“Darnton traces how the antecedents to revolution circulated among the Parisian public in the decades before the storming of the Bastille, through their everyday oppositions to the rising price of bread, the overreaches of the monarchy, and the policing of poor neighborhoods. Through their growing sense that the powerful in their society were not governing as they should,…
Category: rights
Shafi Md Mostofa: “Injustice Paves the Way for Revolution: Lessons from Bangladesh”
“Moreover, the success of any revolution depends on the cultural preparedness of the people. Revolutions may be sparked by injustice, but their outcomes are shaped by the collective consciousness and readiness of the populace to embrace change. In Bangladesh’s case, the cultural strength of the student-led movement, and the symbolic leadership of a figure like…
Emi Eleode: “‘In some cases, it was the women who were fiercest in the fight’: The female freedom fighters of the Haitian Revolution”
“However, it’s important to acknowledge that the brave overthrowing of slavery and the creation of an independent Haiti was a joint victory between men and women. And while many sources exist focusing on the male figures of the Haitian Revolution, recent efforts have been made by historians, scholars, activists, writers and others to locate women’s…
Tareq Baconi: “Confronting the Abject: What Gaza Can Teach Us About the Struggles That Shape Our World”
“What would it mean for us to confront our abjection honestly? To overcome our fears and succumb to that internal voice of self-loathing that speaks of our possible defeat, of the errors we have acquiesced to out of fear or pride? Abjection is the primer of our culture. We have, each of us, the potential…
Carlo Greppi: “Happy Birthday, Toussaint Louverture”
The French Revolution, “confronted with the colonial question,” had to “confront itself,” and “the principles from which it had sprung,” Aimé Césaire writes. It hesitated, wavered, and ended up engulfing itself. But it also learned, thanks to the determination of Toussaint Louverture and his slave army, that freedom is not a force you can stop…
Rodrigo Karmy Bolton: “The ashes of the Republic”
[] the French situation shows us the global situation of which we are witnesses: unlike modern revolutions, contemporary revolts are not guided by the horizon of “progress” but, rather, by that of its destitution. In this sense, they are both more radical and labile than modern revolutions: “radical” because they call into question the modern…
Mansa Musa interviewed: “George Jackson’s unfinished revolution”
“52 years since his death at the hands of California prison authorities, George Jackson’s legacy has left an indelible imprint on the ongoing struggles for liberation from capitalist exploitation and the prison state.”
Laura Vicente: “Mujeres Libres: A genealogy of anarchist feminism”
‘This was “their revolution of life”, a long-term transformation that began to change ways of life, personal relationships, work, “care” and an endless number of other aspects, paying attention to the small, to the quiet, to the intimate, to the breath of each body. These women glimpsed other possible worlds and, despite the defeat, they…
Christina Heatherton: “How the Mexican Revolution shaped radical politics worldwide”
“From 1910-1920, armed peasants and workers reshaped Mexico in a democratic and agrarian revolution. The Mexican Revolution rippled throughout the world, influencing radical politics from Chicago to Moscow. Despite its potent effect on contemporary revolutionaries, the Mexican Revolution’s legacy has gone somewhat unrecognized today, particularly within the US. Author Christina Heatherton joins The Marc Steiner Show to…
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: “The Unknown History Of Black Uprisings”
“More than fifty years after the Kerner Commission, we have seen in the past eight years the return of Black rebellions in response to growing inequality that has been managed by the forces of racist and abusive policing. This is not history repeating itself; it is evidence that the problems that gave rise to earlier…