Middle East 4 ChangeStruggles in Iran – Another response
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
We published a letter we received from comrades Iman Ganji and Jose Rosales on the current strikes in Iran. We asked them how these strikes related to the…
Petrochemical workers in Iran strike over pay and conditions
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
Jean Shaoul Petrochemical workers across Iran have been waging strikes since June 19 to demand higher pay, the payment of back wages, the elimination of intermediary contractors and…
Ghosts in the Land
Friday, May 28, 2021
Adam Shatz on the war in Israel-Palestine On 21 May Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire after eleven days of fighting, but the days of ‘quiet’ – as the New…
Stench of Zionist colonialism
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Moshé Machover The Zionist colonisation regime spreads a nauseating stench – literally. I am referring to an Israeli invention, appropriately named ‘Skunk’ and described as a “non-lethal weapon…
Two Poems of Palestine by Rafeef Ziadeh
Monday, May 17, 2021
Her poem ‘We Teach Life, Sir’ – an impassioned attack on media misrepresentation of the Palestinian cause – went viral within days of its release. We teach life,…
Why Israel won’t win in Gaza
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Maureen Clare Murphy Palestinian armed groups made good on their threats to strike Tel Aviv with unprecedented fire after Israel leveled a residential tower in Gaza on Tuesday….
A Bit of Hope That Doesn’t Come from Miami
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Vijay Prashad After twenty years, the United States government – and the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – will depart from Afghanistan. They said that…
Quick Thoughts: Nazan Üstündağ on the Protests at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Nazan Üstündağ Academics and students at Boğaziçi University responded with protest when President Erdoğan appointed Melih Bulu as the new rectorate. The protests of students were repressed violently…
Poems by Mohammad Mokhtari
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Iranian writer, poet and left-wing activist, he was an active member of the Iranian Writers Association. He was murdered during the chain of extrajudicial murders of progressive intellectuals…
The limits of guerillaism: interview with Mohammad Reza Shalguni
Monday, February 8, 2021
Mohamad Reza Shalgouni was a founder-member of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar). He spoke to Yassamine Mather about his strategic reassessment as a prisoner…
After ISIS
Friday, February 5, 2021
Patrick Cockburn Alend Shoresh is a Kurdish farmer and teacher from north-east Syria who was conscripted into fighting Islamic State in 2018: he joined the Syrian Democratic Forces…
Letter from Palestinian Woman Prisoner, Khalida Jarrar
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Khalida Jarrar is a feminist, human rights activist and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. She lives in Ramallah, but has been held by Israel in administrative…
Fearing the Palestinian Narrative: Why Israel Banned ‘Jenin Jenin’
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Ramzy Baroud On January 11, the Israeli Lod District Court ruled against a Palestinian film-maker, Mahmoud Bakri, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who…
Iran: Three waves of urban protest, 1992-2019
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Ardeshir Mehrdad Since the beginning of the 1990s, Iranian society has witnessed successive waves of protest movements. One could argue that it has been in a perpetual state…
Iran: Three waves of urban protest (Farsi)
Friday, January 1, 2021
Ardeshir Mehrdad ME4Change summary of the article: The author analyses the three large waves of urban protests in Iran over the last three decades. The three waves differ…
The House of Zion
Monday, December 28, 2020
Perry Anderson Since the turn of the century, the Arab states have come to constitute a zone for Western military intervention without parallel in the post-Cold War world—us…
The Hirak: Algerian Uprisings of 2019 – Essential reading
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Muriam Haleh Davis, Thomas Serres, and the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) This collection of texts in English, Arabic and French is a first attempt to gather…
Can social movements democratise democracy?
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Lessons from the Yellow Vests movement in France Maxime Combes “Democracy is not about Saturday afternoons”, French president Emmanuel Macron said, speaking about the Yellow Vests movement (YVM)…
The Prison Cell: poem by Mahmoud Darwish
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
It is possible…It is possible at least sometimes…It is possible especially nowTo ride a horseInside a prison cellAnd run away… It is possible for prison wallsTo disappear,For the…
More than ever, the struggle for justice unites the Middle East and the world
Monday, November 16, 2020
Jade Saab “A spectre is haunting Europe…” This is how Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels opened their Communist Manifesto, written on the eve of several uprisings on the continent…
Iranian writers Association and PEN protest at imprisonment of writers and repression in Iran.
Friday, November 6, 2020
The protest by the Iranian Writers Association in Exile and Iranian PEN Association in Exile against the arrest and long prison sentence by the Islamic Republic on three…
One Year after the Lebanese Protests
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Julia Kassem A year after Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned amidst anti-government protests that sparked out of IMF austerity measures, the Lebanese government surprisingly is renewing talks…
With love and fury: the Syrian writers proving there’s more than one war story: Book Review
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Robin Yassin-Kassab “Syrians. I hated the deceptive simplicity of that word. We were twenty-three million people. Soldiers and fighters. Revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. The torturer and the victim. How…
One year on, has Iraq’s anti-government protest movement changed the country?
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Alex MacDonald In the year since Iraqis took to the streets en masse to protest against unemployment, corruption, foreign interference and a creaking political system, the country has…
Digital Democracy: The Tools Transforming Political Engagement
Monday, September 21, 2020
Julie Simon, Theo Bass, Victoria Boelman, Geoff Mulgan This paper shares lessons from Nesta’s research into some of the pioneering innovations in digital democracy which are taking place…
Death by Stoning: Poem by Ziba Karbassi
Sunday, September 13, 2020
translated by Stephen Watts and Ziba Karbassi little morning starare you here withyour star-gaze gone?little wrenare you staying in the busheswhen you go to the skies?little silver coinare…
The Renewal of the Socialist Ideal
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
John Bellamy Foster Any serious treatment of the renewal of socialism today must begin with capitalism’s creative destruction of the bases of all social existence. Since the late…
Some reflections on Occupied Iraq
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Mike Phipps I Introduction Iraq is back in the news again, partly due to the airing of a five-part BBC documentary. Once Upon a Time in Iraq has…
‘Music is our only weapon’: Middle Eastern artists fight oppression with new ‘peace album’
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Bell Trew One of the songs was recorded during an air strike, parts of another by a fleeing refugee aboard a boat. The man behind the album is…
Lebanon: Past weighs heavy on present
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Yassamine Mather Less than a week after the massive port explosion that cost more than 200 lives, the entire Lebanese government resigned. Of course, long before that, serious…