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16 October 1968: Tommie Smith and John Carlos celebrate Olympic victory with a Black Power salute

This week in working class history


15/10/2025

The 1968 Olympics were always going to be political. The US war in Vietnam was intensifying, and the world was still reeling from the aftermath of the student riots and general strike in France—as well as uprisings in Prague. Martin Luther King was assassinated in April, giving new strength to an increasingly militant movement against racism in the US. Then, ten days before the opening ceremony, Mexican security forces massacred hundreds of protesters in Tlatelolco Square.

Before the Olympics, the Olympic Project for Human Rights—a group of Black athletes—called for a boycott unless its four demands were met: remove white supremacist Avery Brundage as head of the International Olympic Committee, hire more Black coaches, expel South Africa and Rhodesia from the Games, and restore Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight boxing title (stripped after he refused to fight in Vietnam).

The boycott didn’t gain much traction, but Black athletes were not going to be silent. On 16 October, the second day of the Games, Tommie Smith won gold in the 200 metres, while John Carlos took bronze. Before stepping onto the winner’s podium, Smith and Carlos each wore one black glove. As the Star-Spangled Banner played, they raised their fists in a Black Power salute. They wore no shoes to symbolise Black poverty, and beads and scarves to protest lynching.

The press was outraged. The Los Angeles Times accused Smith and Carlos of making a “Nazi-like salute.” The Chicago Tribune called it “an act contemptuous of the United States” and “an insult to their countrymen.” Brundage—who had approved the Nazi salute at the 1936 Berlin Olympics—ordered both athletes to be expelled from the Olympic Village. They were ostracised, forced to leave Mexico, and pursued by the FBI.

By taking a stand, Smith and Carlos became heroes to millions of downtrodden Black US-Americans. But racism persists—inside and outside sport. As Carlos later reflected, Black athletes “thought that winning medals would supersede or protect them from racism. But even if you won a medal, it ain’t going to save your momma. It ain’t going to save your sister or children. It might give you 15 minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life?” Their struggle continues.

Help Haneen Koraz Empower Voices Through Art

Fundraiser for @animator_haneen’s animation workshops for children and women in Gaza


“The last scene stuck.” On the 7th of October, Saturday, we were all preparing to film the final scene of an animated film dealing with the issues of girls with hearing disabilities during the workshop. Meet Haneen Muhammad Koraz, Trainer and maker of stop motion cartoon films. She has worked in the field of visual arts since 2012 at the Theater Days Foundation. She participated in many local and international festivals and won many artistic awards for producing cartoon films with different topics. She won third place in the Partners Short Film Competition for producing a film for the Gaza Municipality and third place in the One Minute Film Competition with the Sawa Foundation. She participated in the International Animated Cinema Festival, In Kairouan – Tunisia. She recently received the Al-Taawoun Award for Excellence in the Cultural Sector 2022, “One Day We Will Be,” for producing “Studio Without Voices” for making cartoon films. In addition, she received grants for projects and initiatives from institutions inside and outside Palestine that support the idea of ​​making hand-made cartoon films.

From Haneen- I deeply believe that every person has the right to express himself freely, and that art, making and learning cartoon films is one of the means of free expression, audio-visually, for all segments of society. I tried to change the reality, even if just a little, for the children and women in the tents I have conducted workshops specifically for children. Children and women draw, color, discuss, play, learn using the photography program, photograph scenes, write stories that express their suffering and reality, draw cartoon characters, and record their voices on film. They have created many cartoon films. There is a film called “Queens” that talks about the suffering of children in the tent, how they live, and how they overcome the problems of water and fire, bringing firewood and bread, and not playing. The women made a film called “Red Autumn,” which talks about how the women left their homes, belongings, and rooms and migrated to other regions for fear of war, and how they lost their valuables and memories during the period of displacement.

I am Belal Koraz, the brother of Haneen. I currently live in Virginia, USA. I created this fundraiser as a way to try to get help to Haneen so she can continue her work that is so important at a time like this.

To ease the minds of any persons wanting to donate, once we receive the donations, I will wire transfer from my bank directly to my sister in Gaza. Thank you for your support at such a heartbreaking time.

You can donate to the fundraiser for Haneen here. There will be an exhibition including several of Haneen’s works in bUm on Tuesday, 21st October, 2025.

Decentralised, democratic, but disciplined – politics in 3D

As the English Left struggles to reproduce itself, positive regionalism should play a part in what comes next


14/10/2025

Two weeks after the huge far-right mobilisation in London, UKIP leader Nick Tenconi and a ragtag group of about 200 people who like to wear flags, carry crosses, and shout at hotels, hit the streets of Newcastle. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, was a no-show, presumably in court or on a sun lounger in the Med.

Around 3,000 counter-protesters gathered in the city, split between a 400-strong group blocking the far-right on the quayside and the majority rallying at Grey’s Monument.

As I listened to the speeches from community and faith leaders, local politicians and trade unionists, I looked around the sea of placards and flags. The messages of resistance had a distinctly regional flavour –‘Racism? Nah, you’re alreet pet.’ ‘Geordies are black and white. No shouty daft lad from Luton will convince me otherwise.’ ‘Haddaway and shite, fascists.’

One of the speakers was met with a cheer after saying, ‘I’ve never felt safe to proclaim I’m a Mackem in Newcastle city centre until today.’ A historic rivalry dating back to the English Civil War, when Newcastle and Sunderland were on opposing sides, was temporarily set aside and subsumed into a broader regional identity. There were groups from Scotland and Yorkshire all mingling under the numerous Northumbrian flags. Geordies, Mackems and Smoggies (Teessiders) with roots in Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Lagos and Ramallah were all gathered in a shared sense of northern civic pride. There were no membership-tests based on skin colour or length of stay. Whether you’d just arrived or had generations of North East heritage, it didn’t matter – if you were here, you were one of us.

This was not just a demonstration against toxic English nationalism; it was a beautiful expression of inclusive regionalism.

The defiant atmosphere reached its peak when a section of the counter-demonstrators rallied outside a hotel housing some recently arrived Geordies from foreign shores. We blocked the far-right from gathering there and eventually sent them back down towards the quayside with their tails between their legs. With police lines drawn, cheeky chants of ‘your English flags are made in China’ rang out across the streets. The mood was jubilant and celebratory; we felt united.

Victory that Saturday afternoon was not always guaranteed, though. A lot had changed since the racist riots and huge counter-demonstrations of summer 2024. Reform had stormed the local elections in the North East, taking control of Durham County Council and making considerable gains in Northumberland. The racists had momentum, emboldened and validated by the Labour Prime Minister’s ‘island of strangers’ speech. Nationally, the rhetoric had ramped up from stopping the boats to mass deportations, with London witnessing the largest far-right rally in history. Just two weeks after that, the good people of the North East stood up and were counted, at a moment that felt significant.

But even as the crowds were dispersing, the recriminations on the Left kicked in. During the build-up, there had been some tension between the various anti-racist groups organising the counter demonstration. On the day, it was clear that some wanted a mass mobilisation to block the far-right at the quayside, while others wanted to keep the rally focused at the Monument. In the end, the crowd split and was spread across two locations. Huge credit to those 400 on the quayside who stood firm, blocking the racists’ route through the city centre. These counter demonstrators were subjected to kettling, with reports of aggressive and violent policing. Ultimately, the result was a victory, but the process was messy and fractious.

Splits on the left are sadly nothing new, with the recent high-profile spats at the top of ‘Your Party’ offering plenty of ammunition to our opponents, whilst draining enthusiasm from our supporters. There is no doubt the process of forming a new socialist party will be messy and fractious; the big question is whether it will ultimately result in victory.

Whilst I don’t want to relitigate the issues surrounding the numerous botched launches of ‘Your Party’, I would say that first impressions count. Those calling the shots have failed to give a positive and reassuring first impression of the project. This doesn’t necessarily mean it will ultimately fail, but it does mean the project will have to work twice as hard to gain the trust of activists and the wider public.

Thankfully, things between Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana, and their respective teams have de-escalated from threats of legal action. Pursuing that route would have precipitated their mutual destruction in the court of public opinion and strangled the party at birth. Crisis temporarily avoided.

The major challenge will be stewarding the movement into a mass membership party with structures and governance that enable truly democratic decision-making. What emerges must be capable of holding together a broad coalition of ideas and traditions, whilst forging a new form of participatory politics that is not controlled from the centre. It must be decentralised, democratic, but disciplined – politics in 3D, if you will.

When I helped set up Majority in 2024 alongside former North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll and other highly experienced activists, this is the approach we took. Not aiming to control all activity centrally but to support self-organising groups, people’s assemblies and innovative campaigning. Underpinning this with a code of conduct that mirrors the Nolan principles in public life but can be summed up as ‘play nice and don’t be a dick’. The culture is more important than the rulebook, or to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, we must stop ‘dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.’

Our aim is to get more good people into progressive politics and rebuild trust in our democracy. Because the challenge for the English Left is not limited to promoting our policies and capabilities, we must also convince the public that democracy is worth saving. If we don’t, we are building our house on sand.

Outside of ‘Your Party’, there have been some interesting developments on the Left of British politics. We have a resurgent Green Party with over 100,000 members, and in Zack Polanski, they have a popular leader who performs well in the media. We also have Andy Burnham, the only English politician with a net positive approval rating, testing the waters for a Labour leadership bid. Interestingly, neither are MPs, but rather regional politicians – one is a London Assembly Member and the other a Metro Mayor.

In the case of Metro Mayors, English devolution has delivered us a new type of elected representative with significant budgets and executive powers, one that is crucially beyond the reach of parliamentary party whips. Existing regional identities can now be expressed in a form of regional politics capable of flexing its muscles and facing down Westminster, as Burnham did during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Both Polanski and Burnham have made public ownership a key plank of their political pitches, going much further than Labour in this area. This agenda provides us with a chance to innovate – to plan and manage our public services in a 21st-century context.

Imagine if we did take back control of our water, not as a centrally administered 70s-style nationalised industry, but as a regionally managed public resource. Imagine regional water boards with local politicians, trade unionists, billpayer representatives and environmental groups, all working together as public stewards of our most vital resource. Don’t like the way your regional water board is managing things? Organise and vote them out via a democratic process in a local election, via your trade union, billpayers or environmental group. Sure, it won’t be perfect, but it will be a damn sight easier than getting rid of a private CEO.

It’s not quite Lenin’s ‘every cook should learn to govern’, but with more routes to democratic participation at a local and regional level, we could rebuild our collective civic muscles. When participation is built around a strong regional identity, backed by political structures that actually respond, taking back control becomes more than just a slogan. Or as the Geordies might say, ‘late-stage capitalism. Nah, you’re alreet pet.’

Editor’s note: To learn more about Hugo’s work at Majority, visit their website here.

Gen Z 212 and Youth Protests in Morocco

From the Digital Sphere to the Street


Morocco is currently—Autumn 2025—witnessing a broad, youth-led mass protest movement that has brought back to the forefront fundamental questions of social justice, basic rights, the deterioration of public services, and the political legitimacy of the regime. This movement, which took the name “Gen Z 212”—after the country’s international dialing code—did not arise from a vacuum. It is the result of a long accumulation of poverty, marginalization, unemployment, corruption, and the collapse of essential public sectors such as health and education. The spark came from a tragedy at Hassan II Hospital in Agadir, where several women died during childbirth due to lack of care. That incident ignited a social uprising that quickly spread to major cities including Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Marrakesh, Salé, and Oujda. Yet this movement is more than an eruption of social anger—it represents a new form of political action, one rooted in digital, network-based organization that moves from the virtual sphere into the streets.

What distinguishes this experience is its transcendence of traditional organizational methods, creating a new leftist horizon that merges the social with the technological. Young people relied on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Discord as spaces for discussion, planning, and collective decision-making. There was no centralized or hierarchical leadership—rather, flexible horizontal networks united by common goals. This decentralization became a source of strength and protection against repression and infiltration, allowing the movement to reorganize itself even amid arrests, account deletions, and censorship. Every time one account was shut down or an activist was detained, new ones appeared. The digital sphere turned into an open, collective leftist school that produced a new consciousness grounded in people’s daily needs, not in theoretical slogans. This is the practical expression of the concept of the Electronic Left, which views the digital realm as an essential extension of class struggle—where the internet becomes the new factory for producing awareness and resistance.

The demands raised by Gen Z 212—better education and healthcare, fighting corruption, creating dignified jobs, and achieving social justice—embody the living essence of leftist thought rooted in the needs of the working classes. Though not formally ideological, the movement carried a clearly Marxist and practical spirit: starting from concrete reality to transform it step by step in favor of the majority. It revived the dialectical and practical dimension that much of the traditional left had lost when it became trapped in theoretical debates detached from the people’s real suffering.

The state responded with double repression—physical and digital. On the streets, there were arrests, beatings, gunfire, and tear gas; online, there were account suspensions, content removal, and digital surveillance. Yet this repression did not break the movement; it made it more adaptable and aware. Youth activists developed new forms of assembly, used more secure digital tools, and shifted toward local, grassroots organizing with horizontal coordination. Thus emerged a dual consciousness of resistance—on the ground and online—illustrating what the Electronic Left calls the digital class struggle, where modern mechanisms of control collide with popular tools of liberation. The fight for freedom today is inseparable from control over technological means—and from the creation of independent, leftist, digital alternatives outside the grip of capitalist tech corporations and authoritarian states.

Despite its strengths, this new organizational model still faces the challenge of transforming spontaneous energy into a structured, radical emancipatory project. Without a strategic vision, such movements risk fragmentation. Here lies the role of a renewed, digitally grounded and real-world left: to build bridges between online and street struggles, connect immediate demands with a socialist horizon, and develop flexible, democratic, collective forms of organization that unite progressive forces around shared goals. What is happening in Morocco sends a clear message to leftist forces worldwide: the future belongs to the left that can merge technology with class struggle, the street with the network, collective consciousness with practical action.

The Electronic Left does not replace the historical left—it continues and develops it. It calls on parties, unions, and social movements to integrate the digital dimension into their strategies, to overcome bureaucracy and ideological rigidity, and to confront not only traditional capitalism but also digital capitalism, which reproduces class domination through data control, platforms, and algorithmic manipulation. A genuine left resurgence requires a dialectical balance between historical experience and digital innovation, between grassroots organization and technological flexibility, between older generations and the digital youth.

The Gen Z 212 movement shows that a left disconnected from young generations and their tools cannot influence reality. Today, class struggle begins in the neighborhood—and continues in the digital sphere.

Full solidarity with the young women and men and with the working people of Morocco who confront repression and marginalization with courage and consciousness, fighting for dignity, freedom, and genuine social justice—and with all progressive, leftist, unionist, and human rights forces that stand by them, defending the right to organize, to express, and to live in equality and dignity.

Germany’s historical responsibility is to defend all human rights and respect international law

Statement in court from a woman appealing her prosecution for Volksverhetzung


In November 2023, a woman held a sign up outside the Bundestag asking if Germany had learned from the Holocaust and pointing out that 7,000 people had (by then) already died in Gaza. She was fined €1,600 and accused of Volksverhetzung – incitement.

Last week, on 1st October 2025, she was in court again, appealing that judgement. The judge threw out the case, pointing out that it was ridiculous that a law which was originally made to “stop class struggle” (his words), then later adapted in the 1960s and 1990s to counter a growing Nazi threat would be used in this case.

In court, the woman was allowed to make a statement. This is a translation of what she said.

Dear Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prosecutor.

In April of this year, I appeared in court for the first time and had to answer for an act that not only was I morally convinced about, but also believed to be covered by freedom of expression. Now I am back in court, because after more than two years of brutal warfare and massacres that have claimed more than 67,000 Palestinian lives, I am more convinced than ever of the question I asked in November 2023. We need to critically examine the past, because what significance does our culture of remembrance have if it is meaningless for our present? It is noteworthy that my question about the lessons learned from the Holocaust was interpreted very narrowly by the court, even though there are many references and answers to this question in public discourse as Jewish author, journalist and lawyer Ronen Steinke points out. So how can it be that there can only be one acceptable answer to this complex question, especially in view of the political and social changes? And what does it mean when public, multi-perspective discussions on this topic are thus prohibited by law?

For me, one thing has always been clear: the Holocaust was a crime against humanity and the darkest chapter in German history, which we commemorate in many ways—and rightly so. However, I do not believe in a culture of remembrance that upholsters our current perspective and our actions in the present, or worse still, serves as a justification for the suffering of others.

Our past obliges us. It obliges us to stand up for human rights, equality and democracy and against violence, hatred and war. The Jewish American-German author Deborah Feldman expressed this publicly on 1 November 2023 with the following words:

“I firmly believe that there is only one legitimate lesson to be learned from the Holocaust, and that is the absolute and unconditional defense of human rights for all.”

Two days after the Hamas attack the Israel Defense Minister Yoav Galant stated there: “will be no power, no food, no water, no fuel” for the Gaza strip. Israel, he said, is “fighting human animals and acting accordingly”—a statement that is not only deeply dehumanizing, but also violates international law. In the first weeks of the war alone, there were several thousand civilian casualties—including several children. Schools, hospitals and civilian infrastructure was bombed. The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip worsened with each passing week. Despite urgent warnings from numerous human rights organizations about a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and reminders from UN experts to comply with international law, the German government approved and supported the Israeli government’s rigorous and brutal actions in the Gaza Strip.

While international media reported almost daily on the war and the immeasurable suffering and destruction in the Gaza Strip, the majority of German media remained silent or justified the Israeli army’s inhumane and violent actions. Politicians and government representatives, who had condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel in clear and unambiguous words found themselves shrouded themselves in a deep silence.

Even after the first attack on a hospital on 17th October 2023, and sick, injured and vulnerable civilians fell victim to the attacks, German politicians refrained from condemning practices that are questionable/illegitimate under international law.

I remember that day as if it were a live broadcast—a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in real time in the media. And yet all that remained was a feeling of powerlessness—the feeling of having to watch an act of horror without being able to do anything about it.

These images accompanied me every day and I asked myself: where is our voice? Why can’t we find clear words when it comes to alleged human rights and international law violations against Palestinians? Why this one-sidedness?

The early calls by UN experts for compliance with international law, a humanitarian ceasefire and a sustainable solution to the conflict remained largely unanswered.

I couldn’t understand why the German government paid such little attention to the UN’s demands and continued to give its unconditional support to the Israeli government. Particularly, due to Germany’s historical responsibility because of the Holocaust, advocating for the observance of human rights and international law would be logical.

Recent developments, such as the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court, have shown me that my question was not exaggerated. It was an expression of genuine, well-founded concern.

They have reinforced my feeling that we—especially in Germany—have a responsibility to remain vigilant.

That is why I asked publicly: Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust?

I have, and continue to assume that the previous/first judgement is based on a misunderstanding of my appeal and that I am acting within the framework of our fundamental democratic rights when I use the Holocaust as a yardstick for other crimes against human and international law. Neither of my appeals is intended to trivialise the Holocaust. I have not made any statement as to whether the current events in Gaza can be compared to the Holocaust. Rather, in my appeal, I ask about the lessons of the Holocaust. These are the universal human rights for ALL. Article 1 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Every state is obliged not only to comply with international law, but also to work to ensure that other states comply with it. It is therefore our duty to stand up for human rights, regardless of who they are directed against.

Thank you for your attention.