“Forced to Flee: Capitalism and the Refugee Crisis” Forum – Sunday, April 24 – Register Now!

“Forced to Flee: Capitalism and the Refugee Crisis” Forum – Sunday, April 24, 2 to 4 pm Pacific – Online – Register today!

Join us for a timely and significant forum – Forced to Flee: Capitalism and the Refugee Crisis – in preparation of the International Working Women’s Conference (IWWC). The forum date is Sunday, April 24, 2022 and the time is from 2:00 to 4:00 pm Pacific (5:00 to 7:00 pm Eastern). This will be a Zoom gathering with simultaneous Spanish interpretation available for this forum.

The registration link is here as well as below: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIud-GurzgvGddYIrEqv_wV5E3WKwsCm4F7

Our focus is the worldwide refugee crisis, a crisis that we all can agree is primarily the result of war and capitalist dislocation – NAFTA and the updated USMCA are two examples. The number of refugees worldwide is astounding, and the refugee numbers increase each day. At least 82.4 million people – one in 95 worldwide – have been forced to flee from their homes, either internally displaced or as refugees (U.N. Refugee Agency). Most of the refugees and displaced persons, as in Ukraine currently, are women, children, and the elderly. Amnesty International reported recently that half of all refugees (those fleeing from their countries) are children.

As is stated succinctly in the Appeal issued after the April 3, 2022 emergency international meeting against war that was organized by the IWC (International Workers Committee Against War and Exploitation, for a Workers’ International):

“These ongoing wars, and the destruction and barbarism that they unleash against workers and peoples, are the very fruit of the capitalist system based on the private ownership of the means of production and of its decay. It is a system which, in order to reap ever greater profits, shrinks from no aggression.”

Our Forum speakers (to be announced soon) will address specific situations, and discussion will follow with a focus on our preparations for the International Working Women’s Conference. The IWWC will take place Saturday, October 29, 2022 in Paris, France, the day before the two-day international gathering for the Open World Conference.

Your participation and contribution to the discussion should help us all advance the struggles in which we engage.

Let us take a brief look at the situation today:

Ukraine: 4.2 million people have fled to other countries since the February 24th Russian invasion. According to the United Nations, more than one-half of all Ukrainian children have been displaced from their homes – either as refugees to other countries or internally displaced to other parts of Ukraine.

Middle East: In Syria alone, more than half the population has been forcibly displaced – with 6.8 million fleeing to other countries. Over 6 million Palestinians live as refugees (West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) or in the diaspora throughout the world, denied the right to their homeland and to self-determination since the United Nations partition of Palestine in November 1947 and the subsequent Zionist incursions.

Mexico and Central America: Eleven million undocumented workers and their families in the U.S. work, attend school, pay taxes, and contribute to society, with the possibility of deportation ever present while they struggle to become U.S. citizens. Refusal of entry and deportation are common U.S. policy no matter which of the two major capitalist parties holds power. About 2 million people were deported by the George W. Bush administration, and 3.2 million were deported between 2009 and 2016 during the presidency of Barack Obama. As for the Biden administration, one million people were turned away from the southern U.S. border with Mexico just last year. (October 2020 and October 2021 as reported recently in The New York Times).

Haiti: As discussed by Berthony Dupont, editor of Haiti Liberté, in the last issue of The Organizer, 4 million Haitians (more than one in four) now live outside of Haiti with only 11 million remaining in Haiti, a nation plundered and devastated by U.S. imperialism.

Africa has been described by the United Nations as “a continent on the move.” Throughout large swaths of Africa, people have been displaced by war and famine. Sub Saharan Africa contains more than 25 percent (over 18 million) of the world’s refugees and 34 million people throughout Africa are either internally displaced or have fled their countries. There is no better example than Africa to illustrate that “The map of wars most often overlaps with the map of the wealth of the subsoil of the countries concerned.” [quote from the international appeal against war]

Please mark your calendar and register below. Let us know if there are others to whom we should extend the invitation. We look forward to seeing you.

Mya Shone and Connie White

On behalf of the IWWC Preparatory Committee

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Register Today for “Forced to Flee: Capitalism and the Refugee Crisis”: 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting. 

When: Apr 24, 2022 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIud-GurzgvGddYIrEqv_wV5E3WKwsCm4F7

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.