Forces of Revolution

“What is the Future for the Youth of South Africa?”

Ed. Note:  We received this press release from the Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League today. Abahlali baseMjondolo is the South African Shack Dwellers Movement, which we reported on previously.

15 September 2011: Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League Press Statement

What is the Future for the Youth of South Africa?

The issues that are facing the youth are being ignored for eleven months of the year and only recognised on the youth month. But even on the youth month when the issues of the youth are being recognised there is a lack of seriousness about dealing with the crisis facing the current generation. There is a lot of talk and big speeches in stadiums and on TV but very little action.

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Libya and the Left

This article represents a minority position within MHI. For MHI’s position, see the editorial above.

Libya and the Left*
by Seth Weiss

The Libyan uprising and subsequent NATO intervention have already, much in the manner of the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, precipitated considerable debate and acrimony, along with disorientation and paralysis, within the Left. Some opposed to intervention, displaying a narrow and reflexive anti-imperialism, lend support, tacitly or otherwise, to Qaddafi’s forces. Others opposed to intervention endeavor a principled “neither/nor” position, neither Qaddafi nor NATO. Here, committed to opposing both Western imperialism and the Qaddafi regime, we ask if a strict anti-interventionist position — specifically, opposition to the rebels’ call for a “no-fly zone” — is consistent with a commitment to protecting civilian populations and supporting freedom struggles in Libya and throughout the region.

The Arab Spring Reaches Libya

On February 15th, four days after Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt, Fathi Terbil, a prominent Libyan human rights advocate and attorney, was arrested by security agents at his home in Benghazi, an eastern port city and the country’s second largest. With Terbil’s arrest, the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia and Egypt and has now spread to Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, and Yemen, reached Libya. Terbil, along with a handful of other lawyers, was representing the families of the more than 1200 political prisoners murdered at Benghazi’s Abu Salim prison in 1996. According to the New York Times, “a crowd armed with gasoline bombs and rocks” gathered in Benghazi to demanded Terbil’s release, and “demonstrators, estimated at several hundred to several thousand, marched to the city’s central square, where they clashed with riot police officers” (“Protests Take Aim at Leader of Libya,” February 16, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17libya.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all). Read More

Nawal El Saadawi on “Women, Egypt, and Revolution”

Nawal El Saadawi, the world-renowned Egyptian socialist-feminist, author, sociologist, and doctor, spoke in New York City at CUNY Graduate Center on March 16.  At age 80, she had just come from participating every day in “Tahrir Square”–the Egyptian revolution of Jan. 25-Feb. 11 which toppled the 30-year dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Following is an edited version of notes from her talk. —A.J.

A virus from the revolutions in the Middle East is spreading to everywhere, including to Wisconsin, where recent mass demonstrations tried to stop the new law curtailing collective bargaining. A banner at the Wisconsin demonstrations read, “Walk like an Egyptian!” Read More