June 2006
Issue No. 390
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Inside the Venezuelan Revolution
David Ransom discovers a democratic change in the making.
The little blue book
Excerpts from the Bolivarian Constitution.
‘The Cuban stays!’
Watched by Vanessa Davies, primary healthcare finally arrives, courtesy of Cuban doctors.
The spoils of oil
Ivan Briscoe visits Maracaibo, source of ‘the black curse’ and a Hollywood all of its own.
Civil soldiers
The civilization of the military – or the militarization of civilians? Elizabeth Núñez looks for answers.
Double vision
Old and new forms of democracy still run along parallel lines, says Michael Albert.
The Bolivarian school
José Orozco reports from the chalkface.
Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution - The Facts
The hive
Perched in The Valley, a Caracas barrio plays host to David Ransom.
News, views, and & voices
Currents
Tajikistan’s last synagogue to go
Dam lies
Hunger strikes on both sides as India raises its Narmada Dam still higher.
Worldbeaters
When Ethiopia’s Dergue dictatorship was swept away, former guerrilla leader Meles Zenawi seemed to embody new hope for Africa’s second most populous country. Where did it all go wrong?
Mixed Media
Film
Black Gold directed by Marc and Nick Francis.
Music
Sprinting Gazelle by Reem Kelani
Music
Live in Ramallah by West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim.
Book
AFROREGGAE SPECIAL:
Culture Is Our Weapon by
Patrick Neate and Damian
Platt; Favela Rising directed
by Jeff Zimbalist.
Book
After The Neocons by Francis Fukuyama
Book
Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto.
Southern Exposure
Photographic evidence of the melting Arctic ice, shot by Subhankar Banerjee.
View from Jerusalem
The Israeli election made it plainer than ever, according to Jeff Halper: what most Israelis want is apartheid.
Essay: Haunted mornings, sleepless nights
Jean Baptiste Kayigama describes how he survived the genocide in Rwanda.
Big Bad World
Vegan gruel and global warming: a cautionary cartoon by Polyp.
Making Waves
India’s brothels are full of young girls who serve as sex slaves. The Rescue Founwdation tries to liberate them.
Letter from Mauritius
Mauritius goes to bizarre lengths to classify people by ethnicity or religion, as Lindsey Collen explains.
Country Profile: Maldives
The distinctive topography of the Maldives – an archipelago of more than 1,200 small islands – allows for a strict demarcation of function. One for the capital, another for rubbish, 80 or so for tourist resorts, and one for torturing political prisoners.
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
By a happy chance, my research for this magazine coincided with the World Social Forum in Caracas earlier this year. In 2003 I went to the Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, while working on a magazine about what I then thought of as some sort of ‘epiphany’ for Latin America. Venezuela was a prominent part of it, and President Hugo Chávez came to Porto Alegre to prove it. This time I looked forward to catching up with whatever might have materialized for the Venezuelan people themselves.
What I discovered was, inevitably, not what I expected. Never before has the Forum received quite so much support from its host government. This led to accusations that it had been hijacked by the Venezuelan Government for its own propaganda purposes. On the other hand, no other government in the world has been influenced so much by the ideas of the Forum – a novel experience for many of us. Meanwhile, a demonstration by the indigenous peoples of the Sierra de Perija against proposals for a new open-pit coal mine on their territories should have alerted everyone to the fact that there remain plenty of issues – environmental ones in particular – in this extraordinary country that are still to be resolved. I was reminded of my first, dizzying experience of a continent and a people who, in the late 1960s, changed the way I saw the world. Now, if Venezuela is anything to go by, they may be on the verge of changing the world itself.
David Ransom for the New Internationalist Co-operative davidr@newint.org
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
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