Seeing Red: stories of American Communists is a 1983 Academy Award-nominated documentary film directed by Julia Reichert and Jim Klein detailing the greatly overlooked history of the Communist Party of the United States and its supporters, which at its peak in the early 1940s boasted nearly 100,000 members. Founded in 1919, the Communist Party USA split from the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution and went on to play a defining role in the American Labor Movement and the early part of the American Civil Rights Movement throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s…
Seeing Red tells the stories of the dedicated women and men who fought for unionization, equal rights and the 8-hour workday, who dreamed of an America where workers had rights to collective bargaining and to be free of discrimination by their employers. Watch the feature film…
Hundreds of refugees and migrants are trying to reach Europe via Turkish land borders and coastal areas after Turkey says it will no longer prevent refugees from reaching Europe.
After a series of airstrikes on late Thursday killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers and wounded 36 in Syria’s Idlib, a senior Turkish official told Reuters that Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by land or sea.
Hundreds of refugees have rushed into Turkey’s northwestern province of Edirne which is located along the European Union countries Bulgaria and Greece following the statements of Turkish authorities in the wake of the deadly airstrikes.
Some refugees came to the city by taxis from İstanbul as some others were transferred by buses to reach Kapıkule border gate after the airstrikes that killed Turkish troops in Syria.
As the refugees rushed into the border gate in Edirne, the border officials are claimed to direct the refugees to “the river or the forest” en route to Europe. Some different groups of refugees have been observed in Edirne, the city that has borders with Bulgaria and Greece…
Photo by Ayhan Mehmet – Anatolian News Agency
“No illegal immigration,” said the Greek prime minister, responded to migrants with tear gas…” video by euro.news
Some refugees speak in English, like Palestinian refugee who started talking in 1.5 minutes, but I tried to translate the others. In some places due to their Turkish is not good enough I translated word to word.
0-10 seconds:
-Why do you want to go?
-The price of everything is raised in here Turkey, there is no work, no money, what are we going to do?
0.50-1.26 minutes: Syrian refugee
-How long have you been in Turkey?
-One and a half months.
-Why do you want to go?
-To go Europe. There is war in Syria. Much problem. There is no life at there.
-So, have you tried to go from here before?
-Two times. Greece holds, hits, they took my money and my phone.Then I deported to Turkey.
-Aren’t you afraid of?
-I’am afraid already. You’re not like human at there. Much problem.
2.04-2.35 minutes: Afghan refugee
-Four months ago I came to Turkey.
-Why do you want to go? Where would you like to go?
-We are going to Europe.
-Why?
-There are many wars, prohibitions, everything in our country. This place is not so easy for us either. They don’t allow. They do not give a residence permit. Very difficult in Turkey. So much Afghan comes here, what will they do? That’s why we want to go.
-So, what if the border gates don’t open? (by Greece)
-It will be very bad. So many women, kids in here, what are they going to do? We are young, we would find a solution, but what are they going to do? Very difficult, very bad.
-So, do you want to live again in Turkey? What are you going to do if gates don’t open?
–We are desperate, of course we will live.
…….
As you can see, there are many refugees try to cross borders to go Europe from Turkey for last two days. Inside them, many Afghan, African, Uzbek, Iranian, Pakistani, Iraqi, Moroccan except Syrians. According to today’s figures by Interior Minister of Turkey, more than seventy-six thousand migrants have crossed the border of Turkey. I do not know how many of them have reached Greece or Bulgaria, or how many stay in the buffer zone in between countries. Yesterday, Greece said, they sent 4000 refugees back. Right now, beside it is not possible to tell the exact number of people who do not wait in the buffer zone and try to reach the Greek islands by sea. In the video below you can see how some African refugees have struggled to survive with difficulty with inflatable boat until they reach Lesbos Island. (1 minute video)
Even the women, men and children’s teeth are shaking from the cold. It is known Aegean Sea has high temperature in summer. But what the people who do not live in here, don’t know is when the weather is cold in the winter, and because of the high humidity, plus if there is wind and storm, you will feel the cold air until to your bones. All parts of your body must be closed, if there is a tiny open place, even the wind entering from there that can cause pneumonia. Believe me my earthling friends, the cold of Moscow is better than the cold of the Aegean sea that met these conditions. And when these people were trying to cross the Aegean sea, there was a strong storm, with a speed of 50-70 km per hour. The humidity is 73%. The air temperature was 7-11 degrees Celsius; 44-51Fahrenheit. So the conditions I mentioned were been provided. While most people are in their warm beds, they struggle to survive under these conditions.
Refugees have been captured by the consequences of the capitalist and imperialist world. Desperation is their living space. A young Pakistani refugee was saying in a video I did not share here: “Everyone wants to live in own homeland. But there is war, there is poverty; no one would want to leave homeland, live on the streets.”
There is nothing more to add on his words…
And the European or American, who do not want refugees in their country, do not rebel and do not go out on the streets for protest while bombing Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries with their own taxes or while colonizing Africa and still exploiting. But when the refugee comes to their country, they hate the refugees. Why? Aren’t your governments who milking you like a cow with taxes to ruin this planet? Or are you glad that your taxes find a good place themselves when your governments made open financial agreements on refugees, bargaining clearly on human life?
Or none of them. Well then, didn’t you then understand that those who still represent you in your parliaments do not work? The only right political parties on the planet are socialist and communist parties. Otherwise this cycle will continue as long as you vote for other parties.
Here I add an interview with Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece KKE in 28th February publishing in newworker.org, so that you can understand the difference. Greek communists speak out!
Edit 02.03.2020
Taken from Istanbul Bar Association Human Right Center twitter account
Report on Istanbul Bar Association Human Right Center’s Visit to Pazarkule Checkpoint
unnecessary news from earth 