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G20 at a crossroads: The failure of multilateralism from 2008 to Johannesburg

Global crises expose the G20’s dysfunction as South Africa’s presidency collides with Trump’s sabotage


05/12/2025

2025 G20 Johannesburg summit Family photo

Part 1 of 2
Editor’s note: Read Part 2 here.

The third weekend in November offered the world two disastrous days for solving polycrisis problems, starting in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém at the United Nations climate summit (‘COP30’) on November 22, just as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted (most of) the Group of 20 leaders in Johannesburg. The G20 comprises 19 of the world’s major economies plus the European Union and, in 2023, the African Union was added (tokenistically).

The body was formed in 1999 as a finance ministers’ club at a Berlin meeting, at a time of nervousness about economic crises in several middle-income countries, including South Africa. But it was in 2008 that the G20 graduated to a heads-of-state annual meeting, due to deregulated U.S. banking rapidly degenerating, starting with real estate speculation, leading to Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapsing. U.S. President George W. Bush was told by his financial managers that the coming global meltdown would urgently require new funding sources, especially from middle-income countries with large surplus dollar reserves.

As the G20’s first major act, South African finance minister Trevor Manuel led a committee to grant the International Monetary Fund (IMF) nearly $1 trillion worth of new funding, approved by the G20 in an April 2009 London emergency meeting. That session also coordinated central banks’ low interest rates and money printing, termed Quantitative Easing (‘QE’), so as to flood liquidity into financial markets and thus avoid a repeat of the 1930s Great Depression.

And again in 2020 during the Covid-19 crisis, G20 leaders agreed that their capitalist self-interest was sufficiently threatened by widespread pandemic-prevention lockdowns and economic seizures that further QE and much lower interest rates were needed. In addition, a brief pause on the poorest countries’ foreign debt repayments was offered. But that didn’t prevent three African economies that were among the 2010s fastest-growing in the world – Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia – from defaulting on foreign debt repayments between 2020-23, and terrible fiscal pressure mounted across the continent.

These two financial bailouts were G20 interventions that suggest, in a time of peril, imperial-subimperial fusion can be achieved. On the other hand, intra-capitalist divisions over handling Covid-19 vaccines and treatment were not solved within the G20 from 2020-22: British and German leaders vetoed efforts by South Africa and India wanting an Intellectual Property waiver (the way AIDS drugs were made generic in 2001, saving millions of lives). Ramaphosa was at his best appealing for health justice, allied with India’s Narendra Modi; but Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel were too intent on defending their own Big Pharma firms.

Since then, the world’s crises – climate and biodiversity catastrophes, brutal wars, economic volatility, the threat of rampant Artificial Intelligence, extreme inequality and others – have multiplied, and their causes now extend well beyond the greed and irresponsibility of the traditional Western imperial powers. In 2010, when the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa BRICS emerged as a counterpart to the G7, the G20’s responsibilities for global economic management were codified, but other crises were added to the workload. And the recent G20 presidencies of Indonesia (2022), India (2023) and Brazil (2024) – all BRICS members (Jakarta having joined in 2025) – highlighted the subimperial powers’ newly-significant roles, not in providing alternatives, but instead in legitimising status quo multilateralism.

Indeed, with the advent of far-right Western rulers (Trump from 2017-21 and again since January this year, and in Italy, Giorgia Meloni since 2022), and three more neo-fascist parties currently leading in European polls – Reform in the United Kingdom (which hosts the 2027 G20), the Alternative for Germany, and the French National Front – there arises the threat and reality of fast-spreading ‘paleo-conservative’, economically-isolationist, xenophobic and socially-reactionary politics.

In this ominous period, the African continent’s first hosting of the G20 was meant to build upon Lula Ignacio da Silva’s November 2024 Rio de Janeiro summit, by taking the baton on coordinated international taxation of the ultra-rich and on food security, adding ‘disaster resilience and response,’ African debt relief, climate financing for a ‘just energy transition’ and ‘harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development.’ The likes of Joe Stiglitz and other progressives were even drawn into a major inequality commission – albeit one which did not have the grace to recognise any social activists’ initiatives.

From the beginning of 2025, more than 130 official meetings were held in various glamorous South African sites. Not only did G20 civil servants labour over phraseology, but so did a myriad of allied groups Ramaphosa’s team had gathered: B20 for business (guided by McKinsey and Bain in spite of being told by Ramaphosa to fire those particular consultants), L20 for workers, W20 for women, C20 for civil society, Ch20 for children, M20 for media, etc. But as the dust settles, it all appears for naught.

Rebuffed by Trump

In Johannesburg on November 22-23, the Nasrec setting for G20 leaders – minus Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mohammed bin Salman and Prabowo Subianto – was very different from what Ramaphosa must have anticipated when taking over management of the bloc last December. At that point, in Ramaphosa’s most obsequious mode – so different than in mid-2018 when he scathingly criticised Trump for interfering in local land reform politics – South Africa’s leader hurriedly invited the U.S. president-elect for a formal state visit and especially for a round of golf, replete with characteristic elite chuckling about taking time off to improve his game.

The invitation was repeated as late as the disastrous Oval Office meeting on May 22, when Ramaphosa handed over a R10 000, 14-kg golf course book, and his sidekick golf pro Ernie Els thanked Trump for the CIA’s empowerment of Pretoria’s apartheid-era army during its 1970s-80s invasion of Angola plus sponsorship of right-wing UNITA guerrillas – “you guys helped us“ – which killed up to a million black Angolans.

The South African elites’ sickening sweet-talk had begun soon after SA Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was fired in March by U.S. foreign minister Marco Rubio for remarks about Washington’s new orientation to [white] ‘supremacy.’ The first reconciliation effort was made in April by special envoy Mcebisi Jonas – but failed since he was not even allowed into the U.S. by Rubio, due to similar (truthful) insults that he’d made in 2020 about Trump’s racism and narcissism. (Jonas also chairs the huge MTN cellphone company which is under attack in the U.S. courts for dubious activities in Afghanistan and Iran, when Ramaphosa was the firm’s board chair.)

The task of Trump-whispering then fell to ultra-neoliberal trade minister Parks Tau and Ramaphosa’s investment advisor Alistair Ruiters. Trump first imposed tariffs in February, on steel, aluminium and autos, which in subsequent weeks proved devastating to South African exports. The tariffs were expanded in April and again in August, when Trump also killed the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which since 2000 made many goods tariff-free. At that point, three new agriculture-sector victims – citrus (later retracted), nuts and vineyard products – were hit with a 30% tariff, mainly hurting the very Afrikaner farmers Trump had pretended to support through his bizarre, unsuccessful refugee recruitment gimmick, given his presumption the Afrikaners were suffering ‘genocide’.

Trump’s on-and-off ally Elon Musk – very badly raised in South Africa, “nearly beaten to death,” as he described his Johannesburg high school’s bullying culture, which his deranged father supported – and other U.S. capitalists also insisted that Ramaphosa drop Black Economic Empowerment policy, i.e., enforced sharing of investment assets. And powerful U.S. Zionists persuaded Trump to demand Ramaphosa retract the December 2023 case Pretoria filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel’s Gaza genocide. While failing to change Pretoria’s policy, Washington is still contemplating a messy, apparently inadequate offer by Tau to buy $12 billion worth of U.S. methane gas plus adulterated poultry, in turn threatening extreme damage via greenhouse gas emissions and local chicken factory-farm bankruptcies.

Trump’s rejection of U.S. participation contributed to the superficial, blindly-nationalistic character of commentary within South Africa. In his last pre-summit comment, on November 7, Trump announced, “It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa. Afrikaners (people who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated. No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue. I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!”

Miami is about 370 km south of the famous Disney World resort, where Mickey Mouse frolics. The souring of G20 diplomacy was witnessed in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s (quite realistic) scenario for late 2026: “If the U.S. does not want us to participate, the only way they can do it is to decline us a visa.”

Also reflecting Washington’s cartoonish arrogance, a last-minute request was made by the U.S. State Department to allow a deputy ambassador in Pretoria to formally receive the official G20 handover on November 23. Ramaphosa demurred, for this would violate his own conservative proceduralist mentality, which in turn led Trump’s jejune (28-year-old) press secretary Karoline Leavitt to claim on November 20 that the South African president was “running his mouth a little bit against the United States”. More such insults will no doubt come from the newly-approved U.S. Ambassador to Pretoria, far-right media activist Brent Bozell, who during the 1980s regularly denounced Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Indignity upon indignity will continue to rain on South Africa from Yankee perches.

Instead of pushing for the U.S. to be expelled from the body due to Trump’s multiple attacks on multilateralism (climate, public health, trade, aid, fascistic abuse of refugees and immigrants, genocide facilitation and other acts of geopolitical insanity including repeated invasion threats such as against Nigeria this month), Ramaphosa replied with a merely bureaucratic rationale: “America chose to boycott this summit. That’s their prerogative to do so. But what cannot happen is breach of protocol being forced down our throats.”The White House reacted on November 23 with a banal claim that Ramaphosa was “refusing to facilitate a smooth transition of the G20 presidency. This, coupled with South Africa’s push to issue a G20 leaders’ declaration, despite consistent and robust U.S. objections, underscores the fact that they have weaponised their G20 presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles.” Indeed, Ramaphosa’s main victory was getting an 11,000-word collective Declaration out of the group, instead of merely a (self-delegitimising) ‘Chair’s Statement’. But the devils in the details soon became clear to critics.

Red Flag: Generation Antifa blocks the Far Right

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin looks at the protests against the AfD in Gießen.


03/12/2025

Gießen Demo

Last weekend, 50,000 people gathered in Gießen, a German town north of Frankfurt, to protest against the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The far-right party was trying to found a new youth organization, “Generation Deutschland,” after the previous one, “Junge Alternative,” had been ruled extremist by the domestic intelligence service.

Starting in the early morning, antifascists set up 19 blockades on all the roads leading into Gießen. The conference, scheduled for 10am, could only start after noon, with just a fraction of the 2,000 delegates in the hall. The meeting could only take place thanks to vast resources provided by the state apparatus.

Police violence

AfD leaders like Alice Weidel and Timo Chrupalla were brought in with a massive police convoy, as if they were foreign dignitaries. The cops not only rolled out the red carpet for the Far Right—they beat a path through the blockades for them. Police attacked demonstrators with pepper spray, water cannons, and baton charges.

The bourgeois media repeated whatever ridiculous claims the cops made, such as: “more than 50 injured officers.” The conservative interior minister of the state of Hesse reported that numerous police suffered “broken hands,” making it sound like they injured themselves while punching people. His boss, the Hessian prime minister Boris Rhein (CDU), noted, without evidence, that there were “a thousand demonstrators prepared for violence.” The German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) said there is “no basic right that justifies violent action against our security forces,” again without evidence that such a thing happened. 

Anyone with social media, meanwhile, could watch endless scenes of police violence, such as heavily armed cops racing down the highway to beat people peacefully forming a blockade.

Rechtsruck

“Generation Deutschland” is supposed to be more professional than its predecessor, but it is no less racist or authoritarian. The main change is organizational: the new youth group will be a component part of the AfD, rather than an independent association, making it easier for the party leadership to control.

From the stage in Gießen, far-right youth leaders called for “deportations, deportations, deportations”—or more professionally, for “remigration,” which means the same thing. Jean-Pascal Hohm, elected leader of the youth wing, maintains close contacts to the “New Right,” figures like Götz Kubitschek and the Identitarian Movement, who form a link between the AfD and full-on Nazi groups.

But it’s not only the AfD and its youth that are radicalizing. The main parties of the German bourgeoisie are all in fundamental agreement that the way to fight the AfD is to adopt most of its demands. So while chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) says that the AfD is antidemocratic, he is implementing the AfD’s proposals for closed borders and mass deportations.

Merz’s rearmament programs — with over a trillion euros for new weapons in the next decade, paid for by cutting funding for health care, education, and pensions — are a stimulus program for the Far Right. This isn’t just about the huge number of Nazis in the Bundeswehr, or the huge number of army officers in the AfD. Fundamentally, the militarization of society will strengthen the most authoritarian factions. As social services deteriorate, racist demagogues will have an easy time blaming “Ausländer” for crumbling schools (this is shown not just by German history, but also by recent studies).

The unprecedented repression against the Palestine solidarity movement, undermining longstanding democratic norms, paved the way for the violence in Gießen. The police could have decided that the violence needed to facilitate the AfD meeting was not “proportional”—but thanks to pro-Zionist Staatsräson (reason of state), police violence is more accepted that at any time in decades. 

Hope

Yet the images from Gießen show there is an alternative to the ruling class’s shift to the right. We don’t see young people adopting far-right and fascist ideas. Instead of a “Generation Deutschland” longing for a white homeland, we instead saw a “Generation Antifa” putting their bodies on the line to stop the Far Right. (The gender divide was hard to overlook too: the AfD meeting was an almost entirely male affair, while women and queers outnumbered at the blockades.)

Better yet, we see a “Generation Class Struggle”: there were lots of workers and unions in the protests in Gießen, which drew the ire of AfD leaders and right-wing publications. They like to present themselves as a party of “little guys,” but in reality, billionaires make up the backbone of the Far Right.

Young people in Gießen showed that we are the ones who can stop the AfD. Politicians of the “extreme center” claim to oppose the AfD even as they support genocide, attack our living standards, and prepare for new wars. Government policies are grist to the Far Right’s mill. It’s only by fighting against militarism and against the authoritarian turn that we can stop the AfD.

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.

 “Solidarity with Palestine isn’t everything, but without it, everything else is nothing”

Interview with Kostis from the LAG Palästinasolidarität of Die Linke Berlin


Hi Kostis, thanks for talking to us. Can you briefly introduce yourself?

I am Kostis and come originally from Greece. I am half-German and have lived here for around 10 years. I was politicized in anti-war movements at high school and spent many years organized in SYRIZA, which I left after the big betrayal of the referendum against austerity politics.

Since then, I have been active in social movements, but not in political parties until I joined Die Linke in February. I directly joined the LAG Palästinasolidarität (state working group for Palestine solidarity). For the last few months, I’ve been in the Coordinating Group of the LAG.

This interview was originally set up after a recent Die Linke party conference, where the LAG put forward a motion, which it later withdrew. You then contacted The Left Berlin to say you’d like to explain. Let’s do this in two parts. What was the motion about?

We had two motions. One said that the situation in Palestine can no longer be described as a war, but a genocide. The other was about BDS, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement,falsely denounced as being antisemitic.

So you withdrew both motions?

Exactly. The leadership of the Berlin party and some districts created a compromise document on the topic of Palestine. We were invited to participate in this discussion. It is important that this move came from the party leadership, and we are glad to have been invited and to have been part of the discussion.

We managed to get a few important points into this document. At the same time, it still contains some problematic passages, and overall falls short of what we consider appropriate for an internationalist, socialist party. However, if we had not participated in these negotiations, the discussion would have been between the leadership and the right-wing factions of the party, meaning the document would have been even worse.

We did manage to include some  good points into the final document. Although the genocide is not explicitly defined, the description is accurate. There are strong statements against repression, occupation, settlers, torture, and anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism. There is also a clear stance against antisemitism accusations against members of the party.

Our decision was a strategic compromise, and that was a risk we’re willing to take. Although it is not perfect, we see that it’s more important to have improved the decision of the complete party, rather than being the ones who sit outside and criticize.

We also see that party politics are a marathon, not a sprint. We are trying to build trust and relationships, making our positions hegemonical. We see a lot of justified criticism of our stance. But it’s much easier for small autonomous groups outside the party to take whatever positions they want.

Of course, we’ve made mistakes, but this is a learning process for us as we come from the movement and not from the party bureaucracy.

Let me summarize the criticism as I understand it. There are elections in Berlin next year. There is a serious chance that the next Berlin mayor could be from Die Linke. As a result, there is a huge degree of pressure to not raise ”controversial” issues in the party before the election. The criticism is that the nearer the elections get, the more Palestinians will be thrown overboard.

We will never drop the issue of Palestine. We are committed to raising awareness of this issue and advocating clear internationalist policies within the party. We are also ensuring that the issue of Palestine is not excluded from the election debate. The programme debate is about to begin, and we intend to incorporate positions in solidarity with Palestine into the party programme.

Do you think that it’s a problem that the discussion wasn’t held at the party conference?

Yes, I think it’s a major issue that we treat the subject of genocide as controversial. The entire international left is discussing this publicly, and we should not be afraid.

At the moment, whenever any left-wing party talks about elections, they like to talk about Mamdani. He is inspirational. He increased his support from 1% to 50%. This makes us optimistic that Die Linke can win a broader majority.

At the same time, however, we have failed to see one thing that Mamdani did. He never wavered in  his positions when he was accused of antisemitism. Rather than watering down his positions on Palestine, he came together with progressive Jewish organizations.

This is an important lesson on how you approach elections. If you try to hide issues, you will probably face problems from the media later on. You have to be honest and clear, otherwise you can be easily attacked.

Let’s talk about what has happened since the party conference. Ramsis Kilani was expelled from Die Linke last week. Andreas Büttner was not. Büttner is the “Antisemitism commissioner” for Brandenburg. He says that the Golan Heights belong to Israel and that the police were right to attack Palestine demonstrators. There was an attempt to get him expelled which did not even get to a hearing. Does this show a problem in Die Linke?

Firstly, and on behalf of the LAG, I would like to express our solidarity with Ramsis. He is and always will be our comrade. He was subjected to a campaign of defamation, lies and statements taken out of context. It followed the narrative of the bourgeois media. It is absurd that people would fight one of their own comrades in a coalition alongside the Springer Press and other media outlets that are hostile towards Die Linke.

We’re being told that this committee that expelled Ramsis is independent, but exactly the comparison with Büttner shows that the issue is deeply political. If you see the things that Büttner has said on social media—thanking the Berlin police for beating us up and saying that the Golan Heights belong to Israel—it goes against human rights, international law and common decency.  He should not have any public platform in a left-wing party. At the same time, we don’t come from a Stalinist tradition. We didn’t call for Büttner’s expulsion.Nevertheless, I still find it a very relevant example when one discusses the political motivations behind Ramsis’s expulsion. If we were so strict about our positions and our programme, Büttner should not have been in the party.

Following Ramsis’s expulsion, the LAG led a brief occupation of Karl Liebknecht Haus and made six demands.

As we just discussed, we wanted  to compromise, in order to present a united front at the Berlin Conference and work towards a broader majority within the party. One of the most important points that we wanted to bring into  the document on Palestine was a criticism of the repression of Palestine Solidarity and the instrumentalization of antisemitism.

Yet just a few weeks later, we see Ramsis expelled and the French Left comrades having a room cancelled a few hours before their meeting. These are not the only examples. The occupation was a symbolic gesture saying: “That’s enough.”

We cannot blame our comrades in the party leadership in Berlin or nationally entirely.  It might have been people holding positions of power and making decisions without the agreement of the entire party. At the same time, the party is responsible for its spaces and must take a stance. It has to say: “No, this was a mistake. This should not happen again,” and express its solidarity with the victims of this repression.

One thing we are demanding is a clarification of the situation. We are demanding an end to the disgusting defamation campaign directed against Ramsis. We believe the party should apologize to Ramsis.

You did get a chance to speak to Janis Ehling, the Landesgeschäftsführer (party secretary) who visited you in the occupation. What did he have to say?

We appreciate that he came to talk with us. He also appreciated that we were there and willing to talk because we are exchanging ideas inside a broad democratic party. I would say that he mostly was there to hear our demands. We can be cautiously optimistic. He said that he agreed with many of the points we raised. But we’ve seen words before. What we need to see are actions.

The Left Berlin started as a working group within Die Linke. We had some good experiences, many bad. We were allowed to say what we liked on Palestine, but there was no change at the top. Do you believe that  DieLinke leadership can be persuaded to take Palestine seriously?

We have also had both good and bad experiences. One of the best experiences we had was the core organization of the 27th September demonstration from Die Linke. One of our party leaders, Ines Schwerdtner, publicly stated that what is happening in Gaza is genocide and apologised for our silence.

This is a very positive step compared to Die Linke some years ago. However, you cannot organize one action, however great, and then consider the matter  closed. We need to see continuity. We need to see further actions and participation in the movement.

Our LAG represents many new party members. Die Linke now has more than 120,000 members. And if you see the public opinion in Germany, 60% of the people say it’s a genocide and 80% are against sending weapons to Israel. These people have not yet had the opportunity  to participate as delegates in party congresses, because they’re new members and there have been no elections yet.

We can be very optimistic that the younger people do not carry the burden that the older and more conservative left bureaucrats might be carrying.

Ines Schwerdtner did say that Die Linke has learned from mistakes it made on Palestine. Within two months of her saying that, Die Linke refused Karl Liebknecht Haus for a meeting on the flotilla. They confirmed Ramsis’ expulsion. Do you really think that they’ve learned from their experiences? Or are these just empty words?

Things are complex and Die Linke is a pluralistic party. Many institutions such as the management of Karl Liebknecht Haus and the Landesschiedskommission (which decides on expulsions) are independent. They can decide something that goes against Ines or us or maybe against the right wing.

The party isn’t responsible for all of the things that happened. However, we would like the party to take a stance on these issues.

Do you think it’s just about the old bureaucrats? I haven’t heard a word from Ines about Ramsis’s expulsion or about Berlin Insoumise not being allowed the room.

[Party leader] Jan van Aken invited us to a meeting after we criticized his stance in a talk show in summer. He informed us that the Schiedskommissionen are independent bodies.

Based on this, I cannot see any leadership member taking a position on the expulsion, either for or against, because they have to respect the party structures. At the same time, these are political issues, and I would appreciate a clear stance from this perspective.

We have made our demands and are waiting for a response. I cannot tell you what the response will be.

So far, you’ve been working as a state working group (LAG). This weekend, you are forming a national working group (BAG). How has this happened?

It stems from hard work within the party base. If I’m not mistaken, we already have Palestine Solidarity State working groups in at least 12 of the 16 German states. People come to us every day and they want to connect. This is not just five prominent people sitting around saying: “Let’s create something.”It’s hundreds of members across Germany.

In addition to  the importance of Palestine, we recognize the need for a strong left-wing network within the party. We want to support the establishment of a robust left wing, alongside the numerous comrades we have encountered at congresses, within the movement, and during our day-to-day political activities.

Support for Palestine is not a matter of national preference. Rather it comes from an analysis of the role of imperialism in the Middle East and a deeper Marxist political understanding of how this world functions.

That’s why we want to meet with the other left-wing forces within the party and encourage it to truly represent the needs of the working class, both in Germany and internationally.

While you can take action  to improve the lives of the people in Germany, but at the same time, a left-wing party should also address the injustices occurring around the globe.  You should urge your country to stop arms exports to countries like Israel that commit genocide, and exert political pressure on an international level to end all wars. Solidarity with Palestine isn’t everything, but without it, everything else is nothing.

We’ve got the founding conference of the BAG this weekend. What happens then?

This is a democratic process that comes from the basis. The conference itself will decide what we do next. The room will be full, and we also have online participation from comrades who cannot travel. Our goal is to come together for the first time on a national level and discuss our future plans.

What’s your relationship with Palestine activists outside Die Linke? There is a degree of scepticism from some activists who either won’t work with the party, and some who are waiting to see how the party develops.

We have already witnessed what the classics would describe as left-wing and right-wing opportunism. We are trying not to fall into either category. We want to work with the oppressed and all those who stand in solidarity with Palestine. At the same time, we want to influence the left-wing party for the better from the inside.

I can understand the criticism from our fellow fighters, but I believe that we are doing the right thing by taking the fight to the streets and to the public political arena. There is more that unites us than separates us.

So you don’t think we should give up on Die Linke quite yet?

No. Die Linke has made significant progress,  for example with the demonstration on the 27th of September. However, we are not yet at the point where we can say that everything is settled and that we are happy with the status quo.

Of course, there are still  many problems that we are fighting against. At the same time, however, we are not willing to hand over our party of 120,000 members to those who want to occupy government positions and advance their political careers. We want to turn it into a party that represents the working class, internationalism and anti-imperialism.

7 December 1975: Indonesian invasion of East Timor

This week in working class history


02/12/2025

On 1st October 1965, Indonesia’s General Suharto committed what the CIA called “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century” (see an earlier This Week in Working-Class History for more information). Backed by the CIA, Suharto seized control of the country, and the USA quickly established close military, economic, and political ties. Ten years later, Suharto’s troops invaded East Timor, half of a small island of 700,000 people located 1,000 miles south of the Philippines and 400 miles north-west of Australia.

Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Portugal was forced to dismantle its empire. As Portuguese forces withdrew from East Timor, elections were held and won by a coalition led by the social democratic Fretilin party (Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor), which secured 55% of the vote in regional elections in July 1975. In response, Suharto falsely accused Fretilin of being “almost Communist”. East Timor declared independence on 28th November 1975.

Indonesia almost immediately invaded to “maintain order”. Some 200,000 people—one third of the population—were killed. On the evening before the invasion, Suharto met in Jakarta with US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Despite a US law prohibiting military aid for offensive purposes, 90% of Suharto’s weaponry came from Washington. Between the invasion in 1975 and the protests that toppled Suharto in 1998, the USA supplied Indonesia with more than $1 billion in weapons.

Why did Indonesia invade? In The Specter of Genocide, historian John G. Taylor offers three main reasons: (1) East Timorese liberation might set a “negative example” for other parts of Indonesia; (2) newly discovered offshore oil deposits in the Timor Sea; and (3) the opportunity for the Indonesian armed forces to prove themselves a reliable regional ally for the USA in Asia after its defeat in Vietnam (Saigon had fallen just seven months earlier). These same factors show what was in it for US imperialism.

East Timor remains one of Western imperialism’s bloodiest genocides. Of those East Timorese who were not killed, half were imprisoned in army camps where many were raped and tortured. Indonesia’s current leader, Prabowo Subianto—sometimes called the “butcher of Timor”—is himself responsible for atrocities in the region. The country recently declared Suharto a “national hero”. We should remember the history that proves otherwise.

Flirting with authoritarianism

Germany’s crackdown on Palestinian solidarity


01/12/2025

Since 7 October 2023, Germany’s unabating support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza is mirrored by a sweeping crackdown on Palestine solidarity at home. This ranges from protest bans and police violence, to lawfare, smear campaigns, cultural de-platforming, workplace reprisals, and the instrumentalisation of migration and asylum law. The state has been aided by most of the media and even parts of the NGO system and the political left., These measures illustrate the emergence of a repressive infrastructure in Germany, based on the intentional conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. This criminalises almost any effective form of solidarity with Palestine and threatens broader civil liberties.

I don’t feel safe at all, actually. I try not to really leave the house alone unless I’m meeting someone or going somewhere in particular. I’ve found it that I’m just exposed to a lot more Islamophobia and aggression when I’m trying to navigate things alone.

Hebh Jamal, Palestinian journalist and activist living in Germany

And already then, it was clear that Germany is particularly difficult for a Palestinian. I was always asking myself, why am I moving to the hardest place? It’s one of the hardest places in the world for a Palestinian to live. Actually, I think it is the hardest place in the West.

Jamila (a pseudonym), a Palestinian activist based in Berlin

At the time of writing, the Gaza ‘peace deal’ has just entered its second month and has been rubber-stamped by the United Nations Security Council. But far from anything resembling peace, the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, backed, armed and facilitated by the US and European states continues, as does the genocide. Since the fragile agreement came into force, Israel has violated it with near daily attacks, killing more than 312 Palestinians. This includes killing almost two children per day – and injuring more than 760. The total number of confirmed victims in Gaza since 7 October 2023 is more than 69,000. The number of aid trucks allowed in cannot combat the engineered famine. Israel’s arbitrary restrictions on more than 350 essential food items makes the situation even more dire. Meanwhile in the West Bank, violent settler attacks, often backed by the Israeli army, are at an all-time high, while Israel’s parliament has officially approved the colonial plan to annex the territory. Palestinians continue to be prisoners in their homeland.

Regardless, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has officially declared the crisis is over. In an interview on 9 October 2025, he said that ‘there is no reason anymore to demonstrate for Palestinians in Germany. There will be peace in Gaza and that’s the good news’. Defying his words, tens of thousands of people came out on the streets of Berlin on 11 October to protest against German complicity, for accountability for the genocide and an end to apartheid and settler colonialism. They were met with police violence, such as punches to the head, chest and abdomen, pain grips, choke grips, and arbitrary arrests, including of at least three minors. As a new report published this week by the Transnational Institute has shown, far from being an exception, this is ‘the new normal’ for anti-genocide protestors.

From Staatsräson to Street Control

By 19 October 2023,  Israel’s military onslaught had killed close to 3,500 people in Gaza, the Strip’s only cancer hospital verged on shutting down. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had publicly ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, declaring ‘there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed’ – and referred to Palestinians as ‘human animals’. Still, after committing full solidarity to a genocidal onslaught, Germany’s former Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in parliament that the country would show ‘a clear edge’ against antisemitism and ‘the glorification of violence’. This already included a blanket ban on anti-Israel protests in Berlin and a violent crackdown on any form of solidarity with Palestinians. That was just the start. The German government entrenched the former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s‘Staatsräson’, or raison d’état – namely unconditional support for Israel. This doctrine has been weaponised in Germany against domestic dissent.,  Germany provides arms used in a genocide abroad and criminalises those who oppose it at home.

Palestinian-US lawyer Noura Erakat’s ‘boomerang’ analysis describes how the United States (US) applies equally to Germany. Since October 2023 we see  Aimé Césaire’s ‘boomerang’ flying from the colony to the metropole. Germany’s support for Israel’s apartheid regime and war crimes abroad is translated into repressive policies, mass surveillance, police brutality, and shrinking free expression at home. Germany is not merely absorbing this violence, but is refining, institutionalising, and exporting it. The country has become a laboratory for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine. It tests how far it can go in suppressing free speech, banning protest, and bending the constitutional framework. What happens in Berlin today is becoming the pattern for other countries tomorrow.

Globally, the Palestinian cause has become a lightning rod for repression. In 2024 alone, according to the international non-government organisation (NGO) Civicus, Germany accounted for over 10% of all documented restrictions on free speech worldwide. But Germany’s repression stands out in its scale and intensity. The Civic Space Report 2025 by the European Civic Forum singles out Germany as one of the most repressive EU Countries when it comes to Palestine advocacy. he European Legal Support Centre’s Index of Repression has documented more than 700 incidents in Germany since 2019 (most of these since 7 October 2023), affecting thousands across the population.

Central to the repression of the Palestinian solidarity movement is the deliberate conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Germany’s historic responsibility for the Holocaust (or Shoah) is routinely used to justify another genocide and the repression of those who try to stop it. Critics of Israel, many of them themselves Jewish, are labelled as antisemitic and the Palestinians who mourn their dead and demand justice are cast as threats to public order. Hunting supposed antisemites will soon be conducted with Artificial Intelligence (AI).  The real drivers of Germany’s alliance with Israel are material. Germany’s foreign policy aligns with US geostrategic interests, and arms companies like Rheinmetall have seen their profits rise by over 2,000% in a decade. As James Baldwin wrote in 1979: ‘The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of Western interests’.

The Infrastructure of Repression

We felt like we were dealing with settler soldiers, colonial soldiers, but with German clothes. The beginning after the 7 October has been completely about misconceptions and about reproducing images of us as terrorists, as antisemites. Before 7 October we were potential antisemites. After 7 October we were antisemites. Before 7 October, we were potential terrorists. After 7 October we were terrorists. So, this is the kind of collective punishment that migrants and Palestinians experience.

I started feeling personally that all those police who raid our house – that’s only gangs. The use of force, excessive force, and violence against protesters has been extraordinary and overwhelming and also illegitimate. And it’s not just about the brutality, but it also shows the kind of legitimacy the police have to actually practise such brutality without any accountability.

And that felt extremely dangerous. As a father, I felt like I might not be able to protect my daughters, and I might be the next one who is actually imprisoned with my daughters. Many families who have kids started to be very scared to go demonstrate on anything to do with Palestine, because of the extreme violence and brutality and the way that our areas became very militarised. As if we are actually dealing with checkpoints everywhere. German police have been stopping and interrogating Palestinians. They’re demanding IDs from people of colour, but not from people who are white. And it became increasingly accepted, and this kind of acceptance is not talked about, that it is actually fine to police and racially profile everyone who’s not white.

Majed Abusalama, Founder of Palestine Speaks

The past two years show the domestic costs in Germany of that salvation. There have been bans on demonstrations, police violence, mass arrests, loss of employment, academic suspensions, bank account closures, deportation orders, surveillance, censorship, and threats to legal residence. This illustrates  an emerging repressive infrastructure in Germany.  It criminalises almost any effective form of solidarity with Palestine and threatens broader civil liberties.

Media outlets play a direct role in manufacturing consent for a genocidal war. They by consistently minimise the genocide in Gaza and the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. Domestically, they uncritically echoe political and police narratives, dismissing   inciting violence against the anti-genocide movement, ignoring the rapidly shrinking space of civil society. Liberal civil society actors, self-police and disinvite Palestinian speakers, cancel events, and remain silent . Many sectors of the German left and social movements, fearing reputational damage or funding cuts, fail to resist Germany’s authoritarian shift. Often they actively enable it.

The crackdown targets the movement in support of Palestine, and tests a broad transformation towards authoritarianism, particularly in relation to Germany’s migration policy. In a general climate of increasingly deadly and harmful migration policies, immigration law has also become a tool of political control. The state has refused visas, effected deportations or blocked people’s naturalisation for such minor issues as social media posts or attending protests. Residency status, citizenship, and asylum rights are now contingent on ideological conformity.  State actors continue to single out rising antisemitism, while racism, particularly Islamophobia, surge,. The 2025 Grundrechte-Report (Basic Rights Report), a civil society alternative to the German government’s annual report on the protection of the constitution, states that ‘[the] exercise of civil liberties is being offensively obstructed or prohibited with unprecedented intensity’. It emphasises that migrants are most affected.

The crackdown is part of a shift towards the hard-right and the securitisation and militarisation of various domains in German and global politics. What we witness is not only complicity in a genocide, but the remilitarisation of German society. This  redefines dissent as extremism, and equates liberation movements with Nazism.  The filmmaker Dror Dayan notes: ‘While Germany has never broken away from its Nazi past, it is now equating all its enemies – be it Palestinian freedom fighters or Russia – with its own Nazis. While Germany is propping up its own neo-Nazis in the AfD and CDU, it attempts to sell the world an image of itself as fighting Nazis. It simply lies about who those Nazis are’. Police powers have expanded under the guise of public security. As a recent Junge Welt article put it, ‘the state is warming up for a war-readiness that will target any opposition’.

The consequences are deeply personal:

“So just that you have an idea of how it is to be a Jew nowadays in Germany, where everybody wishes to protect you by basically silencing you, beating you up, and doing everything they can to make sure you don’t feel safe in the public sphere of Germany. And then saying it’s all done in the name of anti-Semitism. Udi Raz, Member of Jewish Voice for Peace”

For many Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and anti-Zionist Jewish residents in Germany, daily life is now  violence and fear, (See above quotes”. But there is also a political awakening for a new generation of activists in Germany. Many are migrants, Muslims and/or racialised together with white non-Muslim Germans. The threat of being labelled antisemitic has split almost every movement from climate to anti-racism. The wave of criminalisation, defunding and the broader authoritarian shift, for now, weakens the left. But it offers the chance to break from a state-funded, NGO-dominated scene and to become more radical and honest. This means  to call for system change not cosmetic reforms; to name capitalism, colonialism and genocide for what they are, and to fight unapologetically.

People continue to resist. While the media echo state narratives, ever more Germans are seeing through the official lies. In a May 2025 poll, over 80% of Germans said they believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza are unjustified, up 11 percentage points from March 2024. In another poll, 70% rejected German military support to Israel. Protests continue, even in the face of police violence. Palestinian voices remain defiant. The lawyer Nadija Samour reminds us, paraphrasing Gandhi: ‘First they ignore us, then they laugh at us, then they fight us – and then we win’.

Internationalistisches Bündnis Berlin (International Alliance Berlin) is organising a launch event for the report at bUm Berlin on the 9th of January 2026, starting at 18:30pm. The event, titled Solidarity under Siege, will analyse the increasing repression of the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany, the instrumentalisation of migration and asylum law against activists, and look at ways to resist Germany’s authoritarian shift. Save the date and follow Inter_Bündnis Berlin for updates. 

This is the first longread in a series of five based on the Transnational Institute’s report Solidarity under Siege: Germany’s Repression of the Palestine Movement. The report draws on the insights of interviews with seven activists from the Palestinian solidarity movement, including Palestinians and German, Muslim and Jewish people, among other (overlapping) identities, who shared their trust, stories and time with the author. At their request, pseudonyms have been used for some of these activists.