Greetings from around the world for Green Left's 20th anniversary

February 13, 2011
Issue 
Raj Patel
Raj Patel.

Send your own greetings and congratulations to editor@greenleft.org.au.

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Over the course of the past 20 years, Green Left Weekly has emerged as a focal point of the world green left movement, its leading weekly guide to theory and practice. Long may its flag fly! — John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review.

What better birthday present could Green Left Weekly have asked for than the Egyptian people’s taste of freedom? Congratulations to all at GLW. Onward! — Raj Patel, independent journalist, author and activist.

No matter how clogged my email inbox is with news and views from various fronts, it’s still the case that Green Left Weekly’s reporters and commentators provide the most reliable, comprehensive and honest coverage. Instead of getting stale en route over the Indian Ocean, a few days later it seems to get sharper and wiser. Keep it coming another 20+! — Patrick Bond, author, activist and director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Durban, South Africa.

Green Left Weekly was ahead of its time in linking struggles for ecological integrity and for social justice, providing top notch radical news and analysis. GLW is movement media worthy of emulation by activists worldwide - congratulations on your 20th anniversary! — Derrick O’Keefe, co-author with Afghan feminist Malalai Joya of Raising My Voice.

Starting a publication 20 years ago with the title Green Left Weekly was an inspired and politically critical decision. Now, 20 years later, it is hard to imagine thinking about Left without thinking Green at the same time. Keep up your important work— it will help bring about the point when it is hard to imagine thinking about Green without thinking Left at the same time — Michael Lebowitz, author of The Socialist Alternative and winner of the 2004 Isaac Deutcher Memorial Prize.

Warm revolutionary greetings from South America, where we are attempting to carry out an effort similar to yours: inform, reveal, denounce, explain, debate. We know how much sacrifice is demanded in order to maintain a regular publication for 20 years: Congratulations! Perhaps the best message we can pass on in order to recognise this effort is that, often, the articles that appear in your newspaper are either reprinted or utilised as a source of information and interpretation for the work of our collaborators here. At a time when world capitalism finds itself in an agonising crisis, the task of producing an anti-imperialist and socialist press is vital. Let’s hope you continue with this formidable work! Until victory always! We will win! — Luis Bilbao, director of America XXI.

Keep up the vital and necessary work in providing alternative information. You can count on my help in whatever way I can. Fraternal greetings from the Island of Dignity (Cuba) — Marta Harnecker, author and member of the board of directors of Venezuelan-based left-wing think tank Miranda International Centre.

Congratulations to Green Left Weekly for its revolutionary struggle in awakening consciousness, for its global focus, for recognising our Bolivarian Revolution, for making journalism possible. I always read GLW. Greetings from Venezuela! — Alexis Adarfio, worker and facilitator of socio-political education at Ferrominera del Orinoco.

By reporting the stories that the mainstream media refuse to cover, GLW has become an essential resource in the fight for a better world. I salute them on their 20th anniversary; long may they continue! — Pablo Navarrete, director of Inside the Revolution and Latin American editor for Red Pepper magazine.

Video: Farooq Tariq, spokesperson for the Labour Party Pakistan, delivers greetings to commemorate Green Left Weekly’s 20th anniversary. shahbaz bajwa.

I got to know Green Left Weekly about 14 years ago when a few copies would reach Labour Party Pakistan's office in Lahore. Since we did not have access to the internet yet, GLW was a window to the world outside. It was keenly awaited and some of the GLW articles were translated into Urdu for our weekly Workers Struggle. Since 2001 onwards when I moved to Europe, reading GLW online has been a daily habit. It is one of the best left-wing weekly internationals. I am hardly aware of any other English-language left paper as effectively published as GLW. My heartiest congratulations to GLW staff and supporters. I wish to see GLW becoming a daily broadsheet. — Farooq Sulehria, Labour Party Pakistan member and freelance journalist based in London.

For 20 years Green Left Weekly has continued the great tradition of anti-capitalist journalism, by consistently telling the truth about this anti-human system and the global fight for a better world. There really isn’t a better socialist newspaper anywhere, and activists around the world owe GLW a huge debt of gratitude for its immeasurable contributions to the international movement for human liberation. United, we will win! — Ian Angus, editor, ClimateAndCapitalism.com

Green Left, the ecosocialist and anti-capitalist network in the Green Party of England and Wales, congratulate Green Left Weekly on 20 years of fighting for socialism and ecology. You are a global inspiration and part of the fight to create a green left global society. We look forward to working with you in the future. — Green Left Steering Committee.

I am proud to work with Green Left Weekly, unless we build an ecosocialist future it is unlikely that humanity will have a future. Keep up your good work, comrades. — Derek Wall, British ecosocialist activist and author.

Socialist Resistance joins with our comrades in the Fourth International in sending our warmest greetings to Green Left Weekly. Over the past 20 years, GLW has played an important role in the world socialist movement, as well as laying foundations for the Socialist Alliance in Australia. The paper has been a central resource for ecosocialists around the world. In the sharp and speedy way it reacts to world events, it is a reference point for radicals around the world. As tensions sharpen in the Arab world and in Latin America, the paper’s Arabic and Spanish-language supplements provide an important resource. However, GLW is more than a paper: it’s an organiser. That is the paper’s essential role, and we hope that the celebrations of your 20th anniversary encourage GLW’s sellers, readers and friends to organise ever more strongly in the struggles towards a green and feminist socialism. — Duncan Chapel, for Socialist Resistance, England.

For more than 10 years, we have been receiving Green Left Weekly from comrades in Australia. Since then, GLW has become a friend to us in sharing information and analysis. The reports about Australian political struggles and also from around the world, coverage about culture, environment and feminism have become our important resources in shaping our understanding about the situation around us. GLW has been helping us spread information about Indonesia’s democratic struggle and our political situation. For 20 years GLW has existed in Australia and become a tool for the revolutionary people there to fight. We would like to give our respect and congratulations on your achievement. We know that to survive this long with this difficult political situation in capitalist Australia needs strong dedication and diligence. We need to learn more from GLW’s achievement so we also can have a sustainable revolutionary publication in Indonesia. Congratulations and greetings to all our revolutionary friends who work for GLW. Viva Socialism! — People’s Democratic Party, Indonesia.

Congratulations to GLW on its 20th birthday. We are proud of our comrades who have worked hard on the publication of GLW over the past 20 years and we hope GLW keeps voicing the struggles of the oppressed people against imperialism, neoliberalism around the world. — Rismayanti Priyanita, International Relations of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI).

On behalf of the editorial board and all the staff of Berdikari Online, we send birthday greetings and congratulations to Green Left Weekly. We hope that GLW will be able to continue to give a voice to the working class and all oppressed people with ever greater strength in the future. The establishment of Berdikari Online, a progressive media outlet for the anti-imperialist people's movement in Indonesia, was inspired by the achievements of GLW. Almost every week GLW arrives at our office, the office of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), and helps us to understand the development of the international political-economic situation and development of the left struggles in various countries. The Indonesian people are indebted to GLW, which has reported on and given a voice to the struggle of the Indonesian people against the New Order regime and the struggle today. Berdikari Online is only two years old and we have a lot to learn from the experience of GLW. We hope to build stronger bonds of cooperation between progressive media and the left in different parts of the world. — Rudi Hartono, Editor in chief, Berdikari Online.

Green Left Weekly now marks 20 years of continuous publication: a truly historic achievement! The paper has marked the various turning points in the Philippines' struggle to end elite rule: the people's upsurges against the Estrada and Arroyo regimes; the key campaigns in the anti-imperialist and workers movements; the debates, developments and renewals in the Philippine left. It has educated the international movement about our struggle and has educated us about the struggles of Australian workers and struggles of the working class movement worldwide. We salute you for this tremendous effort and achievement. Mabuhay Green Left Weekly! Mabuhay Sosyalismo!Sonny Melencio, chairperson, Party of the Labouring Masses, Philippines.

We congratulate Green Left Weekly for its 20th year of publication! For years, GLW has provided readers with news and analysis on the development of people’s struggles in Australia as well as all over the world. We hope comrades who have worked hard in publishing GLW for the past 20 years continue to spread revolutionary messages and inspire our struggle against capitalism. Best wishes and keep up the great work — Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)

A voice for the grassroots who refuse to remain voiceless. That’s the inspired, and inspiring, history of Green Left Weekly. And, without doubt, it’s also the future of this fine paper and its associated websites (including the fantastic international e-journal www.links.org.au). I read GLW each week. Every issue gives me not only many facts I need, but also an emotional and organisational linkage to people in distant lands who are acting to bring humanity together on our freedom railway of social justice and ecological sanity. All power to your pen for many decades to come! — Grant Morgan, international secretary of Socialist Worker New Zealand and co-organiser of Kia Ora Gaza.

I would like to extend my personal greetings and congratulations for the extraordinary two-decade effort of producing such a high-quality paper of the left. It remains a first port of call to keep up with developments in the international movement for genuine democracy and against all forms of oppression and exploitation. Keep up the good work. — Mike Treen, national director, Unite Union, New Zealand.

Congratulations, Green Left Weekly, on entering a third decade reporting the struggles of workers in Australia and overseas. Solidarity from your comrades in New Zealand. — Joe Carolan, editor, www.socialistaotearoa.org.

I write to congratulate Green Left Weekly on its 20th anniversary. I often turn to GLW for valuable insights into a variety of international political issues. The online version of the magazine offers American Socialists a vital window into political developments from the Pacific region, from revolutionary hot spots like Venezuela while also consistently providing cutting edge left perspectives on the environmental crisis. All this, while utilising a writing style that is as clear as it is critical. GLW is truly written in the proud tradition of socialist internationalism. On behalf of the Socialist Party USA, I send our warmest greetings of solidarity on this momentous anniversary. — Billy Wharton, co-Chair, Socialist Party USA.

We in Workers Action (U.S.) take great pleasure in extending congratulations to Green Left Weekly on its 20 years of publication. Today, as capitalism creates ever greater inequalities in wealth between working people and the capitalist class, while abandoning increasing numbers of people to poverty, more and more working people around the world are seeing capitalism for what it truly is: a morally degenerate, environmentally destructive, and economically disastrous system based on exploitation, war, greed and deception. The revolutions that are unfolding in the Middle East and northern Africa, ignited by rising unemployment and poverty and the dictatorships that they spawn, are just the beginning. Surely the time has come for working people to say enough is enough, overthrow capitalism, and begin to construct a new form of society that abolishes exploitation and, by institutionalising real democracy, operates in the interest of the majority. It will be a society in which, as Marx said, “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”. We look forward to seeing Green Left Weekly continue publication as an expression that proves that a better world is indeed possible. — Bill Leumer, for Workers Action.

I’ve supported Green Left Weekly since the publication of its first issue. Over the years, its quality and dedicated coverage of the oppressed and exploited in Australia and around the world has made it the best socialist weekly in the world. Your coverage and defence of WikiLeaks with its exposure of US war crimes is just one example of why I read GLW each week. Keep up the excellent application of progressive and revolutionary journalism. — Malik Miah, an editor of Against The Current and supporter of the US socialist organisation Solidarity.

A fine contribution that almost always has relevance even for us here in South Africa! Keep up the excellent work. — Southern and East African Trade Institute, South Africa.

Keep up your good work…. We behind you! Viva! Amandla! — Hanif Manjoo BopaNet, South Africa.

Twenty years of Green Left Weekly. Congratulations from an activist in another colonial settler state on the other side of the planet. It takes willpower and determination to sustain a counter-hegemonic publishing project of any sort. But willpower and determination by themselves will only get you past the first year or so. To go for a generation, that requires politics. And — if your politics allow you to see the importance of the revolution in Egypt, if you identify with the great social movements which have transformed (and are continuing to transform) Bolivia and Venezuela, if you make yourself a voice for the struggles in your own country – then you can succeed. Green Left Weekly has published 860 issues or so because it has those politics. Here's one paragraph from one activist who genuinely appreciates all your work. — Paul Kellogg, activist and political economist, Canada.

I greet Green Left Weekly on the 20th anniversary of publication. Your weekly newspaper has kept me and other Filipino comrades up to date on revolutionary trends not only in Australia but also in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Without Green Left Weekly we would be totally dependent on CNN, BBC and the bourgeois news syndicates. — Francisco Nemenzo, veteran Filipino activist and former president of the University of the Philippines.

Congratulations to Green Left Weekly on its 20th! Today, the eyes of the working people and oppressed the world over are focused on the great mobilisations of the Egyptian people against the US- and Israeli- backed Mubarak regime. Already the heroic Egyptian people have dealt world imperialism and its outpost in the region, Israel, a major blow. I look forward to GLW’s continued coverage of these historic events as they unfold. Down with the whole corrupt regime of Mubarak’s crony capitalism! Down with US imperialism! Down with Israel! Solidarity with the uprising of the Egyptian people! — Barry Sheppard, United States.

Congratulations to GLW for 20 years of fine socialist journalism. A vital resource in tumultuous times, and still a primary English-language source on the revolutionary developments in Latin America. — Richard Fidler, Ottawa, Canada.

Congratulations on your 20th anniversary. Keep up the good work. In solidarity — Murray Smith, Luxembourg.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish GLW a happy 20th birthday and look forward to reading GLW in the next 20 years, which will be one of the most dangerous but potentially fruitful revolutionary periods that humanity has known. GLW is in my opinion the best radical newspaper in the world: I often find out more about what's really happening in Europe from GLW than I do from the European press. Its coverage of other areas in the world such as South America and Asia is also unparalleled. I wish the paper continued success in the future — Alex Miller (Scottish Socialist Party member).

Like a 20-year-old, Green Left Weekly is robust and youthful. And as an alternative to the media showbiz, it's role has been well ratified over time. Congratulations for the 20th anniversary of Green Left WeeklySombat Boonngamanong, Red Sunday Group Thailand.

I am very happy to see Green Left Weekly not just being "yet another intellectual discussion paper" (as there exist too many here in Germany) but actually gives people the tools (i.e. well-researched information to the point of current affairs) for intervening into day-to-day discussions of things that matter to the people. Keep going and you'll help making this world better — Nobby Brewer, Germany.

Keep up the vital and necessary work in providing alternative information. You can count on my help in whatever way I can. Fraternal greetings from the Island of Dignity (Cuba) — Marta Harnecker.

Great achievement for Liberating World in process. GLW has taught us for decades that "Another Word is Possible" — Lee Yu Kyung, independent Korean journalist

Congratulations on your 20th birthday and a heartfelt many happy returns. You are a beacon for truth-seeking in the increasingly compromised world of journalism. — Keith Ward, National Union of Journalists Life Member, Manchester Branch, UK

Congratulations to Green Left on reaching 20 years. The world needs more clear, strong, alternative voices like yours. — Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent for the British Guardian and author of When A Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save the World - Or Destroy It

In the current world of a corporatised media, with intense predatory traits, it is fantastic for you to have endeavoured for 20 years and kept up the search for truth that some of us are still partial to. You are indeed a generation ahead. We in India are proud to have what the Egyptians and the Arab world are now fighting for - democracy - but on the other hand we have joined the US, Europe, Japan and Australia in jeopardising it with the greed of those who already have more. In this context, we have to strengthen Green Left and suchlike movements, in order to preserve and ensure a democracy that truly works for all of our people and for our Gaia. Green Left, do bash on, we are with you. With Best wishes, — L. N. Rajaram, PhD, Founder of local community movement LoKalex, Chennai, India

Warm greetings to Green Left Weekly from Marxmail, a mailing list that takes great interest in the new initiatives being taken by the comrades in Australia toward transparency and ecumenism on the left — Louis Proyect, moderator MarxMail.

A stunning achievement! There can be few radical and anti-capitalist publications anywhere in our world that can claim to not only have survived the last 20 years but also to have prospered. Green Left Weekly always has been and remains a shining beacon of activist and internationalist journalism. More than ever, our movements and indeed our world need the excellent information, incisive analysis and practical solidarity that GLW provides - keep up the revolutionary spirit and work. Our collective struggles are changing our world, word-by-word and action-by action. May GLW continue to be part of that struggle for another 20 years! — Dale T. McKinley, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Liberation and the Communist Party of India (ML) warmly congratulate Green Left Weekly on turning 20! Progressive forces not just in Australia but even in India and presumably many other countries continue to depend on GLW for a powerful and consistent challenge to the pro-imperialist, pro-globalisation consensus that dominates the mainstream corporate media, for coverage and reliable analysis of movements around the world. We at Liberation look forward eagerly each week to the issues of GLW arriving in our office. GLW proves that revolutionary journalism can be refreshing and readable at the same time as having depth and seriousness — Kavita Krishnan for Liberation and CPI(ML)

Hearty congratulations from Nepal to Green Left Weekly on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. It was my pleasure to visit your offices in May 2009 and receive such a warm welcome from your team. It is a pleasure for Nepalese to support GLW. We hope your work will help win more success for left revolution. Janadesh Weekly is also celebrating 20th anniversary this year and we are doing here in Nepal what you are doing there. We have the same mission of revolutionising the left movement and we hope that we will help each other make this dream come true — Manarishi Dhital, executive editor Janadesh Weekly, Kathmandu, Nepal.

The Social Movements Indaba (SMI), a platform of social movements based in South Africa, salutes GLW and supports its struggles and congratulates GLW on its 20th anniversary and its achievements in all these years of struggles.
The struggles continue. Amandla!Mzi Mngeni, SMI secretariat.

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