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Today’s Jacobins?

In The Black Jacobins, CLR James coopts the name of the radical leftist group to come out of the French Revolution, Jacobin, applying the term to the revolutionaries from what is today known as Haiti who became the first slave group to liberate themselves, overthrowing the inhumane systems of slavery and colonialism that had occupied their land and claimed ownership over their bodies. The differences between the original Jacobins, the 18th century Haitian revolutionaries, and today’s Puerto Rican resistance are clear: the Haitian revolutionaries were slaves, subjected to immense violence and abuse and stripped of their autonomy. Though Puerto Rican’s today are not slaves, they are living in a colonial situation, forced to bare the brunt of an economic crisis the United States colonial structure has imposed upon them. And today’s resistance, following in the footsteps independence activists and groups like the Young Lords, are striving for radical, systemic change signature to the Jacobin paradigm.

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Thousands gathered in the financial sector of downtown San Juan on May 1st as part of a national strike.

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Yet when the masses turn (as turn they will one day) and try to end the tyranny of centuries, not only the tyrants but all ‘civilisation’ holds up its hands in horror and clamours for ‘order’ to be restored. If a revolution carries high overhead expenses, most of them it inherits from the greed of reactionaries and the cowardice of the so-called moderates. Long before abolition the mischief had been done in the French colonies and it was not abolition but the refusal to abolish which had done it.

CLR James, The Black Jacobins

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May Day: A Day of Workers Rights

Around the world countries acknowledge May 1st as International Workers Day. Citizens and workers from Europe to Africa spend the holiday taking to the streets, rallying for their rights. Though the U.S. does not acknowledge May 1st as a public holiday, every year activists use the day to organize and mobilize workers to spend the day protesting for better working and living conditions. This year Puerto Rican activists in New York joined groups ranging from Black Lives Matter to Tibetans for a Free Syria, unified in a shared goal of improving workers’ rights and standing in solidarity with thousands participating in a national strike in Puerto Rico.

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"We have everything to lose to the privatization of the public education system, to $612 million dollars in budget cuts, which would dismantle the social fibers of our nation. We stand in solidarity and in servitude to the student movement who have stepped up to the challenge of defending our motherland and our people.”

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Meeting the Midnight Deadline

Facing an unprecedented debt of $123 billion, neither the commonwealth government nor the fiscal control board appointed by the Obama administration last year to develop a plan to pay off the debt have made progress in reaching a solution. Public universities on the Island have been closed for over a month as students protest the severe budget cuts to the public education system, which are associated with immense austerity measures being imposed. And in anticipation of a midnight deadline which, if not met, meant that banks who are owed money can open a lawsuit against the commonwealth, Puerto Ricans throughout the island participated in a national strike, protesting the austerity measures that are the result of the debt being imposed on them, the result of the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico.

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What is Boricua?

The native people of the island colonists named Puerto Rico, the Taíno people, called the land Boriken. Today many members of the resistance and natives of the island refer to themselves as Boricua, an indication of their national pride and refusal to accept the colonial identity imposed upon them.

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Protesters sing Lola Rodriguez de Tio’s “La Borinqueña,” a revolutionary anthem dating back to 1868.

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At whatever level we study it - individual encounters, a change of name for a sports club, the guest list at a cocktail party, members of a police force or the board of directors of a state or private bank - decolonization is quite simply the substitution of one ‘species’ of mankind by another. The substitution is unconditional, absolute, total, and seamless.

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

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The streets of San Juan have been filled with the music of panderos throughout the recent student movement, and protesters brought the music to the Union Square May Day protest, distinguishing themselves from other activists with a constant flow of music and chanting.

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“¡Esa deuda es ilegal, no la vamos a pagar!”

During the Union Square May Day demonstration, Puerto Rican protesters walked down to Santander Bank on 13th and Broadway, expressing their dissent against claimed debt the commonwealth owes the bank, as two members of the fiscal control board and form Santander executives have declared.

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The crisis unfolding on the Island originates here - in the mainland United States, in the Capitol, in New York. The majority of those tasked with creating a solution to the Puerto Rican debt crisis do not come from the Island, and when two members of the fiscal control board spoke at an event at the NYU law school, protesters disrupted the event, calling for the liberation of Puerto Rico and for actions to be taken based on the peoples’ interests, not investors’ interests.