Since the start of September, the US has carried out further bombing on Iran. A recent strike hit a residential building and a wedding ceremony, killing four people and injuring more than 60. This isn’t an isolated incident, but an increasingly regular occurrence in the era of war which we live in today. The ongoing slaughter in Gaza is another stark example, so too the brutal attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, and the many casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war.

In Gaza, hundreds of people have been killed this year, despite the so-called ‘ceasefire’. On top of this, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, demonstrated the cold callousness that capitalist politicians are capable of when he posted an AI-generated video on social media, depicting Palestinians being transported on a conveyor belt into a detention camp, alongside the caption ‘We promised – we delivered!’

Young people today are entering adulthood in a world characterised by instability and increasing wars. At the same time, the climate crisis is only getting worse, driving disasters such as the dreadful flooding in Nepal. In Britain, bus drivers have been forced to take strike action to win action over extreme working temperatures. Rents have also reached unsustainably high levels, with many young people unable to afford to move out of their parents’ houses, and with the idea of owning their own home growing increasingly out of reach.

These crises are not separate. They are symptoms of a system that puts profit above everything else, and therefore at the expense of everything else.

Climate change, war and division are all a result of the reckless destruction of the capitalist system. Therefore, we must fight for an alternative.

That is why Socialist Students is working with a growing number of youth organisations across Europe to build for a coordinated day of student walkouts and youth strikes on 20 November. We want to make it clear that we won’t stand for capitalist chaos, and are fighting internationally for our futures, not their wars.

Hannah Ponting, Socialist Students