“You should know more about Islam.” I was at an anti-war event organized by my friend D., and was being admonished by a smug, white, almost-retired Marxist professor, the kind that’s all too common in the Rogers Park neighborhood, an area known for its vaunted progressive politics. He’d just been introduced to me, with my noticeably Muslim first name, and had promptly asked me to clarify some point about Islam. I’d told him I didn’t know, a response which drew the aforementioned words from him. I wanted to sear Mr. Marxist (henceforth to be known as Mr. M.) with angry barbs. D. and I both started to tell Mr. M that I’m an atheist, and I also wanted to turn the tables on him: How dare you, I wanted to say, assume anything about me, based on the color of my skin and my name? And even if I were Muslim, why should I know more about Islam? You’re white, so you must be, oh, a Protestant? But I didn’t, mostly because he was quite old, approaching 80 perhaps, and I was afraid of giving him a heart attack. And, I’ll admit, because I didn’t want to “make trouble” in what was partly a social setting.

“We are all Palestinians now.”  That was the chant by the mourners in Turkey as the bodies of the nine victims of Israeli shock troops were returned to Istanbul. It is our slogan today as well.

Struggles against unsafe conditions and the pressure of global energy markets remind us of new directions inspired by class struggles in the mine fields.

As everyone knows, many, many persons have died or disappeared, many have lost limbs, many houses have been destroyed, and many have been left homeless. Many who were working lost their lives, many workers perished at work in their factories, street vendors, public sector employees, store employees, students, people in the streets and in popular neighborhoods… What a huge blow!

Interview by Simon Birnbaum with Peter Hudis and Kevin Anderson [Published in German as “Der Obama-Effekt untergräbt die Linke,” iz3w No. 317 (Freiburg, March-April 2010), pp. 33-35]

The present essay has been written with the object of examining the ongoing war-like situation between the Indian State and the CPI (Maoist) [henceforth referred to as the ‘Maoists’]. We ought, therefore, to begin our discussion with a description of this war-like situation.

What is the current meaning of “war against terror” for Africa? The true intention of America’s recent military interventions in the African continent (both covert and open) is nothing other than the expansion and consolidation of Western Capital.

Statement of the Committee in Solidarity with the People’s Struggle in Iran – Chicago

The regime of the Islamic Republic, fearing the eruption of mass protests and challenges to its existence, has again intensified its barbaric detentions, tortures and executions.

As the U.S./NATO war and occupation enters its tenth year, the conflict in Afghanistan is in fact deepening. The long-suffering Afghan people have experienced war for most of the last 30 years, ever since the USSR invaded to prop up a pro-Russian regime and the U.S., Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia responded by supporting Islamist reactionaries.

In her books, Raya Dunayevskaya saw in the masses the spontaneity and self-movement of the revolutionary subject.

During a regular ISAP check-in on Wednesday, Haitian community activist Jean Montrevil was detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York.

Recently, our friend the radical educationist Peter McLaren has come under attack from the rightwing National Association of Scholars for his links to the thought of “Paolo Freire, Raya Dunayevskaya, and Che Guevara,” as can be seen in NAS’s Dec. 15 polemic against Marxist influences in schools of education and especially the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies.

On Dec. 10, the police violently broke up a peaceful sit-in by students at San Francisco State University. We express our solidarity with the students who occupied the Business Building at SFSU, and with all others in California struggling for the right to an education. We find especially noteworthy that the SFSU students are linking their movement to anti-racist and labor movements, to the protests against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the wider struggle against capital. Below we reprint their statement and their demands.

This is a previously unfeatured article that was mis-placed a year ago as a comment below an article from a correspondent. Ian’s article in fact uniquely expresses his philosophical approach to struggles in the workplace that is his legacy.

Ian MacDonald, a leading contributor to The Hobgoblin, has died from cancer, aged 52. As Unison lead convenor for Surrey, Ian made a video for his trade union colleagues from his hospital bed, with solidarity greetings on the ongoing struggles in children’s services. “But at the moment,” he said “I’ve got my own fight; I wish you the utmost the very best and in yours.” Days later Ian lost the fight.