On Sunday, Venezuelans took part in a historic National Constituent Assembly dry run vote, described as the largest one in 18 years, where thousands of people across the country took part, chanting and waving signs in support of President Nicolas Maduro and the National Constituent Assembly.
The crisis of the ruling order that unfolded in Russia in 1917 brought on an enormous social upheaval, culminating in a revolution—a process of fundamental transformation of the society’s socioeconomic and political structures and institutions. This revolution—history’s first major attempt to transcend capitalism—inevitably provoked a counterrevolution that sought to turn back the clock. Such life-and-death struggles have recurred in the periphery and semi-periphery of the world capitalist system since 1917, right up to the present.
In what follows—going by the dictum that the truth is the whole, but without trying to achieve the impossible, comprehensiveness—I look at revolution and counterrevolution as interdependent processes, the latter inevitably accompanying the former, and whose principal base has been in imperialism. I stress the fact that post-revolutionary society, in its efforts to combat counterrevolution, not only had to overcome the appalling heritage of the past, but was also confronted with its own contradictions, and with the persistent threat that an exploiting class could reemerge. Instead of the intended socialization of the economy and democratization of the polity, what resulted was (largely) state ownership of the economy and stultifying bureaucratization of both the economy and the polity, a cultural revolution in China notwithstanding.Read More »
Srikakulam (Andhra Pradesh): Aruna Athaluri. Media person. My friend. She was working with a Telugu television news channel when I first met her. Now she is with the Telugu daily, Sakshi. Despite being friends, we had not spent even four hours together during my four-year stay at Hyderabad.
Both of us had tight deadlines to meet, almost always. At that time, I was working with Down To Earth magazine as its senior special correspondent for southern India. I would be on assignments and travelling most of the time.Read More »
Winter days where temperatures peak above 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) are considered as Arctic winter warming event. Arctic winter warming events are a normal part of the climate over the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, but these were not as frequent as now and were not lasting longer.
An international team that includes NASA scientists finds Arctic winter warming events are becoming more frequent and lasting longer than they did three decades ago.
At the same time, a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York finds June 2017 was the fourth warmest June in 137 years of modern record-keeping.Read More »
Through all known human history justice and equality have been the most relevant issues. However now that issues of irreversible ecological threats which pose a survival crisis to human beings as well as other forms of life have emerged , some deeply concerned persons tend to give more importance to such fast emerging issues. These issues include climate change as well as other related issues.
However this does not mean that the importance of justice related issues has diminished ; rather what needs to be emphasized and explored is that issues like climate changes should be understood within a framework of justice so that the two most important issues should be closely linked to each other.Read More »
“…not if they burn you / not if they bury you underground, / if they hide you / in cemeteries, forests, wastelands, / are they going to stop us from finding you/ Che Comandante, / friend. / You are everywhere, / alive, like they never wanted”
Nicolás Guillén
When on July 12, 1997, the remains of the heroic guerilla arrived in Cuba, and those of four of his comrades, a veritable feat had been accomplished by Cuban science, according to Dr. Jorge González Pérez, who had the responsibility of leading the team that searched for, found, and identified the remains of the guerillas who fought in Bolivia.
To say that one’s work and example transcend death is not a hollow phrase. Many years after Che’s assassination in Bolivia, following poems and books written to extol his memory, in the 1990s a song appeared that touched hearts, inspired by the legendary revolutionary hero. Twenty years have passed since its release, yet “Son los sueños todavía” (They Are Still The Dreams), by Cuban singer-songwriter Gerardo Alfonso, continues to move those who “beyond titles and names” are convinced that “the pain has not killed the utopia,” as the song goes.
Haila María Mompié, one of the best contemporary Cuban performers, is celebrating her 25-year strong career with the release of her seventh album: Haila, Mujer de Acero (Haila: Woman of Steel).
With a clear sense of the market, the sonera (Cuban son singer) par excellence began the year with a tour of Cuba, during which she sang the new songs included on the album, recently presented during a press conference held at the Iberostar Parque Central hotel, in Havana.
During the 38th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema held in December last year, the Cuban film El Techo (The Roof), by local filmmaker Patricia Ramos, was nominated in the fiercely contested debut fiction film category.
Although the film didn’t win a Coral Award, it did receive collateral prizes from the Sara Gómez Women Directors Network, and the Union of Journalists of Cuba’s Culture Circle.
Journal of People 