Lefteast
On the 10th of November of 2013, the movement of the Early Rising Students embarked on a “March for Justice” in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Since the 24th of October the students of Sofia University occupied first the main auditorium and gradually the entire school. A few days before November 10th, they decided that […]
The conservative and sometimes reactionary tendencies of the Orthodox Church in post-socialist countries are not news, but recently the Georgian church has gone so far as to target civil society actors doing charity work. As the cold winter approaches, civil society actors, particularly a group of independent feminists held a small rally a month ago […]
A couple of weeks ago, my mind was on recent student struggles at CUNY, where I work (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/cuny79.html). I was reading a Chris Hedges’ article that someone had sent via the #strikedebt email list. There, he mentioned the existence of popular resistance (http://www.popularresistance.org/ ) as an example of “the articulation of a viable socialism as […]
A discussion with Don Kalb moderated by Stefan Guga and Florin Poenaru.
Over the last few days Bulgaria has witnessed opposing waves of mobilization that divide the country across ethnic and class lines. Since the 23rd of October, a student strike and sustained occupation has spread across six universities in the capital and other cities. The strike is the latest in a series of protests in the […]
On October 13th, in Biriuliovo, a district in the south of Moscow, a series of events took place that are still the talk of most Russian media. Several thousand local residents and radical right activists held a spontaneous rally demanding “an end to illegal immigration and ethnic crime.” Soon afterwards, hundreds of the rally’s participants […]
On October 21st in Munich, Germany a group of about 30 Bulgarian migrants were pushed into a backyard by 20 police officers from the Financial Police (Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit [FSK]). The incident took place in the neighborhood around the Central Train Station, where many try to find work as daylaborers, pushed to do so at street […]
„There is no alternative to Europe“ – is «la pensée unique« that dominates political life in the ex-Yugoslavia. As with the idea of a transition to the market, Europe is considered to be a destination that is to be still to be reached, a community of peace and prosperity. In fact, as we will show, […]
The fate of Africa and of the refugees coming from there is still as embarrassing to supposedly “Christian“ and “humanistic“ Europe as ever. Last week, another “refugee disaster happened“ off the coast of the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. As usual when African refugees drown or get stranded in the Mediterranean on their way to […]
Abstract In this paper, I analyze the content and practice of law enforcement in the domain of tenants’ protection in Warsaw to draw lessons from Polish examples on the strategy for housing activism in the postcommunist context. The local public administration is quite weak, as it has limited financial and human resources capacities, which undermines […]