The situation in the country has exacerbated to the point now it started threatening the social fabric and national sovereignty, which we and the national forces of democratic opposition sought to avoid compromising. However, the authority neglected the social fabric and national sovereignty and placed them in the field of conflict to reaffirm the […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
More Than Conquerors (Montserrat’s 50th — A Modest Proposal to the Tourist Board)
(For Justin Hero Cassell) I heard a foolish man say the other day that everything of interest on the island of Montserrat can be seen in two days. I kept my own counsel and did not talk of either his mother or his lineage. But the truth is this, friend: It takes a week at […]
“This Is a Cold Putsch Against the Constitution”
Bundestag Speech, 29 June 2012 Mr. President! Dear colleagues! “Billions in taxes have been squandered. Those who bear responsibility revealed themselves to be marionettes. The part of the puppet master was performed by just the type of managers recently spoken of in loftier terms: investment bankers.” What the Handelsblatt wrote about the nationalization of the […]
Debating Amnesty About Syria and Double Standards
I sent the following note to Amnesty on June 16 after it put out a detailed report on the conflict in Syria: Dear Amnesty In your most recent report on Syria you ask the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government. You ask for no such arms embargo on the […]
No Deutschland Über Alles — and No Bris
Germany suffered two losses last week and underwent one very intimate decision. Whether the latter was a win or a loss depends on your (point of) view — about male circumcision. Most important to most Germans was probably their hope to win the European soccer championship, held this year in Poland and the Ukraine. Germany […]
Interview with Ammar Waqqaf Regarding the Crisis in Syria
Ammar Waqqaf is an independent Syrian political analyst based in England. Q: Why do you think the western powers are so keen to see regime change in Syria? A: Western powers would be fools not to exploit such an opportunity to turn a key regional player from an opposing side into an allied one. Achieving […]
The World Seen from the South: Interview with Samir Amin
I would like to focus this interview on three distinct but related questions: your vision of the world and the possibilities of changing it; your conceptual and political proposal on the implosion of capitalism and delinking from it; your analysis of the global context, seen especially from Africa and the Middle East. What is your […]
Communist Parties Win 11 Seats in Syrian Parliamentary Elections
The first Syrian parliamentary elections under the new constitution, passed by 90% of voters in a referendum with 57% turnout, concluded in May with seat gains for Syria’s Communist Parties. The elections had a turnout of 51% (active duty military and police were ineligible) and voters elected 250 representatives from 16 geographic constituencies. The majority […]
Sectarianism Versus Ecumenism: The Case of V.I. Lenin
Was Lenin, as the standard interpretations would have it, a sectarian who sought to destroy all who disagreed with him? Or did he also display ecumenist tendencies alongside, or in tension with, his sectarian bent? Is there perhaps a deeper relation between sectarianism and ecumenism in his work? The material from the time, especially before […]
“SYRIZA Is Acting Responsibly”: Interview with Yanis Varoufakis
The German taxpayers should be happy to have SYRIZA in Greece, says economist Yanis Varoufakis in an interview. Greece is not unwilling to reform. ZEIT ONLINE: Mr. Varoufakis, the Greeks say they want to keep the euro but vote for SYRIZA and its leader Alexis Tsipras, whose plan could lead to an exit from the […]
Euro Exit? Interview with Economist Alberto Montero Soler
Alberto Montero Soler: First of all, I have to say that those effects would only manifest themselves in the medium term. To propose an exit from the euro as an immediate solution to the deterioration of living conditions of people would mean to deceive them. We are at a crossroads where peripheral economies can only […]
Against Eco-incarceration: Class Struggle and Indigenous Rights in India
Whereas once the primitive was our savage other, today the native is the bearer of an alternative future. In the late 1980s the Kayapo Chief Raoni, with his spectacular feathered headdress, accompanied the pop star Sting on concert tours to enlighten western audiences of the ecological disaster in the Amazon that came hand-in-hand with human […]
Germany’s Left Party Survives a Cliffhanger
The media were keen for a real wide split in the Left Party. In truth, a lot of the members feared the same. The long-standing quarrel between the two wings — often called the reformers versus the fundamentalists — had crippled activities in the party far too long. It seemed very possible that all the […]
Greece at a Crossroads: Crisis and Radicalization in the Southern European Semi-periphery
Introduction The Greek crisis represents the deepening of a long systemic contradiction whose origins lie in the 1960s, in the stagnation of monopoly capitalism and the emergence of the South. The industrial centers of the world economy were struck by a crisis of profitability, which was displaced outward in space and forward in time by […]
Always Occupy
And so I left Montserrat, a place of brief and merciful funerals. She does a good burial, Montserrat — the only place in the world where the barefoot gravedigger rules. He gets to choose the hymns sung, judge the quality of the choir’s voices, and keeps up a running conversation as he joyfully sets about […]
Can Germany’s Left Party Be Saved?
What is the matter with Germany’s Left Party? Or, more bluntly, can it be saved? What is the truth about the charismatic leader Oskar Lafontaine, from West German Saarland, who suddenly, surprisingly withdrew from the fight for party leadership? Is he really out of the running? And is that good or bad? What are the […]
Greek Election
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print
Democracy Imperiled: The Greek Political Crisis
Recent developments in Greece provide an acute illustration of the long-standing contradiction between capitalism and democracy. This contradiction has also been felt in Greece in the past, including in the history of military coups aimed at the repression of popular movements and at ensuring the country’s subordination to the wishes of the United States during […]
Impoverishing Europe
The crisis is not relinquishing its grip on Europe. From autumn 2008 to early 2009 the world market experienced the deepest slump in economic output since the Second World War. This is a global crisis. Even in emerging economies like China, Brazil, or India economic growth declined and could not compensate for the recession […]
Some Good News, and Lots of Bad News, from Germany
Here’s “good news” and “bad news” from Germany. The good news: the Christian Democratic Union of Angela Merkel took a real whipping in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia (usually abbreviated to NRW), the largest German state in terms of population. Her smiling, almost benign mien, with little bluster or braggadocio, disguises less and less her […]
