Middle East 4 ChangeTurkey: The struggle Continues
Monday, March 26, 2018
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker number 1195, March 22 , 2018. After the surrender of Afrin, Esen Uslu says that the Turkish left and Kurdish movement must…
Turkey: conflicts on many fronts
Monday, March 12, 2018
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker, number 1193, March 8, 2018. Despite the popularity of Turkish actions in Syria, Cyprus and the Aegean, the ruling AKP is forced…
In Spain, Women Launch Nationwide Feminist Strike Protesting “Alliance of Patriarchy & Capitalism”
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Amy Goodman and Maria Carrion Posted on Democracy Now on March 8, 2018. In Spain, women have launched the first nationwide women’s strike in Spain’s history to mark…
ID card and the Dice Player: Two Poems by Mahmoud Darwish
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Mahmoud Darwish Posted on Resistance Words on June 15, 2017. Last year, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman called his poems “fuel for terror attacks”. By that, he meant…
The Wounds of Afrin, the Promise of Rojava: an Interview with Nazan Üstündağ
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Nazan Üstündağ. Posted LeftEast Februry 14, 2018. LeftEast interviewed sociologist and feminist Nazan Üstündağ on Afrin, Rojava and the social stakes of the resistance to Turkey’s current military…
Hejab, Islamic totalitarianism and the opposition in Iran
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Jaleh Ahmadi. This article was first published in Iran Bulletin-Middle East Forum number 1, 2004. We are posting it in Middleast4Change because of its relevance in the current…
Iran: Observation on the protests of December 2018: Part 2, Prospects and Pitfalls
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Ardeshir Mehrdad. Part 1 of this article discussed what features distinguished the latest wave of protests from all previous ones. In Part 2 we discuss its actual…
How Iran uses a compulsory hijab law to control its citizens – and why they are protesting
Friday, February 9, 2018
Moujan Mirdamadi. Posted on The Conversation February 9, 2018. Protests against Iran’s mandatory hijab law – which requires all women to wear it in public – have sprung…
Showdown in Afrin: Turkey’s Attack on Syria’s Kurds Threatens That Country’s Most Democratic, Pluralist Force
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Meredith Tax. Posted on the Nation 26th January 2018. The Kurds have said they will fight to the death before they give up an inch of Afrin. Last…
How the Mass Media Misread the Iranian Protests
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Rahman Bouzari. Posted on Counterpunch on January 24, 2018. One of the largest social and political uprisings since the 1979 revolution in Iran has died down for now….
The next Kurdish war is on the horizon – Turkey and Syria will never allow it to create a mini-state
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Robert Fisk. Posted on the Independent January 22, 2018. Syria cannot countenance Kurdish presence on its territory and Turkey cannot tolerate a Kurdish enclave along its southern…
Shifting Relations Between Turkey and the U.S. and the State of the Turkish Left
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Foti Benlisoy. Posted on Left Voice on January 4, 2018. Foti Benlisoy describes the rising authoritarianism in Turkey after the 2017 referendum, the role of Turkey in the…
What’s behind the protests in Iran and what can you do?
Monday, January 8, 2018
Owen Tudor. Posted by the Trade Union Congress of UK on January 2, 2108. Over the New Year, a wave of protests has erupted in Iran, as people…
A Looming Crisis for Turkey’s President
Friday, December 22, 2017
Conn Hallinan. Posted on Znet on December 21, 2017. Viewed one way, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks unassailable: He weathered last year’s coup attempt, jailed more than…
Last ditch democracy
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Karam Hilo. Posted on Al Jadalyyah and Qantara.de 2017. In this essay, Lebanese journalist Karam Hilo asks whether it is possible to apply the Western concept of democracy…
The Ossington Circle Episode 16: The Destruction of Syria and Solidarity with Max Ajl
Friday, December 8, 2017
Max Ajl and Justine Podur. Interview transcript posted on podur.org on April 29, 2017. In this episode of The Ossington Circle, academic, activist, and editor at Jadaliyya Max…
How Israeli leftists trivialize the Palestinian cause
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Zena Tahhan. Posted on +972 on November 28, 2017. Ask any Palestinian on the street and they will tell you that the 1948 territories—those areas that now make…
On the Concatenation in the Arab World: Editorial in New Left Review
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Perry Anderson Published in New Left Review March-April 2011 The Arab revolt of 2011 belongs to a rare class of historical events: a concatenation of political upheavals, one…
The Long Ecological Revolution
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
John Bellamy Foster. Posted on Monthly Review, Volume 69, Issue 06 , November 2017. Aside from the stipulation that nature follows certain laws, no idea was more central…
Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy
Friday, November 3, 2017
Dalia Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi. Book review: Posted on Jadalyya on October 20, 2017. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Daanish Faruqi (DF): As preface, it’s…
Revolution without revolutionaries: Asef Bayat
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Asef Bayat Posted by Stanford University Press: excepts from chapter one Revolutions of Wrong Times ……… Novel Revolutions? Why did the revolutions of 2011 turn out to be…
Israel deepens apartheid with proposed new measures
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Lisa Gleeson. Posted on Green Left October 14, 2107 A member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) for the ruling Likud party, Anat Berko has presented Prime Minister Benjamin…
Does the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan fulfill with the right to self-determination?
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Hedayat Soltanzadeh The following is an abridged translation of an article that has been published on several Farsi language sites. It was written on the eve of the…
Political power and dissent in post-revolutionary societies
Friday, October 13, 2017
István Mészáros. Posted on Monthly Review on line on October 11, 2017 Originally published: Verso (October 6, 2017) We were saddened to learn of the death of István Mészáros…
Spike in Labour Protest in Iran is Changing the Political Milieu
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Posted on Zamaeh Media September 29, 2017. In the past weeks labor protests and strikes have increased across Iran with workers speaking out against layoffs and nonpayment of…
Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1917–2017
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
John Bellamy Foster. Posted on Monthly Review Volume 69, Issue 03 (July-August 2017) . The Russian Revolution of 1917 erupted on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of…
Labor and Class in Iran: An Interview with Mohammad Maljoo
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Paola Rivetti. Published by MERIP on May 26, 2017. Mohammad Maljoo is a Tehran-based economist researching labor issues and the transformation of capital-labor relations in post-revolutionary Iran. Widely…
Sketching war: the writer who depicts Middle East conflict – in watercolour
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Kilian Fox Posted on The Guardian/Observer on September 10, 2017 Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s drawings have helped him cope with reporting from the frontline. Now they will illustrate…
The Saudi Arabian Trillions
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Malise Ruthven. Published on London Review of Books volume 39, no 17, September 7, 2017. It made perfect sense that the first port of call on President Trump’s…
Afghanistan: As US Empire Fails, Trump Enters a Quagmire
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Kevin Zeese. First published by Counterpunch on August 29, 2017. A quagmire is defined as a complex or unpleasant position that is difficult to escape. President Trump’s recently announced…