illuminate the contradictions that followed, including the military regime installed in 1964 and the neocolonial transition effected in the 1990s, under finance capital. The authors argue that in light of the bourgeoisie’s shifting alliances at the expense of the sovereign aspirations of the working people, an interclass alliance has become impossible: only a truly popular political project is capable of liberating the nation, and that’s the only one the Communists should espouse.
This issue also brings to our readers a critical review of Intan Suwandi’s celebrated book, Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism, by Nedson Ng’oma.
We would like to take this opportunity formally to announce the awarding of the Samir Amin Young Scholars’ Prize in Political Economy of Development. The prize was established by the Editorial Board of Agrarian South soon after Amin’s passing in 2018, in honor of his exemplary scholarship and path-breaking contributions to the social sciences. The prize is awarded every two years to an author whose single-authored article has been published in our journal and is either a postgraduate student or has received a postgraduate degree (master’s or doctorate) within five years of publication of the article. The prize for the 2022–2023 biennium has been awarded to Max Ajl for his article “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet,” published in Vol. 12(1), 2023 (DOI 10.1177/22779760221145232). Congratulations to Max!
Finally, we also wish to announce the publication of the seventh book in our South–South book series, entitled Gender in Agrarian Transitions: Liberation Perspectives from the South. The book is edited by Dzodzi Tsikata, Archana Prasad, and Paris Yeros and published by Tulika Books (tulikabooks.in/catalog/product/view/id/22447). It is the result of a decade-long effort undertaken by the Agrarian South Network to develop a dynamic debate within the network on gender relations by means of sustained research collaboration across the three continents. The book brings together articles from two special issues published by Agrarian South in 2016 and 2021, plus several new commissioned chapters. It seeks to advance contemporary debates on the evolution of patriarchal institutions in agrarian transitions and the struggles for women’s liberation today. We hope it will make a positive contribution to the debates in our regions and everywhere around the world.