Comrades!
The Voice of the Turtle's
publishing flurry has turned into a March blizzard, with more new
articles posted on the site than in any previous month. The winds
of the Zimbabwean election continue to blow articles our way, and
we've added three new pieces: two by Turtle debutante E. Lovemore
Moyo -- one on the trade
unions and another on the election
fix itself -- and one from Patrick Bond and Raj Patel, who have
teamed up to paint for us the post-election
political landscape, bringing a spotlight to bear on South Africa's
contribution to the politics of the present. Continuing this regional
emphasis, Sean Jacobs makes his first appearance in the People's Organ
with a discussion of the decline
of youth radicalism in South Africa.
The Turtle has not, however,
been entirely snowed under by Southern Africa. This month, we present
another of our occasional pieces on the ongoing War on Terror, with
an essay from Stakhanovite J. Carter Wood, now resident in Trier (the
birthplace of Karl Marx) describing the
view from Germany; Ted Vallance has kicked off our coverage of
the Queen's Golden Jubilee in the UK with some contemporary reflections
on the practice of regicide;
Aziz Choudry has penned yet another indictment of the Australian government,
this time concentrating on its anti-child
policies; Trevor Landers joins the ranks of the Authors of the
Turtle with a fine, short poem
on the Tragedy of Romanian Railway Stations; and the Library of the
Turtle is now graced with the Situationists' meditative Theses
on the Paris Commune. The Turtle also urges you to support the
Assembly of the Poor, whom we
salute this month, in their campaign against the Thai government;
and we present to you a new Comrade of the Month, Blair adviser Robert
Cooper, who recently called for a fresh round of Western imperialism!
A cauldron of fresh material
is being stirred behind the scenes and will soon oil the site. These
include the poetry of Terry
Cantwell, Raj Patel's observations on "The
Uses of Ali G", and Dan Gordon's coverage of the Presidential
elections in France. We're also assembling a Spring Offensive
of new book reviews, which (with luck) will take in a range of subjects,
including Guy Debord, Conservative
political thought, the N-word, socialism
and barbarism and various topics in Irish
history -- together with our our long-promised treatments of Michael
Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire.
If you'd like to hop on this particular bandwagon and open up an additional
front, we'd be delighted to read your thoughts on recent appearances
in local bookshops, or indeed record shops, cinemas, theatres, clubs,
pubs or bars.
With a social spectrum
like this, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Turtle continues to
grow in popularity. More and more of our articles are distributed
elsewhere around cyberspace, and a few even getting translated into
other languages. Our subscription list -- like a Northern hemisphere
Spring evening -- gets longer with every day that passes: it recently
passed the three hundred mark for the first time, and this despite
our semiregular purges (we purge to avoid cluttering the list with
obviously-defunct email addresses, rather than for straightforwardly
ideological reasons).
The usual reminders remain
in force: we are always looking for fine writing from friends both
old and new. Don't be shy, now. New subscribers may not know that
the Turtle is equipped with a fabled prose engine, the Turtle-O-Matic,
which capable of spinning halfbaked thoughts, random email and semi-literate
jargon into silk. Do send on your musings -- the editorial collective
is more than happy to help amplify them into full-throated song.
Welcome to April; good
luck with all of your preparations for May Day -- and a very happy
birthday to our comrades in struggle, the late Alexandra Kollontai
and the estimable William Fishman!
Avanti popolo!
The Editors of the Turtle.
