Kishanji: not just another ‘martyr’

Sanhati

by Saroj Giri

Kishanji is not just a fighter against oppression, a brave and courageous soul. He presided over something unique in the history of resistance movement in the country – and maybe he was not even so aware of it. Several forms of resistance seem to have come together in his leadership – synchronizing armed fighting power of the people with open rallies, processions and demonstrations. If one is really serious about democratic mass upsurges then one cannot wish away ‘strategy’, the ‘use of force’ or ‘armed resistance’; that the life-veins of mass struggle extend into the zone of armed resistance – these otherwise old Leninist lessons were restated, reasserted, renewed afresh in the life and activity of Kishanji.

It is in this sense that Kishanji in a way rehabilitated the status of both mass movements and ‘military strategy’ within the left. The left today is prone to reject anything to do with discipline and military as just some kind of right-wing, fascist obsession. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek points out that, against the ruling ideology of hedonistic permissivity, the left should “(re)appropriate discipline and the spirit of sacrifice: there is nothing inherently ‘Fascist’ about these values” (http://www.lacan.com/zizhollywood.htm). Kishanji’s contribution stands out here –raising great fear and alarm among the ruling classes who hunted him down.

This is a crucial contribution at a time when the left is suffering from ‘loss of strategy’, when mass demonstrations at Tahrir Square or the Occupy Wall Street seem to hit a dead-end, simply tiring itself out, or unable to withstand state repression. Some might say that the militant mass demonstrations in Jangalmahal ended with the Maoists ‘taking over’ in June 2009. Instead this ‘taking over’ was nothing but the much needed backbone of the mass movement, able to now express itself as an organised force with a strategy.

This is the first step towards seeking clarity about the class struggle, defining what Marx in the Communist Manifesto calls a ‘line of the march’ for the movement as a whole – apart from being able to withstand the armed might of the state. Not that the Maoists have gained major success here but they have got some of the basics right. The usual story of mass activities and rallies frittering away after the initial upsurge did not therefore repeat itself here. The mass movement continues in many new forms. In fact, a new mass women’s formation, the Nari Izzat Bachao Committee has come up even as big rallies like the August 2010 mass rally attended by Mamata and Swami Agnivesh continue – unless banned or ‘denied permission’ by the government.

Such is Kishenji’s contribution, with something original – not just some bland ‘sacrifice’ or ‘martyrdom’ which Maoists themselves so often glorify. Maoists must guard themselves from this entrenched habit of not seeing anything specific or original about its leaders and painting them all in this barren seriality of ‘yet another martyr who heroically sacrificed his life for the revolution’. Otherwise the movement will be going round in circles, will stagnate in spite of the dynamism of its concrete practice.

Perhaps we can here identify something like a ‘Jangalmahal model or path’ of the Maoist movement, which can be compared to say the ‘Chattisgarh model or path’. There are many problems with talking in terms of ‘models’. And yet the specificities of the movement in particular areas must also be grasped so that we do not club all experiences and forms as one and the same. Otherwise, we are not learning anything new, not synthesizing, not learning from practice but endlessly repeating a set formula. Kishanji stands out in this respect. We do not know whether he also made conscious formulations about the specificity of the movement in Jangalmahal model (like a Hunan report?) but his concrete practice brilliantly shines forth.

Just in the month of September, Varavara Rao, myself and comrades from Kolkata had made a ‘fact-finding’ (for want of a better term) trip to Jangalmahal. We could not meet Kishanji but witnessed the atrocities committed by security forces and the private armies (bhairav bahini). I talked to a very young adivasi comrade, deep inside a village off Jhargram town: a member of the armed squad. I asked him if he had met Kishanji. He said yes. Then he said, that he cannot follow all that Kishanji says in meetings. Then I asked him if he heard of Marxism from Kishanji (I was curious). ‘Yes Kishanji talks about Marxism, but I find it very difficult to follow’. Then I ask him what has he understood of Marxism, what is it? I think he felt cornered but after some reflection came with a reply: it is something very good but some people have spoiled and distorted it. ‘We guerillas are fighting such people’.

Those like Kishanji have taken Marxism to the masses when doing so immediately means ‘organising’, planning, strategizing, taking the struggle ahead and putting yourself in the line of fire. Kishanji’s daring is not ‘speaking truth to power’, in postmodern Zapatismo-style, but making power come out of its democratic garb exposing its lies and falsities, including its violence to which our man fell.

I find it a bit of an enigma that Kishanji never put away his gun when on camera – one can prominently see it and so he is clearly not bothered to play the democratic card of being democratic, peaceful and so on. He talks nothing about the gun, no glorifying violence and so on, as some would pathetically expect. Instead he talks about a meticulous patient fight for real democracy and power to the people (http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/who-is-kishenji/216926). So why is the gun so visibly present, slung on his shoulders, surrounded as he is by curious journalists in his own camp? It can only mean that he had no pretense here of liberal bourgeois leaders of being non-violent and democratic, even as they preside over huge standing armies, hidden away.

Here we are only traversing a key insight of Marxism – that the question of power must be foregrounded, hence no point playing games that there is no power in society, no class power, no armed power, it is all democracy and free competition and so on. That is why Lenin would say that socialism is not a better or true radical democracy (this would have sounded respectable and acceptable to all), but the dictatorship of the proletariat – this is far more honest that saying that there is democracy for everyone even though it is really class dictatorship. If you feel kind of uncomfortable in whole-heartedly supporting Kishanji because of his gun then you might be uncomfortable with a key insight of Marxism itself – this is the double bind he throws us in.

Kishanji was not the man of ‘its blowing in the wind’ but precisely of another Bob Dylan song. He is the man of ‘the hour when the ship comes in’, one who must have imagined that he is fighting to usher in this grand hour, perhaps even when ‘the answer might not be blowing in wind’: “the chains of the sea will have busted in the night and will be buried at the bottom of the ocean… And oh the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes and they will jerk from their beds and think that they are dreaming; but they will pinch themselves and squeal and know that it is for real. And they will raise their hands, saying we will meet all your demands, but we’ll shout from the bow, your days are numbered….”

Spring Thunder Over India

Tomorrow is Naxalbari day. It was on May 25th 1967 , theNaxalbari movement started in West Bengal. At a time when India is witnessing an upsurge in Naxal revolution it would be worthy to read the Editorial of People's Daily that proclaimed the advent of a new revolution. It was the People's Daily that described the Naxal Revolution as Spring Thunder.

Marxists.Org

Spring Thunder Over India

Transcriber’s note: This article was highly significant to the militants giving leadership to the Naxalbari struggle (referred below). For this radical members of the then undivided CPI(M) [CPI(M) stands for Communist Party of India (Marxist)] it constituted a powerful ideological victory over the CPI(M) leadrship which had just presided over the CPI(M) contesting its first election, in which it won three ministerial seats in the newly formed West Bengal United-Front Government. Charu Majumdar, the principal ideologue of the Naxalbari movement, had previously written his ‘Eight Documents’, in which he vehemently propounded the Maoist strategic and tactical line. Liberation was the central organ of the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) that was set up in the wake of the Naxalbari uprising in 1967, and of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or CPI(ML) after the dissolution of the AICCCR. The reader should note that the CPI(ML) and Liberation are politically, ideologically and methodologically entirely different from the now-existing CPIML(Liberation) which is one of the many political parties in India taking part in a parliamentary democracy 

A peal of spring thunder has crashed over the land of India. Revolutionary peasants in the Darjeeling area have risen in rebellion. Under the leadership of a revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party [Transcriber’s note: This group comprised the radical members of the erstwhile undivided Communist Party of India (Marxist), a fore-runner of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), see above], a red area of rural revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India. This is a development of tremendous significance for the Indian people’s revolutionary struggle.

In the past few months, the peasant masses in this area, led by the revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party, have thrown off the shackles of modern revisionism and smashed the trammels that bound them. They have seized grain, land and weapons from the landlords and plantation owners, punished the local tyrants and wicked gentry, and ambushed the reactionary troops and police that went to suppress them thus demonstrating the enormous might of the peasants’ revolutionary armed struggle. All imperialists, revisionists, corrupt officials, local tyrants and wicked gentry, and reactionary army and police are nothing in the eyes of the revolutionary peasants who are determined to strike them down to the dust. The absolutely correct thing has been done by the revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party and they have done it well. The Chinese people joyfully applaud this revolutionary storm of the Indian peasants in the Darjeeling area as do all Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people of the whole world.

It is an inevitability that the Indian peasants will rebel and the Indian people will make revolution because the reactionary Congress rule has left them with no alternative. India under Congress rule is only nominally independent; in fact, it is nothing more than a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. The Congress administration represents the interests of the Indian feudal princes, big landlords and bureaucrat-comprador capitalists. Internally, it oppresses the Indian people without any mercy and suck their blood, while internationally it serves the new boss, U.S. imperialism, and its number one accomplice, the Soviet revisionist ruling clique, in addition to its old suzerain British Imperialism, thus selling out the national interests of India in a big way. So imperialism, Soviet revisionism, feudalism and bureaucrat-comprador capitalism weigh like big mountains on the backs of the Indian people, especially on the toiling masses of workers and peasants.

The Congress administration has intensified its suppression and exploitation of the Indian people and pursued a policy of national betrayal during the past few years. Famine has stalked the land year after year. The fields are strewn with the bodies of those who have died of hunger and starvation. The Indian people, above all, the Indian peasants, have found life impossible for them. The revolutionary peasants in the Darjeeling area have now risen in rebellion, in violent revolution. This is the prelude to a violent revolution by the hundreds of millions of people throughout India. The Indian people will certainly cast away these big mountains off their backs and win complete emancipation. This is the general trend of Indian history which no force on earth can check or hinder.

What road is to be followed by the Indian revolution? This is a fundamental question affecting the success of the Indian revolution and the destiny of the 500 million Indian people. The Indian revolution must take the road of relying on the peasants, establishing base areas in the countryside, persisting in protracted armed struggle and using the countryside to encircle and finally capture the cities. This is Mao Tse-tung’s road, the road that has led the Chinese revolution to victory, and the only road to victory for the revolutions of all oppressed nations and peoples.

Our great leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, pointed out as long as 40 years ago: “In China’s central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.”

Chairman Mao explicitly pointed out long ago that the peasant question occupies an extremely important place in the people’s revolution. The peasants constitute the main force in the national-democratic revolution against imperialism and its lackeys; they are most reliable and numerous allies of the proletariat. India is a vast semi-colonial and semi-feudal country with a population of 500 million, the absolute majority of which, the peasantry, once aroused, will become the invincible force of the Indian revolution. By integrating itself with peasants, the Indian proletariat will be able to bring about earth-shaking changes in the vast countryside of India and defeat any powerful enemy in a soul-stirring people’s war.

Our great leader, Chairman Mao, teaches us: “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries.”

The specific nature of the Indian revolution, like that of the Chinese revolution, is armed revolution fighting against armed counter-revolution; Armed struggle is the only correct road for the Indian revolution; there is no other road whatsoever. Such trash as “Gandhi-ism”, “parliamentary road” and the like are opium used by the Indian ruling classes to paralyse the Indian people. Only by relying on violent revolution and taking the road of armed struggle can India be saved and the Indian people achieve complete liberation. Specifically, this is to arouse the peasant masses boldly, build up and expand the revolutionary armed forces, deal blows at the armed suppression of the imperialists and reactionaries, who are temporarily stronger than the revolutionary forces, by using the whole set of the flexible strategy and tactics of people’s war personally worked out by Chairman Mao, and to persist in protracted armed struggle and seize victory of the revolution step by step.

In the light of the characteristics of the Chinese revolution, our great leader, Chairman Mao, has pointed out the importance of establishing revolutionary rural base areas. Chairman Mao teaches us: In order to persist in protracted armed struggle and defeat imperialism and its lackeys, “it is imperative for the revolutionary ranks to turn the backward villages into advanced, consolidated base areas, into great military, political, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution from which to fight their vicious enemies who are using the cities for attacks on the rural districts, and in this way gradually to achieve the complete victory of the revolution through protracted fighting.”

India is country with vast territory; its countryside, where the reactionary rule is weak, provides the broad areas in which the revolutionaries can manoeuvre freely. So long as the Indian proletarian revolutionaries adhere to the revolutionary line of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and rely on their great ally, the peasants, it is entirely possible for them to establish one advanced revolutionary rural base area after another in the broad backward rural areas and build a people’s army of a new type. Whatever difficulties and twists and turns the Indian revolutionaries may experience in the course of building such revolutionary base areas, they will eventually develop such areas from isolated points into a vast expanse, from small areas into extensive ones, an expansion in a series of waves. Thus, a situation in which the cities are encircled from the countryside will gradually be brought about in the Indian revolution to pave the way for the final seizure of towns and cities and winning nation-wide victory.

The Indian reactionaries are panic-stricken by the development of the rural armed struggle in Darjeeling. They have sensed imminent disaster and they wail in alarm that the peasants’ revolt in Darjeeling will “become a national disaster.” Imperialism and the Indian reactionaries are trying in a thousand and one ways to suppress this armed struggle of the Darjeeling peasants and nip it in the bud. The Dange renegade clique and revisionist chieftains of the Indian Communist Party are vigorously slandering and attacking the revolutionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling for their great exploits. The so-called “non-Congress” government in West Bengal openly sides with the reactionary Indian Government in its bloody suppression of the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling. This gives added proof that these renegades and revisionists are running dogs of U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism and lackeys of the big Indian landlords and bourgeoisie. What they call the “Non-Congress government” is only a tool of the landlords and bourgeoisie.

But no matter how well the imperialists, Indian reactionaries and the modern revisionists may cooperate in their sabotage and suppression, the torch of armed struggle lighted by the revolutionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling will not be put out. “A single spark can start a prairie fire”. The spark in Darjeeling will start a prairie fire and will certainly set the vast expanses of India ablaze. That a great storm of revolutionary armed struggle will eventually sweep across the length and breadth of India is certain. Although the course of the Indian revolutionary struggle will be long and tortuous, the Indian revolution, guided by great Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung’s Thought, will surely triumph.

Anuradha Ghandy: The Inspiring Life of a Maoist Leader, Remembering Anu on her Second Death Anniversary

It was the second death anniversary of Maoist leader Anuradha Ghandy on 12th this month. On this occassion party politbureau memeber and Anu's husband Kobad Ghandy wrote this from Tihar Jail. It was last year Kobad was arrested by Delhi police.

Remembering Anu on her Second Death Anniversary

Kobad Ghandy

On April 12, 2008 a beautiful life got suddenly extinguished. Anuradha Ghandy passed away at the young age of 54 due to the late detection of the killer disease, falciperum malaria. On that day, the Indian people, particularly its oppressed women, lost a blooming flower that spread its fragrance in many parts of the country. Two years is a long time, yet the fragrance lingers on. The sweet scent like from an eternal blossom, intoxicates the mind with memories of her vivacious and loving spirit.
Even here, in the High Risk Ward of Tihar jail, the five sets of bars that incarcerates us, cannot extinguish the aroma that Anu radiates in one’s memories. The pain one suffers here seems so insignificant, compared to what she must have faced on that fateful day.
I still remember the first day I met her, way back in mid 1972. The sparkle and brightness that radiated from her childlike face, never dimmed through all the torturous years of struggles and enormous sacrifice. The same bubbly spirit, the same dynamism, and the same active and sharp mind of youth, remained till the very end.
The purity of her soul, her deep commitment to the oppressed, never allowed her to be weighed down by any kind of hardship—physical or mental. That is why the wear and tear of life could not extinguish her youth and exuberance. It was only the deadly and incurable systemic sclerosis which struck her in 2002 that suddenly resulted in her ageing overnight

Though her face grew drawn, she never allowed the disease to destroy her spirit. The fire for a full life, in the service of the country and its people, did not diminish, even an iota. Till her very last day, from six in the morning to twelve at night she was continuously on the move—meeting people, travelling, reading, writing and even cooking and cleaning herself. Though the disease was slowly eating away her organs—her lungs, her kidneys, her heart—and crippling her fingers, Anu knew no rest. Even her arthritic knees, which grew more and more painful, did not stop her climbing stairs, trekking days in the forests, and often being on her feet from morning to night.
Was it will power? Was it commitment? Yet, her exhaustion, her pain, never showed on her face; she never complained. And, to those meeting her, they could not realise what she was going through.
Anu’s life traversed many paths. She was a brilliant student at school, where the progressive and democratic atmosphere of her family played a key role in moulding her. It was in her college days she became a student activist and leader. In the post-emergency period, having by then become a lecturer, she became one of the leading human rights activists in the country. After moving to Nagpur in the early 1980s, not only did she become an All India face of the revolutionary cultural movement, she developed as Maharashtra’s foremost revolutionary personality in Nagpur/Vidarbha.
Together with her job as post graduate professor in Sociology, she became a well known militant trade union leader. She led many a worker’s struggles and even went to jail a number of times. In addition, she became a popular face of the women’s movement in the region. Together with this, she also had a deep impact on the intelligentsia—lecturers, students, lawyers, writers and social activists—of Nagpur and Vidarbha. But, most importantly her main impact was on the dalit movement in Vidarbha, particularly Nagpur.
With her incisive knowledge of the dalit/caste question and her thorough study of Ambedkar’s writings, she was able to effectively challenge the deeply entrenched dalit leadership, with a scientific and Marxist interpretation of the issue. With Nagpur being the centre of the dalit movement, we shifted our residence to Indora—the biggest dalit basti in Maharashtra. Her impact on dalit youth was enormous and she became a regular invitee at most dalit functions.
People of Nagpur fondly remember this senior professor, staying in dalit basti, cycling away throughout the city in the famous Nagpur blazing sun.
After Nagpur/Vidarbha Anu shifted to work amongst the most backward tribals, living in the forests amongst them, sharing their weal and woe. And finally, in her last six to eight years she focussed on the oppressed women of our country, educating them and arousing them for their emancipation and liberation from poverty.
Through all these ups and downs we were sometimes together, often apart for months. But, the time we got together were the most cherished periods of my life. Her fiercely independent thinking acted as a great help to rational understanding of events, people and issues. There was no other person with whom I have had as vehement debates. This normally brought a balance to my often one-sided views.
Anuradha had the rare ability to combine activism with theoretical insight. In spite of her day-to-night activities she was a voracious reader and prolific writer—writing in English, Hindi and Marathi. Though she wrote on many a topic, her writings on the dalit/caste question and women’s issues have been important contributions to a scientific understanding of two very important societal aspects of India.
But what Anu would be remembered for most is her beautiful nature. At a time when communism has degenerated throughout the world—Russia, China, East Europe having collapsed and most other parties degenerated—Anuradha’s nature stood as an ideal. Where power—even petty power—tends to corrupt; where ego, self-interest and craze for leadership/fame eats into the vitals of many a movement, Anu was indeed exemplary. She remained unaffected from the time she was an ordinary cadre to that of a well known figure and big leader.
The same simplicity, straight forwardness… childlike innocence. Her face was a reflection of her emotions—unable to lie, manipulate others or indulge in intrigue. Besides, her ability to bond with all—from the simplest tribal to topmost intellectuals—is indeed legendary. Anu had the beauty of innocence, yet maintaining the sharpness of intellect and dynamism of a professional. It is this combination that gives Anuradha her eternal fragrance.

Kobad Ghandy
Tihar Jail No.3

Howard Zinn: The Historian Who Made History

Howard Zinn, one of the greatest intellectuals and historian died the other day. its unbelievable how our media ignored this legend's death. Anyway i post this article for my readers here. It was written by Dave Zirin and appeared in The Nation

Howard Zinn, my hero, teacher, and friend died of a heart attack on Wednesday at the age of 87. With his death, we lose a man who did nothing less than rewrite the narrative of the United States. We lose a historian who also made history.

Anyone who believes that the United States is immune to radical politics never attended a lecture by Howard Zinn. The rooms would be packed to the rafters, as entire families, black, white and brown, would arrive to hear their own history made humorous as well as heroic. “What matters is not who’s sitting in the White House. What matters is who’s sitting in!” he would say with a mischievous grin. After this casual suggestion of civil disobedience, the crowd would burst into laughter and applause.

Only Howard could pull that off because he was entirely authentic. When he spoke against poverty it was from the perspective of someone who had to work in the shipyards during the Great Depression. When he spoke against war, it was from the perspective of someone who flew as a bombardier during World War II, and was forever changed by the experience. When he spoke against racism it was from the perspective of someone who taught at Spelman College during the civil rights movement and was arrested sitting in with his students.

And of course, when he spoke about history, it was from the perspective of having written A People’s History of the United States, a book that has sold more than two million copies and changed the lives of countless people. Count me among them. When I was 17 and picked up a dog-eared copy of Zinn’s book, I thought history was about learning that the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. I couldn’t tell you what the Magna Carta was, but I knew it was signed in 1215. Howard took this history of great men in powdered wigs and turned it on its pompous head.

In Howard’s book, the central actors were the runaway slaves, the labor radicals, the masses and the misfits. It was history writ by Robin Hood, speaking to a desire so many share: to actually make history instead of being history’s victim. His book came alive in December with the debut of The People Speak on the History Channel as actors, musicians, and poets, brought Zinn’s book alive.

Howard was asked once whether his praise of dissent and protest was divisive. He answered beautifully: “Yes, dissent and protest are divisive, but in a good way, because they represent accurately the real divisions in society. Those divisions exist – the rich, the poor – whether there is dissent or not, but when there is no dissent, there is no change. The dissent has the possibility not of ending the division in society, but of changing the reality of the division. Changing the balance of power on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.”

Words like this made Howard my hero. I never thought we would also become friends. But through our mutual cohort, Anthony Arnove, Howard read my sports writing and then gave his blessing to a book project we called A People’s History of Sports in the United States.

We also did a series of meetings together where I would interview Howard on stage. Even at 87, he still had his sharp wit, strong voice, and matinee-idol white hair. But his body had become frail. Despite this physical weakness, Howard would stay and sign hundreds of books until his hand would shake with the effort.

At our event in Madison, Wisconsin, Howard issued a challenge to the audience. He said, “Our job as citizens is to honestly assess what Obama is doing. Not measured just against Bush, because against Bush, everybody looks good. But look honestly at what Obama’s doing and act as engaged and vigorous citizens.”

He also had no fear to express his political convictions loudly and proudly. I asked him about the prospects today for radical politics and he said,

“Let’s talk about socialism. … I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country… Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.”

Howard Zinn taught millions of us a simple lesson: Agitate. Agitate. Agitate. But never lose your sense of humor in the process. It’s a beautiful legacy and however much it hurts to lose him, we should strive to build on Howard’s work and go out and make some history.

John Abraham commemoratin and inaguration of new film movement

A new film movemnt is being launched in Kochi on 30th May, the death anniversary of legendary film man John Abraham. To read the report appeared in the Hindu paper on this please click here. The Hindu

Bob marley commemoration and cultural fest

28 years may have passed since the voice of Bob Marley, the singer of the downtrodden, died down. But the resonances it created are still strong enough to rekindle memories; memories that struggle against forgetfulness.

On account of Marley's death anniversary and in the backdrop of the oppressed class opening up new battle front everywhere in the world, Bob Marley Cultural Collective, on 10th and 11th this month organises a Bob Marley Commemoration and Cultural Fest at Fort Kochi. Suresh Badal, programme convenor of the fest told Socialist Platform that its the general political developments in the contemporary world that make the memories of Marley all the more relevant. "At a time when Dalits as well as all other oppressed classes get up and stand up to put up stiff resistance against all kinds of oppressions and discriminations, we believe that it is quite relevant to remember Marley and his legacy. Rastafari, which explored the black people's identity gain importance now as the jaggernautof globalisation is still on the roll trampling down all kinds of native cultural symbols besides making lives of people more and more miserable. However searching identity doesn't mean a return journey, rather its a fresh energy of resistance as it is obvious that the liberation of the oppressed can be made only through class struggle." Suresh said.

Given Below is from the programme notice of the fest



BOB MARLEY COMMEMORATION AND CULTURAL FEST



May 10 & 11

at

Comrade Abu Square (near the beach)



Programme Details:


May 10th

Cultural meet at 10 a.m.

talks on Duties and challeges in the cultural sphere.


Interventions by:
K.P.Sethunath, Dr.T.P.Sajeevan, Dr.P.Geetha, Adv.Tushar Nirmal
Sarathy, Raghavan Atholy,C.P.Rasheed, Sathychandran Poyilkavu and
N.P.Soman

from 3.p.m onwards cultural programmes including plays by Ranga Chethana, Thrissur and Thudipech, a combination of folk and revolutionary songs by Njatuvela.

from 7.p.m screening of documentaries on Marley

May 11th:

at 10 a.m.Bob Marley live

RED SOLO-MORTUARY VIBRATIONS

by Shaji Kallai

from 7.a.m. screening of marley's albums





And now here is Marley's famous song 'War'



Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes -
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race -
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained -
Now everywhere is war - war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed -
Well, everywhere is war -
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south -
War - war -
Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight - we find it necessary -
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah! /fadeout/


and watch buffalo soldier in the youtube

In Memory of September 11

Its yet another September 11; one of the darkest days in history. It was on on this day in 1973, the Chilean military, with the backing and under the direction of the U.S. government, murdered democracy in Chile. Just before his death the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, made this speech over Chilean radio. As he spoke, nonfascist radio stations were being knocked off the air:

Santiago de Chile, 11 September 1973





My friends,

Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes.

My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [paramilitary police].

Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign! Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever.

They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.

Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges.

I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals who continued working against the sedition that was supported by professional associations, classist associations that also defended the advantages of capitalist society. I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They were committed. History will judge them.

Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.

The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.

Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!

These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.


To watch Allende speaking please click http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=WEmvWWQkzRM

In memory of Mahmoud Darwish

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died recenlty leaving behind a great legacy of poetic resistance. Following is an article received from A World to Win News Service



In memory of Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008 )
A World to Win News Service


The celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died 9 August after complications from heart surgery. In life, he was one of the world’s very few people who could fill a football stadium with as many as 25,000 listeners for a poetry reading. He had a special place in the hearts of the masses of Palestinians and other Arab people, and this was matched by the high regard in which many intellectuals of all countries held him. His poetry captured the pulse of Palestinian pain in magical ways, making readers laugh and weep. In death, throngs of Palestinians gave homage to him as the symbol and expression of Palestinian aspirations for the return of their land, their country. Darwish put in words the collective passion felt by the women and men, rich or poor, educated or not who were and still are victims of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing and occupation of their lands by the Zionist state of Israel 60 years ago. His poems were put to music and became anthems for two generations of Palestinians and others.


He founded one of the Arab world’s top literary magazines, al-Karmel, in 1981. He wrote 20 volumes of poetry and was translated into more than 20 languages. His first collection of poems in the 1960s included “Identity Card”, which became something of a signature poem for him. It is written in the first person. A common practice among many Palestinians in those days was to respond to hostile Israeli authorities and Arab governments by simply giving an identity number. A few of the lines are:

Write it down!
I am an Arab
My number is 50,000
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged. …………….


At the time of the Nakba in 1948, he was seven. He fled with his family from Birweh, a village in Galilee. The family came back in 1949, risking death at the hands of Zionist militias that had murdered countless Palestinians who tried to return to their homes. He spent the rest of his youth living as a second-class Israeli citizen. His grandfather chose to live on a hill overlooking his land. Until he died, the grandfather watched Jewish immigrants from Yemen living in his home that he could not even visit. Darwish acquired a reputation as a precocious child poet, at age 12. He was asked to compose a poem for a public reading on Israel’s “Independence Day”. His poem described the feelings of a child who returns to his town to find other people sleeping in his bed and tilling his father’s lands. Summoned by the military governor, Darwish was told that if he continued to write subversive material his father’s work permit would be revoked. This incident marked Darwish for life.


His militant poems defined Palestinian existence in the face of Golda Meir’s assertion “There are no Palestinians”. He was jailed five times between 1961 and 1976. Eventually Israel stripped Darwish of his “citizenship” and he became part of the Palestinian diaspora. Once a member of the pro-Soviet revisionist Israeli Communist Party, he spent a year studying in the Soviet Union where he became disillusioned. He became one of many stateless persons wandering around first in Egypt, then Jordan, and finally Lebanon. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 marked another defining moment in Darwish’s life. In Beirut, he lived under the shelling and siege of the city amidst the world’s deafening silence. In the camps outside the city, the Israeli army stood guard while the Lebanese Christian Falangists conducted the Sabra and Shatila massacre.


In 1973 he joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation headed by Yassar Arafat. In 1987 he was appointed to the PLO’s Executive Committee, although he saw his role there as symbolic. In 1993 he broke with Arafat and resigned his position the day after the signing of the Oslo Accords, the U.S.-brokered deal between Israel and the PLO that was to lead to today’s “road map” to nowhere and the PLO’s current role as flunkies under the Israeli occupation. But with the Accords, he was able to return to Palestine in 1996. He lived in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and travelled throughout Palestine when he could, including Gaza.


In the early days of the second Intifada, the world reeled at the infamous photo of Muhammad al-Durrah, a 12 year-old boy crouching in the shelter of his father’s body during an Israeli Defence Force incursion in September 2000. Israeli bullets killed the boy, despite his father’s efforts. Darwish wrote: “We love life – if we can have it.”


In 2002 Ariel Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield, a barbarous reinvasion of West Bank cities, in particular Ramallah. At that time Darwish invited a number of Nobel Prize-winning authors (José Saramago, Wole Soyinka, Juan Goytisolo, Breyten Breytenbach and Russell Banks) to see the military occupation for themselves. Breytenbach recalled the former apartheid rule of South Africa. Banks compared it with American Indian reservations of the nineteenth century. The invasion inspired Darwish to write “A State of Siege”. Some of the lines address the Israeli soldiers shooting up his neighbourhood:

You, standing at the doorsteps, come in

And drink with us our Arabic coffee

For you may feel that you are human like us.


Other lines address the soldier/killer of a foetus:

If you had left the foetus thirty days,

Things would’ve been different

The occupation may end, and the toddler may not remember the time of the siege,

And he would grow up a healthy boy,

And study the Ancient history of Asia,

In the same college as one of your daughters.

And they may fall in love.

And they may have a daughter (who would be Jewish by birth).

What have you done now?

Your daughter is now a widow,

And your granddaughter is now orphaned.

What have you done to your scattered family,

And how could you have slain three pigeons with the one bullet?


Also in 2002, an Israeli reformist Education Minister tried to have five of Darwish’s poems introduced into a “multi-cultural” school curriculum. This aroused a maelstrom of controversy in the Israeli parliament where the proposal was roundly defeated. Darwish commented, “They teach pupils the country was empty. When they teach Palestinian poets, this knowledge is broken. Most of my poetry is about love for my country.” He added,” It is difficult to believe that the most militarily powerful country in the Middle East is threatened by a poem.” The Israeli government considered Mahmoud Darwish a dangerous foe to the end.


His poems expose a wide range of targets: the Israeli government (for instance, its pretending to be the victim (”You stole our tears, wolf”), the U.S. government (for giving every Palestinian child the “gift” of a cluster bomb to play with) and the Arab governments (who refrain from helping the Palestinians and hide their ineptitude behind anti-Semitic rhetoric).


A secular nationalist, Darwish was depressed and angered by Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political organisations. He was unsparing in his criticism of their narrow power struggle, calling it “suicide in the streets”.


That makes it all the more significant that his funeral in Ramallah was attended by many thousands of people, making it the biggest mass political event in the West Bank since the burial of Arafat.