The South African house track “Jerusalema” has rocketed around the world, becoming a viral sensation. But it’s no common pop song — it speaks to a growing desire across Africa to remake and reimagine the world.
The United States invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 because its leaders wanted revenge. The US occupation brought misery and destruction for the Afghan people, and its failure was guaranteed from the start.
The Bush administration was already planning to invade Iraq before 9/11, but the attacks supplied the necessary pretext. The catastrophic war that followed turned Iraq into an ungovernable wasteland.
In Brazil’s worst decade in more than a century, unemployment, precarious and informal work, poverty, and inequality are all sharply on the rise. In a crisis stoked by a far-right government, fixing the country’s economy can only happen with a political reckoning from the Left.
The United States suffered grave losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. But we shouldn’t mistake revisions of US military strategy after calamitous failures for a turn away from US imperialist ambitions.
Mongolia has seen a wave of protests in response to soaring inflation. The demonstrators have rallied around the slogan “we want to live” — damning the disappointed promises of the country’s postsocialist transition.
Read past the headlines, and it turns out Joe Biden’s supposed withdrawal from Afghanistan is nothing of the kind — it delays ending the war while envisioning continued “anti-terrorism” action in the future with no end in sight.
Cuba is facing a new set of challenges as a post-Castro leadership confronts the pandemic and its economic fallout. But Cuban socialism has repeatedly shown its capacity for survival and adaptation since the revolution of 1959.
Antebellum slaveholders weren't content with an economic and social system based on trafficking in human flesh in the South alone. They wanted to expand slaveholding territory outward, to the American West and even beyond the borders of the United States.
These days, a lot of politicians say they’re against “forever wars” — and that’s a good thing. But the acid test for genuine opposition to the national security state is support for cutting the military budget.
Today’s Africa-France summit is a typical show of French president Emmanuel Macron’s imperial grandstanding. But it wouldn’t be possible without business leaders and intellectuals who paint France’s interference in its old colonies in a humanitarian light.
Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of more than twenty books, including New York 2140, Red Moon, and the Mars trilogy. He talked to Jacobin about his latest work, his vision of socialism, and why we must fight to imagine the end of capitalism rather than the end of the world.
After denying COVID existed in his country, Tanzanian president John Magufuli died earlier this month, likely from the coronavirus. It was a sorry end to a presidency that began with hopes that Magufuli would improve public services and clamp down on corruption among the political elite.
The intellectual godfathers of neoliberalism knew they needed to attach a philosophy of high-minded ideals to the vicious free-market system they wanted to spread around the globe. They found such a philosophy by perverting the idea of human rights.
As the world’s premier Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm’s intellectual range was unrivaled. Never one to pander to conventional politics, he was often a brave voice of dissent. Today more than ever, Hobsbawm’s work deserves serious examination.
Between 2010 and 2020, a wave of protests erupted around the world. In some cases, these movements strengthened socialist forces. In others, they opened the door to the Right. Vincent Bevins spoke to Jacobin to explain the causes of this divergence.
With Cold War divisions once again rising to the fore, the US is returning to its old ways in Latin America: trying to exert influence in its “backyard” to enlist the region in the ongoing project of US global domination.
Far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s refusal to act over COVID-19 doomed the country to a 600,000 death toll. This week, the Brazilian Senate voted to put him on trial — bringing hope he’ll finally be held to account for his murderous actions.
The Marshall Islands was the site of a massive 1954 US nuclear bomb test and dozens more nearby. The tests absolutely devastated the small island nation, but the US — including President Joe Biden today — has steadfastly refused to make real amends for it.
Sunday’s Hungarian election will decide if far-right premier Viktor Orbán can continue his already decade-long rule. A united opposition damns Orbán for his lawbreaking and ties to Vladimir Putin — yet has struggled to articulate an alternative of its own.