The leadership of the International Workers’ League (Fourth International) and the United Socialist Workers Party of Brazil (PSTU) extends its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the great Marxist Arab thinker Salameh Kaileh, who passed away on Tuesday October 2, 2018 in Amman, Jordan. His health has deteriorated recently.
Salameh was born in 1955 in the Palestinian city of Bir Zeit. He moved to Baghdad in 1979 to study political science. Then he moved to Damascus in the early 1980s to settle in the Syrian capital, Damascus, where he was arrested in 1992 for eight years for “countering the objectives of the revolution” during the reign of Hafez el Assad.
He was arrested for a second time at the beginning of the Syrian revolution during the rule of Bashar el Assad, where he was subjected to various kinds of torture, before the Syrian regime deported him to Jordan.
However, Salameh Kaileh preferred to stay in the Egyptian capital Cairo due to the political movements that was developing after the revolution that started in January 2011 and which he followed closely, and even participated in some of its activities.
Salameh Kaileh has many interviews written or broadcast by TV, and hundreds of articles. He wrote about 50 books and studies dealing with many issues from a Marxist point of view, as well as the revolution in Palestine and the Arab revolutions in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and others.
In 2015, the first meeting between the Marxist thinker Salameh Kaileh and the representatives of the IWL-FI was held in the framework of the World Social Forum in Tunis. We had close positions regarding the Arab revolutions and the Syrian Revolution in particular.
In May 2015, the Brazilian labor and people’s federation CSP-Conlutas invited him to its third national conference, held in the town of Sumare, in the state of São Paulo during which he met with unionists and party leaders. He also delivered speeches about Palestine, the Syrian Revolution and the Arab Revolutions in several labor unions in Brazil.
Salameh Kaileh invited the IWL-FI to attend the conference “Breaking the Siege on the Syrian Revolution” organized by the Syrian Left Forces in Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution held on July 11-12, 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey.
These meetings have played a role in strengthening the relationship and political agreements around a radical position on the question of Palestinian, the necessary solidarity towards popular revolutions in the Arab world since 2010, in addition to the agreement that the global economic crisis caused by imperialist policies would inevitably lead to revolutions across the globe.
On top of having many of his articles post in the IWL-FI website in Arabic in November 2017, Salameh Kaileh sent a short video recording for the IWL-FI conference in Sao Paulo for the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in which he spoke about the historical importance of that Revolution.
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The late Marxist intellectual was known for his principles which he did not give up despite all the pressures, harassment, arrests, forced and permanent exile. Salameh Kaileh opposed all Arab and non-Arab bourgeois regimes with remarkable courage. One example was the newsletter which he launched from the heart of Damascus before leaving forever which held the motto “In order to liberate Palestine, the regime must be overthrown”.
The IWL-FI and the PSTU express our deep regret at this tragic loss and consider that there is no way to honor this great Marxist thinker except by keeping his struggle for freedom and social justice.
We renew our heartfelt condolences to all his comrades and loved ones
Sao Paulo, October 2, 2018
IWL-FI On The Loss Of Arab Marxist Thinker Salameh Kaileh
