International Women’s Day 2024
All Out to Support Women the World Over — Heart and Soul of Our Humanity
On this International Women’s Day, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) salutes all those across Canada and Quebec who are fighting for a society where the rights of all are recognized, and human beings can flourish. A red salute to all women in the front lines of the striving of all to humanize the natural and social environment, many courageously facing marginalization, defamation, and criminalization. A red salute to all Party women who are striving to make sure the level of political discourse is not further eroded and the work to renew the political process and for people’s empowerment is put in first place in every endeavour. It is when women take the lead in this and other battles for the realization of their claims on society, that problems can be resolved.
CPC(M-L) salutes the women across the country who bear the greatest burden of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive and the consequences of crimes of impunity on the part of the Canadian and provincial governments. We greet the fighting working class women who uphold the dignity of labour as they fight for the necessary changes to working and living conditions, and for society as a whole. Their contributions and sacrifices in the past year have been truly awesome and deserving of everyone’s profound appreciation and respect. This is so both on the front lines in the fights of industrial workers, miners, fishers, farmers, transport, and service sector workers as well as in the health and education sectors and the public service.
The only security the workers can count on lies in their fight for the rights of all. We salute the women workers who take on the brunt of the fight to humanize the natural and social environment, raise their children and uphold the cause of peace, justice, and equality to the best of their ability. Theirs is a fight for the fundamental changes needed for decision-making to be in the hands of the people and for governing arrangements that unite the peoples and harmonize relations among humans and with Mother Nature.
As part of this battle, working women are also coming forward to take up the renovation and modernization needed by the entire society of the existing undemocratic institutions. They are tackling the need to renew the political process and modernize the constitution to provide the state with an aim which puts the concerns and rights of the people in first place. This work aims to put human beings and their relations with one another and with nature at the centre of society’s concerns, not those of narrow supranational private interests. These narrow private interests impose anarchy and violence. They have taken up nation-wrecking and engage in wars to destroy whatever they cannot control. For them, workers at home are disposable as are the peoples of the world. The fight to end this state of affairs and bring a new world into being puts working women in the van of the struggles where they themselves define what is necessary and how to go about achieving it.
On the occasion of March 8, we salute the Wet’suwet’en women and Indigenous land defenders across Canada who are resisting the ongoing state attacks and criminalization of their right to be. Their courage and persistence and the justness of their cause demand broad support. In the past year they have stood second to none, withstanding all attempts to isolate and criminalize them and their peoples as the government pushes fraudulent land deals based on inventing new ways to circumvent constitutional commitments. Crimes are being committed, including the use of state violence against elders, women and children and the criminalization of Indigenous peacekeepers and especially the women spokespersons.
We salute the persistence of Indigenous women and their families fighting for justice for the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and those who are demanding that governments search the landfills for the remains of at least three murdered Winnipeg Indigenous women. They are affirming and providing living proof that Indigenous women are not disposable as the federal and provincial governments would have everyone believe.
We salute all the courageous women, youth, and students in the forefront of the fight for status for all, equality and an end to discrimination, state-organized racist attacks and violence and arrangements which push women and children into abusive situations including poverty, homelessness, and hunger.
The women fighting for the rights of all refugees, migrants, visa students, and super-exploited contract workers, and those forced to work in unprotected conditions for poor wages below the cost of living, play a crucial role in upholding human rights and the dignity of human beings. In this regard, we also salute the women of the United States, the UK, the countries of Europe, those in Africa and the Middle East providing shelter and care for refugees, and the entire world who are fighting for the rights and survival of displaced people.
Uppermost in our minds and in our hearts this year are the millions of women and children worldwide displaced as a result of the wars of aggression in which the U.S., UK and former colonial powers and their adjuncts such as Canada always have a hand. The women of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean are demanding the elimination of conditions which create the violent, desperate plight imposed on them as a result of foreign aggression and interference.
A red salute to the women farmers of India who are the mainstay of the struggle of Indian farmers for what belongs to them by right. Their participation in the mass discussions of the problems the farmers face, in working out solutions and the ways and means to bring them about is decisive in the successes the farmers are achieving despite the repression of the Indian state. So too in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir and all the countries fighting against the institutions left over from the British Raj.
In Haiti and all other countries, the role of women in the fight for the rights of all is as heroic as it is decisive.
Day after day the women of Palestine continue to resist the genocide of which they and their children are the main target in the U.S./Israeli genocidal war. We salute their courage and heroism and that of those across Canada, the U.S., Britain, South Africa, Yemen, Lebanon, and many other countries who are demanding an immediate end to the U.S./Israeli genocidal assault and siege on Gaza, and a complete and total end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. In Canada, the demands and actions for Ceasefire Now and End the Occupation are daily growing. The call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is a matter of principle — not, as the government attempts, a manoeuvre to give Israel time to better achieve its murderous aims. The demand for Canada to declare an immediate arms embargo on Israel, and immediately reinstate funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees are also important to keep up.
We call on all Canadians to support the youth, students, and people from all walks of life opposing the use of police powers to criminalize their right to speak, their demands and their actions. Every human being has the right to express themselves freely, to defend the rights of all, to give voice to the kind of world they want, the kind of world humanity needs, and the changes required to bring it into being. The world as is has no takers. The world as it should be has billions of makers!
On International Women’s Day 2024, let us together discuss and build the mechanisms we need to empower ourselves as the decision-makers, affirm the rights of all as human beings and put an end to the crimes against humanity we are experiencing and witnessing today.
Long Live the Fighting Women of This World!
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