Last July, the Palestinian Authority took the unexpected, although belated, step of seeking Arab backing in suing Britain over the Balfour Declaration. That ‘declaration’ was the first ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland atop an existing Palestinian homeland.
In evaluating Walter Rodney one characteristic stands out. He was a scholar who recognised no distinction between academic concerns and service to society, between science and social commitment. He was concerned about people as well as archives, about the workplace as well as the classroom. He found time to be both a historian and a sensitive social reformer.1
It is tough to fight any real war. And it takes true guts, discipline and determination to win it.
For years and decades, the so-called ‘left’ in the West has been moderately critical of North American (and sometimes even of European) imperialism and neo-colonialism. But whenever some individual or country rose up and began openly challenging the Empire, most of the Western left-wing intellectuals simply closed their eyes, and refused to offer their full, unconditional support to those who were putting their lives (and often even the existence of their countries) on the line.
Sixty days. A year. Five years. A week. A day. An hour. Right now.
That’s the curse of addiction, those needles, inhalants, the entire barbarity of cheap booze shilled by the chosen ones, the money changers, all amortized and bundled debts in trans-capital, sold next to the playground, the trees cut down for billboards pronouncing sexual prowess and football hero-dom with the flick of the Mike’s Hard Cider or a fucking Bud.
They say that home is where the heart is. If this is so, my heart must be of the restless variety, for I’ve changed the location of home some forty plus times during my adult life. Apparently I’m not finished yet.
Illegally I stepped upon the Royal Family’s castle grass in central Copenhagen during the flag day ceremony (September 5, 2013) honoring Danish voluntary soldiers’ return from their war in Afghanistan. My sign read and my voice shouted: “Stop the War! War Criminal Mercenaries!”
I don’t have any blood on my hands. I haven’t victimized anyone. And I’ve devoted most of my life serving a just and noble cause and struggling to help make this world a better and more just one.
— Oscar Lopez Rivera, in a Febuary 2011 letter
July 6, 2016
By Stephen Gowans
For the sake of brevity, the posting is all about pushing back into the amnesic chambers of the North American mind, dendrites rewired to believe the world is a place where only one species – Americas Consumo-Erectus – is allowed to live with life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and me-myself-and-I religion.
July 4, 2016
“It is easy for us who have never been victims of foreign conquest and are still living in our homes to vehemently denounce the violence of evicted Palestinians.” [1]
“Palestine is an occupied land stolen from its native people and time does not make it a property of the thief.” [2]
By Stephen Gowans
