Lefteast
Over the last decade, the notion of participatory democracy has become increasingly fashionable in mainstream politics. The 2008 financial crisis brought out in the open the disconnect between political elites and their constituencies that plagues contemporary representative democracies. Across Europe and the Americas, the inability to overturn neo-liberal policies and austerity measures through the electoral […]
This is the first part of a two-part series on anti-lithium mining protests that have erupted in Serbia over the last several months, and the broader environmental movement around it. Last September, the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel made her farewell tour to the Balkans. In Belgrade, she was welcomed by Aleksandar Vučić, the Serbian president […]
Each year, November 9 marks the ‘World Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism.’ That date was taken to commemorate November 9, 1938, when Kristallnacht took place, in which several hundred synagogues and Jewish shops throughout Germany were destroyed, and about 20,000 Jews were interned in camps. This act is often considered the beginning of the Holocaust. […]
Note from LeftEast editors: this interview first appeared as a chapter in the edited volume of Michele Lancione and Colin McFarlane Global Urbanism Knowledge, Power and the City (Routledge, 2021). It was reprinted with the kind permission of the interviewers and interviewees, and was made open access with the support of The Swedish Research Council […]
Beirut and Belgrade show off their emergence out of war by investing in massive construction projects on their waterfronts. But these modern projects are also sites of gentrification, erasure, and political contestation. Join Adriana and Miloš on their walks as they reflect on how capital from Arab Gulf countries is building new neighbourhoods of glass […]
The year 1968 marked a peak in the class struggle at the international level. Students and workers became protagonists of revolts in the West, but also in the East. The general strike and mass mobilizations of workers and students in France is one of the better known examples from that year. The uprising in Prague […]
Belgrade held regular municipal elections on Sunday 4 March. These were the first municipal elections since the mass protests against the Belgrade waterfront project in spring 2016. As such, they were a major test for the conservative Aleksandar Vučić regime since his presidential re-election in 2017. The regime understood the dangers posed by a potential […]
Note of the LeftEast editors: this article has been published in collaboration with the Serbo-Croat web-portal Bilten.Org and has been translated by and republished with the consent of the author himself. Although pronounced successful, Belgrade Pride has aroused more interest amongst politicians, than the public and the LGBT community. While politicians didn’t hesitate to express their […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: This article originally appeared in the Serbian publication Masina on 10.06.2016. It was composed in the months following a series of nocturnal demolitions in the Belgrade neighbourhood of Savamala. The demolitions, conducted by unidentified workers in balaclavas, are widely perceived to be the vanguard actions of Belgrade on the Water, a controversial […]