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Roger McKenzie
11 - black workers
Features / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
From the TUC Race Relations Committee to national union treasurers, a new generation of formidable black women leaders are breaking barriers and transforming the movement through uncompromising politics, writes ROGER McKENZIE
17-10-1989 of (L-R) Former World Heavyweight Champions Joe F
Obituary / 24 March 2025
24 March 2025
ROGER McKENZIE writes about late boxing legend Foreman’s legacy, from his part in Rumble in the Jungle to becoming world heavyweight champion at 45
AFRICAN HERO: A Walter Rodney poster in Georgetown, Guyana
Features / 20 March 2025
20 March 2025
The Guyanese scholar’s groundbreaking work revealed how Europe deliberately underdeveloped Africa while using its resources and people to fuel Western capitalism, writes ROGER MCKENZIE
Plenary session during the Bandung Conference
Features / 9 January 2025
9 January 2025
China’s huge growth and trade success have driven the expansion of the Brics alliance — now is a good time for the global South to rediscover 1955’s historic Bandung conference, and learn its lessons, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Mali
Features / 2 January 2025
2 January 2025
The revolutions in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso against the old colonial powers are seldom understood in terms of Africans’ own agency and their rejection of the imperialist humiliation thrust upon them, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Zimbabwe landscape
Features / 28 December 2024
28 December 2024
From Zimbabwe’s provinces to Mali’s streets, nations are casting off colonial labels in their quest for true independence and dignity in a revival of the pan-African spirit, writes ROGER McKENZIE
FIRST-HAND VIEW: Flavio Ocampo says Nicaragua has been a vic
Features / 26 November 2024
26 November 2024
Challenging critics of the Sandinista government, the young Nicaraguan union leader FLAVIA OCAMPO speaks to Roger McKenzie about the nation’s progressive health system and how trade unions have been at the centre of social progress
8 - Ajay Pal Singh Farmers'_Protest_at_Singhu_Border_9_Janua
Features / 14 November 2024
14 November 2024
ROGER McKENZIE argues that facing Trump’s victory and global crises requires looking beyond failed Western organising models to successful resistance movements in the developing world
: (Left to right) Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Egypt
Features / 29 October 2024
29 October 2024
With the recent meeting in Kazan providing a glimpse of freedom for the global South, we must develop local, regional and international networks that can apply meaningful pressure on those who could steer this new grouping awry, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks during a reception to
Features / 17 October 2024
17 October 2024
ROGER McKENZIE argues that Black History Month has been sanitised, losing its original purpose of empowering black people through knowledge of their history and struggles to actually go out and fight the battles of today
CND conference
Features / 15 October 2024
15 October 2024
ROGER McKENZIE reports on how peace activists in Britain are uniting diverse struggles against war, climate change and racism to build a powerful force for global justice in an era of deepening conflict
Bill Lucy
Features / 3 October 2024
3 October 2024
ROGER McKENZIE pays heartfelt tribute to the legendary trade unionist who championed black workers while forging powerful alliances across colour lines, reshaping the US labour movement
Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu (centre) an
Features / 19 September 2024
19 September 2024
New alliances like Brics are forging a multilateral world as the global South nations assert their true independence after almost a century of nominal sovereignty under the reality of crushing economic servitude, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Radhika Desai
Features / 13 September 2024
13 September 2024
ROGER McKENZIE explores how the political economist’s work on geopolitical economics and involvement with the International Manifesto Group offer crucial insights into global power shifts as US hegemony fades
Kamala Harris
Features / 25 July 2024
25 July 2024
Having black capitalist politicians in leadership positions shows that capitalism is able to accommodate racial diversity, writes ROGER McKENZIE — but if the world still starves and burns, so what?
One of several mosques in the Xinjiang city of Urumqi
15 July 2024
15 July 2024
ROGER MCKENZIE uncovers a history of extremist violence ignored by Western media, contextualising the security measures which have been seized on to allege ‘a genocide’ is being carried out by China
Jamaicans aboard the liner Auriga
Features / 11 July 2024
11 July 2024
As the last of his family’s Windrush elders pass away, ROGER McKENZIE reflects on migration, courage and the ongoing struggle against racism in Britain, from the Rwanda plan to ‘stop the boats’
The Islamic Centre in the city of Urumqi
Features / 5 July 2024
5 July 2024
From China, ROGER McKENZIE witnesses a place where Islamic culture thrives and economic development powers China’s westward expansion — a reality obscured by Western propaganda
8paulrobeson
Features / 27 June 2024
27 June 2024
During the height of McCarthyist repression in the US, black rights legends Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham launched a publication that drew the anti-imperialist connections that others feared to make, writes ROGER McKENZIE
crew
Features / 22 June 2024
22 June 2024
The award-winning documentary on British anti-apartheid heroes has already sparked passionate discussions — now trade unions and progressives must integrate it into training and education courses, argues ROGER McKENZIE
10 - Labour Party Black Sections
Features / 13 June 2024
13 June 2024
As African and Asian activists pushed back against racism in workplaces and politics in the ’70s and ’80s, eventually trade unions and political parties reluctantly opened their doors to self-organised groups, writes ROGER McKENZIE
11 - black railwaymen
Features / 12 June 2024
12 June 2024
In the second in a four-part serialisation of his new book, African Uhuru, ROGER McKENZIE outlines the organised resistance to a surge of racism against black workers in law and in the unions as they returned from the war
A refugee camp in Sudan
Features / 30 May 2024
30 May 2024
In grim replaying of colonial plunder, the UAE is arming both sides in Sudan’s civil war that broke out in April 2023, paying itself handsomely from the nation’s gold reserves, reports ROGER McKENZIE
edu
Features / 19 May 2024
19 May 2024
The professional and modern ‘movement incubator for working-class and marginalised communities’ in a smart building in New York’s Midtown is a shining example of what we should aspire to build in Britain, writes ROGER McKENZIE
10traore
Features / 16 May 2024
16 May 2024
While recognising that Africans must chart their own course for the future, we must not fall into the trap of believing that throwing the French and United States out of the region will mean the people will automatically benefit, cautions ROGER McKENZIE
Residents past by a Seagull electric vehicle from Chinese au
Features / 12 May 2024
12 May 2024
While critics struggle desperately to dismiss or explain away China’s rapid and sustained growth, Beijing’s approach of mutual respect and interdependence is inspiring nations to break free from colonial shackles, writes ROGER McKENZIE
The UN security council
Features / 18 April 2024
18 April 2024
What is so galling about this body that has the potential to deliver global justice on a fairly egalitarian basis, is that it generally identifies what should be done — then cannot do it because the US is all-powerful, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Villagers in Asmut, Ethiopia, put on a traditional welcome f
Features / 3 April 2024
3 April 2024
An encounter with a cabbie has ROGER McKENZIE reflecting on the remarkable history of a great African nation and the importance of migrants and their skills for our beloved NHS
Abbott in the Commons
Features / 21 March 2024
21 March 2024
Racism in Britain has been forced to become more subtle over the years — but it certainly hasn't been watching the treatment of Diane Abbott this last week. Her experience is, sadly, familiar to many of us, writes ROGER McKENZIE
trump virginia
Features / 7 March 2024
7 March 2024
In 2022 alone, a staggering $800 billion was spent on the military, with 40 per cent funnelling into the coffers of a tiny number of major arms manufacturers — meanwhile, the country crumbles, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Black or BAME
Features / 11 January 2024
11 January 2024
From the arbitrary lines drawn with a ruler on the map of Africa to arbitrary regional terms like ‘the Middle East,’ we need to reject names picked for us — including the new clumsy ethnic labels, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building of the Al Nawa
Features / 28 December 2023
28 December 2023
From the Congo to Sudan conflicts are raging — as leftists, our job has to be not just calling for peace, but identifying the malign outside forces and wider geopolitical interests fuelling the slaughter, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Drop debt
Features / 28 November 2023
28 November 2023
For all the talk of the rise of the developing world and the decline of the West’s malignant power over it, we still haven’t seen a ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ rebellion over ballooning Third World debt, writes ROGER McKENZIE
march
Features / 3 November 2023
3 November 2023
The proud history of black and white unity in the Communist Party over the last century has laid the ground to develop the progressive policies we need today, writes ROGER MCKENZIE
Gaza
Features / 2 November 2023
2 November 2023
To withdraw into cold geopolitical analysis is unforgivable — there is nothing inevitable about the massacre being carried out against the Palestinians and our calls for peace matter, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
Labour Party Conference 2023 / 10 October 2023
10 October 2023
Speaking to the Star’s Roger McKenzie, BELL RIBEIRO-ADDY MP talks about the growing campaign for reparations that now has cross-party support from several Members of Parliament
Modern Slavery
Features / 4 October 2023
4 October 2023
Forced and unpaid labour are spreading across the globe, from the garment trade to cleaning to construction — we need to stop turning a blind eye, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Is the Caribbean even ready for Brics?
Features / 20 September 2023
20 September 2023
These rich islands still have close political and economic relationships with the nations that enslaved them — is it any wonder truly independent nations in Africa are considered for Brics first, asks ROGER McKENZIE
Chilean refugees Silvia Velasquez (left) and Juani Colque
Features / 11 September 2023
11 September 2023
Two Chilean refugees, JUANI COLQUE and SYLVIA VELASQUEZ, tell Roger McKenzie how they experienced the US-backed coup on September 11 1973 that installed the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet
Features / 6 September 2023
6 September 2023
ROGER McKENZIE recalls a formative experience for black Britain, watching the West Indies beat England half a century ago — and the ‘explosive’ situation that led to fans drinking on the pitch with the players
William Gladstone
Features / 23 August 2023
23 August 2023
After abolition in 1883, the famous family received the largest payout of all from the Slave Compensation Commission — now the process needs to be reversed, argues ROGER McKENZIE
Nigeriens participate in a march called by supporters of cou
Features / 10 August 2023
10 August 2023
Direct colonial rule may have ended in the last century — but how did anyone expect the rampant appropriation of Africa’s resources by the West to continue unchallenged, asks ROGER McKENZIE
SANDANISTA: President Daniel Ortega speaks in Managua, July
Features / 27 July 2023
27 July 2023
Returning from Nicaragua, ROGER McKENZIE asks why many progressives in the West feel qualified to denounce the Nicaraguan movement that is in a daily struggle against US imperialism
Flames from the Donnie Creek wildfire burn along a ridge top
Features / 13 July 2023
13 July 2023
The ecological crisis caused is already hitting the global South harder than the regions where the capitalists responsible live — anyone disrupting ‘business as usual’ should be applauded, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Ashok Dhawale and Mariam Dhawale
Features / 6 July 2023
6 July 2023
Representing a combined membership of around 25 million workers and women in India, the two leaders spoke to ROGER McKENZIE about how all organising must begin face to face at the grassroots
HISTORY REPEATING: Deputy Tory leader William Whitelaw’s p
Features / 22 June 2023
22 June 2023
ROGER McKENZIE explains how the Windrush scandal is rooted in a long history of legal and social opposition to black people living in Britain, but each time, political organisation has beaten racism
poverty
Features / 14 June 2023
14 June 2023
While an astonishing proportion of the world is impoverished, the already unimaginably wealthy keep getting richer. Bold and decisive action is needed, says ROGER McKENZIE
A US soldier
Features / 1 June 2023
1 June 2023
If the situation for citizens of the West’s most powerful nation was not bad enough, consider what this global bully does to maintain its interests across the planet, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Hungary food costs
Features / 3 May 2023
3 May 2023
The small number of huge companies that control most of the food market are artificially increasing prices even though the spike in cost due to the war in Ukraine is now long over, explains ROGER McKENZIE
SOURCE OF PRIDE: Joel Garner holds aloft the World Cup troph
Features / 19 April 2023
19 April 2023
Cricket was a source of anti-colonial and ethnic pride for many young black men like me growing up — so long as we stuck to an 'anyone but England' stance, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Workers mine cobalt without equipment in DR Congo
Features / 6 April 2023
6 April 2023
From slavery to colonialism to the modern era of ‘full-spectrum dominance,’ the West has never released its grip on the continent or its people, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Najia Sorosh head of Sadai Banowan a women-run radio station
World / 3 April 2023
3 April 2023
Thousands gather at the graveyard after the massacre
Features / 29 March 2023
29 March 2023
The 1960 murder of black protesters was a turning point in the awareness of racism globally, but today in South Africa, we are allowing it to be remembered simply as Human Rights Day, TSOANA NHLAPO tells Roger McKenzie
MILITANT AND MASSIVE: Protesters march during a rally agains
Features / 24 March 2023
24 March 2023
National co-ordinator of the youth section of the Communist Party of France ASSAN LAKEHOUL speaks to the Morning Star's Roger McKenzie about the priorities of his organisation and the background to the intense class clashes taking place on the streets
Labour
Features / 22 March 2023
22 March 2023
The most maddening aspect of watching the party leadership ignore the Forde report is the frenzied zeal with which the same clique pursued the anti-semitism scandal — all for factional purposes, not justice, writes ROGER McKENZIE
The meaning of the Bandung conference
Features / 8 March 2023
8 March 2023
The non-alignment and the South-South co-operation that started at Bandung has never been about shutting others out, but allowing the global majority to develop its own path, free of exploitation and interference, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Indian workers
Features / 10 January 2023
10 January 2023
Recommending a new book that looks at what British unions can learn from outside of Europe and the US, ROGER McKENZIE advises against 'one-size-fits-all' approaches to workplace organising
PICKING TARGETS: The ARTF has proposed organising strategies
Features / 28 December 2022
28 December 2022
The TUC Anti-Racism Taskforce promises a renewed campaign that will ‘listen to black workers’ — this is good, but many of the suggestions and proposals have been waiting to be enacted for decades, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Sri Lanka
Features / 14 December 2022
14 December 2022
After meeting the super-exploited workers of the global South who supply the clothing retail giants in the West, ROGER McKENZIE calls for a renewed commitment to international organisation
FILE - People cast their ballots at Coit Arts Academy in Gra
Features / 16 November 2022
16 November 2022
The US has pushed through 40 new pieces of legislation to restrict voting rights since 2021 - so how can it claim to be a beacon of democracy, asks ROGER McKENZIE
rishi sunak
Features / 2 November 2022
2 November 2022
Looking at the high number of top Tories now from black and Asian backgrounds some people seem to think it's time to stop talking about racism and inequality — they could not be more wrong, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Protesters outside the US Embassy in London, as part of an a
Features / 19 October 2022
19 October 2022
The month has been hijacked by too many people intent on showing how right-on they are and as an opportunity for them to reveal their performative ‘againstism’ – a pose soon forgotten by November, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Wayne Collett
Features / 21 September 2022
21 September 2022
This month, on the 50th anniversary of their Olympics protest, we must keep in mind the two athletes' career-ending action and remember that we can never wait for an ‘acceptable’ time to offend the status quo, writes ROGER McKENZIE
OPPORTUNITY: Unite members on a picket line at one of the en
Features / 24 August 2022
24 August 2022
ROGER McKENZIE reflects on how to use the ever-growing number of picket lines even more effectively to offer support to those who need it and build solidarity
PASSING FAD? Now that the BLM moment has receded, will the l
Features / 10 August 2022
10 August 2022
ROGER McKENZIE braves the trolls to ask what the Labour Party and wider labour movement will actually do about the racism revealed in Forde and other reports
Prince William
Features / 27 July 2022
27 July 2022
When millions of black people across the world can trace their journeys from Africa back to slavery, this is not ancient history but a crime that lives with us every day. The call for material compensation must be heard, writes ROGER McKENZIE
A Somali man and his wife who fled drought-stricken areas bu
Features / 15 June 2022
15 June 2022
It’s not that there isn’t enough money to make sure that everyone on the planet has enough food in their stomachs – it’s that politicians choose to spend the money elsewhere, says ROGER McKENZIE
Features / 5 April 2022
5 April 2022
The country has been plunged into the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory and pre-existing racial inequality only magnifies the impact, explains ROGER McKENZIE
station
Features / 8 March 2022
8 March 2022
Odious racist and xenophobic attitudes surface in Ukraine conflict. ROGER McKENZIE reports
Claudia Jones
Features / 23 February 2022
23 February 2022
ROGER McKENZIE salutes the life and work of the famous journalist and communist, arguing that the West Indian Gazette, Britain's first black newspaper, should be remembered alongside her founding of the Notting Hill Carnival
Martin Luther King addressing an anti-Vietnam war rally at t
Features / 9 February 2022
9 February 2022
Lifelong activist ROGER McKENZIE reflects on the importance of reflection — taking time to look at our actions and assess our emotions, rather than being controlled by them — and how it's helped him as a socialist
Kill the bill protest
Features / 26 January 2022
26 January 2022
The Tories are fighting ferociously for their class. We must demonstrate the same determination and ferocity for our class – and defend our civil liberties, says ROGER McKENZIE
Vaccination Uruguay
Features / 11 January 2022
11 January 2022
ROGER McKENZIE looks at how lobbying by powerful cartels buys favour from politicians to the detriment of public health
Britain / 10 January 2022
10 January 2022
barnes
Book Review / 8 January 2022
8 January 2022
hunger
Features / 28 December 2021
28 December 2021
While millions suffer in poverty and ill-health, the super-rich are getting even richer. It’s only through organising and collective action that we can seek to redress the balance, says ROGER McKENZIE
No one is illegal
Features / 21 December 2021
21 December 2021
We should reject our ruling elite’s constant war to see who can take the toughest stance against vulnerable people, says ROGER McKENZIE
Blacks and Asians vs the National Front
Features / 14 December 2021
14 December 2021
Given our history of colonisation, emigration, life as second-class citizens and our experience of open racial prejudice, Britons of African and Asian descent are not surprised by the Tories' latest attack on us — and we are ready to resist it, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Matshidiso Moeti, World  Health Organisation regional direct
Features / 30 November 2021
30 November 2021
This weekend’s Latin America conference is a staging post in the struggle against colonialist thinking and towards building international solidarity, says ROGER McKENZIE
Cop26 indigenous protest
Features / 17 November 2021
17 November 2021
Real action to deal with the climate emergency will require system change – without it, money will always outweigh the interests of the world’s poorest, argues ROGER McKENZIE
Dollars
Features / 2 November 2021
2 November 2021
The exposé is important, but we have always know the super-rich pay little tax and squirrel their wealth away in secret — only working-class power can redress the balance and bring justice to tax-avoiders and the global South, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Matt Hancock is  unwelcome as a  UN envoy on  Covid recovery
Features / 20 October 2021
20 October 2021
…as evidenced by how human greed is allowed outweigh the importance of African lives, writes ROGER McKENZIE