Home2022-01-14T20:27:35+00:00

Indestructible Podcast #20: Beyond the Headlines – Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) (LISTEN)

By |25/May/2023|

In the 20th episode of Indestructible Rodrigo speaks to academic Étienne von Bertrab about the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico.

Indestructible: Latin America with Rodrigo Acuña is a podcast from Alborada bringing you monthly discussions with some of the most interesting voices working on and from Latin America.

In the 20th episode of Indestructible Rodrigo speaks to academic Étienne von Bertrab about the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico.

The podcast is available on Spotify and other podcast streaming website.

Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon.

::: Episode 20:

Beyond the Headlines: Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). With Étienne von Bertrab

Listen to episode 20 on Audioboom and a range of other podcast streaming websites

Listen to the episode here or below. 

Click here to go to the Indestructible homepage.

Presented by Alborada contributing editor Rodrigo Acuña

Produced and edited by Pablo Navarrete

Music by Chylez Productions.

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Get in touch with the podcast: info [at] alborada [dot] net

 

Indestructible Podcast #20: Beyond the Headlines – Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) (LISTEN)

By |25/May/2023|

In the 20th episode of Indestructible Rodrigo speaks to academic Étienne von Bertrab about the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico.

Indestructible: Latin America with Rodrigo Acuña is a podcast from Alborada bringing you monthly discussions with some of the most interesting voices working on and from Latin America.

In the 20th episode of Indestructible Rodrigo speaks to academic Étienne von Bertrab about the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico.

The podcast is available on Spotify and other podcast streaming website.

Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon.

::: Episode 20:

Beyond the Headlines: Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). With Étienne von Bertrab

Listen to episode 20 on Audioboom and a range of other podcast streaming websites

Listen to the episode here or below. 

Click here to go to the Indestructible homepage.

Presented by Alborada contributing editor Rodrigo Acuña

Produced and edited by Pablo Navarrete

Music by Chylez Productions.

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Get in touch with the podcast: info [at] alborada [dot] net

 

The Americas Uncovered: Coup (LISTEN)

By |17/May/2023|

Our latest podcast examines the 2019 US-backed overthrow of Evo Morales’ elected government in Bolivia, as Peter Watt speaks to Linda Farthing and Thomas Becker about their book Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia.

In episode five of our podcast The Americas Uncovered, host Dr Peter Watt of Sheffield University in the UK, speaks to Linda Farthing and Thomas Becker about their book, Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia. The book dissects the events around the 2019 coup against the government of Evo Morales following his victory in the presidential election.

Linda Farthing is a journalist and independent scholar who works in Bolivia.

Thomas Becker is the Legal and Policy Director and a Senior Clinical Supervisor at the University Network for Human Rights.

Presented by Dr Peter Watt (University of Sheffield, UK)

Music by Peter Watt

Artwork by Simon Díaz-Cuffin

Listen here or below.

Latin America, Mainstream Media Misrepresentation & the Independent Media Fightback (LISTEN)

By |12/May/2023|

Listen to a podcast of our recent ‘Latin America, Mainstream Media Misrepresentation & the Independent Media Fightback’ panel at a Latin America solidarity conference in London.

In London recently for the Latin America Adelante Conference, Alborada organised the panel ‘Latin America, Mainstream Media Misrepresentation & the Independent Media Fightback’.

For more information on the panel including the list of speakers, click here.

Panel recorded by Peter Watt, host of the Alborada podcast The Americas Uncovered.

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Listen to the panel here or below.

 

On May Day, Colombians Mobilise to Defend the Petro Government (WATCH)

By |11/May/2023|

In stark contrast to previous years of anti-government protests, Colombians are now rallying to support their new president — and push his administration to go further.

The popular forces of Colombia have been at odds with the forces of their state for decades. Yet this year on May Day, crowds of people mobilised not in opposition to their government but in support of its labour reforms and efforts to produce a lasting peace.

This video report was originally commissioned and released by The Real News Network.

Swept into power last year in the aftermath of a popular uprising, President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez have prioritised an agenda to reform the country and build power for working people and oppressed groups such as Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples. While conservative elements continue to obstruct this agenda from within the state, the new administration is turning to popular mobilisations such as the ones on May Day to sustain momentum. TRNN reports on May Day from Cali, Colombia, one of the cities hit hardest by the crackdown against anti-government protests in 2021 by the previous Ivan Duque administration.

This story, with the support of the Bertha Foundation, is part of The Real News Network’s ‘Workers of the World’ series, telling the stories of workers around the globe building collective power and redefining the future of work on their own terms: https://therealnews.com/workers-of-th…

Producer: Nick MacWilliam
Videographer: Nick MacWilliam
Video editor: Leo Erhardt

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We Need the Method of Revolutionary Cinema

By |10/May/2023|

Alborada co-editor Pablo Navarrete recalls the achievements of Third Cinema in Argentina and Cuba for the sake of socialist film-makers today.

In their 1969 manifesto, Towards a Third Cinema, Argentinian film-makers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino defined Third Cinema as “a cinema of liberation” that stood in opposition to the values of the first and second cinemas.

They described first cinema as “the dominant commercial cinema,” in the service of US capitalism and imperialism; second cinema was “the avant-garde and experimental cinema which has been born as an alternative to the dominant one.”

Instead, Third Cinema film-makers sought to create a cinema that was rooted in local cultures and traditions, and that reflected the realities of life for ordinary people.

Often, this involved using non-professional actors and improvisation, as well as incorporating elements of documentary and other forms of non-fiction film-making.

In Argentina, the right-wing Ongania military dictatorship had taken power in June 1966 and the forces of the left had been heavily persecuted, with widespread censorship of media and cultural manifestations such as cinema.

It is in this political context that a year earlier, in June 1968, Solanas and Getino had first shown The Hour of the Furnaces (La Hora de los Hornos), one of the seminal works of the “Cine Liberacion” (Liberation Cinema) wave of revolutionary films from Latin America.

In this four-and-a-half-hour film, the directors had travelled across Argentina, and as a 1970 review of the film in Cineaste magazine points out, “made contact with, discussed with, and eventually filmed most of those who are actively involved (clandestinely as well as openly, outside as well as within the “legal” institutions of Argentina) in the struggle for a revolutionary transformation of Argentine society.”

The documentary’s title was rooted in the region’s colonial and revolutionary past and present.

When the first European “explorers” sailed along the south-eastern coast of South America during the early part of the 16th century, they reported seeing hundreds of cooking fires along the coast of Tierra del Fuego.

The expression “la hora de los hornos” (the hour of the cooking fires) was then regularly used by Latin American poets and historians, and by the time of the film’s release had become an anti-imperialist rallying cry taken up by the Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

In calling for a socialist revolution to sweep Latin America, he quoted the 20th century Cuban revolutionary leader Jose Marti and proclaimed: “Now is ‘la hora de los hornos’; let them see nothing but the light of the flames.”

As with “el Che,” Third Cinema also has a symbiotic link to Cuba and its revolution.

Just two months after the January 1959 revolution, the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) was created, and it went on to play a crucial role in the development of Third Cinema.

The ICAIC provided a model for collective production and distribution, as well as a source of funding and support for film-makers who might otherwise have struggled to get their work made.

The Cuban experience also demonstrated the power of cinema as a tool for social change and provided a template for other

Fifty Years After Chile’s Coup, the First Year of Popular Unity

By |16/April/2023|

A conversation with Miguel Lawner, who remembers life as a former political prisoner of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship while projecting his hope that Salvador Allende’s government could improve the lives of Chileans onto the current progressive government.

Ten days after the 1973 coup against the Popular Unity (UP) government of President Salvador Allende, the military opened the Río Chico concentration camp on Dawson Island, located in the Strait of Magellan, near the southern tip of Chile. The island had served as an extermination camp by a Catholic order between 1891 and 1911 to confine the Selk’nam and Kawésqar peoples, who died due to overcrowding, the spread of disease and the cold.

The coup regime sent 38 officials of the UP government to the Compañía de Ingenieros del Cuerpo de Infantería Marina (COMPINGIM) naval base and then to the Río Chico camp. It also sent hundreds of political prisoners to Punta Arenas, near Dawson Island. The officials were interrogated, tortured and forced to work on the island’s infrastructure. The Río Chico camp was dismantled in 1974.

One of the prisoners at the camp was Miguel Lawner, an architect who led the government’s Urban Improvement Corporation (CORMU). During his imprisonment, Lawner walked around the prison to calculate the size of his room, the buildings at the camp and the camp itself. He drew the layout for the camp but then destroyed it for fear of discovery by the guards. When he was in exile in Denmark in 1976, Lawner redrew the plans from memory. ‘The function creates the organ,’ he said. ‘I developed an organ: the drawing, capable of fulfilling the function of leaving testimony of our captivity.’

During his imprisonment, Lawner told me, he worried that the military might accuse him of corruption for his leadership of CORMU. ‘I was trying to calculate how many millions of dollars had been [spent] in my name,’ he recalled. ‘I calculated it to be between $150 million and $180 million. Later, I learned that the military spent six months investigating me and came to the conclusion that they owed me a per diem!’

The UP government (1970-1973) felt that the ministries of Housing and Public Works should be the engine of the economy, as ‘the two easiest institutions to mobilise,’ Lawner said. Other areas, such as industrialisation, ‘required more prolonged prior studies.’ ‘In housing,’ Lawner told me, ‘if you have a vacant lot, the next day you can be building.’ In addition, there was a huge need for housing. The CORMU management decided to speed up the bureaucratic procedures and authorize the immediate disbursement of funds through an official, who was Lawner. ‘Our first year of government was a year of marvellous irresponsibility,’ Lawner told me with a smile on his face.

Never Deviate From the Fundamentals

During the 1970 campaign for the presidency, Lawner accompanied Allende to a camp on the banks of the Mapocho River, where the people lived ‘outside the walls of society.’ As they left the camp, Allende said to Lawner, ‘Even if things go badly for us, to

Cuban Socialism vs US Sanctions w/ Helen Yaffe (LISTEN)

By |15/April/2023|

Historian Helen Yaffe tells Alborada co-editor Nick MacWilliam how Cuba is resisting brutal US sanctions while maintaining its policy of healthcare internationalism.

Despite brutal US sanctions that have had a major impact on everyday life for its citizens, Cuba’s commitment to internationalism and anti-imperialism continues to burn brightly.

Cuba expert Helen Yaffe discussed the situation in Cuba today, and what the recent wave of progressive governments in Latin America means for the island, with Alborada co-editor Nick MacWilliam.

Helen is Senior Lecturer in Economic & Social History at the University of Glasgow. She’s the author of books such as Che Guevara: the Economics of Revolution and We Are Cuba: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World.

Listen to the podcast here or below.

The Importance of Independent Media in Covering Brazil w/ Nathália Urban (LISTEN)

By |2/April/2023|

Brazilian journalist Nathália Urban discusses the need for independent reporting on Brazil and Latin America in our latest podcast.

With corporate media increasingly concentrated in elite hands, independent media has an important role to play in providing accurate reporting on Brazil and elsewhere.

Brazilian journalist Nathália Urban discussed the topic with Peter Watt at London’s Latin America Adelante Conference in late January.

Peter Watt teaches on Latin America at Sheffield University and is the host of Alborada’s podcast, The Americas Uncovered.

Listen to the interview here or below.

Far-Right Challenges Facing the Lula Presidency w/ Francisco Domínguez (LISTEN)

By |1/April/2023|

Listen to our podcast interview with author and academic Francisco Domínguez on the far right threat to democracy in Brazil and the challenge it poses to the Lula government.

In London recently for the Latin America Adelante Conference, academic and author Francisco Domínguez spoke to Peter Watt about what the government of Lula Da Slva can expect from the Brazilian far-right and strategies for confronting it.

Dr Francisco Dominguez is a Chilean academic and author based at Middlesex University in the UK.

Peter Watt teaches on Latin America at Sheffield University and is the host of Alborada’s podcast, The Americas Uncovered.

Listen to the interview here or below.

The Americas Uncovered: Revolution in Development (LISTEN)

By |2/March/2023|

In the latest episode of our podcast, Peter Watt interviews Christy Thornton about her book Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy.

You can now listen to episode four of our podcast, The Americas Uncovered, hosted by Dr Peter Watt of Sheffield University in the UK. In this episode, Peter speaks to Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, about her book Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy, which explores the Mexican Revolution’s influence on international economic institutions.

Presented by Dr Peter Watt (University of Sheffield, UK)

Produced by Pablo Navarrete and Nick MacWilliam

Artwork by Simon Díaz-Cuffin

Music by Peter Watt

Listen to the podcast here or below.

Chile: 50 Years of Solidarity and Struggle (LISTEN)

By |22/February/2023|

Listen to a podcast of our recent ‘Chile: 50 Years of Solidarity and Struggle’ panel at a Latin America solidarity conference in London.

In London recently for the Latin America Adelante Conference, Alborada organised the panel ‘Chile: 50 Years of Solidarity and Struggle’. The panel was organised in association with Chile 50 Years UK.

For more information on the panel including the list of speakers, click here.

Panel recorded by Peter Watt, host of the Alborada podcast The Americas Uncovered.

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Listen to the panel here or below.

Challenges for the Chilean Left (LISTEN)

By |22/February/2023|

Listen to our podcast interview with Chilean writer, academic and activist Melany Cruz on what the Chilean Left should do to advance a progressive agenda under Gabriel Boric’s government.

In London recently for the Latin America Adelante Conference, Melany Cruz, a Chilean writer, academic and activist, spoke to Peter Watt about the challenges facing the Chilean Left under Gabriel Boric’s government.

Melany Cruz is Lecturer in Politics of the Global South at Leicester University and has written on Chilean politics for a number of media outlets.

Peter Watt teaches on Latin America at Sheffield University and is the host of Alborada’s podcast, The Americas Uncovered.

Listen to the interview here or below.

Nicaragua & International Solidarity with Latin America (LISTEN)

By |21/February/2023|

Listen to our podcast interview with author and activist Dan Kovalik on the importance of standing with Latin America’s progressive governments and social movements.

In London recently for the Latin America Adelante Conference, Dan Kovalik, US author, lawyer and activist, spoke to Peter Watt about international solidarity with Latin America.

Dan Kovalik is the author of several books on the region, including his most recent, Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention and Resistance. Dan is also a longtime campaigner for human rights and social justice in Latin America and elsewhere.

Peter Watt teaches on Latin America at Sheffield University and is the host of Alborada’s podcast, The Americas Uncovered.

Listen to the interview here or below.

Photography

Kiev, 26 May 2018

By |27/May/2018|

Liverpool supporters attending the Champions League final carry banners in solidarity with Brazilian former president Lula Da Silva and Catalan political prisoners. Polls show that if Lula ran in this year’s presidential election, he would win by a landslide and restore the Workers’ Party to government.

Video

Chile’s Student Uprising (Documentary)

By |2/April/2020|

Watch this documentary on the student protest movement in Chile in 2011 (Director Roberto Navarrete, 35 mins, Alborada Films, 2014).

Mass student protests took place in Chile between 2011 and 2013 demanding a free and state-funded education system and radical change in society. The documentary puts these protests in their historical context of widespread dissatisfaction with the economic model put in place under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), but that still remains largely in place.

The film’s director travelled to Chile between 2011 and 2013 to speak to then student leaders (now Members of Congress) such as Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson, and also to other students, to explore why their protests had caused such effect in Chile and inspired others in the country and beyond.

“Roberto Navarrete’s is the most complete and compelling visual account of Chile’s student uprising to date. All the lessons from Patricio Guzmán’s path-breaking style of documenting in film are there: poetic visuals, an engaged narrative, the focus on personal feelings and stories combined with subtle and accessible analysis, plus a sense of the tragic tempered by the optimism of the will. Navarrete adds to it the passion and distance of the exile’s gaze, and a Latin American Beckettian flare for celebration while thinking. This is a must see for all those interested in the current sway of global rebellions that show us all the shape of things to come. Superb!”

Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Professor in Law, Birbeck, University of London and author of ‘Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973’

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Video

Chile’s Student Uprising (Documentary)

By |2/April/2020|

Watch this documentary on the student protest movement in Chile in 2011 (Director Roberto Navarrete, 35 mins, Alborada Films, 2014).

Mass student protests took place in Chile between 2011 and 2013 demanding a free and state-funded education system and radical change in society. The documentary puts these protests in their historical context of widespread dissatisfaction with the economic model put in place under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), but that still remains largely in place.

The film’s director travelled to Chile between 2011 and 2013 to speak to then student leaders (now Members of Congress) such as Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson, and also to other students, to explore why their protests had caused such effect in Chile and inspired others in the country and beyond.

“Roberto Navarrete’s is the most complete and compelling visual account of Chile’s student uprising to date. All the lessons from Patricio Guzmán’s path-breaking style of documenting in film are there: poetic visuals, an engaged narrative, the focus on personal feelings and stories combined with subtle and accessible analysis, plus a sense of the tragic tempered by the optimism of the will. Navarrete adds to it the passion and distance of the exile’s gaze, and a Latin American Beckettian flare for celebration while thinking. This is a must see for all those interested in the current sway of global rebellions that show us all the shape of things to come. Superb!”

Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Professor in Law, Birbeck, University of London and author of ‘Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973’

Chile’s Student Uprising (Documentary)

By |2/April/2020|

Watch this documentary on the student protest movement in Chile in 2011 (Director Roberto Navarrete, 35 mins, Alborada Films, 2014).

Mass student protests took place in Chile between 2011 and 2013 demanding a free and state-funded education system and radical change in society. The documentary puts these protests in their historical context of widespread dissatisfaction with the economic model put in place under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), but that still remains largely in place.

The film’s director travelled to Chile between 2011 and 2013 to speak to then student leaders (now Members of Congress) such as Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson, and also to other students, to explore why their protests had caused such effect in Chile and inspired others in the country and beyond.

“Roberto Navarrete’s is the most complete and compelling visual account of Chile’s student uprising to date. All the lessons from Patricio Guzmán’s path-breaking style of documenting in film are there: poetic visuals, an engaged narrative, the focus on personal feelings and stories combined with subtle and accessible analysis, plus a sense of the tragic tempered by the optimism of the will. Navarrete adds to it the passion and distance of the exile’s gaze, and a Latin American Beckettian flare for celebration while thinking. This is a must see for all those interested in the current sway of global rebellions that show us all the shape of things to come. Superb!”

Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Professor in Law, Birbeck, University of London and author of ‘Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973’