Lefteast
Can you tell us a bit more about Karmína? What is your origin story? What do you do? How do you define yourself as a platform/collective? Karmína was established in 2017 as an informal group that runs a collective blog. Some of us have previously worked together, since the mid-2000s, in other initiatives on the […]
Note from LeftEast Editors: The English original of this interview, which first appeared in Hungarian, is published in English on LeftEast, thanks to our cooperation with Hungarian portal Mérce within the framework of the East European Left Media Outlet (ELMO). Early parliamentary elections will be held in Slovakia on Saturday 30th September. Former Prime Minister […]
In a long-term view of the eastern EU border, it is heightened militarization and exclusion that is the norm, with the kind of openness we are witnessing with regard to the Ukrainians being the exception. What, then, is to be done in a country like Slovakia where there is little hope that things will change through the state and how to politically link the unprecedented solidarity with Ukrainian refugees to the larger struggle for a more just and inclusive border regime in Europe?
Note from LeftEast editors. As the issue of forced labour is gaining increasing attention in Eastern Europe, we repost Rutvica Andrijasevic’s text, originally published by Migration Mobilities Bristol on September 14 2021, to draw attention on the importance of the transnational supply chain perspective. I was in the midst of fieldwork researching the working conditions […]
Note from LeftEast editors: We share a brief article about a strike at the automotive supplier plant in Beluša, Slovakia. The article was originally published on the Karmina.red blog on September 13, 2021, in Slovak and English. This brief article also contains the links where you can dowload the informative pamphlet outlining the background story of the […]
In moments of heightened crisis, such as today’s, one of the first strategies of a state is to defer its pretense of universal social solidarity, directing its energies towards the social groups it prioritizes but normally cannot single out. This same tendency often leads to postponing of its efforts to negotiate difficult social, economic, and […]
Note from the editors: The following interview with Alena Krempaská was conducted by Mattia Gallo in the days following the protests in Bratislava. Mattia Gallo: On Friday, March 9, 2018, tens of thousands of people animated the center of Bratislava in a peaceful demonstration against the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico to ask the […]
The refugee crisis continues to dominate European politics. By the beginning of August, almost 118,000 refugees had already entered the European Union via the Mediterranean Sea this year, with an additional estimated 2,400 of them losing their lives on the journey.[i] The continuation of western-instigated wars in the region, political destabilisation, terrorism, poverty and climate […]
The Slovak national anthem begins with this dramatic stanza: “That Slovakia of ours / has been asleep so far / but the thunder’s lightning / is rousing it / to come to.” And it continues in a similar spirit: “Slovakia already arises / tears off its shackles.” While the author Janko Matuška, a member of […]
source: J.Borocz’s blog GlobalSocialChange Here are the conversations that are NOT happening: The European Union is not giving any clear signals just what it actually wants the Schengen states most exposed to the refugee inflows–not only Hungary, but also Greece, Bulgaria and Italy–to do. It is completely obvious that, if anybody actually cares about alleviating […]