Africa

Starting with Austria reopening small shops on 14 April, almost all European countries have now begun easing their pandemic lockdowns, or announced plans to do so (Italy from 4 May, France from 11 May). Iran has reopened the bazaar in Tehran. Schools have restarted in Beijing and Shanghai. The World Health Organisation, however, has declared that “the worst is yet to come”. Its worry is not so much about a second wave in Europe, as first waves elsewhere. Africa so far shows 1,428 deaths, far fewer than Europe or the USA, and concentrated in Algeria and Egypt (over half that total between them)...

On 23 May, the United Nations General Assembly voted 116 to 6 for the UK to end its occupation of the Chagos Islands. Three years before ceding independence to Mauritius in 1968, the UK separated off the islands from the rest of Mauritius to keep control of them, deported the entire population, and leased the largest island, Diego Garcia, to the USA for a huge military base. The Chagossians have been fighting ever since then for the right to go back. A major force in that fight has been the Mauritius socialist group Lalit. Lalit comments: “So, the struggle that Lalit has been spearheading for...

The left was right to campaign against leaving the EU in 2016. Based on the tenor of the campaign, it was clear the Leave campaign would embolden the xenophobes and nationalists that exist across the class spectrum in the UK. This prediction was proven chillingly correct with both the spike in hate crime that followed the referendum and the movement that has emerged around Tommy Robinson over the last few weeks. The left should deplore and, if necessary, physically resist such acts of violent racism. But fighting fascism does not mean accepting globalisation. The fact is, working class people...

Samir Amin, who died this year at the age of 87, was one of the foremost writers of the “dependency theory” which, in the 1960s and 70s came, many left-wing activists came to think was “the Marxist theory of imperialism”. Many even thought it was “Lenin’s theory”, although the whole structure of the theory was different. Amin, of Egyptian-French background, lived most of his life in France, and was in the French Communist Party then associated with Maoists. The basic idea of “dependency theory” was that ex-colonial countries were underdeveloped because of a drain of surplus to the richer...

Firstly, I like Black Panther as a character. My first introduction him was in the highly acclaimed (and short lived) ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ TV series from 2010. The portrayal of this character was that of a stoic, no nonsense, quiet member of the team, who relied on his instincts and intellect to overcome more powerful enemies. I then decided to read up on him and encountered him in the Fantastic Four comics taking on the ‘Silver Surfer’, again using his superior intellect to take on the all-powerful herald of Galactus, and defeat him. In my eyes, Black Panther was effectively...

Look around the world. Look at EU migrants who have made the UK their home now wondering how long they can stay and on what terms, all under the threat of Brexit. If they want to stay, they will have to apply for “settled status”. 1.2 million UK citizens living in other EU member states face similar anxieties. There are 3.7 million non-UK EU citizens in the UK; about 6% of the population and 7% of the working population. Look just across the Channel — at Calais, which has long been a focus for migrants trying to reach the UK. Now that the French authorities have cleared out the migrant camps...

Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist and the founder and former International Coordinator of the “Women Living Under Muslim Laws” international solidarity organization. Helie Lucas also is the founder of “Secularism is a Women’s Issue.” Helie Lucas has long been a critic of Western human rights organizations’ sole focus on the crimes of the state as opposed to the crimes of non-state actors. She is a fierce champion of secularism in governance and a harsh critic of all forms of religious fundamentalism. She was previously interviewed by Workers’ Liberty here. This interview was...

Over 300 people were killed and many more injured in a massive truck bomb attack in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu on Saturday 14 October. The truck bomb was detonated outside the Foreign Ministry building on a busy road, and ignited a nearby oil tanker. The Federal Government of Somalia has said that the attack was almost certainly carried out by Al-Shabaab, a Salafist group which has been waging a war to overthrow the Federal Government since 2006, when US and Ethiopian troops drove the Union of Islamic Courts from Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab was the youth wing of the UIC, and became...

In 78 countries around the world, homosexuality or homosexual activity of some kind is a crime. 38 of these are in Africa. And Cameroon has the highest number of arrests for homosexuality in the world. On 13 October 2016, there were mass arrests in a gay club in the capital, Yaounde. All of the arrestees have since been released. Some readers may have come across the incredibly moving film Call Me Kuchu, which documents the LGBT rights movement in Uganda. While the film was being made, the prominent LGBT activist and human rights campaigner David Kato was murdered by homophobes. There are...

We republish commentaries from three Algerian feminists on the recent "Hijab Day" in Paris. Introduction By Marieme Helie-Lucas On Wednesday, April 20 2016 , some students at the prestigious Paris Institute of Political Sciences which prides itself with educating France’s elite, organized a "Hijab Day", a replica of the worldwide event that was initiated in 2013. It is supposed to help non-veiled non-Muslim students realize how discrimination affects veiled women. This will no doubt come as a surprise to many English-speaking readers who still believe that veiling is legally banned in France...