Editor's Choice

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has recently said that “anti-Zionism” is the new antisemitism. “In the 19th and 20th centuries [Jews] were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, Israel”.

That is true, I think. But it needs explication if we are distinguish well between that anti- Zionism and reasonable criticism of Israel. And it’s been true for a very long time, for decades in fact. It is now the specifically “left” strand of antisemitism.

It is 90 years since the death of the Hungarian Communist Jenö Landler.

His is not a name that will evoke much response today. He did not leave a written legacy but he was one of those who work tirelessly behind the scenes and never occupy the spotlight. Without him and countless thousands of other unsung activists where would we be today? They too should be remembered and honoured along with the “big names”.

No Problem Here — Understanding Racism in Scotland challenges “the conventional ‘race-blind’ narratives that Scotland and its elites have crafted over many years,” according to which “Scotland does not have a serious racism problem.”

This “now powerful myth that there is ‘no problem here’” has put down even deeper roots in recent years as a result of “the new common sense of Scottish politics, the dominant story that has been forged by the SNP and others.”

Last week saw the fiftieth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “River of Blood” speech”.

The contents of the speech are well known, arguing that black and Asian people were an immutable and alien pollutant in Britain and that immigration should be stopped and reversed through repatriation.

According to a local human rights group, at least 34 unarmed demonstrators have been killed, and hundreds injured, as the Nicaraguan government has attacked protests against pension changes which will make workers pay more from their wages to get less in pensions.

The government has promised to consider changes, but only in discussion with Nicaragua’s bosses’ federation, its main social ally.

Yet this government is headed by Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinista Liberation Front, which first won power in Nicaragua in 1979 as an avowedly revolutionary socialist force.

Warsaw wrote two brilliant chapters in its history during the war, and also entered a dark blot on its pages.

The first was the uprising, against the Nazi occupation, of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, starting on 19 April 1943 and lasting about six weeks. This struggle of the Jews, and especially of the Jewish workers, against overwhelming odds is one of the most glorious episodes in the book of struggles of oppressed peoples and labour for freedom.

In the recent furore about antisemitism on the left triggered by the uncovering of Jeremy Corbyn’s 2012 defence of Kalen Ockerman’s mural Freedom for Humanity, much of the coverage found it unnecessary to explain the nature of the mural’s antisemitism.

In the early 20th Century, the socialist workers' movements of Europe and America were vast forces for human progress. Their battles for basic political freedoms, equality and the 8-hour day shook the world and inspire socialists to this day.

Part two of Jill Mountford’s series on the history of the struggle for women’s suffrage. Part one of this series was published in Solidarity 462. Part three of this article will look at the work of socialist feminists and working class women in the fight for Votes for Women.

The scandal surrounding how Facebook shared with a Cambridge psychologist, and his firm (Global Science Research) the personal information of 50 million users, without their explicit consent, has revealed a gruesome network of right-wing academic, political and business connections.