Month: March 2014

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Post-colonial film club in Budapest. An interview with Tamás Gerőcs and Tibor Meszmann, Helyzet Group of Public Sociology.

Mariya Ivancheva interviewed Tamás Gerőcs and Tibor Meszmann about the post-colonialism film club of the Public Sociology Working Group ‘Helyzet’ on 18 February 2014, in Budapest.

We are now at the Gólya Community Centre in Budapest. I would start with a question about how these three things, namely the Gólya (Stork) centre, the Helyzet (Position and situation) working group, and the post-colonialism film club are interrelated?

Tibor T. Meszmann: Gólya is a community centre, and operates as a cooperative.

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We mustn’t forget the revolutionary roots of International Women’s Day

Now marked with Google doodles and special shopping displays, in the early 20th century, International Women’s Day was a fierce, worldwide campaign for worker’s rights.

by Rebecca Winson

Against a backdrop of ambivalence from male unions, women had been organising for decades. Cap-makers, match girls and laundresses had all picketed at the turn of the 20th century, and as Zetkin and Zietz made their proposal, the “Uprising of the 20,000” was drawing worldwide attention. A bloody strike by New York’s garment workers, it was led by Clara Lemlich, a 23-year-old Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant who rallied tens of thousands of women to the picket lines even after thugs hired by her employers broke her ribs.

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Precarity as contraceptive: conversations on the situation of abortion in Spain

The last years have seen strong mobilizations around the right to abortion in Spain: justice minister Alberto Ruíz Gallardon announced the criminalization of abortion in 2012, now the law has been voted through congress. As 8th March 2014 approaches, protests against the re-insertion of abortion into the domain of criminal law are intensifying in Spain as well as internationally. Based on conversations in  March 2014 (with Silvia Gil from Vidas Precarias) and November 2012 (with Marcella Arellano from the Feminisms Commission of Sol, and the feminist researcher Emanuela Borzacchiello), this text gives an overview of some of the social, legal, discursive and political matters at stake in the struggles around abortion in Spain.

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Left Opposition: Ukraine will be saved from intervention by solidarity

 

The socialist union “Left Opposition” offers its assessment of the Russian aggression in Crimea and the destructive role of Ukrainian nationalists. The intervention of Russian armies was made possible as a result of a split in Ukrainian society. Its unity is impossible with the oligarchs and chauvinists in power. Only solidarity will save Ukraine.

1) We are for the self determination of Crimea only after the withdrawal of the Russian armies that are carrying out this flagrant intervention.

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“All-Ukrainian Strike” as the big fake of Euromaidan

Note from the LeftEast editors: Faking “the people” has been extensively used in the recent wave of protests in Eastern Europe. Usually, it is governments—Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian—who have the monopoly on ordering state workers to take a day off and be bussed to the capital, where they are given a meal, pre-prepared posters and banners, and instructions how to conduct themselves. The rallies in which they participate are then televised extensively to prove that “ordinary people” support the government and condemn the trouble-makers from the Opposition.

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Ukraine’s Euromaidan: A ‘Tillyan Revolution’ that can lead to the Second Crimean War

Rubén Ruiz Ramas

The neither legal nor legitimate Russian military intervention in Crimea is the latest and most dramatic chapter in the crisis that began in Ukraine last November. Since the Euromaidan uprising following the decision of Yanukovych not to sign the Association Agreement (AA) with the EU, a sequence of faulty decisions sparked an escalation of tensions. The freezing of the first protest wave over Christmas, which coincided with the Putin-Yanukovych agreement that allegedly would save Ukraine from bankruptcy, was broken by Yanukovych’s first significant crisis management mistake: the passing on January 16 of a set of anti-protest laws.

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If the Left Movements Don’t Unite, Only the Far-Right Will Benefit From the Social Anger. An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko.

By Maxime Benatouil – 04 Mar 14

Interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko, Deputy Director of the Center for Society Research in Kiev (28 February)

What root causes explain that such large parts of the population joined the protests, on Maidan and elsewhere?

Volodymyr Ishchenko: First, let me tell you that the protests weren’t exclusively initiated by the students. It is a quite widespread misperception. The first protests were launched by various groups: journalists, civic activists, and students.

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Time to end western meddling in Bosnia

We are extremely concerned by the response of the international community to the popular protests that have erupted against almost two decades of misrule in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Editorial, 17 February). Western media and politicians have argued that now is not the time for the western powers to disengage from Bosnia.

In fact, it is time to recognise that external rule in Bosnia has failed. The Dayton agreement in 1995 set up an undemocratic “protectorate”, giving the high representative of the western powers neocolonial authority over a political system that has institutionalised ethnic divisions, while neoliberal economic policies have impoverished ordinary Bosnians regardless of ethnicity.

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Solidarity with the Ukrainian people Against imperialist interventions – Against the EU-IMF pillaging through Memoranda of Understanding

Note from the editorial board of LeftEast: LeftEast is a common platform for social movements from across the region of Eastern Europe. With the goal towards promoting discussion among different sections of the Left we publish a variety of perspectives and analyses of current events. These publications represent the opinions of their authors, and not necessarily those of the editors.

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ANTARSYA* addresses a message of solidarity to the Ukrainian people who are going through difficult times.

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I hate! On war in Ukraine

Writing from a critical position is not something to be widely appreciated in turmoil times. For some hysterical idiots I’ve succumbed to the fascists, for others–betrayed the Fatherland. Time is now precious and to be used efficiently. This is why I respond to all in a single post.

I hate the Euroidiots who started all this because of their little ticks and cultural chauvinism.

I hate the bastard who clung to power despite dozens of deaths and who now wants to return to the country on foreign tanks.