World Refugee Day 2026 . “Until Everyone Is Safe”

Credit ;Deveron Projects , Illustrated  by Jacques Coetzer

World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20 to raise awareness about the plight of refugees around the world. It is held to show solidarity with those who have been displaced and to honor their resilience and determination to keep their families safe. 

The day is also marked to draw the public’s attention to the millions of refugees and Internally displaced persons worldwide who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, climate disaster, political instability conflict and persecution.

Only to become trapped in rigid systems that make the possibility of starting a new life a distant dream, systems that seek to strip people of their humanity and reduce people to numbers. Also to remember that throughout history and across the world, life can change in an instant.  

75 years ago, after the devastation of the Second World War, the world came together and made a promise. People forced to flee war and persecution would not be left without protection.  

That promise became the 1951 Refugee Convention. And it was made for all of us. 

World Refugee Day came into being in 2000 when the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 55/76 decided on December 4, 2000 that June 20 would be marked as World Refugee Day. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol help protect them.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2025 – roughly one in every seventy people on the planet.  

This year’s UN theme, “Until Everyone Is Safe”, is rooted in the 1951 Refugee Convention and reminds us that protection is essential. Refugees, especially children and young people, continue to face disrupted learning, reduced access to essential services and increasing protection risks as support systems come under strain. Displacement often means losing a home, school, income, safety and support systems all at once.

The theme  is a reminder that safety is not a privilege reserved for the few but a fundamental right – the right to life and to a life lived in dignity. For as long as people are forced to flee conflict, climate change or persecution, our shared responsibility endures.  

The 1951 Convention carries a universal message: a person forced to seek refuge beyond their borders does not lose their rights or their dignity. It affirms that refugees must be able to live in safety, access education, work, take part in community life and look to the future with hope.  

These foundations are under growing strain. In recent years, States have witnessed a troubling trend towards closed borders, deterrence policies and the externalisation of asylum procedures. In many contexts, the principle of non-refoulement – the cornerstone guarantee that no one should be returned to danger – is being eroded, leaving people in already vulnerable situations exposed to even greater risk.  Today’s displacement crisis is shaped by a number of severe and protracted emergencies. Official figures reveal that around seven in ten refugees come from just a handful of countries: Venezuela, the occupied Palestinian territory, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and South Sudan. 

Sudan also remains the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with over nine million people uprooted inside the country. To these must now be added the rapidly worsening displacement in Lebanon and Iran, where recent escalation has forced more than a million people from their homes.   

 A refugee is someone who has fled to a different country to escape war or persecution. Most people who are displaced, even through conflict, stay in their own country. This is the country they have known and have ties too. Many also hope to return home one day when the threat of violence has passed. As such, they do not want to move far away. Families in this situation can end up in camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs). 

The UNHCR estimates that 70% of refugees stay in countries neighbouring their country of origin. This is not surprising as many people want to stay closer to home if they can.  Plus the journeys that refugees are forced to make to find safety can be long and very dangerous.  

Around 76% of refugees are hosted in countries with low or middle income. The poorest countries in the world have 9% of the world’s population, but they host 16% of refugees.  

It is impossible to imagine or even understand the life of the displaced unless you experience it first. The helplessness one feels when he loses everything (landmarks, material possessions) and on top of that, the uncertainty of a better tomorrow.  

Children make up around 30% of the world population. This means that children are disproportionately affected by displacement. Many children flee with their families, but some lose their families and become unaccompanied refugees, or internally displaced people. 

The climate crisis is becoming a cause for displacement. People have been forced to leave their homes in the past due to weather events such as flooding, storms or drought. However, as such events become more severe due to climate change, more people are seeing their homes destroyed this way. They can then be forced to move elsewhere, particularly if there’s no prospect for rebuilding.  

In some countries, the changing climate is destroying livelihoods. People who live on the land are increasingly seeing their farms and food sources destroyed by droughts, floods or storms. These people, known as climate migrants, then have to move to towns and cities to seek aid and new livings. 

 We have seen this in Somalia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and more. And in a recent news story, an entire island in Panama was evacuated due to rising water levels. As the climate crisis continues unabated, there is likely to be an increase in the number people forced to flee their homes. 

Under the United Nations Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone who has fled their home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution and is unable or unwilling to return for protection.To qualify as a refugee, individuals must demonstrate that their fear of persecution is based on specific factors such as race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.  

An asylum seeker is someone who has arrived in a country and formally requested asylum. Until a decision is made on their refugee status, they remain an asylum seeker. In the UK, asylum seekers do not have the same rights as refugees or British citizens, meaning, for example, that they are not permitted to work.  

Seeking asylum is a legal right available to everyone. It is not illegal to seek asylum, as it is a recognised legal process. Likewise, being refused asylum is not a criminal act – it simply means that the strict criteria required to qualify as a refugee have not been met.  

The key distinction between refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is whether they cross an international border in search of safety. Refugees leave their home country to escape persecution, war, or violence, seeking refuge beyond national boundaries. In contrast, IDPs are forced to flee their homes due to similar threats but remain within their own country’s borders.  

Many refugees and asylum seekers face severe difficulties once they arrive in the UK. Unable to work or support themselves, many struggle for basics such as food and shelter. families struggle to survive on just £5.84 a day. Some of the key issues they encounter are the possibility of detention, living in destitution and contending with negative stereotypes/

Most of those who are granted asylum are given leave to remain for only five years, making it difficult for them to make decisions about their future, including finding work and making definite plans for their life in the UK while it remains unsafe for them to return to the country they escaped from. 

On June 17, 2026, the EU passed a new “Return Regulation”, which will bring much more severe  ‘remigration’ enforcement across the continent, allowing states to refuse, mistreat and deport people seeking refuge in Europe. 

As fellow humans we have a responsibility to respond to their specific needs in times of crisis. Many of these asylum seekers come to us as a last resort, having exhausted all alternatives, with nowhere else to turn. We should also remember  all those suffering abuse in detention centres and those facing repatriation despite the dangers that they face.  

Refugees endure numerous hardships, from the trauma of displacement to difficulties accessing vital resources and adjusting to new communities. These challenges span immediate concerns, such as securing shelter and food, to long-term struggles like language barriers, unemployment, and mental health issues. 

For more than 41 million refugees today, the right to seek safety is a lifeline. It can mean the difference between life and death. In an unpredictable world, it is a promise that must be protected.

 Refugees are too often spoken of only as victims. Yet their journeys are also journeys of resilience, resourcefulness and hope. Every displaced person carries a story of loss, but also of extraordinary resilience. We should  not see as a burden, but as our brothers or sisters. 

Solidarity is not charity from a distance; it’s the recognition that none of us is safe until everyone is safe. We should  urge governments to uphold the letter and the spirit of the Refugee Convention.

States should  respect their obligations under the 1951 Convention and translate them into concrete policies of protection, not deterrence. 

As long as people are forced to flee, our collective responsibility remains. Statistics from Amnesty International  show that many refugees who have fled conflict, persecution, hostile environment  or disease remain in volatile conditions. Even refugees who sought a better life and made the extremely dangerous journey to Europe face open hostility and daily injustices. Refugees stranded in camps and at borders have been challenged more than ever before with the toughest of living conditions and a hostile reception at international borders.
Nothing can be more heartbreaking than having to flee the place you have been born and brought up in, 70 million people are currently displaced from their homes on account of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, of these, approximately 25 million are refugees, over half of whom are children under the age of 18, having being forced to  leave their home country and  take perilous journeys to cross international and national boundaries in search of safety elsewhere. 

A far larger number of people are displaced within their own country (internally displaced) or displaced for reasons which go beyond persecution and conflict, including drought, hunger, environmental disasters and the effects of climate change. In this context, World Refugee Day takes on ever-greater importance as a point in the year to remember, learn more about and explore ways of addressing the situation of refugees and other forcibly displaced persons.
The persecution of refugees continues, whipped up by forces of racism spreading fear and misinformation. As continuing tragedy unfolds, some of the countries most able to help are shutting their gates to people seeking asylum. Borders are closing, push backs are increasing, and hostility is rising. Avenues for legitimate escape are fading away.

Since the beginnings of civilization, we have treated refugees as deserving of our protection. Whatever our differences, we have to recognise our fundamental human obligation to shelter those fleeing from war and persecution. It is time to stop hiding behind misleading words. 

Richer nations must acknowledge refugees for the victims they are, fleeing from wars they were unable to prevent or stop. History has shown that doing the right thing for victims of war and persecution engenders goodwill and prosperity for generations. And it fosters stability in the long run.

We must remember that arms trade helps exacerbate the crisis, plus  poverty and inequality, war and conflict. Refugees have suffered unimaginable loss, and yet they are filled with the strength to triumph over adversity. The refugee crisis is a human crisis. Their story is our story. We are all human,and together, we can build a better world.We all have an important role in ensuring that refugees have the support they need. When we work together, we can help even more people feel safe from conflict, stay healthy and forge ahead to a better, stronger future.   
Today and tomorrow we must continue to stand up for refugees. We must and play our part in continuing to challenge the injustices and inequalities that fuel and helps further exacerbate this ongoing crisis, and promote a better understanding of why people seek sanctuary. It is vital more than ever that we  ensure that people seeking refugee protection remain visible and heard and are welcomed.  to provide an important opportunity for asylum seekers and refugees to be seen, listened to and valued.

We must continue to offer our love , solidarity, tolerance, warm welcome and friendship  to refugees who daily have to struggle, many of whom left feeling traumatised and marginalised. Refugees are ordinary people to whom extraordinary and often very horrible things have happened. 

The world needs to renew its commitment now to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its principles that made us strong. To offer safe harbor, both in our own countries and in the epicentres of the crises, and to help refugees restore their lives, and allow their voices to remain visible and heard, build  bridges not more obstacles or borders.It is in solidarity, hope and the recognition of our shared humanity that we continue to defend the 1951 Refugee Convention, especially on its 75th anniversary.

I support free movement and equal rights for all.  We should support the rights and dignity  of those  escaping persecution, war,  fleeing in fear, escaping danger, in search of safety, a better future. It is  essential that we offer a safe have for desperate refugees, offering them protection and dignity.

Imagine a world free of borders, it's easy if you try, the sky has none, there is only one world. no borders are necessary.No human is illegal.

 “Solidarity is the concrete recognition that the future of each individual is connected to the future of all”. – Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (paragraph 73)

Denounced - persecuted - exiled - dispersed -   

Refused - sectioned - detained - certified -  

Wherever they seek shelter  

They should be able to call home  

Having escaped dark shadows  

Having travelled through great adversity 

 Seeking safe harbour, 

 

All should be given warm welcome  

Asylum not stigmatisation  

Protection not shame 

Dignity not criminalisation  

Breathe again, beyond pain and grief  

No Borders are necessary.

We are all Marcos

 “Marcos is gay in San Francisco; Black in South Africa; Asian in Europe; Chicano in San Isidro; anarchist in Spain; Palestinian in Israel; Indigenous in the streets of San Cristóbal; a gang kid in Neza; a rocker in CU; Jewish in Nazi Germany; an ombudsman in Sedena; a feminist within political parties; a communist after the Cold War; a prisoner in Cintalapa; a pacifist in Bosnia; Mapuche in the Andes; a teacher in the CNTE; an artist without a gallery or representation; a housewife on a Saturday night in any neighbourhood of any city in any Mexico; a guerrilla in Mexico at the end of the twentieth century; a striker in the CTM; a reporter writing filler stories for the inside pages; a macho man within the feminist movement; a woman alone on the metro at 10 p.m.; a bored pensioner in the Zócalo; a landless peasant; a marginal publisher; an unemployed worker; a doctor without a job; a nonconformist student; a dissident under neoliberalism; a writer without books or readers; and, of course, a Zapatista in southeastern Mexico."

"Marcos is all the rejected and oppressed minorities, resisting, rising up, shouting ‘¡Ya basta!’ – ‘Enough!’ All the minorities when it is time to speak, and the majorities when it is time to remain silent and endure. All the rejected searching for a word, their own word, the one that will restore the majority to us, the eternally fragmented. Everything that disturbs power and the good consciences, that is Marcos. And for that reason, all of us who struggle for a different world, for freedom and the emancipation of humanity, all of us are Marcos.”  

Subcomandante Marcos

Within the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the clandestine Mexican movement rooted in anti-capitalist, Indigenous and anarchist ideas, there are around 76 commanders, but only one subcommander.  

The subcommander is the highest position in the hierarchy, despite the name, which refers to the fact that he stands below the people, who are considered the highest authority.  

Subcomandante Marcos, spokesperson and 'anti-leader' of the Zapatistas, has become a 'postmodern Che Guevara,' as one journalist put it. Known for his trademark ski mask and pipe and for his charismatic personality, though his identity was never definitively established.

The goal of the EZLN, which operated in the Chiapas region of Mexico, was to achieve a new social relationship by creating an anti-capitalist participatory democracy. It also defended the individual and collective rights of Mexico's indigenous peoples.

Chiapas, with a large indigenous Mayan population, is one of Mexico's poorest states despite rich natural resources. The Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz García, whose views were informed by liberation theology, sent catechists to teach both the Gospel and to call for social change among the indigenous communities and the mestizo immigrants from other regions of Mexico. It was in this poor, somewhat politicized indigenous population that the EZLN built its organization with tacit support from many of the Catholic catechists.

Marcos coordinated the EZLN's 1994 uprising, headed up the subsequent peace negotiations, and played a prominent role throughout the Zapatistas' struggle in the following decades. After the ceasefire the government declared on day 12 of the revolt, the Zapatistas transitioned from revolutionary guerrillas to an armed social movement, with Marcos's role transitioning from military strategist to public relations strategist. 

He became the Zapatistas' spokesperson and interface with the public, penning communiqués, holding press conferences, hosting gatherings, granting interviews, delivering speeches, devising plebiscites, organizing marches, orchestrating campaigns, and twice touring Mexico, all to attract national and international media attention and public support for the Zapatistas. and  became an  icon of the global anti-capitalist struggle .

In 2001, he headed a delegation of Zapatista commanders to Mexico City to deliver their message on promoting indigenous rights before the Mexican Congress, attracting widespread public and media attention. 

In 2006, Marcos made another public tour of Mexico, which was known as The Other Campaign.

 According to the Mexican government, he is Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, born on 19 June 1957. in Tampico, Tamaulipas, to Alfonso Guillén and Maria del Socorro Vicente.

He was the fourth of eight children. A former elementary school teacher, Alfonso owned a local chain of furniture stores, and the family is usually described as middle-class.n a 2001 interview with Gabriel García Márquez and Roberto Pombo, Guillén described his upbringing as middle class and "without financial difficulties," and said his parents fostered a love for language and reading in their children.

While still "very young", Guillén came to know of and admire Che Guevara—an admiration that would persist throughout his adulthood.

Guillén attended high school at the Instituto Cultural Tampico, a Jesuit school in Tampico.He studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) during a time when the Marxism of Louis Althusser was popular, which is reflected in Guillén's thesis.

He began teaching at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) while finishing his dissertation at the UNAM, and somewhere during this time was introduced to the Forces of National Liberation (FLN).

Several key members of the FLN's Chiapas arm, which later became the EZLN, were employed at the UAM.

In 1984, he abandoned his academic career in the capital and left for the mountains of Chiapas to convince the poor, indigenous Mayan population to organize and launch a proletarian revolution against the Mexican bourgeoisie and the federal government.

After hearing his proposition, the Chiapanecans "just stared at him," and replied that they were not urban workers, and that from their perspective the land was not property, but the heart of the community.

Debate exists as to whether Marcos visited Nicaragua in the years soon following the Sandinista Revolution that took place there in 1979, and, if he did, how many times and in what capacity. He is rumored to have done so, although no official documents (for example, immigration records) have been discovered to attest to this. 

Nick Henck argues that Guillén "may have journeyed" to Nicaragua, although to him the evidence appears "circumstantial."

Guillén's sister Mercedes Guillén Vicente was the Attorney General of the State of Tamaulipas from 2005 to 2006, and an influential member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

In a 2006 interview, Marcos stated that the Zapatista movement did not seek to take political power in Mexico, but rather to legitimise popular and Indigenous demands through forms of self-government. 

In  it's  history  s the Zapatistas established their autonomous communities, engaged in attempts to build a national indigenous movement, and carried out political propaganda against capitalism through their "Other Campaign,” it was Subcomandante Marcos who acted as the group's spokesperson. 

Since the Zapatistas' political decision-making processes are not transparent, one presumes that Marcos played a central role in shaping the EZLN's autarkic and sectarian strategy that rejected not only Mexico's corrupt political system and parties, but also coalitions and alliances with others on the Mexican left.

Marcos’s great communicative ability was also expressed through his writing. His political activity extended into literature as well. Marcos is a prolific writer whose considerable literary talents have been widely acknowledged by prominent writers and intellectuals, with hundreds of communiqués and several books being attributed to him. 

Most of his writings are anti-capitalist while advocating for indigenous people's rights. He was the creator of Old Antonio and Don Durito of the Lacandon Jungle, characters representing Indigenous culture and Western culture respectively. 

He has also written poetry, children's stories, and folktales and co-authored a crime novel. He has been hailed by Régis Debray as "the best Latin American writer today." Published translations of his writings exist in at least 14 languages.

His iconic phrase—"We are all Marcos"—is the foundation of his philosophy on collective identity, emphasizing that his mask represents every marginalized, voiceless person in the struggle for justice.

Making his first public statement in five years, in May 2014 Marcos denied claims that he was either in ill health, had died, or had been displaced or purged by the EZLN. From now on, he said, he would be known as “insurgent subcomandante Galeano,” taking his new name from  his  comrade José Luis Solis López, better known as “Galeano,” a Zapatista militant assassinated by a paramilitary group on May 2 in the autonomous Zapatista town of La Realidad. He stated that the persona of Subcomandante Marcos had been "a hologram" and no longer existed.

In stepping down, Marcos pointed to demographic changes in the thirty-year old organization as new younger, indigenous leaders stepped forward replacing an older largely mestizo leadership, several of whom came out of the student and guerrilla struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. 

Here are some further  thoughts from Subcomandante Marcos to reflect upon.His words have always bought me comfort and have been a source of much inspiration. Another world is not only possible it is inevitable.

" What do we have to ask forgiveness for? What are we going to be forgiven for? Who has to ask for forgiveness and who can grant it?"  

"If we remained silent, we would die. Without words, we would not exist. We fight to speak out against oblivion, against death, for memory and for life. We fight out of fear of dying the death of oblivion...it is necessary to create a new world. A world where many worlds fit, where all worlds fit."

"I am who I am and you are who you are. Let's build a world where I can be myself without ceasing to be me, where you can be yourself without ceasing to be you, and where neither you nor I force the other to be like me or like you."

"Love is like a teacup that every day falls to the ground and breaks to pieces. In the morning the pieces are gathered and with a little moisture and a little warmth, the pieces are glued together, and again there is a little teacup. He who is in love spends life fearing that the terrible day will come when the teacup is so broken that it can no longer mended."

"In our dreams we have seen another world, an honest world, a world decidedly more fair than the one in which we now live. We saw that in this world there was no need for armies; peace, justice and liberty were so common that no one talked about them as far-off concepts, but as things such as bread, birds, air, water, like book and voice. "  

 "History is nothing more than scribbles that men and women write on the ground of time. Power writes its scribble, praises it as sublime writing, and worships it as the only truth. The mediocre merely read the scribbles. The fighter spends his time scribbling on pages. The excluded don't know how to write...yet."

Subcomandante Marcos

Palestine Action ban is lawful, Court of Appeal rules

Disgraceful, read  and  weep. The decision to ban Palestine Action as a terror group was lawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled. The court of appeal today overturned the high court’s February decision that found the ban to be unlawful on the grounds that it disproportionately interfered with free speech and assembly, and that former home secretary Yvette Cooper had breached her own process during proscription. 

The court of appeal’s decision means supporting the direct action group – which targets businesses complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza – will remain a crimnal offence for members of the group or people who support them   and  now  face up to 14 years in prison – even for holding up a sign.  

Palestine Action was proscribed under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in July 2025, making it the first direct action group to be banned under UK terror legislation and categorised with the likes of Isis and Al Qaeda. 

The ruling follows a massive wave of state repression, during which British police have arrested more than 3,000 citizens more than during the entire ‘war on terror’ for defying the ban since it came into force –and protesting the criminalization of dissent. Is the government really trying to say that such a number of otherwise-lawful citizens are now terrorists, or at least supporters of terrorism  whose only motivation was to stop a genocide?

Last week,the state’s campaign to shield the arms trade went even  a step further on Friday, when a London court ruled that four Palestine Action  activists Lottie Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Ellie Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21 who  were convicted of property damage a a facility  owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer, were sentenced as terrorists despite not being found guilty of a terrorism offence. 

This move was kept secret from the jury until after they delivered their verdict, and is the first time direct actionists have been sentenced as terrorists for non-violent criminal offences. an Israeli-owned military facility would be sentenced on the basis of having a "terrorist connection."  

A statement from The Filton 25 Defence Committee said: “The four protesters sentenced today destroyed over 40 Israeli weapons, including killer drones, which are used in almost every massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. By taking direct action, they saved lives. That is not terrorism, it is a duty. Today’s ruling will be appealed to correct this serious miscarriage of justice.” 

I think  it is shameful  that a UK court found there was a "terrorist connection" in imposing disproportionate sentences on members of Palestine Action  that explicitly targets British factories manufacturing weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza. which is not consistent with international human rights law .

The judges allowed policy reasons to override strictly legal arguments, and they showed deference to ‘national security’ questions. They also said that proscription is a ‘proportionate’ interference with free speech rights. In other words, they allowed the government to ride roughshod over the law.

Another shameful stitch-up by the British state, done at the behest of the Zionists.An  utter  fucking travesty, the U.K.  gas  become  a satellite state of Israel.It  is outrageous that the British gov has  banned  non violent direct action group Palestine Action whilst it still sells weapons to the state that is carrying out a genocide.  

Palestine Action represent every individual who opposes the Israeli war machine. They represent every person that believes Palestinians are worth more  than the tools used to kill them. They represent every person who stands for Palestinian liberation. 

It's absurd to brand them a "terrorist" group for daring to spray paint on an aircraft that is helping the terrorist entity known as Israel to kill women and children. Palestine Action hasn’t murdered any people queuing for food aid, hasn’t bombed any hospitals or incinerated patients in tents, hasn’t stolen land or fired at a desperately frightened 6 year-old with a tank.  

Palestine Action are doing what the UK government have failed to do under domestic and IHL, and this is to stop arming, aiding and abetting a holocaust! 

The suffragettes movement, particularly the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), would be considered a "terrorist organisation" By UK law today. Taking action against companies complicit in genocide is not terrorism. The point is to make fewer people die. It's the opposite of terrorism. and supporting the liberation for Palestinian people is not terrorism. 

Drone-striking refugees in tents is terrorism. Bombing displaced people in a designated “safe zone” is terrorism. Sniping children is terrorism. Shooting starving people as they queue for food is terrorism. And by criminalising Palestine Action our government is complicit in this , the very reason ordinary citizens are forced to take direct action to protest to stop them.. 

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori reacted to the court ruling, saying: "We will fight this all the way. We will seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court". She called the terrorism ban on the group one of the "most extreme attacks on free speech"

Today's decision is part of a broader assault on our right to protest in an attempt to silence all those standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposing Israel's genocide. We know that the real terrorists and criminals are those who facilitate Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people, and we  must  not be silenced as we continue to oppose British complicity in these crimes.

The proscription of Palestine Action is a ferocious attack on our freedom of expression,  and  the banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is a grave misuse of counter-terrorism powers with serious consequences for human rights. And  it is a huge overreach to treat direct action protest as terrorism. 

Palestine Action was so effective in disrupting the Israeli weapons industry, with its direct action tacticst hat the state threw all its might against  them . By doing so, they've exposed how they prioritise the Zionist regime and protect war criminals over its own citizens. 

With this judicial reversal, the UK state has solidified its legal assault on the Palestine solidarity movement.The aggressive legal manouver, which elevates non-violent direct action to the level of armed militancy, effectively lumps peaceful anti-war activists into the same legal category as global terror syndicates.

This decision must be strongly condemned by all those who believe in protecting our civil liberties ns  in the strongest possible terms.No matter what this judge said, history will look back on Palestine Action and those who’ve protested against the ban as the suffragettes of our age. 

Classifying protest through direct action as terrorism brings Parliament and our judicial system into disrepute.What a terrible parody of democracy when domestic laws  are written to support the  terrorist state of Israel. Its sick! 

Criminalisation and the weaponisation of terror legislation has not stopped people continuing to stand up for what is right and just. Neither will Monday's Court of Appeal decision. Despite the fear our government has tried to instil in people of conscience, the past year has shown that you can ban an organisation - but you can't ban principled commitment. 

And this idea is not a new one, as direct action targeting military bases and weapons factories has a long history in this country. These effective tactics have been used by sections of the peace movement for many decades, from Greenham Common to RAF Fairford.   

I commend everyone who continues to take non-violent action against the genocide. Taking action to stop a genocide is a service to humanity. Saving lives is a noble act. As Israel continues to decimate entire families and generations of Palestinians, people across the UK will continue to take action to stop British weapons contributing to this depraved slaughter. You can't proscribe solidarity. 

The government must stop its crackdown on protest and defend our right to speak up. The proscription is a huge overreach by the UK government and a grave misuse by the government of sweeping counter terror powers. We must not stop speaking out against genocide. We must not stop fighting for the ban to be lifted, the end of the use of terror legislation against us, and crucially, for a free Palestine.

Hundreds of peaceful protestors have been arrested for protesting the ban on Palestine Action. Join the global campaign calling for the prosecution to stop. 

Add your name to the letter, urging the UK’s Chief Prosecutors to drop all charges against peaceful protestors now.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/sign-a-petition/end-the-prosecution-of-peaceful-protestors-in-the-uk/#client_id=1840644&guid=7d91002650b5353e

Remembering the life of Revolutionary Socialist Ernesto "Che" Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967)

 Portrait of Che Guevara - "Guerrillero Heroico" - Alberto Korda (1960) 

Today I remember the birth of Argentine revolutionary socialist,Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, 

familiarly known by the Argentinian slang word “Che, who  was born  in Rosario República Argentina on 14th June 1928 to politically aware upper-middle-class parents. Although some sources suggest he was actually born on May 14, 1928. 

Guevara's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, came from a family that had been in Argentina for 12 generations and was a prestigious one. His ancestor, Patrick Lynch, was born in Ireland in 1715, later traveled to Argentina via Spain, and by the end of the 18th century, he had become the viceroy of the La Plata-Parana River region.

His mother, Celia de la Serna y Llosa, also came from a family that had been in Argentina for 7 generations, likewise an aristocratic family; her ancestor, José de la Serna, was the last Spanish viceroy of Peru. Guevara's parents married in 1927. 

His father said “in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels”. Ernesto was diagnosed asthmatic at the age of two. Whereas his condition was chronic in Buenos Aires, when they moved to Alta Gracia, a dry highland province, it stabilised. His parents monitored his health, the humidity, his clothing and diet in an attempt to reduce the severity of the symptoms. Even as a child, it is said that he “showed an unusually strong self discipline by adhering to his asthma diets”.  

Often his parents made him stay at home, for fear of an attack. He became a precocious reader, as this was one of the only things he could do when asthma struck. The family home contained more than 3,000 books and Guevara read very widely in world literature, politics and poetry. He would make handwritten notebooks of notes and quotations from his favourite authors. Later, he was a prolific writer and diarist  himself.

An intellectual and an idealist, able to speak coherently about Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Gide or Faulkner, he also loved poetry, and was equally at home with Keats as with Sara De Ibáñez, his favorite writer. It is said that he knew Kipling's "If" by heart.  

At school, he displayed a fiercely competitive personality, perhaps as compensation for his sickliness. Despite his illness, Guevara was an excellent sportsman – rugby, athletics, cycling, shooting were all activities into which he poured all of his energies.  

Guevara acquired his famous nickname "Che." as  "Che" is a Spanish interjection widely used in Argentina and some regions of South America, commonly employed to greet people or express surprise, similar to expressions like "hey" or "wow" in Chinese.

In 1948, he began to study medicine at Buenos Aires University. In his vacations, he made his famous trips by motorcycle through Argentina, Chile and Peru(as portrayed in his journals and dramatized in the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries). On these journeys, he encountered the poor and dispossessed – lepers, workers, peasants – with whom he identified and whose cause he subsequently passionately espoused. 

Graduating from medical school in 1953, he journeyed through Bolivia and Peru to Guatemala, where he witnessed the social revolution under President Jacobo Arbenz. After Arbenz’s overthrow in a U.S.-orchestrated coup in 1954, which steeled Guevara’s anti-imperialism. His work as a doctor further exposed him to the poor, whose sufferings Guevara attributed to oppressive South American governments backed by US capitalist interests.

Guevara journeyed to Mexico and established contact with  two brothers who shared his ideas; Fidel and Raul Castro. alongside other Cuban exiles.. Convinced that Castro was the visionary revolutionary he had long sought, he joined Castro’s 26 July Movement and soon became one of its leaders.  

The group embarked for Cuba in December 1956,  aboard a badly overloaded yacht called "Granma".Only 12, including Fidel his brother and Guevara, escaped a government ambush when they landed in eastern Cuba.

Taking refuge in the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains, they built a guerrilla force of several thousand fighters who, along with urban rebel groups, defeated Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista,in just over two years.

Commandante Guevara was second only to Castro in the revolutionary movement, and played a major role in the Cuban revolution earning a reputation as a skilled and sometimes ruthless commander. In the guerilla campaign in the mountains, the two contradictory sides of Guevara’s personality were demonstrated: his love and care for his fighters, whom he helped to educate and entertain, but also his ruthlessness, for example in shooting informers, deserters and spies. 

As a military leader, he was intelligent and brave, with a tendency towards foolhardiness, according to his leader Castro. It is said that Guevara played an important role in converting Castro to communism, often quoting Marx, Engels, Mao Tse-tung and others. 

By 1959, the dictator Batista had fled and the Castro regime took over. In the following months, Guevara commanded the La Cabana prison, and was responsible for exacting revolutionary justice against the war criminals and others from the old regime. 

Commandate Guevara told the tribunals  “Don’t drag out the process. This is a revolution. Don’t use bourgeois legal methods, the proof is secondary. We must act through conviction. We’re dealing with a bunch of criminals and assassins.”  

Several hundred prisoners were shot as Guevara watched from on top of a wall, lying on his back, cigar in mouth, to encourage the firing squads. 

 Che Guevara proved to be less effective as an economic leader than a military one. He became president of the Cuban national bank, with his signature “Che” on the bank notes signalling his distaste for money. However, he had more success with the Cuban Literacy Campaign, which taught more than 700,000 people to read and write. In Cuba’s government, he also enacted land reform to distribute land from bourgeois land owners to Cuban peasants. 

At the heart of Cuban Internationalism, Guevara intertwined revolution and medicine, based on his ideas of racial equality. In his 1960 speech to health workers and medical students, Guevara asserts the need for a mobilization of doctors as part of the fight against capitalism. Based on his speech, his travels demonstrated his understanding of the consequences that colonization has had on Black and indigenous people in the Global South. 

Guevara and the Cuban government also took great lengths to push for medical missions in Africa. This stemmed from both the African diaspora in Cuba and shortcomings in revolutionizing Latin America. Although not in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Algeria Guevara assisted in providing adequate pay and supplies to Cuban doctors. Guevara’s perceptions of Latin America, though limited by his shortsighted ideals of gender, still shows how his beliefs are influenced by both race and class. 

The Palestinian people and their struggle were also close to Che's heart. IMonths after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, Che landed in Gaza wearing his dark military fatigues on 18 June 1959 after travelling about 450km from Cairo.  He received a hero's welcome from the Egyptian de facto governor of Gaza, General-Lieutenant Ahmad Salim, as well as from Palestinian officials and heads of municipalities and many ordinary people.   

One of Che's goals for the visit was to support Arab and Palestinian national liberation and revolutionary movements against western imperialism and colonisation, recognising US imperialism's complicity with the Zionist state, and observing the Palestinian displacement and dire conditions, Guevara remarked to Cuban Commander Omar Fernández Cañizares, “Look, this is the work of the Gringos ”  

 With Guevara, hero of the Cuban Revolution, at the mansion of the Governor General, Lieutenant General Ahmad Salim. Gaza, 1959.

 During his short visit, he toured several Palestinian refugee camps including Al-Buraij camp, where he was welcomed with chants from the Cuban revolution.Witnessing first hand  the devastation and dispossession of the Nakba, a Palestinian refugee in Rafah approached Che Guevara and asked that the Cubans tell the Americas the truth of what they witnessed there. Guevara hugged the refugee and replied Cuba would denounce  their oppression “before all of humanity.” 

Zulfiqar Swirjo, an official affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stated during a previous interview that his father was there during that historic visit that aimed to share Guevara's beliefs and revolutionary ideas with Gaza's fighters They had wanted to put together a strategic plan for a popular struggle to fight the Israeli forces using guerrilla warfare tactics. 

His visit transformed Palestinian resistance into part of a broader global anti-imperialist movement.

Cuba went on to welcome the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, making official contact with it in 1965.  Since then the Revolutionary Government of Cuba have remained the staunchest supporters of  Palestine, and despite the emense difficulties imposed by the illegal US blokade provide all round material support to the Palestinian people. 

In 1962, he was one of the main architects of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he was seemingly unconcerned at the risk of “millions of atomic war victims”. Early in his rule, at the height of the Cold War, Castro allied Cuba to the Soviet Union, which protected the Caribbean island and was its principal benefactor for three decades.

The alliance brought in $4 billion worth of aid annually, including everything from oil to guns, but also provoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States discovered Soviet missiles on the island. Convinced that the United States was about to invade Cuba, Castro urged the Soviets to launch a nuclear attack.Thankfully cooler heads prevailed. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed the Soviets would withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. promise never to invade Cuba. 

The United States also secretly agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an isolated Cuba fell into a deep economic crisis that lasted for years and was known as the "special period". F

ood, transport and basics such as soap were scarce and energy shortages led to frequent and long blackouts. Castro undertook a series of tentative economic reforms to get through the crisis, including opening up to foreign tourism.The economy improved when Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who looked up to Castro as a hero, came to the rescue with cheap oil. 

Aid from communist-run China also helped, but an economic downturn in Venezuela since Chavez's death in 2013 have raised fears it will scale back its support for Cuba.Plagued by chronic economic problems, Cuba's population of 11 million has endured years of hardship, although not the deep poverty, violent crime and government neglect of many other developing countries.

While Britain and America were supplying arms to help Africa's apartheid regimes, Cuba was busy sending its men to fight them. Under Castro, Cuba had the best literacy rate in the world because it spent five times as much on education than war - the opposite of what America does. In fact, Cuba achieves the same health care system outcomes as the United States at only 5% the cost.

Lest we forget, Cuba was the biggest single provider of healthcare workers to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, more than all richer nations. Cuba has sent more doctors throughout the world to minister to the poor than even the World Health Organization despite Cuba's small size and meager resources. 

From Cubas support fighting Apartheid in South Africa, to training doctors from Latin America and its international medical brigades caring for the victims of earthquakes from Pakistan to Haiti, Cuba's model has shown that another world is possible.

Speaking at the United Nations in 1964, Guevara denounced apartheid, imperialism and the poverty of the Latin American masses. However, he rejected the pro-Soviet tendency in global and Cuban politics, and his thinking had moved towards a Maoist approach.

Perhaps partly for that reason, he decided to leave Cuba  First, Che Guevara travelled to Congo, unsuccessfully trying to promote resistance to Mobutu. He blamed incompetence and in-fighting for the failure. After that, he offered his services to FRELIMO in Mozambique, but they were declined.

In 1966, following his disappointments in Africa, Guevara disguised himself, and went to promote revolution in Bolivia. As a guerrilla commander, he scored impressive victories in ambush after ambush in Bolivia. Though he is credited with developing foco theory, Guevara never attempted to advance a new theory of guerrilla warfare.

He wanted to defeat American imperialism by launching guerrilla campaigns simultaneously in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but his tricontinental strategy resulted in failures first in the Congo and then in Bolivia. And  perhaps because he favoured conflict to compromise, he was unable to develop good relations with local leaders.  He was a fighter, not a theorist. 

In addition, he was now up against the CIA and US Special Forces, his men lacked training and equipment, and his radio communications had failed. In the jungle, he became increasingly ill with asthma, having to make guerilla raids just to obtain medicine. 

His life ended tragically in Bolivia in 1967 when he was captured in Vallegrande, Bolivia during the Battle of Quebrada del Yuro. On October 9, 1969 he was executed on orders of the Bolivian President. A half-drunken sergeant shot him nine times, so that the authorities could say that Guevara had been killed trying to escape. CIA men were in close attendance. When Mario Terán, the soldier who would execute him, entered the room, Guevara reportedly said “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man.”  His hands were cut off as proof of death. Guevara’s body was strapped to the skids of a helicopter and flown to Vallegrande, a small town 65 kilometres away, before being moved to an open-air laundry in the grounds of a hospital. It was here that the international press was summoned and the famous Christ-like photograph of his lifeless bearded corpse  taken by Bolivian photojournalist Freddy Alborta. 

Alborta's post mortem photo of Guevara,  1967

It is probable that Che would have been compared to Christ being taken down from the cross in any case. He was in his 30s when he died, he had long hair and a beard, and he gave his life for the cause of the working class and the peasants in a deeply Catholic country. And probably his image would only grown in its inspiration – that change would arrive in Bolivia and that the poor could eventually live in dignity.  But the photograph  that emerged seems to me to be a powerful visual and artistic reminder of Che’s redemptive powers.

Fearing that it might become a place of pilgrimage, the authorities decided not to bury the revolutionaries in the local cemetery. Instead, they were concealed in a mass grave in the corner of an airfield.

A mural dedicated to Che Guevara in Vallegrande, where his body was taken and displayed to the international press. This is now part of the Che Route, sponsored by the Bolivian government and foreign solidarity groups. 

In his last letter to his children, Guevara wrote  “Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.”

The legacy of Che Guevara is constantly evolving in the collective imagination. As a symbol of counterculture worldwide, Guevara is one of the most recognizable and influential revolutionary figures of the twentieth century. An icon of global popular culture, as well as a hero of Third World communist revolutionary movements and a symbol of the Western Leftist Movement. He remains a monumental figure in Latin American history, influencing a half-century of political ideals and movements. 

In Cuba, an economic blockade led the island to act in defiance of U.S. power, creating in its wake an internationalist foreign policy. Guevara played a key role in the ideology and action needed to carry out these policies. 

The Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick created the graphic image of Che’s face in 1968. The poster bearing this image was shown at the Arts Laboratory in London. It quickly became the image used prominently in the student riots that swept across France in May 1968. 

Since then, Che’s face has been commodified, merchandised and objectified, appearing on T-shirts, ice cream wrappers, posters and mural art. His life is told in films, such as The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), in documentaries, plays, and in songs. 

Yet the rights to Che’s face are not owned by the Guevara family, but by the photographer and artist who created the image. The famous photograph of Guevara in a beret was taken by Alberto Korda (Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez) in 1960, titled Guerrillero Heroico (Heroic Guerrilla Warrior). British pop artist Sir Peter Blake regarded it as ‘one of the great icons of the 20th century.’ 

This photograph was the beginning of the commodification of the image of Che. Che’s image is an ever-present political and social emblem that has been morphed in popular culture. It operates as ‘both a fashionable de-politicized logo, as well as a potent anti-establishment symbol used by a wide spectrum of human rights movements and individuals affirming their own liberation.’  

Che’s image has become a counter-cultural symbol that operates independent of who he was as a person, metamorphosed from his life as a revolutionary appropriated into a work of art. Hannah Charlton writes in The Sunday Times (2006) that ‘Possibly more than the Mona Lisa, more than images of Christ, more than comparable icons such as the Beatles or Monroe, Che’s image has continued to hold the imagination of generation after generation.’ 

Marc Lacey writes in The New York Times (2006) that ‘40 years after his death Che is as much a marketing tool as an international revolutionary icon. Which raises the question of what exactly does the sheer proliferation of his image – the distant gaze, the scraggly beard and the beret adorned with a star – mean in a decidedly capitalist world?” Che’s image has been preserved in popular myth; a world devoid of its initial reality. The image’s commodification has lost its fear by the CIA, that of a revolution in Latin America. Today it makes money for corporations, which have no fear of nationalisation by Left-wing governments.  

Vladimir Lenin explains in The State and Revolution (1917) 

" During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.this process of conversion from a feared political image into bourgeois icon. “

Journalist Herbert L. Matthews writes about Guevara in his book, Revolution  in  Cuba 

"His dedication to his revolutionary beliefs was deeply religious. Che had a missionary's faith in the innate goodness of man, in the ability of workers to dedicate themselves to ideals and to overcome selfishness and prejudices. It was the other side of the coin of his passionate indignation against injustice and exploitation of the humble. He saw the solution in an exalted form of Marxism that would bring freedom and brotherhood. Such men are born to be martyrs."

 

On his 98th birthday, I commemorate Comrade Che, who led the Glorious Cuban Revolution alongside Comrade Fidel, with an excerpt from the letter he sent to the Tricontinental—Three Continents Conference held in Havana in 1967:   

"We must not forget that imperialism is a world system, the final stage of capitalism, and that it must be defeated on a world scale. The strategic end of this struggle will be the destruction of imperialism. Our share falls to us, the exploited and underdeveloped of this world: to eliminate the foundations of imperialism. We, the oppressed nations, are dragged into absolute dependence by providing them with capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and by receiving from them new instruments of domination in the form of new capital, weapons, and all kinds of materials.  

The fundamental element of this strategic objective will be the true liberation of all peoples. In many cases, this liberation will be achieved through armed struggle, and socialist revolution will be inevitable in Our America. 

While aiming for the destruction of imperialism, it is absolutely necessary to pinpoint who is leading it. This is none other than the USA.  A people that does not hate the enemy cannot defeat a brutal enemy.  And under the banner of the war waged for the salvation of humanity, we must develop a true proletarian internationalism with international proletarian armies.  

If, in the world, two, three, or more Vietnams were to emerge into the daylight with death claiming its toll on them, with their tremendous tragedies, their everyday heroism, and their ceaseless blows against imperialism, and with the growing hatred of the world's peoples shattering the forces of imperialism, we could look to the future with greater certainty!  Every one of our actions is a call to war against imperialism and a battle anthem for the unity of the peoples against the greatest enemy of humanity, the USA. "  

Che's short life reveals Cuba’s resilience in the struggle to provide the needs of the people through the Cuban Revolution, especially those whose ethnic identity and race are factors in their economic and political oppression.Time magazine selected him as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century.

In death, Che Guevara would become the iconic symbol of revolutionary martyrdom; giving up his own life with no fear, for the cause of fighting oppression and liberating others. His ideas and actions inspired many leftist movements across Latin America and beyond, particularly among youth and radical groups in the 1960s.

Che  remains a polarizing figure; admired by some as a symbol of idealism and revolutionary dedication, a heroic defender of the oppressed and poor,while others criticize him as a violent adventurer, an executioner and the "Butcher Of la Cabaña" while Jean Paul-Sartre, Susan Sontag, Nelson Mandela and many others have regarded him as a hero and an inspiration, a man who was prepared to die for his beliefs. 

What made Che unique was the unorthodox current of Marxism-Leninism he represented. Unlike those who believed revolution had to wait until all the perfect material conditions emerged, Che argued that revolutionaries had a duty to create those conditions through struggle itself. His theory of guerrilla warfare held that even a small group of committed revolutionaries could spark broader popular movements rather than waiting indefinitely for history to move on its own.

He believed that revolution was not just an external process, but an internal, almost spiritual, struggle to develop new values, ethics, and forms of consciousness: the creation of a “New Man.”  

Che also rejected the idea that socialism could be built in one state and survive indefinitely in isolation, and his life reflected the belief that the struggle for socialism had to be global or risk total defeat.

 Che understood the centrality of ethics in politics, the centrality of subjective factors in revolution, leading to the rapid transformation of Cuban society into a giant school of reclaiming Cuban culture and ethical values.  

Hence, the literacy and “voluntary labour” campaigns, the advances in education and medicine, and the large scale involvement of people in movements for agrarian reform, housing reform, and so on. These movements and campaigns converted idealistic goals into on-the-ground realities that have continued to evolve, making possible what one could have never imagined even in one’s wildest dreams.  

Rejecting the use of capitalist methods to fight capitalism, Che alongside Fidel Castro used the methods of socialist praxis to transform what began as a national liberation struggle into a socialist revolution that would transform institutions and social and human relations through an organised and conscious “praxis” that—despite errors recognised publicly by both of them and their successors—continues till today.  

Che also repeatedly warned about the dangers of not seeing the deficiencies of “existing socialism” and of mechanically copying Soviet manuals and methods. He had spoken about this often, and this is also explicitly stated in his writings preserved in Cuba and available around the world. He observed that the “intransigent dogmatism of the Stalin era has been succeeded by an inconsistent pragmatism . . . returning to capitalism.” 

He saw the actions and programmes of the Cuban Revolution as “clashing with what one reads in the (Soviet) textbooks” and contributed insightful socialist critiques of both capitalist and socialist societies and their theories.  

History has never agreed on what to make of him. His story resists simplicity. What remains certain is that he lived—and died—according to absolute conviction. In the final hours before leaving for a war he would not survive, he was thinking about his children. Not about fame. Not about legacy. But about what values he hoped they would carry forward. “Study and read diligently,” he wrote. “Remember that an individual has no value alone.” Stand for something. Learn everything you can. Never be indifferent to suffering." 

In July 1997, his remains were discovered; and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.In October, the Council of State of Cuba issued a notice designating the period from the 11th to the 17th of that month as a national period of mourning, and his remains were interred at the Che Guevara Square in Santa Clara. 

Comrade Che dedicated his life to the struggle against the imperialist bandits who oppress and exploit the world's peoples, chief among them the greatest enemy of the human race, the USA. 

Che, like Fidel, was profoundly committed to the cause of peace, but unfortunately had to take up arms to move the world closer to that ephemeral goal. To make a world without war possible, Che gave his life, even as Fidel did. We can learn much from their examples. The best tribute we can now make is to continue the struggle to end the immoral and unjust blockade of Cuba and for the return of the illegally occupied land at Guantanamo Bay.                           

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.  ”  -Ernesto 'Che' Guevara 

Salute . Comrade Che is immortal! Patria o muerte y venceremos! 

Photo: an activist paints a mural honouring Che on the apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank.

8 June 1949 Secker & Warburg publishes George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

 

8 June 1949 Secker & Warburg publishes George Orwell's dystopian speculative fiction novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The title is the year he wrote it with the last two digits swapped. 

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” 

"War is peace. 

Freedom is slavery. 

Ignorance is strength."

Few novels have entered the political bloodstream like this one. Written as a warning against totalitarianism, the novel imagined a world of constant surveillance, rewritten history, controlled language, and enforced loyalty to “Big Brother.”  

Many of the themes in Nineteen Eighty-Four are compelling and contemporary, foreshadowing the state of our world today and contain remarkable foresight  given that it was first published in 1949. 

The novel is set in 1984 in Great Britain, known as Airstrip One.The world has suffered through a global atomic war, and there are 3 superpowers called Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. 

The standard of living is relatively low.The media is run by the government, which is known as Big Brother and the written word is perpetually changed to suit what the government requires. 

People are controlled into what to think, how to act and how to live .It uses telescreens, fearmongering, media control and corruption to control the masses

One of the Party pillars in 1984 is endless war on a global scale. The war, however, is a fabrication accepted and treated as fact. For, unreal as it is, it is not meaningless. World powers become enemies and allies interchangeably simply to keep the masses in perpetual fear, perpetual industry, and perpetual order. 

War provides outlet for unwanted emotions such as hate, patriotism, and discontent, keeping the structure of society intact and productive without raising the standard of living. The state of perpetual war described by Orwell is also reflected in the wars  that have raged since 1945, across the globe from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen etc etc.   

Winston Smith the main protagonist is  an editor employed by the government and is one of many citizens responsible for rewriting history.In Nineteen Eighty-Four, government surveillance is constant and at the forefront. The state knows every move its citizens make, including their habits, whom they talk to, and what they are doing at any given time. Big Brother is watching and running the show. The people are sheep who are herded and controlled. 

Throughout the book, Winston Smith, Orwell’s everyman, represents how “normal people” are forced under the guide of indistinct manipulation to conform to every wish and desire Big Brother can generate. The masses cannot know otherwise, only goodthink–which in Newspeak (the official language of Oceania), roughly translates to orthodoxy–is permissible. Notice the subtlety. Orthodoxy doesn’t necessarily imply goodness. 

Yet the whole point of Newspeak is to constrict speech so as to make it impossible for heretical thoughts to be produced – after all, if you do not have maximum access to language, how can you mount a defense for yourself? How can you challenge external things when you have no way to articulate it? To think a “wrong” thought is thoughtcrime and to survive you must cancel it out (crimestop) and convince yourself that you believe something different and often contradictory (doublethink). Any thought, even one born of instinctive curiosity, is to be totally and completely suppressed forever.   

How does Big Brother maintain this system of control? Do the masses not attempt to revolt? The low-class citizenry in “1984” are referred to as the “Proles,” and Big Brother keeps these people in line (the majority population) by loosening their control over them. Instead of being distracted with oppression, the Proles work tirelessly and are distracted with endless entertainment.Thus, they are effectively a non-issue.

Party members, on the contrary, are hermetically sealed within the confines of Party control. Every move and utterance they make is under close scrutiny, even in the most private parts of their home. The goal is to enforce goodthink and, over time, to contort one’s mind to the extent they trust Big Brother’s instincts over their own. It is not simply maintaining an allegiance; it’s about believing in Big Brother’s omnipotence with every fiber of your being.  

Winston Smith embarks on a clandestine love affair with Julia, a party member, and joins The Brotherhood, an illegal organisation dedicated to the overthrow of Big Brother. He is caught,and taken to Room 101, alongside everyone else who offended is taken and subjected to torture and brainwashed and he along with everyone ends up loving Big Brother. 

One might wait for a silver-lining, a breakthrough where Big Brother’s control is challenged and overturned to the masses; however, this time never comes. This bottled anxiety that buries itself in your shoulders while you read is what I believe Orwell intended for. It represents the pervasiveness of totalitarianism. 

Orwell did not just write a dystopian novel. He gave us a vocabulary for recognising power when it lies, watches, rewrites, manipulates and demands obedience.  

Published in post-war Britain, Nineteen Eighty-Four became one of the most chilling warnings ever written about authoritarianism, surveillance, propaganda and the destruction of truth.  

Its genius is that it does not only imagine a state that controls what people do. It imagines a state that wants to control what people can say, what they can remember, what they are allowed to believe, and eventually what they are capable of thinking.  

That is why it still feels so uncomfortable. Every generation finds its own version of 1984: mass surveillance, media manipulation, censorship, culture wars, disinformation, rewritten history, online monitoring and powerful people telling the public not to believe what is right in front of them. 

Orwell understood that freedom does not always disappear in one dramatic moment. Sometimes it is chipped away quietly - word by word, lie by lie, fear by fear - until people begin censoring themselves.  1984 remains terrifying because it is not just about one nightmare future. It is about how easily truth can be broken when power decides reality belongs to them.  

More than 75 years later, its vocabulary continues to spark intrigue and debate about its themes of censorship, totalitarianism, and historical revisionism —Big Brother, Thought Police, Newspeak, doublethink, Room 101—  and still shapes how we talk about power, propaganda, and the loss of truth.

Today across the world there are a lock-up concentration camp style jails where unconvicted, ostensibly innocent individuals are held and openly abused. Electronic surveillance is now a common and accepted government practice: cell phone listening, cameras on corners and traffic lights, and electronic toll payment system tracking are all everyday occurrences.

 By using our credit cards, shopping rewards cards, and even our driver's licenses, data are collected on all of us and sold and used daily, each of us daily profiled. 

Orwell’s book  was supposed to be a warning, not a guidebook on how to create a surveillance state. It really is remarkable how the many tools that were used to suppress in Nineteen Eighty–Four  are now part of our  everyday lives in 2020. Newspeak is the fictional language spoken in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is a controlled and abbreviated version of English.  Also  known as “doublespeak!”. As George himself said " Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.. "  

Politicians continue to  use language to deceive and manipulate, through concealment or misrepresentation of the truth, desperately and deliberately using euphemistic or ambiguous language as they have been doing ad infinitum. One of the objectives of Newspeak is also to decrease self-expression. With the  popularity of texting, it would be fair to say that there are similarities. A

nd today we are so busy Facebooking, tweeting, etc,  the following line  from one of the characters that works for  Big Brother.  “The people will not revolt. They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what’s happening.” is  still amazingly uncanny.

Orwell may not have had a crystal ball, but  he did have was an understanding of the human condition and its weakness. Orwell began writing the novel in 1944, and wrote the bulk of it while residing on the Scottish island Jura with no electricity and no running water.  

Orwell  was recently widowed, his wife having died during a surgical procedure. He was left with his young son, and he was seriously ill with tuberculosis. There was not a known cure for TB in 1947, and physicians typically prescribed fresh air and rest. Orwell was given streptomycin, which was an experimental drug in the US. He raced to finish his novel, and finished the manuscript in December 1948 and upon publication it became an instant success. Orwell died shortly after of a brain  He died fourteen months later at the age of 46. 

To write a book and not live long enough to see it gradually leave literature and enter the dictionary. Most novels grow old. Some even die. "1984" did something far more disturbing. It stayed. And continued waiting for each new generation with the patience of an old professor who knows perfectly well that his students will eventually arrive at exactly the same mistaken conclusions as their predecessors. 

Eric Arthur Blair lived only forty-six years. Yet sometimes I think Orwell's real life began only after his death. Because there are writers who create books. And there are writers who create concepts.That is an entirely different category of literary immortality. The greatest irony is that today almost everyone knows who Big Brother is. Far fewer remember the name of the man who invented him. Which, quite honestly, is so Orwellian that Orwell himself would probably have laughed.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been in publication ever since, has been translated into multiple languages, and is often heralded as one of the best novels of the 20th century. Still resonating in the times we live today, still worryingly reliable. Commenting on 1984, Orwell wrote, “I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive.”

In some cases, what is happening in the world today is more draconian and invasive than anything Orwell conceived. Despite Orwell's influence political journalism is as corrupt as ever. The corruption of language described in 1984 is widespread in the media today, with "Newspeak" terms such as democratic, socialist, fascist, war criminal, freedom fighter, racist and many other expressions being used in a deliberately deceptive, propagandistic way to whip up mass hysteria or simply to ensure that people can never achieve even an approximation of the truth. 

We are today all living in a massive prison and George Orwell predicted it. The ability of Big Brother government to observe our every activity is increasing week by week and soon each and every car journey we make, every financial transaction we undertake, everywhere we go will be fed into a computer and if there is a slight variance from what they decide is the norm then we will be taken in and questioned. 

Give the wrong answers and you could well end up in room like 101, or Belmarsh Jail, Guantanamo Bay etc.If this does not bother you, then carry on, you might be  comfortable that 'Big Brother' is watching you, but I ask you who is watching Big Brother. Could someone tell the government and the opposition, because they don't seem to have been kicking up much of a fuss, that the George Orwell's book 1984 was a warning not an instruction manual. We should continue to be on guard, raise alarms, be objective, keep questioning and hold our individual Governments to account. 

In 2003 a docudrama was released by the BBC, detailing the life and works of George Orwell. The documentary contains footage from his deathbed, and his final words are certainly chilling. You can here them in the following video. We can't say that we were never warned. 1984 has had a lasting impact on literature and culture, with its concepts and terminology widely adopted in popular culture. Is Nineteen Eighty-Four still the most important political novel ever written?

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

Citizens  today should support bona fide civil liberties groups and actively oppose government measures restricting basic freedoms. Freedom of speech is a basic civil liberty and people should fight to retain it. They should defy group pressure, think for themselves and speak out. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.We should continue to be on guard, raise alarms, be objective, keep questioning and hold our individual Governments to account.  

“We  are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police there is no other way.”   - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty- Four

Defying the Universe — Samah Sabawi

 

 Art "Behind the Wall" (2026) by Sara Khayat 

Defying the Universe- Samah Sabawi  

Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall 

Do they need the army’s permission

For their prayers to reach the sky 

For their love to cross the ocean 

And touch your thirsty heart 

Are your loved ones trapped  

Do you yearn to be in your family home 

And when you call them 

Do they always say  

“we are well, alhamdollelah” 

Does it surprise you  

That they are whole  

But you… you are broken 

Must they always worry about you 

Urge you to have faith in your exile 

Must they pity you 

For not breathing the air 

Of your ancestors’ land 

Must they always comfort you 

Even when the bombs are falling 

Do you ever wonder who is walled in 

Is it you, or is it them 

And when it finally dawns upon you 

That their dignity sets them free 

Do you feel ashamed of your liberty  

Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall 

Do they tell you stories 

Of how they survive 

The trees they’ve replanted 

The homes they’ve rebuilt 

Do they assure you life goes on 

Old men still fiddle with their prayer beads 

Mothers still bake mamoul on Eid 

Families still gather under the canopies 

With loaded bunches of grapes 

Dangling above their heads T

hey nibble on watermelon seeds 

They drink meramiah tea 

Women perfect the art of match-making 

Men talk of freedom and democracy 

Children climb on a sycamore tree 

Lovers woe in secrecy 

And no matter how the conditions are adverse 

Do your loved ones defy this universe 

Your loved ones defy this universe

Dr Samah Sabawi is an award-winning  Palestinian author, playwright, poet..scholar, and political commentator   born in Gaza whose work weaves art and resistance into powerful expressions of identity, memory, and hope .Samah  wrote Defying the Universe during the aftermath of Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. 

Her memoir Cactus Pear for My Beloved has been shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize, The Age Book of the Year and the NSW Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize, the book was also highly commended by the Victoria Premier’s Literary Awards. Sabawi’s theatre credits include the award-winning plays Tales of a City by the Sea (2016) and THEM (2019). In 2020 Samah received the prestigious Green Room Award for Best Writing in the independent theatre category and was shortlisted for both the NSW and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.She is currently residing in Melbourne Australia. https://samahsabawi.com/about-samah-sabawi/

While Sabawi’s poem expresses the guilt Palestinians in diaspora feel when thinking of loved ones back home, Jelec’s animation video tries to take the message further so it can resonate with a larger audience.

Video animation by Marta Jelec  

Music: Bonobo- Recurring  

Marta Jelec made this stop motion animation for a project she’s did for a Digital and Cyberculture Studies module. She explains “Sabawi’s poem, originally written in English and published online, describes the internal struggles her husband faces when confronting the guilt of leaving his family behind in Palestine, while he lives his life of ‘liberty’. By creating an animation of the poem, I aim to make the poetry more accessible to an English speaking, non Palestinian audience, by using non-ethnicised characters and simple and symbolic imagery. I aim to increase the possibility of empathy within digital audiences outside of Palestine”.

Sara Khayat is a feminist graphic designer, illustrator, and visual artist from Syria. She was born in Damascus and studied graphic design at the International University for Science and Technology (IUST Syria), located in the city of Ghabagheb.  

Khayat’s work is focused on women’s, LGBTQI+, and refugee rights, using illustration and graphic design to support a wide range of social justice causes, including challenging gender stereotypes and gender-based violence. 

Sara has worked for and with a variety of organisations across Turkey, Lebanon, and Europe. Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Khayat has worked on documenting human rights violations by all parties involved in the conflict and the oral histories of women detained by the Syrian regime.

Sara Khayat has been involved in campaigns and advocacy missions through organisations such as Right to Remain UK, and Liberated T, sponsored by the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, amongst others. 

As a freelance designer, Sara has worked with several civil society organisations, including the Syrian Child Protection Network, The A Project, and Dammeh, focused on the rights of children, women, and LGBTQI+ people. 

Due to the focus and the nature of her work, Sara Khayat fled Syria for Turkey in 2015. 

At the beginning of 2023, Sara arrived in Sweden and took up the ICORN residency in Gävle City of Refuge.  In Sweden, Sara continues her work, including an art project exploring the connection between the human body and its surrounding, and plans to collaborate with local artists working on mutual topics of interest.  

You can find more about   Sara Khayat’s art  here   at her portfolio https://sarakhayat.com/about-me/ and  at Behance https://www.behance.net/sarakhayat