The Frontlines Monthly Round-Up

Stories and news I read in August

Aug 31, 2024

Bronx Frontlines is an extremely local project, written from one of the many Caribbean perspectives across our city. The people around me and how they live, exist, love, and survive in New York City—as violent gentrification, collapse, and fires continue—inform the stories I write.

I am also working very hard to understand life outside of New York City and the United States.

The Frontlines Monthly Round-Up will feature stories and news from around New York City and the world I am reading to better understand how our struggles and liberation are all connected.

Sudan

From “In Sudan, The People’s Revolution Versus The Elite’s Counterrevolution,” By Sara Abbas, Nisrin Elamin, Rabab Elnaiem, And Abdelraouf Omer Via Hammer & Hope:

To understand the war primarily through the lens of counterrevolution, it is important to situate it in Sudan’s recent political history, starting in 1989. That year the National Islamic Front, a political organization with distant roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, took power through a military coup d’état, establishing the regime headed by Omar al-Bashir and known in Sudan as the Inqaz, or Salvation, regime…
After independence, there were two major civic uprisings prior to 2018, in 1964 and 1985. Each brought down a military regime, only for the military to stage a coup d’état that returned it to power a few years later. War, genocidal campaigns, structural racism, repression of women and dissidents fueled grievances on a massive scale, as did mass unemployment facilitated by neoliberal privatization policies, land dispossession, and economic collapse. Resistance to the Salvation regime took many forms, both armed and unarmed, after 1989.

Palestine

From “‘We won’t leave our people’: the medical workers refusing to evacuate central Gaza’s last functioning hospital,” by Tareq S. Hajjaj, via Mondoweiss:

Hakeem, an emergency room physician at al-Aqsa Martyrs, tells Mondoweiss he is worried about what will happen to the injured and the sick who cannot evacuate with those who leave. “If we leave, who is going to stay to care for them?” Hakeem asks.
“We have no plan to evacuate and we have no plan to operate in the event of a siege. We don’t have anything stored for such a scenario,” he says. “We’re working under impossible conditions, but if we leave our positions, if we give up our duties, we will fail ourselves and our society. We will fail our families and the friends who count on us.”…
For 11 months, the hospital has not once gone out of service, but Hakeem says that its medical capacity is now less than it has ever been. “If the army surrounds the hospital, neither us nor the patients will be able to survive for very long. But we will try to do our best—until our last breath.”

“Israel invades the West Bank in largest operation since 2002,” by Aseel Saleh via Peoples Dispatch
“The Palestine Exception on Campus,” via Hammer & Hope

Bangladesh

From “The victory of Bangladesh’s student movement should not surprise anyone,” by Jennifer Chowdhury, via Al Jazeera:

In recent years, Gen Z Bangladeshis coming of age began to gravitate towards a third option. Unlike their parents, their dream and ambition was not to leave for the West, or stay and work the system. Their dream was to stay and reform the country. They were not willing to accept the human rights abuses of a corrupt government as the price they needed to pay for economic progress…Members of a new generation—not willing to give up on their rights, and ready to fight for justice at great personal cost—are now in charge. Change is now inevitable. We must all get on board, or get off the train.

“Yunus, a Friend or a Foe: An In Depth Analysis Into The Chief Advisor of Bangladesh’s Interim Government,” a statement by Bangladeshi anti-imperialist diaspora group Lal Morich

Kenya

From “LVC Ground Report : Kenyan Peasants’ Revolution Against the IMF,” via La Vida Campesina:

On June 25, 2024, over 400 Kenyan police officers arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as part of the Multilateral Security Support (MSS) Mission, ostensibly to “restore order” in the country. Ironically, on the same day, a significant protest erupted in Kenya, where outraged youth demonstrators stormed the Kenyan Parliament. This protest was a direct reaction to the Finance Bill 2024, which had been approved by the Kenyan parliament despite widespread opposition. The bill, heavily influenced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform package, included controversial taxation proposals…
The Gen Z-led protests have directly accused the IMF, World Bank, and WTO of imposing harsh taxes and prioritizing creditor interests over the needs of the Kenyan people. Kenyan peasants have had enough of the overreach by these institutions.

“NATO Nabs Kenya," by Wambura Mwai via African Stream