Sucheta De is a former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Student Union President and current President of the All India Students Association (AISA).
She spoke to Green Left Weekly in April, 2018 about the reactionary policies of the Modi government against women, students and the poor.
Interviewer: Tony Iltis, for Green Left Weekly.
Sorry to Bother You
Written & directed by Boots Riley
In cinemas now
This review includes mild spoilers.
As an Australian living abroad, incidents of Australians being racist and/or misogynistisic that attract attention from international media outlets are frequently forwarded to me in anticipation of a seething refrain.
Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus offers up eight new books as recommended reading for ecosocialists. Inclusion does not imply agreement with a book’s contents.
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1. The Biofuels Deception: Going Hungry on the Green Carbon Diet
By Okbazghi Yohannes
Monthly Review Press, 2018
Edited by John McDonnell
Verso, 2018
This book is a valuable collection of 16 short essays on the crisis facing modern Britain, coming up with progressive solutions which a Jeremy Corbyn-led government could usher in.
It is edited by and has an introduction by Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a long-time socialist and close collaborator of Corbyn’s. He says: “We are seeking nothing less than to build a society that is radically fairer, more democratic and more sustainable, in which the wealth of society is shared by all.”
Rock & Roll Harbour
Exhibition by The Shop Gallery
112 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
Thurs January 3 – Wed Jan 9
Peter Gow is the people’s artist.
His ouvre is driven by his down-to-earth, inner-city environment such as boathouses and the heritage-listed Sydney Harbour Bridge in various attitudes, all of which feature prominently in this exhibition.
Gow is a qualified electrician and builder as well, very handy for making the frames in his spare time that embrace his art.
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist
Directed by Lorna Tucker
In cinemas
In the 1970s, punks astounded Britain with their T-shirts worn inside out and torn clothes with safety pins.
Vivienne Westwood was the person responsible for most of that look. Not only did she tear clothing apart, she lived a similar life.
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist is a raw, unpredictable and unapologetic documentary about the punk icon and fashion designer.
Watching it was a whirlwind. At times I was smiling, others I felt frustration.
Disaster Capitalism
Written by Antony Loewenstein
Directed by Thor Neureiter
www.disastercapitalismfilm.com
Disaster Capitalism is a groundbreaking documentary film about Bougainville, Haiti and Afghanistan, revealing the dark underbelly of the global aid and investment industry. The film offers important insights into a secret multi-billion dollar world by investigating how aid money is actually spent — or misspent.
Legal experts and human rights advocates have denounced the tear gassing of children and other asylum seekers by US forces at the Mexico border on November 25.
When it comes to the infrastructure of genocide, you could illustrate it using almost any photo of a school, house, shop or village in the West Bank. You could bookmark a Google maps page of a particular West Bank town — then look again in three or six months time and note the destruction wrought.
This is one way of keeping track of the demolitions of Palestinian homes and Israel’s attempts to impose an “Israeli only” identity on the landscape.
A new map developed at the University of Cincinnati illustrates one motivating force behind migrant caravans leaving Guatemala and Honduras to reach the United States.
UC geography professor Tomasz Stepinski has turned high-resolution satellite images from the European Space Agency into one of the most detailed looks so far at how people are reshaping the planet.
Stepinski said: “Right now there are caravans of people walking to the United States. Many of them are coming from Guatemala.”
Organised under the banners of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU) of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), thousands of farmers began marching from Singur towards Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal, on November 27.
The march culminated in front of Governor Raj Bhavan’s house the next day to demand cultivable lands be returned to the farmers.
Looking at elections in the United States, deeper trends in the population can be difficult to discern as the choices are between two capitalist parties that are both staunch defenders of capitalist rule and US imperialism.
There are no mass workers’ parties of any stripe. If there were, we may be in a better position to understand the relation of class forces.