Opposition leader and chief of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, launched his long march on August 14 to protest against what he considers rigging in general elections held last year. He is demanding that Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif should resign to pave the way for fresh elections. PTI’s Azadi March (Liberation March) has caught the imagination of many in Pakistan, however the expectation that 100,000 motorcyclists leading the “million march” has not been realized. It failed miserably.
Statement of solidarity with the Syrian revolution
17 August 2014, byAs Syrians mark the first anniversary of the Assad regime’s chemical attacks on Al Ghouta, which caused the death of several hundred people, we the undersigned stand in solidarity with the millions of Syrians who have struggled for dignity and freedom since March 2011. We call on the people of the world to act in support of the revolution and its goals, demanding the immediate end of the violence and the end of the illegitimate Assad regime.
Elections without a Left
17 August 2014, by ,Many progressive Indonesians must have breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear that Joko ’Jokowi’ Widodo had won the presidential elections of July 9, instead of his rival Prabowo Subianto. But there is not much to celebrate; the elections showed the weakness of the Left in the country of 247 million people and the persisting legacy of the Suharto-dictatorship.
The Growing Crisis in the Middle East: An Update on Palestine, Iraq, and Kurdistan
14 August 2014, byCease-fires — brief interruptions in Israel’s destruction of Gaza — come and go, for one simple reason: Israel will not lift the blockade, the siege, the strangulation of Gaza, and the United States will not force it to do so. Officially, the line is that the blockade won’t end “until the rockets stop and Hamas is disarmed.” The reality is that if Hamas were disarmed and the rockets stopped the blockade would continue anyway, and the people of Gaza know it, because the real Israeli goal is crushing the population and destroying people’s will to resist—first in Gaza, then in the West Bank and throughout Palestine.
The Second International and the First World War – Responding to capitalist global disaster: 1914 and today
14 August 2014, byThe following talk was delivered to the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago, June 28, 2014. It has been edited for publication in International Socialist Review. See also Riddells article “Capitalism’s First World War and the Battle Against It“ here.
How being pro-Palestine got a professor fired
13 August 2014, byThe campaign to defend academic freedom for Steven Salaita is part of a struggle for the rights of all workers, explains Bill Mullen, a professor of English and American Studies at Purdue University and one of the organizers of the push to get the American Studies Association to vote to honor the academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions.
The future depends on the peoples’ struggle for social liberation
13 August 2014, by ,Here is the second part of the long interview given by Eric Toussaint to Anthony Legrand on the 11th of July 2014. The interview addresses how an organization like the CADTM analyzes its activities in the context of North / South relationships. The first part is here
The terrible rise in inequality across both the global North and the global South is intolerable. The trivialization of this increasing imbalance is unacceptable
12 August 2014, by ,The long interview given by Eric Toussaint to Anthony Legrand on the 11th July 2014 is presented in two parts. The interview addresses how an organization like the CADTM analyzes its activities in the context of North / South relations. The second part is here.
100 years ago: Capitalism’s world war and the battle against it
12 August 2014, byJohn Riddell is the author and editor of numerous books, including, most recently, Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922 [1]. Here, he explains how the First World War broke out 100 years ago, how the socialist movement reacted, and how a revolutionary antiwar opposition emerged.
The imperialist carve-up of Ukraine: where does the left and anti-war movement stand?
12 August 2014, byThe imperialist carve-up of Ukraine is leading to a stand-off between Russia and Western imperialism on a scale not seen since the Cold War. But it has also exposed the deepest divisions within the left for a considerable period of time. Some of the lines of argument are reminiscent of those during the war following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. [2]
Footnotes
[2] Then, the left was divided between those of opposed any imperialist intervention, others who supported the western “humanitarian” intervention to help Bosnia, and some supported, or at best were uncritical of, Serb leader Milosevic as somehow incarnating progressive remnants of Yugoslavia.