Nine-Party State
I thought your issue (The Facts, NI 551), though not strictly wrong, was being somewhat misleading when you wrote that ‘only a single governing party is allowed by law’ in China.
It is true that Article 1 of the Constitution of the Peoples’ Republic of China gives a leading role to the Communist Party. However, under the country’s actual law, it is not the only party allowed to exist. There are eight others legally permitted, five of which, according to my calculations, have hundreds of thousands of members.
Of course you can debate how much influence they possess. Nevertheless they do exist. Their representatives have from time to time met with President Xi, and presumably they will have members in the National Peoples’ Congress.
Roots of genocide
Your presentation of Decca Muldowney’s long read (NI 550) was truly commendable. Her reference to the Zionist atrocities of 1982 and Palestinian ‘refugees’ for whom ‘return’ leads to ‘nowhere’ helps confirm that that term since 1948 has been as meaningless as ‘reconciliation’ is now for native North American survivors. And Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, armed by our criminal governments, did indeed originate in schemes of the imperial unindictable city of London over a century ago thanks to the services supplied by TE Lawrence, Winston Churchill and their misguided ilk.
Podcast praise
Re: NI’s first podcast episode, featuring guest editor Nanjala Nyabola.
Enlightening and insightful. Nanjala fully took her opportunity to define, explain and critique the digital sphere. It struck me how rarely if ever I encounter such a clarifying view from mainstream media. Maybe it’s because, as Nanjala explains, such media benefits and is part of the problem. I would have liked though more diverse views and perhaps more background about your contributor. It was a bit two people talking. Great rebuff to Western exceptionalism!
No show
Having been excited to read your review of the film No Other Land in NI 551, I was disappointed to see that you had accidentally printed a write up of another film. Having spent three months in the South Hebron Hills in 2023, I can attest to the triumph of the filmmakers in capturing the excruciating, bizarre and heartbreaking violence of life in this little understood region of the West Bank. I believe this film to be of great importance and hope it will be released in as many cinemas as possible. Exposure will help this. As such, I hope that you can correct this error in some way so that more of your readers can watch and champion this film.
The editors write: we apologize for mistakenly publishing a write up from a previous magazine in the section where a review of No Other Land should have been. The film is an important tribute to the resilience of the At-Tuwani community against ethnic cleansing and settler violence. We have updated the website now.
Missing the mark
The article ‘Dying in the passive voice’ (NI 552) failed to make its case. Despite what was said in the text, the illustrations did not mention the passive at all.
In any case, the problem is not with the passive voice as such, since passives can state who carried out the action (as in ‘The Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces’). But short passives, with no ‘by’-phrase, do not do so (‘The Palestinians were killed’). However, the article said nothing about the frequency of short passives in different contexts.
Correction
Polyp’s Cartoon History on the Chartists (NI 552) was printed without its final two pages.
Why I...
...love democratic independent media.
The interlocking crises we face – the climate emergency, the biodiversity crisis, global injustice and racist, sexist neo-colonialism – aren’t inevitable.
The neoliberal paradigm that’s responsible relies on perpetuating systemic injustice, inequality and coloniality. The mainstream media, and a tiny but powerful elite who control our news diet, supports this with stories serving these vested interests.
With a lifelong commitment to co-operatives,
I try to help change this, for example as a Board member at both The Bristol Cable (thebristolcable.org) and New Internationalist. Democratic independent media can refocus our news away from the biases of the elite in the Global North, towards the truth and a world that’s truly just.
