Category: All posts

Events in Ukraine are moving at a terrifying speed. This statement was prepared by the editors of the OpenLeft in the morning of March 1st, 2014. Today, March 2nd, at 2 pm, Russians in different cities will hold rallies against a possible Russian intervention into Ukraine. The Ukrainian peninsula has had the misfortune of finding […]

Not so long ago in Utrecht, I participated in a discussion about the JMBG protests[i] that took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina in June 2013, about activism in ethnically divided and transitional societies, and about the role of the international community in all of this. The participants were activists and professionals of various profiles, from young Dutch […]

In his recent analysis of events in Ukraine, Florin Poenaru raises several points whose relevance goes well beyond the specific situation in that country. They speak to important problems that concern the (re-)building of the revolutionary Left in post-socialist Eastern Europe more broadly. This piece responds to some of these points in an effort to […]

“Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.” –Amilcar Cabral   Let’s state things plainly: Bosnia is a semi-colonial […]

Almost a year has passed since the death of Hugo Chávez on March 5, 2013. Arguably this has been the most difficult one for the Bolivarian Revolution. Many people, both on the left and the right expressed doubt that there could be Chavismo without Chávez. Perhaps a year is still too short of a period […]

Viktor Yanukovich started his career as a thug and he remained a thug as a political leader. His regime was corrupt, patriarchal, authoritarian, inefficient and class-biased. He definitely had to go. But whoever is cheering his departure following Saturday’s vote of the Ukrainian Rada is plainly mistaken. He was deposed not as a result of […]

Dear Comrades, We write to express our solidarity with you in these trying times. Your country is burying a hundred or so dead, demonstrators and policemen, and hundreds more wounded are still in its hospitals. The specter of a civil war has not yet left Ukraine. While not the defeated party, most of you cannot […]

The dead of Kiev’s Maidan are not only Ukraine’s dead; they are the dead of “post-communist” Eastern Europe. It hurts everywhere, but differently. An open wound cannot be closed with words, yet one can shout in solidarity that this may be the other end of the post-communist transition, the so-called bad side of the “successful” […]

“Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.” –Amilcar Cabral Reading the news tonight (Feb 14), you could perhaps glean […]