Rateb Shabo, a Syrian leftist political activist, was jailed for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s—including three years in the government’s notorious Tadmur Military Prison—for his membership in the opposition Labor Communist Party. His recent book, The Story of the Labor Communist Party of Syria (1976-1992): A Chapter of the History of the Left in Syria (al-Maraya, 2020), is a must-read window into progressive political resistance to the Assad regime from the 1970s to 1990s.
Indonesia as Testing Ground
3 June 2021, byAt the start of October 1965, a U.S.-aided and abetted military coup overthrew Indonesia’s left-leaning Sukarno government. Not just an account of that tragic episode and the subsequent slaughter of a million or more actual and alleged communists and the horrific imprisonment of another million, veteran journalist Vincent Bevins’ (The Jakarta Method} is something far more.
Hong Kong: An Uprising and Its Fate
3 June 2021, by“Two events in 2019 marked the turning point for both mainland China and Hong Kong: the 2019 revolt and the Covid-19 pandemic. They lay bare the fundamental contradictions of Greater China accumulated throughout the ‘reform and opening’ period. The two events also started to change the status quo and put the one-party dictatorship in China to an even greater test.” (Hong Kong in Revolt, 138)
Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution
24 May 2021, byThe Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 is increasingly recognized as at least as historically significant as the American and French Revolutions. It began as a slave revolt in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The rebellion brought about the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793 and across the whole French Empire in 1794.
James Baldwin for Our Time
24 May 2021, byBoth Eddie S. Glaude’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own and Bill V. Mullen’s James Baldwin: Living in Fire are organized around what Mullen calls the “arc of change, reflection, and evolution” in Baldwin’s life story.
Lea Tsemel, Advocate for Justice
22 April 2021, byAdvocate is a 2019 Israeli documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Festival, and went on to win top prizes at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Kraków Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival and Docaviv Festival.
“I will show your illustrious Lordship what a woman can do”
27 December 2020, by“Whether you can get to the exhibition or not, just take a few minutes to look at her wonderful art online. All her pictures can be found free on the internet. There are films and documentaries about her on YouTube.”
Hong Kong’s Fight for Democracy
22 December 2020, byFor “anyone interested in getting a deeper understanding of how the 2019 rebellion of Hong Kong fits into the bigger China picture and what might be coming around the corner”.
Extracting the Andes
22 December 2020, by“There are few better guides than Planetary Mine to the possible economic and technological futures of Latin American likely to emerge in the wake of COVID-19”
Socialisms: A critical debate
22 December 2020, by“Parker makes us perceive opaque bifurcations, ideological shifts and new official narratives covering diverse form of integration within – but also still resistances to – the new capitalist world (dis)order.”
