From the May-June 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Women in Yemen show revolutionary way
by Shatha Al-Harazi
Sana’a, Yemen–This is one of the most conservative countries when it comes to how women are viewed. But the current political climate has changed some of this.
Yemeni society has offered limited roles for women in politics. It never expected women to [=>]
News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 3
May-June 2011
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2011
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Revolution and counter-revolution have forced their way to the center stage of history. In Tunisia and Egypt, revolutions have opened tremendous possibilities and spread the fire of their passion all across the Arab world and from China to the [=>]
New York–There have been union rallies here and throughout the state every day to protest the unionbusting legislation in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio as well as the anti-union budget proposals put forth by New York City Mayor Bloomberg and New York Governor Cuomo. These budget proposals would lead to renegotiating pensions, gutting seniority rights and layoffs of [=>]
About 100 people huddled together in icy San Francisco wind in Union Square Feb. 25 in solidarity with the “Day of Rage” protest in Iran. The Day of Rage was inspired by and in solidarity with the Egyptian protesters and the wave of protests by North African and Middle Eastern peoples. Over a year after [=>]
From the March-April 2011 issue of News & Letters:
After nearly 14 months of apparent “quiescence,” once again Iranian cities erupted into street demonstrations, shocking the powers that be who had imagined, in their false consciousness, that the movement is all but dead!
Thus on Feb. 14 hundreds of thousands in cities throughout Iran came out to [=>]
THE MIDDLE EAST EXPLODES: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
The Middle East events are bringing lots of people to talk about 1979 as well as the 2009 movements in Iran. I appreciated Raha’s essay in the Jan.-Feb. issue, Philosophy and Iran’s revolution: Where to now? because it raises the question of what could go wrong right now in [=>]
For Egyptian women the oppression of the last decades was extreme. They could not report the harassment they experienced to anyone, and men face no consequences when they harass. Public spaces became very problematic for women: their very presence on the street was an opportunity for men to show their “manhood” by harassing them.
Despite a [=>]
As the revolutions that began this year in Tunisia and Egypt spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa, they were recognized by masses of men, women and youth throughout the world, not as “far off events,” but as a new moment struggling to be born everywhere.
That moment has enveloped the massive protests in Wisconsin trying [=>]
Essay
Woman as Reason
by Terry Moon
The contemporary nature of Marxist-Humanism is evident when one views the theory and practice of women’s liberation. Today that involves both an unprecedented attack on women’s rights–especially reproductive rights–now taking place in the U.S., and women’s creative activism in the revolutionary developments in the Middle East, where they are fighting repressive [=>]
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Editor’s note: The first International Women’s Day was observed 100 years ago in March 1911. This year also marks the 32nd anniversary of the historic demonstration in Tehran, Iran, on International Women’s Day, March 8, 1979. On that day, women and supporters braved Islamic Guards and thugs allied with the [=>]
Across the Maghreb and Middle East there have been demonstrations and uprisings, from Bahrain to Algeria to Morocco, Sudan to Yemen to Iran. The revolts have included some of the lowest and deepest layers of the oppressed people and have seen the ruling classes of the world tremble.
by Gerry Emmett
Dutch Rightist Geert Wilders, who has also visited New York to attack the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” visited the West Bank settlements last month to declare that Palestinians should leave, to live in Jordan. “There already is a Palestinian state, and that state is Jordan,” he lied. Wilders, who sometimes tries to present [=>]
Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East, by Isobel Coleman (Random House, 2010)
Many people in the Western world observe the fundamentalism, terrorism and oppression of women in Middle Eastern countries and assume Islam is the problem. In fact, many in the Middle East look upon women’s rights as a threat to [=>]
World in View
by Gerry Emmett
Protests have exploded in Tunisia and Algeria. On Dec. 17, in the city of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia, 26-year-old street vendor Mohammad Bouazizi doused himself in gasoline and burned himself to death in a despairing protest at the confiscation of his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart.
Then on Dec. 22 another [=>]
Feb. 3, 2011
Support the revolutions of Egypt and Tunisia!
When Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak unleashed his plainclothes security agents and hired thugs against the freedom fighters in Tahrir Square Feb. 2, it was not only to support his shaken and discredited 30-year regime. He was serving the interests of all rulers, in the Middle East and [=>]
Photo by News & Letters. In response to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, especially the storming of ships bringing relief aid, hundreds of protesters closed down a terminal at the port of Oakland, Calif., on Jun. 20 to stop the Israeli Zim Shenzhen ship from unloading its cargo. Dockworkers honored the picket lines.
The current [=>]
