Category Archives: Vijay Prashad

The Thirteenth Newsletter of the Tricontinental (Venezuela)

MAY 25, 2018 | 

Dear Friends,

Last Sunday, the Venezuelan people went to vote. It was a vote of great contention. A majority of people voted for the incumbent president Nicolas Maduro. Half the population did not vote. Many had been motivated by a boycott campaign engineered by the political formations close to the oligarchy and egged on by the United States and Canada. There was – to be frank – external interference in the Venezuelan elections. Both the oligarchy and the North American powers have tried – unsuccessfully – to break the tide of the movement inaugurated by Hugo Chavez inside Venezuela and in Latin America. Venezuela has been under siege for almost the past decade, ever since the United States and the Honduran oligarchy successfully undertook a coup in Honduras in 2009. That coup signalled the return of the United States to an active policy of destabilisation of progressive forces in Latin America. Continue reading →

We Build Your Homes, But Have No Homes Ourselves: Diary of a South African Land Occupation.

Vijay Prashad, NewsClick

Talitha and Johanna work as maids. They earn R150 per day, which is the price of a gallon of milk, a pound of cheese, a loaf of bread and four oranges (1 Rand is about 5 Rupees). They could just about eat for a day, but that’s about it. They smile at me when I ask them how they manage to get by. Johanna says, ‘barely’.

They live in Good Hope Settlement, a congested piece of land in Germiston – just outside Johannesburg (South Africa). Their homes are temporary, called ‘shacks’ in this part of the world. These shelters abut each other. They have no protection from the rain and offer no privacy. The lack of sanitation facilities means that sewage runs through their narrow lanes. It also means that illness is a constant worry.  Continue reading →

In the Ruins of the Present

by Vijay Prashad, The Tricontinental

Experiences of South Africa’s Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM or the Shack Dwellers) and Brazil’s Movement dos Trabalhadores See Terra (MST or the Landless Workers Movement) as well as that of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) as well as the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) – both mass organisations of the Indian communist movement – show the efficacy of building worker and peasant power in the areas where workers and peasants live.

Experiences from across the Global South show us that the Left will have to prove by its work in the arena of social reproduction that it is indeed a better alternative to religious and charitable organisations as well as the mafia. Left organisations are already working to create platforms to assist the working-class in its fights for water and electricity, housing and street services, schools and healthcare – but at the same time working alongside the working class as it begins to deliver these services in a relatively autonomous fashion. This is dangerous activity. It means undermining the gangs, the religious groups and the NGOs – all of whom have great stakes in this kind of work.

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In the Ruins of the Present