Étiquette : socialism

presse

Nicolas Walter : Orwell and the Anarchists

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 14/03/2021
2 commentaires sur Nicolas Walter : Orwell and the Anarchists

Article de Nicolas Walter paru dans Freedom, Vol. 42, No. 2, 30th January 1981, p. 9-12

GEORGE ORWELL died in 1950. He had become famous with the publication of Animal Farm in 1945, and much more famous with the publication Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949. But he was too ill to enjoy his fame, and he died of tuberculosis at the age of 46. Since then, he has grown steadily more and more famous, and after becoming a classic in his own life he has now become a name known by virtually everyone who reads at all. Almost all his books have been continually reprinted, and most of his shorter writings have also been conveniently reprinted in the four-volume Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters. Of all modern writers, in fact, he is one of the easiest to get hold of; he is also one of the easiest to get to grips with, for all his work has a style and structure which are so spare and simple and a personality and purpose which are so peculiar and powerful that introduction and explanation are virtually unnecessary. In a way, then, there is no need to read about Orwell at all, only to read Orwell; but this hasn’t stopped many people writing about him.

Étiquettes 1981, Anarchism, Britain, communism, essay, fascism, freedom, George Orwell, George Woodcock, Labour Party, Nicolas Walter, novel, socialism, Spain, writer

presse

Let ‘Satanic Verses’ be read!

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 19/12/2020
Un commentaire sur Let ‘Satanic Verses’ be read!

Article paru dans Workers Hammer, No 104, February 1989, p. 1-9

On 14 January, 1500 Muslim fanatics gathered in front of the town hall in Bradford, West Yorkshire and burnt copies of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. It grotesquely recalled the medieval Christian inquisition and book-burning orgies of Hitler’s stormtroopers. Confirming the controversial novel’s characterisation of the fundamentalist motto « Burn the books and trust the Book », the protesters accused Rushdie’s latest book of blasphemy. Leading them all was an unholy alliance of Bradford’s Council of Mosques and prominent Labour Party councillors, including ex-mayor Mohammed Ajeeb. One book-burner vowed, « Our next move will be to ensure the book is banned in the whole world. If he [Rushdie] comes here, I tell you he will be dead » (Independent, 21 January). Another demonstration in London two weeks later brought out large numbers of Muslims – reportedly overwhelmingly male – to protest the book. This frenzy of Islamic fundamentalism could provoke a wider racist backlash engulfing fundamentalist and secular minorities alike. Down with religious obscurantism! Let Satanic Verses be read!

Étiquettes 1989, Britain, demonstration, islam, Labour Party, Marxism, novel, religion, Rouhollah Moussavi Khomeini, Salman Rushdie, secularism, socialism, Spartacist League, Workers Hammer

presse

A. El-Noor: Who is affraid of Satan?

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 29/11/2020
Aucun commentaire sur A. El-Noor: Who is affraid of Satan?

Article d’A. El-Noor paru dans Solidarity. A Journal of Libertarian Socialism, 21, Autumn 1989, p. 3–8

By setting off a chain reaction of cultural criticism of religion in
Islamic countries, writes A EL-NOOR, Salman Rushdie has rendered Islamic civilisation a great historical service

Étiquettes 1989, A. El-Noor, civilisation, islam, London, Marxism, religion, Rouhollah Moussavi Khomeini, Salman Rushdie, socialism, Solidarity, western

livres

Adolph L. Reed Jr. : W.E.B. Du Bois and American Politics

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 20/05/2020
Aucun commentaire sur Adolph L. Reed Jr. : W.E.B. Du Bois and American Politics

Extrait du livre d’Adolph L. Reed Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois and American Politics: Fabianism and the Color Line, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 71-89

6
Three Confusions about Du Bois
Interracialism, Pan-Africanism, Socialism

DU BOIS’S PROMINENCE in this century’s Afro-American political life is widely recognized. Yet attempts to categorize him with respect to the various strategic and ideological programs constitutive of black political debate have yielded an uncommonly confusing picture. The confusion about locating Du Bois programmatically has two sources. The first is quite simple: Du Bois lived and acted through several discrete social and political situations that seemed to him to require different strategic responses for the race. Sometimes, especially when sundered from the situations to which they were responses, the strategies that he proposed appear to contradict one another. Analysts, then, have chosen and defended one or another set of strategies or one or another period as authentically Du Boisian. This is a problem of temporal or contextual focus.