From the CrimethInc. collective (12/08/2021) …
Ahead of the 2022 elections, Brazil is now reprising the same dramatic showdown that the United States faced in 2020. As the pandemic intensifies alongside corruption scandals and the unrestrained plundering of Indigenous lands, Jair Bolsonaro’s government faces pressure from the streets and the left wing of the state. But what will it take to unseat him and break out of the patterns that brought him to power?
The parallels between Brazil and the United States run deep. Both are settler colonial states founded on slavery. The United States has largely completed its frontier phase, while Brazil continues to expand extraction efforts into Indigenous territories. In both cases, the state has become a battleground between the far right, represented by Donald Trump and Bolsonaro, and a centrist technocracy seeking to transition to a slightly more “sustainable” and “inclusive” form of capitalism. Globally speaking, these represent competing models regarding how to preserve capitalism in the face of climate change and global economic crisis—barefaced violence versus the likes of the “Green New Deal.” Though Trump narrowly failed to hold on to power in 2020, it is entirely possible that the struggle in Brazil could turn out differently, setting a precedent for the spread of fascism in the 21st century.
Of course, neither of these models points the way out of the current nightmare of exploitation and police violence. If we want to have any hope of changing the world for the better, we have to build social movements outside the logic of reaction and reform. Had there not been four years of intense grassroots struggles under Trump, he would likely have succeeded in holding onto power one way or another—and if those struggles do not continue under Biden and whoever succeeds Bolsonaro, far-right politicians will once again be able to present themselves as the only alternative to the status quo.
In the following report, Brazilian anarchists frame the government’s genocidal approach to COVID-19 in the context of a legacy of military rule, explore the latest wave of combative protests, and show how the institutional left functions as the first line of defense to preserve the existing order. They make the case that the conditions they face can only be fundamentally changed by means of autonomous organization and revolt.
An earlier version of this text appeared in Portuguese here.
South Africa: We Carry a New World in Our Riots
From the CrimethInc. collective (13/08/2021), reflections on the looting and unrest of July 2021 in south africa …
Beginning on July 9, 2021, when the Pietermaritzburg High Court upheld the conviction and sentencing of former South African president Jacob Zuma, looting and unrest broke out in two provinces in South Africa for nine days. The unrest has been attributed to a power struggle between factions of the ruling class and to anger about the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic; it has been associated with fears of ethnic violence. What’s certain, at least, is that it was a response to widespread poverty and desperation. The following reflections appear in dialogue with this assessment of the events by Abahlai baseMjondolo, a landless people’s movement based in direct democracy. We encourage you to read the aforementioned assessment and the following text together in order to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the questions at play.
The following text is a contribution to the ongoing dialogue concerning the most incendiary wave of revolt to hit South Africa since the official end of apartheid. The author is a South African currently living in Spain who has collaborated with members of the landless people’s association Abahlai baseMjondolo in Cape Town, is the producer of the (now moribund) Love Letters Journal, and has previously collaborated on the South Africa section of Dialectical Delinquents.
Continue reading →