18 June 2020 — Tricontinental Jorge González Morales (Mexico), Capitalism, 2020 Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In 1974, the United Nations General Assembly passed a New International Economic Order (NIEO), which was driven by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The resolution laid out a clear plan for the… Continue reading

11 June 2020 — Tricontinental Deborah Jack (St. Martin), The water between us remembers, so we wear our history on our skin, long for a sea-bath and hope the salt will cure what ails us, 2016.   Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The United States government has… Continue reading

Last year, I walked with Mariela Machado in her housing complex known as Kaikachi in the neighbourhood of La Vega (Caracas, Venezuela). After Hugo Chávez was inaugurated president in 1999, a group of working-class residents of the city saw an empty piece of land and occupied it. Mariela and others went to the government and said, ‘We… Continue reading

28 May 2020 — Tricontinental Antún Kojtom Lam (Mexico), Ch’ulel, 2013. Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The coronavirus continues its contagious march across the planet: almost 350,000 known deaths and over 5.4 million people infected. Meanwhile, in the Bay of Bengal, Cyclone Amphan makes its fierce landing, its immense… Continue reading

21 May 2020 — Tricontinental Chittaprosad (India), Call for Peace, 1952.  Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 23 March, the UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a ceasefire. ‘The fury of the virus’, he said, ‘illustrates the folly of war’. In a recent report, the Armed Conflict Location &… Continue reading

14 May 2020 — Tricontinental Kanat Bukezhanov, Coronavirus, 2020 Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 21 April, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley said that the world was experiencing a ‘hunger pandemic’. That day, the Global Network Against Food Crises and the… Continue reading

7 May 2020 — Tricontinental Kalia Venereo (Dominio Cuba), Nunca Más, 2020.  Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. I admit upfront that this is a hard newsletter to read. It is about debt. There is a bloodless quality to the way that we talk about the debt of the poorer… Continue reading

30 April 2020 — Tricontinental Li Zhong, Medical workers putting on their gowns to fight the ‘evil’ virus, 2020. Dear Friends, Greetings from the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 30 June 1958, Mao Tse-tung read in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) that schistosomiasis – or bilharzia – had been eradicated in Yukiang (Jiangxi Province). He… Continue reading

23 April 2020 — Tricontinental Ha Manh Thang, Not Memory no. 1, 2009. Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the Great Lockdown, which has no end date, could very well lead to a loss of $9 trillion to global Gross Domestic Product over the entirety… Continue reading

16 April 2020 — Tricontinental Gontran Guanaes Netto, O povo da terra dos papagaios (The people of the land of the parrots), 1982 Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Burkina Faso, in the Sahel region of the African continent, has been struck hard by the global pandemic; officially reported deaths from… Continue reading

Days, weeks, months, an indeterminate amount of time as the world seems paralysed by the journey of SARS-CoV-2. The lack of certainty increases the anxiety. This virus, as Arundhati Roy writes, ‘seeks proliferation, not profit, and has, therefore, inadvertently, to some extent, reversed the direction of the flow [of capital]. It has mocked immigration controls,… Continue reading

26 March 2020 — Tricontinental Li Zhong (China), Paintings for Wuhan, 2020. Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. It is hard to remember that just a few weeks ago, the planet was in motion. There were protests in Delhi (India) and Quito (Ecuador), eruptions against the old order that ranged… Continue reading

12 March 2020 — Tricontinental Mohammed Issiakhem, Femme et Mur (Woman and Wall), 1970. Dear Friends, Greetings from the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. These are miserable times. The statistics of deprivation and death are gruesome. Far too many people struggle with hunger; roughly nine million of them dying each year from complications due to malnutrition (a child… Continue reading

5 March 2020 — Tricontinental Jane Norling, Sistersongs, Berkeley, California, 1975. We Who Were Nothing and Have Become Everything Shall Construct a New and Better World: The Tenth Newsletter (2020). Dear Friends, For Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020), who has gone to hand out clandestine pamphlets in the sky. Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social… Continue reading

27 February 2020 — Tricontinental N. Sankaraiah reads the Communist Manifesto in Tamil, Chennai, India, 20 February 2020. Keep Silent: The Ninth Newsletter (2020) Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On the night before Red Books Day, on 21 February 2020, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, N. Sankaraiah –… Continue reading

6 February 2020 — Tri-Continental Barefoot Doctors. This Is the Time for Solidarity, Not Stigma: The Sixth Newsletter (2020). Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In December 2019, several people began to develop infections in Wuhan (People’s Republic of China); early signs indicated that the virus had emerged out… Continue reading

30 January 2020 — Tri-Continental Santu Mofokeng, Eyes Wide Shut, Motouleng Cave, Clarens – Free State, 2004. Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On Monday, 27 January, the South African photographer Santu Mofokeng slipped away. His camera had been a familiar presence in the anti-apartheid struggle; after years of photographing… Continue reading

23 January 2020 — Tri-Continental When Will The Winter Come to An End?: The Fourth Newsletter (2020) Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 17 January, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led the Friday prayers for the first time in eight years. He mocked the ‘American clowns’ who… Continue reading