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Showing posts with the label “police violence”

Has France’s Left Woken Up to Racist Police Violence?

“If you think people are going to burn down a police station because they read a tweet, that’s a conspiracy-theorist way of seeing things, which ignores the social reasons behind these conditions. People have lost their lives, and the way it’s been handled hasn’t given the families any confidence. The police force needs to be rebuilt, and its control body cannot depend on itself.”  “What the working-class neighborhoods have been suffering for years, others are suffering today, even if not with the same severity. So everyone understands that it’s the same social order that’s at stake.” “ The Left’s ‘software’ has changed , and the basic axiom of the American sociology of riots, according to which they always have a political explanation, has been adopted. The subtext today is: Who protects us from the police?” “However, there is still a yawning gulf separating the Left from the poorest housing projects — and we should be under no illusions about its ability to impact the course of e...

Violence in France

 “ What Macron fears the most is the breakdown of the racial contract. For the more the pressure of liberal forces dismantles the social contract, the more the rulers count on the solidity of the racial contract to continue to link the fate of the white working-class to the bourgeois state. And when the racial contract weakens (i.e. the convergence of postcolonial subjects, the Gilets Jaunes, and other social movements against the police; the Left’s greater understanding of Islamophobia and structural racism; etc.), power panics and is left with only one choice: reinforce the racial contract. This is one of the cardinal functions of the notion of “laïcité,” or secularism, whose meaning shifts according to the ideological needs of the colonial counter-revolution.” Despite Mélenchon’s blunder, I agree with Bouteldja here. Walking the Tight Rope

Belarus

Signs of alternative power with an opposition that doesn’t want to take power! Belarus on the brink: what now? And as Volodymyry Artiukh wrote : “  Police violence, the lack of central ideological and strategic leadership among the protesters, and the decentralized nature of the protests will determine their further development. At the same time, the ruling elite showed no signs of a split, the security apparatus and the bureaucracy generally remained loyal, although there have been signs of hesitation at the lower and regional levels (with several state media journalists and police officers resigning). There is no central coordination center of the protest, no local centers, no visible leaders on the street, no identifiable political groups. I believe that some already existing political groups are taking part in the protests, but they are not visible as separate ‘tactical units’: they are either disoriented, or deeply disguised, or participating as individuals.” Partis...