Throughout the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and reinforced a rise in authoritarianism. Governments and their allies use the tools at their disposal to advance their interests. Under the pretext of containing the contagion, governments have deployed the military and placed restrictive measures to repress opposition, quell resistance, and undermine freedoms. These restrictions and responses follow a hidden logic of social control rather than scientifically necessary health measures. As a result and as always, the most vulnerable populations suffer most. Rising authoritarianism and the structural inequities it intensifies pose considerable threats to our future. As we reimagine strategies to transform unequal power relations and the systems in which they reside and perpetuate, it is essential to learn from other movements. For our seventh and final dialogue for 2020, we gathered several leading feminist thinkers and movement organizers to discuss the question – “Is global south feminism the needed antidote to rising authoritarianism?”

There are a few notable features of these times. We see the consolidation of the power by political elites, the far right, including fundamentalist religious movements. Authoritarians elected to power are dismantling democracy from within by advancing disturbing nationalist agendas that erode democratic institutions. We know from our movement work that power is not given — it must be taken, and to do this, we need a fine-tuned understanding of the power dynamics that are playing out in our world and the meaning of building transformative power. —Shereen Essof, JASS Executive Director

Tarso Ramos of Political Research Associates (PRA) provided a brief overview of this rise in authoritarianism. “We are experiencing a remaking of the world political and social system through a third global march of authoritarianism,” he said, after mid-century fascism and military dictatorships. Tarso cited “three drivers that are present wherever we see the rise of nationalism and authoritarianism”: 1) severe economic inequality, 2) the rise of religious nationalism and fundamentalist movements, and 3) the rise of racial and ethnic nationalist movements and parties that define the nation in exclusionary ways. Within these, “misogyny and militarized masculinities are fundamental building blocks of authoritarianism.”

For Nani Zulminarni, a renowned community organizer in Indonesia (PEKKA) who works primarily with women-headed families and a co-founder of JASS, it is important to recognize that authoritarianism has long existed, but the forms shift. “It’s not new, the severe economic inequality, and the role of religion in the democratization process and ethnic nationalism bring authoritarian governments to life,” she said. She identified two areas where Indonesian women currently face the biggest challenges and fight back: control of the narrative and control of resources. Nani noted that the powers of government, religions and economic interests intimidate women through threats of exclusion using value systems and narratives. She cautioned that the reliance on virtual space under the pandemic exposes some 120 million young people in Indonesia to an anti-feminist narrative that distorts the terms and arguments that feminists use. Hence, feminists have to develop and reclaim language and find ways to reach people with their message. In terms of reclaiming resources, she gave the example of women farmers in Indonesia who have organized to bring back native seeds and establishing food security in local areas. They have gained power by controlling resources for livelihoods.

Hakima Abbas, Co-Executive Director of AWID, said, “Authoritarian forces have used the current pandemic as an excuse to deepen surveillance and militarized responses.” Over the past five years, some of these forces have taken power through coups, and others have used democratic procedures that contradict the spirit of democracy, she said, adding that, “you can’t divorce patriarchy from authoritarianism — the basis of the big man, the strong man, that model of governance is based in domination.” She warned that authoritarian regimes target women and LBGTQ bodies and lives “as the primary rallying site to establish control and power.”

Speaking from El Salvador, Morena Herrera asserted that the main challenge to authoritarianism is the existence of the feminist movement, or rather movements in plural, as a fundamental challenge to authoritarian ways of thinking, including a profound individualism. “We’re facing a new way of exercising domination and hegemony that has very brutal forms like plundering our lands, extractive industries, but at the same time a conquest of mentalities that makes us feel like this is the best way to live. So, there are two approaches—one brutal and one seductive. That’s where feminism comes in”. She listed several key aspects of feminism that confront authoritarian concepts: the body as a central element of resistance to patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism–in the defense of sexual and reproductive rights, but also in the broader sense of the defense of the body-territory that links to the defense of land and nature. The second is the emphasis on care in the feminist agenda. Third, intersectionality, to understand the multiple and interconnected forms of violence that we face, and thus our need to stand together.

Hakima agreed that feminism’s pluralism is its strength—’Diverse but not disperse.’ “This is where Global South feminisms come in as the antidote–not just the possibility of feminist futures, but the ways in which feminisms are creating alternative ways in the present,” she said. She cited examples of organizing, building cooperatives, developing the solidarity economy, “and the ways in which we engage each other outside the structures and systems of domination.”

Nancy Kachingwe, a feminist political economist and co-founder of South Feminist Futures Forum, said “There are so many of us thinking about the same things, but often in disperse ways.” She noted the need to have reflections in depth about the history and feminist organizing and terminologies. “Before, imperialism was clear, and now we don’t know what to name it”, she said, calling for a closer examination of terms like oligarchy, liberation, neocolonialism, “white, imperialist, supremacist, hetero-patriarchy, so what are we naming these authoritarianisms so that we can have a common analysis of what we’re dealing with?”

Tarso pointed out that authoritarianism is also diverse, flexible and not ideologically pure. “The nature of authoritarianism and the nature of repressive ideologies and regimes is also building and transforming and we have to keep up with that, we have to keep up with those tendencies, because it speaks to their flexibility in pursuit of power.” He noted that the strongest, transformative movements in the US, such as the Movement for Black Lives, are global in their perspective and recognize the interconnectedness of liberation movements globally.

On Global South Feminism

One of the keys to answering the questions and confronting the challenges is building the kind of South-South feminist internationalism that drives JASS’ work. Nani pointed out that sharing how to deal with authoritarianisms in the different contexts surfaces common struggles and inspires collective strategizing and collaboration to tackle these challenges.

The conversation surfaced several areas for deeper examination and paths forward. “I think that an intersectional Black or Global South feminism is the future in terms of our resistance strategy to block the advance of authoritarianism and to build an alternative society and world system”, Tarso said. Hakima expressed the need for an intersectional and radical approach given that: “the forms of authoritarianism are inextricably linked to capitalism and white supremacy”. This means that change must go deep. “We’re seeing an unprecedented wave of protest because people see that the choices at the ballot box don’t allow for change around authoritarianism and capitalism, no matter which way the elections go.”

Conversation frequently returned to the issue of the nation-state and how to engage with it. “Corporate power has fundamentally changed the nature and relationship of the nation-state to the people. If we’re going to continue the project of liberation, we’re going to have to fundamentally transform what we understand to be the use of the states,” Hakima noted. Tarso cited the experience of the United States and the fine line between working to block authoritarianism, but not become tied to the relationship to the state. Our strategy “has to be within the state, against the state and without the state. We have to hold all these things if were serious about building powerful alternatives.” He noted that there is a crisis of legitimacy in the neoliberal system, for its failure to deliver equality and wellbeing, and for extracting so much wealth that it is leading to revolt. The crisis creates protest, but also backlash. Authoritarian states and rightwing movements understand the power of feminism to challenge their agendas and legitimacy. We can see this in the “…global priority within this global axis of authoritarianisms to attack feminist movements, not only by state actors, but by conservative religious bases,” he warned.

Nani cited the need to go beyond nationalisms and even go beyond international concepts. “This is the power of feminist alliances and ideology — how we use that to actually bridge the difference between us on the level of the state, across south and north, in developing or developed countries, or among different religious groups like in Indonesia.” She added that it’s very important to find a common language and a common narrative to bring our power and our voice together. Nancy, speaking from Zimbabwe, agreed. “We need to start thinking about a common agenda that will bring us together, that allows us to interact in solidarity, and know what it is we’re looking for and having common demands.”

We need movements that are linked to, “a chain of solidarities, from small acts for women under siege to broader campaigns (and that) imagine a feminism that combines the demonstrations, the marches in the streets–at certain moments, where it’s needed, where you can–with day-to-day revolution,” said Morena.

Hakima concluded: “we have visions of what we want to build as feminists–it’s not all about resistance, and part of our resistance is in the joy, it’s in the laughter of our children, it’s in our music, it’s in our dance, and from there we are also building the vision of what we want to build. Worlds with safety defined by us—not with guns, without police and without military, with indigenous governance systems… We continue to resist and build.”