The Serbian Left’s Next Move

After Aleksandar Vučić’s questionable election victory, Serbian radicals have a rare opening.

by Pavle Ilić*

2107 04 20 04 dole diktaturaLike most recent elections, this spring’s presidential campaign in Serbia has been anything but boring. Acting Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić’s overwhelming first-round victory — with 55.07 percent of the vote based on 99 percent counted — seemed to prove that the election had been rigged. Serbians immediately took to the streets, expressing their dissatisfaction with the nation’s undemocratic turn and their rage at living conditions that have been falling since the global economic crisis.

Serbie: un mouvement inédit de protestation menace l’«autocrate» Vučić

Par Jean-Arnault Dérens et Philippe Bertinchamps (Mediapart)

2017 04 11 05 necemo da budemo jeftina radna snagaDepuis une semaine, le mouvement de protestation ne cesse de s’étendre, prenant une ampleur jamais vue depuis la chute de Milosevic en 2000. Chaque soir, des dizaines de milliers de Serbes manifestent dans toutes les villes du pays contre la « dictature » d’Aleksandar Vučić, le premier ministre élu président de la République dimanche 2 avril.

De nos envoyés spéciaux à Belgrade (Serbie).-  « À bas l’autocratie ! », « Aller à la manif, c’est mieux qu’aller en boîte », « Non à la dictature du capital ! », « Je ne veux pas de café, je veux une manif », « Les manips ne passent plus », « Je ne veux pas de Vučić, je ne veux pas du FMI, je ne veux pas de l’OTAN »… Les slogans fleurissent par centaines, drôles, décalés ou radicaux, souvent reproduits à l’imprimante sur des feuilles A4 et brandis par les manifestants qui se donnent rendez-vous chaque soir dans toutes les villes de Serbie.

Présidentielle 2017 :

l’élection de toutes les surprises ? –

« La clé est dans l’ampleur du vote Mélenchon »

par MARTELLI Roger

2017 04 11 01 picture01Jusqu’à ce jour, les péripéties de l’élection présidentielle auront déjoué tous les pronostics. Ce signe de crise politique intense peut-il ouvrir sur de nouveaux enfermements ou sur une nouvelle espérance ? Les deux prochaines semaines seront cruciales.

Dans un article précédent, nous avions évoqué le constat d’une crise politique. Il n’est pas infirmé par les derniers sondages [1]. Pour l’instant, deux tiers des individus interrogés se disent certains d’aller voter (l’abstention, le 22 avril 2012 était de 20,5%). Et sur ceux qui affirment qu’ils iront sûrement voter, moins des deux tiers considèrent que leur choix est définitif. Ajoutons que près de 40% (Ipsos) disent que leur choix de tel ou tel candidat ne se fait pas par adhésion, mais par défaut.

Il n’y a donc rien d’étonnant à ce que la dispersion des intentions de vote soit toujours aussi grande. Aucun candidat retenu par les sondés ne dépasse le quart des suffrages exprimés. Extrême droite, droite « classique », centre et gauche se partagent l’électorat de façon presqu’équivalente.

French presidential election: factory worker Poutou emerges as star of TV debate

by WILLSHER Kim

2017 04 11 03 picture03The 11 presidential candidates faced off in a live televised debate, with anti-capitalist Poutou goading rivals over their integrity. A little-known candidate emerged as the star of the televised French presidential debate after challenging two of the frontrunners over their honesty and implication in fraud scandals.

The militant Philippe Poutou, of the New Anti-capitalist party, weighed into the far-right favourite, Marine Le Pen, and conservative François Fillon, who are both under investigation for misuse of public funds.

Release of Arctic Methane "May Be Apocalyptic," Study Warn

By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

2017 03 24 01 Arctic MethaneOn a lake, plumes of gas, most likely methane from the breakdown of carbon in sediments below the lake, keep the water from freezing in spots, outside Fairbanks, Alaska, October 21, 2011. As the Arctic warms, the threat of abrupt methane releases is rising, too. (Photo: Josh Haner / The New York Times)

A scientific study published in the prestigious journal Palaeoworld in December issued a dire -- and possibly prophetic -- warning, though it garnered little attention in the media.

"Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic," reads the study's abstract. "But the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic."

The Dutch elections: Very little reason to celebrate

by Mathijs van de Sande

2017 03 20 01 Dutch electionsThis is ridiculous. Avaaz is circulating a petition to thank the "Dutch people" (whoever that may be) for "choosing hope, unity, and dialogue over hate, fear and old fascist rhetoric." They even claim that, "by rejecting Geert Wilders you've helped stop the rise of the far right everywhere." More generally, the coverage of these elections in the international press has been a complete disaster.

Amériques latines, entre reflux des progressismes et expériences alternatives

par Franck Gaudichaud

2017 03 14 01 Franck GaudichaudLes retours revanchards de néolibéraux aux gouvernements de certains pays d’Amériques latines remettent-ils en question les expériences d’émancipation des dernières décennies ? Les réalités sont plus complexes, nous dit Franck Gaudichaud.

Franck Gaudichaud est maître de conférences en histoire et civilisation de l’Amérique Latine à l’Université Grenoble-Alpes et co-président de France Amérique Latine. Dernier ouvrage paru en français : Chili 1970-1973. Mille jours qui firent trembler le monde, PUR, 2013.

In Britain, after byelections in Stoke and Copeland:

Don’t blame Corbyn for the sins of Blair, Brown and New Labour

By Ken Loach

2017 03 08 02 Ken LoachIn the parts of Britain that have been left to rot, people support Jeremy Corbyn’s policies. So why aren’t MPs promoting them?

The spate of calls for Jeremy Corbyn to quit since last week’s byelections in Stoke and Copeland has been as predictable as it was premeditated. It says everything about the political agenda of the media, and nothing about people’s real needs and experiences.

I went to Stoke and Whitehaven, in Cumbria, a few days before polling. Momentum arranged screenings of Daniel Blake [1]. We went to Labour clubs in neglected areas, old estates away from the centre. At one club I was asked: “Why have you come here? No one comes here.”

« Pour une critique de la violence » de Walter Benjamin – Histoire, droit, violence, État

2000, par BENSAÏD Daniel

2017 03 01 01 BENSAID DanielVoici rassemblés divers essais de Walter Benjamin, parmi lesquels, le douloureux Franz Kafka, mélancolique étoile jumelle. Avec Kafka, Benjamin partage en effet cet « étrange mal de mer sur la terre ferme », de celui qui ne pourra jamais jeter l’ancre, condamné à errer entre deux langues, entre deux mondes, dans une Europe des Lumières en pleine déroute. Ni l’un ni l’autre ne pourront entreprendre le retour identitaire en Palestine, où déjà se profilent les nouvelles idoles de la raison d’État, et Kafka se fracassera sur ses invisibles frontières intimes. Benjamin viendra s’écraser sur le passage muré des Pyrénées, comme incapable de s’arracher à une vieille culture en train de s’effondrer.

Tras Vistalegre II

Podemos: Avon Barksdale se impuso a Stringer Bell

por Josep Maria Antentas

2017 02 17 01 podemos“...ellos no comprenden la utilidad inmensa de la diversidad de las doctrinas. Cada matiz, cada escuela tiene su misión a cumplir, su parte a jugar en el gran drama revolucionario y si esta multiplicidad de sistemas os pareciera funesto, usted desconocería la más irrecusable de las verdades: ’La luz solamente surge de la discusión’.”

August Blanqui, Carta a Maillard (Belle-Île, 6 junio de 1852)

 Grèce: l’effondrement à bas bruit de tout un pays

 Par Martine Orange (Mediapart)*

2017 02 02 01 martine orangeLa crise grecque est toujours là. Les responsables européens et le FMI ont lancé un nouvel ultimatum à Alexis Tsipras. Il a trois semaines pour présenter de nouvelles mesures d’austérité. Épuisé, le pays est au bord de l’effondrement financier, économique et moral. Des responsables de Syriza parlent de sortir de l’euro.

Après avoir repoussé l’idée pendant plus de deux ans, Syriza semble prêt à penser l’impensable : sortir de la zone euro. Même si les responsables gouvernementaux n’en parlent pas ouvertement, des figures éminentes du parti de gauche en évoquent publiquement l’hypothèse. Pour l’ancien ministre des affaires européennes de Syriza, Nikos Xydakis, la question de la sortie de l’euro, en tout cas, ne doit plus être considérée comme « taboue ». « Il ne doit pas y avoir de tabou quand nous parlons du destin de la nation. Nous sommes arrivés au point où le peuple est au bout de son endurance. Je crois que nous avons besoin d’une discussion politique nationale en profondeur. Et cette discussion, naturellement, a besoin de commencer au parlement », a-t-il déclaré mardi 31 janvier.

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)

by Sean Jacobs

2017 01 31 01 Patrice Lumumba56 years ago today, Congolese prime minister and anticolonial leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated.

Patrice Lumumba was prime minister of a newly independent Congo for only seven months between 1960 and 1961 before he was murdered, fifty-six years ago today. He was thirty-six.

Yet Lumumba’s short political life — as with figures like Thomas Sankara and Steve Biko, who had equally short lives — is still a touchstone for debates about what is politically possible in postcolonial Africa, the role of charismatic leaders, and the fate of progressive politics elsewhere.

Secret IMF Documents on Greece commented by Eric Toussaint (CADTM)

by Eric Toussaint, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

2017 01 16 01 Secret IMF DocumentsThe CADTM draws attention to two IMF documents dating from March and May 2010 that were kept secret. These authentic documents were placed at the disposal of the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt by Zoe Konstantopoulou, the President of the Hellenic Parliament in office from 6 February to 3 October 2015.

"To persuade the IMF, the French, German and Dutch executive directors lied" Their contents are damning. They clearly show that a large number of IMF Executive Board members expressed severe criticism of the programme the Institution was preparing to implement. Some of them denounced the fact that the programme was aimed at rescuing the private European banks – mainly certain major French and German banks— who were creditors of Greek debt, both public and private. Several of them denounced the selfsame policies that had led to the Asian crisis of 1996-1997 and the Argentine crisis in 2001.

Anger: To “leftist” admirers of Assad’s Syria

by MARDAM-BEY Farouk

2017 01 13 01 MARDAM BEY FaroukAs a Syrian who has always identified politically with the left, I am particularly appalled by those men and women who call themselves left-wingers — and are therefore supposed to stand in solidarity with struggles for justice worldwide — and yet openly support the regime of the Assads, father and son, who are chiefly responsible for the Syrian disaster.

Following four months of intense bombardment by the Russian air force, Bashar Al-Assad’s army, along with Shiite militias hailing from everywhere and mobilized by the Iranian mullahs, have now finished ‘liberating’ Eastern Aleppo. Liberated from whom? From its inhabitants. More than 250,000 inhabitants were forced to flee their own city to escape massacres, as had the people of Zabadani and Daraya before them, and as will many more Syrians if systematic social and sectarian ‘cleansing’ continues in their country under the cover of a massive media disinformation campaign.

Grèce : démocratie introuvable !

par Yorgos Mitralias

2017 01 07 01 never mind democracy EUEn matière de déni de démocratie, il y a eu évidemment l’illustre précédent du résultat, jamais respecté, du referendum français de 2005 sur la constitution européenne. Mais quand même, ce qui s’est passé en Grèce en ce funeste mois de juillet 2015 n’a pas son pareil dans l’histoire de l’Europe (anti)démocratique. Jugez-en vous-même…

La foule en délire devant le Parlement grec était en train de fêter l’écrasante victoire du Non à l’austérité, aux memoranda et à la Troïka, quand, à deux pas de là, celui qui était alors ministre des Finances, Yanis Varoufakis, entrait dans le Palais Maximou et… restait figé, bouche bée : le noyau dirigeant de ses collègues, le Premier ministre Tsipras en tête, offrait un spectacle à l’opposé de la liesse populaire de la place Syntagma. Tête baissée et répétant « et maintenant, qu’est-ce qu’on fait ? », les ministres du gouvernement de la « gauche radicale » (Syriza) semblaient désespérés et abattus par la victoire du Non. Un Non qu’ils avaient tant souhaité en public durant toute la semaine précédente ! |1|

You've Been Warned

Hamilton Nolan

2017 01 03 01 TrumpIf the very worst happens, it won’t be because we didn’t know that it might happen. We have all been amply warned.

- We’ve been warned of the many disturbing parallels between Donald Trump and Hitler.

- We’ve been warned that the rise of Trump resembles the rise of other authoritarian populist demagogues.

- We’ve been warned—by Donald Trump himself—that he plans to implement incredibly broad rules blocking Muslims from entering America, and that he views a Muslim registry or “watch list” as a wise idea.

The Only Way to Stop Climate Change Now May Be Revolution

2017 01 01 01 James HansenFed up with slow (or in some cases, backwards) progress on climate change, environmental advocates are mulling desperate measures. Emerging at the head of this pack is arguably the world’s most prominent climate scientist: James Hansen, a former NASA researcher turned activist.

So it’s come to this.

Last year, a researcher presented a paper on climate change at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting entitled ”Is Earth F**ked?” which advocated “environmental direct action, resistance taken from outside the dominant culture, as in protests, blockades and sabotage by indigenous peoples, workers, anarchists and other activist groups.”

Banks are responsible for the crisis in Greece

Debts claimed from Greece are odious

9 January by Eric Toussaint

2016 12 28 00 ericThe present study shows that the Greek crisis that broke out in 2010 originated in private banks, not in excessive public spending. The so-called bail-out was designed to serve the interests of private bankers and those of dominant countries in the Eurozone. Greece adopting the euro played a major role among the various factors that contributed to the crisis. The analysis developed here was first presented in Athens on 6 November 2016 during a meeting of the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt.

At first sight, between 1996 and 2008, the development of Greece’s economy looked like a success story! The integration of Greece within the EU and from 2001 on within the Eurozone seemed successful. The rate of Greece’s economic growth was higher than that of the stronger economies in Europe.

2011-2016: The Sixth Anniversary of the Start of the Arab Uprisings 

“No one should mourn the old order as if it was a dream rather than a nightmare”

by ACHCAR Gilbert

2016 12 22 01 ACHCAR GilbertSix years ago, on 17 December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi did not know that by this extreme form of protest, he was setting not only himself or his town on fire, nor his province or even his Tunisian homeland alone, but the whole Arab region. Indeed, his protest inspired millions of others—“from the Ocean to the Gulf” as the saying went in the heyday of Arab nationalism—to protest their regimes and the status quo.

The tragedy is that this wave of protests did not bring the renewal that was promised by the branding phrase “Arab Spring,” but rather what followed were more of the old calamities, aggravated to a frightening degree in some cases. It is necessary therefore to emphasize two crucial issues regarding the sad condition under which we commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Arab uprisings.

2011-2013-2016. New Texts Out Now

“Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising”

by ACHCAR Gilbert

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

2016 12 22 02 ACHCAR Gilbert2Gilbert Achcar (GA): Two reasons: one general and one practical. The general reason is the need to assess the new counter-revolutionary phase in the Arab upheaval, which started in 2013. Since early on, I have been describing what began in December 2010 in Tunisia and spread to the whole Arab-speaking region in 2011 as a “long-term revolutionary process” that will necessarily go through a succession of contrasting phases. My previous book, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising—which came out in 2013 and was kindly reviewed by Maha Abdelrahman for Jadaliyya—analyzed the economic, social and political roots of the regional upheaval and its dynamics, along with an assessment of its first two years. Morbid Symptoms is a sequel to The People Want, assessing the reactionary phase that has been unfolding since the turning point of 2013.