13 May 2021 — Tricontinental Tiger Tateishi (Japan), Samurai, the Watcher (Koya no Yojinbo), 1965. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Ugliness defines the mood of state violence from Cali (Colombia) to Durban (South Africa), each context different and the depth of the violence particular to the location. Images of… Continue reading

6 May 2021 — Tricontinental E. Meera (Kerala), Red Dawn, 2021. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Kerala, a state in the Indian union with a population of 35 million, has re-elected the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to lead the government for another five years. Since 1980, the people… Continue reading

29 April 2021 — Tricontinental A mass rally with the Free German Youth that marked the founding of the German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Occupation Zone, October 1949. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. A full generation has elapsed since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed… Continue reading

15 April 2021 — Tricontinental Colectivo Culturas Vivas, Senderos latinos / Latino paths, Honduras, 2019 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On a Sunday night on 21 March 2021, gunmen stopped Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante (age 41) as he walked from this mother’s home to his own in the village of Nueva… Continue reading

25 March 2021 — Tricontinental Ailén Possamay, Domestic disobedience / What they call love is unpaid labour, Concepción, Chile, 2019 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Women around the world spend an average of four hours and twenty-five minutes per day on unpaid care work, while men spend an average… Continue reading

4 March 2021 — Tricontinental Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On a warm late February day in Santiago, I went to the grave of Victor Jara to pay homage to the man who was brutally killed on 16 September 1973. A theatre director, songwriter, and communist, Jara was… Continue reading

25 February 2021 — Tricontinental José Balmes (Chile), Lota el Silencio, 2007. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Stencilled in red on the walls of Santiago, Chile is a statement of fact: ‘your privileges are not universal’ (tus privilegios no son universales). This is a factual declaration because the… Continue reading

18 February 2021 — Tricontinental Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In 1911, a young Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) arrived in France, which had colonised his homeland of Vietnam. Though he had been raised with a patriotic spirit committed to anti-colonialism, Ho Chi Minh’s temperament did not allow him… Continue reading

11 February 2021 — Tricontinental Willie Bester (South Africa), Cross Roads, 1991. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In the early months after the World Health Organisation announced the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy wrote of her hope that the pandemic would be a ‘portal, a… Continue reading

4 February 2021 — Tricontinental Oswaldo Terreros (Ecuador), Mural para la Universidad Superior de las Artes (‘Mural for the University of the Arts’), 2012. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In 2019, 613 million Indians voted to appoint their representatives to the Indian parliament (Lok Sabha). During the election… Continue reading

28 January 2021 — Tricontinental Mahmoud Sabri (Iraq), Death of a Child, 1963. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Someday the world will be free of the coronavirus. Then, we will glance backward at these years of misery inflicted by virions with spike proteins that have struck down millions of… Continue reading

21 January 2021 — Tricontinental Diego Rivera (Mexico), The Uprising, 1931. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 26 January, India’s Republic Day, thousands of farmers and agricultural workers will drive their tractors and walk into the heart of the capital, New Delhi, to bring their fight to the doors… Continue reading

7 January 2021 — Tricontinental Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The first newsletter of the new year is written in collaboration with our friend, the great linguist and prophetic voice, Noam Chomsky. What follows is a statement by Noam and me. Xiang Wang (China), Extinction, 2020 Continue reading

31 December 2020 — Tricontinental Image in homage of Bolivian people’s resistance by Tings Chak (China) Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Towards the end of November, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres addressed the German Bundestag to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations (UN). At the… Continue reading

24 December 2020 — Tricontinental Chittaprosad (India), Peace, undated. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Our year has been eclipsed by the pandemic, the rush of a virus paralysing societies across the world. Some governments offered smarter, more scientific, and humane approaches to the pandemic; many (but not all)… Continue reading

17 December 2020 — Tricontinental El Zeft (Egypt), Nefertiti in a Gas Mask, 2012. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. A decade has now slipped by since a man named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid on 17 December 2010. Bouazizi, a… Continue reading