Below is an Interview with Manushi Bhattarai.* She is part of the Maoist Ticket that swept the student elections at Tribhuvan University — Nepal’s largest. She discusses the revolution, recent political developments, the international situation, and the role of youth. Ben Peterson: Thanks a lot for meeting with me. The All Nepal National Independent Student […]
Geography Archives: Latin America
El Salvador: The Beginning of a New Era
On Monday, June 1, 2009, El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country’s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America. Representing the FMLN (Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face […]
The Renewal of Democracy: An Interview with Paul Ginsborg
Paul Ginsborg is Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Florence and a frequent public commentator on politics and life in Italy. His books include A History of Contemporary Italy, Society and Politics 1943-1988, Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society and the State, 1980-2000, and the bestselling biography Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony. He […]
Ideas for the Struggle #1 Insurrections or Revolutions? The Role of the Political Instrument
This is the first in a series of articles on “Ideas for the Struggle” by Marta Harnecker. 1. The recent popular uprisings at the turn of the 21st century that have rocked numerous countries such as Argentina and Bolivia — and, more generally, the history of the multiple social explosions that have occurred in […]
Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context
The past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in social policies, and some governments have increased social spending to soften the impacts of economic reform. These changes have come in the wake of widespread realization of the failure of the neoliberal economic model to generate economic growth and dynamism and to reduce poverty. Meanwhile, […]
Our Everyday Crisis
Among leftists and fighters against the system, the predominant idea is usually that the current crisis is “their” crisis, a crisis of capital and capitalists, which has dramatic consequences for the world of labor. It turns out to be very difficult to accept that we, too, are going through “our” crisis, a crisis of our […]
Paraguay: Protests and Rubber Bullets Greet Return of Dictatorship Criminal
Workers and activists gathered in the central plaza of Asunción, Paraguay on May 1st to commemorate International Workers Day. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo marked the day by raising the minimum wage by 5%, half of what many of the unions present were demanding. But another piece of news set the tone for this annual gathering: […]
Troubled Assets: The IMF’s Latest Projections for Economic Growth in the Western Hemisphere
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published its latest projections for economic growth around the world.1 At first glance, the IMF projections for Latin America seem unlikely. The IMF has a lengthy record of biased projections of growth in the region2 and has been consistently underestimating growth in countries such as Argentina and Venezuela, which […]
Lessons from History: The Case against AFRICOM
Africa has historically been less of a priority to U.S. foreign policy planners than other regions, such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. This was certainly the case when George W. Bush took office in 2001. But during the course of his tenure, “Africa’s position in the U.S. strategic spectrum . […]
Let’s Hope This Gift Keeps on Giving
Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, 25th anniversary edition (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997). As Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press, I was delighted to learn that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gave his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins […]
Argentina Remembers: Mobilizations Mark 33rd Anniversary of Military Coup
The weekend that the hemisphere’s Presidents met in Trinidad at the Summit of the Americas marked the same weekend that Cuba defeated the US in the Bay of Pigs invasion 48 years ago. At the Summit, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega recalled the invasion in a speech that rightly criticized US imperialism throughout the 20th century. […]
Israel Forcefully Condemned at UN Conference against Racism
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended the conference to condemn the Israeli government’s brutal and repressive policy against the Palestinians. The European delegates walked out when he called the government of Israel “racist,” but the Latin Americans stayed. The United States and eight other countries boycotted the event. The Israeli government’s stance against […]
“What about Cuba, Mr. Obama?”
Barack Obama hopes to be received differently at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago: he can talk about the crisis, his administration’s new positions on Iraq and Iran, and any number of other things, but he can’t escape the fact that what matters most is his position on Cuba. The imperial vision of the United […]
Eduardo Galeano’s Book Soars to No. 1 after Being Gifted to Obama by Chávez
The Best Seller in a Matter of Hours Open Veins of Latin America, a book by Eduardo Galeano, soared from No. 54,295 to No.1 once the Venezuelan leader gave a copy of it to his US counterpart at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. The Amazon.com sales rank of the English version of Las venas […]
Latin America Changes: Hunger Strikes in Bolivia, Summits in the Caribbean
After Bolivia beat the Argentine soccer team led by legendary Diego Maradona by 6 to 1, Maradona told reporters, “Every Bolivia goal was a stab in my heart.” Bolivia was expected to lose the April 1 match as Argentina is ranked as the 6th best soccer team in the world, and Maradona enjoys godlike status […]
China and the Latin America Commodities Boom: A Critical Assessment
The text below is composed of short excerpts from Kevin P. Gallagher and Roberto Porzecanski’s “China and the Latin America Commodities Boom: A Critical Assessment” (Political Economy Research Institute, 10 February 2009). The full text of “China and the Latin America Commodities Boom” is available (in PDF) at <www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/ working_papers_151-200/WP192.pdf>. — Ed. INTRODUCTION: China […]
Cuba: Economic Restructuring, Recent Trends and Major Challenges*
Abstract The collapse of the European socialist block at the end of the 1980s caused a deep crisis in the Cuban economy. One of the distinctive features of the process of adjustment and reform of the Cuban economy carried out by the government was that even during the worst period of the crisis, the Revolution’s […]
The Sugar Curtain: Chronicle of Generational Disillusionment
El telón de azúcar (The Sugar Curtain) was the winner of the Premio Coral for the best documentary at the 29th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana in 2007. — Ed. In The Sugar Curtain, the Paradise of the Cuban Revolution Is Put in Crisis The daughter of a Chilean documentary […]
Eduardo Galeano: The Open Eyes of Latin America
Very few writers maintain total indifference toward the ethics of their work. Those who have thought that in the practice of literature it is possible to separate ethics from aesthetics, however, are not so few. Jorge Luis Borges, not without mastery, practiced a kind of politics of aesthetic neutrality, perhaps convinced of its possibility. Thus, […]
Gringo: Reviewing a North American Anti-imperialist Student’s Experience of Latin America
Chesa Boudin, Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America, 240 pages, Scribner (April 2009). Chesa Boudin’s South American travel memoir and coming of age story Gringo is good and useful on several levels. It’s a poetically personal On the Road for a new generation and a vivid primer in the human cost of […]
