You’ve likely heard of International Women’s day, but let’s look a little deeper. How did it start? Why is it held on March 8th? Did you know it was originally ‘working women’s day’?
Here is a bite size overview of IWD’s origins and some of the celebrations and protests held around the world this week!
Read MoreBeyond an economic problem, the issue of food is a matter of survival. In a world, where global factors, outside our control, amplify volatility, government policy to manage this is important. This is why agriculture should not be approached simply from an economic perspective especially in the age of climate crisis. Unlike industrial products, food should not be considered a product that can simply be imported if we do not have enough.
Read MoreAna Cha is a member of MST’s National Coordination and does work at the national school with the International and political education collectives. She has been a member of the MST for the past 20 years and became involved in the northeast part of Brazil. We interviewed her for our monthly ISC Progressive Forum on Sunday Feb. 19th. The interview was carried out by the International Strategy Center’s Zoe Yungmi Blank and Mike Cannon.
Read MoreKorea has no choice but to raise interest rates in line with the global trend of interest rate hikes, but the situation in Korea is a little different from other countries. Hence the burden caused by the interest rate hike, even when taking into account some speculative elements, is causing financial difficulties to households and businesses.
Read MoreVijay Prashad is an Indian historian, journalist, and editor. He has written over 20 books including ‘The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World’, ‘Red Star Over the Third World’, and ‘Washington Bullets’, which was translated by the ISC. He is director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research that recently published another work that was translated by the ISC, ‘Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective’.
Vijay came to Korea for three days in early December to give a series of talks about the new cold war and other issues affecting the world. We met Vijay on his third afternoon in Seoul for a conversation about organizing and the importance of growing the left domestically and internationally.
Read MoreAccidents can occur in any form in our shared spaces of life and work. However, in cases where the accident could have been prevented in advance, yet people are killed from the neglect of corporations or the state, those cases are not accidents but murder. And if there are a large number of victims of the disaster, how is it any different than a massacre?
Read MoreOn Sept. 4th, 62% of voters rejected a new Constitutional proposal that would have replaced the existing Pinochet era one. To examine why the constitutional proposal was rejected and the tasks ahead for Chile’s left, on Oct. 27th, Dae-Han Song interviewed activist, politician, and journalist Taroa Zúñiga Silva for the ISC Progressive Forum.
Taroa Zúñiga Silva is a journalist for Globetrotter. She is also the co-editor of "Venezuela, Vortex of the War of the 21st Century" and a coordinating committee member of Argos, Observatory for Migration & Human Rights, and the co-founder of the Venezuelan Faldas-r collective for women's sexual and reproductive rights. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Read MoreSADD's "taking the subway at rush hour" is an act of disobedience toward a non-disabled-centered society, which does not guarantee the rights of the disabled as citizens as stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. The responsibility lies with Korean politics and the government, who do not listen unless the disabled resort to screaming.
Read MoreOn Aug. 28, the International Strategy Center (ISC) and the Seoul Women’s Association held a Progressive Forum entitled “Post Roe v. Wade: Reproductive Rights Through a US Lens.” The following is the interview (conducted by ISC’s Zoe Yungmi Blank) with Joyce Chediac, a Redstockings member in the 1970s and currently an editor with the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Liberation News and a staff member with its women’s publication Breaking The Chain. This is an abridged version edited for clarity and brevity.
Read MorePeople’s movement rapidly decreased as more people began working from home and many restaurants and cafes closed due to the lack of customers. In order to overcome the crisis, each country has injected huge amounts of money to restore the economy, but workers, ordinary people, small and medium-sized business owners and the self-employed are still experiencing much hardship.
Read MoreThe 2004 campaign to abolish discrimination against the disabled (through the Seoul subway and bus occupations) was able to achieve the installation of elevators to 90% of Seoul’s subways. Nonetheless, disability access to buses, taxis, and subway platforms is still lacking. As the Republic of Korea's constitution states, "all must be equal before the law." However, discrimination against race, LGBTQQ and disabled people still exists. On May 21, the International Strategy Center invited to our Progressive Forum Park Kyung-seok, co-President of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination, to hear about the history, achievements and tasks ahead for the disabled people’s struggle for mobility. This May Progressive Forum was co-organized by the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination and the Korea Disability Forum, and co-hosted with the Democratic Socialists of America Disabilities Working Group and the Justice Party's International Progressive Politics Forum. Below is a summary of the conversation.
Read More"The movement for disability rights in Korea has been full-fledged since the 2001 struggle for the right to mobility. That year, the death of a person on a wheelchair after falling off a subway station lift sparked fierce protests and struggles demanding elevators at subway stations and low floor buses. Activists chained themselves to subway tracks and placed themselves in front of buses. The movement fought, often enduring insults, to expose society’s hypocrisy and change a society centered on the non-disabled towards one in which no one is marginalized."
Read MoreOn April 10, the International Strategy Center held its monthly Progressive Forum on “How NATO and Sanctions Perpetuate War and Suffering.” It hosted Reiner Braun (executive director of the 131 year old International Peace Bureau, a founder of the No to NATO Network, and author of Einstein - Peace Now); and Vijay Prashad (journalist, author, and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Change). The event involved presentations, followed by questions from the ISC and audience members. Below is a synthesis of the presentations and Q&A.
Read MoreOn April 10, the International Strategy Center held its monthly Progressive Forum on “How NATO and Sanctions Perpetuate War and Suffering.” It hosted Reiner Braun (executive director of the 131 year old International Peace Bureau, a founder of the No to NATO Network, and author of Einstein - Peace Now); and Vijay Prashad, journalist, author, and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Change. The event involved presentations, followed by questions from the ISC and audience members.
Read More“...Even the prominent US diplomat George Kennan, who authored the post Second World War American foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, warned, in 1998, that NATO expansion was not a good idea. Russians would "gradually react quite adversely, and it will affect their policies." It was a strategic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else.
Now, there is an interesting dynamic in NATO expansion. We, of course, also have the agency of the countries between NATO and Russia. Most of these countries historically felt a threat from the east. And that's why their elites (in Poland, or Czech Republic, etc) wanted to be part of the NATO security structure. So there is also that local agency there. It's not only about two big powers.
However, when the expansion came closer and closer to the Russian border, that of course increased the tension. And so if American policy played a role that would be opening the door of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. If we had a time machine and went back to 1991, and defined Ukraine, Belarus as neutral states, as happened with Finland and Austria, we wouldn't be experiencing many issues we are experiencing now. But that's, of course, a missed opportunity. Now, we have a completely different reality and dynamics…”
Read MoreKim Jong Min has been involved in South Korean progressive political parties for the past 20 years beginning with the Democratic Labor Party that had been established in 2002, followed by the last 10 years in the Justice Party. He is currently the co-President of the civil society organization Together Seoul and, in this past presidential election, he was in charge of the Strategy Headquarters for the Justice Party.
Read MoreToday the ISC had the tour at Seodaemun Prison History Hall where we can learn about Japanese colonial era. We met up with 7 participants of various backgrounds outside of the museum, held a tour and discussion through the museum, and continued conversation over dinner at a nearby traditional market. We discussed parallels between other examples of colonialism, holes and biases in our historical educations, and what led to the Japanese Colonial Era, the following US imperialism, and Issues that remain unresolved. As this is the first in a series, keep your eyes out for the next ISC tour, and our follow up movie night!
Read More. The political establishment and its presidential candidates pay no attention to the workers losing lives from industrial accidents, the women suffering from gender-based violence, the LGBT community subject to harsh discrimination, and the disabled with limited access to basic rights. This is why the Joint Electoral Action movement started, to take the people’s demands to the streets, rather than relying on politicians to speak for them.
Read More미국민주적사회주의자는 코리아 피스 나우, 국제전략센터, 위민크로스DMZ, 노둣돌과 같은 단체들과 연대하여 미국의 지정학적 이익을 위한 군사적, 경제적 간섭 없이 한반도가 평화, 자주, 화해를 만드는 과정을 시작할 수 있게 미국이 북한 여행금지 조치와 제재를 철회하고 한국전쟁의 공식적인 종전을 추진할 것을 촉구하는 바이다.
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