Representing the original version of The Internationale song through dance interpretation in association with Red Books Day 2024. This is an attempt of conceiving a visual, dance narrative for this song of struggles. Composed with slogan-like verses and a simple, layperson’s tune, L’internationale is the anthem of the international working class. Much delighted to dedicate this piece of art to you all.

நியாயமான கூலி, பாதுகாப்பான பணிச்சூழல் மற்றும் தொழிலாளர் கண்ணியத்திற்காக உலகெங்கிலும் 

தீவிரமாகப் போராடிய தொழிலாளர்களின் போராட்டங்களையும்  அவர்களின் வெற்றிகளையும் இந்த சர்வதேச தொழிலாளர் தினத்தில் நாம் கௌரவிக்கிறோம்.

மே தினம் என்பது கடந்த கால வெற்றிகளை கொண்டாடுவது மட்டுமல்ல, உலகளாவிய பணியிடங்களில் சுரண்டல், சமத்துவமின்மை மற்றும் ஒடுக்குமுறைக்கு எதிரான தொடர் போராட்டத்திற்கான ஓர் அழைப்பாகும்.  

2025 ஆம் ஆண்டில், தன்னியக்கமயமாக்கல்,  நிரந்தர வருமானமற்ற பொருளாதாரத் தொழில்கள், அதிகரிப்பற்ற சம்பளம் மற்றும் தொழிற்சங்க உரிமைகளை தடைசெய்வது போன்ற பிரச்சினைகளால் தொழிலாளர்கள் தொடர்ந்தும்  பல சவால்களை எதிர்கொள்கின்றனர்.   பல நாடுகளில் அரசாங்கங்கள் மற்றும் நிறுவனங்களின் கூட்டான பேரம்,பணியிடப் பாதுகாப்பு மற்றும் சமூக பாதுகாப்புக் குறித்தான அக்கறையின்மையால் தொழிலாளர் உரிமைகள் பாதிப்புக்குள்ளாகின்றன. அதேவேளை, மில்லியன் கணக்கானோர் இன்னும் அடிப்படை உரிமைகள் அல்லது பாதுகாப்பு இல்லாமல் முறைசாரா துறைகளில் பணிபுரிகின்றனர்.  

ஆயினும், ஒற்றுமை உணர்வு தொடர்கிறது.  வாழ்க்கை ஊதியத்திற்கான வேலைநிறுத்தங்கள் முதற் கொண்டு தொழிலாளர் உரிமைகள் மற்றும் நிலைபேறான எதிர்காலம் இரண்டுக்கும் இடையேயான தொடர்பை அங்கீகரிக்கும்  பருவநிலை நீதிக்கான இயக்கங்கள் வரை, தொழிலாளர் இயக்கம் இன்னும் மாற்றத்திற்கான ஒரு பலம் வாய்ந்த சக்தியாகவே உள்ளது. நாங்கள்,  பெரும்பாலும் மதிப்பீடு இல்லாமலேயே சமூகத்தை இயங்க வைத்துக் கொண்டிருக்கும்  குடிபெயர்வோர், வீட்டுப் பணியாளர்கள், ஆலைத் தொழிலாளர்கள், விவசாயிகள் மற்றும் அத்தியாவசிய சேவைப் பணியாளர்கள்  ஆகிய அனைத்துத் தொழிலாளர்களுடனும் ஒன்றுபட்டு நிற்கிறோம்.

இந்த மே தினத்தில், நாங்கள் எங்கள் உறுதிமொழியை மீண்டும் உறுதிப்படுத்துகிறோம்!  

**நியாயமான ஊதியம் மற்றும் வேலைக்கான உத்தரவாதம்** – நிறுவனங்கள் லாபம் ஈட்டும்போது தொழிலாளர்கள் வறுமையில் வாழக்கூடாது.  

**பாதுகாப்பான மற்றும் நியாயமான பணிச்சூழல்** – ஒவ்வொரு வேலையும் கண்ணியம் மற்றும் பாதுகாப்பை உறுதி செய்ய வேண்டும்.  

**தொழிற்சங்க உரிமைகள் மற்றும் கூட்டான பேரம்** – தொழிற்சங்கங்களை அடக்குவது என்பது ஜனநாயகத்தை அடக்குவதாகும்.  

**உலகளாவிய ஒற்றுமை** – தொழிலாளர் போராட்டங்கள் எல்லைகள் தாண்டி இணைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன.  

பொருளாதார நீதிக்கான போர் இன்னும் முடிந்துவிடவில்லை. 

ஒன்றாக கூடி, 

ஒன்றுபட்டு, 

பேராசைக்கு முன்னர்  தொழிலாளர் மதிப்பீட்டுக்கு  முன்னுரிமை வழங்கும்  ஒரு உலகை கோருவோம்!  

**ஒற்றுமையுடன்,** 

*01 மே, 2025*  

On this International Workers’ Day, we honour the struggles and achievements of workers across the globe who have fought tirelessly for fair wages, safe working conditions, and dignity in labour. May Day is not just a celebration of past victories but a call to action for the ongoing fight against exploitation, inequality, and oppression in workplaces worldwide.  

In 2025, workers continue to face immense challenges—from rising automation and precarious gig economy jobs to union suppression and wage stagnation. In many countries, labour rights are under attack, with governments and corporations undermining collective bargaining, workplace safety, and social protections. Meanwhile, millions still labour in informal sectors without basic rights or security.  

Yet, the spirit of solidarity endures. From strikes demanding living wages to movements for climate justice that recognize the link between workers’ rights and a sustainable future, the labour movement remains a powerful force for change. We stand with all workers—migrant labourers, domestic workers, factory employees, farmers, and essential workers—who keep our societies running yet are too often undervalued.  

This May Day, we reaffirm our commitment to:  

**Fair Wages & Job Security** – No worker should live in poverty while corporations profit.  

**Safe & Just Working Conditions** – Every job must guarantee dignity and protection.  

**Union Rights & Collective Bargaining** – Suppressing unions suppresses democracy.  

**Global Solidarity** – Workers’ struggles are interconnected across borders.  

The fight for economic justice is far from over. Let us organize, mobilize, and demand a world where labour is valued over greed.  

**In solidarity,**  

*May 1, 2025*  

මෙම ජාත්‍යන්තර කම්කරු දිනයේදී, අපි ලොව පුරා කම්කරුවන්ගේ අරගල සහ ජයග්‍රහණ සමරමු. ඔවුහු සාධාරණ වැටුප්, ආරක්ෂිත වැඩ පරිසර සහ කම්කරු ගෞරවය සඳහා නිරන්තරයෙන් සටන් කරමින් සිටිති. මැයි දිනය යනු හුදෙක් අතීත ජයග්‍රහණ සැමරීම පමණක් නොව, ලොව පුරා වැඩ කරන ස්ථානවල පවතින බෙදුම්වාදය, අසාධාරණකම සහ පීඩනයට එරෙහිව සිදුවන නිරන්තර සටනට ඇති කැඳවීමකි.

 2025 වර්ෂයේදී, කම්කරුවෝ නව අභියෝග රාශියකට —ස්වයංක්‍රීයකරණය, අස්ථාවර ගිග් ආර්ථික රැකියා, වැටුප් කප්පාදුව, සහ ශ්‍ර‍මිකයන්ගේ සංක්‍ර‍මණික අයිතීන් අවහිර කිරීම් වැනි ගැටලුවලට මුහුණ දෙති. බොහෝ රටවල, රජයන් හා සමාගම් සාමූහික ගිවිසුම්, වැඩ ස්ථාන ආරක්ෂාව සහ සමාජ ආරක්ෂණ වැඩසටහන් දුර්වල කරමින් සිටී. එසේම, මිලියන ගණනක් තවමත් මූලික අයිතීන් හෝ ආරක්ෂාව නොමැතිව අනියම් අංශවල වැඩ කරති.  

එසේ වුවද, සහයෝගීතාවයේ හැකියාව අඛණ්ඩව පවතී. ජීවන වැටුප් සඳහා වන වැඩ වර්ජන වලින් ආරම්භ කර, කම්කරු අයිතීන් හා ගෝලීය පාරිසරික ගැටලු අතර සම්බන්ධය හඳුනා ගන්නා ජන අරගල දක්වා, කම්කරු ව්‍යාපාරය තවමත් සමාජ වෙනසක් සඳහා බලවත් බලපෑමක් ඇති කරයි. අපි සියලුම කම්කරුවන් එනම්, සංක්‍රමණික කම්කරුවන්, ගෘහ සේවකයින්, කර්මාන්ත ශාලා කම්කරුවන්, ගොවීන් සහ සමාජයේ පැවැත්මට අත්‍යවශ්‍ය සේවකයින් – සමාජය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන නමුත් බොහෝ විට අගය නොකරනු ලබන අය- සමඟ සිටිමු. 

 මේ මැයි දිනයේදී, අපි අපගේ ප්‍රතිඥාව නැවත තහවුරු කරමු:  

* සාධාරණ වැටුප් හා රැකියා ආරක්ෂාව – සමාගම් ලාභ ලබන අතර කම්කරුවන් දරිද්‍රතාවයේ ජීවත් විය යුතු නොවේ.  

*ආරක්ෂිත හා සාධාරණ වැඩ පරිසරය – සෑම රැකියාවකම ගෞරවය හා ආරක්ෂාව සහතික කළ යුතුය.  

*කම්කරු සංගම් අයිතීන් හා සාමූහික ගිවිසුම් – කම්කරු සංගම් මර්දනය කිරීම යනු ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය මර්දනය කිරීමයි.  

*ගෝලීය සහයෝගීතාව – කම්කරු අරගල සීමාවන් ඉක්මවා එකට බැඳී ඇත.  

ආර්ථික යුක්තිය සඳහා වන සටන තවමත් අවසන් වී නැත. අපි සංවිධානය වී, එක්ව සටන් කරමු. ලාභයට වඩා වැඩි වටිනාකමක් හා  ගෞරවයක් ශ්‍ර‍මයට ලැබෙන ලෝකයක් ගොඩනඟමු!  

සහයෝගීතාවයෙන්, 

2025 මැයි 1 

Originally From: https://vivaranalk.com/

අනූවේ දශකයේ ආරම්භයේ ඇවිලී ගිය බටලන්ද වධකාගාරය පිළිබඳ උණුසුම් සංවාද විවාද බටලන්ද පිළිබඳ කොමිසම් සභාවක් පත් කිරීමෙන් බොහෝ දුරට සමහන් විය. කොමිසම ඉදිරියේ දුන් සාක්ෂිවලට මහත් ප්‍රසිද්ධියක් ලැබුණ ද එහි වාර්තාව ගැන ප්‍රමාණවත් උනන්දුවක් දැක් වූයේ නැත. අනූ හතරේ දී චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග ජනාධිපති වශයෙන් තේරී පත් වීමෙන් හා අනතුරුව පැවති මහා මැතිවරණයේ දී පොදුජන එක්සත් පෙරමුණු රජය බලයට පත්වීමෙන් පසුව බටලන්ද වධකාගාරය මෙන්ම තවත් ආන්දෝලනාත්මක ඝාතන රැසක් ගැන විමර්ශන කොමිසම් සභා පත් කෙරිණ. එවැනි කොමිසම් සභාවලින් විශේෂයෙන්ම සඳහන් කළ යුතු වන්නේ චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග ගේ සැමියා වූ විජය කුමාරතුංග ඝාතනය ගැන පත් කළ කොමිසම් සභාවයි. එහෙත් චන්ද්‍රිකා රජය යටතේ පත් කරන ලද අනෙක් කොමිසම් සභා වාර්තා මෙන් ඒ සියල්ල හමස් පෙට්ටියට වැටිණ. ඒ ගැන යාන්තමින් හෝ සඳහන් වූයේ මැතිවරණයක් ආසන්නයේ දී ප්‍රතිවාදීන්ට පහර ගැසීමට පමණි.

පුදුමයකට මෙන් නැවත වරක් බටලන්ද දේශපාලන කරලියේ උණුසුම් මාතෘකාවක් බවට පත්විය. ඒ අල් ජසීරා රූපවාහිනියෙන් ප්‍රචාරය වූ සම්මුඛ සාකච්ඡාවක දී හිටපු ජනාධිපති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ කළ ප්‍රකාශයක් සමග ය. අල් ජසිරා විචාරකයාගේ ප්‍රශ්නයකට පිළිතුරු දුන් රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ බටලන්ද කොමිසමේ වාර්තාවක් නැතැයිද එමනිසා එවැනි වාර්තාවක් ගැන තමාගෙන් ප්‍රශ්න නොකළ යුතුයැයිද ඔහුටම සුපුරුදු උද්ධච්ඡ ලීලාවෙන් පිළිතුරු දුන්නේය. බටලන්ද ගැන වාර්තාවක් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත්ව නැතැයි රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ සාක්ෂියක් වශයෙන් සහතික වූයේය.

දශක ගණනාවක් නිෂ්ක්‍රීයව තිබු සේවා නූලක් ගිනි ගත්තේ ඉන් පසුවය. පසුගිය කාලය පුරාම ජනතාවගෙන් වසං කර තිබු විවිධ අක්‍රමිකතා සහ දූෂණ හෙළි කිරීමේ නිමාවක් නැති කාර්යකට උර දි සිටින ජාතික ජනබල වේගයේ ආණ්ඩුවට මෙය මාහැඟි අවස්ථාවක් විය. බටලන්ද කොමිසමේ වාර්තාවක් තිබෙන බව පැවසු සභානායක බිමල් රත්නායක එය වහාම පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ සභා ගත කරන බවට සහතික වූයේය. ඉන් නොනැවතී ඒ සඳහා දින දෙකක පාර්ලිමේන්තු විවාදයක් පැවැත්වීමට තම ආණ්ඩුව සූදානම්යැයි කීවේය. පුවත් පත් වාර්තා අනුව සිංහල දෙමළ අවුරුද්දෙන් පසුව එම විවාදය පැවැත්වීමට දින වෙන් කර ඇත.

යෝජිත පාර්ලිමේන්තු විවාදය ගැන මුළින්ම කිව යුත්තේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ පැවැත්වෙන අනෙකුක් විවාද මෙන් එය නිසැකයෙන්ම නිදහසේ මඩ ගසා ගැනීමකින් කෙළවර වන බව ය. දැනටමත් භීෂණ කාලයේ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ සන්නද්ධ අංශය වූ දේශප්‍රේමී ජනතා ව්‍යාපාරයෙන් ඝාතනය කරන ලදැයි කියන එක්සත් ජාතික පාක්ෂිකයන්ගේ නාම ලැයිස්තුවක් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මංත්‍රීවරියක් ඉදිරිපත් කළාය. පාර්ලිමේන්තු විවාදයේ දී මෙවැනි සිය ගණනක් වූ සිද්ධීන් නැවතත් සජීවී වනු ඇත. යුක්තිය පසිඳලීම කඩිනම් වන ආකාරයක් හෝ මෙවැනි සිද්ධීන් දකුණේ හෝ උතුරේ නැවත සිදු වීම වැළැක්වීමට ගත යුතු ක්‍රියා මාර්ග සහ ප්‍රතිපත්ති තීරණ කිසිවක් පාර්ලිමේන්තු විවාදයෙන් පැහැදිලි වේයැයි කිව නොහැකිය. විය හැකි එකම දේ දින දෙකක විවාදයක් සඳහා මහජන මුදල් අපතේ යැවීමක් පමණි. බටලන්දේ වධකාගාරයේ දී අහිමි වු ජීවිතවලට වන්දියක් හෝ එහි වින්දිතයන්ට සැනසීමක් නොලැබෙනු ඇත.

බටලන්ද වධකාගාරයේ විමර්ශන කොමිසමට අමතරව චන්ද්‍රිකා පාලනය යටතේ පත් කරන ලද වෙනත් කොමිසම් සභා වාර්තාවලින් වැරදිකරුවන්ට දඬුවම් දිමක් හෝ අපහරණය කළ රාජ්‍ය සම්පත් ලබා ගැනීමට සහ නැවත එවැනි දේ සිදු නොවීමට කිසිම පියවරක් ගත් බවක් දක්නට නැත. එම වාර්තාද බටලන්ද වාර්තාව මෙන් හමස් පෙට්ටියට වැටී ඇත.

මෙම වාර්තා සිහිපත් වන්නේ ජාතික ජන බලවේගයේ ඇමතිවරුන් දිනපතාම පාහේ පසුගිය පාලනය සමයේ සිදු කළ අකටයුතු අක්‍රමිකතා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ දී හෙළි කරන නිසාය. ඇත්තෙන්ම එම හෙළිදරවු කිරීම් බෙහෙවින් වැදගත් ය. ආණ්ඩුවේ සෑම මට්ටමකම වංචා දූෂණ සිදුවන බව සාමාන්‍ය දැනුම වුවත් ඒවායේ වපසරිය දැන ගැනීමට ලැබෙන්නේ මෙවැනි හෙළිදරවු කිරීම්වලිනි. එමනිසා ඒවා අගය කළ යුතුය. එහෙත් බොහෝ දෙනා නිරන්තරයෙන්ම නගන ප්‍රශ්නය මෙම හෙළිදරවු කිරීම්වලින් පසුව සිදු වන්නේ කුමක් ද යන්නයි. මෙම හෙළිදරවු කිරීම් සුපුරුදු පරිදි හමස් පෙට්ටියට නොවැටෙන බවට ඇති සහතිකය කුමක්ද? බටලන්ද කොමිසමේ ‘නිර්දේශ’ ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීම සඳහා නිර්දේශ ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට කොමිසමක් නොව කමිටුවක් පත් කර ඇති බවද වාර්තා විය. කොමිසන් සභා ගැන විමර්ශනය කිරීමට ද කොමිසන් පත් කිරීමේ ඉතිහාසයක් අපට පවතින බව ද අමතක නොකළ යුතුය. එහෙත් එම වාර්තා ද වචනයට එහා යනු ඇත්දැයි ඕනෑම කෙනෙකුට ප්‍රශ්න කළ හැකිය.

පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ හෙළිකරන ලද අපහරණ ක්‍රියාත් කොමිසන් සභාවලින් සොයාගත් තෙරතුරුත් මහජන දේපොළ අවභාවිතය සහ දඬුවම් ලැබිය හැකි වරදක් වුවත් ඒවාට දඬුවම් ලබා දිය යුත්තේ අධිකරණයෙනි. ඒ සඳහා චෝදනා ගොනු කළ යුත්තේ නීතිපති විසිනි. එය කඩිනමින් සිදු වන්නක් නොවේ. ජනාධිපති අනුර කුමාර පාස්කු ඉරිදා ප්‍රහාරය ගැන කල් නොයවාම නීති පියවර ගැනීමට අගරදගුරුතුමාට පොරොන්දු වුවද එය තවම සිදුව නැත. එමනිසා කාදිනල්තුමා අනතුරු හැඟවීමේ නිවේදනයක් ද නිකුත් කෙළේය. වත්මන් ජනාධිපතිට ඒ ගැන කඩිනමින් පියවර ගැනීමට අවශ්‍යතාවයක් තිබුණ ද පවතින ක්‍රියා පටිපාටිය අනුව එසේ වන්නේ නැත. ඊට සාධාරණ හේතු ද තිබිය හැකිය. ප්‍රමාද වී ඉටුවන යුක්තිය සමහර විට අයුක්තියක් විය හැකිය.

මින් පැහැදිලි වන සත්‍යය නම් අපේක්ෂාව කෙතරම් හොඳ වුවද පවතින ක්‍රමය යටතේ එය අවශ්‍ය වේලාවට අවශ්‍ය ආකාරයට සිදු වන්නේ නැත යන්නයි. එය ක්‍රමයේ වැරැද්දකි. සිස්ටම් චේන්ජ් එකක් ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ එම නිසාය. ක්‍රමයේ නැතිනම් සිස්ටම් එකේ වෙනසක් සිදුවිය යුතු බවට තවත් නිදර්ශනයක් දැක්විය හැකිය. ඉන් එකක් පොලිස්පති දේශබන්ධු තෙන්නකෝන් ගේ කතා වස්තුවයි. ඔහු මාතර උසාවියේ නියෝගය නොතකා සති තුනකට ආසන්න කාලයක් සැඟවී සිටියේය. නීතිය සහ විධානය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට බැඳී සිටින ඒ වෙනුවෙන් වැටුපක් ලබන පොලිස්පති වැනි කෙනෙකු පොලීසියෙන් සැඟව සිටීම කැකිල්ලේ රජ්ජුරුවන්ගේ කාලයේ හෝ ඇසිමට නොලැබුණ කතාවකි. 

සේවය අත්හිටුවන ලද නමුත් ඔහු තවමත් පොලිස්පති ය. ඔහුගේ රාජකාරි ආවරණය කරන්නේ වැඩ බලන පොලිස්පතිවරයෙකි. උසාවියට භාර වූ සේවය අත්හිටුවන ලද පොලිස්පති අද සිටින්නේ රක්ෂිත බන්ධනාගාරයේය. පොලිස්පති වශයෙන් ඔහුගේ මාසික වැටුප සහ අනෙකුග් දිමනා ද බන්ධනාගාරයට යවනු ඇත.

මෙය හාස්‍යජනක සිද්ධියක්ද නැතිනම් අප මුහුණ දී සිටින ඛේදවාචකයක්ද යන්න සොයා ගැනීමට කොමිසමක් පත් කිරීමට යෝජනාවක් ඉදිරිපත් විමට ද ඉඩ ඇත. උසාවියෙන් කට්ටි පැන සිටි පොලිස්පති සේවයෙන් ඉවත් කර ඒ වෙනුවට වෙනත් සුදුස්සෙකු පත් කිරීමට අපේ සිස්ටම් එකෙන් ඉඩක් නැත. පවතින ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව අනුව පොලිස්පති පත් කරන්නේ ව්‍යවස්ථා සභාවෙන් නිසා ඔහු ඉවත් කිරීමේ බලය ද ඇත්තේ එම සභාවටමය. එසේ නැතිනම් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ දෝෂාභියෝගයක් ගෙන ආ යුතුය.

කෙතරම් යහපත් අපේක්ෂා තිබුණ ද පවතින ක්‍රමය යටතේ සාධාරණය හෝ යුක්තිය ඉටු කිරීම කල්ගතවන යල්පැන ගිය ක්‍රියාදාමයකට සීමා වී පවතී. මෙය නීතිය සම්බන්ධයෙන් පමණක් නොව රාජ්‍ය පරිපාලනයේ සියලු අංශවලට පොදු කාරණයකි. කෙතරම් වංචා දූෂණ හෙළි කළත්, කෙතරම් වැදගත් කාලීන ප්‍රතිපත්ති ක්‍රියා මාර්ග ඉදිරිපත් වුවත් සිස්ටම් එක වැඩ කරන්නේ පරණ පුරුදු ආකාරයට ය. ගෝටා ගෝ හෝම් අරගලය කළ තරුණ තරුණියන් ගාලු මුවදොර පිටියේ දී සිස්ටම් චේන්ජ් ඉල්ලා සිටියේ එම නිසාය. පවතින ක්‍රමය යටතේ ජනතා අපේක්ෂා ඉටු වෙන්නේ නැත.

නිසි වේලාවට අවශ්‍ය දෙය සිදු නොවන්නේ නම් ‘වැඩය’ කර ගැනීමට වෙනත් උපක්‍රම යොදා ගත යුතුය. අල්ලස් දීම ඉන් එකක් පමණි. කොමිස් ගැනීම තවත් එකකි. මේවා නිවැරදි කර කාර්යක්ෂම ඵලදායි මහජන සේවයක් ලබා දිමට පුද්ගලයන් හෝ තනතුරු වෙනස් කිරීම ප්‍රමාණවත් නැත. විශ්‍රාම වැටුප් හෝ වෙනත් දිමනා නොගැනීම නිල රථ, නිල නිවාස ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කිරීම නිසා සිස්ටම් චේන්ජ් වන්නේ නැත. වෙනස් විය යුත්තේ ක්‍රමයයි. පවතින ක්‍රමය පදනම්ව ඇත්තේ බලය මතය. බලය ඇති පුද්ගලයාට නීතිය නොසලකා වුවද ක්‍රියා කළ හැකිය. විධායක ජනාධිපති සතුව ඇත්තේ ද එම බලයයි. ජනාධිපතිවරුන් නීතිය නොසලකා කටයුතු කළ විට ඊට මුක්තියක් ද හිමි කර ගත හැකිය. ඒ ගැන නිදසුන් දැක්විම අනවශ්‍ය ය. පසුගිය වසර හැත්තෑ ගණනක ඉතිහාසය එයයි.

එමනිසා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ විවාද කිරීමට අමතරව යුක්තිය සහ සාධාරණය ඉටු කිරීමටත් නීතිය සහ විධානය නිසි පරිදි ක්‍රියාත්මක වීමටත් පවතින බල ව්‍යුහයේ වෙනසක් සිදු කළ යුතුය. ජනතාව වෙනුවෙන් පවතින ආයතන සහ ජනතා නියෝජිතයන් ජනතාවට වගවෙන ව්‍යුහාත්මක වෙනස්කම් කළ යුතුය. විධානය සහ බලය පුද්ගලයාගේ පරමාධිකාරයක් නොව ජනතාවගේ උරුමය බවට පත් කළ යුතුය. එය කල් දැමීම හෝ නොසලකා සිටීම තවත් බටලන්ද වැනි වධකාගාරත් දේශබන්ධු වැනි පොලිස්පතිලාත් පෝෂණය කරන උපක්‍රමයකි. 

බටලන්ද කොමිෂන් සභාවේ වාර්තා පහත දිගු මගින් බා ගත කළ හැකිය.

• බටලන්ද නිවාස යෝජනා ක්‍රමයේ නීති විරෝධී රැදවුම් ස්ථාන හා වධකාගාර පිහිටුවා පත්වාගෙන යාම පිළිබද පරීක්ෂණ කොමිෂන් සභාවේ වාර්තාව-සිංහල
• බටලන්ද නිවාස යෝජනා ක්‍රමයේ නීති විරෝධී රැදවුම් ස්ථාන හා වධකාගාර පිහිටුවා පත්වාගෙන යාම පිළිබද පරීක්ෂණ කොමිෂන් සභාවේ වාර්තාව-දෙමළ
• බටලන්ද නිවාස යෝජනා ක්‍රමයේ නීති විරෝධී රැදවුම් ස්ථාන හා වධකාගාර පිහිටුවා පත්වාගෙන යාම පිළිබද පරීක්ෂණ කොමිෂන් සභාවේ වාර්තාව-ඉංග්‍රීසි

Republished From: https://vivaranalk.com/%e0%b6%b6%e0%b6%a7%e0%b6%bd%e0%b6%b1%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%af%e0%b7%99%e0%b6%b1%e0%b7%8a-%e0%b6%87%e0%b7%80%e0%b7%92%e0%b7%85%e0%b7%99%e0%b6%b1-%e0%b6%9c%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%b1%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%af%e0%b7%90%e0%b6%bd/

Originally from: https://vivaranalk.com

දකුණු ආසියාවේ මිලියන සංඛ්‍යාත වතු කම්කරුවන් අතරින්  තේ කම්කරුවන්ට ලැබෙනුයේ ප්‍රමුඛ ස්ථානයකි. ශ්‍රීලංකාව, ඉන්දියාව, බංගලාදේශය සහ නේපාලය  කලාපයේ   තේ නිපදවෙන ප්‍රධාන රටවල් හතර අතරින්  ලෝක වෙළඳ මධ්‍යස්ථාන වාර්තාවන්ට අනුව තේ අපනයන අතින්  තුන් වන තැන ලංකාවටත්, හත් වැනි තැන නේපාලයටත් හිමිය. ඉන්දියාවට 51 වැනි ස්ථානයේත්, බංගලාදේශය 133 ස්ථානයේත් පසුවේ. එහෙත්  මෙකී රටවල තේ  වතු කම්කරුවන්, විශේෂයෙන් ස්ත්‍රීන්ට  හා කම්කරු පන්තික පවුල්වලට බලපාන ජිවන කොන්දේසි පවතිනුයේ ඉතාමත් ශෝචනීය තත්වයකයි.  කම්කරු  අයිතිවාසිකම් උල්ලංඝනය කිරීම් වලට ඔබ්බට ගොස් ඔවුන්ගේ     ආදිවාසී, දලිත් වාර්ගික සහ අනෙකුත් ආන්තික ජන  අයිතිවාසිකම් හා  සමාජ යුක්තිය කෙරෙහි ද   මෙම රටවල් හතර පුරාම ගැටළු පැන නැගී ඇත.

ලංකාව, ඉන්දියාව, බංගලාදේශය හා නේපාලය  රටවල්  හතරේම  තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ගේ ගැටළු වල වැඩි වෙනසක් නොමැත. යටත් විජිත සමාජයේ පැවති ශ්‍රම සුරාකෑම,දුප්පත්කම හා වහල් භාවය මෙහි  මුල්බැස ඇතිබව පැහැදිලිව පෙන්නුම් කරයි.

තේ කර්මාන්තය දකුණු ආසියානු කලාපය පුරා මිලියන සංඛ්‍යාත කම්කරුවන්ට සෘජු හා වක්‍ර රැකියා සපයන අතර  වැටුප්, සමාජ ආරක්ෂණය, ස්ත්‍රී පුරුෂ සමාජභාවය, ඉඩම් සහ නිවාස අයිතිවාසිකම් පිළිබඳ ගැටළු  තීරණාත්මකය. ඊට අමතරව කුඩා තේ වතු හිමියන්  ප්‍රවර්ධනය කිරීම, සාම්ප්‍රදායික තේ වතුවල  ආකෘතිය නවීකරණය, කර්මාන්තශාලා ඇතුළුව කාර්මික ප්‍රතිව්‍යුහගත කිරීම වැනි  මෑත කාලීන ප්‍රවණතා විසින් සටන් කොට දිනා ගත් කම්කරු  අයිතිවාසිකම් කප්පාදුවකට ලක්වීම මෙන්ම  දේශගුණය හා කාලගුණික වෙනස්වීම්  තේ නිෂ්පාදනයට බලපාන අතරම   අවසානයේ  ඒ මගින්ද  විශාල බලපෑමකට ලක් වන්නේ තේ කම්කරුවන්ය.

සොච්චම් වැටුප්

ලෝක තේ වෙළඳ පොලේදී  සැලකිය යුතු ලාභයක් ලැබුනද, තේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ වැටුප ඇත්තේ ඉතාමත් පහත මට්ටමකය.  එම වැටුප ද  ඒ ඒ රටවල ඉහළ යමින් තිබෙන ජිවන වියදමට සමපාත නොවන්නකි.

මේ සෑම රටකම තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ට ලැබෙන්නේ දෛනික වැටුපකි.  නේපාලයේ තේ වතු කම්කරුවෙකුගේ දිනෙක වැටුප ඇමරිකානු ඩොලර් 3.05 කි. ඉන්දියාවේ ඇසෑම්  හා බටහිර බෙංගාල ප්‍රාන්ත වල දෛනික වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩෙලර් 3.02 ක් වන විට ත්‍රිපුරයේ එක් තේවතු කම්කරුවෙකුගේ  දිනෙක වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 1.77 කි. මෙම වැටුපට සාපේක්ෂව  හතර දෙනෙකුගෙන් යුත් පවුලක දිනෙක අවම  වියදම ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 11.49 කි.

ලංකාවේ තේ වතු කම්කරුවෙකුගේ දෛනික  වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර්  2.78 ක් වන විට හතර දෙනෙකුගෙන් යුත් පවුලක දවසක අවම වියදම ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර්  2.51  කි.

බංගලාදේශයේ තේ වතු කම්කරුවෙකුගේ දෛනික වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 1.87 කි. එහෙත් එහි හතර දෙනෙකුගෙන් යුත් පවුලක  දිනෙක අවම වියදම ලෙස ගණන් බලා ඇත්තේ ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 7.06 කි.

2022 වසර දක්වා බංගලාදේශ  තේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ දෛනික වැටුප වුයේ ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 1.32 කි. එම වසරේ අගෝස්තුවේදී  1,50.000 ක් තේ වතු කම්කරුවන් විදී බැස උද්ඝෝෂණය කළේ ඉහල යන ජිවන වියදමට සරිලන අයුරින්, දෛනික වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 3.3 දක්වා වැඩි කරන ලෙසය. දින 19 ක් අඛණ්ඩව පැවති උද්ඝෝෂණය හමුවේ බංගලාදේශ ආණ්ඩුව ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් සත 0.55 ක් වැනි සොච්චම් වැඩිවීමක් ලබා දුනි.

ලංකාවේද තේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ දෛනික වැටුප ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් 4.30  ක් එනම් රුපියල් 1300 ක් දක්වා ඉහල දමා ගත්තේ අඛණ්ඩ අරගලයකින් පසුවය.වැටුප් ඉහල දැමීමට රජයේ පාර්ශවයෙන්  අනුමැතිය හිමිවුවද  වතු සමාගම් ඊට එරෙහිව අධිකරණයට යාමත් සමග තවදුරටත් අසරණ වුයේ කම්කරුවන්ය. ලංකාවේ තේ කම්කරුවන්ට අද දිනයේ ලැබෙන දෛනික වැටුප ද විද්‍යාත්මක ගණනය කර පවතින ජිවන වියදමට අනුව සැකසුවක් නොවේ.   තේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ දෛනික වැටුපට වඩා දකුණු ආසියානු කලාපයේ  අනෙකුත් ක්ෂේත්‍ර වල කම්කරුවන්ගේ අවම වැටුප ඉහල අගයක් ගනී.

බහුතර ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන්

දකුණු ආසියාවේ තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ගෙන් අඩකටත් වඩා  ස්ත්‍රින්ය. එහෙත් බොහෝ ස්ත්‍රීන්  සේවය කරන  වතු  ඔවුන්ගේ යහපැවැත්මට හිතකර ඒවා  නොවේ. ඔවුන් දෛනිකව  මුහුණ දෙන අභියෝග අතර, ඔසප් වීම, මාතෘත්වය සහ ළමා රැකවරණය, කාරනා කෙරෙහි රැකියා ස්ථානයේ ප්‍රමාණවත් වෘත්තීය සහ සෞඛ්‍ය ආරක්ෂණ නොමැතිකම, සෞඛ්‍ය සහ අධ්‍යාපනය සඳහා ප්‍රවේශය නොමැතිකම,  වැටුප් විෂමතා, ලිංගික අඩත්තේට්ටම්  සහ තීරණ ගැනීමේ භූමිකාවන්ගෙන් බැහැර කිරීම ආදිය දැක්විය හැක.

දකුණු ආසියානු තේ නිපැයුම් කලාපය පුරාම සාම්ප්‍රදායිකව  මුල් බැසගත් මතයක් වනුයේ  පිරිමි කම්කරුවන්ට වඩා තේ දළු නෙලීම  කළ යුත්තේ ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන් බවයි. මේ හේතුවෙන් ස්ත්‍රීන් වැඩිපුර බඳවා ගැනීමක් පෙන්නුම් කරන අතර පිරිමින් සහ කාන්තා සේවිකාවන් දෙදෙනාටම සමාන වැටුපක් හිමිවේ. එහෙත් ස්ත්‍රීන්  වෘත්තීයෙන්   ඉහළට යාමේදී නොයෙක් වෙනස්කම් වලට ලක් කෙරේ.  ඔවුන්ගේ සමාන වැඩ කිරීමේ අයිතිය උල්ලංඝනය කෙරෙන අතර අධීක්ෂණ තනතුරුවල  ස්ත්‍රීන් දක්නට ලැබෙන්නේ කලාතුරකිනී. ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන්ව   තේ දළු නෙලීම, පඳුරු කප්පාදු කිරීම වැනි පහළ මට්ටමේ  ක්ෂේත්‍ර වැඩට පමණක් සිමා කෙරේ.

එසේම, තේ වතුවල දෛනික වැඩ නිම කිරීමේදී, ස්ත්‍රීන්ට නිවාස  හා ළමා රැකවරණ කටයුතුවල ද  නිරත වීමට සිදුවේ.  ඔව්හු   සති අන්තයේ ගඩොල් පෝරණු සහ  කෘෂිකාර්මික කටයුතුවල හා  අවිධිමත් අංශයේ වැඩවලට සම්බන්ධ වීමෙන් අතිරේක ආදායමක් උපයා ගන්නේ  තේ වතුවලින් ලැබෙන අඩු වැටුප් නිසාවෙනි.  මේ අයුරින්, තේ නිමැයුම් කේෂේත්‍රයේ ස්ත්‍රී  ශ්‍රමිකයින් නිවසේ  හා වත්තේ   බහුවිධ වගකීම්වල පීඩනය, සොච්චම් වැටුප් සහ  අහිතකර වැඩ කොන්දේසි  හේතුවෙන් දැඩි ලෙස පීඩා විඳිති.

ඉන්දියානු රජයේ වාර්තාවන්ට අනුව එරට  ශ්‍රම බලකායෙන් මිලියන 1.12 ක් තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ය. ඉන් සියයට 7.7 ක් වාර්තා කරන්නේ ඇසෑම් ප්‍රාන්තයෙනී. ඉන් බහුතර කම්කරුවන් ආදිවාසී ජනයායි. සමස්ත තේ කම්කරුවන්ගෙන් අඩකට ආසන්න ගණනක් වූ සියයට හතළිහක් වනුයේ ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන්ය. 

රටපුරා පැතුරුණු තේ වතු 159 ක,මිලියන  440,743 ක් වූ කම්කරුවන් හා ඔවුන්ගේ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයන් සමග දිවි ගෙවන බවට බංගලාදේශ තේ මණ්ඩලයේ 2017 / 2018 වාර්ෂික වාර්තා මගින් පෙන්නුම් කරයි. එරට ස්ථිර හා තාවකාලික තේ කම්කරුවන් කොටස් දෙකේම අඩක් නියෝජනය කරන්නේ ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන්ය.

නේපාලයේ තේ කම්කරුවන් 40.000 අතරින් බහුතරය ස්ත්‍රින්ය. ස්ථිර කම්කරුවන්ගෙන් සියයට හතළිස් අටක් සහ  දෛනික තාවකාලික කම්කරුවන්ගෙන්  සියයට හැත්තෑ පහක් ස්ත්‍රී කම්කරුවන්ය. ලංකාවේ 1,50,000 ක් සෘජුවම තේ කම්කරු බලකායට අයත් වන අතර ඉන් අති බහුතරය ස්ත්‍රින්ය.

පාරිතෝෂික දීමනා

තේ කර්මාන්තයේ කම්කරුවන් විධිමත් කම්කරුවන්  ලෙස සැලකෙන බැවින්,  ඔවුහු   තම රටවල පවතින  කම්කරු නීති අනුව  අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල් සහ පාරිතෝෂික සඳහා සුදුසුකම් ලබති.

උදාහරණයක් ලෙස, නේපාලයේ තේ වතු හිමියන් මූලික වැටුපෙන් පිළිවෙලින් 10% සහ 8.33% ක් අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල සහ සේවක පාරිතෝෂිකය සඳහා දායක විය යුතුය. ඒ හා සමානව,  ලංකාවේ සේවා යෝජකයෙකු සේවක අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල (EPF)ට  කම්කරුවාගේ  මුළු ඉපැයීම්වලින් අවම වශයෙන් 12% ක් දායක විය යුතුය.

 කම්කරුවන්   තම වැටුපෙන් 8% ක් සේවක අර්ථ සාධක [ EPF] වෙත සහ 3% ක් සේවක භාර අරමුදලට (ETF) සේව්‍යා විසින් ලබාදිය යුතුය.

කලාපයේ බොහෝ වතු සමාගම්වලින්  විශ්‍රාම හෝ ඉවත්ව යන කම්කරුවන්ට  අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල් සහ පාරිතෝෂික මුදල කාලෝචිත ලෙස ගෙවීමට සේවායෝජකයින් අපොහොසත් වන බවටද  පැමිණිලි රැසකි.

කෙසේ වෙතත්, අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල සහ පාරිතෝෂික ප්‍රතිපාදන ස්ථිර කම්කරුවන්ට  පමණක් සීමා වේ. කර්මාන්තයේ කම්කරුවන්ගෙන්  සැලකිය යුතු ප්‍රමාණයක් තාවකාලික හෝ අනියම් වේ.

නිදසුනක් වශයෙන්, නේපාලයේ, තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ගෙන්  30% ක් පමණක් නිත්‍ය සේවකයින් වේ. බංග්ලාදේශයේ, 27% ක් පමණ තාවකාලික තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ය.

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ, වතු අංශයේ ස්ථිර කම්කරුවන්  සංඛ්‍යාව 1985 දී 458,617 ක් වූ අතර එය 2011 දී 207,235 දක්වා 58% කින් පහත වැටී ඇත.

 තාවකාලික හෝ අක්‍රමවත් කම්කරුවන්ගේ  අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල් සහ පාරිතෝෂික සඳහා ගෙවීමට ඔවුන් බැඳී නොසිටින බැවින්, ශ්‍රම බලකායෙන් විශාල ප්‍රමාණයක් අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල් සහ පාරිතෝෂික සඳහා  ඇතුළත් නොවේ.

 තේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ එකතුව

 ඉන්දියාව,බංගලාදේශය,නේපාලය සහ ලංකාව නියෝජනය කරමින්, ඉකුත් දෙසැම්බරයේ දී   නේපාලයේ කත්මන්ඩු නුවරට රැස් වූ වෘත්තීය සමිති හා බහුජන සංවිධාන නියෝජිතයෝ තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ට සහ  ඔවුන්ගේ අනාගත පරම්පරාවන්ට සාධාරණ හා සමානතා  සමාජයක්  නිර්මාණය කිරීම වෙනුවෙන් ඉදිරි දැක්මක් ගැන සාකච්ජා කළහ.

එහි ප්‍රතිපලයක් ලෙසින් දකුණු ආසියානු තේ වතු කම්කරු සන්ධානය බිහිවිය.  මෙම සන්ධානය කම්කරු අයිතිවාසිකම් වෙනුවෙන් සාමූහිකව පෙනී සිටීම, ක්‍රියාමාර්ග සම්බන්ධීකරණය කිරීම සහ තේ වතු අංශයේ කම්කරුවන්ගේ  අයිතිවාසිකම් ආරක්ෂා කිරීම, ප්‍රවර්ධනය කිරීම සහ ඔවුන්ගේ ඉල්ලීම් සාක්ෂාත් කර ගැනීම වෙනුවෙන්  ජාතික සහ කලාපීය මට්ටමින් ආණ්ඩු  සහ පෞද්ගලික අංශය දෙපාර්ශවයටම බලපෑම් කිරීමට නියමිතය.

තේ වතු කම්කරුවන්ගේ දුක්ඛිත දිවිය, වැඩ කොන්දේසි  සහ ඔවුන්ගේ අයිතිවාසිකම් පිළිබඳ දැනුවත්භාවය ඇති කිරීමට  කලාපය පුරා උද්ඝෝෂණය කිරීමට සහ ඔවුන්ගේ ඉල්ලීම් ප්‍රධාන ධාරාවේ කම්කරු න්‍යාය පත්‍රයට ගෙන ඒම මගින් ජිවන වියදමට සරිලන  වැටුප්, රැකියා හා සමාජ සුරක්ෂිතතාව තහවුරු කිරීම නව කම්කරු එකතුවේ අරමුණය.

ඉෂංඛා සිංහආරච්චි

Republished from: https://vivaranalk.com/%e0%b6%af%e0%b6%9a%e0%b7%94%e0%b6%ab%e0%b7%94-%e0%b6%86%e0%b7%83%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%ba%e0%b7%8f%e0%b6%b1%e0%b7%94-%e0%b6%ad%e0%b7%9a-%e0%b6%9a%e0%b6%b8%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%9a%e0%b6%bb%e0%b7%94%e0%b7%80/

Worker cooperatives are gaining increasing importance in the present global situation due to their potential to address economic, social, and environmental challenges. Here are some key reasons why they matter today:

1. Economic Resilience & Democratic Ownership

• Worker cooperatives distribute ownership and decision-making power among employees, reducing wealth inequality.
• They tend to be more stable during economic crises because workers have a vested interest in the company’s long-term success rather than short-term profit maximization.
• Studies show cooperatives have lower failure rates compared to traditional businesses.

2. Fair Wages & Reduced Exploitation

• Workers in cooperatives often earn better wages and benefits since profits are shared equitably.
• They eliminate the traditional employer-employee hierarchy, reducing labor exploitation.

3. Addressing Precarious Work & Job Insecurity

• In an era of gig economy precarity, cooperatives offer stable, dignified employment.
• Platforms like Platform Cooperativism (e.g., driver-owned ride-sharing co-ops) provide alternatives to exploitative tech giants.

4. Sustainability & Ethical Business Practices

• Cooperatives often prioritize environmental sustainability over unchecked profit growth.
• Many focus on local economies, reducing carbon footprints from global supply chains.

5. Community Development & Local Empowerment

• Cooperatives keep wealth circulating locally rather than extracting it to distant shareholders.
• They foster stronger communities by aligning business goals with social needs (e.g., housing co-ops, credit unions).

6. Alternative to Corporate Monopolies

• As multinational corporations dominate key sectors (tech, agriculture, retail), cooperatives provide decentralized, democratic alternatives.
• Examples: Mondragon Corporation (Spain), Arizmendi Bakery (U.S.), and Amul Dairy (India).

7. Response to Automation & AI Displacement

• Worker-owned firms can ensure that automation benefits employees rather than just owners.
• Cooperatives can implement worker-guided AI adoption, ensuring fair transitions.

8. Global Movements & Policy Shifts

• Governments (e.g., Spain, Italy, Argentina) and international bodies (UN, ILO) are increasingly supporting cooperatives as part of inclusive economic policies.
• The “Solidarity Economy” movement promotes cooperatives as a key model for post-capitalist economies.

Challenges & the Path Forward

Despite their benefits, worker cooperatives face obstacles like limited access to capital, lack of legal frameworks, and competition with corporate giants. However, with growing interest in economic democracy, ethical business, and climate justice, cooperatives are poised to play a crucial role in shaping a more equitable global economy.

A worker cooperative is a type of cooperative that is owned and democratically controlled by its employees. In a worker cooperative, the members are both the labor force and the owners, sharing in the profits and decision-making processes. This model emphasizes democratic governance, with each member typically having one vote in the cooperative’s affairs, regardless of their investment or role in the organization.

Worker cooperatives are based on principles of cooperation, mutual aid, and collective benefit, which align with the values of social responsibility and shared prosperity. They can be found in various sectors, including manufacturing, services, and retail.

Examples of worker cooperatives include:

1. Mondragon Corporation – Based in the Basque region of Spain, Mondragon is one of the largest and most successful worker cooperatives in the world. It operates in several industries, including finance, industry, retail, and knowledge.

2. The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio, USA – This is a network of worker-owned cooperatives, including a green laundry, a solar panel installation company, and an urban farming initiative, aimed at creating sustainable jobs and fostering community development.

3. Suma Wholefoods – Based in the UK, Suma is the largest independent wholefood wholesaler and distributor in the country, and it is entirely worker-owned.

4. Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) – Located in the Bronx, New York, CHCA is one of the largest worker cooperatives in the United States and provides home healthcare services.

These examples demonstrate how worker cooperatives can empower employees, contribute to local economies, and promote sustainable business practices.

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-the-joy-of-reading/

Reading and popular literacy programmes have played an important role in revolutionary processes, from the Mexican, Chinese, and Russian revolutions in the early twentieth century to today.

11 February 2025

Artwork by Kael Abello (Venezuela/Utopix and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).

The artwork in this dossier draws from the Red Books Day 2025 Calendar. Each of the twelve contributions, produced in collaboration with the International Union of Left Publishers, is inspired by a red book from a different region of the world. Red Books Day celebrates left books, their authors, and the people’s movements they ushered in on 21 February 1848, the day Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto. It is a day that celebrates the joy of reading.

All Russia was learning to read, and reading – politics, economics, history – because the people wanted to know… In every city, in most towns, along the Front, each political faction had its newspaper – sometimes several. Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed by thousands of organisations and poured into the armies, the villages, the factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap fiction that corrupts – but social and economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky…

John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, 1919.¹

Revolutions of ordinary working people burst through the shackles of society and created an insistence upon a new world. Every one of them, whether directly socialist or driven by national liberation, provides us with evidence of this exuberance to overturn ancient social norms and build egalitarian forms of being and belonging. Since most twentieth century revolutions were led by peasants and workers (Mexico, 1910; China, 1911; Iran, 1905–1911; Russia and Central Asia, 1917), they often focused on how to transform the rigidities of landlordism. To overthrow the landlord’s power, it was not enough to distribute surplus land (land reform); the landlord’s power was rooted in social hierarchies that sometimes took on a divine character. The oppression of the peasantry was conducted through the undecipherable hieroglyphics of land records and accounting books, the books of moneylenders and priests. Depriving the peasantry of the ability to read rendered them powerless, a power that, once grasped, made itself clear in every one of these revolutions in the poorer parts of the world.

The bourgeois culture that prevailed across these nations in the nineteenth century adopted reading as a sign of class status. Though books and newspapers flourished with the advent of commercial printing, they were mainly for the bourgeoisie and – in some cases – the petty bourgeoisie. In Mexico, where the presidency of Benito Juárez (1858–1872) expanded schooling and the publishing industry, the cost of a newspaper was far greater than the daily earnings of the average worker or campesino (peasant).²

Under the regime of landlords in countries such as Mexico and Russia and in colonies such as India and on the African continent, very few opportunities existed for workers and peasants to learn to read. It was only when trade union and communist movements appeared in these countries and their organisations published newspapers and pamphlets, often clandestinely, that working-class and peasant members gained wider access to texts, which were read to them by literate organisers. This form of collective learning became an early school for literacy.

This dossier, The Joy of Reading, draws from such traditions to highlight examples of popular literacy from our time, from Mexico to China to India. The last part of this dossier will highlight Red Books Day, a programme that began in India and which has since – through the initiative of the International Union of Left Publishers – expanded across the world.

Artwork by Valentina Aguirre (Venezuela/Utopix).Top

Mexico Reads

At the time of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, only around 22% of the country’s population of 15.1 million were literate.³

A long period of unrest gripped Mexico for the next decade, until Álvaro Obregón won the presidency in 1920 and began a process of reform that comprised mass cultural activity such as opening rural schools, training teachers, building public libraries and art schools, and publishing pamphlets and books for early readers. In 1921, José Vasconcelos was named the first secretary of public education and given an open charge by Obregón to democratise Mexican culture.⁴

To reach this goal, the state built thousands of rural schools and teacher training institutes and raised rural teachers’ wages from one to three pesos a day.⁵

To run the main training institute, Vasconcelos turned to Communist Party of Mexico member Elena Torres Cuéllar, who expanded these cultural missions across the country and trained over four thousand teachers within a decade. Torres also initiated a free school breakfast programme in 1921, ensuring that tens of thousands of students were fed.⁶

Under Vasconcelos’ leadership, the Ministry of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública or SEP) pushed for the development of quality public libraries in rural areas. To that end, the SEP not only disbursed funds to build the libraries; it also printed and distributed sets of books (fifty for rural libraries and a thousand for urban centres) that would both enhance the cultural life of the peasantry and provide them with practical and productive knowledge. These books included everything from Greek classics to books about Mexican history, household management, and agricultural science.⁷

The SEP also published a teachers’ magazine, El Maestro (The Teacher), which provided information about teaching styles, new ideas in education, and book reviews. Alongside this state initiative, in 1934 sociologist and economist Daniel Cosío Villegas set up the Economic Culture Fund at what was then the National School of Economics (now the School of Economics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico), initially to distribute books to economics students and later becoming a vehicle to distribute a wide range of books across Latin America.

As the Mexican Revolution became institutionalised and its class character began to change, the focus on democratising culture eroded. Literacy rates rose, certainly, but they stagnated at around 70%, and the state educational and public library systems were unable to improve the quality of literacy. Both the schools and the libraries saw their funding drop as the commitment to these institutions declined in the face of financial pressures that culminated in the Mexican debt crisis in 1982. As Mexico’s policymakers slipped into the habits of neoliberalism, other currents within society fought to prevent the collapse of the focus on literacy. In 1986, the General Directorate of Libraries began a programme called My Summer Vacation in the Library (Mis Vacaciones en la Biblioteca) through which a million children and youth visited public libraries to participate in a range of social activities.⁸

Mexico’s library system has built on this programme to hold cultural, music, and storytelling festivals. In 1995, under the auspices of educational reform following the 1993 curriculum update, the SEP created the National Programme for Reading (Programa Nacional para la Lectura), which was renamed Toward a Country of Readers (Hacia un país de lectores) in 2000. One of the cornerstones of the programme was the annual selection, production, and distribution of seventy-five books for school libraries across the country.

In 2008, Mexico’s National Programme for the Promotion of Reading and the Book (Programa de Fomento para el Libro y la Lectura) established the Mexico Reads (México Lee) project to use literacy as a tool to reduce social inequality and increase access to knowledge. This programme is rooted in a tradition that builds upon Mexico’s own history of literacy campaigns and that of the Cuban Revolution’s Yo, sí puedo (Yes, I can) adult literacy curriculum created in 2001 (drawing from Cuba’s 1961 literacy programme), which has been enormously influential across Latin America. The following year, in 2009, Director of the Economic Culture Fund (Fondo de Cultura Económica) Paco Ignacio Taibo II and the writer Paloma Saiz Tejero set up the Brigade to Read in Freedom (Brigada para Leer en Libertad) to publish books that the public could download free of charge or pick up at book fairs and cultural festivals. At the heart of the brigade is the joy of reading. As Paloma Saiz Tejero explains:

Reading opens up a series of expectations and knowledge that you wouldn’t normally have; it makes you much more critical and gives you weapons to defend yourself every day of your life; it won’t make you more handsome or richer; those books that tell you that such things will happen if you read them are pure lies – it’s not like that, you won’t even become more intelligent – but it does allow you the clarity to decide what you do and don’t want to do.⁹

Artwork by Othman Ghalmi (Morocco/Workers’ Democratic Way).Top

Reading Helps the Chinese People Stand Upright

Before the Qing dynasty was overthrown in 1911, most of the population – especially women – suffered from illiteracy, with an estimated literacy rate of 10–15% at the turn of the century.¹⁰

Literacy would not improve much in the years that followed, largely because of the disruption that tore through Chinese society until the 1949 Chinese Revolution. It was only in the 1950s that the literacy rate began to rise dramatically, reaching 57% by 1959.¹¹

By 2021, the adult literacy rate in China had risen to 97%, one of the highest in the world. The massive gains that China has made over the course of the past seven decades have been referred to as ‘perhaps the single greatest educational effort in human history’.¹²

These gains were the result of the initiatives implemented by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the immediate aftermath of the 1949 revolution. These initiatives drew upon experiments such as the Jiangxi Soviet (1931–1934) and the Yan’an Soviet (1936–1948) in southeastern and north-central China, respectively, which implemented different forms of literacy campaigns that targeted rural and adult literacy. Both built upon the Soviet Union’s literacy efforts, such as the illiteracy eradication campaign Likbez, which brought remarkable gains to all the Soviet republics as they began to systematise the knowledge of adult literacy programmes.¹³

In 1921, V. I. Lenin announced at a conference on economic policy that there would be no advancement if illiteracy remained. Without literacy, Lenin said, ‘there can be no politics; without that there are rumours, gossip, fairy tales and prejudices, but not politics’.¹⁴

Though it is impossible to summarise the entire panoply of activities that shaped New China’s literacy campaign, three of them are important to emphasise:

1. The Chinese word for illiteracy is 文盲, or ‘text blind’, hinting at the historic centrality of knowing the Chinese characters in order to be considered literate. Yet the more than 100,000 characters that make up the Chinese language created barriers towards achieving full literacy in society. In 1955, the revolutionary government set up the Committee for Reforming the Chinese Written Language to create a manageable way to advance literacy, such as by shortening the list of characters to 1,500 for rural residents and 2,000 for rural leaders and urban residents as the minimum requirement for literacy.¹⁵ In 1958, primary schools began to use pinyin (the standard romanisation of Chinese characters) and simplified Chinese characters.
2. As in Mexico and Russia, the Chinese Revolution emphasised the importance of both rural and adult literacy: if parents were not invested in the importance of reading and writing, their children would not be instilled with a joy of reading. Lin Handa, who was one of the most prominent leaders of China’s anti-illiteracy campaign, said in 1955 that learning characters should not define literacy; rather, the end goals of the campaign for literacy should be to enable the peasantry to enrich their lives and increase their productivity. According to the anti-illiteracy decree issued the following year, rural adult literacy should be based on the principles of ‘integrating the practical’ (lianxi shiji) and ‘learning for the purpose of applying’ (xue yi zhi yong).¹⁶
3. Finally, the Chinese Revolution highlighted the role of public libraries in its literacy programmes. In 1949, there were only fifty-five public libraries in China. As part of the emphasis on democratisation, New China built libraries in rural areas for the peasantry and factory libraries for the workers. By 1956, China had established 182,960 rural reading rooms that held a range of materials.¹⁷

Such initiatives enabled Chinese society to overcome illiteracy. Today, China faces a set of new challenges, such as how to address young people’s addiction to screens and video games. In 2021, China’s President Xi Jinping announced that his government would restrict online video game use among young people to three hours per week, to be regulated by both the video game industry and parents. In 2022, President Xi inaugurated the First National Conference on Reading with a speech that highlighted the importance of reading not only for acquiring knowledge, but also for expanding wisdom and cultivating virtues:

Since ancient times, the Chinese people have advocated reading and stressed the acquisition of knowledge through studying the nature of things and the rectification of the mind through thinking with sincerity. Reading helps the Chinese people to carry on the traditional spirit of perseverance and shape their character of self-confidence and self-reliance.

I call on party members and officials to take the lead in reading and learning, foster virtues and ideals, and improve abilities. I hope that all our children will have a habit of reading, enjoy reading, and grow up in a healthy way. I wish all of our people are engaged in reading and contribute to an atmosphere where everyone loves reading, has good books to read, and knows how to gain from reading.¹⁸

That same year, the Shanghai Library (East Branch) was opened to the public. Just across the road from Century Park in Pudong district, the library buzzes with activity every day, but particularly on Sunday evenings. In many of the poorer nations of the Global South, it would be common to see children playing on the street at this time. In the Global North, perhaps the children would be indoors, eyes glued to pixels on a screen. In Shanghai, children collect stacks of books, sometimes seated on the lap of a father, mother, or grandparent, excitedly flipping from one page to the next.

A small but prominent section of the library is dedicated to Marxist literature. The shelves are arranged in chronological order: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Xi Jinping. The most memorable section of the library is the children’s section, packed with rows upon rows of colourful children’s books, with couches, tables, and booths inviting you to sit and read. This is where people – adults and children alike – come to exercise their right to read (outlined by Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Reading, in this tradition, is a decidedly social activity that helps develop empathy and cognitive capacity, especially among youth, and connects people to their history, culture, language, and ancestors.

Artwork by Junaina Muhammed (India/Young Socialist Artists).Top

The Scent of Books in Kerala (India)

Kerala, a state in southwestern India with a population of roughly 33.4 million, is governed by the Left Democratic Front, whose main party is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M).¹⁹

If you drive into any town or city in the state, you will be sure to see a public library filled with people browsing for books to borrow or sitting at a table and reading. There are over nine thousand public libraries in Kerala, which has an enduring tradition of reading due to the active presence of the communist movement.

In the 1920s, during the movement to defeat British imperialism, anti-colonial Indian nationalism placed the importance of literacy on its agenda. One of the instruments for a literacy campaign was the public library, which had already become an important part of the development agenda in the states within India ruled by more liberal princes (such as in Baroda, now known as Vadodara). What is interesting about the story of the library movement in India is that many of its pioneers were groups of friends who pooled their books and newspapers to begin small libraries in their villages and towns. For example, P. N. Panicker, known as the father of Kerala’s library movement, recalled how, after he managed to subscribe to a newspaper – an option that was largely limited to the wealthy – eight or so people would gather at his home and ask him to read it aloud. ‘I used to read them biographies of great men on days when we missed the paper’, he said; ‘a friend of mine subscribed to two other dailies, and he had a small collection of books. Pooling together these books and newspapers in a small room, freely rented for the purpose, we started a small library’.²⁰

There are thousands of such stories. Many of these libraries later became part of the state library system, from which they benefit greatly through the provision of resources. Such small libraries continue to anchor the library movement in Kerala, where the library movement is concentrated and began, and other parts of India.

Mayyil Panchayat Grama, for instance, with a population of over 29,000 people, is one of the 93 local governments in Kannur, the district with the largest number of libraries in Kerala. This locality has 34 libraries affiliated with the Kerala State Library Council. That means that there is nearly one library per square kilometre, each with a capacity of around 872 people. This is an extraordinary density of libraries for any part of the world. These libraries are well-funded by the state, equipped with computers and a unified catalogue, and staffed with well-trained librarians who are an engaged and available resource for the whole community.

Every one of these libraries has a backstory, and many of them are named after social activists such as nationalist or communist leaders. Here are a few of them in Kannur:

• Velam Public Reading Hall (Velam Potujana Vaayanashaala), in Mayyil.²¹ In 1934, Indian National Congress member Ishwaran Namboothiri arrived in the Mayyil panchayat (village council) to promote the Hindi language among the villagers. He built a small shed for his school, which eventually became a library that houses 18,000 books at present.
• Paral Public Reading Hall (Paral Potujana Vaayanashaala), in Thalassery. In 1934, a sixteen-year-old girl named Kaumudi donated her gold jewellery to M. K. Gandhi as her contribution to the freedom movement against British imperial rule. The money from the gold was used to fund the creation of the library, which now includes an archive of the district’s history.
• S. J. M. Reading Hall & National Library (S. J. M. Vaayanashaala & Desheeya Granthaalayam), in Kandakkai. During the nineteenth-century social reform movements in Kerala, a man named Sree Jathaveda Guru went to Kandakkai to teach the villagers there about the need to fight and transcend caste hierarchies and discrimination. As part of this work, Guru established a small library which has since grown to hold a collection of over ten thousand books.
• C. Madhavan Memorial Reading Hall (C. Madhavan Smaaraka Vaayanashaala), in Pinarayi. The Communist Party of India’s first conference in Kerala was held secretly in Pinarayi in 1939. Two decades later, the progressive youth organisation Sree Narayana Aashrita Yuvajana Sangham created the C. Madhavan Memorial Library, named after a social activist. Thousands of books are collected and stored here each year through a local system of donations. That community spirit has expanded: now, when a new home is built in the area, a fruit tree is planted nearby in the name of the library.
• Kulappuram Reading Hall & Library (Kulappuram Vaayanashaala & Granthaalayam), in Ezhome. In the 1950s, weavers from the village of Ezhome built a reading room called the Young Men’s Club. That reading room is now a three-floor climate-controlled library with a space for public events, a large playground, and a vegetable garden. The library also offers unique social services including book deliveries and motorcycle driving classes for women which have helped over a hundred women obtain their driving licence. In 2008, the library partnered with health workers of the Government Medical College Kannur in Pariyaram to conduct visits to 700 homes in the village. Doctors and librarians visited each home in the area to collect health information and provide information about municipal services.
• Homeland Upliftment Reading Hall & Public Library (Deshoddhaarana Vaayanashaala & Public Library), in Chala. Situated along the edge of a date palm grove, this modest library was established in the 1960s by peasants who earned a living rolling beedi (hand-rolled cigarettes popular among workers in the Indian subcontinent), weaving cloth, and carrying out various forms of daily wage labour. These peasants pooled their money to build a place for reading and reflection. Today, the library has around 9,000 books.
• Thaliyan Raman Nambiar Memorial Public Reading Hall (Thaliyan Raman Nambiar Smaaraka Potujana Vaayanashaala), in Kavumbayi. Leading activist Thaliyan Raman was arrested during a peasant rebellion in Kavumbayi in 1946 and killed by police in a massacre at the Salem Jail four years later. In 1962, local farmers built this library in his honour.
• Avon Library (Karivellur). What began as the Avon Club was converted into the Avon Library in 1973, which today holds 17,574 books and has 619 members. This library conducts readings for children, holds film screenings, and delivers books to the elderly at their homes. A local history group in the library has been the incubator for two history theses written by local scholars.

During the pandemic, the infrastructure of the library movement was key in keeping communities safe and enabling students to continue their education. One notable example of this is the NetWork project, which began in Kannur with the aim of promoting social development in the district’s Adivasi (tribal) regions. The project was led by Dr V. Sivadasan, a CPI(M) politician and member of India’s Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament), and soon became an integral part of the People’s Mission for Social Development (PMSD), a trust under the Kannur District Library Council with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as its chief patron and Sivadasan as its chairman. The PMSD pledged to help create a library in every ward (the smallest electoral division in the Indian administrative system). As part of this initiative, the PMSD worked with Kannur University and Kerala’s Library Council to host the first Indian Library Congress in January 2023 in which half a million people participated. To build up to the congress, the organisers held 1,500 seminars on a variety of topics. Among them were 3,000 librarians, who were joined by employees in the local self-government institutions, government officials, cooperative workers, students, teachers, and others.

The Indian Library Congress has become an annual event hosted in different states across India to promote the following ideas:

1. There must be libraries in as many localities as possible, and these libraries must be repositories not only of books but also the most advanced technology possible.
2. These libraries must be set up not only in urban areas but also in rural and remote areas, such as the hilly tracts of Wayanad in northeastern Kerala.
3. These libraries must become an important and active public space for the community as well as incubators for cultural development and hubs for the organisation of and/or venues for activities such as movie screenings, sports, art fairs, festivals, and vocational training classes. Health centres and science classes must be established next to these libraries.²²

The library movement is built by everyday working people. Among them is Rajan V. P. of Payyannur Annur, a beedi worker with a class six education. When Rajan began working at a beedi factory at a young age, he was impressed by the practice of workers taking turns reading the daily newspaper aloud to each other before lunch and a novel after lunch (a practice that can also be found in Cuban cigar workshops). Reading inspired Rajan to study further, which enabled him to get a new job as a clerk in a cooperative bank near his home. By 2008, he was a manager of the bank. That year, Rajan set up the People’s Library and Reading Room, which has now blossomed to become a centre of cultural life in the town.

Another key figure of the library movement is Radha V. P. (age sixty), a beedi worker with a class seven education who became the head of her household at a young age. As a young girl, she began to read the CPI(M)’s weekly magazine, Deshabhimani, and write letters to the editors commenting on its stories and poems. In 2002, Radha became part of the Jawahar Library’s Women-Elderly Book Distribution Project (Vanitha-Vayojana Pusthaka Vitharana Paddhathi), also known as the mobile library, which began the year prior, to take books to the readers’ homes, particularly women and the elderly. The sight of her bringing books to every household after work with a library register in one hand and a bag full of books on her shoulder soon became a source of joy for locals. In 2018, she finished class ten and passed the state exam needed to qualify for higher education. Yet, even in the midst of studies and work, her commitment to the library never faltered. ‘This is a job that I love’, she said. ‘I never felt the bag was heavy, as the scent of the books always gave me immense happiness’.²³

Working people like Rajan and Radha embody the human initiative behind the flourishing library movement across Kerala.

Artwork by Salvatore Carleo (Italy/Potere Al Popolo!).Top

Red Books Day, from Japan to the Moon

On 21 February 2019, the Indian Society for Left Publishers, a group of publishers affiliated with the CPI(M), initiated what would soon become known as Red Books Day. This event, commemorating the 171^st anniversary of The Communist Manifesto’s publication and International Mother Language Day, seeks to rescue collective life on a secular, cultural, and socialist basis. Red Books Day soon caught the interest of publishers from around the world and by 2020 was being celebrated by more than 30,000 people from South Korea to Cuba.²⁴

By 2024, Red Books Day boasted over a million participants in events from Indonesia to Chile (half a million of them in Kerala alone).²⁵

In 2020, the first year the celebration extended beyond India’s borders, members of peasant organisations and trade unions placed circles of plastic chairs on the road in small villages across Tamil Nadu and discussed The Communist Manifesto. Meanwhile, in settlements of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), members sat together and took turns reading aloud during the Carnaval festivities. In the mountains of Nepal, the agricultural workers’ union held discussions about their own red books while landless peasants in Tanzania talked about the importance of literacy.

Four years later, the ten-day-long Havana Book Fair in Cuba set aside 21 February for a special Red Books Day series of events. In Kerala, Chemm Parvathy produced a Red Books Day video that showed her dancing in the markets and workshops of Trivandrum to the French version of the Internationale. The song culminates with Chemm Parvathy at the beach holding a communist flag, the red sun behind her in the horizon. Alongside her video came a series of original posters designed by artists from around the world to commemorate the day and encourage more and more people to organise readings and performances in their localities.

In preparation for the first international celebration of Red Books Day 2020, the Indian Society of Left Publishers convened meetings of publishers from around the world. These meetings led to the creation of the International Union of Left Publishers (IULP), which now includes forty-five publishers.²⁶

The IULP was formed not only to promote Red Books Day, but more broadly to provide a platform for left publishers to defend from attacks by the right wing and to advance rational and socialist ideas. The IULP has produced several joint books on the same day in various languages, from Romanian to Indonesian (including on the writings of Che Guevara and to commemorate the Paris Commune) and has released statements to defend authors and publishers when they have come under attack.²⁷

The library movement has held Red Books Day events at public libraries across Kerala, where cultural workers sang and acted while hundreds of thousands of people lifted their spirits with rationality and the promise of socialism.

Red Books Day is part of a broader cultural struggle to defend the right to write, publish, and read red books and to fight against contemporary obscurantist ideas that subvert reason. The hope is that this day will go beyond the IULP to become a key date on the calendar of progressive forces. Individuals and organisations far beyond the circuits of the IULP and leftist currents have taken ownership of Red Books Day as it becomes a force of its own and a key fixture on the calendar of progressive forces. By the end of the decade, we hope that over ten million people will participate in Red Books Day.

In the 1930s, women from the collective farms of Georgievsky in the North Caucasus wrote a letter to the Soviet government. ‘Of course, we must study in order to be able to manage large farms properly’, they wrote. ‘We want to study all winter; to learn how to read and write; to study the fundamentals of political knowledge and scientific agriculture. Give us more books and notebooks, because the desire to study is very great among the women’. One of these women, Fekla Golovchenko (nearly fifty years old), added, ‘If I’m not properly educated, I can’t handle my brigade’. Education, the women said, ‘is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity, like water for a thirsty man’.²⁸

The words of the Georgievsky women echo those of Paloma Saiz Tejero of the Brigade to Read in Freedom, who told us:

A people who read are a people who build critical thinking; they are promoters of utopias. A people who know their history and take ownership of it will feel proud of their roots. Reading socialises; it shares experiences and information. Books allow us to understand the reason that constitutes us and our history; they make our consciousness grow beyond the space and time that founds our past and present. Reading generates better citizens. Thanks to books, we learn to believe in the impossible, to distrust the obvious, to demand our rights as citizens, and to fulfil our duties. Reading influences the personal and social development of individuals; without it, no society can progress.

Artwork by Ingrid Neves (Brazil/Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).Top

Notes

¹ John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2017), 53.

² Omar Martínez Legorreta, Modernisation and Revolution in Mexico: A Comparative Approach (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1989), 71.

³ James Presley, ‘Mexican Views on Rural Education 1900–1910’, The Americas 20, no. 1 (July 1963): 64–71.

⁴ Jacqueline Paola Ayala Zamora, La obra educativa de José Vasconcelos [The Educational Work of José Vasconcelos] (Mexico City: Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, 2005).

⁵ José Vasconcelos, ‘Education in Mexico: Present Day Tendencies’, Bulletin of the Pan American Union 56, no. 3 (January–June 1923): 230–245.

⁶ Patience Alexandra Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2003); Lloyd Hughes, Las misiones culturales mexicanas y su programa [Mexican Cultural Missions and their Programme] (Paris: UNESCO, 1950); Martha Eva Rocha Islas, Los rostros de la rebeldía. Veteranas de la Revolución Mexicana, 1910-1939 [The Faces of Rebellion: Women Veterans of the Mexican Revolution, (1910–1939)] (Mexico City: Secretaría de Cultura, 2016); Paco Ignacio Taibo, Bolcheviques: historia narrativa de los orígenes del comunismo en México 1919–1925 [The Bolsheviks: A Narrative History of the Origins of Communism in Mexico 1919–1925] (Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz, 1986).

⁷ Louise Schoenhals, ‘Mexico Experiments in Rural and Primary Education, 1921–1930’, Hispanic American Historical Review 44, no. 1 (1 February 1964): 22–43.

⁸ Elsa Margarita Ramírez Leyva, ‘Mexico Reads: National Program for the Promotion of Reading and the Book’ (paper presented at the World Library and Information Congress: 77^th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 13–14 August 2011).

⁹ Ángel Vargas, ‘“Leer te hace mucho más crítico y te da armas para defenderte todos los días”: Paloma Saiz’ [‘Reading Makes You Much More Critical and Gives You Weapons to Defend Yourself Every Day’: Paloma Saiz], La Jornada, 18 July 2024, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/07/18/cultura/a04n2cul.

¹⁰ ‘“The Single Greatest Educational Effort in Human History”’, Language Magazine (blog), 8 November 2024, https://www.languagemagazine.com/the-single-greatest-educational-effort-in-human-history/.

¹¹ Wang Yianwei and Li Jiyuan, Reform in Literacy Education in China (Geneva: UNESCO, International Bureau of Education, 1990).

¹² Glen Peterson, The Power of Words: Literacy and Revolution in South China, 1949–1995 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997), 3.

¹³ Though it is not discussed at length in this dossier, the Soviet Union was exemplary for its literacy campaigns in the rest of the world. The statistics of Soviet literacy do not tell the entire story, which is the story of how the Soviets were able to defeat the scourge of illiteracy so rapidly. For instance, the Soviets set up reading huts (izby-chital’ny) in rural parts of the former Tsarist Empire and ‘red yurts’ (tents) in the steppes in which they housed medical units and literacy teams. This story has not been properly told.

¹⁴ V. I. Lenin, ‘The New Economic Policy’, Lenin Collected Works, vol. 33, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 78.

¹⁵ Heidi Ross, with contributions from Jingjing Lou, Lijing Yang, Olga Rybakova, and Phoebe Wakhunga, China Country Study, background paper commissioned for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006: Literacy for Life (2005), UNESCO, 2006/ED/EFA/MRT/PI/85.

¹⁶ Peterson, The Power of Words, 85.

¹⁷ Priscilla C. Yu, ‘Leaning to One Side: The Impact of the Cold War on Chinese Library Collections’, Libraries and Culture 36, no. 1 (2001): 256; Zhixian Yi, ‘History of Library Developments in China’ (paper presented at the ‘Future Libraries: Infinite Possibilities’, session 164, Library History Special Interest Group, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Conference, Singapore, 15–23 August 2013), https://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/143/1/164-yi-en.pdf.

¹⁸ Xi Jinping, ‘Full Text of Xi Jinping’s Congratulatory Letter to the First National Conference on Reading’, China Daily, 23 April 2022, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202204/23/WS6263ad99a310fd2b29e58dbf.html.

¹⁹ State Planning Board, Government of Kerala, ‘Population and the Macro Economy’, in Economic Review 2017 (Thiruvananthapuram: Government of Kerala, January 2018), accessed 12 January 2025, https://spb.kerala.gov.in/economic-review/ER2017/web_e/ch11.php?id=1&ch=11.

²⁰ Lawrence Liang and Aditya Gupta, The Public Library Movement in India: Bedrock of Democracy and Freedom (Public Resource, 2024), 54–55.

²¹ In Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala, granthaalayam means library, while vaayanashaala means reading hall, a place where people can sit and read, some of which are small rooms that have just a few newspapers and magazines but very few or no books. However, sometimes vaayanashaala is also used to refer to a library. All institutions listed here have a library and a space for reading, as is the case with most libraries in Kerala.

The names given here in parentheses are the official names of the libraries. Some of these names incorporate words in Malayalam and English. The Malayalam script is phonetic, which implies that words are pronounced as they are written. But over the course of time, Malayalam words have frequently been transliterated into English with spellings that give an inaccurate idea of how the words should be pronounced. Here we have used spellings that are as close as possible to the way the Malayalam words are pronounced. In the case of proper names, the widely used standard spellings have been retained even when their transliterations do not reflect the actual pronunciation.

²² P. Mohandas and Manu M. R., eds., People Own Spaces: Emergence of Libraries in Kerala (Kannur: Indian Library Congress, 2024).

²³ M. A. Rajeev Kumar, ‘Bag Full of Joy and Wisdom’, The New Sunday Express, 26 June 2022.

²⁴ ‘Red Books Day Celebrated on Each Continent’, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, 30 April 2020, https://thetricontinental.org/booklet-red-books-day/.

²⁵ Nitheesh Narayanan, Sudhanva Deshpande, and Vijay Prashad, ‘Red Books Day 2024’, Peoples Democracy, 3 March 2024, https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2024/0303_pd/red-books-day-2024.

²⁶ International Union of Left Publishers, ‘Who We Are’, https://iulp.org/about.

²⁷ For a full list, see ‘Books’, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, https://thetricontinental.org/books/.

²⁸ Georgii Nikolaevich Serebrennikov, The Position of Women in the USSR (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), 81.

Republished From: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-the-joy-of-reading/

In this special interview, journalist and author Fatima Bhutto speaks to Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin about Israel’s war on Gaza, which he calls the “greatest historical scandal” of our time.

Dominique de Villepin spent three decades in public service. Since his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he has been an outspoken critic of Western military interventions around the world.

In this episode, he explains why he believes there will be no security in the region until a Palestinian state is recognised.

Originally posted : https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/continent-of-sleaze/

The Global North and its corporate executives have wielded the concept of ‘corruption’ to underdevelop the Global South, whose social wealth it instead injects into the Continent of Sleaze.

12 December 2024

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The eighth continent is the Continent of Sleaze. You and I have never been there, only heard rumours about it. On that continent, there are rivers of money in which corporate executives bathe and from which they extract whatever they want in order to increase their power, privilege, and property. The corporate executives venture out to lay their hands on the wealth of the world and carry it back to their Continent of Sleaze. What remains is dust and shadows, barely enough for people to survive so that they can continue to labour and produce more social wealth for the Continent of Sleaze. Everyone sees this wealth being syphoned off to this other continent, but few want to acknowledge it. Most blame themselves for their poverty rather than the structure of corruption and pillaging that are inherent to the neocolonial capitalist system. Disconnected from social struggle, it is far easier to live innocently without that dangerous knowledge, that outrageous Promethean fire.

Corruption is like rust, corroding the metal of society. The greater the corruption, the deeper the collapse of social institutions and social fellowship. The incentive to follow rules withers as more and more people among the elite and their close associates benefit from their violation. Bribery and nepotism are the contours of modern corruption. The deadly sins of greed and pride are rewarded while the virtues of honesty and decency are mocked as being ‘naïve’. A hundred years ago, Mahatma Gandhi said that ‘the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses’. By that measure, the test of orderliness in the world today shows absolute chaos, governed by the ambition amongst the wealthy to become the world’s first trillionaire while global rates of hunger rise astronomically. The wealthy are permitted to remain wealthy and, indeed, to become wealthier by any means, and they have institutionalised corruption to further their ambitions.

In our dossier no. 82, How Neoliberalism Has Wielded ‘Corruption’ to Privatise Life in Africa, we examine the problem of corruption, which has threatened not only the integrity of public institutions, but also of society in general. The main thesis is that since the onset of the neoliberal era in the 1980s–1990s, the concept of corruption has been narrowed to describe only public sector corruption. One of the main agents for this reduced idea of corruption is Transparency International (TI), founded in 1993 in Germany, which greatly influenced the United Nations Convention against Corruption (2003). Since then, governments in the Global North have used TI data to pressure multilateral agencies (such as the International Monetary Fund, IMF) to make this idea of ‘corruption’ central to their operations in the developing world. If a country was shown to have a high corruption score, then it became more expensive for that country to access funds through credit markets, giving these agencies more leverage over its policies and overall governance. These agencies told the developing country that, in order to improve its corruption score, it needed to reform its public institutions, such as by shrinking the size of public bureaucracy – even, strangely, the regulatory bodies of the state – and the number of state employees overall. In the 1990s, the IMF began to require developing nations to cut their wage bill for public sector employees as a key condition for granting loans and financial assistance. Because they so desperately need funds to cover their external debts, many countries have acquiesced to this condition and slashed their public sector. Today, 21% of the European workforce, on average, is employed in the public sector; in contrast, that number is a mere 2.38% in Mali, 3.6% in Nigeria, and 6.7% in Zambia, which in turn limits these states’ capacity to manage and regulate large multinational corporations on the African continent. This stark contrast is the reason why this dossier focuses on the African continent.

Today, African scholarship rarely defines the terms of African actuality. The concepts of neocolonialism – such as ‘structural adjustment’, ‘market liberalisation’, ‘corruption’, and ‘good governance’ – are forcibly imposed on the continent and its intellectuals, ahistorically eliding any serious mention of the legacy of colonialism, the struggles to establish state sovereignty and reclaim the dignity of the people, and the theories of development that emerge in out of these histories and struggles. There is an a priori racist belief that African states are corrupt and that the absence of state institutions will somehow allow for growth and development. Yet, when regulatory institutions are eroded, it is foreign multinational corporations that benefit the most.

Africa is a continent rich in resources, home to around 30% of the world’s mineral reserves (including 40% of the world’s gold, up to 90% of its chromium and platinum, and the largest reserves of cobalt, diamonds, platinum, and uranium), 8% of the world’s natural gas, and 12% of the world’s oil reserves; it also holds 65% of the world’s arable land and 10% of the planet’s internal renewable fresh water sources. However – largely due to the policies of the colonial period and their continuation in the neocolonial period – African states have been unable to harness those resources for their own development. The ruling elites in these nation-states have turned over their sovereignty to enormously powerful multinational corporations (MNCs) whose profits are far beyond these states’ Gross Domestic Products. MNCs declare only a fraction of their earnings, about two-thirds of which are ‘mispriced’ and much of which is sent off to tax havens. A 2021 report, for instance, showed that capital flight from thirty African countries between 1970 and 2018 totalled $2 trillion (in 2018 US dollars) while the African Development Bank noted that illicit financial outflows from Africa increased somewhere from US $1.22 to $1.35 trillion between 1980 and 2009. Today, it is estimated that illegal financial flows out of Africa amount to $88.6 billion per year.

The ruling elites in these African states accede to these firms, often because they are bribed to turn a blind eye to corporate corruption. In 2016, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa reported that 99.5% of bribes to African officials are paid by non-African firms and suggested that large mining conglomerates are knee deep in the bribery industry. Corporate bribery certainly pays off: the rate of return earned by Western-based resource extraction firms is considerable, saving the MNCs hundreds of billions in unpaid taxes. In other words, Africa’s ruling elites are selling off their countries cheaply. Meanwhile, there is nothing left for the children who live above the copper and the gold. They cannot read the agreements that their governments make with the mining companies. Nor can many of their parents.

On the Continent of Sleaze, there is no care about the tidal corruption that sweeps across the world. There is no concern for the casual theft of hundreds of billions of dollars through mechanisms that have been anointed by accountancy firms and normalised by multilateral agencies that sniff at the slightest infraction in the public sector in the Global South. There is no thought given to colonialism and neocolonialism, words that have no meaning on the Continent of Sleaze.

In his remarkable book Sounds of a Cowhide Drum (1971), the South African poet Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali published ‘Always a Suspect’. This poem tackles one of the most ubiquitous aspects of racism – the assumption that a Black man is a thief. It is never the colonial plunderer who is accused of theft but the colonised, who are themselves victims of the theft of their lands and wealth. Mtshali’s poem illustrates how the racist assumption of African corruption seeps even to everyday life:

I get up in the morning
and dress up like a gentleman –
A white shirt, a tie, and a suit.

I walk into the street
to be met by a man
who tells me ‘to produce’.

I show him
the document of my existence
to be scrutinised and given the nod.

Then I enter the foyer of the building
to have my way barred by a commissionaire
‘What do you want?’.

I trudge the city pavements
side by side with ‘madam’
who shifts her handbag
from my side to the other,
and looks at me with eyes that say
‘Ha! Ha! I know who you are;
beneath those fine clothes
ticks the heart of a thief’.

Warmly,

Vijay

Republished From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/continent-of-sleaze/