Month: January 2015

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Tracing Social Movements in Georgia, from Crisis to Crisis… An interview with Anna and Lela Rekhviashvili.

Source: James Emery, https://flic.kr/p/eSEmsk

 

Note from the LeftEast editors: We publish this piece in expression of solidarity with the Georgian NGO Identoba, whose Chair has received a number of death threats after she criticized the Christmas speech of the Patriarch of Georgia, which denigrated women. LeftEast has previously published a piece on the controversy between Identoba and the Georgian Church, in which the LGBT advocacy organization was condemned for offering help to homeless people.

 

Mattia Gallo interviews Anna Rekhviashvili and Lela Rekhviashvili

 

MG: How did the economic and financial crisis of 2008 affect Georgia?

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Ilya Budraitskis: The Perpetual “Trotskyist” Conspiracy

Who Is Behind the Trotskyist Conspiracy? Ilya Budraitskis, a historian, researcher and writer November 21, 2014 Russian original on OpenLeft.ru/ Translated by TheRussianReader

Speaking at a meeting of his All-Russia People’s Front a couple days ago, Vladimir Putin said, “Trotsky had this [saying]: the movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing. We need an ultimate aim.” Eduard Bernstein’s proposition, misquoted and attributed for some reason to Leon Trotsky, is probably the Russian president’s most common rhetorical standby.

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Bulgaria’s Creeping Apartheid, Part III: Racism with a Touch of Responsibility

Photo by Ivo Hristov (http://solidbul.eu/?p=3317)
The following is the last of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I showed that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II‘s main argument is that while Roma have long been the main target of Bulgaria’s nationalists, a narrow liberal conception of humanity may ultimately prove a more powerful force for their dehumanization.
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Bulgaria’s Creeping Apartheid, Part II: Liberal Dehumanization

The following is the second of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I showed that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II’s main argument is that while Roma have long been the main target of Bulgaria’s nationalists, a narrow liberal conception of humanity may ultimately prove a more powerful force for their dehumanization.
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Bulgaria’s Creeping Apartheid, Part I: Mobilizing Racism to Shrink the Social State

The following is the first of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I shows that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II‘s main argument is that while Roma have long been the main target of Bulgaria’s nationalists, a narrow liberal conception of humanity may ultimately prove a more powerful force for their dehumanization.
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Point of No Return

by Marina Antić Source: Titoland 2.0 January 2, 2015

Yesterday, an 82-year old man shot himself on the steps of the RS Presidential Palace in Banja Luka, without a doubt for reasons all too well known to the Bosnian seniors: monthly pensions averaging at about 300KM, expensive medicines, food and shelter, and little help from the state, other than to contemplate further cuts to the social security system, under the advice of the IMF and the World Bank.