A step in the right direction

The new Burnham government has moved against Israel banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and imposing sanctions on individuals and firms providing services to the Zionist settlers. Foreign Minister Ed Miliband said this marked a “new approach” to relations with Israel telling Parliament that the occupation of the West Bank as a whole was unlawful – going beyond the previous position that only described the settlements themselves as illegal.
For some Palestinians this was welcome news. For others it was simply too little, too late. For those who run the autonomous Palestinian authority in the West Bank the Burnham move was a turning point in UK-Palestine relations. For others it was just a sop to appease pro-Palestinian sentiment on the street and win back the support of the Muslim community in Britain.
Maybe yes, maybe no. In the United States Bloomberg news reports that British diplomats are privately telling the Trump team that the measures are “largely symbolic” and would have no material impact on Britain’s wider trade or security relationship with Israel. But the Burnham move has provoked a fit of rage in the Zionist camp. The Netanyahu government accused  the“morally distorted”  Miliband of “outrageous lies” and responded with a range of retaliatory measures, including the closure of the British consulate in occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the expulsion of British officials from a Gaza coordination centre. Leaders of Arab-hating Zionist settlers are calling for support for Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands while the UK’s chief rabbi warns that Labour’s sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank will put British Jews in danger.
The Israelis think they can do what they like as long as they have Western support. But the tide is turning even in the imperialist heartlands. France, the United Kingdom and Canada are among the 12 Western bloc countries that have backed restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli ⁠settlements in the occupied West Bank. And even in the United States opinion is changing with more and politicians – mainly in the Democrat camp – coming out in support of the Palestinians.
Month after month hundreds of thousands have marched through the streets of London demanding justice for the Palestinian Arabs. The Labour government has, at long last, taken heed of them and taken the first step in redressing the balance. It would never have happened under Starmer, let alone Tony Blair – the former Labour premier who sees no shame in acting as Trump’s gofer in the Middle East.
The genocidal war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip must end. Israel must be forced out of the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs restored including the right of return for all the refugees and the right to self-determination and an independent Palestinian state as envisaged by the United Nations back in the 1940s.
While not totally cosmetic the Burnham sanctions are, in fact, only a very modest step against Israeli interests. Nevertheless they are the thin end of the wedge and this is why the Zionists – and their masters in Washington – are outraged. This was the first step. Much more needs to be done.  

Iran and the Revolution

 by Ben Soton

Iran and The Revolution by Homa Katouzian ; Yale University Press New Haven and London 2026, 352 pp, illus; rrp:£20.
 
Homa Katouzian, an Iranian-born academic who lives in Britain, has written extensively on Iranian history. His latest book covers the Anglo-Soviet occupation during the Second World War, the short-lived Mossadegh government of 1953; the Shah’s ‘White Revolution’ of the 1960s and the 1979 revolution which led to the establishment of today’s Islamic Republic.        
It starts in August 1941 with  ‘Operation Countenance’ and the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.  Its objective was to depose the pro-German Reza Shah and prevent the Axis powers from gaining a foothold in a highly strategic area between British-dominated Iraq and the Soviet Union.  
It then moves on to 1953 and the progressive Mossadegh government’s nationalisation of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.  Katouzian claims that the  communist Tudeh Party opposed Mossadegh; which is not strictly true. Tudeh  gave Mossadegh’s National Front government critical backing and supported the nationalisation of Anglo-Iranian.  But he opposed Mossadegh’s bond scheme set up to counter the imperialism blockade that followed. What is staggering about the book is its failure to mention Operation Ajax. Operation Ajax was planned by Kermit Roosevelt the CIA agent who, with the help of MI6, organised gangs of armed thugs to bring down Mossadegh and replace him with the Reza Shah’s son, a willing tool of imperialism.  No study of the period is complete without mention of this imperialist plot.
The new Shah considered himself an enlightened despot. And in 1963 he embarked on the ‘White Revolution’ –  a modernisation programme that included limited land reform and improvements to the position of women. But being an enlightened despot is a contradiction in terms.The White Revolution raised people’s expectations without meeting them and was opposed by both the conservative clergy and the left.           
Revolutions are not one-day events; they begin with the overthrow of the old regime and end with the consolidation of the new.  The Russian Revolution began in 1917 and came to an end in the 1920s with the Soviet victory in the civil war.  In the case of this study the Iranian Revolution started in January 1979 when the Shah fled and ended in the early 1980s by which time the Islamic Republic had eradicated internal opposition.   
After a revolution there is a period of political horse-trading with different groups vying for power.  After the Shah fled the country in January 1979 Iran saw the rise of radical Islamist, and leftist movements. while moderates such as Bazargan and Banisadr (respectively Iran’s new president and prime-minister) vied for high position. The occupation of the US Embassy by Islamic students was an attempt by Islamists to upstage the left, presenting themselves as better anti-imperialists. By 1982 the the Islamists, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, were firmly in control. Most of the left, including Tudeh, supported the Islamists until they were supressed.  The only exceptions were the Peoples’ Fedayeen, an armed resistance group with links to the anti-revisionist left – and the People’s Mujahidin which eventually turned to the Americans for support.
The author covers the period since the revolution in some detail; however this should arguably be the subject of another book. Katouzian views Iranian society in terms of state vs society conflict with little reference to class. This puts him at odds with Marxists who would see the Shah as a tool of the pro-imperialist, comprador Iranian elite with the Islamists acting on behalf of the national bourgeoisie, the wealthy ‘bazari’ traders.  Although containing some useful information the book is most noted for what it leaves out.

 

Goodbye and good riddance

If Starmer had hoped to upstage Andy Burnham by resigning on the day Parliament re-opened he was clearly disappointed by the indifference on the street to his long-overdue departure from the political arena. No-one will miss him least of all the media gurus whose only focus was to fire speculation on who will take his seat at the by-election to choose his successor in the London Holborn & St Pancras constituency. 
In years gone by retiring prime ministers could look forward to becoming an elder statesman on the Commons back-benches or the House of Lords ready to give advice to the government of the day as and when needed. A house in town and a place in the country, a few servants (usually referred to as “staff” these days), a social life that revolved around chosen clubs and charities  and time to write those unread memoirs that stack the biography shelves of our major libraries –that was their reward for a life-time of service to the ruling class in those days.
Some, like Theresa May and David Cameron, will still settle for a peerage and the trimmings that go with it. But nowadays a second life in the House of Lords is not anywhere near enough for dumped politicians who lust after the vulgar and ostentatious life of the billionaires and oligarchs they once served. People like Tony Blair – the former premier who sees no shame in acting as a well-paid run-around for Trump and Netanyahu. Others, who are not so lucky, have to get by on what they can make on the American speaking-tour circuit while the likes of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss keep up appearances by filling the columns of the mainstream papers of the English-speaking world with their vacuous thoughts on the issues of the  day.
Sir Keir Starmer is more ambitious, He says he wants  to focus on new work on “international affairs”. Some say he thinks he’s in the running to be the new secretary-general of NATO – a post that is traditionally held by a European politician. Well we’ll see what happens. 
In the meantime the battle to take his seat in the House of Commons has begun. Zack Polanski has already thrown his hat into the ring. The Green leader, one of the three members of his bloc on the Greater London Assembly, has long wanted a parliamentary seat in the capital. He’s got the backing of Andrew Feinstein, the independent Corbynista who came a distant second to Labour in the constituency at the last general election. The Greens came third but Starmer held the seat with a comfortable majority at the 2024 poll. Whether Polanski can overturn Labour’s majority this time round remains to be seen. A lot depends on who Labour chooses to defend it. 

 

To be or not...

Labour’s continued lead in the opinion polls has fired new talk of a snap election next year to give Andy Burnham a proper mandate to carry out his “Manchesterism” agenda. Labour are now four points ahead of the Faragists that only a few months ago were being tipped as the likely winner of the next general election. But while the “Burnham bounce” has revived Labour’s fortunes in England – at least for the time being – it has done little to boost the party’s standing north of the border. The nationalist constituency remains supreme despite all the scandals that have rocked the SNP in recent times. So it’s not surprising to hear words of caution from the Labour ranks.

Scottish Labour leadership front-runner Michael Marra openly argues against an early poll. He told the Daily Record  that “I think we’ve got a very significant mandate to make the kind of change that the country needs”. Burnham had made a “brilliant” start, in contrast to Starmer whose relationship with the country had “broken down”. And  “there’s lots more to do and I think that we should be taking the time to do it”.
However most suspect that Marra’s caution is based on a realistic assessment of Labour’s chances of winning any Scottish election in the near future. Scottish Labour came fourth in two recent by-elections for the Westminster parliament and many fear an early election would see them reduced to fewer than 10 MPs in the House of Commons.
There’s no constitutional need for Burnham to seek a new mandate. He’s perfectly entitled to carry on until Labour’s term of office – won at the 2024 general election – expires in 2029.
The toppling of prime ministers by their own ranks has become an increasingly familiar feature of British bourgeois politics these days. Back-stabbing is more or less written into the unwritten code of conduct of both the Conservative & Unionist Party and Labour alike. The names of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sir Keir Starmer immediately spring to mind. Those on the losing side always whine. No one cares... 

Talking about mandates…

...none of the political pundits who are now bleating on about Burnham ever seem to question the arbitrary decisions of past governments on the economy let alone war and peace.
The austerity regime we’ve put up with for nearly 20 years was never part of the manifesto of the Tory government that set it up. And needless to say neither they nor the Labour Party have ever sought public endorsement before spending untold billions on nukes and conventional weapon systems or taking military action – usually at the behest of their masters in Washington – in defence of imperialism.
The mainstream gurus who work night and day to confine political discussion to immigration, taxation and the European Union never talk about the ruling class whose real debate is held behind closed doors and whose decisions are carried out by self-serving politicians on both sides of the parliamentary divide in the Westminster parliament. This is what we’re up against. This is why communists must close ranks with the rest of the anti-war movement to stop the drive to war in Ukraine, Iran and the rest of the Global South threatened by imperialism. 

The Burston School strike

Burston strike school -- now a museum

by Robin McGregor

 Sunday sees the sleepy commuter village of Burston in Norfolk come to life for the annual celebrations of the Burston Strike School which ran between 1914 and 1939.
 In 1914 two popular school-teachers, the husband-and-wife team of Tom and Kitty Higdon, both members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) were dismissed from their posts at Burston. They had arrived at the parish school three years earlier, having previously had trouble with Norfolk County Council for the same offence of supporting the farm labourers’ unions in a different school. 
 They continued with this work at Burston which resulting in false allegations of assault against pupils being made against them. This time the gentry and clergy who controlled the county ensured there would be no second chance.  
 On the day of their departure, 1st April the vast majority of their pupils (66 out of 72) refused to attend school in protest and held a lively procession around the village lanes. What the local Rector airily dismissed as an “April Fool’s day joke” was no flash in the pan.  
 Instead it led to most of the pupils leaving the County Council run school permanently and the establishment of the Burston Strike School which was to endure for the next quarter of a century. At first the two teachers taught their pupils on the village green, moving to a disused carpenter’s shop as winter approached. Repeated fines for non-attendance were levied on the parents, who were mostly farm workers. Attempts by farmers to sack and evict their rebellious workers were halted by war-time labour shortages. 
Press publicity brought nation-wide support from trade unionists, first to pay the fines for non-attendance and later to build a new school on the village green opened in May 1917 by Violet Potter, the leader of the children three years earlier. George Lansbury, chairman of the national appeal for the school and future Labour Party leader unveiled the foundation stone. Contributions came from many branches of the ILP, the National Union of Railwaymen and in particular the coal miners’ unions who contributed a quarter of the cost. 
The school continued throughout the twenties and thirties. In 1920 the Rector who had been the main opponents of the Higdons left and was replaced by a more agreeable clergyman and relations between the Strike School and the county school improved to the extent that both schools had equal numbers and had friendly contests on sports days. In addition to local pupils members of the Soviet Trade Delegation in London sent their children to Burston. During the 1926 General Strike children of Nottinghamshire miners were educated and boarded free of charge. The school finally closed in 1939, when it had only eleven pupils, after the death of Tom Higdon. His widow, then aged seventy-five, was unable to continue. 

The Background

 This episode remains one of the highlights of the generally sad story of rural trade unionism in Britain. When the Higdons arrived at Burston Norfolk long been an almost exclusively agricultural county. The medieval woollen industry did not survive the industrial revolution. 
 The lack of alternative employment meant that agricultural wages in Norfolk were the lowest in England and Wales. In 1902 the average wage in the county was only fifteen shillings and three pence (76 pence or less than £77 today). The “Great Depression” of 1873-96 hit agriculture particularly hard, grain imports from across the Atlantic were especially damaging to an arable area such as Norfolk. 
 However, Norfolk was a comparative stronghold of agricultural trade unionism. Joseph Arch founded the Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers Union in March 1872, in May of that year a conference of this and other county unions formed the National Agricultural Labourers Union (NALU) with other local unions joining in the coming months. London trade unionists formed a committee to assist them. The next two years saw a great deal of conflict between farmers and their workers who were eventually defeated, setting back trade unionism in the fields for decades. At first the mere existence of unions persuaded some farmers to increase wages. Highly localised strikes, particularly at harvest time, brought wage increases while older forms of protest such as rick burning and letting sheep into the cornfields of stubborn farmers continued.
Farmers fought back. In addition to reducing ‘slack period’ wages after the harvest “trouble-makers” were sacked. Given that farm labourers lived in tied cottages, dismissal equalled homelessness and being forced to leave their village. The Master & Servant Act which made breaches of contract by employees a criminal offence, while breaches by the employer were merely a civil matter, was much employed. Repeal of this Act, was a major goal of NALU. In one well publicised case an old woman had her parish relief withdrawn for the crime of having a son in the union.
Meanwhile  farmers  formed Farmers Defence Associations binding members not to employ trade unionists or concede wage rises. By a combination of lock-outs, mechanisation, selective pay rises for non-unionists the farmers were able to claim victory in 1874.. Like many unions, the NALU supported emigration schemes assuming this would raise wages for the remaining workers. This benefitted workers who went to Canada or New Zealand but removing trade unionists did not help building class solidarity. Internal squabbles did not enhance the appeal of the union to the demoralised labourers. Although NALU did not finally give up the ghost until 1896 membership fell from 86,000 members in 1874 to 20,000 in 1880.  
One remaining stronghold was Norfolk. In 1885 Joseph Arch was elected as MP for the county’s North-West seat, the first agricultural worker to do so. Elected on the “Liberal and labouring class interest” he was defeated the next year by only twenty votes by the Tory son of a local landlord. He was returned at the 1892 election, retiring in 1900. In the 1900 ‘Khaki election’, which was won by the Tories, the six rural Norfolk seats returned five Radical MPs and only one Tory. 
Arch was not particularly radical. He opposed land nationalisation and was proud of being the MP of the Prince of Wales whose Sandringham estates were in his constituency. After the defeats of 1874 farm workers’ hopes focused on extending the franchise. Once the vote was won the rural working class vote had to be wooed. The Liberals had to come up with policies which appealed to both farmers and their employees. They found one in Joseph Chamberlain’s ‘Three Acres and a Cow” policy which would allow local authorities to purchase land to provide cheap allotments for farm labourers. This helped gain the 1885 Liberal victory at little cost: any allotments would be purchased from landowners. Keeping both employers and employed happy was a difficult balancing act for the Liberals.  
 Shortly after the 1906 Liberal landslide the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers’ & Small Holders Union was formed. While the founding meeting was attended by working men, a Liberal MP was elected Treasurer. It might seem odd for a bourgeois political party to actually support the formation of a  union, but they were anxious to avoid losing support to Labour which had gained 29 MPs. A long unsuccessful strike involving about 80 farm labourers ended when the Liberals wound up the strike on the grounds that strike funds were running low rather than broaden it as the Norwich branch of the ILP had demanded. Such a move would have alienated other Liberal voting and funding farmers. At the AGM after the strike the Liberal leadership was replaced by ILP supporters. This comparatively small dispute was one of many where workers became disillusioned by the Liberal Party. 

Afterwards

 Labour and agricultural trade unionism did not have an easy ride in the countryside after the First World War. Of the 203 rural Parliamentary Constituencies only 45 had a District Labour party in 1921. At a by-election in Shropshire local activists, against the wishes of Party HQ contested the election. In addition to losing their deposit canvassers were pelted with dung by farm workers who either had never heard of Labour or thought they would nationalise women. 
In Norfolk a NALU stalwart, George Edwards, was twice elected for Norfolk South (which included Burston) in 1920 and 1923, but his tenuous hold on the seat demonstrates how weak rural Labour was. In Norfolk North the Noel Buxton who was the Liberal MP from 1910 to 1918 regained it in 1922 in the Labour interest. “Remember the Ballot is Secret” was a necessary warning on Labour Party cards until the 1930s. Hiring halls, which were owned by farmers was out of the question. On election day polling stations were often decorated with the Union Jack, the same symbol used by the Tories. 
Eventually Labour made a breakthrough in the countryside. The 1945 landslide was the start. But cannot be said that agricultural trade unionism is in a good shape these days. The mechanisation of agriculture in the post-war era has greatly reduced the numbers working on the land and their independent unions are now merely sections of the giants that dominate the TUC today. 

We Shall Not Drop the Banner of Struggle!

 The RCWP, CPRF, and most of the parties of the former Soviet republics were unable to participate in person in the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Cuba for objective reasons. However, we greet all comrades in the struggle and express our position in the Appeal "We Shall Not Drop the Banner of Struggle!"

Appeal of the Communist and Workers' Parties on the Continuing the Struggle for Communism in the Year of Comrade Fidel's Centenary

Our predecessors and teachers walked their paths with dignity and bequeathed to us the great teachings of communism, as well as a wealth of experience in revolutionary struggle under the most diverse and difficult conditions. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, and other champions of the people's cause were not saints, but they were selflessly devoted to the idea of ​​liberating labor from the yoke of capital. Comrade Fidel, who passed away ten years ago and whose centenary we will celebrate on August 13th, asserted: "Life without ideas is worthless. There is no greater happiness than fighting for them." At the same time, our teachers treated Marxist teachings as a science, warning us against dogmatism, revisionism, and nationalism. They tested theory in practice and were not afraid to admit their mistakes. As a result of the mistakes made in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, socialism suffered a temporary defeat, but the idea of ​​communism lives on, and the science of communism is in no way outdated. Comrade Fidel emphasized that "It can be confidently stated that there is only one revolutionary science, and that revolutionary science is Marxism-Leninism."

Today, after the collapse of the USSR, the world is experiencing a period of advancing reaction. The forces of global imperialism, led by the United States and NATO, are stoking tensions in many regions of the world in their struggle for global hegemony, not hesitating to unleash bloody outbreaks of military conflict.

We all understand that it is impossible to understand the issues of today's global cataclysms without relying on the economic analysis methodology of Lenin's theory of imperialism. Vladimir Ilyich himself, in the preface to the post-revolutionary edition of his work, wrote: "I would like to hope that my brochure will help us understand the fundamental economic question, without studying which we cannot understand anything about the assessment of modern war and modern politics—namely, the question of the economic essence of imperialism."

A correct understanding of Lenin's theory of imperialism lies not only in the fact that the entire capitalist world is moving along the path of imperialism, in the sense that today, everywhere, in all countries, the free market has long ceased to exist, but monopolies rule. Another point is no less important—that of V.I. Lenin traced the uneven development of capitalism and pointed to the growing economic differentiation associated with the formation of monopolies, finance capital, and international capitalist alliances. The economic foundation of imperialism is being created, as V.I. Lenin wrote: "As demonstrated in this book, capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the world's population; at the most 'generous' and exaggerated estimate, less than one-fifth) of especially rich and powerful states, which are plundering—by simply 'clipping coupons'—the entire world."

It is precisely this position on the formation of a core of imperialism, a pack of the most powerful and developed predators, that provides an understanding of the essence of the ongoing processes and determines the true nature (according to Lenin) of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and other regions. These festering hotbeds and the potentially explosive situation around Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and elsewhere are all links in a single process carried out by imperialism, led by the United States and NATO. Some parties are making a grave mistake in viewing imperialism's aggressive policies as separate, regionally and nationally. The same group of imperialists is inciting Kyiv's punitive forces against Russia and encouraging Israeli Zionists to commit genocide against the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, some comrades' simultaneous assertions that the Palestinian resistance is justified, while Russia and the Donbass war against the Nazis is an unjustified invasion by similar imperialists, are extremely illogical and contradictory to dialectics.

It is patently absurd that, while speaking out against NATO's aggressive policies, some comrades overlook and deflect condemnation of NATO and the EU's aggression against Russia. They even claim that these are identical imperialist forces. This leads to other erroneous conclusions about the choice of allies and the impossibility of forming broad anti-fascist fronts.

Comrade Stalin, speaking at his last 19th Congress of the CPSU (1952), called on the world's communist parties: "The banner of bourgeois democratic freedoms has been thrown overboard. I think that you, representatives of the communist and democratic parties, will have to pick up this banner and carry it forward if you want to rally the majority of the people around you. There is no one else to pick it up."

Today, when tensions in the world are growing and the threat of a new world war with the use of nuclear weapons is becoming a reality, when elements of anti-communism and the fascistization of politics are increasingly evident in the EU and other capitalist countries, when NATO's aggression against Russia increasingly reveals hints of revanchism for the defeat of the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1945, the task of communists is to follow, in the words of Comrade Fidel, the revolutionary science that is Marxism-Leninism.

Our task is to unite all forces into a broad anti-fascist front, enlisting all possible allies to repel the main threat to peace – the fascist imperialism of the United States and NATO.

To this end, we urge you to utilize the resources of the SolidNet community, the work of the Anti-Fascist Forums, and the World Anti-Imperialist Platform.

We call on all people of good will to strengthen the united front of progressive, leftist, communist, patriotic, anti-colonialist, and anti-fascist forces. We must join forces in our just struggle. Acting as a united front, we must expose anti-communism, anti-Sovietism, and Russophobia, defend workers' rights, and fight for a just and secure world.

At the same time, communists must never lose sight of the perspective of the struggle—only a world of equal peoples, socialism as a system of social justice and workers' brotherhood, will protect humanity from fascism, terrorism, and war.

The courage and fortitude of Cuba, the legacy of our teachers and Comrade Fidel, inspire us to continue the fight.

Let us not drop the banner of the struggle for the workers' cause!

No to "DEMOCRATIC" NEO-FASCISM, anti-communism, and terrorism!

We won't let them blow up the world! No pasarán! They won't pass!

Long live international workers' solidarity!

Solidnet parties

CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation)

RCWP (Russian Communist Workers Party)
CP of Azerbaijan (Nurullaev)
CP of Azerbaijan
CP of Armenia
CP of Belarus
CP of Ukraine
CP of Georgia
CP of Moldova
CP of Kazakhstan
CP of Tajikistan
CP of Kyrgyzstan
CPSU
SKP-CPSU
Workers' Party of Hungary

Other parties:

SKU (in Ukraine)
Socialists of Latvia
Socialists of Lithuania
CP of South Ossetia
BRO CPSU
CP of Abkhazia

Nasser – his legacy lives on

by Mustafa Fetouri

Nasser defied Britain, France and Israel – and his legacy still animates Africa. When Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Free Officers Movement to power in 1952, Africa’s political landscape was mostly vacant – with independent nations limited to Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, Libya and apartheid-ruled South Africa. Yet, by his death in September 1970, more than 40 African countries had achieved sovereignty. This monumental shift was no coincidence.
Under Nasser, Cairo transformed into the hub of global anti-colonialism – a diplomatic base and logistics centre for liberation struggles from Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN) to movements in the Congo, Angola and Southern Africa. By exporting the ideals of the 23rd July Revolution, Egypt helped engineer Africa’s decolonisation wave, anchoring a Pan-African momentum that forged the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and championed a multipolar world order through the Non-Aligned Movement.
The legacy of the 23rd July Revolution underscores Nasser’s early recognition that the survival of Egypt’s domestic development programmes and regional initiatives required strategic depth. Mapping out Egypt’s geopolitical destiny in his 1954 manifesto, The Philosophy of the Revolution, Nasser conceptualised Cairo’s foreign policy within three interconnected spheres: the Arab world, the African continent and the Islamic sphere.
While the Arab world was bound by a shared language and history, the African sphere offered the most fertile ground for a systemic challenge to European empires. Nasser argued that a colonised Africa left Egypt’s southern flank dangerously vulnerable. Conversely, a liberated continent would secure Cairo’s vital interests – including the crucial waters of the Nile – and solidify Egypt’s role as the vanguard of the developing world. Meanwhile, the Islamic sphere provided the cultural and civilisational network necessary to mobilise transcontinental solidarity against foreign hegemony, ensuring that Egypt never stood isolated against imperialist powers.
To turn this geopolitical vision into reality, Nasser transformed Cairo into the operational centre of African decolonisation. Crucially, arts and literature flourished alongside these movements. The city evolved into a dual Pan-Arab and Pan-African sanctuary for liberation fronts that the European empires were actively trying to crush.
From Nelson Mandela seeking military backing for the African National Congress (ANC), to Jomo Kenyatta’s representatives from Kenya and Amilcar Cabral’s PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) vanguard, the architects of African revolution found resources and safety in Egypt’s capital. However, subverting entrenched empires also required the imperialist monopoly on information to be broken. Cairo utilised its reputation as the “Arab Hollywood”, leveraging the continent’s latest pop music and poetry to draw millions of listeners to the Voice of the Arabs and Radio Cairo. Broadcasting across the continent in dozens of indigenous languages (including Swahili, Hausa, Amharic and Somali), Egypt bypassed colonial censors to deliver a message of self-determination directly to the African masses.
Cairo under Nasser utilised its diplomatic infrastructure as an instrument of liberation, most notably through its backing of Algeria’s FLN. Central to this strategy was the African Association, established in 1955 in Cairo’s Zamalek district under Nasser’s close advisor, Mohamed Fayek. The Association functioned as a diplomatic centre for exiled vanguards. When European imperialist rulers legally erased freedom fighters by revoking their citizenship, the Nasser government stepped in to issue official Egyptian travel documents and stipends.
This infuriated the colonial powers, culminating in October 1956 when French intelligence intercepted and hijacked a civilian plane carrying the top FLN leadership, including Ahmed Ben Bella, from Morocco to Tunis. This act of French piracy saw Cairo double down: Nasser escalated military shipments, financial aid and gave the FLN a state-backed diplomatic and media platform in Cairo to rally the world. Combined with similar passport, logistical and broadcast lifelines to those extended to South Africa’s ANC, Mozambique’s FRELIMO, and Zimbabwe’s ZAPU, this mobilisation proved that true sovereignty demanded the defence of a globally connected political elite long before the formal lowering of a colonial flag.
The escalation did not go unanswered by the colonial powers as they witnessed their influence quickly waning. France, the UK and Israel were determined to crush Nasser once and for all. Their opportunity came when he announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. The tripartite alliance launched a full-scale military invasion of Egypt in late 1956. However, their aggression backfired. By holding the line militarily and leveraging diplomatic pressure through the UN with back-channel support from both Washington and Moscow, Nasser transformed a crisis into a political triumph for the Global South, when the invading forces had to withdraw.
The humiliation of London and Paris signalled the collapse of traditional European imperial power, proving to liberation movements that the Western empires were no longer invincible.
This solidarity culminated in a structural overhaul of the global architecture, with Nasser cementing his legacy as a co-founder of continental unity. Egypt was a primary driver behind the historic May 1963 OAU Addis Ababa summit. As the leading voice of the Casablanca Group, Nasser placed his signature on the founding charter of the OAU alongside fellow continental leaders like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, and Guinea’s Sekou Toure. They did so out of a shared conviction that isolated independent states would remain vulnerable unless they came together, particularly at a time when the African continent was facing new challenges, including wars.
This institutional anchoring of Pan-Africanism was mirrored globally as Egypt’s revolutionary path converged with other titans of the Global South – such as India’s Nehru and Yugoslavia’s Tito – to establish the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. By refusing to become vassals of either Cold War bloc, Nasser and his contemporaries forged a distinct third way.
Today, as debates intensify around African autonomy and resistance to neo-colonial pressures, the legacy of the July 23 Revolution remains a foundational blueprint for Global South sovereignty. Seven decades later, the structural shifts engineered in Nasser’s Cairo continue to reverberate across the African geopolitical landscape, in which African states have not only replaced the OAU with the more unifying African Union but made it a trusted vehicle for collective will.
And the struggle is not over yet, as seen today in the Sahel countries which, decades after formal independence, have managed to kick out the remnants of French colonialism. As the modern international order fractures, today’s African leaders echo the exact vocabulary forged during the anti-colonial wave, asserting independent policies in a multipolar world. Whether navigating new financial frameworks, resisting external security dictates, or demanding structural reforms at the UN, the continent’s push for absolute sovereignty stems directly from the precedents set when Cairo broke the imperial monopoly on power.
rt.com 

Odysseus – a tale of love and glory

A Review by Ben Soton

The Odyssey, probably one of the world’s oldest stories, describes the exploits of Odysseus, King of Ithaca as he returns from the Trojan War. Directed by Christopher Nolan, this Hollywood blockbuster is based on the work of the ancient Greek poet Homer, the first to record the oral tales of the legendary conflict that rocked the Aegean some three thousand years ago. 
In the film Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, tells the story from the fall of Troy.  He describes the story of the Trojan Horse, a ruse devised by Odysseus himself, from the perspective of those inside it.  How they are cooped up in a wooden horse with no food or water for days and are thrown around on top of each other.     
 He describes the relationships between himself and the other two kings involved in the war against Troy; Agamemnon of Mycenae (played by Benny Safdie) and Menelaus of Sparta (played by Jon Berthal). Odysseus is the junior partner in this alliance, with less reason to be involved in the conflict. Menelaus wants his wife, Helen, back whilst Agamemnon views Troy as a trading rival.      
Everyone knows the story – a Greek tragedy of epic proportions. It’s the age-old warning to be aware of the wrath of the gods – or in this film “Zeus’ law”. Of the three kings in the story, only Menelaus has an easy time; he returns to Sparta with his marriage more or less intact.  Agamemnon is killed by his wife Clytemnestra and replaced by her lover Aegisthus.  Although Odysseus does eventually return to Ithaca and is reunited with his wife Penelope (played by Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (played by Tom Holland); the war has ultimately cost him his kingdom. His Royal Court has been taken over by greedy suitors led by Antinous (played by Robert Pattinson).  He has to fight to reclaim his realm.  
The film largely follows Homer. There’s the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis; Cyclops the one-eyed giant, Circe the sorceress and the sea-nymph Calypso (played by Charlize Theron).  The special effects bring the story to life along with the dramatic use of sound. Nolan is able to balance the use of modern cinematic effects without distracting from what is still a multifaceted human story.       
The film takes liberties with the sets and costumes  but it does attempt to give The Odyssey some historical context. The world it describes is not the classical Greece of Athens and Sparta – the era of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and the Persian Wars of the Age of Iron.  It is based on the earlier Bronze Age Greece of Mycenae; which pre-dates Classical Greece by several hundred years – the world we see depicted on  the walls of Knossoss and ancient pottery going back three thousand years. But, of course, this wasn’t Homer’s world either and his audience like most of today’s is not bothered about the length of the swords or whether the helmets were bronze or leather.  
Some critics may say that the film deviates from the original poem. However the original poem, is not history. Homer’s poem records a legend that was handed down over several generations and subsequently became distorted over time. The Persians said the war was simply over trade – as no-one goes to war over a woman while some Romans believed that that the Trojan Horse was some kind of siege engine. But at the end of the day it’s an adventure – a moral tale that reflects the philosophy and beliefs of the time. Although a long film, perhaps essential to give the story justice, it is well worth seeing if you are interested in the Classical World or simply like epic movies.