When Dante Alighieri and his guide reach the fifth circle of hell in Inferno’s Canto VII, they come across the River Styx, where people who could not contain their anger in life now wallow and fight each other on the surface of the turbulent, muddy water, and below them lie those who had been sullen… Continue reading

For the past few weeks I have been on the road in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at the invitation of groups such as Te Kuaka, Red Ant, and the Communist Party of Australia. Both countries were shaped by British colonialism, marked by the violent displacement of native communities and theft of their lands. Today,… Continue reading

In 1919, Winston Churchill wrote, ‘I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes’. Churchill, grappling at the time with the Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq as Britain’s secretary of state for war and air, argued that such use of gas ‘would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious… Continue reading

Next year is the seventieth anniversary of the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 and attended by heads of government and state from twenty-nine African and Asian countries. Indonesia’s President Sukarno (1901–1970), who had led the freedom movement in Indonesia against Dutch colonialism, opened the conference with a speech entitled ‘Let a New… Continue reading

Reading legacy Western media – which dominates the world information order – is painful. During the genocidal war against Palestinians, for instance, these media outlets (such as CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, and Bild) have been unable to bring themselves to describe the Israeli military’s attacks on Palestinians. At most, and… Continue reading

On 1 October, US Representative Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a statement urging US President Joe Biden to ‘place maximum pressure on Iran and its proxies, rather than pressure Israel for a ceasefire. We need to expedite arms transfers to Israel that this administration has delayed for months, including… Continue reading

Thursday,  19 September 2024 — The Tricontinental Niniko Morbedadze (Georgia), The Orange Clouds on the Boundary, 2018. Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 13 September, at a conclave in Washington, DC, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer indicated that it would be acceptable for… Continue reading

There has been widespread consternation about how to understand Donald Trump’s emergence as a serious candidate for US president since 2016. Far from an isolated phenomenon, Trump rose to power alongside other strongmen such as Viktor Orbán (prime minister of Hungary since 2010), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (president of Turkey since 2014), and Narendra Modi (prime… Continue reading

It was inevitable that the Global North governments’ full-throated support for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians would result in furious retribution from their citizenry. That this retribution began in the United States is also not a surprise, given the ongoing cycle of protests that, since October 2023, have contested the US government’s blank cheque to the… Continue reading

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Fifty years ago, on 25 April 1974, the people of Portugal took to the streets of their cities and towns in enormous numbers to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of the Estado Novo (‘New State’), formally established in 1926. Fascist Portugal – led first by António… Continue reading

We live in dishonest times, where certainties have crumbled, and malevolence stalks the landscape. There is Gaza, of course. Gaza above all else is on our minds. Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since 7 October, with more than 7,000 people missing (5,000 of them children). The Israeli government has brutally disregarded the… Continue reading

By November 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water. ‘Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related… Continue reading

On 15 February 2024, Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor during his presidency) sat down for a long conversation with Professor Tarek Masoud at Harvard University. During this discussion, Kushner talked about ‘Gaza’s waterfront property’, which, he said, could be ‘very valuable’. ‘If I was Israel’, he continued, ‘I would just bulldoze… Continue reading

On 4 March, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini presented his startling report on the situation in Gaza (Palestine) to the UN General Assembly. In just 150 days, Lazzarini said, Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them children. Those who survive continue… Continue reading

It is nearly impossible to think of joy while Israel continues its genocidal violence against Palestinians and while the terrible war escalates in the eastern flank of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured and millions displaced in Gaza and near Goma (DRC). In both… Continue reading

On 20 February, United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Linda Thomas-Greenfield had the terrible job of vetoing Algeria’s resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. Amar Bendjama, the Algerian Ambassador to the UN, said that the resolution he tabled had been shaped by conversations amongst the 15 members of the UN Security Council. He… Continue reading

Thursday, 22 February 2024 — The Tricontinental Students display a butterfly they made at the Madu Adu (science, or ‘let’s do it’) corner. Credit: Photographs and collages by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In 1945, the newly formed United Nations held a conference to found… Continue reading