The Extinction Rebellion actions over Easter were a remarkable success. Climate activist John Sinha places the tactics of the movement in historical context and XR member Simon Assaf reports from inside the protests.
With its colourful and creative protests and the political background of its founders, Extinction Rebellion (XR) would appear to have a lot in common with previous movements such as Occupy, the Climate Camp and other direct action protest movements.
Certainly the organisers have learned a lot from what went before, but to leave it at that would be to overlook major differences in organisation, objectives, strategy and tactics.
In the final part of her series on women workers in struggle, Jane Hardy talks to women who organised and took part in a successful strike over equal pay.
An explosion of anger from women council workers in Glasgow culminated in a two day strike in October 2018 that closed down the city. The women had run out of patience when the Scottish National Party (SNP) minority council failed to deliver on its promise of rectifying equal pay cases that had lasted over a decade.
Egyptian revolutionary socialist Hossam el-Hamalawy analyses the critical moment now faced by the Sudanese revolution.
The great Sudanese revolution has arrived at the crossroads reached by every revolution in the modern era. Are the masses simply removing the head of the regime, or tearing it up by its roots?
In getting rid of their dictator of 20 years, Algerians showed the power they have. Chinedu Chukwudinma looks at the history of workers’ struggles and assesses the possibilities for the future.
Revolution has again struck North Africa as the mass protests in Algeria forced dictator Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign on 2 April. Despite this victory, Algerians have continued to demonstrate and are now demanding the removal of the entire regime.
The Bauhaus school of design was founded in Weimar Germany a century ago. Born of the spirit of transformation that followed the horror of the First World War, it has arguably not been surpassed in its breadth and radicalism. Siobhan Brown explains the movement’s context.
This month marks the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus. It was the most celebrated art, design and architecture movement of the 20th century. It is still hugely influential: from big things, like the buildings we inhabit, to the small things, such as the chairs we sit on. Even the success of Ikea can be put down to its influence.
In the second part of her series on women workers, Jane Hardy celebrates the Birmingham home care workers’ inspiring fight.
Women have been at the frontline of austerity since the 2008 financial crisis. A TUC report showed that cuts in the public sector have meant falling wages, underemployment and casualisation. But care workers in Birmingham, mainly women, have taken on their bosses who have bullied them, tried to impose atrocious working practices, slash their wages and dismantle their service.
The media focus on high profile cases of child sexual exploitation has often done little to illuminate the reality of child abuse in Britain today, instead focusing on a perceived “Muslim cultural problem”. Bea Kay untangles the facts from the scaremongering so we can better understand the situation.
The exposure of high profile child abuse cases over the last few years has been horrifying. Hundreds of children and young people have been harmed, often inside institutions that are supposed to protect them. And the impact on the victims has been devastating, leaving lasting trauma and exposing the under-resourcing of support services in local authorities, the NHS and the voluntary sector.
John Sinha investigates how the motor industry continues to poison us.
On describing the environmental conditions facing the working class in the newly industrialised cities of the Lancashire mill towns in the 1840s, Friedrich Engels noted, “And if life in large cities is, in itself, injurious to health, how great must be the harmful influence of an abnormal atmosphere in the working-people’s quarters, where, as we have seen, everything combines to poison the air.” Air pollution has been a fact of working class urban life since the industrial revolution. What was true for the Lancashire mill towns is true of New Delhi in India or Xingtai in China today.
Camilla Royle looks at the new climate activism
Last month cyclone Idai struck land near the coastal city of Beira in Mozambique. One of the worst cyclones ever to hit the southern hemisphere, the storm has been devasting. At the time of writing the death toll stands at around 700 across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, but the full extent of the killing will only be known when the flood waters recede. Survivors were still waiting to be rescued from trees and rooftops a week later and many were left without enough food and drinking water.
