Support political prisoner Maâti Monjib in Morocco, on hunger strike since March 4!
Africa
Ethiopia civil war fears
November 29, 2020Armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia, two years in the making. It remains to be seen whether it will become a full-blown civil war, and possibly engulf other countries of the region.
All power to the Sudanese revolutionaries!
June 27, 2019The Sudanese Revolution demonstrated its depth, maturity and resilience as masses once again took to the streets following the June 3 massacre of protesters in Khartoum.
Sudan: Call to Action
June 13, 2019Call to Action in solidarity with Sudan’s revolution
Revolution in Sudan Under Attack!
June 3, 2019This is a video from our comrade Mohammed Elnaiem who is on the ground in Sudan.
https://www.facebook.com/elninomoody/videos/10157727204511535/
World in View: The genius of the Sudanese revolution
May 6, 2019The brilliant Sudanese revolution is another in a line of rebellions against reactionary rule.
World in View: East Africa unity?
May 3, 2019Exploitative Chinese capital investment is what the East African Community economic zone has in common–a betrayal of their anthem “Jumiya Yetu,” which speaks of community.
Capitalism’s failures, and the struggles against it
December 26, 2018We 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…”
Frantz Fanon warns Ali Shariati
December 2, 2018A new book, “Frantz Fanon: Alienation and Freedom,” reveals that Frantz Fanon warned leftist Islamist Ali Shariati that, despite Islam’s anticolonialist potential, without the spirit of emancipation it risked diversion to sectarianism, approaching the past rather than future, like African nationalisms.
World in View: U.S. military in Africa
November 16, 2017At least 358 civilians were killed and over 400 wounded in a truck bombing by al-Shabaab in Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct. 14, 2017.
China’s tentacles
July 2, 2017Report on the Belt and Road Forum held in May in China and its connection with China’s imperialist and anti-labor actions.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 2
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on The Dialectic of History Vs. Retrogression; Prisoners, Supporters Speak.
Freedom for the Chagos Archipelago!
September 20, 2016What has for 50 years been a secret site in the Indian Ocean—Diego Garcia, the most beautiful atoll in the world, the site of the most hideous U.S. military base—is suddenly being exposed to public scrutiny. LALIT is calling for your support for reunification of the Republic of Mauritius and for the right to return.
Black Lives Matter occupies LA City Hall Plaza
Barred from entering City Hall by LAPD officers, LA Black Lives Matter started an occupation of City Hall Plaza protesting Police Chief Charlie Beck’s ruling that shooting Redel Jones five times was within policy.
Queer Notes: September-October 2016
September 14, 2016Queer rights supporters at a Pride beauty pageant in Uganda are victims of police brutality; protests break out in Turkey in outrage over murder of Transgender woman, sex worker and LGBT rights activist Hande Kader; LGBT rights activists protest continued discrimination and brutality by Nepalese citizens which is in violation of Nepal’s outlawing of same based on sexual orientation and gender identity; the Court of Arbitration for Sport sets aside the International Association of Athletics Foundation’s limit on naturally occurring testosterone for athletes to compete in women’s events.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nigeria: a retreat, not a victory
September 11, 2016Raya Dunayevskaya gives a revolutionary history of the war for independence of Biafra from Nigeria while commenting on Conor Cruise O’Brien’s article published in the New York Review of Books, Dec. 21, 1968.
World In View: Zimbabwe succession
July 16, 2016President Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since the overthrow of white minority rule in 1980. The succession is now being contested by factions of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
May 13, 2016Part IV of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The renewal of Syrian demonstrations for freedom refuted the state powers’ belief that the idea of revolution can be destroyed by bombs, and highlighted a civilizational crisis and the need for international solidarity.
World in View: Refugee crisis measures world’s inhumanity
April 29, 2016At the crux of the world refugee crisis is a demand for new human relations. The will to deny any responsibility for centuries of exploitation of Latin America and Africa is at the root of inhuman attitudes toward refugees, and it becomes an opening for the most reactionary politicians.
The need for new beginnings in thought and in action
April 25, 2016Contents: Introduction; I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.; II. The worldwide war against women; III. Chinese labor in revolt; IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa; V. Toward organizational new beginnings. The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we print the Marxist-Humanist Draft Perspectives in the pages of the paper of News and Letters Committees. It is an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Oil: bad both ways
March 12, 2016People’s suffering, no matter the price of oil, demonstrates capitalism’s inherent deep ties with climate change and economic destruction.
Defend Maati Monjib
December 15, 2015Moroccan professor on hunger strike in protest of suppression of rights of journalists
LGBTQ gains in Africa
September 3, 2015A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia
July 3, 2015A report of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed around the world each year on May 17 to raise awareness of human rights violations against LGBTI people and to advocate for our full human rights.
Refugees risk death fleeing war, terror and climate chaos
June 28, 2015Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The meaning of revolutionary archives
June 27, 2015In celebrating the online publication of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her Introduction/Overview to Volume XII, which takes up the Marxist-Humanist concept of archives as not only retrospective but perspective, in the quest to establish “continuity with the historic course of human development.”
Youth In Action, May-June 2015
May 7, 2015South Africa removal of monument to imperialist Cecil Rhodes; UC San Diego eviction of Ché Café; Armenian protest in Lebanon; Burmese student protests; U. of Virginia students demand justice for Martese Johnson.
World in View: New Kenya massacre
In a day-long orgy of murder on April 2, four al-Shabaab terrorists invaded the campus of Garissa University College and killed 143 students.
Things fall apart
May 6, 2015In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The dialectic and women’s liberation
April 30, 2015The article excerpts a summary of a talk by Dunayevskaya to a conference on Women’s Liberation in Detroit. The purpose of the meeting was to help Dunayevskaya work out the final chapter of her book then in progress, Philosophy and Revolution. That last chapter would take up the “New Passions and New Forces” for the reconstruction of society. The Conference was also the beginning of the News & Letters—Women’s Liberation Committee.
Celebrating 60 years: Marx spoke to 1975 economic crisis
In celebrating the first 60 years of News and Letters Committees, we reprint excerpts from the Draft Perspectives for 1975-76 by Raya Dunayevskaya, the first printed in News & Letters.
THE MOVEMENT KNOWS, of course, that the class enemy is at home, within each country. It knows full well that each existing state power is weighted down with fear of revolution. And it does not fail to appreciate that, no matter how deep the intra-imperialist rivalries, capitalist class solidarity holds tightest and strongest against its own people.
World In View: Africa, oh Africa!
March 11, 2015Today’s African tragedies compel one to return to the great promise, and then great tragedy and betrayal, of the African Revolutions that emerged after World War II.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 1
January 30, 2015From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
NJERI — LEADER OF AFRICAN WOMEN
January 28, 2015In celebrating 60 years of publishing News & Letters we reprint an article about Kenyan woman activist Njeri from the first issue, dated June 24, 1955.
World in View: Burkinabe revolution
November 30, 2014Some are calling this Burkina Faso’s Revolution 2.0, referring back to Thomas Sankara’s 1983-1987 rule.
New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard
November 25, 2014Contradicciones históricas en la civilización de los Estados Unidos. Las masas afroamericanas como vanguardia: New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard by Raya Dunayevskaya.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 2
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 2
PHILOSOPHY, ACTIVITY, ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALISM
I appreciate how Dunayevskaya relates Hegel’s Absolutes with the concrete tasks of building a revolutionary organization. History is the process of becoming. Hegel said that Being and Nothing are abstractions, whereas [=>]
Workshop Talks: Ebola fearmongers
November 21, 2014In the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, only one person, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died on U.S. soil from the virus. But millions have been led to panic. Irresponsible politicians like Gov. Christie of New Jersey created a climate of fear. Ebola spreads only by intimate contact with biological fluids, but Christie called for mandatory quarantines on healthy healthcare workers like Kaci Hickox returning from West Africa….
Queer Notes, September-October 2014
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
by Dee Perkins
With the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories, going nowhere, President Obama signed an executive order July 21 prohibiting such discrimination by federal contractors, which employ some 28 million workers, and, further, [=>]
Same-sex marriage
May 20, 2014Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.
Massacres continue in Central African Republic
May 14, 2014Violence continues in the Central African Republic. French troops are present, but not heavily involved in peacekeeping. The French were never in CAR for humanitarian reasons, but to protect investments, something that has become less pressing for them with the closure of their once-profitable Areva uranium mine.
Queer Notes, March-April 2014
April 2, 2014CeCe McDonald; Arizona’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act; Global Day of Action called by Solidarity Alliance in Nigeria.
For Nelson Mandela
March 4, 2014“For Nelson Mandela,” a poem by Paul Knopf.
Teach-in on the Revolution in Syria
February 26, 2014Participant report on a New York teach-in on “Syria in the Context of the Arab Uprisings.”
Racism in Israel
February 16, 2014Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for “Freedom!” for the refugees detained in a Negev desert facility under Israel’s new anti-immigrant laws.
Social crisis in Central African Republic
February 14, 2014Violence between Christian majority and Muslim minority communities has torn the social fabric of the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries. Over 1,000 people have been killed since Michel Djotodia seized power in March 2013. Reciprocal massacres have led many observers to see a real possibility of a Rwanda-type genocide.
January-February 2014 News & Letters online
February 4, 2014The January-February issue of News & Letters is online. Rampant U.S. surveillance slouches toward totalitarianism; Tahrir three years later; Charles Denby, worker-editor; Syrian revolution ‘brought us together’; Communization theory’s missing link: dialectical mediation; what happens after; Language and death in Juárez; Let RNs give care; …
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2013
November 30, 2013Queer Notes: Discrimination in Russia; Intersex in Germany; no prison for rape in Iowa; transition surgery in Iran; Lembembe murdered in Cameroon.
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) and his legacy
May 16, 2013Achebe made a great statement of responsibility toward the future. His questions are only more significant because they resonate beyond the Africa of newly-won independence to a world struggling with the meaning of history and revolution.