How much do we Eastern Europeans know about each other? What kind of information can we acquire about each others’ local context? Where is this information produced, in what language and based on what political views and underlying ideologies?
Sarah Leonard is a journalist and editor of several left-leaning magazines and online magazines, which are becoming more and more common in the United States. Together with Bhaskar Sunkara, she edited a collection of essays entitled: “The Future We Want: Radical Ideas for the New Century”. We met Sarah in Belgrade last year on her journey through Southeast Europe, and we renewed the conversation during the past few months marked by the coronavirus pandemic.
The green-left coalition won 7 seats at the Croatian 151-seat parliament, surprising everybody. The turnout was less than 50%, the lowest ever in Croatia’s parliamentary election. The conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the biggest chunk of the electorate, while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) suffered a heavy blow to its position. Several right-wing parties won seats, too.
According to Luka Mesec, coordinator of the Slovenian party Levica (the Left) and Slovenian MP, the coronavirus pandemic exposed many of the capitalist system’s shortcomings, creating opportunities for left-wing politics. The pandemic has clearly shown that it is the workers, and not the managers, who ensure the functioning of our economies, emphasizes Mesec.
Arnaldo Otegi is the general coordinator of the Basque EH Bildu, which unites different sectors and parties of the left. The fourth guest of the series of talks “Meeting the Left” spoke about the revolutionary program minimum, the need for a different Europe and the need to cooperate more on the left.
In an interview within the “Meeting the Left” series Heinz Bierbaum, President of the European Left Party (EL), talked about the crisis of the socio-economic system and a strategic document newly adopted by his party.
The second guest in transform!’s series “Meeting the Left” was Katja Kipping, Co-Chairperson of the party Die LINKE. The conversation largely focussed on European politics.
Catarina Martins, Coordinator for the Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda) from Portugal, advocates forming of a European recovery fond weighing 1.5 billion €. The fund should be financed directly by the European Central Bank, stated Martins in an interview which was a part of the “Meeting the left” series.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). The CPY was the only relevant political factor in the fight against occupation and fascism because of its particular internal organisation, connections with local problems, experience in military and political organising during the Spanish Civil War, and practice of emancipatory social and political relations.
International Women’s Day was celebrated in Belgrade with a Protest march under slogans “Work, not famine – food, not weapons!” and “If women stop the whole world stops”.
The famous “historical NO” stems from a history of relations between FPR Yugoslavia and the USSR significantly more complex than the story of Tito’s shift towards the West.
In the Slovenian early parliamentary elections Levica (The Left) – aparty that stands for democratic eco-socialism – won almost double-digit shareof votes.
One of the most vocal promotors of leaving the Eurozone was Costas Lapavitsas, professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Mr. Lapavitsas is a prominent critic of the European financial system, and has been working on issues related to the theory of money over many years.
In the past couple of decades, Goli Otok has been frequented by anti-communists and revisionists. History of this island unquestionably represents one of the most prominent blots in Yugoslav socialism, but sensationalism and falsified data do not help in better understanding the matter.
