Oigan bien señores y señoras, de por allá en las esferas del poder: Que sus miradas se vuelquen al Suroccidente colombiano; que sus miedos aparezcan donde se creía que no había dignidad; que sus pesadillas comiencen en donde se creía no existían sueños, allá, donde se creía que no había corazones ni manos ni pies para andar, para caminar y para dignificar. Allá, en el Suroccidente colombiano, que tantas veces ha sido atacado, estigmatizado y condenado, hoy vuelve a renacer, florecer y a arder, porque las comunidades y los pueblos de aquella Colombia profunda han vuelto a levantarse después de 1500 acuerdos firmados con Gobiernos de hace más de 20 años.

Oigan bien señores y señoras, de por allá en las esferas del poder: Que sus miradas se vuelquen al Suroccidente colombiano; que sus miedos aparezcan donde se creía que no había dignidad; que sus pesadillas comiencen en donde se creía no existían sueños, allá, donde se creía que no había corazones ni manos ni pies para andar, para caminar y para dignificar. Allá, en el Suroccidente colombiano, que tantas veces ha sido atacado, estigmatizado y condenado, hoy vuelve a renacer, florecer y a arder, porque las comunidades y los pueblos de aquella Colombia profunda han vuelto a levantarse después de 1500 acuerdos firmados con Gobiernos de hace más de 20 años.

Para esta ocasión no quieren un nuevo acuerdo, quieren que por fin se cumplan. Como Grupo Estudiantil Anarquista, nos solidarizamos y expresamos nuestro apoyo total a las comunidades indígenas y campesinas que permanecen en minga hace más de diez días en muchos municipios del Cauca como Santander de Quilichao, Cajibio, Piendamó, Caldono, Puracé, Inzá, Totoró, Silvia, el Hobo y el Pital (Huila) por el real cumplimiento de los acuerdos, la defensa de la vida digna y la autonomía en sus territorios, entre otros puntos plasmados en el pliego de exigencias. Por lo pronto, los mingueros y mingueras aseguran mantener las vías de hecho en la vía Panamericana hasta que el presidente Iván Duque haga presencia en el territorio para un diálogo efectivo. Sin embargo, como era de esperarse, lo único que ha hecho presencia en el departamento es la violencia estatal y la militarización.

Por todo lo anterior, es evidente que la lucha es larga y reconocemos la necesidad de materializar la solidaridad para que no solo se camine la palabra sino también la acción. Desde la ciudad adelantaremos lo nuestro, para unir corazones y caminos, anhelando la liberación social, desde abajo y por fuera del Estado.

BRENTON TARRANT, WHO stands accused of killing 50 adults and children at two mosques in New Zealand last week, wants us to know what inspired his actions. Before livestreaming his massacre of Muslim worshipers, he composed a lengthy document that proudly advocates the murder of innocent people in the name of racial purity. The manifesto is predictably disturbing. It is the work of a nihilist who sees a world so bleak and hopeless that it could be improved through acts of mass murder. There is one word in the 74-page document, however, that stood out to me: “invader.”

Tarrant’s words are both lucid and chillingly familiar. His references to immigrants as invaders find echoes in the language used by the president of the United States and far-right leaders across Europe. And that is why it would be a mistake to dismiss them as the incoherent ravings of a madman.

His manifesto is difficult to read. I felt compelled to analyze his words at length, however, because as a nonwhite Westerner — a Muslim no less — I’m one of the “invaders” that he speaks about. There have been calls to simply ignore what Tarrant wrote. While understandable, it is naive to think that ignoring people like him will make their demands go away. Upon reading his manifesto, I must emphasize that the sentiment he expresses — that people like me are outsiders who really belong in some other place — is increasingly common.

The document is based on a key underlying premise known as the “Great Replacement” theory: that nonwhite people living in Western countries are aliens on a mission to plunder and replace the populations of Europe and North America. In the faces of immigrants trying to raise families and build peaceful homes, Tarrant sees unarmed invaders bent on conquering his racially pristine homeland. There are no individuals in his worldview, just faceless masses of “us” and “them.” The latter group is to be kept at a distance at all costs. He approvingly cites the deterrent effect of killing their children.

For those wondering where Tarrant was radicalized, the answer is right out in the open. It is in our media and politics, where minorities, Muslims or otherwise, are vilified as a matter of course. Tarrant’s beliefs reached a violent praxis that I assume many of his fellow travelers would find hard to stomach. But his claims about disastrous birthrates and floods of immigrant invaders are practically banal at this point. Such rhetoric animates the policies of Donald Trump, who has revived a medieval response to “invaders,” promising to contain them behind a giant wall. It comes from the president’s political supporters who openly espouse the same “Great Replacement” theory that motivated Tarrant’s massacre.

This rhetoric about foreign pollution also emanates from the mouths and pens of supposedly liberal public figures. In 2006, the “New Atheist” writer Sam Harris wrote an article claiming that within 25 years, France was on course to have a majority-Muslim population, even if immigration were to stop tomorrow. This demographic shift would mean nothing less than an end to democracy itself, he argued. (Harris did not deem it necessary to provide a citation for his ludicrous population projections.) Tarrant’s manifesto reads like a shortened, albeit more violent, version of the popular 2017 book “The Death of Europe,” by British author Douglas Murray, who argued that immigration had already effectively destroyed European society.

In short, Tarrant’s writings reflect a worldview that is not just confined to the dark corners of the internet, but is openly expressed in media and politics. His alleged actions are the logical conclusion to the rhetoric of “American Carnage” and “The Death of Europe” promoted by prominent figures across the globe.

TARRANT WRITES THAT his breaking point came while traveling through France. There, he was overwhelmed by the number of “invaders,” whose black and brown faces he encountered in every city and town. Judging from his words, he didn’t pause to consider that most of these people were in fact not foreigners but the children of people who have lived for several generations in France. They are people who know no home but that country. Tarrant describes being overtaken by emotion when seeing a wartime cemetery, which he views as the resting place of a previous French generation that fought “invaders.” It apparently never occurred to him that the majority of the World War II-era Free French Army, which liberated France from the Nazis, consisted mostly of black and North African colonial soldiers. It is the descendants of these people whose presence caused Tarrant, an Australian tourist, such heartache that he, according to his manifesto, “broke into tears, sobbing alone in the car.”

As we consider the attacks in New Zealand, it is important to understand that Muslims are an easy target for racist violence. They are an unpopular minority in Western countries. Some analysts, even as they condemned Tarrant’s alleged, murders, expressed sympathy with his reasoning about Muslims. This reaction seems to be exactly what Tarrant was counting on. In one section of his manifesto, he makes clear that all “high fertility immigrants” are the enemy, but that he chose to target Muslims because, “they are the most despised group of invaders in the West, attacking them receives the greatest level of support.”

Killing Muslims is only the first stage in the plan he lays out, however. The ultimate goal is changing the demographic makeup of Western countries through a more general program of ethnic cleansing that also targets blacks, Jews, and Asians. “The invaders must be removed from European soil, regardless from where they came or when they came. Roma, African, Indian, Turkish, Semitic or other,” Tarrant writes. Among his stated influences are the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and Dylann Roof, who murdered nine African-American parishioners at a South Carolina church. Tarrant makes clear that he is not a Christian in any religious sense. His only consistent belief is a genocidal intention to remove the “other,” whether by murder or expulsion.

Though he acted alone, Tarrant ominously claims in his manifesto to have received blessing for his attack from a clandestine far-right organization. Sympathizers with his motives exist in huge numbers, he writes, including in the military and police apparatuses of Western states. So far, no evidence has emerged to corroborate this claim, but looking at the news, it seems entirely plausible.

In his writings, Tarrant makes clear that he has no problems with Muslims who live in their own homelands, nor with Jews, as long as they live in Israel. He simply wants them out of the West. “How they are removed is irrelevant, peacefully, forcefully, happily, violently or diplomatically. They must be removed,” he writes. It is unlikely, of course, that these people will leave their homes voluntarily. The United States and Europe are where they raise their families, pay taxes, attend schools, and contribute their labor to society. To insist that they to “go back” to an imaginary homeland on a distant continent, therefore, is to insist on genocide and ethnic cleansing.

When faced with such an implacable and fanatic demand, it is important to take it seriously. I fear there will be more men like Brenton Tarrant, Anders Breivik, and accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, particularly while those in power respond to their messages with a wink and a nod. In the face of such an enemy — that demands that one literally abolish oneself — the comforting idea of compromise evaporates. Racist attacks have continued since the New Zealand killings, including a number of violent assaults. In the face of this reality and the struggles ahead, it seems important to recall a popular Jewish mantra in the face of Nazi oppression, which carries renewed meaning today: “We will outlive them.”

Some of the governments supporting Trump's plan to starve Venezuela into submission are none too savory, themselves.

In the early 1970s, a handful of Sandinistas were in the mountains of Nicaragua fighting to overthrow the 40-year U.S.-backed, brutal dictatorship of the Somoza family. When a powerful volcanic eruption struck Nicaragua in 1971, Sandinista Omar Cabezas later recounted, they told the peasants whom they encountered that God was punishing them for not getting rid of Somoza.

After the Sandinistas triumphed in 1979, the U.S. waged a bloody war to take back the country with a terrorist paramilitary force called the contras, who regularly murdered civilians. President George H.W. Bush made it clear during the Sandinistas’ second election in 1990 that, although he was not God, he would continue to punish Nicaraguans with a trade embargo and war if they did not get rid of the Sandinistas. Weary of war, hyperinflation, and economic collapse, Nicaraguans voted for the opposition: The Sandinistas lost.

Today the Trump administration is repeating the collective punishment strategy in Venezuela with a crippling financial embargo since August 2017 and, since January, a trade embargo. The financial embargo has prevented any measures that the government might use to get rid of hyperinflation or bring about an economic recovery, while knocking out billions of dollars of oil production. The trade embargo is projected to cut off about 60 percent of the country’s remaining meager foreign exchange earnings, which are needed to buy medicine, food, medical supplies, and other goods essential to many Venezuelans’ survival.

Seeking to foment a military coup, a popular rebellion, or civil war, the Trump administration has made it clear that the punishment will continue until the current government is ousted. “Maduro must go,” said U.S. Vice President Mike Pence yet again in early March.

All of this is illegal under numerous treaties that the U.S. has signed, including the charter of the United Nations, the charter of the Organization of American States, and other international law and conventions. To legitimize this brutality, which has likely already killed thousands of Venezuelans by reducing access to life-saving goods and services, the Trump administration has presented the sanctions as a consensus of the “international community”—similar to what George W. Bush did when he put together a “coalition of the willing” of 48 countries to support his disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In this narrative, governments—mostly in the Americas and Europe—that have joined the U.S. in recognizing a parallel government in Venezuela are “democratic”; those who have not, or have declared against the attempt to overthrow the current government are “authoritarian,” with the examples of Russia, China, and Turkey most often listed in news reports.

Let’s look at some of the governments that have joined the Trump administration in this illegal regime change operation, and have joined the trade embargo by recognizing Juan Guaidó as “interim president.” The most important and solid ally of Trump in Latin America is Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, famous for telling a Brazilian congresswoman that he would not rape her because she “did not merit it,” for various racist and anti-gay remarks, and for glorifying political violence. Ironically, given that the Trump administration’s main justification for regime change in Venezuela is that Maduro’s election was illegitimate, Bolsonaro himself came to power in an election of questionable legitimacy. His leading opponent, former President Lula da Silva—at the time the most popular politician in the country—was jailed after a trial in which no material evidence of a crime was presented. The verdict rested on the coerced testimony of a witness who was convicted of corruption, and whose plea bargaining was suspended until he changed his story to match the prosecuting judge’s case. The prosecuting judge, Sérgio Moro, demonstrated strong animus against Lula on a number of occasions—including his release of illegally wiretapped conversations between Lula and then president Dilma Rousseff, his lawyer, and his wife and children. After these and other irregularities and illegalities secured Lula’s conviction, he was unconstitutionally imprisoned before the election. After the election that Judge Moro helped Bolsonaro win by these methods, he was appointed minister of justice.

Other Latin American governments in Trump’s Coalition of the Willing owe Washington some favors for helping them seize power. The government of Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández is probably the most extreme example. His party came to power in 2009 with the overthrow of the democratically elected president Mel Zelaya in a military coup. The Obama administration, along with Republicans, helped legitimize the coup and the “elections” that followed. Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, later described in her memoirs how she maneuvered to keep the democratically elected president from returning to office. In 2017, Hernández retained power by brazenly stealing an election—simply altering the vote totals. This was the inescapable conclusion of journalists and observers from across the political spectrum. Even one of the most fanatical leaders of Trump’s Coalition of the Willing, current OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, rejected the results and called for new elections. Of course nothing happened because the Trump team accepted the results.

Colombia has perhaps the second-most bellicose leader in Trump’s coalition, after Bolsonaro. President Iván Duque is the protégé of former president, now kingmaker, Álvaro Uribe. U.S. diplomatic cables released last year showed widespread concerns among U.S. officials about Uribe’s ties to drug traffickers. In the 1990s, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency found that Uribe was “dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin [drug] cartel at high government levels.” Uribe is also believed to have long had ties to death squads. He resigned from the Colombian Senate last year in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation. Uribe has long backed the U.S. regime-change effort against Venezuela. In 2009, numerous South American governments objected to and blocked his plans to expand the U.S. military presence in Colombia.

President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, another influential hard-right coalition member, also owes favors to Washington. In June, this relationship helped him score the biggest IMF loan in history, $50 billion dollars—subsequently upped to $56.3 billion when the economy did much worse than the IMF had forecast under the agreement. The United States blocked loans to the government of his predecessor and rival from multilateral lending institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank. Since Argentina was running into balance of payments problems toward the end of President Cristina Fernández’s term, this was significant. An even bigger blow to her government came from an apparently politically motivated New York judge, who took more than 90 percent of Argentina’s creditors hostage in 2012 by ruling that they could not be paid until certain U.S.-based vulture funds were paid first. All of these problems with the U.S. were quickly resolved soon after Macri took office in 2015.

The media sometimes singles out President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador to show that there is a “center-left” presence in this illegal and somewhat barbaric enterprise. Moreno was indeed elected in 2017 with the support of former president Rafael Correa’s leftist Alianza PAIS party. But he quickly took a sharp turn away from his mandate, forming an alliance with right-wing oligarchs and using extra-constitutional means to consolidate power. He is now trying to put the former president in jail on what look like trumped-up charges. Moreno has been rewarded by Washington with $10 billion in loans from multilateral institutions, including $4.2 billion just scored from the IMF last week. If $10 billion doesn’t sound like a lot, consider that the loan, expressed as a percentage of the Ecuador’s economy, would be equivalent to the U.S. receiving $1.9 trillion. No surprise that Lenín Moreno has joined the Trump Coalition.

The president of Paraguay also has cause to thank the United States godfather. His party, the Colorado Party, ruled the country for 61 consecutive years, the majority of it under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. In 2008, a leftist bishop named Fernando Lugo won the presidency against heavy odds. However, he was toppled in a parliamentary coup in 2012, which was opposed by almost all of South America; once again, Washington worked with the OAS to help legitimize the coup. So, there’s another South American president happy to join the U.S.-led push for a right-wing leader in Venezuela. Yet one more is President Sebastián Piñera of Chile, a Pinochet sympathizer who appointed two former allies of the U.S.-backed dictator to his cabinet last year.

This is how we do it—today, at least. A few years ago—when most of the region was governed by left-of-center governments, Trump wouldn’t have gotten a single government in the region to support an illegal regime change operation. Obama’s secretary of state John Kerry discovered this in 2013 when violent opposition demonstrators were in the streets in Venezuela, trying to overturn Maduro’s first election. There was absolutely no doubt about the election results, and almost every government in the world recognized them. Kerry soon found himself completely isolated; Washington gave in and accepted Maduro’s election.

Then there is Europe, which for a number of historical reasons has only occasionally pursued a foreign policy independent of the United States. This is especially true for Latin America, where the Monroe Doctrine, shamelessly invoked in public by National Security Advisor John Bolton a few days ago, is generally respected. That said, some arm twisting was necessary to flip Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain, who had rather insubordinately opposed the Trump sanctions against Venezuela even prior to the trade embargo and recognition of Guaidó in January. His foreign minister, Josep Borell, told the press that the administration had received “pressure” from Washington. Sánchez’s PSOE socialist-led government was also under intense pressure from the big Spanish media, which has been in full regime-change mode for some time; they face elections at the end of April. Spain was particularly important in securing European support for this venture, since other countries, including Germany, often take Spain’s view seriously on policy in Latin America.

Even if the Trump team had a global majority—which it doesn’t, with only 50 out of 195 countries worldwide backing Venezuelan regime change—their deadly economic sanctions, theft of assets, military threats, and other actions to topple Venezuela’s government would be no more legal or legitimate than George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, or the many U.S.-led regime change efforts that have taken place in this hemisphere. That’s unsurprising, given who’s at the wheel: perennial regime-change advocate John Bolton, for example, or special envoy Elliott Abrams, who supported what the UN later found to be genocide in Guatemala, as well as the US-sponsored atrocities in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. The cast of characters supporting this regime-change effort, whether in Washington or among some of its closest allies, should underline what is already obvious: The United States’ attempt to oust Maduro has nothing to do with democracy or human rights.

Five years after the “EuroMaidan” protests in Kiev and elsewhere toppled the government of now-exiled former president Viktor Yanukovych, the people of Ukraine are set to elect a new leader. Over 34 million Ukrainian citizens will be eligible to cast their vote on 31 March, although several million will be prevented from participating due to the ongoing conflict situation in the country’s eastern Donbass region. Should none of the candidates receive an absolute majority, a second round of voting will be held on 21 April.

Ukraine consistently ranks among the poorest countries in Europe – last year it overtook Moldova to occupy the top spot in the list. The largest post-Soviet state after Russia in terms of population, it finds itself torn between the European Union promising economic integration and a limited degree of freedom of movement, and deepening the country’s relationship with Moscow, the largest consumer of Ukrainian exports to which Ukraine is tied by centuries of shared history, tradition, and repeated conflict.

EuroMaidan exacerbated the country’s ongoing economic decline and mounting social pressures in 2013–14, ultimately triggering the war in the Donbass region and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula. These tensions have facilitated the rise of a vicious Ukrainian nationalism that the government led by current president Petro Poroshenko is not afraid to manipulate for its own purposes. Attacks on left-wing activists and ethnic minorities are becoming increasingly common, while armed far-right paramilitaries like the so-called “Azov Battalion” are normalized and integrated into mainstream political life.

That said, not everyone in Ukraine is happy about these developments. Although none of the candidates in the upcoming elections offer a particularly radical or progressive vision for the country, voters will at least be able to decide whether to endorse Poroshenko’s current course or throw their support behind another figure. Loren Balhorn of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung spoke with Kiev-based sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko to get a better understanding of the candidates, the state of the county, and what is at stake for the people of Ukraine in 2019.

Loren Balhorn (LB): Ukraine is scheduled to hold presidential elections at the end of the month, preceding elections to the national parliament, or “Verkhovna Rada,” later this year. Is there anything special about the timing? What exactly is the president’s role in the Ukrainian political system, and what implications will the vote have for parliamentary elections in October?

Volodymyr Ishchenko (VI): The timing is simple: it’s been five years since 2014 and the Maidan Uprising, when snap elections were called that saw Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions lose a lot of strength. The first round of the presidential elections is at the end of the month, and it is very likely that there will be a second round because no candidate will receive over 50 per cent (at least according to polls).

The president is very important in Ukrainian politics. The country is formally a parliamentary-presidential system, neither fully parliamentary nor fully presidential, but this is a very uneasy balance of power. The prime minister is an important position elected by the parliamentary majority, but the president also has influence over important government ministers. As is true of many post-Soviet states, however, beyond this formal institutional division of powers the informal divisions are much more decisive. Who is loyal to whom and who is dependent on whom plays a much bigger role in “real” Ukrainian politics than formal powers and privileges.

Petro Poroshenko, the current president, is the most important person in Ukrainian politics. His powers are formally limited but he has other ways to exercise influence and his own party, the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” that forms the government together with the “People’s Front,” the party of former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Another important figure in that party is the current Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, who is also a very wealthy man.

LB: Avakov also cultivates ties to the Azov Battalion, no?

VI: This is widely suspected, but the precise nature of those ties has never been proven. I am sceptical of the idea that the Azov Battalion is merely a puppet of Avakov, I suspect it is something like a mutually beneficial cooperation.

If Poroshenko loses we will see a lot of defections by MPs from his bloc. Ukrainian politics operates as what political scientists call a “neopatrimonial regime,” meaning it is characterized by rival, informal power blocs. If the Poroshenko Bloc loses, it will reshuffle loyalties in the parliament from one patriarch to another.

LB: What do you mean by “neopatrimonial regime”?

VI: By that I mean Ukrainian politics is characterized by competition between various power blocs, you could also call them pyramids or even clans. Poroshenko builds his pyramid while Arakov builds his own pyramid, etc. The current Prime Minister, Volodymyr Groysman, was originally perceived as a loyalist of Poroshenko, but now even he seems to be cultivating his own pyramid and will probably triangulate between various political blocs.

LB: How did Groysman come to replace Yatsenyuk?

VI: As friction between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk grew, Poroshenko financed a public campaign against him, attacking him and calling for his resignation. But Yatsenyuk had a lot of support from the West, especially the U.S. Vice-President at the time, Joe Biden. Eventually an agreement was reached that he would step down and be replaced by Groysman.

This represented a conflict between different patrimonial structures within the governing elite, but also reflected a wider conflict between Ukrainian oligarchs and the West more generally. Many leftists in Ukraine see the country as a colony of the United States, but it’s much more complicated than that. Ukraine is definitely dependent on Western economic and financial aid, political support against Russia, etc., but it’s not a colony – it’s not ruled from the American Embassy. Local oligarchs like Poroshenko and Arakov have their own interests that they defend staunchly against the West. At its core, this is a conflict between transnational capital and the local bourgeoisie.

One key issue in these debates, and the crucial issue for the West and the IMF, was corruption and the establishment of “anti-corruption” institutions to ensure transparent rules of the game in Ukraine. But what they call “corruption” is basically the most important advantage that the Ukrainian bourgeoisie has against transnational capital: namely, their property is secure from the state while that of their competitors is not. This is also what scares away potential international investors. Because of this fear, foreign direct investment (FDI) is actually declining despite the Ukrainian government’s steps toward Western integration.

LB: So fear of corruption is harming investment?

VI: Yes, although the war is of course another factor.

In the beginning, in 2014 and 2015, we had a lot of people in the government without Ukrainian citizenship who received their positions because they were neoliberal, Western-oriented professionals, like the Lithuanian citizen Aivaras Abromavičius who was a minister under Yatsenyuk. Gradually, those neoliberal reformers were pushed out and replaced by people loyal to the ruling oligarchs. Yatsenyuk being replaced by Groysman was just one particularly important example of this process.

LB: It sounds like a pretty grim scenario. But even if electoral politics is just competition between oligarchic factions, certainly there must be some other issues being debated at least on the surface? What are the dominant themes the candidates are using to attract support?

VI: Poroshenko has been most successful in setting the agenda with an aggressively nationalist campaign – his main slogan is “Army, Faith, Language.” He side-lined the socially populist issues that Yulia Tymoshenko tried to raise by portraying the election as a choice between him or Putin and depicting his opponents as puppets of Moscow.

LB: And is it working?

VI: Yes, to some extent. His support has been rising in the polls since the recognition of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

LB: Was that split between the Ukrainian Church and Moscow supported by the government?

VI: Yes, it was actively organized by Poroshenko as a strategy to win the election. Formally, the Ukrainian Orthodox church enjoyed broad autonomy but was dependent on the Moscow Patriarchate and was recognized by other Orthodox churches. A separate church founded in the early 1990s, the Kiev Patriarchate, was unrecognized by any other international church but still fairly popular in the country. In reality most people didn’t care which church they attended. The split was purely political, there were no theological differences.

Poroshenko started to push the theme in 2017 and 2018 that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was something like an “agent of Moscow” in Ukraine. The details are quite complicated, and to be honest many people in Ukraine didn’t really understand these structures until last year either, but for people who care about national issues, who care about Ukraine asserting itself against Russia, this was an important step. Nevertheless, it looks like the majority of local parishes will actually stay with the Moscow Patriarchate.

LB: You have alluded to the conflict with Russia several times now as setting the terms of the debate, and making it easier for politicians to distract from social questions by focusing on nationalism. Is there any kind of visible, vaguely progressive social opposition in the country?

VI: Most politicians and the three leading candidates for the president are not significantly different on the question of the conflict in the Donbass region. Poroshenko, Tymoshenko, and Volodymyr Zelensky are all within the patriotic consensus, although Poroshenko is more militant. Candidates who actually have a different opinion and are not as popular sprang from the former Party of Regions, later branded the “Opposition Bloc.” They failed to negotiate a common candidate for the so-called “Southeast,” the region where the Russian-speaking minority mostly lives. Despite raising important issues like peace in Donbass, re-claiming national sovereignty from the West, and re-industrialization, these candidates – Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul – are representatives of major oligarchic financial-industrial groups. There is no significant “grassroots” movement behind the issues. There are of course labour struggles, and there have been some strikes, but they are weak. There are some feminist mobilizations but they are miniscule compared to the radical nationalists. Not just the anti-capitalist “Left,” but also progressive liberalism is very weak.

The Left is in a bad situation. The Communist Party has been banned. They are appealing the ban but their public visibility has declined to practically zero. Their leader, Petro Symonenko, tried to register as a presidential candidate but was not accepted by the government, and no other relevant left-wing parties exist on the national level.

LB: Government corruption, oligarchic control of the economy, a decimated Left – a lot of this sounds familiar. Couldn’t we, at least to some extent, compare conditions in Ukraine to the situation in all of the former Eastern Bloc countries?

VI: I don’t think so. EU membership makes a big difference, it imposes certain rules that are absent in Ukraine. The presence of strong oligarchs, for example, is pretty specific. The other Eastern Bloc countries don’t have a strong local bourgeoisie, but are largely dominated by Western capital. There are no Polish oligarchs, Czech oligarchs, Hungarian oligarchs – we only hear about Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. What makes Ukraine different is that the oligarchic system is pluralistic. We have multiple, competing oligarchs, whereas in Russia and Belarus one neopatrimonial pyramid managed to emerge as dominant in the last 15 years.

The promise of EU membership restructured Eastern European politics beginning in the 1990s, whereas this was never a prospect in Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus. But we still didn’t see the rise of any figure like Vladimir Putin or an Alexander Lukashenko in Ukraine. I think this has to do with the country’s divided identity: almost every election has been framed as a question of “East vs. West,” with one candidate supported by the western half and the other by the eastern half. In this sense it’s comparable with Donald Trump: any time a Ukrainian president comes to power he is opposed by half the population from day one. This makes it very difficult to consolidate nationwide power.

LB: Are there not also economic aspects to the East/West division?

VI: Yes, the East has more heavy, Soviet-era industry, exporting primarily to the markets of the former USSR and uncompetitive on Western markets. For example, the people supporting Yanukovych and opposing EuroMaidan were at least partially concerned about keeping their jobs in a Ukrainian economy dominated by the EU.

LB: So it’s not only a nationalist issue, but also one of bread-and-butter economic issues?

VI: Yes, absolutely.

LB: Speaking of “East vs. West,” has anything changed since Ukraine’s accession to the visa-free regime for Schengen states in 2017?

VI: That was one of very few positive developments under Poroshenko, and he’s touting it a lot during the campaign. Freedom of movement is of course something good and something we support, but it was particularly good for younger, highly educated Ukrainians in the major cities.

It has also facilitated increased labour migration, which has really risen since 2014. I don’t have any precise statistics but we’re talking about millions of people. Many Ukrainians go to work in Poland, which actively recruits them because they are seen as culturally and linguistically “closer” to Poles (unlike refugees from the Middle East). You could say that cheap Ukrainian labour is subsidizing the Polish economic boom. The Czech Republic is also popular, and Germany will probably be next.

As workers from the eastern EU states like Bulgaria and Poland move west to work they’re replaced by cheaper labour from Ukraine, but no one moves to Ukraine. There is a lot of discussion in the Ukrainian media about how it simply does not make sense to work in the country when you can make two or three times more across the border.

LB: But does this not mean that the Ukrainian labour market is gradually getting tighter? Wouldn’t it at least theoretically put organized labour in a more advantageous position to fight for higher wages?

VI: Yes, theoretically! But Ukrainian trade unions are very weak, and they have failed to take advantage of the situation.

LB: You recently gave an interview to Jacobin Magazine in which you compared the situation of the Ukrainian Left with that of Latin America in the 1970s. I found that very striking, given that the Left was quite large in Latin America at the time and microscopic in Ukraine today. Could you flesh out that comparison a bit? Where exactly do you see similarities?

VI: Ukraine is a deindustrializing, peripheral economy. Most Soviet-era industry fell apart after 1991, and what remains is not competitive on the Western European market. Ukraine has thus become a supplier of raw materials with low added value like iron. In this sense it is a very peripheral capitalism characterized by extreme inequality and powerful oligarchs, like Latin America. There is also the major role played by far-right paramilitaries – this doesn’t happen anywhere else in Europe, except for briefly in former Yugoslavia. We also have a strongly pro-American and highly dependent government, very similar to Latin America.

I think it’s logical to look for comparisons and lessons from similar historical social formations. If the Ukrainian Left is looking to fight a corrupt, authoritarian, anti-Communist regime, and given how weak the Left and even liberalism is, we have to work together to fight for basic democratic rights and against the nationalist hysteria to lay the base for a movement that could perhaps become more significant in the future. Here I see parallels to the Latin American Left’s struggle against dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.

LB: Do you think it’s possible in a geopolitical situation where tensions between the EU and Russia are so prominent to formulate a broad, democratic programme that stands above this fray?

VI: It’s obviously very difficult, but what other options do we have? Become puppets in the geopolitical game? There was a split on the Left in 2014 when many chose EuroMaidan and the “West” while others chose Anti-Maidan and the “Russian” side. Both sides ended up tailing more powerful right-wing forces and failed to formulate their own independent positions.

LB: But would anything else have been possible?

VI: Well, obviously we can’t seriously entertain the building of a strong left-wing party under such difficult conditions. What is possible, however, is to maintain some kind of milieu for left-wing ideas. The groups and networks that exist have to consolidate a possible embryo for a strong Left in the future. It’s important to be realistic and understand what’s possible or completely impossible. We might not be able to formulate some kind of “Third Camp” in Ukrainian politics right now, but that is our objective situation, and we should try to figure out what we can realistically do. We should work on strengthening our groups, our unions, our intellectual initiatives, to hopefully be able to do something bigger in the future.

Corbyn, Podemos, and Mélenchon are inspiring figures, but we need to understand what is specific about the political regime in our country and respond in a specific way. We need to try to expand the range of the possible for left politics at the moment. Even if it isn’t so inspiring and very weak, we still have to try. The kind of system that exists in Ukraine can’t last forever. There are many contradictions, divisions, and cleavages exacerbated by the ruling groups, and all of these will lead to a situation at some point where weaker groups might become politically relevant and important again.

LB: Before we wrap up I wanted to ask you about the third major candidate, Volodymyr Zelensky. If I understand correctly, he stars in a TV show about a politician and has now become the politician he plays on TV. Is that correct – and is he popular? Does he have a chance at winning or is this a stunt?

VI: Actually, he’s currently the most popular politician in the country. According to polls he has significantly more support than both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, and could very possibly become the president.

There are basically three groups of people voting for him: firstly, fans of his TV show, a very popular comedy about Ukrainian politics. Another large group are just so disappointed and tired of these oligarchs that they will vote for any fresh face.

LB: So he’s similar to Donald Trump in some ways?

VI: In some ways, but what’s different from Trump is the third group of his supporters, namely people who are voting for him because he is perceived as less nationalist than the other candidates. Zelensky himself is Russian-speaking, he’s from the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, and has attracted lots of support from Russian-speaking citizens.

That makes Zelensky different from Trump – he’s actually trying to campaign on unifying themes, not divisive ones. He opposes Poroshenko’s attempts to push the Ukrainian language on Russian speakers, for example.

Another thing that makes him different from Trump or Beppe Grillo is that he has no populist movement behind him, or any movement at all for that matter. All he has is his TV show, around which he is now trying to build a political party from scratch. This is different from other populist figures – there was no mass mobilization preceding him. Trump, for example, is obviously somehow a result of the Tea Party movement, while Grillo represents the Five Stars Movement (in Italy).

Another difference is his connection to Igor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs now in opposition to Poroshenko who founded the country’s largest bank, Privat Bank, and still owns a controlling share of the national airline. Zelensky’s show is broadcast on one of Kolomoisky’s eight TV stations, and one of his lawyers is a key architect of Zelensky’s party, Sluha Narodu, which translates to “Servant of the People” (also the name of his show). Right now it’s not possible to say how independent Zelensky is. I wouldn’t call him a puppet, but there are definitely connections to the ruling class.

All of this means that Zelensky will be very weak if he wins, and not only because he’s inexperienced. For the first half year he won’t have much support in parliament. He has no loyal political party behind him. He will surely get some opportunists to defect from other parties, but hardly a majority. I don’t know what he could do in that situation. After the parliamentary elections he might face a more favourable constellation, but it will also depend on how he does in the first months.

It’s impossible to say how he would perform as president. He has zero political experience. I fear that he may understand politics even less than Donald Trump. He is a blank page on which anything can be written.

LB: So he reflects the vacuum in civil society more generally?

VI: Exactly. He is a glaring symptom of what’s going on in Ukrainian society. People hate the oligarchs, they hate the faces they’ve seen for decades. Revolutions come and go, elections come and go, but life just gets worse and worse. People don’t want another five years of Tymoshenko or Poroshenko and are happy to vote for any recognizable fresh face who isn’t implicated in serious corruption. People are voting less out of hope than out of anger. Better to vote for an incompetent comedian than the same old corrupt experts.

At the same time, civil society is so weak that it couldn’t put up any competing figure. Only a TV star was able to do that, nobody from the pro-Western, liberal NGOs came even close. None of those figures poll even one per cent. This says a lot about Ukrainian “civil society”: it’s totally incapable of producing competent, popular leaders.

If he is elected, it will be strong proof that the people are sick of the old style of politics, that they aren’t being manipulated by Poroshenko’s nationalism and want something better. Nevertheless, I am very sceptical that Zelensky will be able to change anything. Real change in Ukraine will be a much longer process, and will require the building of a different kind of political opposition that we haven’t seen in this country for a very long time.

No es lo mismo una trabajadora o desocupada que una milica que reprime en los barrios a las hijas e hijos de las trabajadoras. Este es el día de la mujer de abajo, muchas veces sostén económico del hogar, que se encarga de la crianza de sus hijos e hijas, de las tareas de la casa, entre otras cosas, sin valorización de todo ese trabajo. Hay una cuestión de clase que marca una línea divisoria. No es el día de todas las mujeres, es el día de la mujer que marcha junto a los oprimidos con sus sueños de un mundo distinto y mejor.

Un nuevo 8 de Marzo
POR UN FEMINISMO DE CLASE Y DE ABAJO

El 8 de Marzo se conmemora el Día Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora. Es el día de la mujer que practica la resistencia, de la mujer que lucha contra el patrón y el Estado. Es un día de nuestra clase, de las de abajo. Su origen está históricamente ahí. El 8 de marzo de 1857 las trabajadoras costureras y textiles de Nueva York se declararon en huelga. En la textil Cotton las trabajadoras fueron encerradas por el patrón para evitar que se unieran a la huelga, prendiendo este fuego a la fábrica con las compañeras dentro. ¡Un crimen de clase! Ese es el origen del 8 de Marzo.

Luego vendrán una serie de movilizaciones con el paso de los años reivindicando esa fecha y recordando a las trabajadoras asesinadas. En estas el papel de la militancia anarquista fue importante. Compañeras trabajadoras, que abrazaron el ideal libertario, organizaron sindicatos, actividades, conferencias sobre diversos temas atinentes a la mujer obrera. Todo ello en el marco de una perspectiva emancipadora de clase y de género. Pese a los roles dominantes determinados desde todos los mecanismos y dispositivos del arriba, se comprendía que la mujer tenía que incorporarse a la lucha igual que el hombre, estar en la primera línea de la pelea en la forja de un mundo más justo, igualitario y solidario.

Entre tantas compañeras, podemos destacar la intensa actividad militante y de protagonismo en distintas revoluciones a Emma Goldman y Louise Michel o Teresa Claramunt, Teresa Mañé y la generación de compañeras integrantes de Mujeres Libres en plena Revolución Española. Compañeras que sufrieron represiones, persecuciones, prisión, clandestinidad y algunas fueron fusiladas, pero siempre fieles a su compromiso con su clase y sus ideas. Mujeres anarquistas, clasistas, anticapitalistas, combativas y solidarias.

En el Río de la Plata están los ejemplos de militancia abnegada de Virginia Bolten, Juana Rouco Buela, María Collazo, solo por mencionar las más notables. Compañeras que organizaban sindicatos de trabajadoras, sostenían publicaciones de combate, daban charlas y conferencias e impulsaban la conquista y defensa de los derechos de la mujer, y que fueron perseguidas y expulsadas de la Argentina por la Ley de Residencia. Aquellas compañeras defendieron reivindicaciones puntuales como la postura a favor del aborto o la abolición de la prostitución, entre otras temáticas que hoy continúan vigentes pero que se presentan a nivel masivo como novedosas, y que estas militantes anarquistas han trabajado hace más de un siglo.

Ya a mediados de la década de 1880, publicaciones anarquistas en nuestro país hablaban acerca del papel de la mujer en la lucha contra el sistema capitalista y por la construcción de una nueva sociedad. Veamos qué dice en 1884 el periódico La Lucha Obrera: “La nueva sociedad se edificará lentamente… y si las mujeres se abstienen de tomar parte en los nuevos arreglos, los hombres no le ofrecen ciertamente el mejor sitio. Es necesario que la mujer pueda poner con el hombre las bases de la sociedad del porvenir”.

Tenemos presente que nos encontramos en una etapa distinta del capitalismo que, pese a mantener su núcleo duro intacto, son muchos los cambios operados. Muchas también las luchas y resistencias de los y las de abajo en todo este periodo, en el que el feminismo ha dado pasos de cierta importancia logrando distintas reivindicaciones y poniendo al descubierto entramados de opresión y discriminación que estaban invisibilizados y hasta naturalizados.

Teniendo todo ello muy en cuenta, en términos de contenido fundamental, los y las anarquistas de FAU ubicamos nuestra concepción del feminismo en esta larga tradición del Anarquismo, donde un conjunto importante de compañeras militantes realizaron valiosos aportes, organizaron pueblo y se jugaron la vida luchando.

La nueva “Marea” feminista

En gran parte como fruto de una larga pelea, en estos últimos años ha crecido la movilización feminista y también la problemática de la mujer en el seno de la sociedad. Se ha reivindicado con énfasis el rol de la mujer y se han puesto en evidencia una serie de opresiones que sufre en el seno de esta sociedad patriarcal y capitalista. Entre otras, se denuncia la violencia de género y los femicidios. Todo ello ha ganado un espacio social importante. Se han hecho visibles ciertas opresiones que siempre se escondían detrás de otras y que son muestra de la brutalidad con que el sistema capitalista opera día a día en la vida cotidiana de la gente, y de cómo ha producido roles con miras a su reproducción permanente. Así, ha hecho frente a las ideas conservadoras que se quieren introducir desde algunos sectores sociales y políticos.

Entendemos que toda esta movilización social, sin soslayar lo que tiene de específico, hay que articularla con otras luchas, y sobre todo, con otros posicionamientos que nos interpelan también, fundamentalmente el de clases oprimidas. Allí es donde reside para este movimiento su potencialidad del carácter rupturista. Esto también vale para gran parte de las movilizaciones por reclamos inmediatos, por ejemplo, a favor de la legalización del aborto en Argentina y en el Ele Nao en Brasil contra Bolsonaro y el machismo de corte fascistoide que naturaliza con su prédica y políticas. Asimismo con esa articulación se fortalecen otras movilizaciones y peleas de los y las de abajo en otros campos específicos.

Una política para lavar y confundir

En fechas recientes, el propio sistema capitalista tuvo la necesidad de intentar hacer un fuerte lavado ideológico respecto a la memoria histórica e identidad de los y las de abajo, especialmente ante el resurgir del movimiento de mujeres con la fuerza de estos últimos años. En ello se percibe una sostenida e intensa campaña de quitarle connotación de clase a la conmemoración del 8 de Marzo, del mismo modo en que ya desde hace un buen tiempo, por diferentes vías, se le ha quitado todo el contenido posible por al 1º de Mayo.

Hoy, en este caso específico, procuran que en general se conmemore el día de la mujer mostrando como iguales a las burguesas y a las trabajadoras, igualando a mujeres millonarias que viven en Carrasco con mujeres de los sectores populares.

Ello se manifiesta claramente y con total desparpajo cuando vemos como figuras mediáticas del 8 de Marzo personajes como Beatriz Argimón o Glenda Rondán; o con la participación en la marcha de mujeres integrantes de los “sindicatos” policiales o las empresarias. Para nosotros no es lo mismo una obrera de la aguja que Beatriz Argimón, una docente que María Julia Muñoz, que, entre otras cosas, aplicó la esencialidad contra las docentes en huelga en el año 2015. No es lo mismo una trabajadora o desocupada que una milica que reprime en los barrios a las hijas e hijos de las trabajadoras. Este es el día de la mujer de abajo, muchas veces sostén económico del hogar, que se encarga de la crianza de sus hijos e hijas, de las tareas de la casa, entre otras cosas, sin valorización de todo ese trabajo. Hay una cuestión de clase que marca una línea divisoria. No es el día de todas las mujeres, es el día de la mujer que marcha junto a los oprimidos con sus sueños de un mundo distinto y mejor. No es el día de mujeres como Angela Merkel, causante del desempleo y hambre del pueblo griego, o Hillary Clinton, responsable de la muerte de miles de niños y mujeres en Libia, o de Marine Le Pen, connotada fascista. Importa y mucho, dónde está ubicado en términos de clase cada grupo o movimiento en la estructura social. Importa mucho ver todo lo ideológico-cultural que pertenece al capitalismo patriarcal, que a través de sus relaciones y mecanismos de opresión trata de reproducir para seguir sembrando miseria, explotación, desigualdad extrema y dominación.

Independencia de clase en toda forma organizativa de los oprimidos

“Una concepción y una práctica de poder popular tiene su producción específica, tiene su propio universo. Tiene su propia producción. Para que juegue como fuerza transformadora, condicionante de coyunturas, produciendo avances desestructurantes hay una condición necesaria: debe mantener en todo momento su independencia. “Independencia de clase” se decía en otros momentos del desarrollo histórico, hoy diríamos, con ajuste al nuevo contexto: independencia de las clases oprimidas, vale decir, de todos los movimientos populares.

Ya es bien sabido, las mallas del poder dominante trituran, manipulan, moldean. Insertan en su seno, partidos, ideologías, movimientos, historias, los amasan y después los devuelven como buenos seguidores de lo viejo y reproductores de lo actual. El mecanismo se repite una y otra vez. Y se reiteran un montón inconmensurables de fuerzas girando en esa rueda loca. A estos dispositivos es a los que hay que dispararle con propuestas y acción de un contenido diferente. Con una coherencia que permita pisar firme. Pues de más está remarcar que la circulación al infinito de las mismas dinámicas y lógicas no puedan crear algo nuevo, sólo recrear lo existente, con mayor o menor fantasía.

Para hacer posible otras relaciones sociales, los hechos parecen indicar la necesidad de uso de otros materiales para esa nueva construcción. Otro enfoque, otra perspectiva, otra lógica, otras prácticas, otros mecanismos. Otro punto de partida. Nada original, es la nueva civilización que bosquejaron los viejos socialistas. Ese proceso debe descansar y desplegarse en una férrea independencia de las clases oprimidas. De un pueblo construyendo su destino al ritmo que las condiciones históricas habiliten. Los escollos, las relaciones, las propias alianzas tácitas y explícitas deben hacerse desde esa perspectiva de independencia. Como no puede ni debe aislarse, como debe estar en el medio del pueblo y los complejos y variables acontecimientos sociales ese factor adquiere una importancia de carácter estratégico de primer orden”. (Documento Wellington Gallarza y Malvina Tavares, Fau-Fag)

8 de marzo y feminismo hoy

Como en todo movimiento de esta dimensión hay diversidad de opiniones y corrientes de pensamiento. Lo mismo pasa con el movimiento obrero y sus organizaciones sindicales. No son pocos los que hablan de “feminismos” para designar esta variedad. Allí encontramos a los sectores más vinculados a la socialdemocracia europea y ONG’s, también a sectores decididamente liberales, hasta en algún caso liderado por alguna ultra millonaria, o a los organismos internacionales como la ONU opinando acerca de cuáles son los principales problemas de las mujeres. También están aquellas corrientes que colocan a la mujer como víctima y la victimizan aún más, tratándola como parte de la población a “la que hay que atender” con alguna política social, pero nunca como sujeto con voluntad propia, y asignándole un rol infamemente prefabricado. Por otra parte están aquellos grupos que ponen el acento principal en la violencia de género y toman esa triste e indignante realidad puntual y existente aislándola del contexto de descomposición social del sistema que lo produce. Por otra parte, un feminismo de clase y emancipador, que entiende que el cambio real y de fondo se va a construir en conjunto, entre los y las de abajo, entre mujeres y hombres del pueblo, sin exclusión de ningún tipo.

Combatiendo el sistema que es padre del engendro histórico infame de todo un disciplinamiento y sus respectivos dispositivos para tratar de mantener esa cruel doble opresión que en determinado grado necesita para su mantenimiento como sistema.

Todos los oprimidos y las oprimidas para ese largo y difícil trayecto de pelea orientado al cambio profundo, para su labor de resistencia y construcción cotidiana, deben munirse de la estrategia correspondiente pues: “En la medida que aumenten las posibilidades de una práctica de la acción directa y de la democracia directa, pueden asumir responsablemente la defensa de sus intereses y adquirir, a su vez, la capacidad necesaria para fortalecer su posibilidad de decisión; madurando en la medida en que se hacen cargo de sus aciertos y sus errores asumiéndolos como propios y evitando subordinarse a planteos externos y ajenos que los colocan en situación subalterna. Los métodos de acción directa deben englobar todos los ámbitos de quehacer social, político, ideológico, cultural, económico, etc. que constituyen la capilaridad y el conjunto de todo el cuerpo social”. (Documento Wellington Gallarza y Malvina Tavares, Fau-Fag).

Es este un día de clase, de compañeras y compañeros que tienen claro que mientras haya capitalismo habrá sociedad patriarcal, injusticias en todos los terrenos, desigualdad creciente y un puñado de dueños del poder y de la riqueza. Esto no significa posponer en nada la lucha cotidiana de la mujer por múltiples reivindicaciones de corto y mediano plazo.

Reivindicamos, entonces, a las mujeres resistentes integrantes de las clases populares: trabajadoras, desocupadas, amas de casa, estudiantes, presas, a todo el conjunto de mujeres que codo a codo con los hombres, forman parte del pueblo, de las clases oprimidas que no se resignan a vivir miserablemente y que luchan y sueñan por nuevas y justas relaciones sociales. Y porque entendemos que la perspectiva es de Emancipación Social, es que creemos que debe potenciarse una visión clasista del feminismo, enraizada en las luchas populares, en clave de ruptura, camino hacia el Socialismo y la Libertad.

Esa es para nosotros la cuestión central: la emancipación es del pueblo en su conjunto, de todos los oprimidos y las oprimidas. Al decir de Bakunin no somos verdaderamente libre más que cuando todos los seres humanos que nos rodean, hombres y mujeres, son verdaderamente libres. Siempre teniendo presente lo específico de esta fuerza social de mujeres, igualmente podemos decir que en lo de fondo es un tema de clase, más que de género, en este sentido bien puede parafrasearse aquello de Chomsky: la clase trasciende al género. La emancipación debe ser protagonizada por las clases oprimidas en su conjunto. Todos los logros que vayan realizando las fuerzas sociales con resistencia y lucha deben tener presente ese horizonte fundamental. No es tarea sencilla pero no hay duda: “La complejidad que reviste un proceso de transformación exige un alto nivel de comprensión de los mecanismos sociales. Obliga a caminar con un proyecto finalista de tal ductilidad que pueda ser operativo en las más diversas circunstancias coyunturales. Plantearse y resolver problemas, planificar periodos de acción, estar atento a los cambios, estimar las fuerzas propias, las del enemigo y de amigos puntuales. Desarrollar una capacidad de análisis que permita visualizar acontecimientos para poder operar con mayor eficacia en ellos. Trabajar por un desarrollo técnico y político que permita la incidencia pertinente… asegurar la continuidad de la estrategia… Ubicar lo más precisamente posible al Estado como estructura política especial del enemigo de clase; toda su capacidad represiva, todas sus instituciones de “perversa fantasía”: elecciones, parlamentos, etc. Pero teniendo presente al mismo tiempo que el poder dominante no se encuentra solamente ahí, que corre por distintas arterias del cuerpo social”. (Documento Wellington Galarza y Malvina Tavares, Fau-Fag)

Resumiendo. El sistema capitalista quiere llevar el agua a su molino

Señalamos antes que en los últimos años las movilizaciones del 8 de Marzo han tomado una masividad inédita. Ello ocurre a lo largo y ancho del mundo. Esa lucha histórica bien lo merece, su contenido aún más. Pero también, una vez más debemos estar alerta ante las estrategias que intenta el enemigo de clase. Diversas instituciones del sistema capitalista, han promovido sútil y tramposamente un “feminismo integrado” al propio sistema. Pretenden, como ha ocurrido en los medios obreros clásicos, realizar su política de “conciliación de clase”. Hay fuerte incidencia de las corrientes liberales y de la socialdemocracia para tratar de domesticar a un movimiento con un potencial cuestionador y movilizador importante. En Uruguay es claro y este fenómeno ya tiene algunas décadas, el despliegue de varias ONG’s que con una política totalmente socialdemócrata, desarrollan una concepción de la mujer como “objeto” al que hay que atender o estudiar como decíamos más arriba. No está en su concepción organizar para luchar, menos aún el anticapitalismo. En todo caso, suman su voz a un planteo muy útil al sistema que es el de la “cuota” en cargos de gobierno, haciendo causa común con la clase política. Intentando llevar el feminismo a ese corral de ramas de la institucionalidad burguesa.

Claro está, para el sistema capitalista es útil un feminismo que no cuestione las bases estructurales de la sociedad, que solamente coloque la problemática en compartimentos puntuales. Al sistema no le interesa nada un feminismo que critique la incidencia de las estructuras sociales en las relaciones humanas. De cómo las clases sociales, toda la estructura de poder dominante, opera e influye en la problemática de género. Tratan de presentar tramposamente como motivos principales aquellos, que pese a tener su importancia puntual, son secundarios. Pero no siempre logran sus maquiavélicos propósitos, hay sectores que tienen presente cuales son unos y otros objetivos de la lucha.

Es así que debemos destacar en América Latina, las movilizaciones y coordinaciones de movimientos feministas cuyos planteos son de clase en Brasil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, México etc. y donde esa lucha se articula con otras. Un saber que producto de sufrimientos y resistencias lo fue indicando: la lucha de las mujeres no puede ser una lucha aislada, se debilita y debilita la estructura de pelea de los oprimidos y las oprimidas de la que forma parte.

“ ´El sujeto también es una producción histórica´” nos avisan los estudiosos y por lo tanto hay que poner en funcionamiento prácticas de liberación que lo vayan produciendo y organizando. O fortalecer aquellas que ya están funcionando… Siendo así, otro sujeto histórico no vendrá de la nada, no aparecerá como por arte de magia, deberá ser el fruto de prácticas que internalicen otras cuestiones que chocan con lo dominante. La participación efectiva, la autogestión, la acción directa, la forma federal de funcionamiento realmente democrático, la solidaridad y apoyo mutuo, necesitan de mecanismos, organizaciones, prácticas regulares para su desarrollo. Y sólo si se produce en el pueblo podrá hacer realidad el cambio… necesita constantemente organización en el seno de su activa creación. La continuidad que necesita, para un despliegue que permita el cambio, requiere de una sostenida estrategia. Una estrategia coherente, para que no se desteja lo que en un momento dado se teje. Una estrategia que tenga en su interior un mundo distinto que va desplegando desde el seno de otro que le es antagónico”. (Documento Wellington Gallarza y Malvina Tavares, Fau-Fag)

Nuestra plena identificación con el 8 de marzo
Por un feminismo de clase y de abajo

Porque somos anticapitalistas. Porque creemos que el patriarcado está en la composición misma de la estructura capitalista. Porque queremos la igualdad social entre los seres humanos. Porque estamos convencidos que todo esto solo puede lograrse en una organización social totalmente distinta a la actual. Porque queremos que todas las fuerzas sociales converjan en la formación de un Pueblo Fuerte. Porque bregamos por un Frente de categorías sociales y clases oprimidas. Por todo ello impulsamos un feminismo clasista, de abajo, resistente. Lo entendemos en el seno de las luchas del pueblo, con inserción social y protagonismo de las compañeras, hombro con hombro con los compañeros. Deben ir juntas las luchas populares, nos debe cohesionar una ideología de unidad de los y las de abajo. Porque el camino final de emancipación es de socialismo y libertad para todas y todos.

En esa senda han militado numerosas compañeras libertarias a lo largo de la historia que siempre recordamos. Por esa senda pretendemos que se continúe construyendo el feminismo libertario de FAU.

Construyendo un pueblo Fuerte todos los días.
Por avanzar sin tregua hacia el Poder Popular
Por el socialismo y la libertad
¡Arriba las y los que luchan!

FEDERACIÓN ANARQUISTA URUGUAYA

External Link:: http://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/3616-2/