PRAGOTI

Hundreds of people participated in the protest demonstration held by CPI(M) in front of Israeli embassy.

Recently an article was published reporting the shooting of two children inside a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in one of Gaza's refugee camps. Ahmed, a seven-year-old, was seated at his desk when a bullet penetrated his head just as the school day began. Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to determine if he survived.

The first Palestinian intifada (uprising or shaking off) erupted dramatically on 9 December 1987 after twenty long years of brutal Israeli military occupation. The Palestinians had had enough. Not only had they been dispossessed of their homeland and expelled from their homes in 1948 to make way for the boatloads of European Jewish immigrants flooding into Palestine on a promise of a Jewish state, they had been made to suffer the indignities of a people despised and rejected by the whole world.

On 8th December 1987, an Israeli army vehicle ran over a group of Palestinian protestors at the Jabalya Refugee camp in the Gaza Strip killing four and injuring seven. This incident was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back and led to mass outpourings of anger on the streets of Palestine the very next day. Today, 9th December, 2008 is the 21st anniversary of the Intifada or mass rebellion of the Palestinians against Israeli occupation and oppression.

Radical cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr's supporters protest against the Iraqi government's security pact with the occupying power United States. Also featuring a Real News video on the same. Article courtesy Al Jazeera.

''Baghdad witnessed another demonstration with more than one million Iraqi, Arabs and Kurds and others, Muslims and Christians and others, Sunnis and Shiites and others demonstrating together against the occupation and the long term agreement, asking for a complete withdrawal the leaves no permanent bases, no troops, and no mercenaries'' reports Raed Jarrar on his blog.

While the bulk of the mainstream media has virtually 'withdrawn' from Iraq, Pragoti brings together news from various sources of the continuing resistance of the Iraqi people against imperialism after five year of brutal occupation and devastation.

''It's become fashionable to talk about female circumcision but divorced from broader politics. I look at you as a whole. If you support the war in Iraq but you're fighting female circumcision am I supposed to say 'Oh she's a hero, she's a feminist'? But you're supporting the war in Iraq and standing next to Condoleeza Rice! I have to understand your ideology and vision to see if you're really true or if you're just playing the game.''

Feminist author and activist, Nawal El Saadawi, in dialogue with Sara Wajid.

Courtesy: Monthly Review

''Contrary to the accepted "wisdom" of the electoral experts, Americans are not so divided as we might seem. More than 80 percent of us oppose the war in Iraq, with the majority wanting immediate withdrawal (not "redeployment"). Larger majorities want an end to government wiretapping (and vociferously opposed the wiretapping immunity bill), a scaled-back military budget, and universal health care that excludes the insurance industry. Further, almost no one outside the beltway or the NY financial district bought into the "crisis" that mandated a $850 billion bailout for Wall Street.''

P Jerome writes on AmericanFreePress.net

PRAGOTI reproduces first chapter of Walter Rodney's classic book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, published in 1973.

This chapter and the entire book can be found at http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/rodney-walter/how-europe/index.htm

I have had a rare privilege of traveling around and living and working with black people in a lot of contexts. This has sensitized me to ways in which we need to understand the specificity of different situations. To talk about Pan-Africanism, to talk about international solidarity within the black world, whichever sector of the black world we live in, we have a series of responsibilities. One of the most important of our responsibilities is to define our own situation. A second responsibility is to present that definition to other parts of the black world, indeed to the whole progressive world. A Third responsibility, and I think this is in order of priority, is to help others in a different section of the black world to reflect upon their own specific experience.