First Nations leader Megan Krakouer and Indian communist Clifton D’Rozario have been confirmed to speak at the Ecosocialism 2024 conference in Boorloo/Perth over June 28–30.
They will be joined by Irish ecosocialist Jess Spear, Naarm/Melbourne-based Palestinian Nasser Mashni and Zack Schofield from Rising Tide.
Krakouer, a Menang woman of the Noongar Nation, is a director of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project and the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council.
She has been central to recent Invasion Day protests as well as First Nations Deaths in Custody Committees, through which she has helped expose the cruel treatment of children at the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.
Krakouer also played a leading role in organising nation-wide protests following the racist murder of Noongar boy Cassius Turvey in 2022.
She was awarded City of Perth Community Citizen of the Year in 2023 for her activism.
Krakouer will speak on the panel “No justice, no peace: Achieving First Nation sovereignty after Voice”.
D’Rozario, a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation will speak in person on the panel “From Trump to Netanyahu, Modi to Milei — Understanding the rise of the global far right”. He will address the fight to save India’s democracy from President Narendra Modi’ autocratic right-wing Hindi chauvinism.
A labour lawyer, D’Rozario has extensive experience representing workers, often against fierce repression, including the campaign to unionise Dalit sanitation workers in Karnataka state.
Ecosocialist activist Jess Spear, an organiser for People Before Profit, based in Dublin, Ireland is also confirmed to speak. Originally from the United States, where she worked as a climate scientist for the US Geological Survey, Spear moved to Ireland and co-founded the revolutionary Marxist group RISE (Revolutionary, Internationalist, Socialist and Environmentalist). She was chief editor of Rupture magazine.
Spear is a leading activist in the Global Ecosocialist Network and will address the panel “Capitalism kills: The case for ecosocialism”.
Mashni has confirmed to speak alongside Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled on the opening panel “From the river to the sea: Palestine will be free!”
Mashni is President of the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and a long-term fighter for justice and the self-determination for the Palestinian people.
Schofield, an organiser with climate defence movement Rising Tide, has also been confirmed. A strong advocate of collective action and union power, he will focus is on building the movement’s dynamics to take on the fossil fuel industry, while attempting to bridge the gap between environmentalists and organised labour.
Schofield will speak alongside other activists from Disrupt Burrup Hub and the Socialist Alliance in the workshop “How can we win climate justice?”.
Ecosocialism 2024: Climate Action Not War is being organised by Green Left, Socialist Alliance and LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
[Visit ecosocialism.org.au for an updated list of speakers, agenda and register for the conference.]