On 11th February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison near Cape Town. Addressing a crowd of 50,000 people, he declared, “Our march to freedom is irreversible.” Millions watched this historic event on television. Mandela’s release marked a significant step toward dismantling apartheid—institutionalized racial segregation—in South Africa in 1994. However, the US government, under Presidents Bush and Clinton, was slow to respond. Mandela was banned from entering the USA until 2008.
Nelson Mandela was born in the Eastern Cape in 1918. He attended his first demonstration in 1943 in Alexandra, outside Johannesburg, successfully opposing a 20% increase in bus fares. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) but later criticized its leader, Alfred Xuma, because “he enjoyed the relationships he had formed with the white establishment and did not want to jeopardize them with political action.” In 1944, Mandela co-founded the more radical ANC Youth League.
In 1956, Mandela was arrested for high treason in a trial that lasted five years. Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, where police killed 69 demonstrators, over 18,000 people were detained, and the ANC was banned. Mandela was convicted in another trial in 1962. Resistance continued with strikes in the early 1970s, the Soweto uprising in 1976, and the first openly political strike in 1982, involving 100,000 participants. These actions ultimately led to a series of strikes throughout the 1980s, contributing to the downfall of the apartheid regime.
In response to the Sharpeville Massacre, Mandela began to believe that armed struggle was essential for the liberation of Black South Africans. Although some have portrayed him as a pacifist, he became the central organizer of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s armed wing, starting in 1961. By 1985, the apartheid government indicated they would release Mandela if he renounced violence. He responded by stating he would remain in prison until the ban on the ANC was lifted.
Mandela’s release and the dismantling of apartheid did not lead to full equality in South Africa; instead, it instituted what Patrick Bond has termed “class apartheid.” In 1994, South Africa was forced to adopt a neoliberal IMF plan, which included cuts to state spending and public sector wages. Subsequent governments took further actions, such as orchestrating the Marikana massacre of striking miners. Nevertheless, Mandela’s release represented a significant victory, showing that with sufficient mobilisation, it is possible to overcome even the most repressive states.
Bruce Springsteen’s new folk song classic “Streets of Minneapolis”
Hari Kumar from the Marxist-Leninist Research Group on folk music and Trump’s ICE tactics
Some Leftists in the 1960s disparaged the pop song brigade as a propagandist distraction from the struggle. And maybe large parts of the category were consciously designed to help listeners “tune in, drop out”. However, folk music—the prized fare of the 1950s–80s leftists—was not frozen in the time of the 19th-century rise of the factories. How does a folk song come to be, who “writes” them, and can we have new ones now?
Many of the popular folk songs—even in the 1960s—originally came from the people. As A.L. Loyd wrote in the book Come All Ye Bold Miners:
“Songs that are so close to the heart of the common people may have a functional quality that goes far beyond mere diversion. Many of them were made up not so much to decorate life as to make it bearable … these songs arose spontaneously in working-class communities and in the main were transmitted orally.” (p.13–18)
We don’t know who wrote many of the extraordinary ballads of working-class resistance, such as the ones collected by Lloyd, like “Blackleg Miner“. But we do know who wrote “Streets of Minneapolis“.
Following the killing of nurse Alex Pretti on the 25th January and mother Renée Good on the 7th January in Minneapolis by ICE agents, Bruce Springsteen—in a fever pitch—wrote this song of memory and resistance.
On Sunday, 25th January, Springsteen recorded the song, and to date, it has had over 2 million views. “Streets of Minneapolis” is already a folk song.
To quote the lyrics of the first two verses:
Verse 1: Through the winter’s ice and cold Down Nicollet Avenue A city aflame fought fire and ice ‘Neath an occupier’s boots King Trump’s private army from the DHS Guns belted to their coats Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes
Verse 2: Against smoke and rubber bullets In the dawn’s early light Citizens stood for justice Their voices ringing through the night And there were bloody footprints Where mercy should have stood And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Chorus: Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice Singing through the bloody mist We’ll take our stand for this land And the stranger in our midst Here in our home, they killed and roamed In the winter of ’26 We’ll remember the names of those who died On the streets of Minneapolis”
Listen to this new anthem of our class today—but also organise.
We believe it is the agenda of Trump to provoke individual acts of violence. As we wrote when the ICE thugs were launched on Los Angeles workers in June 2025, the Trump regime is trying to provoke individual acts of resistance. In order to justify a military crackdown, Trump and Stephen Miller are using ICE to “provoke and goad”.
The current tactic of the Trump Government is to appear to “de-escalate” in the very short term. As a first step, they removed Border Patrol officer Greg Bovino, whose provocative and inflammatory actions were crucial to ICE’s aggression, and replaced him with Tom Homan. In a New York Times article, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz wrote:
“Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief whose tactics in immigration operations in American cities have garnered lawsuits and protests, was pulled out of Minneapolis. But White House officials maintained he was not at risk of losing his position. The White House has directed Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, to replace Mr. Bovino in Minnesota and meet with local authorities to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis, in Mr. Trump’s words.”
The New York Times and the Democratic Party are making it appear that things are going to “settle down” as Trump will somehow “see reason”. Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz reported in an article for the New York Times:
“The president announced on social media that he was sending Mr. Homan to Minneapolis, a tacit acknowledgment that he was losing control of a situation that posed one of the most serious political threats of his second administration.”
But this idea that Trump has suddenly had a change of heart is misleading. As the article goes on to scrutinise, who actually is Trump’s so-called “border czar”, Homan?
“Mr. Homan, a longtime ICE official, is seen among Mr. Trump’s allies as someone who could bring a measure of calm to the chaos in Minnesota, particularly because he has called for targeted arrests instead of sweeping raids. But he is fully on board with Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign; in 2018, he, along with two senior officials, recommended a policy that eventually led to families being separated at the southern border.”
Neither Kristi Noem (Secretary of Homeland Security) nor Stephen Miller (“the mastermind of President Trump’s hard-line immigration policy,”) have been removed from authority. Meanwhile, Democratic Party leader Chuck Schumer makes deals with Trump and the New York Times, tries to reassure the public. According to Carl Hulse, Schumer suggested that a Democratic Party agreement would allow Republican legislation to proceed on a “six-bill package” of spending measures, including spending on the military, health programs and other federal agencies. The Senate would then split off funding for Homeland Security (e.g. funding for ICE), where there could be “negotiations” on limiting ICE powers.
But the working class cannot believe that Schumer and Trump would agree to anything of any lasting value for the working class.
Meanwhile, a threat to do another Venezuela on Iran is unfolding, which will not help the working class oppressed by a theocracy there.
We need mass united actions and a united Marxist-Leninist party. We would like to reiterate what we said on 25th January 2026, that, as a minimum, the demands for this movement should include the following:
The withdrawal of ICE agents from Minneapolis and other cities;
The prosecution and public trials of the murderers of both Renée Good and Alex Pretti;
The release of those in detention from the ICE raids across the USA
A public enquiry with a view to laying criminal charges against the Trump leaders, setting and enabling the ICE attacks on the agenda.
We recognise that the last demand in particular will be difficult to achieve.
Ultimately—given the nature of the capitalist crisis besetting the USA—only a Marxist-Leninist united party can prevent this continuing and deteriorating. Only a socialist solution can stop this societal attack on workers. But the General Strike held in Minnesota is a valuable sign of how the working class can move.
As Lenin said, “strikes are a school of war”, and Minneapolis was one. In these times, we must learn fast.
It is necessary to add that while we are at war, our enemy is much more powerfully armed.
At this stage, our class response must be non-violent, mass demonstrations.
Only mass action and all that this implies can prevent the move towards the cancellation of the mid-term elections, the declaration of the Insurrection Act, and the formal imposition of fascism.
This is a revised version of an article that originally appeared at MLRG.online.
A couple of years ago, Lost in Europe published an investigation revealing that tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children have disappeared from Europe’s records. Vanishing from official radars, their whereabouts became nearly impossible to trace, leaving ample cause for wild speculation.
In Germany, one of the four main countries cited in that report, the situation for many refugees has gotten worse, with an increasing amount being pushed into homelessness. This is starkly visible in the capital, where Berlin’s infamous open drug scene has become home for a large population of undocumented migrants. Hotspots like Görlitzer Park and the nearby Kottbusser Tor (”Kotti”) are among the most obvious examples.
It doesn’t take long when at Kotti to notice the surprisingly young age of the North African boys selling drugs in the area. They are not only young but lack any valid documents or legal status. For me, meeting them was a quick reminder of the missing youth documented by Lost in Europe.
Since asylum applications from North Africans are routinely rejected in the EU, many of these boys deliberately go off the grid to avoid deportation. And those who have accumulated criminal records (due to unpaid fines, or theft, or drug dealing) tend to disappear in order to avoid detention.
These boys are famously known in local dialects as Harraga, which literally means “burners” in reference to burning borders, burning passports, or even burning the past, leaving everything behind to seek what they thought would be their perfect future in Europe. Their dangerous migration journey was meticulously documented by German director Benjamin Rost, who spent years following a group of Moroccan boys heading to Europe for his documentary film titled Harraga.
The film shows boys between 13 and 19 years old attempting to cross land borders from Morocco. Some of them, along with countless others whose journeys go undocumented, reach Spain, where they eventually join other youth who crossed the Mediterranean from other parts of North Africa.
For the Harraga youth who do successfully reach Europe, they become street children in Spain until they apply for asylum. Driven by hope or necessity, some continue their journey to other EU destinations. By the time they reach a final destination like Berlin, they discover that having previously applied in another EU state subjects them to the Dublin Regulation. This leads to a rejected claim and a deportation order back to the first country of application. Additionally, a trail of unresolved criminal cases left behind in transit countries also contribute to the denial of their asylum requests.
All these legal hurdles are often followed by economic struggles due to severe lack of legitimate income sources. This gap is the primary reason for their high tendency to commit crimes. Even those who apply for asylum in a comparatively generous city like Berlin receive only 200-400 Euros in monthly from the state. Formal employment is structurally inaccessible. Most are either ineligible for a work permit or must first secure a job offer, a significant barrier, as many have left school early and some are even functionally illiterate. Even those with certificates find them unrecognized in the EU. These systemic obstacles are compounded by personal challenges like trauma, family separation, and substance abuse, making the sustained routine needed to learn, certify skills, or hold a job nearly impossible.
This reality leaves many with access only to informal labor, such as construction or kitchen work. The far more lucrative and flexible alternative is drug dealing. In Berlin and other German cities, this precarious situation has fueled a sharp rise in the number of Arab youth in detention centers, pre-trial facilities, and prisons. Migrants now constitute nearly half of Berlin’s prison population, a threshold already crossed in Hamburg.
Behind these shocking statistics lie individual stories of young people who came to Europe with hopes and dreams and found nothing but a system that antagonised them. And this is no accidental policy; the criminalisation of these youth is a deliberate mechanism of racism and state violence. When we see these boys selling drugs in Kotti, we must see beyond the stereotypes to recognise the systematic forces that leave them with no legitimate alternatives. This includes the Dublin Regulation, which denies them asylum, the economic barriers that shut them out of formal employment, and the racist policing that targets them disproportionately. This crisis demands both awareness as well as solidarity. And hopefully through these stories, I can bring out the personal stories the statistics, reminding us all that each detention center bed, each prison cell, each street corner where a young person is forced to sell drugs represents the failure not only of society as whole but also of our activist circles that have not until now built structures to support these criminalised youth.
After it became known last year that Lieferando wanted to transfer 2,000 jobs to a “shadow fleet” of subcontractors and bogus self-employed workers, the works councils have suffered another setback in their fight for good working conditions and co-determination.
In its decision in proceedings 7 ABR 40/24, 7 ABR 23/24, and 7 ABR 26/24, the Federal Labor Court (BAG) declared the works council elections of several Lieferando works council committees to be invalid. The decision is also of considerable significance for a large number of other companies, especially those in the so-called platform economy, which manage their “employees” primarily digitally.
Essentially, the proceedings to be decided by the 7th Senate concerned the question of whether works council committees can be elected in spatially and organizationally distinct delivery areas (so-called remote cities) even though there is no physical management authority on site. In the opinion of the works councils, this is irrelevant, as management is carried out entirely digitally anyway, in particular via the mobile phone app used by the employees.
However, the court (continues to) link the works council eligibility of organizational units primarily to traditional management structures. The decision thus fails to recognize the reality of platform work, in which employees are managed digitally and perform their work exclusively and separately in their respective delivery areas. It is precisely there that the specific working conditions, stresses, and conflicts arise that make co-determination necessary.
“If co-determination depends on whether there is an office with managers somewhere, then works constitution law is no longer appropriate for the modern world of work,” explains Julia Warkentin, chair of the general works council.
“How exactly is a works council based in Dortmund supposed to represent the interests of employees in eight cities from Gelsenkirchen to Bielefeld to Bremerhaven? Platform work is real, it takes place on site – and employees need accessible representation of their interests there. Anything else weakens democratic participation in the workplace!”
The BAG’s decision also carries the risk that employers will be able to exert targeted influence on works council structures by centralizing and shifting control functions. In purely digital companies, for example, it is easy to assign delivery areas that operate independently to other administrative centers and thus get rid of “troublesome” works councils due to changing operational structures.
“This decision shows that legislators urgently need to adapt works constitution law to the reality of the platform economy,” demands Marius Schaefer, lawyer for the general works council (law firm Meisterernst Düsing Manstetten).
“The EU Platform Economy Directive must be transposed into German law by the beginning of December 2026. The federal government is called upon to also adapt the outdated concept of a “business” in works constitution law. It is equally important to implement the direct employment requirement demanded by the Conference of Labor and Social Affairs Ministers of the German States and the NGG trade union in this industry in order to maintain regular employment relationships.”
The works councils at Lieferando will continue to work together with the NGG to ensure that employees in digital and decentralized work structures are not excluded from democratic participation and good working conditions.
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