The current popular uprising against Colonel Qadafi in Libya is part of a wider revolutionary wave occurring all across the Middle East and North Africa that deserves our unconditional support. A victory for the Qadafi regime over the rebellion would no doubt represent a devastating blow not only to Libya’s own future but to the revolutionary process in the region as a whole. As NATO’s no-fly zone over Libya increasingly looks to transform into a long and protracted military operation, it is important now for social justice advocates across Canada to reflect critically upon why the decision to intervene was made, who exactly stands to benefit, and what the likely consequences will be.
By Ali Mustafa
Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese writer, socialist, and antiwar activist. He is also a professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, and author most recently of The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. In this interview, he discusses the significance of the ongoing revolutionary wave of mass protests occuring across the Middle East with one of the New Socialist webzine editors Ali Mustafa.
By Jackie Esmonde
In the lead up to the G20 meetings in Toronto this summer, the conclusion that the state perceived anti-G20 protest activity as almost inherently criminal was inescapable.
By Alan Sears
On Monday, June 28, a large and boisterous demonstration of about 2500 people that snaked through the streets of Toronto continued the movement to rid this city of the police state regime that took over during the G20 summit. The leaders of the G20 had gone. As expected, their gathering had focussed on finding new ways to restore corporate profits by taking it out of the workers and the poor. But the movement against the police state regime and the G8/G20 agenda is continuing.
By Harold Lavender
Opposition to the many negative impacts of the Vancouver Olympics was loud and clear as activists vigorously exercised their right to free speech in wide-ranging protest actions against the 2010 Winter Games.
By Gene McGuckin
It’s time for someone to mention the elephant that’s not in the room.
By Jackie Esmonde
A review of David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography (AK Press, 2009).
Vilified by the media, romanticized by scores of young people, viewed by some as the bane of the global justice movement – like it or not, the Black Bloc anarchists who first entered public consciousness at the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in 1999 came to symbolize the resistance to global inequality of the late 1990s and early 2000s in North America.