Azadkar (Tooraj Haji Moradi), 1952-2022

January 25, 2023

Tooraj Haji Moradi (1952-2022), whose pen name was Azadkar, was a revolutionary to his core and remained so throughout his life. Upon his return from the Iranian Revolution, he influenced a whole generation of Iranian youth who became Marxist-Humanists.

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Readers’ Views: Azadkar (Tooraj Haji Moradi), 1952-2022

From the January-February 2023 issue of News & Letters

It hurts to hear that Azadkar has passed. He was slightly built, but a giant in making the Iranian Revolution indigenous to Marxist-Humanism, and Marxist-Humanism indigenous to the Iranian Revolution. He and I participated in an international summit of farmers in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, [=>]

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Editorial: Iranian masses deepen their revolution

January 22, 2023

Since Sept. 16, 2022, protesters in Iran have carried out remarkable revolutionary protests. The women remain both numerous and radical in the constant demonstrations and actions, and have drawn in many layers of the masses while explicitly calling for the revolutionary downfall of the Islamic Republic’s regime.

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Iran: Unfoldment of, and contradictions in, Revolution, parts III and IV

December 10, 2022

Today’s revolt in Iran is illuminated by Raya Dunayevskaya’s March 1979 Political-Philosophic Letter, “Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution.” The first two parts were published in the November-December 2022 issue. The concluding two parts are published here. Written shortly after the massive women’s revolt that tried to open a second chapter of the revolution, this letter was part of a series written during and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and published in both English and Farsi.

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Contradictions in Iranian Revolution

November 10, 2022

Today’s revolt in Iran is illuminated by Raya Dunayevskaya’s March 1979 Political-Philosophic Letter, “Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution,” published here in two parts. Written shortly after the massive women’s revolt that tried to open a second chapter of the revolution, this letter was part of a series written during and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and published in both English and Farsi.

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‘Women, Life, Freedom!’ The transformation of Iran

September 28, 2022

The Iranian hardline regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.

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Readers’ Views: May-June 2019

May 6, 2019

Readers’ Views on: Socialism and a philosophy of revolution; Sudan in revolt; Iran vs. Iranians; Flint, Mich., play captures voices; Notre-Dame and fracking on native land; gun control debate; labor strikes; debate on fascism; Trump and DeVos; and voices from behind bars.

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Iranians remember

December 14, 2018

Iranians gathered in Santa Monica in remembrance of the victims of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979-1989 regime.

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Iranian women represent ‘bread and freedom’

March 8, 2018

An Iranian woman gives her view that the most recent wave of protests in Iran was preceded by a brave act of a woman in Tehran taking off her hijab in a very public way. Ever since Iran’s Revolution was usurped by Islamic clerics, women have been at the heart of every movement.

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Woman as Reason: Iranian women embody revolt

On Dec. 28, 2017, demonstrations broke out in the city of Mashhad, Iran, the first of many that swept across Iran for weeks. Women were a vital part of the events, including strikes as well as protests against veiling, drawing on a long radical history.

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Iranian women embody the resistance

February 8, 2018

It is no accident that the most recent wave of protests in Iran was preceded by a brave act of a woman in Tehran taking off her hijab in a very public way. Ever since Iran’s Revolution was usurped by Islamic clerics, women have been at the heart of every movement.

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Debate On Middle East, Revolution And Counter-Revolution

November 23, 2014

From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters

Readers’ Views, Part 3

I loved the way “Israel decimates Gaza as world faces global counter-revolutions” (Sept.-Oct. N&L) begins by highlighting how Gazans’ suffering represents global counter-revolution. The Left often takes the side of the underdog, the “lesser of the evils” fighting “U.S. or [=>]

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Readers’ Views, May-June 2014

May 25, 2014

LABOR AND IMMIGRATION

On April 8, about 100 people, the majority young Latinas/os, gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall to protest the deportation of immigrants. Obama’s administration has aggressively deported 2,000,000 immigrants. We held signs reading: “Not Even One More!” and “No Separation of Family!” Separation of family members has serious adverse effects [=>]

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Readers’ Views, March-April 2013, Part 1

April 25, 2013

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION REMAINS ON TRIAL

American Civilization on Trial (ACOT) is not “Black history.” Rather, Blacks play such an enormous role in the U.S. that their history that is in ACOT is a history of America.

Octogenarian
Midwest

***

The movie Django Unchained could have been an ad for the NRA’s position on the current [=>]

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News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2013

March 7, 2013

OFFICIAL CALL FOR PLENUM
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2013-2014

February 24, 2013

To All Members of News and Letters Committees

Dear Friends:

The world today is riven between the creativity of masses in revolt and the violent degeneracy of counter-revolution, whose destructiveness even extends to the revived specter of nuclear war two decades after the collapse of [=>]

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Now off the press: The Crossroads of History: Marxist-Humanist Writings on the Middle East by Raya Dunayevskaya

February 5, 2013

Now off the press:

Excerpts from the Foreword:

Nobody, least of all Marxists, foresaw the great historic divide which would be opened by the Arab Spring beginning in 2010. When Mohammed Bouazizi and Hussein Nagi Felhi killed themselves to protest the miserable conditions of life for Tunisian youth, they set off a year of revolutionary struggle that [=>]

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Uprisings in Egypt and Syria confront counter-revolution

February 3, 2013

Lead
by Gerry Emmett

“However partial the industrial revolt may be, it conceals within itself a universal soul: political revolt may be never so universal but it hides a narrow-minded spirit under the most colossal form.”

–Karl Marx, “On the King of Prussia and Social Reform”

The world’s rulers would like to declare an end to the earth-shaking, world-historic events of the Arab Spring, that completely unforeseen social revolt that [=>]

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Woman as Reason: Egypt, women and permanent revolution

July 18, 2012

by Terry Moon

Mona Eltahawy, an American-Egyptian journalist, wrote an eloquent essay published in the May/June edition of Foreign Policy titled “Why Do They Hate Us? The real war on women is in the Middle East.” The myriad negative responses to it reveal serious examples of counter-revolution from within the revolution in the wake of Arab Spring.

ARAB [=>]

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Syrian revolution fights Assad’s genocide, world powers watch

March 16, 2012

Lead
by Gerry Emmett

The unprecedented uprising in Syria has been called the “orphan revolution” because it seems that the Syrian people have stood almost alone in their epic struggle for freedom. The Arab League observers achieved nothing. The UN has been stymied by Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council. Most recently, the meeting in [=>]

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News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2012

March 5, 2012

OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION

to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2012-2013

February 26, 2012

To All Members of News and Letters Committees

 

Dear Friends:

 

Where we must begin is with the world in upheaval, from Occupy Wall Street to Arab Spring, still going after more than a year.

Nothing better shows the old order’s bloody desperation to prevent a [=>]

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World in View: Syria and revolution

February 10, 2012

World in View
by Gerry Emmett

Nothing has posed the old truth that “the opposite of revolution is war” more starkly than the ongoing struggle for freedom by the people of Syria. In bringing the mass mobilizations that have become known as the Arab Spring, or al-Thawra (the Revolution), up against the imperialist maneuverings of all major state powers, [=>]

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