According to political scientist Dario Azzellini, the US attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro do not merely constitute a violation of international law, but its complete collapse. In an interview with Mašina, Azzellini explains why he sees this event as a symptom of a “dying empire,” and at the same time as a prelude to a new, dangerous phase of global conflict.
Mašina spoke with Palestinian writer Toufic Haddad ahead of his appearance at Palestine Day in Belgrade, which will take place on Sunday, June 22, at the Liberated Student Cultural Center (SKC) from 2 PM to 10 PM.
As the war in Ukraine continues, Russian citizens face mounting repression at home, forcing many into exile. Among them is a former theater professional, who, for safety reasons, has chosen to remain anonymous. She fled to Serbia after years of activism and aiding political prisoners. Her journey is a stark reminder of how fragile freedoms can be – and a quiet cautionary tale for Serbia, where concerns about shrinking civic space echo the early signs of authoritarianism she once faced in Russia.
“We see with this Rio Tinto story that the fight for raw materials gets bloodier”, states the art director of the Vienna Festival for Mašina.
“We aim to balance a Utopian vision of a radically different system with realistic steps to improve life”, state the LINKS candidates at the upcoming Austrian parliamentary elections.
The fact that Germany and EU are making “sacrifice zones” in the EU neighbouring countries is being exposed as a scandal by the climate movement in Germany, but isn’t discussed in the Bundestag, says Hauke Benner, a long-time environmental activist from Berlin.
Like many students studying in another country, Asem catches up with his family on the phone roughly once a week. But unlike other students, Asem’s conversations start with his family telling him, “we are alive.”
Mašina talked about the French left‘s tactics for the approaching elections with professor Natalie Depraz, a member of the left-wing La France Insoumise political party.
We talked about current events in Argentina with Sara Cuifre, a feminist and activist for labor rights and a member of the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies (IRGAC).
North Macedonia’s right-nationalist VMRO-DPMNE won a landslide electoral victory this week, retaking power with almost three times the votes of their rival, pro-European Social Democrats. VMRO-DPMNE’s 2014 redevelopment of capital Skopje rapidly passed into regional legend, with the Eurosceptic party replacing Modernist architecture with gleaming neo-classical facades and a vast array of statuary depicting Macedonian heroes.
“Why did many Albanians work in the private sector in socialist Yugoslavia? How did the state treat small entrepreneurs and migrating seasonal workers? We discussed these and similar questions with researchers from the Centre for Southeast European Studies.
Mašina spoke to Waltraud Fritz-Klackl, a member of the Communist Party of Austria since the 1970s, who told us about her party’s historical relationship with Yugoslavia, its recent electoral success and the opportunities that lie ahead.
Andrej Hunko visited Belgrade to support Kurdish political activist Ecevit Piroğlu, who has been in prison in Serbia for two years. We spoke to Hunko about the importance of the recent elections in Turkey and about internationalism.
Labour law expert Mario Reljanović believes that the draft law meant to regulate the working conditions of seasonal workers contains “meaningless” norms and does not improve workers’ rights.
The vision of the HDP is a democratic Turkey in which all its citizens live in freedom and dignity.
Sarah Leonard is a journalist and editor of several left-leaning magazines and online magazines, which are becoming more and more common in the United States. Together with Bhaskar Sunkara, she edited a collection of essays entitled: “The Future We Want: Radical Ideas for the New Century”. We met Sarah in Belgrade last year on her journey through Southeast Europe, and we renewed the conversation during the past few months marked by the coronavirus pandemic.
