Sing it loud and strong comrades. Let the world hear it!
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! The people united will never be defeated.
By Amit Sengupta in Delhi
Your dress waving in the wind.
This
is the only flag I love.
Garous Abdolmalekian, translated from the Persian by Ahmad Nadalizadeh & Idra Novey.
If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.
Emma Goldman.
If I live one day at a time, then some mornings are glorious. If you look for a stupid reason, you will find none. Some mornings are intrinsically lovely, full of possibilities. Like a chronicle of a tale foretold.
It’s magic, the realism of magic.
It’s instinct. A primordial instinct.
Like the morning of October 26, 2026.
There is that sensuous nip in the air, the North wind chilly and crisp. The white roses are still hiding their nuanced, fragrance of insatiable longing, the black coffee (no sugar and no milk) steaming hot, its dense aroma rising into the air, while thousands of people, especially beautiful young men and women with beautiful eyes which tell a story, are jumping up and down like a mad tide in a moonlit midnight ocean, singing an addictive chorus of infinite passion which becomes a collective crescendo rising high in the sky.
They are holding hands, in bonding and solidarity and comradeship. They are laughing and crying at the same time.
They have unbridled energy, dancing with the music, hands waiving, hair dishevelled, sleepless eyes sparkling with young ecstasy, their jeans faded and torn, their cotton T-shirts and dress flying in the air, going round and round, clockwise, anti-clockwise, in catharsis and anti-catharsis, celebrating the collective ‘Ode to Joy’, like Beethoven’s classical symphony resurrected once again on the streets of Brazil and Serbia.
Bravo Lula and the people of Brazil!
You were down but never out! Millions came out on the streets in the final and decisive instance and defeated the fascist-capitalist machine of Trump and his cronies, including the Right-wing cartel of billionaires who think they own the world.
You wanted to burn down the Amazon! We have yet again saved the Amazon! You wanted to sell-out Brazil’s democracy to the corrupt capitalist American apparatus. We have now defeated your corrupt capitalist American apparatus. Brazil has sent a message to entire Latin America, and the world, and resurrected its radical memories of great revolutions – from Simon Bolivar to Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
What a great and glorious victory!
Bravo ‘Student List’ in Belgrade (the new party of students which decisively won the polls defeating a longstanding pro-Israel dictator.) Stay calm, the students told the voters. We are watching the counting.
Salute to the students and people of Serbia! The defeat of a dictator in one country, is a signal for the defeat of all dictators all over the world.
Beware the dictators of India!
Its Gen Z will yet again reclaim its democracy. It is their future they will reclaim, as in Serbia and Brazil,
Beware the dictators of Israel and the United States – the mass murderers of Gaza!
Free Palestine!
The celebration is infectious. It is spreading. Beyond the barricades and the bonfires, and the people’s orchestra of saxophones and drums on the streets.
From Paris to Tirana to Santiago to Jantar Mantar.
At Jantar Mantar the students were singing the eternal song of idealism written by great progressive poet Shailendra: Tu zinda hai toh zindagi ki jeet par yakin kar.. agar kahin hain swarg toh utaar la zameen par...
(Our Solidarity anthem in JNU, 1989).
In Paris, the people's street orchestra is also playing my most beloved anthem: The Internationale (L'Internationale). The French protesters are singing the classic, along with other inspiring songs.
(The English lyrics to this anthem of the international socialist and communist movements were written in French by Eugène Pottier in June 1871, apparently inspired by the Paris Commune of 1971. The music was composed by Pierre Degeyter in 1889. It has been translated in almost all the languages of the world, including in Hindi, which we used to sing in JNU. Every time I listen to this anthem, my eyes become moist, my skin tingles, and my heart starts beating faster.)
Here are the first two paras, translated by Charles H, Kerr (1900).
Arise ye pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall;
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been naught we shall be all.
Refrain:’
Tis the final conflict
Let each stand in his place
The International Union
Shall be the human race.
Sing it loud and strong comrades, students, workers, farmers, citizens. Let the world hear it once again.
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
(The people united will never be defeated…)
Amit Sengupta is Editor, independentink.in
All images courtesy of Instagram.