India’s non-privileged young people embraced the insult COCKRACHES aimed at them by a minister in the Modi government with its toxic mix of the archaisms of Hindu fundamentalism and super modern versions of no-limits capitalism and made it a badge of honour. They did it in Fuck You style have also shown the power to mobilize and persevere in the face of how feeble is the official opposition to the government. The COCKROACH movement began as a protest against the educational privileging of the privileged and forced the first ever resignation from that monolithic government. Since then it has re-mobilized to oppose a government election “reform” which would deny millions their right to vote. Especially Muslims and the poor. The Modistate responded to mass demonstrations. And, in a tactic other authoritarian state may take up with police violence and arbitrary arrests and in a circulating tactic closed down metro station s in Delhi to prevent people getting to the main mobilization
The disproportionate cost and scarcity of housing in “Western” cities (and in countries like Britain, everywhere) is in part, one factor of the rise of fascist and semi-fascist popularity among young people. The sheer humiliation of having to live with parents and/or grandparents indefinitely is humiliating added to how “centrist” governments have done nothing to alleviate let alone change this situation In Spain young and old people protesting against property speculation, overwhelming tourism and in support of housing rights have been a constant over the last two years in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. The callousness they have encountered is exemplified both by the eviction of the 81 -year old Maricarmen Abiscal from the flat she had occupied for 70 years and the reaction the Madrid regional government and its legal fascist head Isabel Ayuso’ response when she is involved in a 7 million Euro corruption involving a luxury penthouse. The eviction with regional government ordered police back-up and violence prompted among other responses the creation of an occupied tent city on Madrid’s Puerto del Sol. It has been legally attacked by the Ayuso government with overtly fascist forces threatening to violently attack it. It has prompted the national government whose attempts to legislate some limits on landlordism were thwarted by Ayuso and her allies to call an election. What the eviction, the subsequent death of Maricarmen from the trauma of eviction has shown is the absolute rights of private property in housing, are in fact in the DNA of fascists of all varieties
Close on 200,000, school children, students teachers and other demonstrators have been taking to the streets across France, to protest teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and deteriorating school buildings notably in lower-income neighbourhoods. French media have shown videos of scampering rats, collapsed ceilings, leaks, broken furniture in public schools The protests started in September in response to exactly these conditions at a high school in Créteil, outside Paris. They have since expanded into a national movement demanding greater investment in education, with demonstrations of up to half a million people. They have done so because of a recognition of the class nature of education as a process of exclusion with the excluded expected to accept their role. The French government it would seem is doing its best to bring about a fascist Le Pen government with its instant and automatic violent response.A police tear gas grenade shattered a 14-year-old’s jaw and many of his teeth. A 15-year-old lost a hand in an incident involving a police stun grenade. Other adolescents have also suffered life-changing injuries blamed on police weaponry during protests. The government pours more benzine on the situation by constantly predicting the violence it provokes.