Tag Archives | Tricontinental Newsletter

The title of this newsletter comes from a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a poem called This Hour of Chain and Noose (Tauq o dar ka Mausam, 1951).

The work of a radical artist and intellectual should be carried out in the manner of a gentle breeze and mild rain. It cannot be done with haste. It should be done over a long period and done patiently.

Lula will likely eat what he ate on his first day in prison: bread and butter with his coffee. He will know that across the planet there will be demonstrations in his name. ‘Lula Livre’ (Free Lula) the people will cry out. You’re not alone, they will say, você não está sozinho. It will give him hope.

Once more, punctually, Israel—with the vengeance of Zeus—has begun to bomb Gaza, from which the sounds and smells of war are never absent due to Israeli bombings. It helps Israel that the United States is fully behind its policy of annihilation.

Disregard by the dominant powers of human lives in places such as Iraq has a long history. It goes back a hundred years.

The fight over the Amazon is not new, but the scale of its potential destruction has considerably increased. The protagonists of the murder of the Amazon are clear: capitalist firms of different scales and the political class that enables them.

Above all, we’d like to demand the right to dream. For us, the present is unacceptable. We demand the future.

The mood in Caracas (Venezuela) is sombre. It appears that the attempted coup against the government that began on 23 January is now substantially over (as the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tells me).

Is the President of Venezuela the President of Venezuela or is the President of the United States the President of Venezuela? There is absurdity here.

This Tricontinental Newsletter on a phrasebook for imperialism is intriguing if shorter than usual.

What happened to Chile in 1973 is precisely what the United States has attempted to do in many other countries of the Global South. The most recent target for the US government—and Western big business—is Venezuela.

Inequality is sexist. It is also transphobic and racist. This is a reality demonstrated by Oxfam’s recent report on wealth and inequality, and a reality well understood by the people who live it.

It is plain as day that the United States wants to overthrow the government in Venezuela.

Late last year, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton went to Miami (USA), where he coined a new–chilling–phrase: troika of tyranny. It echoed former U.S. President George W. Bush’s phrase, axis of evil. Bush’s axis included Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

On 8 and 9 January, over 160 million workers went on strike in India from a broad range of sectors, from industrial workers to health care workers. This has been one of the largest general strikes in the world.

It has been almost a year since we got off the ground. Our offices across the world humming with activity. You have received forty-four newsletters from us, eleven dossiers and one notebook and one working document. More is on the way as we enter our second calendar year.

Earlier this month, in Savar (Bangladesh), over 1400 delegates came to the fourth People’s Health Assembly–first held in 2000 by popular health organisations to drive a global dynamic to champion public health measures. At the centre of the discussions were increased health inequalities–between the rich and the poor certainly, but also sharply between affluent states and states that have found their wealth robbed by colonialism and the adverse order produced over the past fifty years.

A few days from now–on 29-30 November–a very large number of people will gather in New Delhi, the capital of India, to say that they stand with India’s farmers (kisans).