Our good friend Tariq Ali, who was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones classic Street Fighting Man, continues to inspire. Here he speaks to students activists at the SOAS occupation.
Category: Activism
We Want You Out
An open letter from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans for Peace
As the Obama administration releases its December review of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, along with Afghans for Peace, have issued a review of their experiences. To express support for their letter, click here.
To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and regional countries,
We are intolerably angry.
All our senses are hurting.
Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.
Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.
President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?
America’s 250-million-dollar annual communications budget just to scream propaganda on this war of perceptions, with its nauseating rhetoric mimicked by Osama and other warlords, is powerless before the silent wailing of every anaemic mother.
We will no longer be passive prey to your disrespectful systems of oligarchic, plutocratic war against the people.
Your systems feed the rich and powerful. They are glaringly un-equal, they do not listen, do not think and worst, they do not care.
Rap News
All must watch Rap News – featuring (the real) Julian Assange…
‘We don’t need no occupation … Hey, AIPAC, leave Palestine alone!’
Great marshalling of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by a CodePink flashmob yesterday.
On Monday, December 13, when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee held its annual dinner in Oakland, a group of activists performed a flashmob inside the Marriott hotel to the tune of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ addressing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Six activists and one writer were arrested. The flashmob was coordinated by activists representing CODEPINK Women for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, US Boat to Gaza, Students for Justice in Palestine, Queers Undoing Israeli Terror and Don’t Buy Into Apartheid.
Death Squads versus Democracy
by Prof. Michael Keefer
Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary political science professor, right-wing pundit, and mentor and former senior adviser to Prime Minister Harper, has earned himself more international media attention during the past week than even he may have an appetite for.
On November 30th, Flanagan spoke as one of the regular panelists on CBC Television’s national political analysis program, Power and Politics with Evan Solomon. Staring into the camera, while across the bottom of the television screen there appeared a banner reading “WIKILEAKS LATEST: New document mentions PM Stephen Harper,” Flanagan had this to say about Julian Assange, the founder and editor of Wikileaks:
Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.
From Beyond the Walls and the Barbed Wire: A Message From Abdullah Abu Rahmah
Last Friday, the 10th of December was International Human Rights Day. In the village of Bil’in, we protested a year to Abdullah Abu Rahmah’s arrest.
Abu Rahmah has yet to be released. Through his lawyer, he was able to pass on a very loaded message; From the details of his arrest and the stalling of his release, to the impact on his family, to the impact on the village, to prison torture of children, to military court violations, to support for BDS and implementation of international law. The letter was published in full, in the Huffington Post and I bring it to you in full. This is what hope in spite of apartheid looks like:
A year ago tonight, on International Human Rights Day, our apartment
in Ramallah was broken into by the Israeli military in the middle of
the night and I was torn away from my wife Majida, my daughters Luma
and Layan, and my son Laith, who at the time was only nine months
old.Continue reading “From Beyond the Walls and the Barbed Wire: A Message From Abdullah Abu Rahmah”
WikiRebels
This is the first in depth documentary on Wikileaks, produced by Swedish Television. (The rest of the parts are over the fold)
Exclusive rough-cut of first in-depth documentary on WikiLeaks and the people behind it!
From summer 2010 until now, Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network WikiLeaks and its enigmatic Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange.
Reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist have traveled to key countries where WikiLeaks operates, interviewing top members, such as Assange, new Spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, as well as people like Daniel Domscheit-Berg who now is starting his own version – Openleaks.org!
Where is the secretive organization heading? Stronger than ever, or broken by the US? Who is Assange: champion of freedom, spy or rapist? What are his objectives? What are the consequences for the internet?
Hunger and Anger in Afghanistan
by Kathy Kelly
The Obama administration has announced the imminent release of a December Review which will evaluate the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The military has yet to disclose what the specific categories for evaluation will be. Yet many people in Afghanistan might wish that hunger along with their anger over attacks against civilians could top the list.
In Afghanistan, a nation where 850 children die every day, about a quarter of the population goes hungry. The UN says that 7.4 million Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of five.
“Do you think we like to live this way?” an Afghan man asked me, last October, as he led us toward a primitive tent encampment on the outskirts of Kabul. “Do you see how we live? The cold and the rain are coming. How will we protect our children?” He flicked his forefinger on a weather-beaten blanket covering a tent. The blanket immediately ripped.
Open letter from Afghan Youth to our World Leaders
Dear Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton, Mr Petraeus, Mr Rasmussen, and all our world leaders,
We are Afghans and we ask the world to listen.
Like yourselves, we couldn’t live without the love of our family and friends.
We were hurt by your criticism of Mr Karzai for voicing the people’s anguished pleas, “Stop your night raids.”
Please, stop your night raids.
If you could listen, you would have heard 29 NGOs in Afghanistan describe how we now have “Nowhere to Turn”.
If you could listen, you would also have heard Mr Karzai and the 29 NGOs express concern over your Afghan Local Police plan; the world will henceforth watch our militia killing the people, your people and our people, with your weapons and your money.
If you could listen, you would have heard the sound of your drones crystallizing the nights of hatred among the Afghan, Pakistani and global masses.
Continue reading “Open letter from Afghan Youth to our World Leaders”
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