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What we have learned

Craig Murray writes: We have learnt this year that there is no crime so startling, so obvious and so visible to the whole world that the United States and Israel are not willing to commit it brazenly and openly. The massacre of 20,000 people includes the killing of babies and infants, the deliberate shooting of pregnant women and toddlers, the murder of old ladies in church and the execution of prisoners stripped naked. This is all justified as “Israel’s right of self-defence”. We have also seen the increasing rise of fascism as western governments crack down on their publics in order to curtail political resistance to the genocide.

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Keywords: State terrorism - State violence

Censorship and Civil Terror in Canada: The Silencing of Palestinian Voices and Palestinian Supporters

Judy Haiven writes: These days, the pro-Israel establishment and the political class of almost every western country are trying to silence Palestinian voices, and their supporters. The suppression doesn’t end there because it’s not just the voices that are being stifled. The powerful in western countries, including Canada, are resorting to threats, arrests, suspensions, and firing of people who dare to stand up in support of Palestinian human rights. This is similar to what happened during the Red Scare in the US and in Canada in the late 1940s and 1950s. From that time, we know that people who were labelled Communists lost their jobs as screenwriters, actors, playwrights, and in all the cultural realms in the US. Lawyers lost their jobs, as did teachers, clergymen, and many people who worked in the government and private sectors. 

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Keywords: Censorship - Human Rights in the Workplace

The ‘hanging libraries’ of Nigeria: How a book drive is exciting pupils

The quality of basic education is on a decline in Nigerian public schools. A group creating ‘hanging libraries’ is trying to change that. Each library is a bookshelf made from disused fabric hanging from a nail on the wall inside the classroom. Shaped like a hanging shoe rack but slightly larger, it has seven to 10 compartments, each containing between three-to-five books of different sizes. The bookshelves are courtesy of The Hanging Library, an initiative of a volunteer group offering mentorship and literacy aid as well as free medical services and drugs to children in low-income neighbourhoods.

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Keywords: Books - Libraries

‘Are we the baddies?’ Western support for genocide in Gaza means the answer is yes

Jonathan Cook writes: The desperate smear campaign to defend Israel’s crimes highlights the toxic brew of lies that’s been underpinning the liberal democratic order for decades. Western leaders have not only backed rhetorically a genocidal war by Israel on Gaza, but they have provided diplomatic cover, weapons and other military assistance. 

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Keywords: Crimes Against Humanity - War Crimes

Testimonies of Roma and Sinti

The consequences of the persecution and genocide of the Roma and Sinti during World War II are still felt by Roma communities today. This database of Romani and Sinti testimonies is a project created to convey to the widest possible readership the testimony of the Roma and Sinti themselves and thus their personal and irreplaceable experience of the Second World War.

Find it here.

Keywords: Roma & Sinti - Human Rights Abuses

The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom

By P. Sainath

Who really spearheaded India's Freedom Struggle? Millions of ordinary people -- farmers, labourers, homemakers, forest produce gatherers, artisans and others -- stood up to the British. People who never went on to be ministers, governors, presidents, or hold other high public office.

They had this in common: their opposition to Empire was uncompromising. In The Last Heroes, these footsoldiers of Indian freedom tell us their stories. The men, women and children featured in this book are Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. They hail from different regions, speak different languages and include atheists and believers, Leftists, Gandhians and Ambedkarites. Almost all of them continued their fight for freedoms long after 1947 because they understood that independence and freedom are not the same thing.

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Keywords: India/Independence Movement - Freedom

The Living Record of Our Memory

A documentary featuring an inside look at the often-precarious history of moving images. Film professionals and film archivists guide us through the evolution of film technology; film’s vulnerability to loss, damage and decay; the creation of film archives and cinematheques; the fragility of digital data; restoration projects; and the growing field of film preservation, which protects and celebrates moving images as cultural heritage. One thing film archivists agree on: digitization is not preservation.

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Keywords: Film History - Preservation

Why Mass Movements Fail

Chris Hedges reviews the lessons of Vincent Bevins new book If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. Revolutions, Hedges concludes, require skilled organizers, self-discipline, an alternative ideological vision, revolutionary art and education. They require sustained disruptions of power, and most importantly leaders who represent the movement. Revolutions are long, difficult projects that take years to make, slowly and often imperceptibly eating away at the foundations of power. The successful revolutions of the past, along with their theorists, should be our guide, not the ephemeral images that entrance us on mass media.

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Keywords: Mass Action - Revolution