New coalitions of women are shaping the future of activism and gender equality in the Gaza Strip.
Against Janša, Against Brussels
10 July 2018, by , , ,The far right won elections this month in Slovenia. Can the Left mount a challenge?
The Kafala System is How Capitalism Is Driving Modern Slavery
9 July 2018, bySouth Asian workers in the Middle East are systematically dehumanised and othered in a society where whiteness is considered the ideal.
We Asked: Geopolitics and the Left (Part I: Russia & the West)
7 July 2018, byThe latest wave of confrontation between Russia and the West—from the Skripal affair and the following diplomat expulsions and sanctions on Russia to the gassing of Douma residents most likely perpetrated by the Assad regime and the resulting US-UK-French bombing raids on Syria–rarely left the front pages of mainstream media. LeftEast has until now resisted the topic: it is not quite our fight. Not to sound nostalgic, but if the original Cold War, for all the devastation of its proxy wars and the dictatorships it bred, created conditions that sometimes favored the processes of decolonization, the victory of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and the rise of the welfare state in the West, this New one has been an unadulterated race to the bottom that can only impoverish the public sphere and hurt ordinary people. But the level of media hysteria and ruling-elite bellicosity, both in Russia and Western countries, has reached such proportions that our silence has become increasingly untenable. It also raises the broader question of the left’s relationship to geopolitics—a topic we will explore next week. To put our finger on the pulse of leftist thinking about the tensions between Russia and the West, We asked four comrades. Here are their responses:
Elections in Turkey confirm authoritarian regime and tasks for an Anticapitalist Alternative
6 July 2018, byThe elections held on 24 June in Turkey confirmed the one-man rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and caused more disappointment than the previous ones. Several factors had created a wave of hope amongst supporters of the broader opposition parties that the ruling party would do less well this time.
The real reason Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving: economic necessity
6 July 2018, byAfter years of campaigning by women activists, on June 24 the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia will be lifted. It is the most visible of a bundle of recent initiatives taken by the Saudi king and the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, to strengthen the role of women in Saudi society. [1]
July 1, 2018 - a new historical period opens
5 July 2018, byAround 11 pm on July 1, 2018, after an election day that had kept the country holding its breath, Lorenzo Córdova (the President of Mexico’s National Electoral Institute) announced, confirmed, a trend that could only have been overcome with an ignominious electoral fraud of unprecedented proportions (which it is saying a lot) in the recent history of Mexico. The vote for Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) of the MORENA party, which will surpass 53% of the effective vote, obtained with record participation levels (above 60%), will make him president with a historical democratic legitimacy. In record time all the important actors of the regime (the opposition candidates, the National Electoral Institute, Peña Nieto, Trump, employers’ groups and the mass media) recognized the triumph of Obrador.
Six Takeaways From the Turkish Elections
4 July 2018, byErdoğan might have triumphed in the Turkish elections, but there are still glimmers of hope amid the despotism and repression.
Argentina: Who will pay for the crisis, them or us?
3 July 2018, byIt was always clear that Argentine president Mauricio Macri governed for the rich and that his economic model would lead to a great crisis. The first affirmation was corroborated by the regressive redistribution of income perpetrated by his government over the last two years. The second has begun to be confirmed with the run on the peso during the last week of May 2018. An economic model based on huge external and tax imbalances payed for by external indebtedness is starting to totter. Everyone imagined that the financing would last until 2019, but the end of the film has come early in an unpredictable manner.
Election Manifesto 2018 – An Alternative is Possible!
2 July 2018, byThere is a common perception in Pakistan that politics is only for the powerful, and that money, clout and deceit reflect “success” in politics. The Awami Workers Party, on the other hand, believes that a politics based on a progressive vision of society is not only possible but utterly necessary. In the upcoming elections we are taking our message to all parts of Pakistani society to convince the electorate that he existing political-economic system can be transformed through the power of the people.