The youth of Freedom Road Socialist Organization / Organization Socialista del Camino para la Libertad proudly presents “The Young and the Leftless: An Open Letter” from several social movement activists for their comrades in the social movement Left.
This project is designed to be participatory and open to those youth involved in social movements in whatever capacity and from whatever tradition.
The text of the letter, as well as download links, available after the jump.
The following is an essay contributed by the author of Good Morning, Revolution. It properly asks why, with Nepal going off like a firecracker, the events there have essentially been virtually ignored by self-professed revolutionaries in the U.S.
I tend to sit at my computer, googling for the news and updates about what is happening in Nepal over the current political struggle between Maoists, their growing coalition, and the other parliamentary parties who are set to try to win as much as possible if not sabotage the process of creating a coalition government under the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), a Party who won a great plurality of the historical elections, which surprised the international community. It has been over ten years of People’s War, which saw around 10,000 people lose their lives, over two years of political struggle since which saw the fascist feudal King Gyanendra fall from power and beginning of desolution of the Monarchy. There is a real struggle for the path and future of over 25 million people in Nepal, and yet my Google news search results only get the international news from the Hindi Times or Kantipur Online. Unbelievable.How is it we in this country here nothing of what is happening? How is it there is almost an unspoken silence of the struggles of South Asia? Of course there is a failure here of the media to report, no questioning, we hear nothing of the truth in the struggles of the people in Latin America, in Palestine, etc. We know this as just the Chomksyian unspoken rule of the media, it is general knowledge. This is not what makes me flinch, its the fact that the Left is unquestionably silent on it. We still get more reports on Chiapas (a struggle, that for all honesty, has stagnated and is losing its base.), on Tibet and all its Oriental mystique attached, and even on the need to defend China (Party for Socialism and Liberation is promoting a book on the need to defend tarnished “socialism” in China.). There are a few notable exceptions like Revolution in South Asia blog and Learn from Nepal project. Read the rest of this entry »
Mike Ely of Kasama fame has recently posted up an essay, “4 Reasons Nepal’s Revolution Matters.” It is reposted here verbatim. For those who are interested, there is also a handsome print version available for download as well.
Eyes on the Maobadi:By Mike Ely
Something remarkable is happening. A whole generation of people has never seen a radical, secular, revolutionary movement rise with popular support. And yet here it is – in Nepal today.
This movement has overthrown Nepal’s hated King Gyanendra and abolished the medieval monarchy. It has created a revolutionary army that now squares off with the old King’s army. It has built parallel political power in remote rural areas over a decade of guerrilla war – undermining feudal traditions like the caste system. It has gathered broad popular support and emerged as the leading force of an unprecedented Constituent Assembly (CA). And it has done all this under the radical banner of Maoist communism — advocating a fresh attempt at socialism and a classless society around the world.
People in Nepal call these revolutionaries the Maobadi. Read the rest of this entry »
anarchism, anarchist people of color, APOC, Maoism, Marxism, people of color, polemic, primitivism, race, sectarianism, theory, white supremacy
APOC aren’t Maoists (and baby, I’m not an anarchist)
In Commentary, Link Dump on June 17, 2008 at 1:00 pmToday, Anarchist People of Color site Illvox.org recently came out with a snarky post, “Yes, APOC is Maoist“. It is, I believe, a response to some chatter that’s been going around the web, especially since one of their sympathizers criticized Kevin Tucker and the primitivist end of the anarchist scene for the willful use of “noble savage” stereotypes to pimp their zines.
I took part in some of that discussion (at MediaDissent.com) and was reminded of a lot of why I eventually ended up no longer being an anarchist. Namely, the inability of a lot of folks in the anarchist scene to engage in exchanges of criticism in a constructive way has been stifling. Part of which is a part of the whole paradox of “anti-authoritarian” politics, but I digress.
In riposte to APOC’s reply to the simultaneous red-baiting/race-baiting coming from Infoshop and elsewhere, I would like to say the following in brief: Read the rest of this entry »