Lefteast
Turkey’s border with Syria is not the only border region in the country where people are dying[1]. Along the so-called “green border” of the European Union the last few years have witnessed a rising tide of migrants forced back into Turkey, mostly by European police forces. Today, Europe’s politicians are using Turkey as a gatekeeper. […]
The summer of 2015 has come and gone. Through the movement of millions of people claiming their right to safety, and of the work of thousands of locals supporting them, EU borders have been shaken. But as winter sets in, fleeing conditions on all routes have degraded. Borders have regained power – through barbwires, criminalisation and militarisation. The […]
by Gabriel Levy, on peopleandnature.wordpress.com (December 13, 2015) Who ordered police to shoot down oil workers demonstrating for fair living standards? Who organised the torture of activists in police cells? Four years after police killed at least 16 demonstrators and injured 60 more in the oil city of Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan, trade unionists and human […]
Jeremy Corbyn’s conquest of the Labor leadership position and the advancement of Bernie Sanders in the Democrats’ race to the White House show that there can be still life in the atrophied bodies of the once-called social-democracies of the West. What’s interesting politically about these outsiders from the Left is their capacity to embody grass-root […]
by Nikolai Ovchinnikov from openDemocracy, Dec. 9, 2015 Truckers across Russia have descended on Moscow to protest a new freight tax which will threaten their livelihood. Vladimir shares his story of life behind the wheel. Since mid-November, Russia’s long distance truckers have been protesting against a new freight tax on trucks over 12 tonnes. The […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: with the kind permission of the Subversive Festival organizers we publish the .html versions of the Subversive Festival’s outputs “Balkan Forum: Situations, Struggles, Strategies”. A .pdf version can be downloaded by clicking on the image of the book collection here or from the website of the Forum’s principal sponsor, Rosa Luxemburg […]
This is the fourth and final instalment of contributions from the working groups that were set up by the Balkan Forum. The democratisation and participation working group consists of: Arlind Qori, Gal Kirn, Tadej Kurepa, Agon Hamza, Iva Ivšić and Suzana Kunac (coordinator). Introduction We build upon the conclusions of The First Balkan Forum […]
Despite its anti-neoliberal character, Sergei Glazyev’s proposed economic reforms are in the interests of elites and not the population. Sergei Glazyev, the Russian economist and adviser to Putin, is increasingly in the news. He often speaks of “urgent measures” to help overcome the crisis, jump start economic growth and propel a technological leap forward. Liberals […]
This is the third instalment of contributions from the Balkan Social Forum’s working groups. This week’s instalment is by the Working Group on Workers’ Struggles, which was composed of: Mersiha Beširović, Heiko Bolldorf, Maja Breznik, Stipe Ćurković, Petre Damo, Robert Fai, Marko Grdešić, Mario Iveković, Jovica Lončar, Branislav Markuš, Tibor T. Meszmann, Davor Rakić Kićo, Jasna […]
Turkey’s decision to shoot down a Russian fighter jet over the border with Syria was a first in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) and may yet become a pivotal moment in the unfolding of the Syrian civil war, but it did not come out of nowhere. Over the last week pressure […]