On Tuesday, 19 May, the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) in Canada hosted the fifth webinar in its LENINFEST series, an ongoing group of events focusing on different aspects of struggle on the 150th anniversary of the birthday of the revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin. Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and coordinator of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, joined Chandu Claver of the Cordillera People’s Alliance to discuss national liberation and national oppression.
Watch the full video here:
Claver discussed the experiences of indigenous peoples in the Philippines, including displacement, land confiscation and extraction of resources. He also took a historical look at the experience of national groups in China, before, during and after the 1949 revolution, and noted the varying historical and social characteristics of different movements around the world.
Barakat, on the other hand, focused on the struggle for Palestine in the context of the broader Arab national liberation movement, highlighting Lenin’s living contribution to anti-imperialism and confronting this phase of capitalism, even as it has further developed and changed over the past 100 years. He reviewed the history of national liberation movements in Oman, Morocco, Algeria and elsewhere, noting the persistence of colonial forms of domination that have prevented Arabs – and other peoples of the region – from exercising their self-determination and sovereignty. He highlighted some of the dangerous trends that have undermined the resistance, including the transformation of revolutionary movements into “opposition parties” within monarchies, noting that bourgeois and petty bourgeois class control of these movements often descended into collaboration with imperialism over time, if they were not brutally suppressed. He also emphasized that Palestine was and remains the cause and compass of the Arab people and the people of the region in confronting Zionism, imperialism and Arab reactionary regimes.
He further emphasized the importance of mutual solidarity and struggle with indigenous peoples globally, especially those confronting settler colonialism, as in the U.S. and Canada as well as Palestine, for self-determination, sovereignty and liberation of land.
The ILPS series will continue with further speakers and events. Samidoun is a member organization of ILPS, an international alliance of people’s movements confronting imperialism, capitalism and oppression around the world, and we encourage movements struggling for justice to become involved with its activities.
