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Making Sense of the Turkish Elections through a Marxist Lens: an Interview with Cihan Tuğal

LeftEast is grateful to Eylem Taylan and H. Deniz Sert who conducted this interview and to its subject, Cihan Tuğal for letting us translate the original Turkish text that they published at İlerihaber.org. The May 14 and 28 elections in Turkey resulted in the continuation of the Erdoğan regime even though almost half of the […]

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War at Home, War in the World

Refugees, Racism, and the Turkish Ideology Villagers in the Turkish province of Konya murdered a whole family of Kurdish farmers on Friday, July 30. It was a premeditated massacre that announced itself well ahead of time to anyone willing to notice. Neighbors in the farming village of Hasanköy in central Anatolia had assaulted the Dedeoğulları family of […]

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(Post)pandemic Struggles in Social Reproduction: Women & Migrants Maintaining Life during Pandemic in Turkey

Note of the LeftEast editors: The present text, which we co-publish together with TSS is part of a series of publications and webinars on the topics of social reproduction, (women’s) labour and migration in East-Central Europe and beyond. The video from the first webinar Responses to Covid19 and (post)pandemic: social reproduction, migrants and women in Central/Eastern Europe and beyond, […]

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[PODCAST]: Academic Freedom under Threat in Turkey and the Trials of Academics for Peace

Note from the LeftEast editors: We reprint here with the producers’ permission the first episode of a new CEU podcast series on Attacks on Academic Freedom in Turkey and around the World. It is dedicated to Academics for Peace in Turkey, who have been facing trials for saying “We will not be a party to […]

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The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump’s Withdrawal

This article was originally published in CrimetheInc. on Dec. 28, 2018. Following Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he is withdrawing US troops from Syria, we’ve received the following message from an anarchist in Rojava, spelling out what this means for the region and what the stakes are on a global scale. For background, consult our […]

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Turkey: Voting under the State of Emergency

In Turkey, the government of the nationalist-religious Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP) called early presidential and parliamentary elections for the 24 June. It was aware that its electoral base is gradually eroding, particularly in the big metropolitan areas like Istanbul. Therefore, it did everything in order to enhance the chances of being […]

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A Disharmony of Powers: Five more years of Erdoğan?

This article originally appeared on N+1mag and was penned by an anonymous author. SUAVE AND SYMPATHETIC, Beyazıt Öztürk is known for making even his most troublesome guests feel at home. The veteran comedian was in the middle of his call-in talk show, the most popular program on Turkish TV, when he received an unexpected call. […]

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Hunger for Justice: Nuriye Gülmen against the Turkish State (an Interview)

Note from the LeftEast editors: In one of the most dramatic cases of resistance against the Turkish state’s massive purges of the educational sector, Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça have been on hunger strike for 110 days (as of Tuesday, June 27th), ingesting only small sugar cubes and drinking water and herbal tea. On the seventy-sixth […]

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First Reactions to the Constitutional Referendum in Turkey: No, It’s Not Over Yet

Last Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan finally got the main item that has been driving his political agenda for the last several years: a majority (51.4%) in a popular referendum to legitimate his de facto executive presidency. Or did he? LeftEast asked Zeynep Serinkaya, Onur Bakiner, and Işık Sarıhan about how this victory was “achieved,” what its consequences will be, […]

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The Freedom to Say “No”: Interview with dismissed Turkish academic and Yeniyol editor Uraz Aydin

Note from the LeftEast editors: For the last several months in Turkish politics, the party-state’s agenda has been dominated by two interconnected operations: consolidation of power and elimination of opposition. The former will culminate in the constitutional referendum of April 16 this year, which will, if successful, transform Turkey from a parliamentary into a presidential […]