Queer Notes: May-June 2023

June 8, 2023

Takes up: Uganda’s President Museveni who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which includes the death penalty; That supporters of drag story time at Middlesex County Library in Parkhill, Ontario, Canada, protected the storytellers and attendees from 40 anti-gay protesters; and Namibia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other countries undermines the dignity and equality of the appellants.

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Lindokuhle Mnguni assassinated

September 24, 2022

Abahlali baseMjondolo denounces the assassination of Lindokuhle Mnguni, discusses his character and activity as an intellectual/militant from below, and calls for solidarity as the struggle continues.

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Honoring Women’s Day in South Africa

August 6, 2022

On Women’s Day, August 9 in South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo will celebrate all the women whose names are not remembered in the official celebrations who struggled in community organisations and trade unions and held families together under a brutal system of oppression.

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Abahlali baseMjondolo’s Deputy President arrested on trumped-up charges

May 14, 2021

The arrest of Abahlali baseMjondolo Deputy President, Mqapheli (George) Bonono, on trumped-up charges is related to the longstanding attempts by the ANC (African National Congress) to crush the eKhenena Occupation in Cato Manor, an occupation that is now a working commune run on a democratic basis with a co-operative managing the farming.

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World in View: Academic tragedies

May 8, 2021

A wildfire that broke out April 18, 2021, forced the evacuation of the University of Cape Town, South Africa’s campus and destroyed a major part of the library. The Jagger Reading Room housed thousands of historic African films, letters, and manuscripts, many relating to the anti-apartheid struggle. Also lost were thousands of indigenous artworks and over 85,000 books.

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Support Hlengiwe Gasa

September 29, 2020

In an attempt to intimidate Hlengiwe Gasa for leading a peaceful march on July 25 protesting the terrifying levels of violence against women in the community of uMthwalume in South Africa, she was arrested and charged with violating Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

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Women worldwide, September-October 2020

August 28, 2020

Diana Russell remembered; Hawaii’s Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID-19; Turkish women protest moves to withdraw from Istanbul Convention; women social health workers strike in India; women contest stolen election in Belarus; demands for release of Sanaa Seif in Egypt.

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COVID-19 among South African shackdwellers

April 29, 2020

Many of the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus in South Africa assume that everyone lives in a house with water and sanitation, and at no risk of being destroyed by the state. But millions of us continue to live in shacks of indignity.

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Capitalism is the real pandemic

April 6, 2020

Neither the coronavirus nor the ongoing climate changes are merely “acts of nature.” Rather both have emerged at this moment because humanity is grounded—entrapped—in the economic-social-political system(s) of capital/capitalism. It is the behemoth that we must examine: the monster we must free ourselves from.

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Women Worldwide, November-December 2019

November 17, 2019

Laws against abortion and sex outside of marriage in Morocco; violence against women in South Africa; Ontario’s Provincial Police will no longer release the genders of crime suspects and victims, and abortion laws in Mexico.

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Abahlali baseMjondolo speaks out for immigrants

April 4, 2019

South African shackdwellers state: “We believe that there is only one human race and that the borders created by colonial rule should be irrelevant to our project to build solidarity among the oppressed and to ensure that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.”

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Capitalism’s failures, and the struggles against it

December 26, 2018

We post this Dec. 24, 2018, commentary by Mohammed Elnaiem as a discussion article which begins: “On these holidays, we mourn for the Kurds in Syria who hopelessly fear an upcoming Turkish invasion, we mourn for the yellow vests in France who rise up in an empire built on colonial wealth but which continues to make destitute its working and unemployed poor…”

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Readers’ Views, November-December 2018

December 14, 2018

Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars

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Youth in Action, January-February 2017

February 3, 2017

Student journalists at the University of Kentucky targeted for publicizing a professor’s sexual misconduct towards a student; protests against racism at Cornell University; Maryland middle school students’ creative protest against sexist dress codes; Fees Must Fall Movement in South Africa continues shutting down Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

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Youth in Action: November-December 2016

November 30, 2016

International look at youth activism including the Fees Must Fall movement in South Africa; students at Boston College rallying against an anti-gay atmosphere; the CDC leaving out Transgender students in a survey on suicide; and Native American youth protesting polluted water in the Klamath Strait Drain in Oregon.

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Women WorldWide: November-December 2016

November 26, 2016

Women’s news worldwide including a march against rape culture in cities in Canada; a march across Israel for peace by Israeli and Palestinian women; and South African teenagers challenging health clinics to give young women contraceptive information.

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Landless women meet

September 12, 2016

Abahlali baseMjondolo Women’s League South Africa commemorates the 60th anniversary of women who marched against apartheid Pass laws and for gender and racial equality as they plan for future economic development for women.

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Youth In Action: March-April 2016

March 18, 2016

Students protesting racism at US campuses get some wins; student movement The FeesMustFall student movement at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand wins a temporary freeze on fees, call for campus jobs to remain on campus and making it more possible for more poor and working class students to be able to afford university; University of Georgia students arrested for calling on the university to grant in-state tuition for undocumented youth; University of Missouri students continue to agitate for racial justice by calling for more Black faculty.

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Youth in Action, January-February 2016

January 26, 2016

Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.

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World in View: South African protests

December 10, 2015

Students at University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg opposed a proposed 10,5% fee hike, and defying some student leaders to march on ANC headquarters, demanding no increase. Students at University of Cape Town had in April forced removal of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes from campus.

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World in View: Charleston terrorism

July 8, 2015

The racist murder of nine people at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., is the characteristic U.S. form of terrorism, directed against the expression of Black self-determination.

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South Africa bloodies Black workers

April 30, 2015

Durban, South Africa—On April 8 Abahlali baseMjondolo supported a march against xenophobia organized by our comrades in the Congolese Solidarity Campaign together with the Somali Association of South Africa and other migrant organizations. There was a permit for the march and yet the police would not allow it to go ahead.

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South Africans: don’t vote for messiahs!

May 18, 2014

From UPM: The formation of the Black Consciousness Movement in this country was a realization by Black people that we could no longer stand and be spectators of the game we are supposed to be playing. This election season continues to demonstrate the relevance of Biko’s teachings.

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November-December 2013 News & Letters online

November 11, 2013

The new November-December 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.

News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 6
November – December 2013

Lead
The Syrian Revolution as the test of world politics

On Aug. 21 the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad murdered over a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, with sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. [=>]

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Violence ‘normalized’

May 17, 2013

We are living in contradictory times, especially when it comes to women’s struggle for freedom. On the one hand you have a Women’s Liberation Movement that has never been more radical, unified and global. On the other hand there is more repression, and the violence is more brutal and deadly than ever before.

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Past time to stop rape in South Africa

March 31, 2013

We do not believe that the state is taking the rape and murder of Thandiswa Qubuda seriously. The state holds poor people in contempt. We are just voting fodder to them. We are not human beings to them. It is clear that the leadership in the struggle against rape will have to come from below. It is time for real action against rape.

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From South Africa: Hunger games real for unemployed

February 17, 2013

Capetown, South Africa—During the Christmas break we received the most shocking news from KwaZulu-Natal. The provincial traffic department advertised 90 positions for trainee traffic officers. More than 150,000 people applied, most of them between the ages of 18 and 20.

On Christmas Day 34,000 people received text messages saying that they had been shortlisted for these [=>]

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Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 2

October 16, 2012

From the September-October 2012 issue of News & Letters:

Readers’ Views, Part 2

REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM DISCUSSION CONTINUES

The discussion article on “Revolutionary Syndicalism” (July-August N&L) reminds me of when it was considered a major force of revolution. There was a syndicalist party, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), that thought we could vote in socialism. [=>]

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Solidarity with South Africa’s miners

October 2, 2012

Photo by David M’Oto for News & Letters

Oakland, Calif.—On Aug. 24, 100 activists converged on Oscar Grant Plaza to express solidarity with the South African miners’ struggle in Marikana and outrage over the police slaughter of 34 striking workers at Lonmin Platinum Mine there. Signs read: “This Was Not An Aberration” and “Capitalism [=>]

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Neville Alexander

September 22, 2012

World in View

by Gerry Emmett

We mourn the passing of South African revolutionary and scholar Neville Alexander. Born in the rural Eastern Cape, Alexander moved to Cape Town in 1953 to attend university. There he was introduced to revolutionary ideas. As he said, “I was forced to grapple seriously with the works of Marx and [=>]

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South African miners

September 20, 2012

World in View

by Gerry Emmett

The Marikana platinum mine massacre of 34 miners, near Rustenburg, South Africa, has outraged the revolutionary working class. That outrage is compounded by the government’s decision to charge 270 survivors with the murders of their fellow workers, who were shot by police. The workers were dragged to court, many still bloodstained [=>]

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South Africa Marikana mine massacre

September 14, 2012

Marikana, South Africa–Aug. 18: It’s now two days after the brutal, heartless and merciless cold bloodbath of 45 Marikana mine workers by the South African Police Services. This was a massacre!

Mining has been central to the history of repression in South Africa. Mining made Sandton to be Sandton and the Bantustans of the Eastern Cape [=>]

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September-October 2012 issue of News & Letters is online

September 9, 2012

Lead

Reactionary U.S. election shows capital’s contradictions

“We built it!” roared the delegates at the Republican Party convention in Tampa. It was the perfect expression of the presidential campaign and of capitalist thinking in general. The truth is that workers built the social wealth. Capitalists take it from the workers, and the government gets a portion.
Mitt Romney [=>]

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Durban climate summit: sellout, revolt

February 7, 2012

“2020 is too late to wait!” rang out the words of Abigail Borah, a 21-year-old college student/activist from Vermont. She was interrupting U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern’s speech at the latest yearly UN climate summit, held this time in Durban, South Africa, Nov. 28 to Dec. 11. Her passionate intervention, drawing applause from many delegates, [=>]

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