What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war march, NGO cretinism
* * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya's return, but struggle continues <http://links.org.au/node/1328> By *Stuart Munckton* October 31, 2009 -- After more than 120 days of mass resistance by the poor majority of Honduras, against a coup regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya, the regime has finally signed an agreement for Zelaya's reinstatement. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1328> Cuba: UN for the 18th consecutive year demands end to US blockade <http://links.org.au/node/1324> *Vote: 187 in favour to 3 against, with 2 abstentions* * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1324> Paul Le Blanc -- Why I'm joining the US International Socialist Organization: Intensifying the struggle for social change <http://links.org.au/node/1323> / /By *Paul Le Blanc* October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1323> South Africa: Time for a new democratic left party? <http://links.org.au/node/1327> By *Mazibuko K. Jara* October 30, 2009 -- Our country is in crisis. There is deepening inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat. Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these crises. Together, none of these socioeconomic problems can be addressed by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1327> China: Youth and the Cultural Revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1326> By *Graham Milner* The revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power in 1949 marked the second great breach, after the Russian Revolution of October 1917, in the 20th century imperialist world order, and initiated a process that was to remove from the capitalist orbit the most populous nation in the world, containing over a quarter of its population. The revolution of 1949 aroused vast expectations not only among China's popular masses, but also among the peoples of the Third World as a whole, and indeed among the socialist-minded everywhere.[2] However, by the end of the 20th century, communism had been overturned in Eastern Europe and the USSR, while in China a largely discredited, authoritarian, Stalinist regime had virtually abandoned anything more than a nominal adherence to socialist ideals. So what went wrong? * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1326> Pakistan: What to do about religious fundamentalism? <http://links.org.au/node/1325> By *Farooq Tariq* October 28, 2009 -- Once again Pakistan has become the focus of world attention. Every day there is news of the latest suicide attack or military operation, with killings, injuries and the displacing of communities. Recently schools were ordered closed for more than a week. Even children talk about death and suicide attacks. With more than 125 police checkpoints in Islamabad, it has become a fortress city. Lahore and other large cities are suffering the same fate: there are police road blockades everywhere. After each terrorist attack authorities issue another security high alert and set up additional barriers. How ironic that, until recently, officials and the media described these "terrorists" as Mujahideen fighting for an Islamic world. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1325> South Africa: 'The African Communist': 50 years of mobilisation, analysis <http://links.org.au/node/1322> / / By *Blade Nzimande* October 26, 2009 -- A browse through the very first edition of the /African Communist/ in 1959 not only gives an insight into the time and context during which it was launched but also the courageous and defiant character of those who breathed life into our historic journal: ``This magazine, the /African Communist/, has been started by a group of Marxist-Leninists in Africa, to defend and spread the inspiring and liberating ideas of Communism in our great Continent, and to apply the brilliant scientific method of Marxism to the solution of its problems. It is being produced in conditions of great difficulty and danger. Nevertheless we mean to go on publishing it, because we know that Africa needs Communist thought, as dry and thirsty soil needs rain.'' * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1322> Australia: Red councillors during the Cold War: Communists on Sydney City Council, 1953-59 <http://links.org.au/node/1321> Recent electoral victories in Australia by socialists at the municipal council level -- the Socialist Party's Stephen Jolly in Victoria and Socialist Alliance's Sam Wainwright in Western Australia -- have sparked renewed interest in the experiences of other socialists who have been elected to such bodies. With permission of the Rough Reds Collective, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ is publishing Beverley Symons' paper that examines the example of Communist Party of Australia members elected to the Sydney City Council in the 1950s. This article first appeared in the 2003 book /A Few Rough Reds/, published by the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1321> Britain: Landmark demo against the war in Afghanistan + videos <http://links.org.au/node/1320> By *Robin Beste* October 25, 2009 -- Stop the War's demonstration on October 24 brought the centre of London to a standstill. It was a landmark demonstration, led by Lance Corporal Joe Glenton -- the first serving soldier in the British army to join an anti-war march. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1320> Asia: NGOs display `lobby cretinism' over ASEAN human rights commission <http://links.org.au/node/1319> By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* October 25, 2009 -- The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is made up of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Brunei and Singapore, which are all authoritarian states. It also includes the semi-democratic Malaysia, along with the Philippines and Indonesia, which are more or less democratic. Would anyone expect a gathering of government leaders from these countries to set up a genuine human rights commission? Apparently, some NGOs from the region did think so. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1319> * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 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