Month: June 2013

Just few months after the Bulgarians overturned the government of Boyko Borissov in February 2013, they are back in the streets in tens of thousands demanding the resignation of the new government. While this might look like the same wave of protests, there has been little continuity. The protests in February were an outburst of people suffering poverty and deprivation amidst the economic crisis. The protests happening over the last few weeks are rather caused by a moral panic and a deep crisis of political representation.

Luka Čuljak and Jasna Kovo

As this text is being written, as far as we know, a mass protest for June 18, 2013 is being organized. On June 13, 2013, Berina Hamidović, a three-month-old infant, died. She was a baby who did not have an ID number, and became a victim of the administration. Her death is symptomatic in every way, and unfortunately a confirmation, of the fact that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and ethno-nationalist politics are killing its children.

With its feet stuck in the wet mud of Kosovo Polje[1] and its head lost in the thick fog of Brussels, the government has been in soul-searching torment over the key question of our political life – what to do about Kosovo?

The source of all this torment is not, of course, difficult to locate. Trapped by its desperation to join the EU – its key strategy for ‘resolving’ Serbia’s debt crisis – our ruling class has been weeping tears of nationalist self-pity over the need to do a deal on Kosovo it will not like, in return for EU membership.

by Maria Hetman on Sunday, June 16, 2013

Thursday, June 6, 2013. An early summer day in Sarajevo, and the streets were filled with sound. Listening closer, it was not just the usual buzz of warm weather foot traffic and outdoor cafe crowds. Instead, there were whistles, drums, vuvuzelas, shouting, and a cacophony of car horns honking. A protest was taking place. That would have become evident to anyone hearing and seeing the mass of people and taxis occupying all sides of the Parliament that day.

Dear friends,

You are all probably aware of the recent events in Turkey. You might have wondered about the reasons and subtext of the recent and ongoing demonstrations. To address this, I’d like to try to write a summary of the events of the last few days from my point of view.

I am a mathematician; I try to be neutral when I am writing. However, while reading the following, please remember that I am a socialist, an internationalist and an atheist; This may have unintentionally affected my perceptions.

by Ed Sutton, Zurich

Text presented at the conference ” RECLAIMING THE COMMONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, Warsaw, 19-21 April 2013 ” organized by Res Publica Nowa and Occupy.com

As tensions continue to rise surrounding housing and right-to-the-city issues in Switzerland, one squat’s struggle was derailed at a critical moment by violence.  How the Schoch Family of Zurich’s Binz responded and what we can all learn from their equanimity

2 June 2013

After a disappointingly brief visit to the Binz complex on May 30th, the day before the threatened eviction of the squatters there, a friend of mine and I returned, a little shell-shocked, to his own much humbler squat elsewhere in Zurich. 

Although I have a degree in philosophy and I coordinate, alongside my colleagues, an online platform devoted to social critique, political and ideological analyses from a Leftist perspective, I am not a theorist. I am a writer and a product of the Communist and Postcommunist East (I lived in the USSR, Moldova and Romania), I keep a close watch on everything that happens in this area and I wholeheartedly participate in all the local undertakings.