‘Working Class History’? — None of the above
“Libcom” (short for libertarian communism –
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“Libcom” (short for libertarian communism –
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet, writer, playwright, and journalist. Born the 11th child to parents who were both of mixed Spanish and Quechua Native origins, Vallejo as a child witnessed at first hand hunger and poverty and the injustices done to the indigenous peoples of the region.
Vallejo attended the University of Trujillo, where he studied both law and literature, writing a thesis entitled El romanticismo en la poesía castellana (“Romanticism in Castilian Poetry”; published 1954).
Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language. He was always a step ahead of literary currents, and each of his books was distinct from the others, and, in its own sense, revolutionary.
On Wednesday 26 February, members of the NEU Left – the broad left-wing alliance within the National Education Union (NEU) – met in the Marx Memorial Library in London with Debby Pope, representative of the Executive Board of the Chicago Teachers Union.
The aim of this meeting was simple: to discuss common challenges, possibilities, and most importantly, how the rank and file members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had managed to successfully build a broad left-wing alliance that achieved power in the union structures and made a difference, including many successful grassroots campaigns.
The ongoing Covid-19 crisis taking place across the world is producing some of the most significant upheavals the world has seen since the Second World War. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was first admitted to hospital with the Virus on the 5thof April. His battle with the illness prompted a wave of sympathy, with commentators sending niceties, positing that this highlighted that the Coronavirus can and does affect us all. “We are all in this together”, as Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, argued, and while it is clear that the Coronavirus is affecting us all, it is important to highlight that it is not affecting us all equally. There are obvious class differences in how people are able to cope amid the government lockdown. However, there are also key gender differences, and as usual women are bearing the brunt of both the economic repercussions of the lockdown, and are put at greater risk of infection.
I work as a lifeguard. I sit at the side of the pool and watch people swim up and down. Occasionally, I’ll tell some kids that ‘no’, they can’t dive headfirst into other swimmers, then I go back to watching the pool. When the COVID-19 outbreak began I thought I was going to be out of a job due to being on a zero hours contract. Every casual worker for South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture was in the same boat.
The worst effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have so far been limited to developed or relatively developed nations. But as the spread of the disease continues at breakneck speed, questions have begun to emerge about the capacity of healthcare systems to cope with the outbreaks. The numbers are staggering and medical equipment to deal with the respiratory effects caused by the virus are in short supply even in the most advanced countries.
Robin Talbot discusses the limitations of bourgeois democracy under capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the promise of real human rights through socialism.
Stalingrad by Peter Blackman
The “European Day of Remembrance for
It is easy for young people in Britain today to overlook the importance of the outcome of the Second World War for world history and the current political situation we face today. It is difficult to comprehend the scale of the sacrifice and the bravery of previous generations in the struggle to defeat Nazi Fascism.
As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.
Here we feature Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too? written by Langston Hughes. The poem is written from the perspective of a black US serviceman. It is a profound comment on the profound and structural racism on which the USA is and was based and the sad fact that black servicemen were abroad fighting to defeat the same racist and oppressive ideologies they were forced to endure at home.
As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.
Here we feature Wait for Me written in 1941 by Konstantin Simonov. The poem is written from the perspective of a Soviet soldier heading to the front, addressing their spouse or partner. It became a favourite of Soviet servicemen and women at the time and continues to be popular in Russia today.
Nelson Mandela once said, “I am
Hailing from Preston and operating out
I’m sure everyone reading this is
It is rare for us to
We’ve all been to Gay Pride at some point. Whether you marched behind the banners, covered your face with glitter or danced the night away surrounded by drag queens, there’s a special place for gay pride in the hearts of the LGBT community across the UK. However, there’s something very wrong .
Pride, sadly, is a shadow of its former self. What once started as a protest riot on the streets of New York against police harassment has become little more than a street party – decades of moderate politics, commercialisation and corporate sponsorship has turned protest signs into glossy adverts; angry slogans transformed into 2-for-1 offers at Nandos if you wear a rainbow badge.
Independent schools are thankfully not things
This new work from The Strokes
From the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Mayans, the practises of science and literature existed in some form or another at the centre of every ancient civilisation. They represented to them what they continue to do to us today: the most fundamental desire of our species to know the world around us, and to share that knowledge with others. Tens of thousands of years came and went while spending little time at all drawing distinction between these disciplines – ones today we perceive as being repellent strangers to one another – as often they were one single entity. Ancient aborigine civilisations considered the stars the campfires of passed spirits, spawning many a story that were undoubtedly shared around more terrestrial campfires, from generation to generation, through spoken word rather than ink and parchment.
Somewhere down the line, between then and now, the entity broke in two.
