Subjects Archives: Marxism

  • Do Communists Have Better Sex?

      André Meier, dir.  Do Communists Have Better Sex? (Sex im geteilten Deutschland).  First Run/Icarus Films, 2006. 52 mins., color, subtitles in English. This film, a mixture of scholarly research and light-hearted presentations of stereotypes about the role of sex in divided Germany (from the end of the Second World War to the fall of […]

  • Who Am I?

      Who Am I? / من انا؟ Observer / متفرجة Excerpts from the Book of Aswat / مقتطفات من كتاب أصوات Aswat / أصوات Aswat (Voices) is a group of Palestinian gay women, home to all lesbian, inter-sex, queer, transsexual, transgender, and bisexual women and women who are just beginning to question their sexual identities.

  • Eighth of March: A United March in Caracas to Commemorate Fighting Women’s Day

    This Sunday, the Eighth of March, Assemble at Plaza O’Leary at 9 AM in Silence, to March toward Plaza Los Museos, the Location of the Cultural Festival We Are Marching to Open New Paths.  Big Marches Work Their Magic Because We Make the Path by Marching, Which Is the Legacy of the Collective Memory of […]

  • Feminist Organizing against the Gaza Conflict

    Throughout the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine conflict, civil society has been active in responding to crises and advocating for peace and justice.  Kathambi Kinoti of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) interviewed Eilat Maoz, a general coordinator of the Coalition of Women for Peace, an Israeli organization that works for peace in Israel and […]

  • Social Change, the Women’s Rights Movement, and the Role of Islam

    The implementation of Shari’a reinforced the patriarchal order and institutionalized gender inequality in post-revolutionary Iran.  Nevertheless, the modernization of society has led to profound changes in the lives of Iranian women and in their attitudes regarding men’s authority.  The modernization of women’s attitudes1 has in turn led to their mounting resistance or opposition against gendered […]

  • Islamist-Leftist Cooperation in the Arab World

      Throughout the Middle East, actors across the political spectrum cooperate in ways that were unprecedented before the democratic openings of the early 1990s.  Even though few of these openings have advanced toward democracy, groups that had never previously worked together — indeed, some with long histories as rivals — now routinely cooperate in a […]

  • Kaiser’s Class Justice

    She’s called Emmely; her real name is Barbara E. — with the family name omiited in line with legal practice here.  All over Germany people are talking about her, most frequently with anger in their voices.  For Emmely, a cashier in East Berlin, was fired by her discount store employer for allegedly filching 1.30 euro […]

  • Where Are Iran’s Working Women?

    See, also, Hajir Palaschi, “Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women,” Trans. Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine, 18 February 2008. The Iranian Revolution and its aftermath have generated many debates, one of which pertains to the effects on women’s labor force participation and employment patterns.  For […]

  • Lawfare in Gaza: Legislative Attack

      If, therefore, a conclusion can be drawn from military violence it is that . . . there is a lawmaking character inherent in it. — Walter Benjamin The scale of Israel’s twenty-two-day attack on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 — which killed 1,300 people and damaged or destroyed about 15% of all its buildings […]

  • Interview of John Bellamy Foster on The Great Financial Crisis

    John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon.  He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press. MW: Do you think that the American people have been misled into believing that the current financial […]

  • Philosophy of Dogs

      Written, shot, edited, and directed by Tatu Laukkanen and Matti Pohjonen, in collaboration with NEGATIVEWARMACHINE in Helsinki, Finland.  “Philosophy of Dogs,” Part III of Elephantasma? (a feature-length experimental documentary film that examines economic change in Bombay, India from three different angles), “has already managed to get censored from one seminar on Indian economic growth” […]

  • Mexico Unconquered: Reviewing a People’s History of Power and Revolt

    John Gibler, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, 356 Pages, City Lights Publishers (January, 2009). Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, calls Mexico home, as do millions of impoverished citizens.  From Spanish colonization to today’s state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from […]

  • Is Talking about Homosexuality Still a Taboo?

    Is talking about homosexuality still a taboo?  In the Arab world, specifically Lebanon, the answer to this question is yes and no.  Sure, you can have an actual discussion about homosexuality.  People can freely discuss homosexuality being a disease, unnatural, and even disgusting.  The Arab world doesn’t seem to have an issue with such discussions. […]

  • Those Alternative Socialist “Stimulus” Plans

    There are, of course, other ways to “support and stimulate” the declining US economy: those that congressional debaters, presidential advisors, and the dutiful media never discuss.  All the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury ever do is justify their functions as lenders and spenders “of last resort” (when the private sector will not).  Neither ever […]

  • Socialism and the Peasantry

    One of the greatest insights of Karl Marx was his perception of the capitalist system as a self-acting, self-driven and “spontaneous” order.  Far from being a malleable system, where intervention by the State could be used for bringing about basic changes in the mode of its functioning, in which case of course the need to […]

  • Interview with Mohammed Nafa’h, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Israel

      “Supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination is a duty of Israeli communists.” The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and its front Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) were the only political forces in Israel that confronted the massacre perpetrated by the Tzahal (IDF), the Israeli armed forces, in Gaza last January.  Regrettably, […]

  • Jews and Arabs Refuse to Be Enemies: Hadash Campaigns against Fascism and Racism

    Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) launched its new election campaign on Monday, January 26, 2009, facing the general elections to be held on February 10.  The campaign’s focus is the fight against fascism and racism. The Arab-Jewish front’s new campaign slogan is “Jews and Arabs Refuse to […]

  • Women of Gaza: Interview with Islah Jad

      Islah Jad is a Ph.D holder from SOAS (School of African and Asian Studies), University of London.  She lectures on gender and politics in the Women’s Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Department, Bir Zeit University, Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine. Rochelle Jones: Israel’s attacks on Gaza have taken a heavy toll.  What is your understanding […]

  • Still Breathing: A Report from Gaza

      The morgues of Gaza’s hospitals are overflowing.  The bodies in their blood-soaked white shrouds cover the entire floor space of the Shifa hospital morgue.  Some are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in.  Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, […]

  • Mr. Zion Clarifies a Few Things

    Calm down folks and listen to my story, OK? You need to understand that I live with an absolutely impossible woman.  All I ever wanted was to live in peace and harmony with her.  I was willing to share and share alike. So I let her build us a beautiful house, under my direction.  I […]