Month: January 2016

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Forgotten on the wrong side of the border

Migrants sew their lips together in protest at the Greek-Macedonian border, source FranceToday.Ga

Note by the LeftEast editors: this text has been published in co-operation with the Serbo-Croat language web portal Bilten.Org.

Early in the morning of December 9th, Greek police closed the make-shift camp by the border town of Eidomeni. The eviction from the camp marked a further deterioration in the lives of thousands seeking refuge at the Greek-Macedonian border who in squalid and freezing conditions had been blocked from crossing into Macedonia for over two weeks and had in turn, as act of protest, blocked off the crossing.

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VIDEO: TalkReal in Vienna: Towards a Plan ‘D’ for Democracy in Europe

Note from the LeftEast editors: In this video of European Alternatives’ ‘TalkReal’ series the debate is on how to go beyond the pessimism that has taken over our contemporary political climate. TalkReal is published in co-operation with OpenDemocracy and Roarmag.

For years we have been told ‘There is No Alternative’, that the status quo is both healthy and here to stay. But as neoliberal institutions struggle to contain a complex and multi-headed crisis it is clearer than ever that radical change represents our only chance of a better future.

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Turkish and international academics: We will not be a party to this crime!

Image by © Osman Orsal/Reuters/Corbis.

source: Barisicinakademisyenler.Net

As academics and researchers of this country, we will not be a party to this crime!

The Turkish state has effectively condemned its citizens in Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Silopi, and many other towns and neighborhoods in the Kurdish provinces to hunger through its use of curfews that have been ongoing for weeks. It has attacked these settlements with heavy weapons and equipment that would only be mobilized in wartime. As a result, the right to life, liberty, and security, and in particular the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment protected by the constitution and international conventions have been violated.

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Common Statement of the Revolutionary Marxists from Russia and Turkey

This statement was made by OpenLeft Collective-Russia and Sosyalist Demokrasi İçin Yeniyol-Turkey in December 2015.

source: InternationalViewpoint.Org

After the aircraft SU-24 Russian fighter was shot down by a Turkish Armed Forces missile on November 24, on account to the fact that it violated Turkey’s air space, it can be certainly said that the relations between the two countries took a new dimension. This event, in fact, is the expected result of the clash of two opposite strategies in terms of the civil war in Syria.  

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Did it Ever Happen? Social Movements and the Politics of Spontaneous Consensus in Post-Socialist Romania

Candles are lit next to photographs of the victims outside the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest Source: Associated Press

Note from the LeftEast editors: This article has first appeared in Romanian on the website Criticatac. It was translated into English by Maria Pozsar and extensively reworked by the author. 

 

 

 

                  1. The Oblivion

Today, only two months after they took place, the protests mentioned in this text are already history. In a double sense: not only that they are over, but their presence within the public sphere seems as distant as possible. Like a bizarre non-event, the street demonstrations have largely disappeared from public focus and the changes brought by them don’t differ that much from the business-as-usual of Romanian politics.