| ‘The Road to Life’ 1931 Soviet feature film, directed by Nikolai Ekk, with English subtitles. Sunday, 17 November, 2 – 5 pm Marchmont Centre, 62 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AB Followed by discussion A vivid and humorous portrayal of one aspect of what the building of socialism meant to the peoples of the USSR. |
George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch co-ordinator who shot and murdered an unarmed black teenager, has walked free from a Florida courtroom. The jury – five out of six of whom were white – took 16 hours to deliberate and return a unanimous ‘not guilty’ verdict.
It is with disgust – but not surprise – that Red Youth notes Zimmerman’s acquittal as the verdict confirms what most rational observers know: that the lives of oppressed people, particularly young black men, in the United States remain disposable.
Whilst media analysts have already attempted to mask this injustice, referring to circumstantial evidence, there are clear facts from the case that must be repeated:
– Trayvon Martin was a junior in high school who was walking in the community in which he was temporarily living. He was not trespassing or involved in any other criminal activity, as Zimmerman claimed.
– Trayvon was racially profiled, followed, assaulted and murdered for no plausible reason other than Zimmerman – acting in his role of neighbourhood watch leader of a gated community- found his appearance and ethnicity offensive.
– After calling the police to notify them of Trayvon’s ‘suspicious behaviour’, Zimmerman was instructed by the dispatcher to wait for the police and not to approach the teenager. He ignored this instruction.
– Zimmerman claimed that Travyvon was suspicious – ‘up to no good’, ‘on drugs’ and ‘looking at all the houses’. Yet, a police report confirms that Trayvon was not involved in any criminal activity on the night of his murder.
– Attempts have been made to slander Trayvon Martn and to depict him as a violent criminal. It’s been highlighted, for example, that he was suspended from school three times in recent years. These suspensions were, in fact, for non violent alleged offences such as truancy and marijuana possession. Trayvon had never been charged with any crime and did not have a juvenile record.
– Despite shooting and murdering an unarmed child, Zimmerman was astonishingly not arrested until six weeks after the killing. His eventual arrest was the result of cumulative pressure from the public and not the police or state’s quest for justice. The Sanford Police Department was at best incompetent and both the Chief of Police and Lead Investigator have now lost their jobs.
However, this case is not about incompetence. There were no ‘mistakes’. Zimmerman’s acquittal is the logical consequence of an unjust, racist system and is a reminder – albeit a brutal one – that black males can be executed with impunity in the United States.
Moreover, the verdict does not only find Zimmerman innocent, it suggests and assumes that Trayvon is guilty. He is portrayed as menacing, dangerous and ultimately deserving of his fate: HE shouldn’t have been there; HE should have behaved differently; HE should have listened. Yet, the evidence – and cultural, political and economic context – shows that Trayvon is guilty of only one thing – being African American.
In 1964, speaking about the ideology of violence, Malcolm X stated that; “we are non-violent with people who are non-violent with us; but we are not non-violent with anyone who is violent with us. Once those intentions are made known, we can get to the nitty-gritty of the problem, we can get to the core of the problem, we can get to the root of the problem. Then we can correct the problem”. The murder of Trayvon Martin – and the fact that an African American is killed every 36 hours by the police or private security forces – surely reveals the barbaric violent nature of the political system in the United States, and the need for an organised, militant response.
Red Youth rejects the depiction of this event as a ‘tragedy’. It is the cold-blooded, racially motivated murder of an unarmed teenager. We also believe there is only so much mileage in talking about judicial failure. In fact, when a proper analysis of the so-called democracy in the United States is conducted, we find that its elitist, racist and anti-working class nature has performed consistent to its intended design. The murder of Trayvon painfully reinforces the reality that the system was not designed for poor, working class, black people.
Red Youth also recognises that this is not unique to the United States and that the extrajudicial killing of working class youths is becoming increasingly common here – as the execution of Mark Duggan in 2011 shows. London and Washington both practice superficial democracy to mask their oppressive political and economic dictatorship. It is in painful times like these that this mask is removed – and it is times like these that the people become most angry, militant and ready to organise for change.
In this short video, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korean Ambassador and extraordinary plenipotentiary to the UK, Hyon Hak Bong, thanks British workers for their solidarity and support during this time of heightened tension on the Korean peninsula.
The cause of the tension, he explains, is not the North Korean people or government, but the provocative and aggressive stance of the USA, which has threatened the DPRK with nuclear attack since the 1950s, and has again stepped up its aggression in the vain hope of bullying the North Korean state to give up its newly acquired nuclear deterrent.
Ambassador Bong explains that his country’s stance is one of peace, and defense against the unbelievably aggressive stance of the USA, that since murdering 4 million Koreans in the genocidal war it waged between 1950 – 53, has staged relentless military hostilities to subvert the sovereignty and security of the tiny North Korean nation, culminating in its current exercises involving more than 200,000 military personnel and simulated nuclear attack on major cities in the DPRK using B2 stealth and B52 nuclear bombers as well as F22 stealth fighters.
The DPRK is unbowed and will never submit to this outrageous and provocative action of US imperialists and its puppets, the right wing south korean regime. It has the support of the peace loving peoples of the world, who understand that the only language the US understand is the logic of force.
Hands off Korea!
No to US Nuclear warmongering!
Korea is one!
Photos from the event:
50 years on from the Cuban Missile crisis, and the US is once again threatening the world with nuclear war – this time by staging ‘Exercises’ to practise dropping nuclear bombs on North Korea.
Its never been more relevant to reflect on the aggressive wars and propaganda of the US imperial goliath – and how best to wipe their bloodthirsty crimes from the face of the earth.
Imperialism strives for domination, not democracy: this is the profound truth, and also the practical political lesson we must all learn when trying to understand and make sense of world events.
Giles Shorter gives this pithy and profound analysis of the events and meaning of the two weeks in October 1962 that are known as the Cuban Missile Crisis in the west, or the October Crisis in Cuba.
Part 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrT9fhcRPTU
Part 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IokewOgCar8
Part 3 –
Read Giles’ article on the Crisis, published in LALKAR here:
http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/jan2013/octobercrisis.html
This presentation was made, at the Stalin Society in October 2012, to mark the 50th anniversary of the crisis — days remembered clearly by those who witnessed them from afar, as Students and young adults, as seeming to threaten the “End of the World”: nuclear holocaust.
The key ideas put forward by US propagandists at the time of the Crisis – that the Socialist camp, the oppressed nations and all who resist imperialism bear responsibility for the frenzied, blood thirsty murderous and often outright genocidal acts of US, British EU and NATO imperialism – are still a mainstay of British and US propaganda.
Much of the ‘left’ and student movement failed utterly to come to terms with these arguments and tactics at the time, and have failed to answer these and similar accusations resolutely and clearly to this day — as they have either not understood the nature of imperialism, or have capitulated before what they perceive as its overriding strength.
It is particularly useful, on the 50th anniversary of the Crisis, and as US aggression against Korea reaches a crescendo, to look back and ask: “So is the world a safer place today than in 1962, as Kennedy and the imperialists claimed it would be in the absence of a strong USSR and socialist camp?”
How should we oppose imperialism — in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Mali, in the Ivory coast, Congo, South America, Nepal, Korea, the Phillipines… by ‘appealing to its better nature’, by begging? Or by an uncompromising and resolute no holds barred struggle — by any means necessary?
Who is responsible for the decisive diplomatic victory, and shift in military power that has taken place as a result of this incident and subsequent events?
Clearly imperialism bears the brunt of the responsibility – but it cannot be reproached, in a sense, for acting according to its nature – it must simply be recognised and overthrown. Khruschevite revisionism, however, by splitting the socialist camp, by light-mindedly playing at confrontation with so dangerous an enemy, and by its cowardice in backing down so humiliatingly, and deserting its Cuban ally must be exposed.
It is the disastrous path of Capitalist restoration in the USSR, and the incompetence in management at every level of soviet society that ensued, that must be identified and explicitly disavowed as the force that brought our movement, from the perspective of victory, and constructing a peaceful and prosperous world, to the brink of defeat — a divided socialist camp and people’s liberation movement, an economically and socially devastated world, dominated by imperialism and imperialist poverty, disease, famine, capitalist crisis, environmental devastation and war.
It is lamentable to reflect upon the decline of the Socialist camp since the capitalist roaders dismantled the once great and glorious Soviet Union and the Eastern European people’s democracies from the top downwards, but it also points the finger of blame, and indicates how we can rebuild our socialist movement and liberation struggle, from the bottom up.
Hasta la victoria – siempre!
http://www.cpgb-ml.org
http://www.lalkar.org
https://redyouth.org
Red Youth and the CPGB-ML send our militant greetings to the Cuban 5, their families and fellow Cubans, and to progressive humanity world-wide fighting this unjust and barbaric system of capitalist imperialism, led by the bloodthirsty united States.
The USA proclaims itself to be the ‘land of the free’, but on closer inspection it is the most gross prison state and the universal violator of the rights of mankind, of all nations, and the working classes and oppressed masses of the world in particular.
The Cuban 5 speak for themselves:
“Today humanity is focused in that battle for its own survival. Our continent is awakening from a long nightmare imposed by the blood and fire of imperialism. The contradictions of capitalism are everyday more evident and acute…
“In any trench that we are we will honor your solidarity and trust.”
We re-produce the CPGB-ML’s invaluable leaflet on US human rights abuses, and an article explaining the background of the Cuban/Miami 5’s unjust incarceration and fight for liberty and repatriation here:
Land of the free is a prison of nations
The Miami Five: defiant victims of US injustice
New Years Greeting reproduced, with thanks, via the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5:
Dear friends of the Cuban 5,
Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio and Fernando, send these holiday messages of solidarity to the Cuban people and to their friends around the world from their prisons and Rene from his unjust supervised probation.
———————————————————————————————————
Dear sisters and brothers,
This year 2012 is reaching an end and we want to use this special opportunity to express how proud and grateful we are for counting on your support, love and brotherhood.
Thanks to your presence, we never feel alone, we are strong and optimistic, you give us the reasons to believe in justice and freedom. You give us the certainty that one day we will get together to celebrate this victory, and together we will go on fighting for just causes all over the world!!
Thanks so much for your solidarity and love!
On behalf of the Cuban 5, our five families, and the Cuban people:
Marry Christmas!
Best wishes in the New Year!
Happiest 2013!!!!
Love and Peace!
Ramón Labañino
Dec. 12th, 2012
FCI Jesup, Georgia. 8:21 A.M.
Cartoon by Gerardo Hernández for the weekly newspaper Trabajadores
Dear friends,
Another year of intense solidarity with the cause of our liberation comes to an end. There have been countless actions, demonstrations, and tangible results from the work of all of you in different parts of the world.
We feel the strength of your solidarity. A few years ago our situation was almost unknown but today, thanks to you, and to your tireless work on this initiative, the information about the case of the Five has reached almost all corners of politics and society and has virtually reached the entire universe.
Much remains to be done. Not for lack of effort on your part, but because of the stubborn opposition and the obstacle that represents the powerful forces that collude to keep reality in the most absolute silence.
However, we are confident in the human quality of you, in your wisdom and commitment as activists, and in your inexhaustible spirit of solidarity. We know that we can count on you and that you will accompany us until together we will achieve our goal; our freedom and our return to the Homeland and our families.
Please accept in every city or town of the universe from which you give us your solidarity our most profound gratitude. Thank you very much for your support, many successes in 2013, and congratulations on the New Year.
Fernando González Llort
December 24, 2012
To our dear people and friends around the world,
Yesterday evening, while many here were watching television, I sat down to write a poem in my cell and that is how these verses were born. As this year ends, when people are accustomed to receiving special gifts, I want to give them to all of you, and especially my four brothers.
SIMPLE FREEDOM
Simple freedom, nourishment of dreams,
love of a single face visible in the surface of the moon.
Simple freedom, without bridle, without owners,
free likes no one.
Simple freedom, of the unnamed peak,
where night falls buried in his lance
Simple freedom, in which man cultivates
the magic hope.
Simple freedom, as a swallow
that insists to fly until it loses its winds.
Simple freedom, under the sky and the ruins,
surrounded by bullets.
Simple freedom, as springtime
singing to life, challenging death.
Simple freedom, fiction of a frontier
against bad luck.
Simple freedom, giving birth and repeating
streets, cities, houses, books, songs, struggles.
Simple freedom, with which you learn
that you have many weapons.
Simple freedom, oh, face of love!,
it seems that I saw you in the skin of the moon.
Simple freedom, sentiment and honor
that no one can take from you.
In the year of the 54th Anniversary of the Revolution and also the year we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, we move forward with indestructible unity and with full confidence in our revolution under the guidance and example of Fidel and Raul.
Congratulations, wishing you health, peace and success in your goals in 2013.
Five embraces.
¡Venceremos!
Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez
US Federal Prison, Marianna
December 25 , 2012
Dear friends,
Once again we are at the end of another year, forced to write to you from the punishment that paradoxically has brought us the support that today motivate these grateful words. It has been 14 years of unjust vengeance during which time the most powerful country on earth, with their usual arrogance, has made deaf ears to the outcry of you all.
For us it has been another year of this long and tiring struggle, but it also provides a reason to reaffirm ourselves. The future of humanity cannot stay in the hands of people with so much hatred. We either rise up over those who pretend to be the last human product of history, so as to put the future in the hands of the people; or not many generations will go on until stupidity and barbarism will manage to end it all.
Today humanity is focused in that battle for its own survival. Our continent is awakening from a long nightmare imposed by the blood and fire of imperialism. The contradictions of capitalism are everyday more evident and acute. Our people are working to do everything possible to build itself into such a more humane alternative, one that is truly democratic and sustainable, which has been a kind of utopia for humankind since it started its fight for justice. Our place is there with our people and also with all of you, who from your respective places work every day to build a better world that we all need, including for those who are trying to ignore it.
To all of you that during these years have supported us, giving us your encouragement and making us feel that we are not alone; we send our best wishes of happiness and success in the New Year.
We will continue counting on you. In any trench that we are we will honor your solidarity and trust.
A fraternal embrace.
René González Sehwerert
December 25, 2012
Legendary Marxist-Leninist Liberation fighter, pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist Amilcar Cabral had the following to say on the nature of our fight against imperialism:
“I should just like to make one last point about solidarity between the international working class movement and our national liberation struggle. There are two alternatives: either we admit that there really is a struggle against imperialism which interests everybody, or we deny it. If, as would seem from all the evidence, imperialism exists and is trying simultaneously to dominate the working class in all the advanced countries and smother the national liberation movements in all the underdeveloped countries, then there is only one enemy against whom we are fighting. If we are fighting together, then I think the main aspect of our solidarity is extremely simple: it is to fight.”
Cabral died just 9 months before the party he founded – the PAIGC – liberated his homeland, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, from 500 years of Portugese Colonialism, bringing the downfall of the Potugese fascist junta in its wake.
He and his comrades from the PAIGC also played a vital part in the liberation of other (Particularly, but not exclusively, Portugese speaking) African nations. He was a founding member of MPLA (Angola) and the Portugese Communist Party, inter alia.
Comrade Teodora Ignacia Gomez, Womens’ activist, liberation fighter and comrade in arms of Cabral, features in this video interview, which is an exert from a longer interview she granted to comrades of the CPGB-ML on her recent visit to London.
She outlines the supportive relationship that Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya had fostered with Guinea Bissau, as so many other African Nations. Libya had tried to bring about sustainable infrastructural and agricultural development in Guinea Bissau, she tells us, both through the African Bank and independently granted aid.
As a result of NATOs genocidal war on Libya, and the illegal ousting of her legitimate government – and now Gaddafi’s cowardly and brutal assassination, which foul deed took place 24 hrs after this interview – the people of Guinea Bissau and all Africa will suffer, she says.
