• The diverse and vibrant legacy of Jewish radicalism

    The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, resistance fighters, & firebrands by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone has come at what could be a turning point in world history as the Israel’s rulers face up to their inability to crush Palestinian resistance. →

  • Goodbye Julia: A personal lens on Sudan’s disaster

    Goodbye Julia Directed by Mohamed Kordofani Starring Eiman Yousif, Siran Riak, Nazar Gomaa, Ger Duany In cinemas Review by Barry Healy The nation of Sudan has had a long and tortuous history, including 56 years of British colonialism. The British favoured developing the country’s north, while disregarding the people of the south, which has ultimately… →

  • The Necessity of Red Ant Culture – Bertolt Brecht on burning houses and Sunday trousers

    The Buddha’s Parable of the Burning House was published in 1949 in Kalendergeschichten, a collection of stories and poems which Brecht had written while in exile during World War II. The collection was published in English in 1961 as Tales from the Calendar, translated by Ivonne Kapp and Michael Hamburger, London: Methuen. +++ →

  • Origin: oppression, a failed thesis and opportunism

    Viewing Origin, it could be said that Wilkerson has successfully argued for replacing the vocabulary of race and racism, especially in the USA with the terminology of caste. But she simply does not address why caste oppression exists or how it has evolved over the centuries and why it takes particular forms. Moreover, her thesis… →

  • Australia, refugees and the damage done

    DamageWritten and directed by Madeleine BlackwellStarring Ali Al Jenabi, Imelda BourkeLuna Cinemas, Leederville (from March 16th) Review by Barry Healy Damage is very much an Australian story the synopsis of which is deceptively simple: on a bleak night, a taxi driven by Ali, a refugee whose visa forbids him to work but is driving  shifts… →

  • Imperialism and its myths: how to correctly understand the shape of the world

    Imperialism and the Development Myth: How rich countries dominate in the twenty-first centuryBy Sam KingManchester University Press; Manchester, United Kingdom, 2021, 296 pp.Available from Amazon Books: kindle, $35.10; hardcover, $56.60; paperback, $36.95.In Australia available via Red Ant. Email: redantcommunication@gmail.com Review by Barry Sheppard Australian Marxist Sam King has provided a much needed service with this… →

  • 176 years since the Communist Manifesto was published, socialists around the world celebrate “Red Books Day”

    by Peoples Dispatch, February 22, 2024 February 21 marked 176 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, and socialists around the world marked the date by celebrating the Manifesto and all “Red Books” that shaped the world. Throughout India, socialists celebrated the 176th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Communist… →

  • How not to portray sex in cinema

    How to Have Sex Written and directed by Molly Manning-WalkerStarring Mia Mckenna-Bruce, Lara Peake Enva LewisIn cinemas By Ana Borges How to Have Sex starts as a ‘coming of age’ story with three friends traveling to Malia (Greece) after school ends, searching for excessive drinking and sex. Early on, while Skye, Em and Tara (Taz)… →

  • What is Red Books Day?

    By Nick D. “Join us this year for Red Books Day on February 21, 2024, marking the 176th anniversary of the publishing of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is an international celebration and commemoration of the Communist Manifesto and the liberatory impact it has had on people’s movements, past, present… →

  • East Germany’s contradictory strengths and weaknesses revealed in Beyond the Wall

    Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990By Katja HoyerAllen Lane, 2023, ISBN: 9780141999340, 496 pp., $26.99 Review by Franziska Kleiner Katja Hoyer’s Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990, published in 2023 received international critical acclaim as a nuanced, balanced history of the German Democratic Republic (DDR). In Germany the reception has been somewhat different. The book… →