Identity and entity The reduction of current struggles in Lebanon and Syria in particular, and across the Middle East in general, to purely abstract nationalistic, sectarian and “identitarian” dimensions is one of the dominating features of the analytical and methodical… Continue Reading
Before his sudden death in October 2014 at the age of 34, Lebanese revolutionary socialist Bassem Chit fired the first salvo in what he hoped would be a far reaching debate on the problems of the left exposed by the… Continue Reading
On 9 November 2014 Palestinian activists in villages near Jerusalem made a symbolic breach in Israel’s apartheid wall, their way of marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.1 The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees said: “No matter… Continue Reading
Four years after the Arab revolutions of 2011 the hopes that the uprisings kindled seem to have been all but extinguished. Libya, Syria and Iraq present grim variations on the theme of “failed states”.1 Meanwhile, a United States-led military coalition… Continue Reading
Republic Day is celebrated with great pomp and outpourings of state-sponsored nationalism in Turkey every 29 October. Moscow-style military parades, boy scouts and girl guides and school delegations carrying huge Turkish flags used to roam through all the country’s cities… Continue Reading
The emergence of so-called populist parties as a response to increasingly discredited political elites is a European-wide phenomenon. In most cases these parties have emerged on the right, if not the far-right. Not so in the Spanish state where Podemos,… Continue Reading
Antonio Gramsci writes: The “normal” exercise of hegemony on what has become the classic terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterised by the combination of force and consent that balance each other in various ways, without force violating consent too… Continue Reading
The Umbrella Movement, which involves every walk of life in Hong Kong, is entirely different from Hong Kong’s previous mass protests in the past few decades. This is due to its unprecedented methods of struggle, massive disruption of public order,… Continue Reading
The most recent issue of Socialism and Democracy celebrates the 150th anniversary of The First International. Marcello Musto recalls the history of the International and Patrick Bond traces the history of and barriers to working class internationalism in South Africa… Continue Reading
A W Zurbrugg (ed) Not Our War: Writings against the First World War (Merlin, 2014), £12.95 Not our War is the perfect antidote to renewed attempts by the spokespersons of the ruling class such as Michael Gove and Jeremy Paxman… Continue Reading