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Global Left Midweek - December 9, 2020

Furious farmers storm India and Peru, and more news and analysis from four continents

Activists of various parties shout slogans and block the Jammu-Pathankot higway during a nationwide shutdown called by thousands of Indian farmers protesting new agriculture laws in Jammu India, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. Credit,AP Photo/Channi Anand
  1. Yellow Vest Lessons: Can Social Movements Democratise Democracy?
  2. India: Farmers Revolt
  3. Elections: Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico
  4. Podcasts: Reflections on the Global Pandemic 
  5. Rise and Fall of the ANC Youth League
  6. The Slovak Left
  7. Divided Front in Andalusia
  8. Farm Workers, Miners Unite in Peru
  9. UK Labour Purge Continues
  10. Walter Rodneys Masterpiece

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Yellow Vest Lessons: Can Social Movements Democratise Democracy?

Maxime Combes / Beyond Development (Brussels)

The Yellow Vests movement has generated impacts in terms of politicisation and socialisation that will have medium- and long-term effects. It would be a pity if the social and ecological left missed them.

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India: Farmers Revolt

Massive Solidarity at 20,000 Sites  NewsClick (New Delhi)

Breadth of the Backup  Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi) 

Timeline  NewsClick

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What’s Ahead  Ronak Chhabra / NewsClick

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Latest Elections in Latin America

Venezuela  Paul Dobson / Venezuelanalysis (Caracas)

Brazil  Daniel Giovanaz and Igor Carvalho / Brasil de Fato (São Paulo)

Puerto Rico  Luis Fernando Coss / NACLA Report (New York)

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Podcasts: Reflections on the Global Pandemic

Luciana Castellina, Alex Demirović, Nancy Fraser, Leo Panitch, Gayatri Spivak, and Hilary Wainwright / transform! europe (Vienna)

As humanity faces the Covid-19 pandemic, the left internationally must address this crisis with both short and long term action, analysis, and planning. To discuss these crucial issues, transform! europe presents this series of interviews with left-wing intellectuals.

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Rise and Fall of the ANC Youth League

Rebone Tau and Loren Balhorn / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

In recent years the organization has been the subject of numerous controversies and often found itself in open conflict with the ANC leadership. 

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The Slovak Left

Artur Bekmatov / transform! europe

Developments in the coming months will affect the shape of the left in Slovakia for at least the next decade.

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Divided Front in Andalusia

Dick Nichols / Green Left (Sydney)

With IU and Podemos Andalusia now embracing the prospect of an Andalusian PSOE-UP government as an alternative to the right, agreement over the content of the “Andalusian political space” had become impossible. A split within Forward Andalusia was only a matter of time.

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Farm Workers, Miners Unite in Peru

Al Jazeera (Doha)

Mineworkers joined a growing group of farmworkers in blocking major highways throughout the country, ratcheting up pressure on newly appointed interim President Francisco Sagasti. Update: Lawmakers have repealed a highly contested agricultural law, a demand of the protesting workers.

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UK Labour Purge Continues

Direnc Balik / Middle East Eye (London)

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has declared that he would be willing to be a witness at a party disciplinary hearing for a ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ member who was suspended by Labour this week.

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Walter Rodney’s Masterpiece

Leo Zeilig / Review of African Political Economy (London)

In 1972 Walter Rodney published his masterpiece How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. His crowning achievement was a synthesis of years of historical reading and research.