Welcome to the 34th issue of The Funambulist, an internationalist issue for the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.

The Paris Commune and the World constitutes an attempt to extract this 150-year-old revolutionary event from the imaginary of the white left to place it instead in a rhizome of similar communal experiences in the Global South. From the 1927 Guangzhou Commune (Tings Chak) to the contemporary Venezuelan (Geo Maher) and Syrian (Leila Al-Shami) communal councils, we discuss the radical change of modes of sovereignty the Commune implies. Female Communardes are placed in dialogue with women of the foundational 1870 Insurrection of Southern Martinique (Jacqueline Couti) as well as Mexican Morras (Irmgard Emmelhainz). The ceremonialized destruction of the Vendome Column that appears on the issue’s cover is discussed in relation to an ongoing decolonial rage against monuments (Joachim Ben Yakoub). The barricade, inseparable from the Paris Commune, is the object of an architecture analysis (Charlotte Grace). Last but far from least, we take a walk in Paris’ working-class neighborhoods to exhume their political layers from the Paris Commune to today’s antiracist activism (Mogniss H. Abdallah & Hajer Ben Boubaker).

In the issue’s “News From the Fronts,” Brintha Koneshachandra provides a diasporic perspective on the bulldozing of Tamil monuments in Eelam, Sidahmed Jouly writes about the struggle against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, and Panos Aprahamian & Jessika Khazrik reflect on the modes of solidarity with Artsakh and Armenia under the same Israeli-made drones that fly in the skies of Gaza and Beirut.

Editor-in-Chief: Léopold Lambert
Head of Strategic Outreach: Margarida Nzuzi Waco
Editorial Assistant: Caroline Honorien
Intern: Amel Hadj Hassen
Contributing Copy Editor: Carol Que

 

INDEX ///

— NEWS FROM THE FRONTS ///

2 | AGAINST CONTINUOUS ERASURE AND GENOCIDE: THE FIGHT FOR EELAM TAMIL MONUMENTS
Brintha Koneshachandra

5 | THE ENDURING STRUGGLE FOR SAHARAWI LIBERATION
Sidahmed Jouly

8 | TRANSFORMATIVE SOLIDARITY IN TIMES OF SUBAERIAL WARFARE FROM THE CAUCASUS TO THE LEVANT
Panos Aprahamian & Jessika Khazrik

— MAIN /// THE PARIS COMMUNE AND THE WORLD

12 | INTRODUCTION
Léopold Lambert

16 | FIRESTARTERS: INSURGENT WOMEN IN THE INSURRECTION OF SOUTHERN MARTINIQUE AND THE PARIS COMMUNE
Jacqueline Couti

20 | GUANGZHOU 1927: THE PARIS COMMUNE OF THE EAST
Tings Chak

24 | BUILDING ALTERNATIVE FUTURES IN THE PRESENT: THE CASE OF SYRIA’S COMMUNE
Leila Al-Shami

28 | RE-ANIMATING THE MONUMENTAL SPIRIT OF SOLIDARITY OF THE
PARIS COMMUNE FROM TUNIS TO RÉUNION ISLAND
Joachim Ben Yakoub

34 | AN ARCHIPELAGIC FORM OF SOVEREIGNTY: BUILDING THE VENEZUELAN COMMUNES
Geo Maher

42 | FROM THE COMMUNE’S PÉTROLEUSES TO MEXICO’S MORRAS: WOMEN’S POLITICAL STRUGGLE FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE
AND ITS REMOTE LABOR
Irmgard Emmelhainz

46 | BLANQUI AND THE BARRICADE, THE COSMOS AND THE COMMUNE
Charlotte Grace

52 | FROM THE COMMUNE TO TODAY: THE POLITICAL LAYERS OF PARIS’ WORKING-CLASS NEIGHBORHOODS
Mogniss H. Abdallah & Hajer Ben Boubaker