Rapa Nui/Easter Island: Blaming the victims -- Jared Diamond's myth of ‘ecocide’
Sculpture of the flag of independence for Rapa Nui, featuring a representation of the rongorongo script, unique to the island, in the shape of a boomerang, and headstones of Moai at either end. Photo by Coral Wynter.
By Coral Wynter
November 5, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- I have always been fascinated by the story of Easter Island, the European name for Rapa Nui, due to a complete accident in my childhood education, when at age 10, I did a school project on the strange, mysterious statues on the island, known as Moai.
[Please note: Rapa Nui refers to the island and Rapanui is used when it refers to the people or the language.]
My partner has always laughed at my obsession, referring to the Moai as those weird statues of Malcolm Fraser, adding why would you want to see that? (Fraser was the archetypal right-wing leader of Australian politics in the 1970s, who had dismissed a prominent Labour Party leader, Gough Whitlam, in shonky circumstances).
In fact, the 887 statues represent ancient and revered leaders of an ancient island society and the sculpture on top of their heads represents a hairstyle -- a red coloured topknot and not a hat. They bear little resemblance to Malcolm Fraser, wearing a hat.
COSATU leader on South African and Israeli apartheid
Address by Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Cong
Placard at a Occupy Washington DC protest.
Chile: When triumphant neoliberalism begins to crack
By Franck Gaudichaud
Is the #Occupy movement 'socialist'?
Occupy Brisbane, Australia.
For more on the Occupy movement, click HERE.
By Ash Pemberton
October 29, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- Some conservative commentators have declared the global Occupy movement to be “socialist”. Right-wing musician Ted Nugent said in the Washington Times on October 14: “Occupy Wall Street is nothing more than anti-American socialism on parade... These useful idiots are clamoring for social justice, as if they don’t have enough of that already.” Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly declared: “The Occupy Wall Street movement is basically socialistic.”
Tariq Ali on #Occupy: ‘The fog of confusion has finally lifted’
#Occupy Sydney march, November 5, 2011. Photo from Occupy Sydney.
For more reports on the Occupy movement, click HERE.
By Tariq Ali
October 25, 2011 -- Tariq Ali -- “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth glancing at”, wrote Oscar Wilde, “for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing. And when humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”
The spirit of that 19th century socialist is alive among the idealistic young people who have come out in protest against the turbo-charged global capitalism that has dominated the world ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nnimmo Bassey on what to expect from Durban climate talks
Nnimmo Bassey (centre). Photo: Right Livelihood Award Foundation.
Pakistan: Six workers' leaders sentenced to a total 490 years' jail! Solidarity needed!
On November 2 a protest demonstration was held in Lahore by the Labour Party Pakistan to denounce the jail sentences imposed on six leaders of the power loom workers' movement in Faisalabad.
By Khalid Mehmood and Farooq Tariq
November 2, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Power loom workers in Faisalabad in mid-2010 went on a series of major strikes and demonstrations. Six of their leaders were arrested by the police. Once in detention, they were additionally charged under anti-terrorist legislation. The six have now been sentenced to a total of almost 490 years' jail (served concurrently). This is a clear message of how "anti terror" laws are used against workers. The Labour Party Pakistan is calling for demonstrations outside Pakistan embassies and consulates around the world.
