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Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, Va., where a car mowed through a crowd protesting against neo-Nazis and other "alt-right" demonstrators, has renewed focus on white supremacists and, more specifically, the role Confederate monuments play as rallying points. In the wake of the Charlottesville protests, Baltimore; Richmond, Va.; Dallas; and Lexington, Ky., are now debating removing their Confederate monuments. Simply put, the protesters argue that history matters and that the symbolism of the past has resonance today.

Make no mistake: The issue surrounding Confederate symbolism is different than efforts at Yale University and elsewhere to rename buildings and to remove statues, stained glass windows, and artwork. The issue at hand is not a refusal to judge historical figures by the standards of their time, but rather the symbolism driving or representing a political movement.

How ironic it is, then, that the same stigma (rightly) attached to Confederate symbolism is strangely absent with regard to communist symbolism.

Communism, after all, is an ideology that has led to the deaths of almost 100 million people. While men like Ernesto "Che" Guevara may have become folk heroes for some on the political Left, they were in reality sociopathic mass murderers. The same holds true, of course, with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong).

Democratic National Committee Vice-Chairman Keith Ellison told progressive activists on Friday that North Korean communist leader Kim Jong Un was a more responsible leader than President Trump (he immediately regretted his wording). Kim, however, presides over a system of concentration and death camps that are reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Stalin's Gulag. The American Friends Service Committee describes itself as a progressive organization dedicated to non-violence, but they were among the chief cheerleaders for the Khmer Rouge, a communist and racist gang responsible for the deaths of over a million people in Cambodia.

That the New York Times seeks to glorify sex under communism is no different than had it complimented the matchmaking prowess of the Nazi-era Bund Deutscher Mdel.

In reality, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and any adherents to a racist, segregationist ideology are scum; they should be condemned. So too should the Nation of Islam and the radical fringes of the Black Lives Matter movement who adhere to ideologies just as racist and supremacist.

But all of their legacies pale in comparison to that of communism. A communist should face the same disgrace as a Nazi, and a former communist should be stigmatized as much as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. That they were products of society is not an excuse: After all, many southerners chose not to join the KKK even if it meant personal disadvantage in places where KKK members dominated business and many Russians chose not to join the Communist Party, even at the height of the Soviet era.

The progressive blind spot to communism reflects historical ignorance on the part of Americans and Europeans. It reflects a failure at the high school and university levels to truly confront the horrors of the last century and, in the case of China and North Korea, this century as well. While the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation does good work, the United States still does not commemorate the victims of communism on a scale commensurate with their numbers.

If protesters truly want to combat hate, they must recognize that the Nazi Swastika, Confederate iconography, and the hammer and sickle each represent ideologies of hatred. They need not be erased, but rather confined to historical museums. To march under or tolerate one while combatting the other represents not the pursuit of justice but rather hypocrisy and ignorance.

Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.

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Why aren't communists stigmatized just as much as Confederates and neo-Nazis are? - Washington Examiner

FrontPage Magazine

New York Times: Sex Was Better Under Communism FrontPage Magazine The predictable pitch is that Communist women had more leisure time because the government offered so many services. But in reality, there was far less leisure time under Communism. Indeed the focus of the Duranty 2.0 piece is on Warsaw Pact, rather ... New York Times Magazine Sex Was Better for Women Under SocialismIndependent Journal Review all 2 news articles »

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New York Times: Sex Was Better Under Communism - FrontPage Magazine

Civil war is looming larger and larger as a threat in South Africa as the once-prosperous nation pursues a race-driven agenda that already has damaged to its neighbors to the north, says Charl Van Wyk, a longtime missionary in the troubled nation.

Its because of the current governments aggressive move towardcommunism, he explains.

We are going to see the same disaster in South Africa that weve seen further north of our borders, Van Wyk told WND in an interview.

Hes the author of Shooting Back, which documents an attack more than20 years ago on his church by terrorists intent on killing hundreds. His response was to pull a small handgun and return fire, a stunning move that disorganized the terrorists and left them running for their lives.

The descent into communism isnot a surprise, since Nelson Mandela, a former political prisonerand former president of South Africa was also a former communist.

The stunning story of aChristian missionary who wasin a South African worship service when terrorists attacked. And he shot back! The full details in are in book, and now movie, formats. Get Shooting Back, the bundle, now!

Recently uncovered links between Mandela and the South African Communist Party, or SACP, indicate Mandela was once an active communist agitator, a claim he vehemently denied while alive.

In 2011, British Historian Stephen Ellis released a paper announcing Mandela was indeed a former member of the SACP and was even on the influential Central Committee.

According to Ellis, Mandela joined the SACP several years before he was sentenced to life in prison.

The SACP led a guerrilla war against the South African government during apartheid. SACP bombings claimed the lives of scores of civilians, prompting the United States to classify the groupas a terrorist organization.

Though Mandela eventually left the SACP and joined the African National Congress, or ANC, the two groups were still prominent allies.

The Tri-Partite Alliance the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the labor federation COSATU cooperated closely in the fight against apartheid, according to Douglas Foster, an associate professor at Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism.

In fact, after Mandelas death, the SACP released a statement lauding his work as a communist ally.

To us as South African communists, [Comrade] Mandela shall forever symbolize the monumental contribution of the SACP in our liberation struggle. The contribution of communists in the struggle to achieve the South African freedom has very few parallels in the history of our country. After his release from prison in 1990, [Mandela] became a great and close friend of the communists till his last days, the statement read.

Further, the ANCs military force was communist-backed, receiving intelligence training from the East German Stasi, Ellis claims.

Weve had a major challenge with communism in South Africa, Van Wyk said. In fact, the African National Congress, Nelson Mandelas group, was completely communist backed. Both by China and Russia.

Now, the current president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, plans to dig deeper into communism, hoping to seize white farmers lands without compensation, according to the LondonTelegraph.

Zuma plans to unite the black parties in the parliament of South African to vote for the plan, as it would require a significant majority in parliament to change the law.

Van Wyk is terrified of such a policybeing implemented in South Africa and believes the country is on the brink of civil war.

As WND has reported extensively, South Africa is quickly spiraling into disarray as the current leftist government led by Mandelas party, the ANC, has begun implementing wealth-distribution schemes.

The terror attack that Van Wyk derailed in 1993 only 11 were killed when terrorists with automatic weapons and grenades attacked a packed church service introduced Van Wyk to such violence.

When one sees the chaos that is caused by communism, it is so destructive, Van Wyk said.

Since the ANC took over power, its policies have been completely destructive, he said.

Our country is falling to pieces, our police force is falling to pieces, our medical systems are going down the drain, he said.

Government funded infrastructure is so bad that Van Wyk says he wouldnt even want to take my pet dog into the hospital.

Corruption has increased as well, and Van Wyk claims government-run electric companies even force black-outs to give repair contracts to their business partners.

He points out the scenario isnt new.

Just north of us in Zimbabwe, weve seen that many of the farms have been taken away from the farmers mainly white farmers, but there have also been black farmers who have lost their land. But the land hasnt been given to the middle-class Zimbabweans to work the farm. Theyve been taken over by a bunch of rebel youth, and theyve just destroyed every vestige of Western civilization, Van Wyk explained.

Van Wyk is referring to the seizure of land by Zimbabwes dictator Robert Mugabe, who then distributed the land to his rebel friends and other government officials.

This land-redistribution scheme had a disastrous effect on the Zimbabwean economy.

According to Quartz Africa, Zimbabwe transformed from an exporter to an importer of food, as commercial farmers lost their farms to black Zimbabweans who did not have the skills required to farm the land.

Agriculture previously contributed to 40 percent of Zimbabwes foreign currency earnings through exports.

The country that was once dubbed the breadbasket of the region has suffered an estimated $12 billion in lost agriculture production since the land occupations [redistribution] took place and has had to rely on donor handouts and food imports from neighboring countries, reported Quartz Africa.

The farmers forced out of Zimbabwe went into neighboring Zambia and increased food production in Zambia to the point it was no longer a net importer of food but an exporter.

A mere 200 farmers accomplished this, that is the caliber of farmers that were farming in Zambia as a result of the chaos, Van Wyk said.

The stunning story of aChristian missionary who wasin a South African worship service when terrorists attacked. And he shot back! The full details in are in book, and now movie, formats. Get Shooting Back, the bundle, now!

Link:
Civil war 'becoming real threat for South Africa' - WND.com

On the political journey and legacy of Syed Jamaluddin Naqvi, a pivotal leader of Pakistans leftist politics, who passed away last week

Syed Jamaluddin Naqvi remained a nonconformist till his death last week. Till the 1990s, he was not only raising some basic questions regarding Marxism but had also advised his comrades to strive for civil space in Pakistan.

He must have read the saying If you are not a communist in your 20s, you have no heart but if you remain a communist in your 30s then you have no brain; only in his case, he stayed a communist till the age of 58 in 1990.

In 2007, Jamal Naqvi was in Lahore where he explained his thoughts and change of heart to comrades openly. It was a time when the Lawyers Movement was at its peak and some left-wing intellectuals had declared it a 1968-like situation. Jamal did not agree with this analysis and told us that we had to concentrate on seeking democratic options as well as strengthening of civil space in Pakistan.

It reminded me of the famous Hala Conference (1970) in which many revolutionaries including Mairaj Muhammad Khan had pressurised Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to boycott the elections but the smart ZAB did not listen. Had leftists and nationalists, in and outside the PPP, supported the ZAB government with the goal of strengthening civil space in the 1970s, things would be much different. This was the first democratically-elected government and should have been analysed and interpreted as the first experience in democracy rather than a perfect government.

Since 2008, Pakistan has been confronted with various questions associated with civil space and supremacy of the civilian government among other things. More recently, during the Panama Case, some of our senior leftist friends found some love even for the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). We can check the money trail of politicians only but no one dares talk about the money trail of non-elected elite.

Jamaluddin Naqvi was born in 1932. In his early 20s, he joined communist groups, and formed his own faction (Communist Party of Pakistan) in the first half of 1960s along with Imam Ali Nazish remaining with it till 1990. According to his fellow comrades, he was the sole dictator in the party till late 1970s after which he was imprisoned by General Zia. Along with Nazeer Abbasi, he was arrested on July30, 1980 from Karachi. Only ten days after the arrest, Abbasi was killed in custody on August10. Jamal, however, was released in the mid-1980s.

But the nonconformist Jamal did not limit his options. I too, have many reservations regarding his ideas and politics. I met him many times and talked about my reservations but one thing that I can credit Jamal with is his ability not to remain silent when it came to his politics.

In the late 1970s, Jamal started losing the grip over his party, partly due to young Turks and also due to the influence of Afghan politics. This revolt within his party may have compelled Jamal to revisit his politics and ideology. So after spending 38 years with communist politics, in 1990 in a party congress, along with comrade Ramzan, he proposed open politics and rejected underground politics. He was defeated not only by his comrades but also by his time-tested friend Imam Ali Nazish. But he did not falter from this position at all.

From 1990 onwards till his death, he developed alternative thoughts and solutions, recorded interviews and wrote books. Like senior comrade C.R. Aslam, he openly supported globalisation. His book Leaving the Left Behind that was published in 2014 was discussed a lot among the progressive circles.

According to him, both Russia and China had changed their old ideological positions: the USSR accepted this openly but the Chinese did it without announcing it. They even called it socialist capitalism. In fact, both Russians and Chinese used state capitalism and successfully transformed their societies.

After the end of the Cold War, separatist movements had no scope at all. Classes are there and so is class struggle; yet in the last 100 years many new classes have emerged and we have to acknowledge it. In the past, due to our overemphasis on labourers and peasants we had ignored lowest classes like dalits, musalihs etc, it was a big mistake.

Imperialism and colonialism were a part and parcel of world politics but due to the Cold War, we failed to understand it. In the post-Cold War era, we cannot rely on an old definition of imperialism.

Labour is among the various factors in value-addition so it is essential to reconsider the theory of surplus value.

Democracy is the only solution we have. There is no alternative to it. It does not mean that I am rejecting class struggle. We have to raise the issues of lower classes, but without strengthening the civil space in Pakistan we cannot help lower classes at all. Participation of citizens in decision-making processes will strengthen the lower classes role and leftists can play their role as a catalyst.

Strengthening of the prime ministers office will increase civil space in Pakistan.

Big and small provinces and nationalities is a hard fact. We can neither expand Balochistan population nor reduce that of the Punjab. Artificial solutions like parity proved fatal in the past so federating units should resolve the disparities with consensus. But if we have a strong civil space than we can resolve it too.

Civil space will increase in Pakistan gradually and every new PM will demand more. It is the prime contradiction in Pakistan.

We should not oppose US and the West in a way to strengthen religious fundamentalists.

Jamal recorded these thoughts in 2007 and remained loyal to these ideas. Unlike his comrades, he raised some fundamental questions regarding Marxism that turned many of his friends against him. A baseless campaign was launched against him by his fellow comrades. But having spent 38 years with the movement, he had every right to follow his intellectual pursuits.

As part of the campaign, books were written just to accuse him of betraying the party during the Zia era. His commitment was challenged by those who were his blind followers in the past and had never questioned his authoritarianism in party for once. Had he kept himself from challenging the basic principles of Marxism like many of his contemporaries and remained silent on the past politics, he would not have faced such a reaction. I can give many examples of many progressive people who did group politics for many years and left due to various political and personal reasons but neither did they register their grievances nor they put these in writing. Some of them joined NGOs, others went into journalism; yet they did not pen what they had experienced in the leftist politics.

But the nonconformist Jamal did not limit his options. I too, have many reservations regarding his ideas and politics. I met him many times and talked about my reservations but one thing that I can credit Jamal with is his ability not to remain silent when it came to his politics.

In a meeting in Lahore a few years back, he advised his comrades either to join the PPP or PML-N. All remained silent except his daughter who said, Baba, aap satheyaa gaye hain kya? (Father, have you lost your mind?). He smiled his trademark smile and said, I said what I think is right.

Well-played, Jamaluddin Naqvi!

(He passed away on August 3, 2017)

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From communism to democracy and civil space - The News on Sunday

TIRANA, Aug. 10 In May 1987, Dutch photojournalist Piet den Blanken visited communist Albania as part of a travelgroup of fellow comrades.

Despite the prohibition on contact between Albanians and foreign visitors and the ban on taking streetphotos, he managed to take many pictures of Albanians and their daily life under the communist regime.

Thirty years later, his pictures are back to Tirana as part of a travelling exhibition featuring twelve Dutch photographers looking back on the work they made in Central and Eastern Europe between 1979 and 1991.

Albania was one of the most closed countries in Europe until 1990. It was difficult to travel to Albania, similar to the way it is difficult for travel to travel to North Korea. The only way to photograph in Albania was to visit the country as a tourist with a group tour led by an Albanian guide, says photographer Piet de Blanken as quoted by the exhibitions organizers.

De Blanken, now in his 60s, photographed especially early in the morning and late in the day.

During the day, he followed the official group program. In this way, he tried to get another image of the country, an image that was not shown in the official group program. In addition, he was repeatedly brought back by the police to a group and guide because it was not the intention of a westerner to explore and photograph the environment alone.

By the end of the trip, his films and stuff were seized. The Whites were already prepared for the various incidents with the police, so he had given his full shot of precautionary films to a group member. Johan Janse hid the movies in his luggage and took out the country thanks to him to see these photos here.

The 12 Dutch photographers showcased in the travelling The other side exhibition were witnesses of historical moments, such as the emergence of the Polish trade union Solidarnosc in Gdansk in 1980, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Romanian revolution of 1989.

Supported by the Dutch embassy in Tirana, The other side of Albanian communism exhibition will be open at Tiranas National History Museum from August 17 to 30.

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'The other side of Albanian communism' - Tirana Times (subscription)