India Today: Fault Lines

The twenty-third and twenty-fourth of February remain etched in the Delhi residents’ memories. The spirit of secularism and acceptance, the vibrant ethos of the nation’s most politically active city, the site of numerous progressive struggles of the working class, students, women and the like was violated and destroyed by a politically motivated fanatical violence against […]

We need solidarity and socialism to confront this disaster

The COVID-19 pandemic is running out of control and wreaking havoc all around the world. It is clear now that we are facing not just thousands of deaths, but hundreds of thousands or more.  Elderly people are being found dead in their homes, unable to reach medical care. Young people are turning up to hospital […]

The politics of the virus

Socialist Alternative is an Australian socialist organisation. This speech was given at a video conference of Socialist Alternative’s national committee on 22 March. Mick Armstrong is a founding member of Socialist Alternative and is a member of the organisation’s national executive. There can be no overstating the significance of this horrific crisis for humanity. The death […]

Why We Need Revolution

Revolution is a necessary part of social change. During the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the European revolutions of 1848 rising capitalist classes wrested power from the feudal aristocracies that had dominated Europe for a thousand years. Elsewhere in the globe, as in Latin America, China and Africa, revolution has been […]

Why Hasn’t Labour Delivered?

On 19 September the Labour Party faces the hurdle of being elected into government for another term of office. Having the advantages of incumbency, re-election should be a cake-walk. One would think that all Labour needs to do is to deliver improvements in the standard of living of the working-class majority to ensure popularity. One […]

2019: A Year of Global Rebellion

In 2019 we witnessed an inspiring wave of rebellions spanning four continents and two dozen countries. Significant rebellions of varying scales have happened in Sudan, Algeria, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua, Catalunya, Guinea, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Honduras, Iran, Kashmir, West Papua, Indonesia, Egypt, Czech Republic. There have also been major strikes […]

Students in the Degree Factory: Alienation and Mental Health

Mental health is in crisis across the world. This is felt acutely in New Zealand too. The Mental Health Commissioner reported that nearly half of New Zealanders will live with mental illness and/or addiction at some point during their lifetime. This is a rate of nearly one-in-five New Zealanders who live with mental illness or […]

Aboriginal Society, European Invasion, and the Bushfire Disaster

Now even right wing politicians are talking about using traditional Aboriginal land management techniques to mitigate fire risk. But pre-Invasion land management wasn’t about logging and clearing land for profit: it combined knowledge of land with collective, egalitarian planning. This summer, we have looked through the gates of hell at the apocalyptic result of the […]

Reaction and Resistance in the Middle East

For a while in January it looked as if the United States was about to plunge the Middle East into another dangerous round of war. First there was the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, an act of war, and clear violation of US and international law. The contempt the US ruling class – Democratic and […]

Radical History on Campus

ISO members on campuses across the country detail some of the historic moments of student activism in Aotearoa. Natasha Hope-Johnstone, Angus Wilson, Guy McCallum, Joshua O’Sullivan, Jules Courtine, Romany Tasker-Poland, and Emile Wilmar contributed to this article. Otago University The fight to undo the introduction of neo-liberalism into many of the tertiary educational systems around […]