Crisis fueled by inequalities

The pandemic is unveiling and aggravating the brutal inequalities of capitalism between and within countries. It is undermining our core human needs and leaving millions vulnerable to a sudden loss of access to a means of survival. Many people simply cannot self-isolate, practice physical distancing or stop working. Evictions will become the norm as people cannot afford their rent and mortgages. The hardest hit will be the rural and urban working class, Indigenous Peoples, women, peoples suffering from racism, migrants, refugees, peoples living in areas of war and conflict, and peoples in countries enduring economic blockades. We will continue to see increasing numbers of workers losing their jobs, and migrants facing a criminal denial of their human rights, as well as higher and longer walls.

COVID-19 is exposing the magnitude of the care crisis in our societies: a crisis that has developed over centuries through the failure the capitalist system to care for peoples, nature and territories, and its reliance on the work and bodies of women to make up for and fix the damage caused by the capitalist neocolonialist system of exploitation. Through the sexual division of labour, women have been and continue to be socially responsible for, and burdened with, care work. Working class women and families and single mothers are forced to choose between confinement in the home or working to feed their families, at the risk of catching the virus. This is particularly true for women suffering from racism. Front line health workers, of which women make up the majority, are facing even greater exploitation with inadequate financial compensation for the risks they take and the responsibilities they have for others.

The pandemic is compounding the consequences of decades of both the inaction of rich countries in addressing the climate change and their harmful policies. We face this pandemic in a context in which democracy is already under attack, with the manipulation of elections through corporate control of our data and the media and even coups d’état in some countries. The rise of the extreme right and neofascism and their misogynist, xenophobic, militaristic and racist discourses and policies is leading to a direct attack on the rights that have been hard won by popular classes and the feminist movement. Many governments have already started silencing voices that defend true democracies and peoples’ power and participation, by criminalising and trying to dismantle social organisations and movements.