I have just come across you via. Kevin Tobia, whose work I am beginning to study. I won’t take up your time but I do wish you well. I hope you are as comfortable as you can be. If you think I can help you in any way please don’t hesitate to get in touch. @Dowellenough is good for speed, email is good too. I have spent a good deal of time (I’m 58) being helped by academics. I wish I could help you. Thank you for your work. Best wishes Julien

Dearest Erik, Words cannot express my deepest appreciation of your generous intellectual and personal contribution to the development of Equality Studies and the School of Social Justice at UCD . In supporting us, and many other scholars and activists in Ireland, you have helped to keep the fire of resistance to injustice lighting, inside and outside the academy. Your spirit lives on Erik, inspiring and encouraging others to follow on your path. To me you epitomise 'The Good', that Brendan Kennelly wrote of in his poem, an extract from which I include here.

'The Good'

The good are vulnerable
As any bird in flight,
They do not think of safety,
Are blind to possible extinction
And when most vulnerable
Are most themselves.
The good are real as the sun,
Are best perceived through clouds
Of casual corruption
That cannot kill the luminous sufficiency
That shines on city, sea and wilderness,
Fastidiously revealing
One man to another,
Who yet will not accept
Responsibilities of light.
The good incline to praise,
To have the knack of seeing that
The best is not destroyed
Although forever threatened.
The good go naked in all weathers,
And by their nakedness rebuke
The small protective sanities
That hide men from themselves.......


With Love and heartfelt thanks
Kathleen

Erik,

I´ve only recently stumbled upon your work. It´s amazing, not only intellectually, but in giving us hope for this world. May your time be well spent. You´ve certainly left a great contribution, and few scholars are getting the praise you are, for being a decent, caring, uplifting human being.

Best wishes,
Thor

Dear Brave Erik, here from Montevideo, remembering your succeful visit some years ago, embracing and supporting you in this journey. Best regards
Marcelo

Compañero, agradezco inmensamente su gigantesca obra investigativa sobre las clases sociales en el capitalismo. Pocas veces existen intelectuales que combinen su nivel de inteligencia y de compromiso político con la construcción de una sociedad más justa que la contemporánea. Reciba también mi admiración por su encomiable acto generoso de hacer disponibles todos sus escritos en Internet de forma gratuita. Reciba un abrazo que perdurará hasta que hayamos eliminado todas las cadenas que nos oprimen...

Dear Erik

Many thanks for your work on social class and for providing meaningfull alternatives to capitalism. You might not remember but I also have to thank you for providing a detailed and constructed feedback to a conference paper of mine when I contated you out of the blue. This shows the quality of you as a person and academic...

Dear Erik,
Thanks for all your contributions to our understanding of Marxism, contradictory class positions and socialist politics. Sending you our warmest regards and an excerpt from a poem by Turkish communist poet Nazım Hikmet..
Sebnem Oguz, Ankara, Turkey

On Living
.. Let’s say we’re seriously ill, need surgery—
which is to say we might not get up
from the white table.
Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we’ll look out the window to see if it’s raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast. . .
Let’s say we’re at the front—
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We’ll know this with a curious anger,
but we’ll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let’s say we’re in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We’ll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind—
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.
Nazım Hikmet,1948

COME, said my soul,
Such versed for my Body let us write (for we are one),
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chant resuming,
(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)
Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on,
Ever and ever yet the verses owning – as, first,
I here and now, Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my
name.

Walt Whitman

With love
Roberto fronte Italy

Dear Erik
I have followed your blog for the last year with all the hope you will recover. Meeting you, reading your books, hearing your lectures, translating some articles of you was of tremendous importance to me. You have inspired my work on transformation. For all this many thanks. As our friend Marx said: the real wealth are human relations. So you are enriching all of us.
If it happens as your doctors are afraid I should say farewell until we meet on the other side,

in admiration for your work and for the man,

Micha

Dear Erik, I am writing from Ukraine where you brought an incredible amount of inspiration, energy and support to all of us who were lucky to meet you, and read your books and reviews on our work. I am grateful to you on giving me confidence in what I am doing. It was so shocking to heard about your illness, and all our thoughts are with you these days. You are and will always be a source of inspirational ideation to us.
With most warm regards,
Svitlana Khutka, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine