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Politics of the Left beyond Resistance: Reflections and Visions from our 2017 encounter in Skopje

Report by: Mary N. Taylor, Mariya Ivancheva, Adela Gjorgjioska, Veda Popovici  Over the last seven years, members of the LeftEast collective have co-organised  encounters in collaboration with other collectives and comrades in the Eastern and Southern peripheries of Europe. This year, our late summer encounter took place in the Macedonian capital Skopje, hosted by Social […]

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The open violence of the Balkan labour reforms: an interview with Aleksandar Matković

The following interview between Petar Protić and Aleksandar Matković originally appeared in Serbo-Croatian at Al Jazeera Balkans and concerns the recent labour laws that have been carried out almost simultaneously across several Balkan countries, each bearing similar tendencies: a weakening of workers’ rights and a strengthening of the rights of employers, the increase of precarious […]

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Moving Europe release activist brochure, Resistance along the Balkanroute

Note from the editors: The dedicated activists at Moving Europe have just released a very informative and useful brochure on their migrant solidarity work, Resistance along the Balkanroute. The document is full of reports, histories and practical reflections of several years of activism among migrants passing through the Balkans.  In an effort to further promote […]

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Tariq Ali speaks with Igor Štiks

Over at teleSUR, Tariq Ali spoke with leftist writer and intellectual Igor Štiks about politics in the Balkans today.

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Free Zdravko and Vladimir! Stop prosecuting protesters in Macedonia!

Zdravko Saveski and Vladimir Kunovski, longtime activists and members of Levica, the recently-formed left-wing party in the Republic of Macedonia, have been kept in house arrest for over a month now. Recently, their detentions have been extended for additional 30 days. They are being detained because of their participation in the anti-regime protests which began […]

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Refugees and the Image of Suffering: Why Does Nobody Listen?

From the diary of false faith in the outside world. Last year during my presence on the Balkan migrant route, I struggled with a number of new roles. First I was a volunteer at the borders, then all of a sudden I was to direct a documentary, and then I became a journalist, whose job was […]

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Prisons in Macedonia: the Infected Wounds of a Fractured Social State

Note from LeftEast Editors: This article has been published in collaboration with the web-portal Bilten.org. A month and a half has passed since a Presidential blanket amnesty of over 50 corrupt government figures and their collaborators sparked social upheaval across Macedonia. The action laid bare deep societal rifts, cracked open by double legal standards, dividing […]

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Refugees & Volunteering: Beyond the Culture of Giving

Having returned from my volunteering activities in the Balkans, I started reflecting on certain aspects of refugee aid in a number of schools, universities, and in my interviews. After my talk, some of my listeners would come and say: ok, you’ve kind of discouraged us from helping them. However, their reaction stemmed from a misunderstanding, […]

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Theory

Subversive Festival: Balkan Forum – Situations, Struggles, Strategies

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 […]

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Mapping Workers’ Struggles: The Position of Workers in the Post-Socialist Balkans

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 […]