Subjects Archives: Literature

  Michael Munk’s The Portland Red Guide is a historical guidebook of social dissent in Portland, Oregon, and links notable radicals, their organizations, and their activities to physical sites in the city. We had a brief conversation over e-mail with Michael Munk to talk about the book, now in its Second Edition, and his experience […]

Let’s drink a toast to all those farmers, workers, artists and intellectuals of the last 100 years who without thought of fame and profit . . . worked tirelessly in their dream of a worldwide socialist revolution, who believed and hoped that a new world was dawning and that their work would contribute to a […]

  It appears from Iranian Islamist blogs that the honeymoon between Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is finally over.  Some reject Ahmadinejad in favor of the Supreme Leader while others show unwavering support for Ahmadinejad. It all started when President Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of the Iranian Minister […]

  ثـــــورة غضــــــب Never will we accept humiliation We are the lovers of martyrdom Raise your voice and say it loud My cause is my nation, and my blood my weapon! Never will we accept humiliation We are the lovers of martyrdom Raise your voice and say it loud My cause is my nation, and […]

  In his 1994 book entitled The Location of Culture, post-colonial theorist Homi Bhaba writes that “cafes are part of the social phenomena of the ‘third place’ [which] . . . people occupy outside of the home and work.  It’s a place to relax, to be alone, to socialize, to read, to gossip, to meet […]

Laal presents “Meray Dil, Meray Musafir” dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.  The music video is a new interpretation of Faiz’s iconic poem “Dil e Man, Musafir e Man” (My Heart, My Fellow Traveler).  While Faiz wrote this poem about exile, this video explores Marx’s concept of alienation within the […]

Tossed, dropped it freefalls so easily through the willing, complicit sky A slender wind pokes, nudges, guides misguides A squall of warm air slurs the speed the metal orb floats, a jewel-red plum parachuting, an overripe peach spit from a god’s bitter lips On deeded sand it lands, or settles in a bent cedar limb […]

  i ask myself if in this phrase all the yews of the free city of Paris lean and fall, all my reflections on language — the word that shuts the edifice of Language is the same that opens to the wind’s dominion — it was possible in those days to cross not just one […]

  Plunder + Immigration Laws = Modern Slavery Cecilia Areito is a Colombian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 15 December 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | Print  

After September 11th, 2001, one of the liberal justifications for the military intervention against Afghanistan was the oppression of women, but also of gays, by the Taliban.  People in Europe and the USA received with shock the news that same-sex couples were publicly executed in the Kabul Stadium by bringing down a wall upon them […]

  To His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas President of the Palestinian National Authority Mr. President, I have carefully read the letter of 24 November, by which Your Excellency asks Brazil to recognize the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. As Your Excellency knows, Brazil has historically advocated, particularly under my government, the achievement of the legitimate […]

wo * * * “When he died in 1992, David Wojnarowicz, artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty.  On December 1, 2010, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC celebrated World AIDS Day by capitulating to the demands of […]

  In eyes that hate your hunger It’s like a jungle sometimes It makes you wonder. . . . The Narcicyst, Yassin Alsalman, is an Iraqi rapper (born in Basra, raised in Dubai, and now living in Montreal, Canada).  Shadia Mansour is a British-born Palestinian singer.  Directed and edited by Ridwan Adhami (Ridzdesign).  Written by […]

  The European Union to the United States: “Yes, my love, I know you like my position, but everyone is saying that you are the only one who has it in common with me.” Pedro Méndez Suárez is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 7 November 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]

  For colored boys I will crucify myself like Christ let my blood purify and sanctify these words create a doctrine and go knocking door to door letting the people know that messiahs are here that we are messengers even though we embody the word queer that we are a reminder of how colonization has […]

  For the Rights of the Mapuche “Our struggle continues” Iván Lira is a Venezuelan artist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 8 October 2010.  Cf. “In the face of the government’s failure to withdraw the charges of alleged terrorism against the Mapuche prisoners, as is stipulated in the accord reached last week, members […]

  Historical Materialism has extended the deadline for proposal submissions to its special issue on the Middle East, conceived broadly to include: the Arab world from the Atlantic to the Gulf, Israel/Palestine, Iran and Turkey.  The new deadline for abstracts is the 10th of November 2010. HM is a Marxist journal, appearing four times a […]

I.  Prologue Pakistan is in a state of crisis.  The history of Pakistan, looked at from a human perspective, has been a perpetual crisis since its birth.  The ruling elite have operated — from the very beginning — on cronyism, nepotism, and legal and illegal corruption.  They have always been inefficient and indifferent to the […]

  Listen to MC Kash’s song “I Protest (Remembrance)”: They say when you run from darkness All you seek is light But when the blood spills over You’ll stand and fight Threads of deceit Woven around a word of plebiscite By treacherous puppet politicians Who have no soul inside My paradise is burning With troops […]

In 1857 Charles Dana invited Karl Marx to contribute to the New American Cyclopaedia.  Marx was the European political correspondent for the daily New York Tribune, of which Dana was the editor; Dana and George Ripley, his former mentor at the utopian colony of Brook Farm, were co-editors of the encyclopedia.  In due time Marx […]