In the Depth of Our Class

The pandemic of the century is a storm that does not subside; it returns to its rampage after 40 million infections and more than a million official victims, perhaps two million according to estimates on the excess deaths. In the contention between powers, China stands as the winner: it seems to have tamed the virus, and industry and services are up and running; the USA and Europe, on the other hand, are moving towards a new wave of infections that casts yet more shadows on the economic cycle. Political structures and health systems are at the height of tension. In America, the elections have judged Donald Trump’s rash demagogy on the basis of the opposite reasons for containing the pandemic and the intolerance of small and large producers; in Europe the executives are attempting to steer between the surge in infections, increasingly stringent confinement measures and the threats of fiscal jacquerie in the tourism and catering sectors. Almost everywhere, in the Old Continent, governments and local authorities are accusing each other of being unprepared and bickering over who’s to blame; miserable scoundrels cultivate denial rumours and swindlers of parliamentarism sniff out the opportunity to woo petty-bourgeois discontent.

Then there is our class, divided and fragmented by the pandemic; millions on the front line or exposed to the crisis in conditions of maximum fragility, Old and new challenges add up to the hard condition of those who work, or the drama of those who have lost their jobs: immigrants may meet death in the English Channel in the pursuit of the European dream after having escaped war and pandemic and even simple daily chores become painful for vulnerable people, especially during the second lockdown. Our workers’ clubs have known for decades, door to door, the reality of the large neighbourhoods; it is time to speak deeply to our class. It is time for concrete solidarity, and for a newspaper that is a truthful voice in the fog of confusion and demagogy.

In the Depth of Our Class. (2020, November). Internationalism, 12.

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