The Syrian uprising has divided the international Left between those
who support Assad and those who support the Syrian
opposition, while muting the voices of Syrians whose realities
force them to reject simple binaries.
How did the struggle for Palestine gain such prominence on the left? The answer might tell us something about broader patterns of thought in left-wing politics today.
The
recent attacks in Paris were the latest round in a conflict of
violence, not of “values”. The primary perpetrators of this violence are western states, with Islamist terrorism representing an
inevitable blowback.
We must support the people of Kobane in their fight against ISIS and Turkey's plans to install a buffer zone, both of which are plots to assassinate the democratic project in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan).
The unravelling of Iraqi society set the context for the emergence of the Islamic State-led insurgency in Iraq. But the role played by IS is a byproduct of the flows of
capital and ideology in a much
wider theatre of power.
Examining the history of colonialism suggests that Israel today is more analogous to apartheid South Africa or French Algeria than to its settler state counterparts the United States or Australia.
The roots of the
most recent crisis in Iraq can be traced to the US-led invasion of 2003 and western
meddling in Syria. At stake, is the neoliberal blueprint of post-invasion Iraq,
now defended in an effort coordinated between the Baghdad government and its western
backers.
Kurdish nationalism in Iraqi-Kurdistan has been transformed from an ideology that strengthened resistance to the Iraqi Baathist dictatorship to a tool now being employed to help build shopping malls.
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