Geography Archives: Europe

You cannot argue with mass hypnosis. You can keep a diary, write a chronicle that reveals the falseness of the spirit of the age to hopefully enlighten future readers, because, as we hear in another of the main points of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita, “manuscripts do not burn.” That is what I do….

Esther Bejarano’s death hits hard, leaving a painful gap in Germany’s anti-fascist scene. Most media and many politicians voiced their praise and mourning—after almost totally ignoring her in life and attacking and trying to squelch organizations she was active in, as an avowed Communist.

After legally receiving a Christmas gift of 24,000 euros from her party, Annalena Baerbock somehow neglected to report it in her tax returns. No big deal, some might think, but after the scandals about Christian Democrats nobly enriching themselves when purchasing face-masks, and two far bigger scandals hanging over the head of the Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate Scholz (currently still Finance Minister), the squeaky clean reputation of the Greens had been a major asset. No longer!

Don’t speak ill of the dead, they say, but if I were to choose candidates for a Hall of Evil Fame, I’d have to ignore such advice; the late Donald Rumsfeld would be close to the top of my list.

Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was born September 12, 1924 in Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, one of Portugal’s African colonies. On January 20, 1973–48 years ago today–Cabral was murdered by fascist Portuguese assassins just months before the national liberation movement in which he played a central role won the independence of Guinea-Bissau.

Vygotsky’s revolutionary theory of development is one that recognizes the many forms of capacity, intelligence, and potential in all beings.

The answer is plain to see: the two explanations are not contradictory. A combination of the two enables us to understand what has been happening right before our eyes.

The Tories are trying to further divide the working class by fuelling culture wars, socialists must fight back on our own terms, argues John Westmoreland

The UN has raised the alarm about the growing number of people (including children) suffering from hunger around the world due to the coronavirus and the economic crisis, while Ukraine exports agricultural products, depriving its already poor population of access to relatively cheap domestic food.

Luke Charnley reports on the new publishing houses getting working-class writers onto the printed page.

Previously solid ground is quickly degrading. The melting of the permafrost is about to cause huge damage to buildings and infrastructure across the country, Russia’s natural resource minister warns.

The idea that there was anything remotely worthy about Britain’s imperial past has been steadily losing credibility, despite the Johnson government’s disgraceful and offensive insistence to the contrary.

Second thoughts on the summit.

In this timely book, Matthew Brown and Rhian E. Jones explore new forms of democratic collectivism across the UK, writes Hilary Wainwright.

A week ago Saxony-Anhalt voted! The media prediction – a neck-and-neck race – was cock-eyed! But outside Sachsen-Anhalt (in German), did anyone really give a damn? Yes, some did!

Four years after the Grenfell Tower fire, rapper and activist Lowkey revisits the tragic fire that tore through the North Kensington tower block on June 14, 2017—killing 72 low-income residents of housing owned by real-estate moguls.

The 149 proposals issued by the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate last June, with the goal of achieving at least a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 compared to 1990, manifestly belong to a thoroughly reformist approach.

Just hours ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, the military bloc’s secretary general, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that NATO will continue to expand its military capabilities but will not “mirror” its arch-adversary Russia.

Since the October Revolution, Marxism has experienced almost as many crises as capitalism itself. Meltdowns of capitalism usually come as little surprise to savvy Marxist theorists but economic crises are one thing; economic crisis plus a global pandemic is something else again, beyond an everyday capitalist norm, more akin to the political-economy of wartime. Pandemic, like war, threatens not only life and limb, but also solidarity and tender acts of human togetherness.

More than 100 years after her murder by counterrevolutionary soldiers during the German Revolution of 1918-1919, Rosa Luxemburg continues to demand attention.