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The Gen Z of the Global South strikes again!

Madagascar’s army sides with the protesting youth and seizes the power

Milla Mallikas
09/11/2025

The wave of vast uprisings throughout Africa and Asia has also reached Madagascar, the Southeast African island state and former French colony. Once again, the protests were led by the country’s youth and young adults – known as the Gen Z . They are fed up with the lack of proper education and job opportunities, failing infrastructure, high living costs and inequality, corrupt politicians, police violence and non-existing democracy; and anger has been building up for years. After days of unsuccessful attempts of breaking the uprising with police and military brutality, the army unit CAPSAT eventually mutinied and turned its weapons against the state oppression. The president Rajoelina was impeached by the National Assembly and flew to exile with help of Emmanuel Macron.

This is nothing new, Madagascar – like many countries of the Global South – has seen military coups before. There were military takeovers in five other former French colonies, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon and Guinea since 2020. Now the army in Madagascar announced their take-over of the state institutions and is forming a transitional government on October 14^th. The army will work together alongside a civilian parliament until new elections are held in up to two years, People’s Dispatch reported. The new president, colonel Randrianirina, underlined that power was handed him by the people. “This is not a coup,” he stated in the first press conference on October 16 highlighting that Madagascar’s seizure of power is taking place in support of a civilian protest movement, according to taz. Indeed, Bakary Sambe, from the Senegal-based Timbuktu Institute for Peace Studies explains that there is a visible trend of civil society backed coups in Africa that are considered as a democratization process from below. Yet, many examples have shown – like the developments after the Arab spring in Egypt – that the military cannot be trusted to work for the people but rather tends to turn against them.

Moreover, Randrianirina has now appointed Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo as a new civilian prime minister. He is a businessman, former chairman of the National Industrial Bank as well as a former consultant of the World Bank and the EU. Randrianirina justified his choice stating Rajaonarivelo has “the skills, the experience but also relations with international organisations in other countries that will collaborate with Madagascar,” according to Radio France Internationale. This hardly is good news taking into account the demands of the Gen Z and the historical developments that have led to the status quo. That is a small elite fills their pockets with millions, while 80% of the population relies on agriculture as their primary source of income; and almost 70% live “under the poverty line” with US$2.15 per person per day (according to the World Bank 2024/25).

The “Mad Queen” of Madagascar and other (neo) colonial clichés

“You cannot imagine, some years ago . . . the journey from Tamatave to Mahavelona took only 40 minutes. Now it takes about four hours if the car doesn’t break down,” a Swiss friend explains, who has lived in Madagascar for 12 years. He is talking about one of the country’s main roads that stretches along the eastern coast, built by the Chinese but failed to be maintained by the government. Now the road is filled with huge, dangerous pot holes and the sand, mud and sea salt break the vehicles quickly. The country lacks the basic infrastructure throughout that would help to pull people out of poverty. As another example, a 17km drive in the country side took a whole two hours one way in an SUV. We passed tiny villages and plantations without seeing any other electric vehicle on the narrow bumpy and muddy road. Not even the scooters that fill the streets in Antananarivo and other cities. People walk for hours to work at their farm and back to the village – young and old, many carrying large sacks of crop on their backs. “What happens if there is an emergency, like a heart attack?” I asked the driver. “Well then there is nothing you can do: people just die,” he shrugged his shoulders.

The unacceptable living conditions in large parts of rural areas have encouraged rural exodus and the formation of a “slum proletariat” – lumpenproletariat with the high revolutionary potential as Frantz Fanon put it. They have no prospects in the cities, a fertile breeding ground for popular uprisings, as taz describes (October 18). The vast majority end up working in informal sectors of buying and selling goods, like Hashimi from an El Pais report 2022. He belongs to the stateless Karana minority who usually even have no civil rights, rights to vote or even to own land. There have been pogroms in the minority neighbourhoods and kidnappings of Karana. Indeed, my Swiss friend explained that the Malagasy society is highly divided with intense racism against people from outside the central plateau around Antananarivo. The power in the country is highly concentrated in the capital and its Merina people consider themselves as the ruling “caste”.

The kingdom of Merina has a rich royal history. It managed to effectively resist the British and French imperialism during the reign of Queen Ranavalona I mid-19^th century but at a high cost. Pursuing the policy of self-sufficiency and ancestral practices, the queen successfully fought French invasions, withdrew the trade agreements with the Brits (signed by her late husband), and outlawed and persecuted Christianity and the European missionaries. Yet, she also launched attacks to other provinces executing and enslaving masses. Especially people from other ethnic groups – in the name of “national unity” and progress of the Merina reign. However, there are horrific stories about her terror which estimates one half of the population perished. These are mainly written by the colonialists – not least to argue how a woman cannot be an emancipated head of state and to downgrade the atrocities committed by Queen Victoria. But research by Alison Kamhi in 2002 shows more diverse perceptions about Queen Ranavalona I by locals. Her legacy still fascinates many and impacts the political discourse. The queen saw that dependency on imported basic goods would lead to the takeover by the Europeans. During her rule, Madagascar started a rapid industrialization: Various factories were built by the state as well as private investors. The highly controversial Queen managed to increase the prosperity in the country, survived an assassination attempt, orchestrated by her son and a French slave trader, and died peacefully 1861.

After her rule, the Merina monarchs turned back towards Christianity to collaborate with Europeans. Despite fierce resistance, finally losing independence in French invasion 1896. Monarchy was abolished, the last Queen Ranavalona III was sent to exile to Algeria and history of Malagasy kingdoms swiped out from the school curriculum. The French exercised particularly exploitative and cruel colonialism with the principle of “assimilation” to shift the island’s economy to export oriented crop production like coffee. Moreover, uprisings were brutally smashed like the revolt of 1947 to which the French troops reacted with tremendous violence: “[…] killing an estimated 30,000 to 90,000 Malagasy people over the course of 18 months. French troops engaged in widespread massacres, forced labor, and torture to quell the rebellion, leaving deep scars on the Malagasy population.” Yet, even after independence in 1960, the state was characterized by French settler power and tight relations to the former colonizer, and neo liberal Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) of the IMF and the World Bank.

Back to the future

The rather anarchistic protests begun September 25 with growing rage about frequent power and water supply cuts as well as police violence. The Gen Z of the country demanded the basic rights of access to clean water and sufficient electricity – but also changes to the whole political system, according to L’Express. Taz reports corruption and mismanagement in the national water and electricity supplier Jirama. In addition, the island is facing the worst drought for 40 years, and international NGOs warn about a famine threatening the poor eastern and southern regions with many being displaced. Since a large part of the country’s electricity production comes from hydropower, the drought impacts the power supply. The freedom of association, assembly and speech are highly restricted in Madagascar, as Amnesty International reports. Hence, president Andy Rajoelina reacted first with harsh repressions and violence against the protests. But the fierce Gen Z kept taking the streets until the army unit CAPSAT decided to support the uprising. It had already done this in 2009 helping Rajoelina into power. The army now ousted the same president 16 years later. “Let us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters,” the soldiers at the base in the Soanierana district said in a video posted on social media, according to Al Jazeera on October 11.

So, history repeats itself but the spark grows. The Indian Times reports on October 27, that many of the Gen Z are ready to protest further if there is no change and their demands aren’t met. “Here, people of my age, they almost all don’t work. They are standing here with their hands in their pockets – they have no income,” tells one young person to the journalist. Moreover, Socialist Worker points out, that this time there were Union attempts to back the protest, especially in the health care sector. Camilla Royle underlines that cooperation between the workers of the continent’s huge informal sector and the organized working class is crucial to push through the demands, instead of flattening the protest movement into small reforms.

Daniel T. Makokera, explains: “Across the continent, a new phenomenon is emerging — the so-called “good coups.” In an era where leaders in their 80s and 90s cling to power through sham elections and constitutional manipulation, some Africans, especially the youth, see military takeovers as a desperate form of justice. When a 91-year-old in Cameroon can “win” an election after four decades of corruption and repression, one cannot entirely blame a generation that begins to equate stability with stagnation and revolt with renewal.” Pointing out the resent regime changes in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon and Guinea, Makokera calls the developments a continental symptom. Where the young generation has lost their hope and trust in the “democratic” institutions – with the old imperialist powers as the puppet masters.

As one Kenyan comrade put it, for decades Africans have looked up to Europe and the US and accepted their hegemony. The younger generation is different. Armed with social media networks, they see the linkages between the poverty in their countries, neo colonialism and the international instruments of the IMF and the World Bank. They are not ready to take the exploitation anymore. During my travels in various African countries, I kept asking the same question: “You managed to chase the powerful European colonizers away some decades earlier but where is the outrage and the resistance now?” And I kept getting the same answer: “We are tired and people just disappear easily if they try to organize protests. During the colonial time it was easy to point out who the enemy is but now we are exploited and oppressed by our own people.” Charismatic military leaders like Traoré in Burkina Faso are hardly the long-term solution for the true liberation of the people of the Global South, but perhaps are the means to the right direction. Yet, the most important lesson learned here remains, that the people are finding their power and agency to unite, resist and to liberate themselves.

Palestine and the Modern Day Heretics

A photo essay

Ron Whyte
05/11/2025

As a socially engaged artist I’ve developed an interest in the role of the arts in perilous times, particularly in finding creative, alternative ways of intervening in the current social and political crisis, something all cultural workers should be interested in, especially now. What is very noticeable is that at the moment when we need artists and creatives to be taking risks, many are refusing to touch certain topics, usually out of fear. Even worse, some embrace the role of Leni Reifenstahl, allowing their art to be used to whitewash and legitimize oppressive bullshit. Several years ago while working for the largest public arts organization in my city I became intimately familiar with how art was mobilized by capitalists and status quo people to put a pretty face on the same old ugly capitalist/colonial exploitation. The complicity of my former employer in the gentrification crisis in my hometown of Philadelphia, and the complicity of many liberals in the exploitative nonprofit industrial complex, is why I decided to commit myself to art in service of liberation instead of status quo and ego. Pivoting to addressing social problems via art is also a tactical consideration. Moving forward means changing hearts and minds as we unravel and challenge the toxic legacy of European settler colonialism and the racist logic that underpins it. The power of art offers us an opportunity to educate about complex issues, agitate those who are complacent, and neutralize the general aversion to grappling with difficult subjects. I hope this photo essay will inspire activists and social change advocates to lean more heavily on the arts as a tool for social change.

The perspective and worldview I’ll be sharing here is that of the subaltern. Subalterns “are the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire.” This perfectly describes individuals like myself who come from ghettoised and intentionally impoverished situations inside of the Amerikkkan empire. Unlike most people who come from where I come from, I’ve been able to gain some education, travel to Europe, and have developed a certain awareness after connecting the dots between oppression here and oppression there. My decision to focus much of my life on activism and social change has been a direct result of living in Germany in my early twenties and having some wacky adventures in the infamous sex industry there. There I saw mostly people of color and Eastern Europeans experiencing the kind of exploitation and oppression facing ghettoized Black folks back home. These experiences tremendously impacted my activism and the direction of my artistic practice and are a part of my over twenty year relationship with Germany.

As an activist the medium of social practice art presented itself as the best option for tackling complicated subjects. Social practice art is not so much about a finished product or piece to hang on a wall; it’s more about the process itself, the relationships and communities involved and the social issue one is focusing on. During 2020’s summer of upheaval after the brutal, on camera murder of George Floyd I began contemplating how to use art to respond to the crises of anti-Blackness and rising fascism. That summer I also began looking into finally getting a cat. I did not realize it then, but this cat would form the conceptual foundation of my socially engaged art project based on the work of the German Jewish scholar and author Victor Klemperer.

I named the kitten ‘Victor’ because of my great appreciation for Klemperer’s work which has taught me many valuable lessons about fascism and how it functions. Another inspiration for my cat’s name was that Victor and his wife Eva were cat lovers who were forced to have their beloved pet Muschel euthanized during WWII after the nazis declared that Jewish households could no longer own pets. More on this later. My journey with Victor the cat eventually took me back to Germany. I once joked with someone that the cat was on his own journey and I was simply his chaperone, but after looking back over everything that’s happened maybe there’s more truth to that than I realized.

Besides Victor and Eva Klemperer, one of my major inspirations has been the Black Marxist philosopher and author Gerald Horne. He is most well known for his provocative reexamination of the myth of 1776 as a great leap forward for Amerikkka and the world. I started getting into Gerald Horne around the time I got my cat. Horne’s commitment to looking deeper into history inspired me to investigate the history of the stigmatization of black cats. It might seem like a random and meaningless association to make at first glance, but looking at the history of the persecution of cats in Europe illuminates other systems of oppression and how they function. The enduring stigma against black cats is no joke and helps explain why they are adopted less often and why they’re associated with dark forces and bad luck.

When I began digging into the history of this discrimination I was shocked to learn that the stigma that black cats carry today can be traced back to a German nobleman named Konrad von Marburg.

The Devil Appears to St. Dominico of Calerueja Le Miroir Historical 1400-1410. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 72 A 24, fol. 313v

Konrad von Marburg was one of the first inquisitors hired by the Catholic church. Inquisitors located and punished people following unauthorized Christian sects or still adhering to their traditional spiritual practices. Because of his proven harsh track record, Pope Gregory IX appointed Marburg as the first grand inquisitor of the German region. Marburg reported back to the Pope something quite strange. He claimed to have witnessed a Satanic ritual where novices were initiated into a coven of witches. These novices were required to:

…pay homage to “a black cat” which emerged ”from a kind of statue which normally stands in the place where these meetings are held.” The whole coven was required to kiss the cat’s behind, and once they had done this, a wild sexual orgy occurred. Once the lights came back on, “from a dark corner, the figure of a man emerges.” This ‘man’ was Lucifer, who the whole company firmly believed to have been wronged by God. As was to be expected of a former angel “The upper part of his body from the hips upward shines as brightly as the sun.” However, his fall from grace was encapsulated by his lower body where “his skin is coarse and covered with fur like a cat.”

After Marburg reported what he supposedly witnessed to Pope IX, a papal decree called the Vox in Rama was issued. This decree explicitly identified cats as associated with Satan, witches and heretics. This was part of the Catholic Church’s efforts to purge Europe of pagan influence. For the Egyptians, Romans, Irish and others, cats were symbols of power, fertility, and represented a connection with the spirit world. After being labeled by the church as avatars of the devil, cats began to be persecuted and murdered by superstitious medieval Europeans. Because of Marburg’s descriptions that were elevated by the pope, black cats bore the brunt of the persecution. The Danish carnival tradition of Fastelavn is a good example of this. During the medieval period black cats in Denmark were targeted and beaten to death to represent the defeat of evil spirits necessary to usher in the spring season.

Victor shortly before we left Philadelphia

Marburg’s influence on the persecution of cats in Europe shows the pernicious influence of both the Catholic Church and the German ruling class which has always been at the forefront of supporting terrible things (like Hitler). The similarities between the demonization of cats and the demonization of human beings illustrates how stigma can endure across generations. Gerald Horne has touched on this, explaining how religion formed both the basis and the justification for colonialism and chattel slavery. The Vox in Rama issued by Pope IX was only one of a series of papal decrees that had far reaching consequences. The Dum Diversas (1452) and the Romanus Pontifex (1455) were papal decrees issued by Pope Nicholas V authorizing Portugal to enslave non-Christians on the African continent. The most consequential and far reaching of these papal decrees was probably Pope Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera. This decree authorized Spain and Portugal to colonize the Americas and justified the enslavement of Africans and Native Americans. It’s within this context of the Catholic Church’s support for atrocities that we must view Christopher Columbus’ infamous voyage of 1492, a voyage that was embarked on primarily because of Columbus’ desire to forcefully retake Jerusalem from Arab control. The religious mania of Columbus and his desire to restart the Crusades is intimately connected with the modern day oppression of Palestinians. There will be much more to say about all of this and about Columbus in part two of this essay.

Without understanding the history of Christian domination in Europe and the role of the Christian church in legitimizing systems of oppression it is impossible to fully grasp what is happening today. For example, why Chancellor Merz praised the state of Israel for doing Europe’s “dirty work” in Iran. The extreme dehumanization of Muslims and Palestinians and the deranged cynicism and hypocrisy of our leaders cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of how the past is impacting current events. There needs to be a greater awareness of how these Middle Eastern wars in the modern era are the latest chapter of the religious wars/Crusades seeking to assert Christian dominance over Muslims. Today, the state of Israel is both a pawn and a weapon that Christian Zionists support for religious reasons. When we scan the social and political landscape objectively we can see that Zionism has effectively replaced Christianity as the orthodoxy that cannot be challenged; its critics have become the modern day heretics.

Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.

Recently, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations called Francesca Albanese a “witch” – a good example of someone being literally branded a modern day heretic.

In our modern era heretics are no longer burned at the stake. But as we can see in Gaza, those branded as heretics are still subjected to brutal punishment, torture and murder. Dehumanized as “Amalek” and generally shunned by polite society, Palestinians are the quintessential modern day heretics. They along with their supporters often find themselves brutalized by the authorities, the subject of smear campaigns, or losing their careers and livelihoods.

The photo above was taken in a Berlin leftist space that will remain unnamed for now. This space is where I experienced a taste of what it must have felt like to be a heretic in medieval Germany. While living in Berlin a few years ago I was struggling with the cost of housing and reached out to a local leftist about the possibility of some mutual aid. I came into conflict with someone in the house over a misunderstanding about my cat (they weren’t informed that I was bringing him with me to the guest area). I then found myself in a “plenum” facing some of the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever encountered in my life. Total stupidity, total hypocrisy, and even worse, a complete and total inability or unwillingness to hear my point of view. Despite knowing that I was in a difficult situation with nowhere to go, this room full of white Germans decided to vote to kick me out of the space. Then, on the day they were expecting me to leave, a white German woman sent the only Black guy living there to threaten me. The next morning, three men came to threaten me again and demanded I leave immediately. Things would have gone much differently if I were totally apolitical and not known as a supporter of Palestinian rights. Observing what’s been happening in Germany over the past few years has helped me put this experience in perspective. Seeing protestors being punched in the face and maimed by police on the streets of Berlin helped me understand the behavior I experienced as an extension of the will of the state. In Germany under their demented “staatsraison” Palestinians and their supporters are essentially viewed as heretics who threaten the orthodoxy of Zionism. This orthodoxy is not only about dogma and personal opinions; it’s about money, resources, employment, social standing and institutional access. Those who deviate from the authorized, state sanctioned opinion on the state of Israel will be punished. The burning of heretics in Germany is no longer literal (for now), but on a symbolic level it is still happening regularly.

While studying the life and work of the German Jewish diarist and author Victor Klemperer it dawned on me that Jews who criticize Zionism are now considered heretics as well. Considering the history there, the situation in Germany is like something out of the Twilight Zone. In the land where swastikas once fluttered proudly from all government buildings there is no consideration for the fact that before nazism Jewish life was full of debate and various opinions on all sorts of subjects. Before the despicable mass murder that German nazis and their collaborators committed, Zionism was a relatively unpopular clique in Germany. It was unpopular because most Western European Jews were on their way to fully assimilating and had no interest in a far away Middle Eastern colony. The following diary passage written in November of 1933 shortly after the nazis came to power is a good example of what is now considered heresy by the mainstream establishment.

Walter Jelski has gone to Palestine. Perhaps he will prosper there. After all, it is like something from a novel. I cannot help myself, I sympathize with the Arabs who are in revolt there, whose land is being “bought.” A Red Indian fate, says Eva.

Victor Klemperer is a representation of inconvenient Jewish voices and perspectives. These voices have been silenced and strategically ignored because their opinions are considered heretical by the establishment. Klemperer’s sympathy for Palestinians who were “in revolt” would get him thrown in jail if he were alive and expressing these opinions publicly in Germany today. We are allowed to have sympathy for IDF soldiers, but not for members of the Palestinian resistance. Perspectives like Klemperer’s are important because his critiques of Zionism 1) come from someone who lived through and survived nazi terror and the worst antisemitism to have ever existed and 2) his critiques are on a scholarly, philosophical level backed up by facts. I need to once again invoke the Twilight Zone because that was how it felt to be in Germany several years ago looking for opportunities to share my insights on Klemperer’s work. What I discovered is that Jewish perspectives are not welcome in Germany if they’re not aligned with Zionism, not even from Jews themselves. Considering Germany’s tragic history this represents a political and moral crisis.

I would like to bring this to a close by talking about one of the main benefits of approaching these issues from the perspective of an artist. Art frees us from the usual restrictions. Not everything needs to “make sense” in the traditional sense. Art allows us to investigate our reality instead of accepting everything we are told as the gospel truth. Art allows us to take conceptual risks. Under the banner of the arts, perspectives that are heretical in the mainstream can find an audience of like minds. Art has potential to connect folks across the lines of ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality and socio-economic status. I truly believe that art will play a fundamental role in the resolution to the current crisis in Palestine. The photo directly above was taken in Dresden inside the shatzkammer that holds one of the rarest and most valuable texts in the world, the Dresden Mayan Codex. In part two I will explain how studying the life and work of the Klemperer’s (especially his wife Eva) led me to an understanding of the importance of this ancient Mayan text, especially in relation to Germany’s colonial history.

The above photo juxtaposition is an example of how as an artist you need to trust your instincts. Without having done any serious research into it yet, I sensed that there was some connection between Klemperer’s diaries and this Mayan text. Inspired by Eva Klemperer’s “Red Indian fate” observation I brought the diaries with me on my last trip to Dresden in late September of 2023. It was not until I was back in the United States that I learned about the Jewish Indian theory and how antisemitism played a crucial role in the terrible crimes committed against Native Americans. Genocides do not happen in isolation. While reflecting on the juxtaposition in the above photo I came to understand that this Mayan codex needs to be returned to Chichén Itzá where it belongs and Klemperer’s original diary pages should take its place in the shatzkammer. Because not only is Klemperer’s diary a historical treasure, it’s a veritable book of souls introducing us to perspectives and voices that otherwise would have been lost forever. In part two I will unpack the more esoteric angles of this and share more of Victor the cat’s role in assisting me with this socially engaged art project. I will also explain my rationale for leaving him behind in Germany. The photo below is a picture of him at the last place we stayed together – on Dresdener Straße in Berlin, shortly before I returned to the States.

Red Flag: Is Berlin’s government violating EU sanctions?

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin looks at how the publicly-funded Nova exhibition praises far-right terrorists.

Nathaniel Flakin

The Nova festival exhibition at the former Tempelhof Airport claims to be an apolitical commemoration of the victims of a massacre. On October 7, 2023, 344 Israeli civilians were killed at a music festival near the Gaza border. Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) sponsored the travelling show with 1,383,840.33 euros — while his government is slashing cultural funding. Critics like Naomi Klein and Ben Ratskoff have argued this is not a memorial, but rather war propaganda to manufacture consent for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

There is already a scandal brewing about these subsidies. As Tagesspiegel reports, CDU politicians like former cultural senator Joe Chialo distributed €2.65 million for “projects to fight antisemitism,” including the Nova exhibition, in violation of laws about public procurement. Big chunks of this money went to their friends. Who knows what the CDU believes in, if anything? Whatever they do, you can be sure they are lining their pockets.

The Senate Administration for Education sent out an e-mail to all schools encouraging them to take students to the exhibition — it’s free for them, thanks to “generous donations” (while Berlin museums are raising prices.) The accompanying curriculum is provided by the anti-Islam activist Ahmad Mansour.

In contrast to a museum, this exhibition does not encourage reflection and learning about historical contexts. The word Gaza is never mentioned, let alone the ongoing genocide. Instead, visitors are supposed to identify emotionally with the victims, in a struggle of “good” versus “evil.”

Kahanist

Last week, the “apolitical” exhibition offered a “conversation with heroes of October 7.” (The event has mysteriously disappeared from the official Instagram account, but is still available on Facebook.) The “heroes” included the radical settler Elkana Federman, the son of Israel’s most infamous far-right terrorist, Noam Federman.

Federman the father, a settler in the Palestinian city of Hebron, was a spokesman of the Kach party (known as “Kahanist” from its founder Meir Kahane). Kach has been banned in Israel since the 1990s due to terrorist attacks against Palestinians, including the massacre of 29 worshippers in Hebron in 1994. Noam Federman praised the shooter, a fellow Hebron settler, just as he praised the assassin of Yitzak Rabin.

This is a long family tradition: Noam’s father, David Federman, was a member of the Stern Gang, far-right Zionists who sought an alliance with Nazi Germany, massacred Palestinians, and assassinated UN officials.

Federman the son continues this fascist activism. He is part of the group Tsav 9 that blocks humanitarian aid headed for Gaza — even the limited aid approved by the Israeli government. As an IDF soldier, Federman has posted videos of himself torturing Palestinian prisoners, and subsequently bragged about that on Israeli TV.

This group has been sanctioned by the U.S. and the EU—according to the EU council, “Tzav 9 is responsible for serious human rights abuses.” The relevant regulations state “No funds or economic resources shall be made available, directly or indirectly” to sanctioned groups or individuals.

While I’m not a lawyer, it’s hard to see how both the exhibition and Berlin’s government are not in violation of EU law. I have reached out to the Senate Administration for Culture several times for comment, but they have not responded.

Can you picture the government inviting the Russian army choir to Berlin to commemorate the victims of anti-Russian racism in Eastern Ukraine? This is actually worse: normalizing Kahanism like this would be a red line even for Israeli society.

Criminal Charges

The Hind Rajab Foundation has filed charges against Federman with Germany’s federal prosecutor. Germany can and does prosecute war crimes under its Code of Crimes against International Law, regardless of the location of the acts and the nationality of the perpetrators.

Federman himself seems unconcerned that the German government will enforce its own laws, posting on an Instagram story from Berlin: “Antisemites and pro-Arabs are calling to arrest me in Germany — be my guest.”

This praise for far-right terrorists is particularly disturbing in a German context. The CDU was built up by Nazi war criminals like Hans Globke to rehabilitate the perpetrators of the Shoah. When the German bourgeoisie expresses empathy for Israeli war criminals, they are ultimately making excuses for their own crimes.

The German state claims to adhere to international law, but in reality the law only applies when it is in line with German foreign policy. The government would enforce an ICJ arrest warrant against Putin—but ignore the same warrant against Netanyahu. German courts have a long record of exonerating war crimes —and they are preparing to do so at a much greater scale as German imperialism rearms.

When the management of The Berliner magazine decided to promote the Nova exhibition with advertisements, they argued this was an apolitical event—and besides, they are just a cultural magazine. But it’s clear that the Nova exhibition aims to support far-right ideas, both in Germany and in Israel. That’s why I, along with all the other freelancers from The Berliner, remain on strike.

Red Flag is a weekly opinion column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

We don’t need feminism because we have #girlbosses

On the neoliberal roots of girlboss feminism

Lee-Ann Steiger

To all my male friends

who try to convince me that we “achieved gender equality”

because women can work as CEOs.

To all women

who are a #girlboss and try to convince us

that we are responsible for our own success.

To all those people

who are complicit in the perpetuation of

the patriarchal, neoliberal, and racist capitalist agenda.

What does it mean to live a feminist life? If feminist ethics refer to the opposition of oppressive societal structures that privilege men over women, what does a daily embodiment of this opposition look like? Throughout conversations with my male friends and family members, I have often encountered the argument that there is no need for feminism in daily life anymore. We do not need to oppose structural oppression of women, because there is none. Women can work and they have the opportunity to become CEOs. And if women are not financially independent, it is not the patriarchy’s fault but instead, their own decision to stay at home. At least, that’s what they argue. If you agree, I have to tell you that you are living under a false illusion. This illusion is called neoliberal capitalism and is based on gendered and racist structural exclusion. However, I can see why you might believe this deceptive vision of reality. If I search for “female empowerment” on the internet, I am bombarded with the so-called #girlboss attitude. This ideological movement is promoted by financially successful women, portraying the narrative that any woman can live their dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur. She just needs to work hard enough, or to use the words of Kim Kardashian, she just needs to “get her fucking ass up and work”. This essay aims to deconstruct the illusion that the girlboss movement indicates gender equality. In the following, I will reveal to you why this logic operates within a patriarchal framework and further perpetuates interconnected systems of racist and classist oppression. Aiming to present you with an alternative conceptualization of how to approach collective women’s liberation, I will first explain the concepts of the girlboss ideology. Then, I will draw a connection between the girlboss narrative and the neoliberal agenda, highlighting that it operates within a patriarchal framework. Further, the racist and classist dimension of the narrative will be examined, arguing why privileged successful women continue to comply with systems of oppression. Throughout my analysis, I will draw upon different feminist scholars and elaborate on how their ideas play into the debate on girlboss feminism.

To begin with, let us re-examine what the girlboss movement stands for. Sophia Amoruso described the movement for the first time in her 2014 book #Girlboss, where the word represents the idea that every woman can become financially successful if she works hard and takes responsibility for her life. The focus on individual “agency”, “self-responsibility” and “hard work” resembles the neoliberal ideology and creates a feminist subject who is occupied with her individual economic success, accepting full self-responsibility for her goals, as Catherine Rottenberg describes in her 2013 paper on neoliberal feminism.

If women’s empowerment is equated with female entrepreneurship or leadership, it seems that the proponents of that logic are influenced by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963). Friedan critiques the cultural norms that push women into the domestic sphere (p.32). She argues that women are deeply dissatisfied with their condition and can only find true fulfillment when pursuing a professional career (p.32). Whilst Friedan criticized cultural and gendered norms for bringing women into this condition of dissatisfaction, girlboss entrepreneurs refrain from blaming patriarchal structures. Instead, they emphasize the individual responsibility of women to climb up the professional ladder and become satisfied with their lives. Either way, achieving financial or entrepreneurial success is posited as a realization of female liberation and gender equality. Consequently, the idea is that successful female entrepreneurs escape patriarchy by challenging gendered labor division.

Following this argumentation, there are feminist voices who would probably applaud the #girlboss we find online. One of which is Simone de Beauvoir. In The Second Sex (2009), de Beauvoir highlights that social and existential conditions constructed women as the “the other sex”, meaning that they have been socially placed in an inferior position to men (p.32). De Beauvoir argues that women submit to their constructed condition of inferiority and thus, emphasizes upon women’s responsibility to stop complying with that role (p.28). The girlboss mentality is focused on hard work and taking risks. This corresponds to the existentialist standpoint of de Beauvoir, who calls on women to transcend their socially ascribed inferiority. While one might think that female entrepreneurs transcend gendered labor division, they do not truly challenge patriarchy. Have you not wondered why there even is the need to call a successful woman a girlboss? Can she not just be a successful woman? Or even more simply, a successful entrepreneur? Certainly, this semantic superficiality already highlights the patriarchal and patronizing undertone of how women are perceived in the professional world. But if now you think that merely abolishing the word is enough to truly challenge the roots of patriarchal logic, you are mistaken. Girlboss women do not escape their role of the “other” (p.32). Instead, they strive towards resembling the “default norm”, and this norm continues to be the male entrepreneur, as Susan Marlow and Janine Swail examine in their 2014 paper, where they critique the manner in which gender influences are being studied in entrepreneurship research. De Beauvoir unfortunately falls into the same trap when thinking about female liberation. Hooks examines that de Beauvoir positioned herself as an exceptional woman who had the “mind of a man”. Thereby, de Beauvoir continues to operate within patriarchal paradigms, because she considers women to be capable of reaching the gendered, male ideal. Consequently, neither de Beauvoir, nor the girlboss challenge the patriarchal roots of gender inequality.

Continuing to operate within patriarchal paradigms, the girlboss narrative devalues any work done outside the entrepreneurial or professional world. A 2022 policy brief by the Forum for Research on Gender Economics (FROGEE) outlined that all domestic and unpaid care work is predominantly done by women. Keeping this in mind, the girlboss narrative perpetuates and reinforces the patriarchal devaluation of housework. It is when financial and entrepreneurial achievements are equated with success and liberation that we must remember Silvia Federici’s call for Wages for Housework (1975). Federici emphasized that gendered labor division is part of the capitalist logic that devalues women’s labor in the domestic sphere and keeps capitalist exploitation running (p.78). One can draw a link to contemporary neoliberalism, which “has no lexicon that can recognize let alone value reproduction and care work”, as Caroline Rottenburg argues in her 2018 article, Women who work (p.8).

While the girlboss movement partly transcends gendered work division, it overlooks that domestic work remains devalued and unpaid. Thereby, it continues to operate in capitalist patriarchal frameworks and fails to challenge systemic inequalities at its root. So, what if we wage housework and stop complying with the neoliberal logic that entrepreneurship equals success? What if we call mothers, cleaners, and all other women who are deemed to be “non-aspirational” girlbosses as well (p.1079)? Wouldn’t this perspective deconstruct the idea that only entrepreneurial success, a domain that is still predominantly occupied by men, is true success?

Having revealed why girlbosses operate within and thereby perpetuate patriarchy, let us unravel the mechanisms of how their success creates new and intensified forms of racialized and class-stratified exploitation. Or did you really think becoming a girlboss is attainable for all women? In reality, only a few privileged women can emerge as girlbosses because their success relies on the racist and classist domination of other female comrades (Rottenberg, 2013, p.434). When aiming to transgress gendered work divisions, girlboss feminists focus on sex as the only marker for female identity. In her 2013 essay, True Philosophers, Hooks emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding, highlighting that female identity and experience are “shaped by gender, race, and class, and never solely by sex”. She poses a question that entrepreneurial power women tend to ignore: Who will be called in to take care of the domestic sphere and housework if more women enter the domain of entrepreneurship, which is considered to be the male sphere, asks bell hooks, in her 1984 book, Feminist Theory – From Margin to Center. The reality is that, most often, women of color, poor, and immigrant women serve as unacknowledged care workers who enable professional women to strive towards „balance“ in their lives. Hence, when examining the success of girlboss women, we must not forget the racist exploitation that sustains it.

What about women who can not afford to pay for a care worker while pursuing their professional career? What about single mothers who need to earn money and simultaneously raise a child and do the housework? When women are expected to continue their traditional role as mothers whilst becoming successful businesswomen, we must become suspicious. The idea that any woman has the opportunity to become a successful entrepreneur is an illusion and we must not forget that this opportunity is largely based on class privilege.

One might wonder why girlboss women comply with systemic classist and racist oppression of other women and thereby, obstruct collective women’s liberation. The paradox that individuals continue to be complicit with oppressive structures that they individually manage to “escape” from is not uncommon. Barbara Applebaum examined in her 2008 essay White privilege/white complicity: Connecting “benefitting from” to “contributing to”, how benefiting from a system of exclusion leads to one´s participation within it. Similarly, Audre Lorde emphasizes that white women are complicit with several mechanisms of systemic oppression, as they focus on their “oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class, and age”, in her 1984 essay, Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference. Girlboss women focus on sex as the marker for exclusion from the male professional sphere and are heavily influenced by the neoliberal agenda of individualized success. Therefore, I argue that successful female entrepreneurs are being tokenized by the neoliberal agenda. I base my claim on Wendy Brown’s conceptualization of neoliberalism being not merely an economic system, but a certain mode of thinking that becomes deeply internalized in the “inner workings of the subject“. Thereby, neoliberal values of self-responsibility and individualization infiltrate the minds of those girlbosses, making them believe that they transgress patriarchy when in reality, they are deeply stuck within it. They are a token for the broader neoliberal agenda, as they perpetuate the illusion of female empowerment.

When focusing on white, privileged middle-class women as the archetype for female lived experiences, successful girlbosses leave no space to address differences among women. Kimberle Crenshaw critiques this ignorance rampant in contemporary feminism, in her 1991 journal article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. According to her, those movements often fail to center intersectional identities which consequently leads to separation and tension amongst women. Rottenberg (2013) similarly concludes that women become increasingly separated rather than united in their actions. She draws the connection to the neoliberal agenda which frames the feminist social question in highly individualistic terms and consequently, erases the opportunity for genuine collective liberation (p. 419). I assume you agree that focusing on your individual success creates disregard for the interconnected struggles of other individuals. And this condition is highly problematic.

The ignorance of those “interlocking systems of domination”, to speak in hooksian terms, makes white, privileged, and successful women complicit in the domination of others (hooks, 2012, p.235). Thereby, girlbosses continue to coexist in patriarchal oppressive power structures, as they benefit from them. They seemingly made it out of gender-based oppression and universalize their individual experience to be achievable for all women. Girlboss culture operates within and thereby, reinforces the capitalist depiction of success in terms of finances and profession. Not only does it fail in challenging the neoliberal conceptualization of success, it also disregards differences within women and thereby, eliminates the opportunity for united female solidarity and liberation. Promoting girlboss feminism feeds into into patriarchal, racist, and capitalist systems of oppression. Therefore, I want to provide you with an alternative approach towards collective women’s liberation.

Drawing upon Lorde and Crenshaw, the denial of differences within groups leads to tension and separation among them (Lorde, 1984, p.115; Crenshaw, 2013, p.1242). Hence, we must acknowledge different female experiences and identities, and think about patriarchy as being interlocked with racist and capitalist modes of exploitation. This requires us to bring to attention other feminist movements that challenge neoliberal values and demand economic, cultural, and social change. The girlboss promotes the idea of women achieving success, within a patriarchal, classist, and racist logic. She prioritizes individual success within the system rather than changing the system itself. She ignores that this path is predominantly accessible to white, privileged, middle-class women and fails to address different lived experiences of less privileged and marginalized communities. But “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, as Lorde famously noted. In that sense “the master’s tools” are the patriarchal, neoliberal agendas of individualized success. And while I do not intend to blame girlbosses for wanting to achieve entrepreneurial success, I certainly intend to blame them for creating the illusion that this is the ultimate path to gender equality. I blame them for promoting a one-size-fits-all approach to female empowerment while ignoring that this approach is deeply hostile and exclusionary for women who do not fit this one-sized, privileged archetype.

We need to find tools that are not the “master´s”. Hence, we need to find tools that do not repeat the patriarchal, neoliberal and racist agenda. This might include re-conceptualizing our societal views on what it means to be successful. It might include waging housework and refusing the narrative that female entrepreneurs are the ideal successful women. It might include creating a world in which all women, no matter whether they are mothers, housewives, care workers, or entrepreneurs, are being recognized and cherished for the work they do. In doing so, we must always work towards abolishing neoliberal blaming of individuals and publicly reveal the structural inequalities that allow for the success of the privileged few. Whilst this approach will certainly be uncomfortable for those of us who have the privilege to become a girlboss, we must dismantle the systemic oppression upon which this privilege builds. And most importantly, we must face our own complicity within those dynamics.

Lee-Ann finished her Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science, majoring in Politics, and is a certified teacher and student of holistic health. In her work, she aims to combine arts, culture, and politics to raise political awareness on a community level.

Between sovereignty and submission

Latin America’s fate under US imperial power

Sascha Cornejo P
03/11/2025

Gustavo Petro has a meeting in Caracas with the President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro.

The new phase of imperial aggression is the result of Washington’s interpretation of the ‘multipolar world’. It is not that every country in the world is free to do business with whomever it wants—as seems to emanate from the BRICS philosophy—but quite the opposite. So-called ‘multipolarity’ in the imperial interpretation is the exercise of the most cruel and violent imperialism, without hindrance or restraint, in the empire’s ‘sphere of influence’. Washington’s interpretation once again focuses on Latin America. We are facing a situation in which unfounded accusations against inconvenient leaders will justify any barbarity and violence.

Trump’s accusations against the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, of being leaders of ‘narco-terrorist’ groups that threaten the security of the United States appear to be part of a new imperial strategy to combat those who refuse to align themselves with Washington’s imperatives. These recent threats were followed by a series of extrajudicial killings of Colombian fishermen who were accused without any evidence of being drug traffickers. This appears to be merely an extension of the empire’s right to impose its laws on other nations. Meanwhile, the corporate media will propagate these lies without question, and Western governments—until recently supposedly still concerned with human rights and international law—remain silent and obey.

In the imperial interpretation of the multipolar world, the countries of the Global South must submit to the US empire’s sphere of influence. This interpretation is not only wrong but disastrous for everyone except those in the United States, with even worse outcomes for countries that cling to their right to exercise sovereignty by resisting such attacks. It is to be expected that the ridiculous accusations of ‘narco-terrorism’ now levelled at the leaders of Venezuela and Colombia will also be hurled at leaders who attempt to exercise sovereignty.

Latin America finds itself between two antagonistic blocs—China and the United States—both of which are important trading partners for the region. As the United States intensifies its attacks on the sovereignty of Latin American countries, they will increasingly find themselves in the middle of a geopolitical dispute over natural resources. It must be understood that Trump’s openly aggressive stance is part of a geopolitical calculation that makes sense in light of his interest in Venezuelan oil, Argentine and Bolivian lithium, and rare earths in Greenland and Ukraine.

It appears that the United States and its great ally, Israel, have opened Pandora’s box by committing and justifying a genocide that could be replicated in other parts of the world. The era of soft power through colour revolutions is over. What counts today is force and submission to power without ifs or buts. The efforts to bring regime change in Venezuela and Cuba are nothing new. But today the imperial power is no longer interested in holding an image of respecting human rights and other countries’ sovereignty. The message is clear: submit to our designs or we will ruin your economy and create the conditions for regime change. Moreover, the anti-communist power of the United States has no shortage of allies among Latin American oligarchies, as seen in the recent case of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, who has openly called for US military intervention in her own country, Venezuela. Of course, the United States knows all about peace and pacification, as it has demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen—places destroyed after so many promises to bring them the long-awaited ‘democracy’.

Many analysts see this desperate attempt to impose its interests on its sphere of influence as another sign of imperial decline. Latin America is not alone in this game; Europe shows increasing willingness to sacrifice itself for its ally. We are reminded of Henry Kissinger’s phrase, ‘It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.’ We know that in Latin America, there will always be leaders willing to ‘kiss the dirty boot that insults them’, as Chilean songwriter and poet Patricio Manns sang, a recent example of this being the humiliating obeisance that the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, paid to Washington to obtain a financial lifeline that will once again leave all Argentines in debt.

Meanwhile, we are witnessing the slow collapse of the Latin American countries that have opted for new neoliberal recipes. In Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina—countries among the empire’s staunchest allies—the social, political, and economic crises are worsening. Given the geopolitical and regional context ahead of Chile’s upcoming presidential elections, we can only fear the worst if the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast from the Republican Party becomes president. In the case that the left manages to prevail with Jeannette Jara from the Communist Party of Chile, we cannot rule out the possibility that Washington will do everything in its power to destabilise her government, just as it did 50 years ago with Salvador Allende. As the saying goes, ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’

If in the past the empire still operated with covert CIA operations to bring about regime change, today there seems to be no need to hide anything. The end justifies the means, even if it means breaking a country and its people. Thus, we are witnessing a Monroe Doctrine 2.0: ‘America for Americans’—but on steroids. There is no longer any international law that matters, just ask the Palestinians. As Naomi Klein pointed out, we are witnessing the apocalyptic phase of the extreme right, marked by ‘war abroad and fascism at home’. Such a phase raises concerns about the role that Latin America will play within this imperial and geopolitical constellation.