 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Hello, this is episode number 155 of Give the People What They Want. Today is the 29th of December. This is the last show of the year. Unfortunately, we don't have Vijay with us who is on a reporting trip. His internet connectivity was not strong enough for him to join, although he sends his best wishes to everyone on the show. It's been really quiet a year. It's very difficult to sort of... I mean, we're having an interview with Roger Waters soon coming up tomorrow where he says that 2023 was perhaps one of the worst years in the history of humanity. And there are many reasons for saying that one, of course, the sheer impunity with which we have been destroying this planet. There is no question of that. This year has been apparently one of the hottest, if not the hottest on record. We saw a COP summit which did not really reach, make any major conclusions. People, scientists warning of impending doom, political leaders, those in power, of course, refusing to heed any of these concerns. That's, of course, one aspect of it. But in so many other ways, this was a very difficult year, although there were also the usual stories of crime, stories of struggles. We'll cover all that in this episode. But I think any episode, any year-end episode has to deal, has to talk. We have to talk about Gaza first. We have to talk about the situation in Palestine over the past three months. That has really been what is sort of, I think, consumed. Every journalist consumed, every person of conscience at this point of time. There is no talking, there is no way we cannot address Gaza. So Zoe, what's going on right now? I mean, there's so much happening every week. Yeah. I mean, I think many people get the sensation that every single day we wake up to new atrocities committed by Israel. And it really feels wild. We're also just one week away from the three-month mark on this genocidal war with the people of Gaza, just at around 22,000 people who have been killed by Israeli bombs, by the ground invasion. And added to that is at least 7,000 people who are unaccounted for. And many, many people fear that this number will actually add up to the death toll. So some estimates are even saying that 30,000 people have been killed. It's really, we're still in the moment of the fog of war, which these details and the minute details of what's happened to these people is still unverified. But as you said, Prashant, that is something that's been consuming everyone across the world. And this is evident not only in the protests that we're seeing and the outrage by people on the streets, but of course media from all different perspectives, having their own takes on this. We've seen the best of times and the worst of times in terms of media reporting pretty consistently mainstream media has had the perspective of sort of taking every single thing that Israel says at face value. And we know that throughout these three months there has been an atrocious amount of fake news and fake stories concocted by the Israeli propaganda machine. This Hasbara machine that has created stories like for example that babies were beheaded, that mass rapes were carried out, that all sorts of atrocities were carried out which have since been retracted by the same authorities. That I think one of the most possibly it's hard to say what's the worst of these but that there were bullets inside of babies incubators and that's why they had to invade the hospitals. I mean first we back in October it's funny because you look back at the coverage and looking back at the lies that one had to combat that were put out by the Israeli media and by Israeli government authorities they said that they did not bomb any hospitals. That this was a Hamas rocket attack and that's how the entire hospital was destroyed and then we're at month three and every single day they're putting out more and more statements and decorations about actually why they have to attack hospitals, why they have to attack schools, why they have to bomb residential towers where civilians and children are living. It is truly horrifying and a true stain in our conscience as the world and I think that again this mainstream media has really stuck to these talking points. They've been forced of course to cover the civilian death toll. They've been forced to really speak about the atrocities just because the level that they're occurring at and the level at which these atrocities are actually being communicated to the world that people are seeing every single day horrifying videos of children of babies being killed in these airstrikes of grandmothers and fathers and mothers mourning their children being killed and because of these images mainstream media has not been able to just say oh they did this, Hamas did this, Hamas did that and they're having to actually report on what Israel's doing but that being said we still see them attempting to kind of parrot these lines and yesterday a ridiculous New York Times report came out after the allegations had been debunked, dismounted but they continue trying to push this. That's one element I think of this war on Gaza, the media war but again it really seems like we're at such a different point in society I think the world is really watching and seeing what's happening through alternative media, through social media and so these mainstream media outlets are kind of really steps behind the reality and then on other in terms of what's happening on the ground I think more and more since the ground invasion started we're seeing very concerning reports about the thousands of Gazans that have been detained by Israel inside Gaza they have been seeing the images of these dozens of people that are rounded up, stripped and ordered to kind of march in single files brought to stadiums it reminds me a lot of images that you would see from the dictatorships in Latin America who knows what level of atrocities is being committed against these detainees already people have been released, have shared stories about being tortured about other detainees being killed point blank there are a lot of historic stories of extrajudicial executions of detainees of people in UN schools, even the UN has been talking about this so I think we're ending the year with heavy hearts with unseen levels of atrocities being carried out with complete complicity really of western governments I think we have seen a shift and governments of the global south have been trying to take more action against Israel as long as the US is bankrolling this genocide it's unlikely that Israel will feel the real pressure to actually reverse course and I think that the struggle against imperialism has really intensified in many countries in the west people are standing up against their governments but the struggle against imperialism this year saw another important blow Prashant can you talk to us about the developments in the Sahel? It's interesting you also mentioned the media because I think the Sahel region has been one at one level of course under reported there's not enough writing or reporting on what's happening in the region but I think also equally important to remember that the region has also been misrepresented massively in terms of how the political and social developments in that region are being characterized now of course the key point here which is of course not just one incident this is a coup in Niger that took place in July and around that coup in Niger a lot of developments took place so you can actually see you can sort of think of it in terms of that coup or that military takeover sort of being the culmination of a series of events that have been taking place over the past many years we talked about coups in Mali, we talked about coups in Burkina Faso and we talked about developments in Guinea as well and all of these I think sort of converged all of these developments converged with what happened in Niger in July when the former president Bazoum was overthrown, Bazoum very unpopular in his country seen as a puppet of France, Niger of course was hosting French troops and a new force takes over, a junta takes over which like in the case of the other countries we talked about seems to have popular support especially in its stated intention to sort of push back against French influence in the region now we need to remember that the influence of France in the region is in various ways there is of course a military aspect Operation Barkhane where France deployed soldiers in various countries in the Sahel region in the name of fighting extremism now very important in this context always to say that the extremism of course stemmed at least one of the factors which caused extremism was the invasion the NATO invasion of Libya and it is from there that you know it explodes from there the kind of both in terms of personal and weapons people travelling kind of explodes after that but France of course arrives you know it pretends to sort of be the saviour of these countries but what happens is that not only is it effective but French troops become extremely unpopular and the collusion of the governments in these countries whether it be Mali or Burkina Faso or Niger was a huge factor in these governments becoming extremely popular unpopular among the people so we have this strange situation where there are military takeovers but these military takeovers are not the kind of takeovers you were talking about earlier where for instance in Latin America you know you had CIA backed military takeovers you know which strengthened the hand of imperialism in the region we are talking about military takeovers which in various ways have actually pushed back against imperialism now the jury is still out on how successful they will be how consistent they will be every country has its own process of course but I think the important thing to remember is that the Sahel region is becoming one of the most important in the world primarily because of this kind of a pushback there is of course a pushback against the French military presence and France was forced to withdraw its soldiers but equally I think there is also a pushback against you know the French economic presence in the region as represented by the CFA Frank there is an attempt to sort of, or by countries in the region to sort of come together they formed the alliance of Sahel states recently which is actually quite a significant development and this alliance itself builds on earlier attempts in the previous century immediately after national liberation movements so very very interesting developments taking place in the Sahel primarily also due to the fact that there is a, like I said, there are pushbacks against on the one hand there are pushbacks but there is also a greater sense of integration now what will this integration bring is really its challenge they face a lot of challenges let's be clear these countries because among the challenges is ECOVAS, the regional body which is you know almost functioned as an arm of France and even the United States to an extent we still have governments in those regions which are very loyal to you know which are considered by their populations to be very loyal to French interests so it's not going to be easy sailing for these countries which have sort of tried to carve out an alternative path and I think that's a very important question because they have been so many attempts over the past decades to sort of carve out this kind of an alternative path but rarely have they succeeded because of a combination of both internal and external forces so very important developments here a big challenge for all these countries is going to be how they deal with the question of extremism because it is the failure of the French and French allies in these countries to combat extremism that led to their unpopularity in the first place so it's a very important question for them question number two is how do they sort of broaden their support base to sort of you know make it more make their governments more inclusive to actually more more powerfully capture the will of the people we saw that Mali went quite a few steps ahead with its referendum that it took place with the new constitution that has some very interesting provisions including some explicitly anti-imperialist provisions so that's actually a very interesting thing so whether the other countries follow suit very important question a big uncertain element is the United States which for instance continues to have the agarese drone base in the J.R. the largest in that region also has soldiers as well so even though France has been suffering setback after setback what is the United States going to do in this region also remains a very big question so I think so many important questions that are there but very positive science as well I believe in fact it was very widely read on the people's dispatch site Ibrahim Trawari the president of Burkina Faso his speech that he delivered in Russia where he posed a question to both the people of Africa and the leaders of Africa about what is the path that we have to take and he was kind of channeling the spirit of Thomas Sankar I mean he asked some of these questions which is a very interesting development a very key moment so I think 2024 going to be very very important for the Sahel region and what happens there could actually have a domino effect in many other paths of the continent as well especially in the northern part we have countries like Senegal there are so many other countries we have for instance our recent article by our colleague Tanupriya about the situation in Guinea the south where you know again the forces of progress the forces of you know the forces looking for a socialist path are being hindered by a powerful president so in many of these countries I think very important developments are likely to take place in the coming year well on a less positive note I already warned in the past episodes that Argentina is going to be a recurring theme on this show just because what's happening is quite remarkable under we've let's see 19 days of Javier Mille's presidency and to remind people Javier Mille is the right-wing libertarian who won the elections in November and Javier Mille since being sworn in on December 10th has really gone on a rampage we spoke last week about the economic measures which he implemented which really hit directly to the working class in terms of affecting the currency devaluation affecting subsidies for transparency looks like Zoe is also facing some technical issues she'll be back in a few minutes talking about Javier Mille and the situation in Argentina which has really become a frontline state in the battle between I think the people the masses of the people on the streets and what is a very wild version of neoliberal capitalism masquerading as anarcho-libertarianism or something of that sort very difficult situation in Argentina people really kind of struggling to sort of fight and push back against this very brutal offensive not only on livelihoods but also democratic rights and the freedom to protest Zoe will come back on some of those topics but meanwhile I'll pick up and go talk about Sudan and DRC to these Zoe is back rough days Zoe sorry about that it seems like the internet forces are against us however I will continue where I left off back to Argentina yes Javier Mille's far reaching so yeah as I was saying there have been a number of economic reforms that were implemented within days of him taking office there was also his security minister Patricia implemented what is called the public security protocol which they also have termed the anti-picket protocol because essentially it hits the Argentinian people their principal form of struggle which is blocking roads and it's saying that anyone who blocks a road anytime there's a road blockade essentially the police have full authority to intervene and anyone who participates actually runs the risk of losing any social programs that they benefit from so this is hugely serious and then as if that weren't enough this week again he pushed forward an omnibus law which had many many different provisions one which essentially expands the faculties of the security forces in the country the police it says that they're allowed to use a firearm and shoot at someone if they feel their life is in danger and we know that this is an extremely subjective sort of provision because really what who defines when your life is technically in danger it essentially opens the door for the police to kill with impunity already police violence against the working class people and poor in Argentina was a problem and this is essentially saying police go ahead you can do what you want there was this law also affected many environmental regulations Argentine society had organized for many many years to protect the glaciers in the country had organized because there was serious threats of open pit mining taking place on these very very precious glaciers in the country this is essentially stripped away and so we're seeing more and more these protections that people have fought for in long long struggles are just being taken away another key thing is that Argentina was sort of a safe haven for students across Latin America because universities free there there's no entrance exam and so people from all over the continent would go to Argentina to study there's thousands and thousands of students from many different Latin American countries that go there Javier Mille just announced that there's no more free education for students of the region you have to have residency which again is possible to obtain but it's a quite long process this really cuts this really important provision this will hit hard for a lot of people who had been studying there who had planned to study there again this is he's saying that he's going after political cast but in reality he's going after working class people he's going after the rights of the working class to free education to free healthcare and so many other things that they fought for so again just two days ago there was a huge huge protest called for by all the central trade unions those protests are going to continue I think we're going to see intense intense struggle in Argentina going forward right Zoe intense struggle also another country which did see intense struggle over the past few years was Sudan Sudan is a bit of a it's a country we've actually very extensively covered over the past many years and almost every every month we talk about it actually to be honest because such has been the seriousness of what has been happening over there and this year is a very unfortunate year for the people of Sudan because what the people's movements had warned for the longest time that the generals could not be trusted we're talking about a completely different set of generals over here you have the Sahel region where generals seem to be trying out some interesting not just generals captains and colonels seem to be trying out some interesting you know policy directions and then you have Sudan where the generals who the the international community the so called international community loved the head of the army general Burhan and general Dagalo the head of the rapid support forces basically fell on each other started a war in April which continues to this day refugee crisis of epic proportions taking place right now millions of people are displaced I think it's the biggest refugee crisis in the world one reason we don't talk about one reason we talk about it so much in this show is because it's a war which is actually pretty much been forgotten and if there is a reason why this war is forgotten because the war is you know this is a war which kind of was in many ways the direct responsibility of this international community they kept including the generals in the transition process they kept propping up these generals they kept backing these generals despite the fact that the hundreds of thousands of people on the streets said that they couldn't be trusted and finally the ambitions of these generals ended up clashing and we have war breaking out so very difficult times for people in Sudan and the conflict there's some talk of negotiations but still no clarity on you know when any of this would take place reports of ethnic cleansing in Darfur very alarming as well going south or going to the west actually you have elections that took place the DRC as well very closely covering it in the coming days is the final results come out the DRC one of the most important countries in the continent and you know because not only if it's not not only because of its mineral but also because the struggles of the people for sovereignty over these resources the struggles of the people against you know their leaders who are basically acted as in some senses props of various imperialist powers the struggle of their people against Rwanda and Uganda which have at various points armed people the M23 rebellion still continuing back by Rwanda you know so very very important developments taking place in many of these countries in the whole continent as a whole we are seeing I think a very important moment where progressive forces people's movements are rising in various ways to sort of push back against what imperialism is trying to do against the loot of resources against the compromising of their sovereignty against the dilution of the democratic and political systems and I think it's interesting to note that the dilemmas of humanity conference took place in South Africa this year I encourage all of you to go to the site read reports about what happened in that conference of course Palestine was front and center in the agenda but also so many important points on these issues on sovereignty on democracy on building socialism very very interesting debates and discussions which brought together people's movements across the world and since I think our motto or you know since people's dispatch are so much about resistance are so much about people's movements are so much about struggles I think it's only apt that we end with you know labor this year that's always been I think very much our focus that's really what we enjoy the most working on the struggles of people across the world for their rights so take us through it well yeah that's exactly right I think that with all of the challenges facing the world with all of the destruction and just huge seemingly insurmountable difficulties that people are dealing with especially in Palestine right now struggles still remains the principal thread which unites people across the world and I think that's even you know what is the main thread that we're seeing in Palestine despite all of this destruction there's so much resistance and this resistance again has been seen in countries across the world I'm going to just talk briefly about the labor movement in the US which has seen huge victories this year we know that labor in the United States and levels of unionization are at record lows but in the last couple of years there's been this kind of upswing and resurgence of this movement of course it's the decimation of the labor union that was very closely tied to this anti-communist anti-socialist rhetoric and movement and that at the same time that socialism is becoming more popular in the United States we're also seeing that unionization is being seen upon more favorably we're seeing that the presidents of unions that are getting elected are much more militant and this year really was kind of the culmination of that 300,000 teamsters almost go on strike UPS workers but even though they reached an agreement with UPS we saw really unprecedented levels of militant organizing they did practice pickets they were organizing with communities it was a new level and a new kind of new forms of organization that emerged in this moment it saw more people paying attention to actually the struggle of unions and understanding that a win for the teamsters which they ended up achieving is actually a win for the entire working class as it forces other industries to kind of respond to the conditions that these teamsters were able to achieve in this contract and again they aren't small changes this was getting air-conditioning in trucks for workers who were working in extremely hot temperatures getting them trying to do away with this tiered system wherein people the newest hires are given the smallest amount of rights I mean this is a problem that we're seeing across the country that more and more the new hires are getting these extremely precarious not even contracts and so this was one of the major wins of the teamsters later we saw the united auto workers take on the big three automobile companies which is really symbolic in many ways because the labor union united states is so linked to the auto industry the assembly line these classic images of the workers on the shop floor and they were fighting back against at the end of the day against neoliberals and against plants being closed against their wages being again brought down against their rights being whittled away at and they also won very very important victories Hollywood actors and writers also went on strike at the same time which really hasn't been seen in years they were picketing the studios and Hollywood was feeling the pressure to actually consider that writers and actors are workers and so as we're seeing this growth of the working class movement of labor unions taking militant action taking industrial action we're also seeing a growth of class consciousness across the united states and now this very intense moment of standing in solidarity with Palestine is occurring we're seeing that labor unions are the ones that are actually standing up and standing in solidarity with Palestine and saying we won't move goods we call for a ceasefire we're going to challenge the democratic parties line despite the historical allegiance of major trade unions in the united states to the democratic party so this is a tremendous moment and that the working class people of the world are the ones who have to benefit from this and that more and more organizing that's taking place is definitely historic and has to be noted right Zoe it's we've crossed of course the half an hour mark which usually is the duration of our show but what occurs to me is that so much we still haven't got time to talk about we haven't talked about the Ukraine war which in the latest reports indicate that there is some kind of a strategic rethink happening in the US we haven't touched upon the question of multi polarity which was I think one of the most significant words or significant trends this year there was a brick summit lot of controversy around it a lot of promise around it as well bricks heading for expansion so many regional organizations and regional bodies heading for expansion very interesting ways we haven't been able to talk about the reconfiguration that is taking place in West Asia of course it started with Saudi Arabia and Iran re-establishing ties but expanded in so many ways and even now after as Israeli assaults continue it continues to have its implications so many developments take place across the world important to that Europe is the only region we don't have much to talk about but again so many struggles taking place for instance United Kingdom against the conservative governments immigration laws for instance very powerful trade union movements in countries such as Belgium so it's been an incredible year it is true that of course that 2023 in some ways was probably the worst year but in many other ways it also I think has been full of promise it has been full of struggle it has been full of the willingness the desire and the dream of trying to build a better world and I think that is sort of what we cherish that sort of what we take with us and give us give us strength as we enter 2024 so see you next year next Friday for episode 156 which I will hopefully be back to show you a fresh set of stories from across the world