I’m excited to report that the independent leftist website "Cosmonaut" has commissioned and published an article by me on the Ethiopian revolution. Of course it's shorter and more superficial than my book, but it's a rough outline of my book's perspective, minus the hundreds of original extended citations that make up my manuscript. I've framed the discussion of the Ethiopian revolution as a discussion about solidarity and internationalism, timely for this era of global protest.
The article is entitled "Which Side Are You On: The Challenge of the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution," and the full article can be accessed for free at the Cosmonaut website. Eventually I will repost the entire article here; for now, here is one of the introductory paragraphs:
“The phrase “Solidarity Forever” may have originated in radical trade unionism, but it was a damned effective compass for orienting one’s place in a combative world divided into potential comrades and bloodthirsty enemies. As leftist watchwords, the phrase reinforces an intuitive impulse growing out of the human experience of living and working together in a class-divided world, and neatly reinforces the deeper ideological explorations of theoreticians in the Marxist tradition. As a concept it rightfully suggests a deep connection between the daily struggles to survive, as experienced by the unpropertied classes and the political prescriptions of communist ideology. So why does it seem that so many of today’s heirs to Marxist tradition have discarded this time-proven compass when it comes to orienting themselves in today’s world of struggle? How did it happen that the first impulse of wide swathes of the Marxist left is to oppose the masses turning out into the world’s streets and avenues?”
Read the whole article and let me know what you think.
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