By Rupen Savoulian
August 10, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Antipodean Atheist with permission — US President Barack Obama, the first African American to occupy the White House, has used his part-African background to leverage influence in the continent of his ancestors.
The Green Party of Canada have become the country’s first political party with parliamentary representation to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. They also passed a resolution at the recent convention calling for the removal of the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund. Below,Links International Journal of Socialist Renewalis republishing two articles on the topic from ricochet by Canadian activists Derrick O’Keefe and Yves Engler that provide some context to this historic decision.
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Tortilla Con Sal -- With the participation of 370 delegates from 25 countries, including the United States, Canada and Quebec, the VIII Continental Conference in Solidarity with Cuba took place in the Dominican Republic from July 28-30, 2016.
By Michael Löwy, translated by Dan La Botz
August 8, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from New Politics— Rosa Luxemburg’s defense of socialist democracy and her critique of the Bolsheviks in her pamphlet The Russian Revolution (1918) are well known. Less well known and often forgotten is her critique of bourgeois democracy, its limits, its contradictions, and its narrow and partial character.
By Jocelyn Piercy
August 7, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal-- When I think of the struggles in Toronto in the 1980s and ’90s for sexual and reproductive justice or liberation (that is, for more than just legal or formal rights), I think of the importance of having AIDS Action Now and the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) as socialist feminist leaders in these respective struggles.
By Doug Enaa Greene
August 6, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In late 1973, following the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet, political activist Bautista Van Schowen was captured by the government. Reportedly, Van Schowen was tortured mercilessly by his captors. In response to his torturers, Van Schowen declared “you don’t know what you’re torturing me for, but I know what I’m dying for.” Van Schowen’s attitude was emblematic of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Movement of the Revolutionary Left, MIR), Chile’s small Guevarist organization.
August 5, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In recent months an important debate has opened up over the role and character of the press in socialist Cuba. As part of making this debate available to an English speaking audience, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is publishing two translated pieces by Fernando Ravsberg and Esteban Morales. We hope to continue to run more articles covering different aspects of what is a critical discussion for the future of Cuba’s socialist revolution.
By Santiago Alba Rico, translated from Cuarto Poderby Sean Seymour-Jones
August 4, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — What many of us feared on the night of July 15 has occurred in the most sombre way possible. If a victorious coup in Turkey would have been terrible, its failure looks set to be no less so. In barely a week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has detained or purged more than 40,000 public officials: army officers, police, judges, teachers, and journalists. He has declared a state of emergency for three months - which can be extended indefinitely - and has suspended the European Convention of Human Rights, which could open the way – as the government has already insinuated - to the reestablishment of the death penalty and, in any case, normalise repression against all forms of opposition, particularly against the Gulenist forces and the Kurds, who have once again, following the reinitiating of the military conflict a year ago, been converted into the “internal enemy”. In short, to stop or avenge a coup - real and manipulated - Erdogan and his party have at the same time carried out a coup.
By Jan Malewski
August 3, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Viewpoint -- Accused without evidence of acts that he could not have committed, since he was at the time about sixty kilometres away, Baba Jan was tortured, convicted and then acquitted on appeal. He came second in the elections in 2015 while imprisoned and was tipped to win a by-election. Now our comrade, who is vice-president of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) of Pakistan and leader of the party in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Appeal in this region occupied and administered by Pakistan, on June 8, 2016, to 40 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 rupees, under a special law, called "anti-terrorist." Eight other activists - Iftikhar Hussain, Aleem, Irfan Ali, Shukurullah Baig, Sarfraz, Rasheed, Musa and Sher Khan – received the same sentence. [1]
