Charlie Kirk assassinated, French workers ‘block everything’, revolution in Nepal Share TweetLenin once said that there are weeks where decades happen. This is one of those weeks. The French government collapsed. Revolutions broke out in Indonesia and Nepal. Israel bombed peace negotiations in Qatar. And just yesterday, right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.It’s easy to be disoriented by the speed of events these days. But revolutionaries most of all must have a clear grasp of what’s going on beneath the surface. For that reason, to break these lightning-fast developments down from a Marxist perspective, Jorge Martín and Hamid Alizadeh met for another episode of Against the Stream, the current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Communist International, which airs weekly on YouTube on Thursdays at 6pm London time.Reading guideCharlie Kirk’s assassination► Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism, Trotsky Nepal► Rulers cower as Nepalese masses seek to burn the system down, marxist.com► The Nepalese revolution of 2006-2008, marxist.com France► After 10 September, what now?, marxist.com ► Causes and consequences of the decline of French capitalism, marxist.com Transcript Hamid:We are living in historical times and events are taking a breathtaking pace. But what determines history? In school, we're taught that history is the product of ideas and great men who, in turn, organise society around them. But Marx explained that the opposite is true, that in order to live, mankind needs to produce. And in order to produce, we form certain social relations. It is on this foundation that we see the rise of different legal, political and cultural formations and the ideas that go with them. It's not consciousness that determines existence, but social existence that determines consciousness. And at a certain point in the development of every social system, the forces of production come into conflict with the existing social relations, and then begins the era of social revolution. My name is Hamid Alizadeh. I'm here today with Jorge Martin, and this is Against the Stream.So Jorge, it's been it's been quite a week. Jorge:It has been quite a week. I mean, the last year has been very eventful all around, but this last week. Yes, it's been something of a week! Hamid:We have we've had a revolution in Indonesia, revolution in Nepal – we're going to talk about both of those – mass protests in France, the government has fallen – by the way, the government in Nepal is also fallen – Israel has attacked Qatar. We've had the downing of a couple of dozen Russian drones in Poland. Every European country seems to be in a state of total meltdown. Assassinations. Charlie Kirk. We'll start with that. It's almost impossible to... Jorge:Even in the last hour,I think it was, Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the US, has been sacked for his for his links to Jeffrey Epstein. So everything is happening. Hamid: The British government is in a state of total meltdown and we don't even have time to mention it yet. Well, let's get started then. Charlie Kirk is in the news everywhere. A very prominent conservative influencer say, political activist, right winger, Trump supporter – although he has been somewhat critical, of late – was speaking at Utah Valley University yesterday, and he was shot by a sniper and died shortly after. Jorge:Not much is known, actually about... nothing is known about who carried out the assassination. From what I've been reading, it seems that this was carried out with a rifle from a certain distance from the roof of a nearby building. So it seems to be someone who was obviously familiar with long-range shooting. Someone was arrested who then happened not to be related to it, who has been released. So obviously, first of all, it's not clear who carried out this assassination or for what reason. But I will say that this fits into a pattern of a number of acts of political violence in the United States, political assassinations, attempted political assassinations of different types of politicians. So the first comment is that this reveals a society which is driven by all sorts of contradictions, where tensions, political, social tensions, have reached such a degree that they are they are bursting over in targeted political assassinations, amongst other things. Hamid: Yes, we saw the killing of – I forgot his name – the healthcare United Healthcare CEO a few months ago. There's been the killing of a few Israeli embassy staff in Washington. There has been also attacks against immigrants, the killing of less prominent, not prominent people, just civilians, but clearly politically motivated. There was the assassination attempt of Donald Trump was it a year ago, almost, which brought America to the precipice of a of a very turbulent situation, if not a civil war.This is a sign of a society in great turmoil. But it's a bit difficult to say something about it, because we don't know what this particular thing was. Was it organised? Was this not organised? Was it political? Was it personal? Was it a nutter, a personal acquaintance? We can't say. But definitely there is an there is a trend in American society which reflects the underlying turmoil, as you say, in the contradictions. Now we are definitely not in agreement with Charlie Kirk. Quite the contrary. We are opposed to his ideas and what he represented as a political force. A lot of people on the left have been kind of celebrating his death. And this it raises the question, in general, of terrorism as a means of political activism for the left in particular. Is it justified, as some people say? Do the ends justify the means? That's the question that you're always faced with. And does it work? More importantly, does the means get you to your end? That's, I think, the main question. Jorge:I mean, this is all very speculative, because, as you said, we don't know who carried out this, this assassination or for what reason. But people have obviously been commenting that this is a political figure of the right wing, a reactionary, the leader or founder of Turning Point, which is a very active right wing organisation mainly composed of young people. And obviously the question emerges, is it justified? Does it serve any political purpose to kill a person who's a prominent right wing reactionary. And the position of communists, the position of Marxists, about this has been discussed for a long time, over 100 years, and the position of Marxists in relation to this question is quite clear.We are opposed to individual terrorism, the individual assassination of individuals who are either prominent right wingers or prominent state officials of repressive regimes. Not for moral reasons, not for abstract moral reasons, like that we are in favor of defending human life in all circumstances or things like this. Or, I don't know, Biden has said that violence of this kind has no place in our political system. This is all hypocritical in reality, because the political system in the United States, the state, the bourgeois state, in the United States, has carried out political assassinations, lots of them over a very long period of time. Assassinations of political leaders at home that were seen as a threat to capitalism – there are many examples. Assassination of political leaders abroad that were seen as a threat to US imperialism. And the US, Biden and Trump alike, they're supporting the State of Israel, which is carrying out the genocide in Gaza, where not one, but tens of thousands of civilians are being killed. So our opposition to individual terror is not from a moral point of view, but from a political point of view. We think that this is a rotten system. The capitalist system is a rotten, violent, oppressive system that needs to be done away with. But the only way that this can be carried out is by the collective action of the working class, a class that produces wealth, that runs society in effect. All that which leads the working class to have more trust and confidence in its own forces, collective strength and ability to change society is progressive, and all that which puts faith in individuals, or the individual elimination of representatives of our enemy class, is not conducive to that, and it doesn't work. There's a long history of individual terror, and Lenin's older brother actually was a member of a terrorist organisation. They carried out terrorist attacks against representatives of the of the Tsarist monarchy and the Tsar himself. And they were actually quite successful at one point. They did kill the Tsar and nothing changed. Nothing changed. Hamid:Well, something did change. Because it was used against the revolution. It was used as a means to introduce a very reactionary... Jorge:One reactionary official or one monarch is replaced by another one. So fundamentally, nothing changed. But obviously the ruling class uses a political assassination to criminalise the whole movement of the working class, the whole of the left and the whole of the movement of the oppressed, and divert attention from the real culprits of violence and oppression. So yes, it is not a useful method to advance the cause of the oppressed, and it's actually counterproductive in most cases. Trump is already saying this is the work of the radical left. Hamid:Yeah, exactly. In the best case scenario, individual terrorism creates two illusions. One: that we are dealing with individuals and not a whole system that needs to be changed, and 2: that we can do this work individually and not as a part of a class, as a social force. And both of those things are highly counterproductive. It's the exact opposite that's needed. In fact, what we're going to discuss in this whole episode is that the only way to actually ferment real change is to change the system as a whole, and that can only be done as a part of a mass movement with the highest level of organisation and unified political cohesion, which none of this actually is conducive to. So, I think that's as much as we can say so far. We don't know what's going to happen, how it's going to be used, what impact is going to is going to have on life in the US, on the class struggle. It is, as you say, hypocritical that the liberals are coming out, talking about the value of life and so on. I mean, one thing is, as you say, assassinations that they carried out throughout US history, but also wars that they fight, not just Israel's. How many people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, they talk about means and ends. But when the ends are their own profit and privilege and position as hegemons all over the planet, then all means are justified from their class point of view. Jorge:Yes, I mean, today is September the 11th, which is the anniversary of the Pinochet coup in Chile in 1973. This is a bloody event in which tens or tens of thousands of people were killed, tortured, had to go to exile. And this was a military coup organised and funded and backed by the United States against a democratically elected government. Hamid:Another example of related to today is 9/11 – the attacks on the World Trade Center –which was a terrorist attack, which led to the justification for the Iraq wars, the Afghanistan wars, and all of the misery that that that came out of that. Okay, I think we need to move on, but we'll keep an eye out on what's going on. France. We talked about it last week. We predicted, as everyone else did, that Bayrou would fall. He has fallen. Has been replaced on Monday. He's been replaced. Sorry, the Prime Minister Bayrou, for anyone who's not been following.He's been replaced by Sébastien Lecornu – I don't know if it's I'm saying it correct – who is the fifth Prime Minister in France for three years. And obviously Bayrou had called... he put forward this vicious austerity budget, which was clearly not going to get through Parliament. And at the same time, a series of activists had called for a day of protest, yesterday, so the 10th of September, which was called 'block everything'. And Bayrou realized that his budget was not going to pass, and that this movement was going to come up. His days were counted. So he thought, let me go out on my own terms, warning that if we don't carry out this austerity, all hell is going to break out and we're going to have to pay for it one way or another. He wanted to go down on his own terms and not be taken down by the mass movement. Then we had the vote, which went as predicted. And then we had the movement yesterday, which was huge. JorgeWhich was very big. I mean, the first thing that we need to say about this is that this movement had not been called or organised by anyone in particular, particularly not the major trade unions and not the left parties, although obviously Mélenchon's party la France Insoumise quite correctly supported the movement. But the movement started spontaneously a few weeks earlier, and it's not even very clear who started this call for protests on September 10 under this slogan of 'block everything'. Some people say there was some right wing accounts on online that were pushing this. But regardless of this, this was just an accident. There was so much pressure building up in French society, not just about the austerity program, but about a whole number of other things, including Palestine, the massacre in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza carried out by Israel, and the support that the French state and government, French Imperialism, is giving to that. The repression of pro-Palestine activists, a whole number of things have been building up and the fact that there was one date which was set as a date for protest, galvanized the whole thing. It crystallised this big movement. Now, what happened on, on the 10th, yesterday, was that hundreds of thousands of people participated in these protests. There were, according to Unité CGT – which is the left wing of the CGT trade union – there were 700, I think, unions, like workplace unions, that put in a call for strike, including amongst the teachers, the civil servants, part of the transport workers, the energy workers, and a whole number of other sectors that went out on strike. But as well as that, tens of thousands of activists across France organised actions to blockade access to industrial areas, the transportation, the main train and railway stations and then there were big demonstrations. Kind of at lunchtime or mid morning, there were big demonstrations across France. I think, for instance, one of the biggest ones was in Marceilles, with about 80,000 according to the CCT. You look at the pictures of Nantes, in Montpellier, Nanterre, Leon. A whole number of cities, big and small, saw mass demonstrations. And the main characteristic is the participation of the youth. The youth were at the forefront of this movement. There were a whole number of school students who were out on strike, university students. And the movement was very radical, very upbeat, very determined, very angry, and mainly directed against Macron. So the idea was, the government has fallen, the prime minister is gone, now we have another prime minister. Nothing's changed. We want the whole system to go. We want the whole regime to go. And yes, so it was a big day of mobilisations. I will say, a significant element of it was there was also brutal police repression. The government said this is not going to happen. There's not going to be blockades. And never mind the blockades. The riot police were attacking peaceful demonstrators in normal demonstrations in the city centers and so on, in a brutal manner. Then in the afternoon, in the late afternoon, there were general assemblies, or people's assemblies, in most cities, involving thousands or tens of thousands of people to decide what to do the day after, the day after being today. In some places, blockades are continuing, demonstrations are continuing. And then further on, there's the 18th. I.e. that is next week, the 18th of September. The big trade union confederation, the CGT, by attempting not to get themselves involved in the big action on the 10th, which they fear they cannot control, they had called for for the day of action, a day of strikes on the 18th of September.So basically now that's become the next rallying point for the movement. There's going to be actions in between, today, tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday. But there's a new focal point for the mobilisation on the 18th. I think that this is a very significant movement. France has a certain tradition of spontaneous movements. Some people have compared this to the to the yellow vest movement a few years ago. But basically what it means is... I mean, I find it quite extraordinary that no mass organisation, the CCT, no trade union, has actually put their whole weight behind this, and nevertheless, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people have turned up. Hamid:Though Mélenchon did support it. Jorge:Mélenchon openly supported it. He said, "We must turn the 10th into a general strike", quite correctly. But you wouldn't necessarily think that it is the La France Insoumise, his party, that has organised this. This is down to rank and file organisations, campaigns, local unions, local student organisations, local activist groups, but on a scale that... this is now a nationwide movement, or the beginning of a nationwide movement. I think it's very significant of the whole mood of anger and opposition that exists in France. Hamid:And I would say, you know, when you talk with people on the left, there's always this kind of moaning, "Oh, people don't want to do anything and..." But wait a minute, where are the leaders? As you say, this is a damning indictment of every left-wing trade union, social organisation, for not for not having tapped into this mood. The mood that is out there is a mood of of rage and anger. Now, the figures yesterday, I think some some organisers said about 250,000 people in total. Significant amounts of people came out on the basis of grassroot organisations. Probably a lot of ordinary people weren't really aware of what was going on, a lot of ordinary working class people, even though it was big, couldn't see the significance of this.So this is an initial... the fact that you can on this basis, just by calling it randomly, bring out 250,000 people, tells us something about the actual anger and potential that exists. But it's not being brought to the surface by the complacency of the leaders of the organised movement. The fact that the main trade unions put a strike day eight days later... There can only be one reason. Jorge:To divert attention from this day. Hamid:By the leaders, of course. We're not talking about the membership, but by the leaders who, who are afraid that a movement like this could run out of control. But nevertheless, you can't.... You know, at a certain point if pressure... You know if you have a pressure cooker... I have a pressure cooker that I've started using a lot recently. I made a bone broth the other day. But there is a valve in a pressure cooker, and if the valve is stuck... Jorge:You'll have an explosion. Hamid:Sooner or later, something will have to give, right? Either you have to mess with it – that's what they're trying to do on the 18th. But the thing is that the pressure is already so high that they can't really stop it right now. Jorge:Yes. The French comrades of the of the RCI – the revolutionary communist party in France – they put out an editorial today in which they're making a balance sheet of the movement yesterday. And they make one very important point, which is that France has seen a strategy by the trade union leaders for many years, of isolated days of action. They don't even call it a general strike, right? So they just say, "Okay, well, if you can strike, you strike. If not, you come to a demonstration." It's not even a proper call. Hamid: It's like balloons, and there's like a festival mode, almost. JorgeSausage burning and stuff like that. But the thing is that these are isolated days of action. So you have one day of action on the 18th, and then that's a big success. People turn up, and then you have another day of action, say, on the 25th or maybe a month later, and then you have another day until people are exhausted. They don't see that this is leading anywhere, and people stop turning up at the days of action. And then the leaders say, "Oh, look, we are calling for action... Hamid:"But no one wants to fight." Jorge:That's right. So this has been the experience, for instance, with the big movement – was it two or three years ago – the big movement against the pension counter reform, and then it fizzled out. So the comrades are saying, this is already now a very... many people understand that isolated days of action don't work. And what the comrades are calling for, and many people, including the Unité CGT, the left wing of the of the CGT, they're calling for an all out strike, or in France, is called renewable strikes, which means that you go on strike for an open-ended period, and then every day there's general assemblies deciding whether to continue the movement or not. This is the only way forward, building up to a proper general strike that can bring down the government and Macron himself. But obviously, at the end of this article, the question is posed. Obviously, if you have a movement like that, which is completely necessary. Why is it necessary? Because these cuts, these massive austerity measures, they're not just the whim of a nasty politician who happens to be the prime minister. No, they are necessary from the point of view of French capitalism. They have a massive debt, massive budget deficit. They have to implement these cuts. And therefore, the question that's posed is, I mean, who rules the country? This government is extremely unpopular. The President is extremely unpopular – I think his popularity is down to 10% and with 85% in opposition – and the majority of the people are against these measures. But nevertheless, the government remains. And so the communists are saying the only slogan at this time is the slogan of a workers government, a government that represents the interests of the majority of people who are on the streets and they are in opposition to these measures. This puts into question the capitalist system itself, in reality. Hamid:Yes, speaking of consciousness, Just following on the thread from our first segment, what you see is precisely by calling these one days of action, and then pulling back and tiring out the movement. What you actually see is the working class, in a way, losing confidence in his own powers. But what you see in a situation like this, the thing explodes out and before the movement has even taken off, it's actually overthrown a government. That raises the confidence of the working class. In normal times, we are told by politicians that ordinary people can't rule. What you need is experts as politicians, is professionals, is people with suits and ties, who can speak in a certain way... Jorge:With titles, university degrees. Hamid:Exactly. And in reality, obviously, they are the people representing the ruling class who've dragged society down to where it is now. But in as a movement develops, what the significance of a revolution – this is not a revolution, but if it should become one – and the process of revolutionary development of consciousness is precisely that people realise, that the working class realises, that we are actually far more capable and suited to run society than the ruling classes. And that is what the trade union leaders are afraid of in essence. That's what they're afraid of. Jorge:The other thing. I've been reading some of the editorials in the French media and so on. And obviously, no one gives five cents for this new government of what's his name? Lecornu. This government is not going to last, because this is a government that needs to implement the same measures. But then some people are saying that there's kind of two angles. One is, yeah, but what Mélenchon wants is chaos, terror. So as we said last week, they're talking about the terror during the French Revolution and all that. Never mind the fact that what is really terroristic is the measures that they want to implement. Cutting two days, holidays, cutting pensions, lengthening the pension age and so on. This is really terrorising working people. But anyway, they want to give this impression, right? It's either us or chaos and terror and violence and all that. The other idea that they're saying is, "Oh, but Mélenchon says that there should be the dissolution of the National Assembly, that Macron should go. But what's the alternative? Then the far right will come in." And this is a very insidious argument, isn't it? Because what they're basically saying is, "Oh you need to support these austerity measures, this capitalist rule.... The workers must support the capitalist in order to prevent the far right from coming in." But if you look at it in reality, what is provoking, what is driving the rise of Le Pen and the so-called far right is precisely the opposition against the establishment parties, against austerity measures, which Le Pen is demagogically using! Hamid:And the lack of an alternative from the left! Jorge:Exactly so it's precisely the opposite. And I think that the Unité CGT in the statement that we quoted last week, they said it very clearly. The way to fight the rise of Le Pen is by class action, where the workers, shoulder to shoulder, fight for their own interests as a class. Hamid:Exactly, and overcome the divisions that that these guys are trying to sow. There is another, you know... the big driving force of all this is the accumulated debt. France's debt is now 114 Percent of GDP. Three and a half trillion euros. I believe it is. Jorge:And the budget deficit is 5.8%. Hamid: I think that's the highest in Europe that the yearly, the current deficit and the total debt is the third highest after Greece and Italy, in terms of percentage.Now let's not talk about the fact that this is completely unsustainable. Interest rates are rising. There's no way to actually overcome this within the confines of this system. But I think also, I went back and looked and the last time France had a budget surplus was in 1974. What does that signify for us? We always talk about the fact that capitalism had in the postwar period an exceptional period of growth because of very peculiar set of circumstances that we don't have time to go into. But you had the postwar upswing – basically in the whole world, but significantly in Europe and the West and America – a massive expansion of capitalism. But as a system, we also say that ended in 1974 and the system began to go into decline. Like all social systems, like the quote of Marx we explained at the beginning of the show, the system hit a limit, and the rate of development started declining. And you saw, in precisely 1973, the first major crisis, which was the oil crisis. Sorry, 1974. Since then, the bourgeois have had to deal with deeper and deeper crises. And what has become one of the main ways for them to overcome these crises has been the taking up of debt. Because obviously, you take up new debt, you kind of smooth over the worst part of a crisis. Not only do you stave off social explosions, but you also make a lot of money. The bourgeois keep making money, and that has accumulated. You saw the dot-com bubble in the year 2000, 2001. Again, the world is standing in front of a pretty big crisis, but with a massive injection of cheap credit into the system that was overcome. Again, in 2008, you had a deep, deep crisis, lots of banks going under. The states bailed out the banks, bailed out businesses. And since then... and then you had the pandemic and added to that... It's almost like a drug addict having to use more and more of the drug to get the same effect. The bourgeois has been making tons of money off of this in the stock markets, and it's become a thing. I was listening to Al Jazeera this morning, and there was a guy who said, "Oh, all this debt is not a problem. Look, Britain has almost the same amount of debt. America has the same amount of debt. This is not really a crisis." And they began to believe this propaganda that they've solved the contradictions of the system. But obviously they haven't. Capitalism must go into a crisis, and the way they've they overcome it only prepares for even deeper and bigger crisis in the future. That's what this debt represents. It's an attempt, a 50 Year attempt, at postponing the inevitable by preparing what? A hell of a crisis. Jorge:A bigger crisis later on. Hamid:Which could come and overwhelm them, but it could also mean just years and years and years and years of austerity. Which is, if you remain under the present system, that is what's in store. Jorge:Inevitable. In fact, if you think about it, you're talking about one of the angles, which is, which is the expansion of credit. The other side of the coin is that for the last 30 years or more, we've seen a policy – or even more, I'd say, all the way back to the early 1990s – of what became known as neoliberalism. I don't really like the word very much, but it means that all the conquests of the past, everything that the working class won – because there was a margin for concessions in the postwar period– has now been taken away. Pensions, healthcare, education, welfare state. Everything has been progressively taken away. This is not a new phenomenon. It's now more acute, but it's been going on for 30 years. I remember the first time I went to France for political reasons was in the winter of '95 and there was a big strike wave that started with the railway workers, and it was over what? The pension system. Attacks on the pension system. 30 years ago. And we've had one after another, one attempt after another, by the ruling class to make the workers pay – in France and every everywhere else – for the crisis of the system. Now, this question of the debt is piled up on top of this. So the crisis has become completely intractable and something has to give. They want to make the workers pay. The workers cannot afford to pay for the crisis of capitalism anymore, after 30 years of their conditions going down. Hamid:Precisely. And that's what we have: a rock and a hard place. And that is how... what we see is basically a reflection of the crisis of the system, and it can only get worse. There's no way of postponing it. There's no way of managing this system, of somehow alleviating. Because where is it going to come from? Who's has got to pay this debt? That's the ultimate question. Who's got to pay? Is it the rich, the bosses, the bankers Or is it the working class? And also I just want to say, yes, there's been 30 years of attacks on the working class, while the rich have never been richer than they are now. The stock markets have been booming. There's been all of these austerity measures. Part of this has been privatisation: the selling off of the public sector services that were built up in the postwar period. Jorge:Telecoms, energy, water, railways. Hamid:Everything. Immense corruption. And so this system that we were told that we live in, that, "Oh, we're all in the same boat, and we just figure it out together. That's what democracy is." Well, it's not really like that, is it. And people want to to fight back. Jorge:And the point is that this is not just France, right? France is where it has exploded now that we talking about it, this week. But a similar situation is being prepared everywhere. In the advanced capitalist countries and in the dominated capitalist countries. But I mean, this is important because we're talking about France, Germany and Britain, the three most important economies in Europe, and the three of them are in a massive political crisis, which is the result of the economic crisis that's been building up. Hamid:It's funny you didn't mention Italy. Italy has a higher debt to GDP ratio than France does. But it's interesting, because when you read the bourgeois media they talk about Italy as this kind of example. "Oh, Italy has brought its budget deficit under 3%." So their deficit increases by less than 3% a year, which is a huge miracle, because they've done so much cuts in austerity. But anger is rife in Italy. You know, Fred Weston, our colleague, was saying yesterday that there's been mass protests in Italy on the basis of Israel's attacks on this flotilla with Italian people on it. But obviously that's representative of the same thing. It's not just about Gaza and Palestine – although that does concentrate a lot of people's minds about what the problem is with the system – but it's that society is at a dead end, and the poor are asked to pay for it, the working class and the youth. Jorge:But Palestine is having a big radicalizing effect because it exposes the hypocrisy of Western imperialism and I mean... This is two years now, isn't it? Coming up to two years of a constant massacre. And people have protested, the people are against it. The majority of the population all over the world are against it, and they feel that nothing they do changes anything. Like in Spain, this is also a big radicalising factor. In Britain. There's been this protest in Spain around the Vuelta a España, the cycling race, where people have been interrupting the cycling, interrupting the race because there's the presence of an Israeli team in it, and it just people just trying to express their anger over this question, which is a very political question. It's not just over wages, pensions and austerity cuts. It's also about the hypocrisy of the ruling class and its politicians. Hamid:It's fundamentally about who rules? Who should rule society? That's kind of embryonically in every single one of these questions. We weren't planning on spending that much time on Gaza, unfortunately, because of other events. But let's just stop here, because we have a system.... We're told that we live in the best, most humane, most democratic, liberal democracies, and so on. France, you know, the nation of democracy itself. And yet here you have Israel, a firm ally of the West, carrying out this despicable massacre, genocide with complete impunity and being so arrogant about it. Over the summer, they've just said, "No, we're gonna annex northern Gaza." And they're doing it. They're designating the area, instructing people to leave. A couple of days ago – was it yesterday. Two days ago – they attack.... The United States calls for negotiations with Hamas to get hostages released and so on. Hamas leadership is supposed to meet in Qatar to discuss the proposal of the US. And Israel just blatantly flies in and bombs a building. Jorge:The building where the negotiators were supposed to be. Hamid:They weren't there at that particular moment, accidentally. But the sheer arrogance and and the fact that... I was watching, I was comparing the different front pages: BBC, Guardian, CNN and so on. The same day, there was an event in Poland where a couple of dozen drones, Russian drones, fly into Polish territory. They're shot down by NATO air defenses. So far, none of them have been proven to have had explosives on them. They were all decoys. No one got hurt. Nothing happened. But the uproar. And the kind of moral indignation that these guys show at the 'Russian provocations'. And then here is... Jorge:Press conferences, statements, article 4 of NATO has been called! Hamid: There's been going to be consultation, and "Poland has never been closer to war since World War Two". And clearly an attempt at dragging America into this war, as the Europeans constantly do, including Macron. And then you have this blatant violation of every law and convention, the murder of civilians, you know, who had nothing to do with any military thing. And they just shrug their shoulders, and Trump said, "Oh, it was, it was quite an unfortunate thing." Obviously, this was a humiliation of Trump. But this is what people see. This is what this system represents: complete impunity for those at the top. Double standards that society is being run with, right. And they want something else. They want a society that's based on more humane working class morals and ethics. Jorge:Which is in contradiction with the continued existence of capitalism and imperialism at this particular time. Hamid:Precisely. Do you have anything more to say about this? Jorge:No, I mean just to say when I heard the news of this attack in Qatar I thought... I mean, because they have killed people before. They killed Haniyeh, they killed... Hamid:In Tehran, in another country. Yeah. Jorge:They killed Nasrallah. And some of these people were actually leading the negotiations with Israel. So this is, this is how... Hamid: All of these were! Nasrallah was meeting with the top leadership of Hezbollah to discuss – – and I think they had even accepted – a proposal for a ceasefire with Israel. Then they kill him. Haniyeh was the chief negotiator with Israel. They kill him. Jorge:Same thing. So it's not like they haven't done it before. But you can't but be a little bit surprised and shocked at the brazenness of the Israeli leadership in carrying this out. And the reason for this is, a lot of this has to do with Netanyahu personal interests. But also he knows that the West Imperialism is not going to break with him, that the United States is not going to break with him. Trump might put pressure on onto him, because Trump doesn't want the war in the Middle East. It's not convenient for his own particular reasons. But he knows that, yeah, Trump is going to complain. He's maybe going to call him and tell him off. "Don't do it again." But nothing happens. But nothing happens for him. However, there are consequences to this, because I've just read the Qatari Prime Minister Al Thani, he said, "Well, we have been attacked by Iran. We have been attacked by Israel, and maybe this will lead to a review of our security arrangements with the US", because the US has a security arrangement with Qatar and obviously they, by action or ommission, allowed this attack to happen, and they said, maybe we'll look somewhere else. Hamid:So, I mean, the US has... let's just dive into it now we've started.The US has this biggest military base in the region in Qatar. I think 5000 people are deployed there. Warships, planes, jets, all sorts of things. Jorge:Air defenses. Hamid: Their arrangement is, "You protect us. We support you." That's the arrangement that they have with the Qataris. And here you have this violent transgression. And the US doesn't do anything. Furthermore, this was not just an attack on the negotiators, but also an attack on Qatar, in the sense that Qatar has been trying to portray itself, or build itself up, as a mediator. They mediated with the Taliban, with Hamas, with Iran, and they've always been kind of this in-between, go-to person, and that's what they try to portray themselves as. So in a way, Israel is hitting at their livelihood. No one's gonna trust that they can protect them. Jorge:Would you go for negotiations to Qatar? I mean... Hamid:I think I might go somewhere else! And then there's the main question which you hinted at. This is an open humiliation of Donald Trump. Witkoff met with Ron Dermer, who is a close advisor of Netanyahu, the day before this attack, on Monday. Ron Dermer didn't say anything.The Israelis informed the Americans very briefly before the event. Not the White House. They called the Pentagon just to inform them that we're doing this. But the Pentagon called Witkoff. Witkoff explains that he that was trying to reach the Qataris, but before he could get through on the phone, the strike had taken place! What does that say? That says that Netanyahu is saying to Trump, what are you going to do about it? It's humiliating him on... And obviously his calculation is this: look at the events in China that we talked about last week. Trump is isolated. Trump is weak. At home, he's weak. He hasn't carried out any of his policies. He's under pressure. And Netanyahu is an ally, in the sense that he's not in the liberal wing. Netanyahu's opponent Gantz is part of the liberal establishment who would be violently, very hostile to Trump. And so from Trump's point of view, he can't afford to lose him. They say it's better to have him in the tent pissing out, then outside pissing in! And so he just does... But obviously, all of this just drags the America further down into the morass, into this crisis, alienates further allies who are saying, "What's going on? Can we ever depend on, trust the United States? And, more importantly, eats away at the foundation inside the West itself, where people are thinking, "What the hell is going on? Why do we keep, you know, supporting these guys?" Jorge:Even the Spanish Prime Minister, the Spanish Socialist Party Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has come out with very strong statement saying that what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, that he will cut off all links with Israel in terms of arms sales and so on. A lot of this is just for publicity, and when you look at the actual small print of what he's actually said or going to do there's lots of caveats and so on. But why is he doing that? Because he's under enormous pressure from public opinion, and instead of ignoring it completely, like others are doing, he tries to lean on that for his own political benefit. But it's just a reflection of the enormous pressure that western imperialist powers are under from their own public opinion that that's really angry about this question of Palestine. Hamid:Okay, let's move on. We have one last topic to cover. Nepal. Who would have thought? Last week we had revolution in Indonesia. Prime Minister resigns, gives a whole series of concessions. We'll go into that, perhaps in the future a bit more, and then you have this sudden eruption of the mass movement in Nepal. Jorge:Yes, on Monday there was a demonstration. The demonstration had originally been called against corruption. So this is a movement mainly of young people – school students, university students, and all the young people – against corruption. And for some time it's been building up. They have this term. They say the 'nepo-kids', i.e. the kids of high ranking officials and politicians who were flaunting their wealth. And it's really insulting to ordinary working class youth who are living in terrible conditions. Anyway, this movement had been building up for some weeks and months, and they called this demonstration on Monday, but then it coincided with the government taking the measure of banning a certain number of social media platforms. This is a little bit complicated, because what's happening is also... it's a struggle that's happening in other parts between massive social media multinationals that want to go everywhere, do whatever they want, not be accountable to anyone and some governments that are trying to put up a fight. And the reason why these governments put up a fight is because they want to control the flow of information and also reign in these massive multinationals. There was a struggle between the government and these social media multinationals. Some of these platforms refused to register, as they had been instructed, and so the government took the measure of banning them for a period of time. This added to the anger of the youth. In Nepal, I think, one in every two, 50% of the people have social media accounts and so on. It's a country where there is a massive emigration of people to other parts looking for work and so on, so social media is a way of communicating between the families. Also, I just read that Facebook had started the monetisation program in Nepal recently, so quite a lot of young people thought, yeah, this is a way of making money, and now they were being cut off. So anyway, this added to the anger. There was a demonstration on Monday. The demonstration grew to a certain size. The demonstrators went up to parliament and tried to breach the perimeter. Then the riot police opened fire with live ammunition and killed... I think it was first they killed 14 people, then, at the end of day, it was 19 people that were killed, including very young school students, 14 year old and so on. And this was like the tipping point, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and it led to a massive explosion of anger. People were no longer demonstrating. They had said, the organisers said, this is going to be a peaceful protest and so on. No, no. People were not in the mood for peaceful protest. They wanted... they were angry. They wanted justice for the people being killed. They set fire to the parliament building. There was a whole number of incidents during the day. By the end of the day, one of the ministers had resigned and the government was in serious trouble. The declared a curfew in Kathmandu, but also in a whole number of other towns. The movement was spreading nationally. And then on Tuesday, the movement continued. Repression could no longer stop the movement – similar to Indonesia – and concessions could not stop the movement. The government lifted the ban on social media, made some concessions, said that they wanted to talk to the protesters, but the people were no longer...The youth played a key role in this movement. It's called the Gen Z revolution. Gen Z is a bit of a silly term, I'd say. But anyway, it represents that the youth were at the forefront of this. And there is a mood of opposition to all establishment politicians. By Tuesday, the government, the Prime Minister KP Oli, had resigned. Not that he resigned voluntarily. He was basically kicked out. People were already storming the headquarters of different government and opposition parties, attacking the private residences of some of the more prominent ministers and the Prime Minister himself. So basically, he had to be taken away from his residence by the army in a helicopter, and then people thought that he was hiding in the International Airport. There was some talk that he was going to the Middle East, maybe to Qatar, I don't know. But he was going there. Then people assaulted the International Airport. The airport was closed. Then they set fire to the judicial power building, to the National Assembly, the president's office, and basically, the government had fallen by the end of the day. And there was some people described it as this: there was anarchy, in the sense that there was no government, nothing. The people had assaulted some of the police stations. They released people from jails. Some of them had managed to get guns from the police. In some instances, the police had fraternized with the demonstrators. And by the end of the day, the army came out with a public statement calling on people to to show restraint. Not telling them to go back home or threatening them in any way, you know, they said, "Please calm down. The government's gone. Now, go back home. We'll all talk." And so the regime was really, really worried – against the ropes – that the movement of the masses had brought down the whole establishment. I think that this is very, very significant, and it's just one more example of what we were discussing last last week. Hamid:I mean, what really stands out is the power of the masses, isn't it? You have this... again, let's go back to our moaning leftist friends who talk about "Ah, the state apparatus as you know they're so strong and they control everything, and the media controls everything,"And what you had here was, in the space of two days, a movement of young kids brought down all of that. And they could have taken down the whole thing if they had a plan. That's the only thing that was lacking. You know, again, we talk about violence and fear. Actually was the violence that really spurred the movement onward. The organisers were saying "This was just supposed to be a fun, peaceful kind of festival kind of thing". And then someone gets killed, and the mood turns immediately. And by this stage, the development underneath the surface in the whole of the previous preceding period. This is not a one day thing. This is years of anger and resentment building up. That day, things took a qualitatively different turn, and instead of people being frightened by that, they turned. They lost their fear. And every step they took forward... They burnt down the parliament, then they burned down the judiciary, and then they heard the Prime Minister is going to flee. They burned down the airport. They took matters in their own hands, and every step they did, they could feel, they could sense... They gained confidence in their own powers, in other words, and by every step they moved forward. And another aspect of this is how the ruling class approached this, because the comments that came in the beginning were kind of dismissive, arrogant, rude. Another thing that we see – this is another common trait in all revolutions in a way – that at a certain point when a society is ripe for revolution, often the ruling class is so detached, has become used to living in this bubble of impunity and nothing touches it, nothing happens when they go about their day being corrupt, and, you know, doing what they do. And they get overconfident. And again, this is what you saw in Indonesia. Jorge:Arrogant. Hamid: And arrogant. "How can"... What was it the Prime Minister said? "Oh, how can people talk about independence when they can't even think independently", right? As if they're all mindless drones. They're just brainwashed, and they're just kids and ignorant. And he had to eat his own words, didn't he? Jorge: Yes. The other thing is that, yeah, the movement started over this question of corruption and also the question of the social media ban. But there are deeper reasons, and we need to look back a little bit because also there's been a lot of commentary on social media about what's the real meaning of this movement, who's behind it, and all of this. So first of all, we need to say that Nepal is one of the poorest countries on earth. It's been made poor by imperialism, mainly, in this particular case, by Indian imperialism, which has always dominated over over Nepal. And Nepal had a very repressive monarchy regime for a very long time. Now the monarchy first had to make concessions. There was a constitutional monarchy, so there was some, some semblance of democracy. And then finally, in 2006-2008 through a mass movement in which the Communist parties played a role – Maoist communist parties – the monarchy was overthrown and there was a republic and a constituent assembly. But since 2008 up until now – which is what? 17 years – there's been 14 different governments, but these governments are all the same. They call it a revolving door of coalitions. There's three main parties: the Nepali Congress, which is a bourgeois Liberal Party; then they have the United Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Nepal, which is not communist at all; and then you have Prachanda's party. This is the Maoist party – Maoist Center party, it's called – that led the Maoist insurgency for many years, and they came to power after the abolition of the monarchy in 2008. These three parties have been in power in one form of coalition or another for the last 17 years, and nothing's changed for the masses. The masses participated in a very courageous movement. They overthrew the monarchy, and they wanted change. But they didn't just want a change of the form of government. They wanted a change in their conditions, right, in their living conditions. And this hasn't changed at all, because capitalism continues to exist. And for the last 15 years, all these different governments involving the Communist parties have managed the crisis of capitalism, during the time where... And there's these three guys: Ollie, KP Ollie, the Prime Minister who's been overthrown now, who's a member of the United Marxist-Leninist Communist Party; Prachanda, the leader of the Maoist centre, so called, Communist Party; and the leader of the Nepali Congress, can't remember his name.The three of them have been Prime Ministers so many times. I think this Oli has been Prime Minister four different times, Prachanda, two different times. So it's the same parties, the same governments that've been ruling the country, and nothing's changed. Or rather, conditions have been getting worse and worse for the masses of working people. I think there are, is it 4.5 million,working age Nepalese abroad. Hamid:20% of the population. Jorge:Mainly in the Gulf states, 20% of the working age population. So that's the only way, is the only escape route, escape valve for the system. Remittances from migrant workers represent 25 or 30% of GDP. And they working in India. They working in the West. They working in the Gulf states, in the United Arab Emirates and other places in the worst kind of jobs, construction jobs and so on. Last year, in 2024, 800,000 people emigrated for work, which is double the figure as the previous year. So situation is getting worse, and at the same time they can see that these governments don't do anything. The Prachanda government, the Maoist government, which is a coalition... A coalition which, incidentally – this is the rottenness of these so called communist parties – Prachanda was prime minister in a coalition that involved the RPP, which is the monarchist Hindu nationalist party. They want the restoration of the monarchy! They were in a coalition with the Maoists. They relied on the votes of this... it;s unbelievable, the rottenness and corruption of these so called communist parties, the two main ones, and he signed a deal with the IMF. And we know what the deal with the IMF means. And for two years he was in power, managing this deal with the IMF, going through six different reviews, strings attached, and everything. So it's no wonder that the youth reject all parties, not just those in government now, but also those who are in opposition, who were in government a year and a half ago, right? So they burned down the offices of different parties and so on. In these conditions, I will say the ideas of communism are bound to be discredited amongst the whole layer of youth who think, "Oh, communism is these guys who are in power and their sons and daughters, they're enriching themselves, and we still live in the same conditions." Fortunately, I will say there are some communist organisations participating in the movement, giving it support. But the question here is, why is it that it's not the communist organisations that are leading this movement giving a channel to the anger of the youth and working people? Now, there's one more thing I want to address that some people say, "Oh, this is the easy answer. This is a colour revolution. This has all been organised by the West through some NGOs and... Hamid:Also because, since the revolution in 2006-8, Nepal has been drifting more and more in the direction of China. Chinese investments have been increasing. Chinese capitalism has a huge influence inside, so that also plays into the whole color revolution, geopolitics narrative. Jorge:Now it is true that the organisation that called for the demonstrations on Monday is an NGO. It's called Hami Nepal, run by a guy who set up this NGO on the basis of some relief effort for an earthquake a few years ago. And he and he organised and called for this demonstration. But that doesn't explain anything, does it? That doesn't explain why so many people turned up at this demonstration, why the government used deadly repression against this movement. And it particularly doesn't explain why tens of thousands of people then moved against all institutions of power. The mood was there already. It was channeled through this organization accidentally. Pretty much like what we've said about about France. We don't know whether it was far right elements we originally said, "let's blockade everything on the 10th of September." That doesn't explain 10th of September. What explains 10th of September is, as you said right at the beginning, the social existence. The social conditions have been building up, and there was just a need for someone to set a date for a protest, and all the contradictions, all the pressure boiled over, also because of brutal police repression. That's what explains what has happened.Now, that doesn't determine what's going to happen next, because as we said last week in relation to Indonesia, without a revolutionary leadership it's very difficult to see where this movement is going to go. In fact, I saw a student protester being interviewed by Al Jazeera, and he said, "Look, what we fear is that now all parties going to get together, they're going to talk amongst themselves, and they're going to cobble up a new coalition, and everything will remain the same. And we have going won a victory by overthrowing this government, but the victory is going to be stolen from from us." This is the crucial question, I say. Hamid:You can call yourself a communist, but what does it mean to be a communist? Right? You had a revolution. You actually had a revolution in 2006 to 2008. There was revolution in Nepal, and they overthrew the monarchy. But what did they replace it with? Again, we come back to what is the problem? Is the problem the ideas, or the great men leading society, the politicians, the people at the top? Or is it the system as a whole? Now, you explained, Nepal is a very poor country. The population is in an extremely poor condition. That is a result of capitalism, of the system, which wasn't changed, the main... there was no land reform. By the way, we wrote a whole series of articles back then warning against this. Back then, lots of people were saying, "Oh, don't talk like that. It's the communists. Once they're in power, everything will be different." And we warned. We said, well, "If you do not change the property relations – that is, who owns the main property, the main levers of economic life, the commanding heights of the economy – through a land reform and through nationalisations and through the introduction of a democratic planned economy, we said you're going to come right back up. And furthermore, you also need to establish a new state, a new state power, which is based on the working class, not as the present one, which is based on the capitalist class. And none of those things happened. All the main levers of power in society remain within the hands of the ruling class. And what has been the result? As you say, a deteriorating economic situation for the majority of the population – although a tiny group at the top, have been doing very well. They don't have any complaints. And added to those, are also a tiny part of the communist movement, the leaders of the communist movement – and everyone else has been suffering. Jorge:And the Communist parties – there's two main parties, the UML and the Maoist Center – have been managing this crisis in coalition with with the main bourgeois parties. Hamid:So you can't fault for people for thinking, "Okay, the problem must be parties as such." That's basically the conclusion that people have drawn, isn't it? Now, that's not, that's not right. It's the question of which class interests do those parties represent? Which programme do those parties represent? I brought out the... you called it Halim Nepal. I thought it was Hami Nepal Jorge:Oh, Hami Nepal, sorry. Hamid: Halim is a dish. This is an NGO. They have a programme which calls for the immediate resignation of the government, resignation of all ministers across every province, essentially the resignation of everyone. Down with them all. Jorge:Which is correct. Hamid:Yeah, absolutely no, absolutely. Third, swift and uncompromising prosecution of those who ordered the shooting of our innocent, innocent brothers and sisters, and finally, the formation of an interim government led by the youth with a vision for just and accountable future. Now here we have a dilemma that often comes up when we talk amongst communists. Because, on the one hand, you have those who say, "Look, people are not talking about a socialist revolution here. We need to have democratic demands, mild demands. That's what this movement is about: democratic rights, the right to freedom, the right to speak, the right to live, the right to... against corruption, against all of these things. So we have to stick to that." Then there are those who say, "No, no, no, no, any democratic demand, anything that's not the taking of power by the proletariat, marching through the streets with red banners, the socialist revolution, anything else is a color revolution, right? Or something else that we can't support."But the point is this. It is because, precisely because of the betrayal of the communist parties, because of the lack... their inability to educate the masses in what their true interests are that this movement is moving in an impressionistic way. It's learning by doing. It's by the intervention of the masses directly in politics that they're learning. And the first thing they meet is this political this political edifice full of corruption and inequality and injustice, and they want to get rid of it. So that is the starting point. And of course, we support that. We're in full support, in my opinion, of all of these demands. The point is, how can you get to them? Because if you really boil it down, this is a demand for democracy, which is exactly what the 2006-8 revolution was about. But why did that fail? It wasn't because they had the wrong demands, but it was because it had the wrong means of getting there. The point is to say we can't stop there. How do you actually secure democracy? How do you actually secure, you know, a society that's run in the interest of the majority? Well, surely the majority must have the power to do so. And first of all, you do that by taking state power, by taking economic power away from the tiny group of parasites that exercise it, and that control those things, and put it in the hands of the masses through the setting up of assemblies and other means of struggle that can take over the running of society, and through the through the expropriation of the rich, land reforms and so on. So it's not a question of either or yes or no to democratic demands. And the same goes in Indonesia. There's now this program: 17 plus 8. 17 demands to be introduced right now, and another 8 to be introduced within the first year. This is put forward by some liberal. Obviously, this will galvanise. This will strike a note, because that's what people see immediately in front of them, this is establishment that they cannot tolerate. But our task is not to say "We're against those", but to say, "Okay, but how do we actually achieve this? How do we actually maintain these demands? It's precisely by the working class taking power, and then we have to organise towards that." Jorge:Yes, and I will say there's a warning here. There's a warning here. Because this idea of a government, a transitional government led by the youth and outside of all the existing parties and so on, is bound to be popular because the existing parties are so discredited.But however, there is a precedent to this. One year ago there was a revolution in Bangladesh in which many people were killed. Finally, they overthrew the hated regime of Hasina, and they introduced a government of the youth. The student leaders became the new government. They appointed this guy who was a Nobel Peace Prize of Economy, Dr Yunus, a personality who was outside of politics as the new president. You have a government of the youth, but it's also government of the old establishment behind the scenes. And this government hasn't changed anything, and nothing fundamentally has changed in Bangladesh, because of what you were saying. It's not a question of the youth or the political parties. That's not the problem. The problem is the capitalist parties. And it's not a problem of whether you're young or not, but what political program and what economic program you implement? Right?So in Bangladesh, nothing has changed, because capitalism remains. And 'capitalism remains' means that the small minority of people who are the owners of the big textile factories, the big tech companies that work for multinationals and so on, they still rule the country. They still run matters, and the majority of working people are still in the same conditions. A majority of students are in the same conditions. And so this is a warning for Nepal. The problem is not a youth-led government. The problem is that the masses of working people must take power. Youth, students, at the forefront of the of the movement, of course, they have been, but also workers, peasants and so on. And I would say, trust only in your own forces. Trust only your own forces. Set up, as you said, set up democratic committees, mass assemblies to give the movement a concrete leadership that's under your own control. And under your own control means also not under the control of NGOs, which are accountable to no one; not under the control of media or personalities or hip hop artists or anyone like this. These people are not accountable to anyone. The masses should only trust their own forces. They are the ones who, at the cost of 19 people killed, have overthrown the old regime. They should not relinquish that power. They should keep it themselves, trust no one. Organise by yourselves. And any genuine communists in Nepal should participate fully in this movement, advancing class demands, together with the democratic demands, class demands. As you said, the expropriation of the rich, the throwing away of imperialism wherever it comes from: be that Chinese imperialism, Indian imperialism, above all, but also US influence, the IMF. And yes, a proper revolution in Nepal will involve the masses taking political power, but also economic power, by expropriating the rich, the landlords, the capitalists and the multinationals. This the way forward. Hamid:I mean just to tie the the knot or the circle together. The revolution in Nepal, the revolution in Indonesia, the movement in France. In Britain, we haven't seen a movement, but Corbyn announced a party, the old left wing of the Labour Party announced a party, and 700,000 people signed up in a few days. That is a sign. All of these are a sign that the system has come to its limits. It's straining. It's not going to fall by itself, but it does mean what we said in the beginning, that the productive forces are coming into contradiction with the relations of production. On the one hand, we have these enormous riches. We have enormous potential. The technology that we possess that can fix all of the problems that humanity faces: hunger, poverty, homelessness, you know, death by curable diseases. Millions of people could be raised out of a desperate situation and be given good lives, on the basis of all of the technology that this system has produced. But the problem is that power in this system lies in the hands of a tiny, tiny minority who own... Jorge:Unelected and unaccountable. Hamid:Unelected, unaccountable. They run our society. We think we live in a democracy, but all the major decisions are taken in the boardrooms and in the stock exchanges and in the secret backroom meetings and deals between the big capitalists. They control these... We produce the wealth. The working class produces all of the wealth in society. But it's a tiny parasitic clique that that drags it out and also runs society only in their own interests and the interests of their own profit making motives, right. Those are the relations of production and the enormous productive forces – that is the working class, organised in these huge industries across expanding across the globe, that is the productive forces – they are now in contradiction. This society, the existence of mankind, the advance and progression of mankind, is now in contradiction with capitalism, with private ownership over the means of production. That is why we see all these protests. And in order to solve them, in order to achieve their goal, and to solve the problems that they pose, that is the contradiction which needs to be solved, whether it's in Nepal, in Indonesia or France. That's what we are doing. That's what we're preparing ourselves for. We are not calling for revolution because it's not up to us. Revolutions will come because this system is at a dead end. But what we do is that we prepare ourselves. We prepare a force that's big enough and strong enough and conscious enough, with enough foresight and insight to be able to intervene and lead these movements to the victory. Unfortunately, in Nepal, we don't have those forces at this stage, but we're building them everywhere. And our main task is to educate ourselves, to learn from these experiences. It's not enough just to say, "Oh, it's such a great day. There's been a revolution in Nepal." Well, what about tomorrow when that revolution inevitably comes to comes to a halt and is reversed and very bad things might happen, or in Indonesia or in Sudan or in Bangladesh, or in France or Sri Lanka? No, we, we have to study these events. That is our main task. Study these events, learn the lessons, learn to understand the power of the masses, how they move, the laws of a revolution. But also the pitfalls, most importantly, the mistakes that you can't make. And in order to do that, we are now making a small reading list of all the topics that we are talking about here with as much background material that we can find, that people can find in the comments to the video. But more importantly, join the Revolutionary Communist International and help us build that force. That's all I had to say. Jorge:Very good. I don't have anything to add to that. Very good ending. Hamid:Well, let's end it there. It's been a great show. And yes, my name is Hamid Alizadeh. This was Jorge Martín. This is Against the Stream, and we'll be back next Thursday, 6pm London time. Thank you very much.
