OUT NOW EA Journal Issue 5

Issue 5 of the EA Journal is out now. Click here to read it.

Spring is a time for new beginnings. In the EU, reproductive rights are high on the agenda as France inscribes the right to abortion into its constitution in a historic win for women’s rights, catalysing a push for the right to be guaranteed EU-wide. As Segolene Pruvot outlines in the Transversal Visions section of this journal, womens’ rights across the continent are by no means guaranteed – yet movements and organisers on the ground are enacting daily successes that we should celebrate. In the same section one such woman, artist Ami Weickaane, makes the case for her own enfranchisement as a decades-long resident of France who is still denied the right to vote – a pertinent issue as the EU elections approach.

Outside Europe, global attention is still on the unfolding genocide in Gaza, where thousands of women and children continue to be killed, pregnant women have no medical facilities and premature babies are left for dead in bombed hospitals. The military applications of artificial intelligence have contributed to the high civilian death-rate. Ron Salaj, in an article on the uses and misuses of AI, argues that AI is the ‘Other’ of human and that we must resist it.

Drawing on his latest research, Alvaro Oleart reflects on how the failures and successes of the global Palestine solidarity movement highlight the need to continue building an intersectional, decolonial ‘movement of movements’ to push mass mobilisations onto the level of permanent organisation, tangible power and concrete, material wins. This means continuing to connect with other anti-imperial struggles from the Congo and Sudan to Ukraine, as well as thematic global movements such as the climate movement, workers’ organising and human rights struggles.

In the Assembling, Organizing, and Connecting section of the journal, Seema Syeda presents a case study of a Muslim women-led transnational anti-Islamophobia initiative; Bertie Coyle from Just Stop Oil makes the case for citizens’ assemblies as a more radical tactic than direct action; Rafa Font suggests alternatives to Big Tech; and EA presents two new podcasts highlighting transnational organising and migrant workers’ experiences: Beyond the Nation-State and Workers Without Borders. We also share a link to watch our latest Power to the People webinar on farming and agriculture.

Last but not least in our Art Beyond Borders section, Celia Zayas transports us to a cultural festival on the sleepy volcano island of Annobón; Dina Ntzoria celebrates the power of diaspora art; Péter Tasnádi-Sáhy tells us more about the methodology of transformative theatre; and we watch Marion Colard in situ at her Série « PATA » exhibition, a co-created event representing the rich lives of Cluj’s Roma communities.

What the broad array of actions and movements around the globe tells us is that though we may live in times of despair and feelings of powerlessness, we are in fact many; we are a multitude – and as Naomi Klein recently stated in a speech seeking to find hope – that multitude shows resolve. That multitude shows commitment, commitment to movements:

“Movements for true equality, and justice — social, racial, gender, economic and ecological justice. Movements that exist in every country. Movements that have grown with tremendous speed over these past terrible months. Grown not only in the size of marches and blockades but in the depth of their analysis. Grown in their willingness to make connections across movements and issues, and in their willingness to name underlying systems.

If these months have taught us anything, it is that these movements are all we have. In your country as well as mine, there is no moral leadership except the leadership rising up from the grassroots. All we have is one another.”

Seema Syeda
Head of Communications, European Alternatives