A writer talks about the joys of reading the printed word and having to give up his library.
Old books (Photo by Vasily Ledovsky via Unsplash)
Over the years, as a reader and lover of books, as an academic, as a political activist, and later as a writer of books myself, I have collected thousands of volumes. I acquired many of these books in second-hand stores or on remainder tables. Others came to me as publishers' review copies or sometimes as desk copies for classes I was teaching. (…)

The First International Antifascist Conference, held in Porto Alegre in late March 2026, drew delegations from over forty countries in what was, by any measure, a significant act of left internationalist assembly. Italian trade union and political activist Sergio Bellavita attended and offers an assessment that is candid about both the conference's achievement and its failure. The gathering, he argues, succeeded in mobilising — but failed in analysis, substituting rhetoric for critical (…)

This year, 2026, marks the 20^th anniversary of the occupation of Aracruz Celulose by women from the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), Via Campesina and the World March of Women – a milestone in the radicalisation of women's struggles in our country and across Latin America.
The women destroyed Aracruz Celulose's eucalyptus saplings under the slogan “No to the Green Desert”, in protest against the vast monoculture plantations of eucalyptus. This multinational corporation has impacted (…)

A REVOLUTIONARY FEMINIST position on Iran must refuse the false and damaging binary that demands choosing between defending the Islamic Republic and endorsing US-imperialist and Zionist intervention. This is a constructed choice designed to collapse political judgment into campism. It converts solidarity into a competition of moral allegiances and leaves ordinary people, workers, women, youth, and minorities to a reality shaped simultaneously by internal repression as well as external (…)

Pronatalism—the ideology that birth rates are too low and must be raised by implementing policies that get people to have children—has been having a cultural moment in the United States.
After decades of a US total fertility rate that was anomalously high compared to peer countries in Europe and East Asia, it finally began to fall in earnest in 2008 and has continued to do so year on year ever since (with the exception of a small rebound after the initial stages of the Covid pandemic). (…)

Joseph Daher analyse la nouvelle guerre d'agression coloniale israélienne contre le Liban en l'inscrivant dans le contexte post-7 octobre 2023, marquée par la guerre génocidaire menée par l'État colonial d'Israël et les ambitions impérialistes de Washington. Avec son allié israélien, ces deux puissances cherchent à imposer leurs dominations hégémoniques sur la région. En même temps, l'auteur examine les dynamiques et contraintes au sein du Hezbollah dans cette guerre, ainsi que les (…)

La Conférence internationale antifasciste vient de se tenir à Porto Alegre. A cette occasion, nous publions ci-dessous l'adresse que nous avons envoyée au comité organisateur de l'évènement afin de leur faire part de nos réserves quant au silence sur le régime de Poutine dans le fascisme contemporain, ainsi qu'à la trop faible considération pour les régimes autoritaires non directement « fascistes » que le néolibéralisme déclinant impose (par exemple la Chine). Nous joignons à cette adresse (…)

Joseph Daher analyzes the expansion of the U.S.-Israel war into Lebanon, its impact on that country and on Iran's ally Hezbollah.
The US-Israel war on Iran has already destabilized the wider region. The impacts are being strongly felt in Lebanon, now being subject to a new offensive by Israel. Neither in Iran nor in Lebanon, nor anywhere else, are the United States and its Israeli ally seeking democracy or the well-being of local populations. Rather, they seek to impose, through barbaric (…)

La résistance à la politique nationale et internationale de Donald Trump continue de s'organiser. Nous étions dans le sud de Boston, ce samedi, pour voir et comprendre ce mouvement d'ampleur.
L'Iran, la Palestine, Cuba, le Mexique, les politiques migratoires de l'ICE, la désinformation, le démantèlement des politiques de diversité : c'est dans cette saturation médiatique et politique qu'a eu lieu, samedi 28 mars, la troisième grande mobilisation nationale « No Kings » contre la politique (…)

After the Green Party Spring Conference, Rob Marsden argues that now is the time to adopt a delegate model to better empower members.
Anyone who attended the Green Party Spring Conference online, intending to help clarify and amend policy, would have come away deeply disappointed. Especially those committed comrades who tried to engage whilst simultaneously attending the Together demonstration.
The key takeaways for us are that an online conference open to one thousand self-selecting (…)

In the official calendar of the Islamic Republic, April 1 marks the day the “system” was consolidated. But in Iran's critical memory, this date is not simply the anniversary of a referendum. It is the anniversary of the moment when a mass, diverse, anti-despotic revolution was compressed into a single, pre-directed answer: “Islamic Republic, yes or no?” This referendum was held over two days, and its result was announced very quickly, one day later, on April 1, 1979, as the formal (…)

La mobilisation anti-genre est devenue une caractéristique essentielle des mouvements d'extrême droite depuis environ 2015 ; elle fait désormais partie des tactiques couramment utilisées par les gouvernements autoritaires de tous bords politiques. De l'abrogation du droit à l'avortement aux États-Unis (US) à la suppression des mesures de protection contre la violence domestique en Turquie, les institutions qui défendent les droits des femmes sont systématiquement démantelées. Ces tendances (…)

C'est par une longue étreinte collective sur la scène de l'amphithéâtre Atos de l'université de Porto Alegre que s'achève la première conférence internationale antifasciste. Un pari gagné en termes de participation à ces quatre jours de débats : des délégations venues de plus de 40 pays et une forte présence de jeunes de la gauche brésilienne et argentine, de collectifs, de syndicalistes et d'organisations politiques et militantes, sans oublier la présence historique de camarades qui ont (…)

« Entre le fort et le faible, entre le riche et le pauvre, entre le maître et le serviteur, c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui affranchit. » A quelle justice faire confiance et comment ?
« Entre le fort et le faible, entre le riche et le pauvre, entre le maître et le serviteur, c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui affranchit. » Henri LACORDAIRE
La pratique libérale et autoritaire de l'État qui s'est développée ces trente dernières années a tellement vidé celui-ci de son (…)

The results of the local elections reflect a confusing picture of the political landscape. On Sunday evening, on the television programmes, everyone from the RN to LFI claimed to have emerged as the winner from this round of elections.
The RN, had set itself the goal of establishing a stronger local foothold than it had previously. It doubled the number of its lists compared to 2020 and managed to make gains in a large number of towns. It won in 70 towns, 29 of which were secured in the (…)

Eight million people in the United States participated in 3,300 No Kings protests against President Donald Trump and his policies, marching in all 50 states on Saturday, 28 March . I marched with my family in Brooklyn, New York.
This was the third such protest, each one larger than the last, demonstrating the enormous popular rejection of Trump's presidency. St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota and the twin city of Minneapolis, was the featured location of the latest national protest, (…)

Face aux flots ininterrompus de propos racistes ciblant Bally Bagayoko sur la chaîne de Bolloré, le président de SOS Racisme et un collectif de militants et de spécialistes interpellent l'Arcom, les responsables politiques qui relaient les thèses de l'extrême droite et les médias qui invisibilisent la parole antiraciste.
Les attaques contre le maire de Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, sont destructrices du lien social et attentatoires à la dignité, dénonce Dominique Sopo. (Stéphane (…)

Fred Leplat gives an update on the situation in Ukraine and explains what sort of solidarity we need.
A war is raging in the Middle East, with Israel continuing its genocide in Gaza and destroying Lebanon. Together with the US they are reducing Iran to rubble. Yet there is another ongoing war closer to London. Just 1500 miles away lies Kyiv, which like other cities in Ukraine, is living under the equivalent of the London blitz of WW2. But it is not US imperialism that is pounding (…)

The arson attack on four ambulances in a North London synagogue car park was an antisemitic hate crime. ACR condemns this unequivocally. We call on others to do the same, regardless of the claimed motives of the attackers or the alleged views of some synagogue members. Israel's genocidal war crimes in Palestine and across the Middle East offer no justification for an attack on a public service provided by the Jewish community in Britain.
At a time when racist attacks on all minority (…)

Par 62 députés contre 48 et malgré les vives indignations que suscite le texte, la Knesset a voté lundi 30 mars une loi qui instaure la peine de mort pour les coupables – uniquement palestiniens – de meurtre « terroriste ».
L'extrême droite israélienne peut jubiler. Elle a obtenu gain de cause. La Knesset, le Parlement israélien, a voté lundi 30 mars, dans la soirée, une loi qui instaure la peine de mort pour les Palestinien·nes reconnu·es coupables d'avoir tué des Israélien·nes dans le (…)