Answering Militarism with Food Sovereignty, Ecological Justice, and Internationalism

At a moment of rampant war, militarization, and authoritarianism, global social movements have been working on overdrive to connect the dots between root causes of converging crises and to mobilize across borders to build power for systemic change.

This has been particularly visible in recent weeks, which include some of the most important dates of the year for movements. April 17 is recognized as International Day of Peasant Struggle. April 22 is Earth Day. And May 1 has long been celebrated across the globe as International Workers Day (also known as May Day).

In the second half of April, tens of millions of people participated in actions and celebrations lifting up struggles for food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate and environmental justice. Friday, hundreds of millions more will participate in marches and activities to celebrate the struggle for economic and social justice and international unity among working people across the globe.

A Day for Peasant Struggle

Thirty years ago—April 17, 1996—Brazilian military police murdered 19 rural workers protecting their right to farm land to feed their communities. The workers were marching down a highway; the Pará state government ordered the military police to clear the road by any means necessary. Their gunfire blanketed the crowd, injuring dozens more besides those killed.

To continue to remember these murdered rural workers, our partner La Via Campesina established the day as the International Day of Peasant Struggle.

This struggle has a name and goal: Food Sovereignty. As La Via Campesina originally articulated, also in 1996, communities, not corporations, should decide what is grown in their territories, how it is grown and whom it feeds. Through the struggle, movements of small farmers have adopted agroecology, which combines traditional and science-based techniques to provide food that is sustainable for both communities and the Earth.

The food sovereignty movement is particularly important at a moment when the Strait of Hormuz has been a key target in the US-Israeli war against Iran. As documented by several analysts, global agribusiness is reliant on nitrogen-based fertilizers whose key components are produced in Gulf oil states as a by-product of fossil fuel production.

Without food sovereignty and an end to imperial aggression in the region, food prices are expected to skyrocket since these fertilizers are not stockpiled like oil is. They are produced on a “just-in-time” basis (think an Amazon package arriving two days after ordering it), and based on demand by agribusiness vis-à-vis the planting season.

A Day for the Planet

Earth Day, April 22, is similarly a day born from struggle. It emerged in 1970 out of the environmental movement in the US. In relevance to today, activists devised the day “to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution.” Since then, Earth Day has spread internationally through demonstrations, educational events, and other celebrations.

While Earth Day has sometimes been adopted by corporations and governments to “greenwash” their harms, the connections between militarism and threats to the planet could not be clearer.

The US military is the single largest polluter in the world. Just the first 15 months of Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza produced more greenhouse gas emissions than Costa Rica and Estonia’s 2023 pollution combined—31 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) emissions. Fourteen days of the Iran war emitted 5 million tons of tCO2e.

Social movements have been highlighting these connections, driving home that a civilization without war is a civilization that protects the planet.

A Day for Working People

While International Workers Day is primarily celebrated outside the US—Spain, for example, is almost entirely shut down for the day and it is taboo to ask anyone to work—its origin is actually squarely inside US’s borders and history, sparked by the efforts of labor activists in Chicago in 1886. In memory of the lives lost in these struggles and in celebration of ongoing organizing for labor and economic justice, hundreds of millions around the globe have protested and gathered yearly over the past 140 years.

This year, movements in the US are bringing renewed attention to May Day, calling for a coordinated day action with “no work, no school, and no shopping!” As described by our ally Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, hundreds of thousands of workers, students, and every day people will march, rally, train, walk out, and take action to demand:

• No ICE. No war. No private army serving authoritarian power.
• Tax the rich. Everyone needs to pay their fair share.
• Expand democracy. Hands off our vote. Defend free and fair elections.
• A People’s Care Agenda. We need an economy that supports working families instead of an economy rooted in violence and death.

The day’s message has always been clear: Working peoples have more in common than what divides us. Our strength to build a better world depends on building unity across borders.

As the poison of right-wing nationalism bubbles up everywhere, as elites order young soldiers to war for “God and country,” internationalism remains the antidote.

Accompanying movements over the long-haul

Coordinated days of action are important, but more important are the long and difficult struggles they commemorate. For us to achieve food sovereignty, ecological justice, and international solidarity—and to defeat militarism—we need social movements. These movements need to be supported, resourced, and accompanied along the long arc of justice.

Whether you can be in the streets and protest this Friday (and were for those April days) or not, you can still contribute to the struggle. Join us and others in the work to ensure that the struggles behind these days of action continue to grow and strengthen and a better world is won.