Articles

Towards a revolutionary culture

A piece for The Gaza Guardian regarding cultural work and the liberation of political prisoners

Cultural work is an essential tool of education and agitation in our toolbox in the fight against capitalist-imperialism. When it comes to the plight of political prisoners, cultural work is an essential weapon. Film is an inherently collective art form in which a large audience is able to engage with it all together in one room. We focus on film screenings and their role in a wider revolutionary mass movement, both as a way to document the struggle and to raise awareness of the plight of political prisoners.

Fedayin, Georges Abdallah’s Fight (2020), a film by Collectif Vacarme(s), a documentary collective with a political commitment to the fight against all forms of oppression, highlights both Georges Abdallah’s life and his struggle in prison. The film highlights the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the mass campaign to free him, both in France (where he was imprisoned) and in Lebanon (where he is from).

Georges Abdallah was the longest serving political prisoner in Europe, imprisoned for a crime the French state never proved he did. His imprisonment was lengthened to an absurd 41 years (!) due to interference from the US state department and a certain Hillary Clinton. In spite of the French state and the United States, the campaign to free comrade Georges succeeded. It was an awe-inspiring campaign in how the struggle of Georges Abdallah was linked with a range of mass organisations, from youth groups such as Jeune Revolutionaire to the revolutionary news service la Cause du Peuple. By fighting for him, they all grew from strength to strength - ultimately forcing the French state to yield!

Across Enemy Lines: Shaka A. Shakur (2025) is another shining example of film solidarity with political prisoners Shaka Shakur is a New Afrikan revolutionary who has been incarcerated on and off since 2002, his latest imprisonment was in 2018 on false charges of attempted murder. This particular imprisonment saw the state increasing their attempt to dislocate him from his organisations, family and friends as they moved him across state lines from Indiana to Virginia. After this film was made, the Shaka Shakur Freedom Campaign distributed it the Revolutionary Students Union (RSU) - a combative youth organisation focused on mobilising students toward revolution across the US. From there, the RSU held screenings in Denton, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Washtenaw, Michigan, Edmond; Oklahoma, and New York City, New York. Shakur’s struggle has not finished. He continues to politically organise, linking the struggle in prisons to the wider Black national liberation struggle in the US, and thus linking it to the world revolution.

The British State tries to silence, obfuscate, and isolate prisoners from their community and their loved ones, whether it is transferring Heba, one of the Filton 24, away from her family during her hunger strike to HMP New Hall, to the imprisoning of Glaswegian schoolteacher and revolutionary socialist James Maclean in Peterhead. Popularising the struggle of prisoners rebuts these counter-insurgent tactics. As the chant goes, one body one fight. The British state cannot silence us all! Film screenings have been an important cultural mechanism to counter the cultural hegemony of the capitalist class. Ranging from the train screenings during the October Revolution, to the underground screenings in Argentina. We have a rich revolutionary tradition to both learn from and further develop.

The British state can get away with these acts of repression because there is no material large-scale pressure. But to get to that level of pressure, people must know about the repression that is happening. Take, for example, the case of Shea Reynolds, a true Irish Republican who has spent over seven years interned by remand without conviction. Shea Reynolds was interred at the age of 24, if the British state gets their way, he would be released as late as 47! Saoradh writes, “Despite no verdict being delivered, he remains behind bars, out of sight and out of mind. There has been no media outcry, no celebrity petitions, and certainly no statements from Sinn Féin. Why? Because Shea Reynolds is not part of a sanitised, state-approved version of Republicanism. He is the real thing - uncompromising, committed, and therefore, feared.”

The capitalist class’ media apparatus is predicated on misinformation, distraction and lies. In the words of la Cause du Peuple “Its omnipresent and omnipotent communication network creates a kind of single product, distributed by so- called ‘independent’ news agencies. Through this, capitalists create a world in their own image: information distorted into meaningless news, perpetual depoliticization, catastrophism, threats, and insults directed at the people. Most TV programs and newspaper articles are a continuous stream of apologia for social and political fatalism, capitalism (the worst system but the “only possible one”),racism, hypersexualisation, individualism, fear, mysticism, and the false notion of the end of history. All of this aims to stifle the historical behaviour of the masses: our will to transform the world, our desire for a revolution.” In response, we must create and develop our own cultural production. We must show that the world can be changed, that injustice and oppression are not inmutiable facts of life, but rather a material reality that benefits one (very small) class of people over the vast majority of the world. That we (as the international working class) have fought this class and defeated them before, and that if we defeated them before, we certainly can defeat them again!

The movement to free comrade Georges Abdallah went beyond him - it is a genuinely combative revolutionary movement building power day by day. We must do the same here. Class-conscious mass organisations are the forefront of struggle. By having this kind of movement, we can force the British state to bend to our demands, to free the Filton 24, to free Shea Reynolds!

Forwards to a revolutionary cultural movement!