A-Infos (en) Spaine, Aragon, AM: Opportunities in the Face of Dark Times (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

(Article written by the members of the Aragón Mutual Aid Women's 
Council, published in the newsletter 'Colectividad' number 15 in March 
2025). ---- We live in turbulent times that are often difficult to 
interpret, as the rise of the far right worldwide, nationalist and 
protectionist policies, and rampant colonialism are events that take us 
back to other times and remind us of the pre-World War era. These same 
times were also golden years for freethinkers like Marx and Engels and 
the theory of historical materialism and class struggle, Bakunin and 
Kropotkin and the theory of mutual aid, Errico Malatesta, popular 
revolutions... everything has a reason, a cause and effect. While these 
are turbulent times, they are also times of opportunity if we know how 
to react.

Who said the class struggle was dead? It wasn't Warren Buffett, by the 
way. This new/old third world war, disguised as blocs but still the same 
story since the French Revolution: rich versus poor.

Europe's role on the geopolitical stage is uncertain. With Trump's rise, 
we've seen how traditional strategic alliances have been rendered 
invalid. Undoubtedly, these are times of change that bode ill, times of 
playing the cards.

The moves are clear: in the Middle East, the United States and Israel 
have been destabilizing countries while massacring entire populations 
for decades to secure the energy route from the United Arab Emirates to 
Europe. This isn't a political issue, as they don't care about allying 
with extremists; it's a monetary one, since anything goes to generate 
profit. Colonialism 3.0 in action.

Meanwhile, Russia is securing its presence in Africa, where few 
countries escape its influence, guaranteeing its supply of precious 
minerals and control of uranium and rare earth mines. Furthermore, it 
supports nuclear programs in Ethiopia and Uganda and, through its 
collaboration with Africa Corps, manipulates conflicts with ISIS to its 
advantage.

At the same time that France sees its uranium suppliers disappear, 
putting Europe in an energy bind, China is establishing a commercial 
foothold in Latin America with its so-called "soft colonialism."

Europe watches its influence fade, supposedly caught between two blocs 
in what appears to be a plan to dismantle the last vestiges of the 
welfare state, while the pact between Putin and Trump seems poised to 
divide the old continent.

This instability is pushing Europe toward increased military spending 
and reduced investment in ministries dedicated to the state-run care 
system. Education, healthcare, and social services will, as always, be 
the hardest hit, dragging us toward the systematic privatization of 
public services, which the major international lobbies relentlessly 
pursue. This race, which has been gaining momentum in recent years with 
the dismantling of state-owned enterprises and the continuous attacks on 
healthcare and education, is resulting in a consequent social 
polarization that is dragging the European working class into 
vulnerability and exclusion.

We all know that in capitalism, for some to get rich, others must become 
poorer, and that is the purpose of this new global establishment.

The injection of Russian capital into far-right parties and Trump's 
support for them in Latin America seeks, among other things, to pave the 
way for the legislative changes necessary for mass privatization. These 
self-proclaimed patriotic parties are prepared to dismantle the social 
safety net with the tools of economic deregulation.

How will this affect all of us, especially women? Without having the 
space to delve into a more complex analysis, we can sketch a picture of 
what is coming.

The reduction in public funding for education, healthcare, and social 
services will be the final nail in the coffin. We will move from a 
public model based on avoiding monetary profit to one of speculation and 
surplus value, while the slice of the pie they reserve for themselves 
will be stolen from the working class.

Social assistance, a large sector of feminized labor, along with social 
benefits, will be severely compromised by lowering the level of 
services, as part of the plan, so that more and more families turn to 
private healthcare, private schools, private nursing homes... as we say, 
their pie gets bigger every day.

On the other side, we working-class families are trapped in the housing 
crisis and precarious employment, struggling to survive while the burden 
of care work, which at one time sustained the welfare state, will once 
again fall on our shoulders.

Women with some financial means will be able to outsource care to the 
global care market, that market of migrant labor that these same 
ultra-nationalist parties, and others supposedly on the left, are 
ironically marginalizing. They abandon these workers in a legal gray 
area, trapped in the labyrinth of insurmountable bureaucracy that 
condemns them to the outskirts of society-a country within a country, a 
society without rights, where they are paid black market prices.

We are focusing on the economic aspect and have lost sight of the 
military career path. There is already talk of reinstating mandatory 
military service. Do you know where the young working-class people, 
tired of poverty, without the right to care, excluded from quality 
education, without access to an education that teaches them to be 
critical thinkers, will go? Can you guess what the method will be for 
earning that civil status of a full citizen? Our young people will 
become meat for the grinder if we don't stop it.

It is vital that we work together, overcoming our divisions and 
reclaiming our shared vision. All working-class women face the same 
hardships: monetary inequality, time poverty, an excessive burden of 
care work, and invisibility in male-dominated spaces. As migrant women, 
we also experience marginalization, a lack of basic rights, and limited 
access to healthcare and social services. We must end the dual systems 
of civil rights and ensure that these rights are universal. Only an 
egalitarian society can achieve true freedom for its members.

Faced with this future, we cannot stand idly by. Women must unite to 
build strong bonds that will allow us to organize ourselves as an 
alternative society, enabling us to confront them in the streets and in 
our neighborhoods. This unity will allow us to go door-to-door to our 
neighbors and, together, fill the void that a retreating state will 
leave behind.

So that when they come-and they will-they find us standing in front of 
them, arm in arm, fighting for ourselves, for our families, for our 
neighborhoods, for our future.

https://apoyomutuoaragon.net/oportunidades-frente-a-tiempos-oscuros
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en