Month: August 2015

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New authoritarianism and new struggles against ‘old demons’ – Gëzim Krasniqi

This article is part of the regular assembly “New authoritarian tendencies – a legacy of the past?“ of the Cross-border Committee. It brings four perspectives that zero in on the post-Yugoslav space.

A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian tendencies and practices remain very much present in the post-Yugoslav states and even wider. Scholars and local commentators attribute this either to the lack of a liberal democratic tradition, in particular when it comes to civil society, the long lasting legacy of communism or, worse, revert to the well-known self-orientalising tendency that sees the region incapable of modern state-building and democratisation.

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New authoritarian tendencies – a legacy of the past?

 

LeftEast brings you the latest assembly of the Cross-border Committee (Assembly of young researchers of Macedonia). Edited by Ljubica Spaskovska, it features four perspectives on the new authoritarian tendencies in the post-Yugoslav space.

 

Forwards to the legacies of ‘post-communism’ in the Balkans! – Vladimir Unkovski-Korica Longing for lost agency – Tanja Petrović New authoritarianism and new struggles against ‘old demons’ – Gëzim Krasniqi Authoritarian tendencies in the region between “then” and “now”: the lacking visibility of materiality of regional authoritarianism – Danijela Majstorović

Political parties that serve as employment agencies and hence engender and perpetuate entrenched corruption and clientelism, weak state institutions, political control over the media, rampant inequality, dismantling of the welfare state.

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VIDEO: Where have all the workers gone

This film tells the tale of textile workers in post-Yugoslav states. The garment industry was very successful in socialist times, and employed thousands of workers, particularly women. After the Yugoslav break-up and post-socialist transition, however, the industry underwent a process of economic decline and deindustrialisation. Textile workers in the former Yugoslavia faced factory closures, job losses and exploitative working conditions, thus losing the social security and social rights experienced during socialism.

Written and narrated by Chiara Bonfiglioli Directed and post-produced by Yorgos Karagiannakis, PitchDarkProductions Produced by CITSEE,  a research project funded by the European Research Council looking at citizenship in South East Europe.

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Workers’ Rights and Trade Unions in Macedonia

This text was originally published in RAD, a quarterly magazine based in Zagreb.

“The knife has come to the bone”, is a simple yet terrifying sublimate of the everyday existence of laid-off workers in Macedonia. It often appears as a slogan at protests organized in the country by the victims of the transition processes from the past 20 years. That slogan is also used by many workers to describe their working conditions or monthly wages.

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Thousands of Polish workers to take part in the first ever migrant workers strike in Britain

by Jonathan Owen

The Independent

08.08.2015

Thousands of Polish people working in Britain are expected to take part in the first ever migrant workers strike in this country later this month. The protest, planned for Thursday 20th August, is the result of discussions on Polish internet forums by people angry at immigrants being blamed for Britain’s economic problems.

And the unofficial strike, which does not involve any trade unions, is being backed by the Polish Express newspaper which has created a Facebook group to promote the event.

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The far-right as a counter-hegemonic bloc to neoliberalism? The case of Jobbik (I)

https://thecontrarianhungarian.files.wordpress.com/

Note from the LeftEast editors: This article has been adapted for LeftEast from the original in Eszmélet 105. Follow the link to read PART II: ‘National rejuvenation’ and ‘social justice’: the ideology and praxis of Jobbik

 

PART 1: From right –wing movement to the third force in Hungarian politics: Jobbik’s ascendence 1999-2010

In recent years, Hungary has become a symbol of a wider rightward shift in Europe. A plethora of paramilitary organisations, many of whom are explicitly drawing on the symbolism of the infamous Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazis responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews in the encircled Budapest of 1944-45, march up and down streets around the country, threatening minorities.