Lefteast
The first part of this essay explored the historical background for Germany’s fiercely enforced solidarity with Israel. In the decades after the war, support for Israel was cultivated by West German elites as a geopolitical investment and project of Westernization. Meanwhile the left struggled to force the country to take historical responsibility for its crimes […]
One wants to break free of the past: rightly, because nothing at all can live in its shadow, and because there will be no end to the terror as long as guilt and violence are repaid with guilt and violence; wrongly, because the past that one would like to evade is still very much alive. […]
Since the launch of Hamas’ Operation Floods of Aqsa and Israel’s bombardment of besieged Gaza, Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists in Europe have been facing unprecedented censorship, policing, harassment, arrests, gag orders, and threats. In compiling several reports from leftist activists in various locations in Europe, we aim to alert our activist communities across our region […]
Most of the time strikes are about pay raises. But here it was different: Close to Frankfurt, Germany 62 truck drivers from Georgia and Uzbekistan had been on strike for weeks, because they had not been paid according to their contract. It was a difficult fight, but the strikers won. This victory is not only […]
Germany’s ruling center-right CDU (Christian-Democratic Union) has the lowest number of politicians with immigrant backgrounds, yet it looks like in this election the party will be supported by immigrants and their descendants to an unprecedented degree. A study conducted this year has shown that in recent years the percentage of Turks who would vote for […]
Note from LeftEast editors: The article was first published online by the German magazine KATAPULT on 30. April 2020. It was translated into English by Philipp Lottholz. Not even a pandemic should endanger the Germans’ asparagus consumption. Even if Romanian seasonal workers bear the health costs for it – or die. On April 11, a […]
I was waiting for Yanis Varoufakis seated in an old Hamburg cafe while outside everything had turned gray. A light mist blanketed the roofs, trees, cars and the occasional passerby. It was the perfect day for snowfall although the weather forecast had given no hope for it. Inside the lights were on, the cafe packed […]
Bogdan Droma has worked in Berlin for three months, between August and October 2014, at building the famous Mall of Berlin. As a result of weeks of work going unpaid, as well as of various forms of abusive treatment, he protested together with other workers between November 2014 and February 2015 on an almost daily […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: this article has been written by Mathias Fiedler, currently in Istanbul, for BorderMonitoring.Eu. The article is reprinted here with the permission of the author. We also insert a video which the Marxist website Marksist.Org has published (below) with the voices of the Syrian refugees at the Edirne bus terminal. It has been in planning for some […]
Despite its continuous vocal advocacy for radical changes in the EU economic and financial policies, Die Linke has remained to a large extent passive regarding the Greek government and its initial actions, relying predominantly on open declarations of support. The formation of a Syriza-led government in Greece presents an important milestone for the efforts of […]