May 2013
9 posts
3 tags
Woolwich killing and the stunning hypocrisy of...
It’s always surprising just how shocked everybody is by the occasional violent side effects of imperialist wars perpetrated by the west. All this time we’ve been paying people to create endless death and destruction in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Mali, it never occurs to us that the wars we create might turn up on our doorstep. You just can’t stop those chickens from...
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Julius Nyerere on terrorism and hypocrisy
“When is terrorism not terrorism? Apparently when it is committed by a more powerful government against those at home and abroad who are weaker than itself and whom it regards as a potential threat or even as insufficiently supportive of its own objectives. Those are the only conclusions one can draw in the light of the current widespread condemnation of aggression and terrorism, side by...
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Syria: it's not a 'civil war', it's an imperialist...
‘Civil war’ is a totally inaccurate label for what’s going on in Syria. I think we should start calling it what it is: an imperialist war of destabilisation, where the aggressors’ fighting has been outsourced to sectarian religious terrorists. This outsourcing follows the same logic as any other type of outsourcing: it’s cheaper. The political and economic cost of...
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Happy birthday to Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X
Happy birthday to Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X, born on this day in 1890 and 1925 respectively. The two are linked by more than the relative position of earth and sun at the time of their birth: they were both among the most important revolutionary anti-imperialist leaders of their time. Ho Chi Minh was a communist and an atheist; Malcolm X was a black nationalist and a Muslim. But, in spite of...
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Nyerere: we do not judge people on the basis of...
“The basis of socialism is a belief in the oneness of man and the common historical destiny of mankind. Its basis, in other words, is human equality. Socialism is not for the benefit of black men, nor brown men, nor white men, nor yellow men. The purpose of socialism is the service of man, regardless of colour, size, shape, skill, ability, or anything else…
“The colour or...
ASG's counter-hegemony unit: Excerpts on Syria... →
resistance-episteme:
“On the latest Israeli aggression on Syria:
Unfortunately, the Israelis talked of their “enemy’s enemy” and “friend’s friend”. Isn’t the Israeli enemy the benchmark? Isn’t this rudimentary? This is part of our Islamic lexicon.
Of course there were objectives behind Israel’s attacks which it…
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If Israel is bombing Damascus, it should be...
What do I think of Seumas Milne’s latest article on Syria? Funny you should ask.
On the one hand, it is probably the best article on Syria you’ll see in the mainstream press. Unlike most other journalists, Seumas strongly condemns the illegal aerial attacks by Israel, and recognises that it is an intervention on the side of the ‘rebels’ (contras is a better term, for...
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Samora Machel on women's liberation
“The liberation of women is not an act of charity. It is not the result of a humanitarian or compassionate position. It is a fundamental necessity for the Revolution, a guarantee of its continuity, and a condition for its success.
“The Revolution’s main objective is to destroy the system of the exploitation of man by man, the construction of a new society which will free human...
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China in Africa - a very strange form of...
It’s a very strange form of colonialism, China’s new colonisation of Africa. Unlike British, French, Belgian, Portuguese and US colonialism, it doesn’t involve military bases, armies, assassinations, massacres, pillaging, destabilisation campaigns, divide and rule campaigns, or any coercion as such.
Even at the economic level, it’s quite different: for example it...
April 2013
6 posts
3 tags
The beautiful history of Cuban support for...
Cuba was the only country that provided military advisors and doctors to support the revolution in Guinea Bissau, led by Amilcar Cabral. Cabral wanted liberation to be won by the efforts of the Guinea-Bissauans themselves, but he made an exception for Cuba, whose revolution he deeply respected and with which he felt a special affinity (USSR supplied weapons and supplies, but not people). Most...
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Solidarity against imperialism: Ben Bella in Cuba...
After attending a UN General Assembly meeting in October 1962, just a few months after Algeria won its independence, Ben Bella flew directly to Havana, in spite of strong protests from the US. He commented:
“What I missed most in the United States was the warmth of human companionship. America is a wall … a wall that separates people. What is lacking is communication among...
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Tribute to Chris Hani on the twentieth anniversary...
10 April 2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of the tragic assassination of Chris Hani, a legendary freedom fighter and one of the most courageous and talented leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle. Although he was only 50 at the time of his death, Hani’s contribution to the struggle was that of several lifetimes.
Born in 1942 in the Transkei, he was politicised by the sheer poverty that...
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Not shedding any tears, but why is Margaret...
Thatcher died? OK. I mean, heck, she was evil and I’m not shedding any tears, but to be honest I think the near-universal obsession with her is slightly misplaced. Yes, she led the attack on the working class in Britain and fiercely represented British imperialist interests abroad. That was her job. That is the job of any Prime Minister of this country. Where are the great and wonderful...
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Why do we accept things as they are? Why don't we...
Why do we accept things as they are? This country, like so many others, is run by a tiny minority of wealthy people, and run in their own interests. Benefits are cut, schools are closed down, colonial wars are fought, jobs are lost, immigrants are deported, communities are victimised, people suffer from malnutrition, drug abuse spreads, depression spreads, insecurity spreads, and we do almost...
Poor patients retaining access to generic medicine...
“India’s Supreme Court rejected a patent application by Novartis for a major cancer drug on Monday, in a landmark ruling that will permit poor patients continued access to many of the world’s best medicines” Patent’s Defeat in India Is Key Victory for Generic Drugs.
This actually is a really important, meaningful thing for millions of poor people around the world who rely...
March 2013
20 posts
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BRICS and the changing face of progress
Progress comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. There is no blueprint for change. I’m a big fan of Lenin and would recommend anyone to seriously study his ideas, but it’s been a while since anyone stormed the Winter Palace, and perhaps that’s just not what the revolutionary process looks like in 2013. I’m a big fan of Che and would recommend anyone to take...
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Central African Republic - basketcase state or...
“The Central African Republic is placed 178th out of 179 in the United Nations human development index (HDI), which measures length and quality of life, access to knowledge, and standard of living. Life expectancy is 48 years, and the average resident receives 3.5 years of education. Two-thirds of CAR’s inhabitants live below the official poverty line, on less than $1.25 per day.” -...
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Nelson Mandela on Marxism and the relationship...
“I had little knowledge of Marxism, and in political discussions with my communist friends I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of their philosophy. I decided to remedy this.
I acquired the complete works of Marx and Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and others, and probed the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism. I had little time to study these works properly....
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A century of western imperialism in Iraq
Today marks 10 years since the start of the war on Iraq, but really western imperialism has been at war with Iraq for a century. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the British took over colonial rule of Iraq in order to safeguard trade routes to India. They installed a king, Faisal, who himself admitted that he was “nothing more than an instrument of British policy”. In 1920, a...
7 tags
Unity, not separatism, is the answer to...
Expose and attack white privilege, yes. Expose and attack white supremacy, yes. Expose and attack patriarchy, yes. Expose and attack all forms of oppression, yes. But always be mindful of the fact that racism, xenophobia, islamophobia and misogyny are forms of divide and rule; the cultural-social-political creations of a SYSTEM of economic exploitation and domination that stops at nothing to...
Vo Nguyen Giap tribute to Hugo Chávez
Message from the legendary Vietnam War hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap, regarding the death of Hugo Chávez. (Via Aporrea (Spanish))
Government and people of Venezuela, family of President Hugo Chávez Frias, and Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Vietnam.
I express my deepest sympathy to the government and people of Venezuela, on having received the news of the regrettable...
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What I think of internet revolutionaries labeling...
Nelson Mandela initiated the armed struggle for the liberation of South Africa. He was the first commander-in-chief of the Umkhonto weSizwe (the armed wing of the ANC). He served 27 years in prison, suffering hard labour and isolation, for his record of opposition to the apartheid state. He led the negotiations - in unbelievably difficult circumstances - for the dismantling of political apartheid,...
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Bomb Africa, Save Africa - the irony of...
Ah, Britain. GREAT Britain. It’s things like Comic Relief that make us great, that show our true spirit of generosity and kindness, not to mention irony. We spend a billion pounds bombing Libya - killing tens of thousands of people and destroying the African country that has achieved most in terms of poverty alleviation - and then we devote an entire evening of prime-time television to...
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White South Africans, stop complaining!
White South Africans that I’ve met in England are forever talking about how awful South Africa is these days - ohhh, there’s murder, there’s theft, there’s corruption. And of course they quote this or that statistic, and tell you about how their parents don’t feel safe any more, and therefore it is absolutely not even slightly racist for them to imply that black...
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Unprecedented anti-imperialist solidarity on...
The death of Hugo Chávez is an incredibly heavy loss to suffer; he was a giant, an inspiration. But the one mitigating factor has been the amazing, moving display of anti-imperialist unity that we’ve seen over the last few days. Leaders and envoys from some of the world’s most demonised countries - the full, extended Axis of Evil! - have congregated in Caracas to pay their respects...
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We don't have to apologise for promoting...
”It’s so hypocritical for western governments to criticise Venezuela for its links with dictators, when the west itself is allied with countries like Saudi Arabia.”
Quite a few people have made this point. It’s true: it is hypocritical. But as an argument I also think it’s unnecessarily defensive. It says “yes, well, we do bad things but so do you”....
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Celebrating the defiant anti-imperialism of Hugo...
Reading the Chávez obituaries in the western press, you see an interesting pattern. The majority of writers have to admit that life for the poor in Venezuela has improved massively over the last 14 years. The left-liberal writers naturally consider this improvement in living conditions as a good thing and an example to the rest of the world; the conservative writers see it more as an irrelevant...
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Time to reverse the watering down of International...
Ah, International Women’s Day, that most watered-down of annual celebrations. It might be almost as watered-down as the legacy of Che Guevara, with all the meaningful revolutionary content stripped out of it. Just so you know, it’s not a day for “appreciating women”; it’s not some kind of extra Valentine’s Day; it’s not a time to wine-and-dine,...
Book recommendations needed
Help!
I am looking for decent biographies of the following human beings:
Chris Hani
EMS Namboodiripad
Claudia Jones
Muammar Qaddafi
Deng Xiaoping
Vladimir Lenin
Marcus Garvey
Emiliano Zapata
Samora Machel
Salvador Allende
Rosa Luxemburg
The prophet Muhammed
Also I would like recommendations of books that address the following questions:
How has the collapse of the USSR affected...
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We can only honour Chávez by continuing his work...
Rest in power, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, perhaps the most important political leader of our generation.
The 1990s was a decade of heavy losses for the world’s poor and oppressed people: a period that saw the collapse of most of the socialist countries, the rising dominance of neocolonialism and neoliberalism, and brazen military attacks on countries that refused to conform to the...
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Nelson Mandela on classless society
”Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my admiration of the structure and organisation of early African societies in this country. The land, then the main means of production, belonged to the tribe. There were no rich or poor and there was no exploitation.”
ASG: Hala Jaber's interview with President Assad... →
Very clear and insightful; well worth reading through.
resistance-episteme:
My friend Hala Jaber conducted this interview with president Bashar al-Assad for the Sunday Times. Since both the full transcript of the interview and the shorter summary are unavailable to non-subscribers, I am reproducing the full transcript of the interview from today’s piece with some excerpts…
February 2013
10 posts
2 tags
How come the west finances revolution in Syria but...
So, according to the Washington Post, the “Obama administration is moving toward a major policy shift on Syria that could provide rebels there with equipment such as body armor and armored vehicles, and possibly military training, and could send humanitarian assistance directly to Syria’s opposition political coalition.” The article doesn’t mention that the US and Britain are...
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Samora Machel on the definition of international...
“International solidarity is not an act of charity: it is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives. The foremost of these objectives is to assist in the development of humanity to the highest level possible.” (Samora Machel, martyred leader of the Mozambican revolution)
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Neoliberalism and the rise of the resistance...
“Neoliberalism provides no solace for the social disorientation it brings, for loss of dignity and self-respect, the exhaustion of perpetually striving after consumerist goals and the anxiety of never seeing them fulfilled. In this vacuum, aggressive cultural self-assertion, religious or ethnic, becomes a form of consolation, whose affirmations of virility offer a balm for social...
ASG's counter-hegemony unit: On intellectuals who... →
resistance-episteme:
I was chatting with an old student the other day who is currently doing his MA thesis. He described his thesis supervisor as someone who is “great politically,” though “only in private.” Nothing insults my intelligence more than this oxymoronic phrase. So often I have heard how much Third Way…
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That awkward moment when the Syrian opposition...
“The rebel Free Syrian Army on Wednesday threatened to shell positions of the powerful Hezbollah militant group in neighbouring Lebanon after accusing it of firing across the border into territory it controls.”
As you’ll have noticed, I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Syrian state. They’ve made plenty of mistakes, and IMHO suffer from having a rather narrow...
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On David Cameron's pride in the British Empire
“I think there is an enormous amount to be proud of in what the British empire did and was responsible for” - David Cameron in Amritsar, refusing to apologise for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre (in which a British Army regiment fired indiscriminately at a large crowd of unarmed protestors, killing in the region of a thousand people).
With all due respect, Mr Cameron, go to hell....
Rationalism, romanticism, capitalism, socialism
A lot of political/philosophical discussions I’ve seen on social networks recently are basically reiterations of a centuries-old schism between rationalism and romanticism; between people who put their faith in science and progress, and those who yearn for simpler, pre-capitalist or pre-feudal times where there was greater communality and less individualism. Marx made an interesting point on...
The revolution will not be tweeted: on the...
Paul Mason (Newsnight economics editor) claims that we are in the midst of a “global revolution” in which “young people believe the issues are no longer class and economics, but simply power”. This is the thread that ties together the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, the various student protests, and (of course) the ever-so-clever-and-audacious Pussy Riot.
This is an...
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Is Syrian resistance against Israel a myth?
Irony alert! The Syrian rebels, who are allowing themselves to be used as footsoldiers in a game designed to massively bolster Israeli interests, accuse the Ba’ath government of never standing up to Israel.
Kamal Labwani, Syrian National Coalition official, says:
“Assad never once in his life stood up to Israel. All he ever did is ‘reserve the right to retaliate’ but...
Reject the mainstream lies and develop an...
In his otherwise quite useful article on Galloway and Cameron, Glenn Greenwald says:
“As usual, anyone who questions the militarism of western governments is instantly smeared as a sympathizer or even supporter of tyrants. Thus, those who opposed the aggressive attack on Iraq were pro-Saddam; those who now oppose bombing Iran love the mullahs; those who oppose Nato intervention in Syria...
January 2013
13 posts
ASG's counter-hegemony unit: Israel's attack on... →
resistance-episteme:
See guys, Third Wayers and oppositionists were right. Israel wants Assad to remain in power. Threats of intervention and attacks on Syrian targets are just decoys, duh. And Third Wayers were so on point about Assad’s uselessness to the anti-Zionist struggle in the region. Fears of Hizbullah…
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Lewisham A&E Closure: when Labour and...
Opposition leader Ed Miliband on the future of Lewisham Hospital (2013):
“I hope they will save the A&E in Lewisham because I think it’s very important for people there and I think we have seen a huge groundswell of people in Lewisham who are really concerned about what’s happening there”
Opposition leader David Cameron on the future of Lewisham Hospital...
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Mali, Algeria, and the curious relationship of...
Confused by western imperialism’s love-hate relationship with ‘fundamentalist Islam’? Can’t understand why Clinton, Hague and co are sending weapons to religious sectarians in Syria and dropping bombs on them in Mali? Or why Britain and the US used to really really like warlords in Afghanistan and now they really really hate them? Or why Saudi is friend and Iran is enemy?
...
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Is Algeria an ally of imperialism?
Here are some interesting facts that may or may not help people assess whether the imperialist countries consider Algeria as an ally:
The only countries to vote against the Arab League request for a no-fly zone on Libya were Syria and Algeria.
The only countries to vote against the Arab League request for a no-fly zone on Syria were Syria and Algeria.
The bulk of the capital for the African...
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Thoughts on Mali and the recolonisation of Africa
So France (with US and British support) has invaded Mali to put a stop to an uprising of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb - an organisation closely affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which France enthusiastically supported in the takeover of Libya. This is after the west didn’t lift a finger in response to last year’s coup that overthrew Amadou Toumani Touré. To...
