ILPS Chairperson Prof. Jose Maria Sison introduces the International League of Peoples' Struggle
Resolutions
We, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and LGBTQ advocates, delegates of the Fourth International Assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) affirm our staunch anti-imperialist stand and offer our contribution to the League’s just struggle against imperialism.
We, like other sectors represented in this League, are primarily defined by our social class. Majority of us come from the exploited and oppressed classes in society, and we come from various cultures, traditions, races and creed, and we make up a minimum of 10% of the world's population. We are in all sectors of society. According to United Nations statistics, there are more LGBTQ people in the world than there are caucasian people. Some of us are out and many of us are not.
Intensified and unrelenting terror attacks continue to be unleashed by imperialist and their client states around the globe. They result into massive human rights violations especially unbridled transgressions on the civil and political rights primarily of the poor and marginalized peoples. With impunity, extrajudicial killings, summary executions, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests and arbitrary detention, torture, rape and sexual molestation, intimidation and harassment and other forms of human rights violations are being perpetrated by agents of the military and police. Lives are lost, rights are violated and freedoms are denied daily.
These forms of violations are most often directed at national liberation movements and human rights defenders – the activists of organized and legal democratic mass movements of workers, peasants, youth, women, indigenous peoples and other grassroots sectors, the civil libertarians, peace advocates – primarily to quell and silence dissent and suppress resistance to neoliberal economic policies that aggravate widespread poverty.
There is a resurgence of the use of the arts and media in the service of the oppressed classes along with the advance of the peoples’ democratic and national liberation struggles. Various art forms, media and the internet are widely used to complement mass actions and make messages more effective. Artists, writers and other cultural workers are directly involved in mass mobilizations, anti-imperialist propaganda work, organizing, international solidarity activities and in shaping a revolutionary culture. They are part of the people rising up against imperialism.
The Resistance Festival of Greece features concerts of contemporary music, traditional Mediterranean and Balkan sounds, blues, jazz and “world beat.” Artists use video, cartooning and animation in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinians like in the Freedom Flotilla II Campaign and Artists against Apartheid. In London, marches have a carnival feel with playing music, big screen TVs and performances in central parks. Social media is used as an alternative channel of information to promote mass actions like the case of "We Are All Khaled Said." Traditional poetry is being used as a strong weapon of protest in Egypt. Theater performers, musicians and writers in Mexico hold festivals conveying their people's history and struggles. Artists in Palestine give workshops in various fields of arts as means of raising political consciousness and organizing, and they lead in the archiving of the history and struggles of their people. Progressive theater, music, dance, literature and visual arts are integral in the people’s struggle in the Philippines.
The chronic plunder of the world's natural resources by monopoly capital, aggravated by the impacts of global warming and pollution, is devastating entire communities and countries and is disrupting the lives of billions, especially the world's poorest and most vulnerable peoples.
Never has the global ecological crisis worsened to the massive proportions seen today. Profit-driven and market-oriented responses and false solutions to the crisis have predictably failed to stem the disasters, destruction, and deaths arising from the breakdown of the world's ecosystems. In 1992, the Rio Summit attempted to respond to environmental and development issues. However, in practice these failed to engage. Poverty, social inequity, and imperialist control of natural resources persist today.. Since 1992, the annual Conferences of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have become showcases to the brazen lack of accountability of the imperialist powers who are the world's largest GHG emitters.