This is PRISM’s tribute to Jose Maria Sison and a review of his writings on socialism, delivered by Pio Verzola Jr. as a speech at the “Ka Joma Lives!” celebration of Joma Sison’s 85th birth anniversary on 8 February 2024, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. We are hereby republishing it with minor edits.
Read moreNote by Julieta de Lima:
It is with deepest grief that I have to be the one to issue my husband’s last and final message to the revolutionary forces and the people on the 54th anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He started discussing with me the outline and writing of the message a month ago when he just got discharged from the hospital at his second confinement in November and just before the start of his third and last confinement on November 28. He wrote the first draft on paper, which I keyed in to the computer and then he reread and corrected it twice to produce this final draft below. Some fifteen or so minutes before Joma took his last breath, he we was still talking about ensuring the revolution would win victory and advancing to socialism. With his last thoughts he remained optimistic about the Filipino people whom he served with utmost determination.
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This paper by ILPS Chair Emeritus Jose Maria Sison was delivered during the launching assembly of the International People’s Front in Bangkok, Thailand, on 28 September 2022. It provides a brief historical background of the rise of modern imperialism to dominance, expounds on the current contradictions and crises wracking the world’s countries and the entire global capitalist system, and offers some valuable insights on the prospects for the anti-imperialist struggle and the resurgence of socialism.
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In this talk, ILPS Chair Emeritus Jose Maria Sison presented an overview of the historical rise of fascism: its fundamental basis in the existence of the state of an exploitative ruling class which emerged as old primitive-communal societies dissolved into class societies; its modern roots as a recurring form of state violence under the rule of the monopoly big bourgeoisie; and the recent conditions of inter-imperialist rivalries, the Covid-19 pandemic, and growing people’s resistance, that favor the intensification of fascism throughout the world.
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On the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon building near Washington D.C., Jose Maria Sison delivered a major speech, “On 9-11 and the US War on Terror” at a webinar on 13 September 2021. Prof. Sison is chairperson emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.
Read moreOn the occasion of US imperialism’s failed 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, which ended ignominiously on 31 August 2021, Jose Maria issued this article, “US Occupation of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021.” Prof. Sison is chairperson emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.
Author’s note: This article is focused on the US-NATO war of aggression against Afghanistan and its occupation from 2001 to 2021. It may be distributed in connection with my paper on 9-11 and the War on Terror for the webinar on September 13, 2021 under the sponsorship of BAYAN and the ILPS-Philippines.
On the occasion of the 1871 Paris Commune, Jose Maria Sison, chairman emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, delivered this address to an ILPS-hosted webinar on 20 March 2021. The reactors to the seminar are Azra Sayeed of the International Women’s Alliance and the Roots of Equity organization (Pakistan), and Frank Chapman of the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression (USA).
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Jose Ma. Sison delivered this speech at the Australia National Conference of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle on 25 July 2020. Here he presents a quick overview of the history and circumstances of imperialism, especially US imperialist interests and the restoration of capitalism in China, as factors from which the threat of war and reaction arises. He He then presents an assessment of the threat, currently and in the near future, and clarifies the tasks of anti-imperialists in order to build resistance to such a threat.
Read moreThis paper by Prof. Jose Maria Sison provides a brief historical background and the current state of the wars and weapons of mass destruction for which the imperialist states are responsible, with focus on the recent decades after the Cold War between the US and the defunct Soviet Union.
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This Q & A on the land problem, peasant class and agrarian revolution in the Philippines is a follow-up to the just-concluded three-part series of web forums on Philippine Society and Revolution at the National Democratic Online School (Mga Serye ni Tito Jo). In this article, Jose Maria Sison focuses on 17 points to further elaborate on the Special Course on the Peasant Movement.
Prof. Sison, who is founding chairman of Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth, founded in 1964), posted this Q & A article on his Facebook page on 5 July 2020. PRISM is posting the full text of the article with only minor format adjustments, not only as educational material for Filipinos, but also as reference material for other progressive mass activists and educators in various countries facing similar social conditions.
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