Presidential candidates Lula (left, photo by Lula Marques) and Bolsonaro (right, photo by Isac Nóbrega) In the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, held at the start of this month, leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva fell just short of the 50 per...
At a Black Lives Matter protest in Surrey (photo by Martin Pettitt). This October marked the 35th year of Black History Month being observed in the UK. The brainchild of Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanaian journalist and pan-Africanist, the month has become a time when we...
A shot from the 1984 film Threads (Credit: BBC Nine Network) In the mobile phone game Plague, Inc, players choose to be bacteria, fungi or bio-weapons and play as viral outbreaks. To ‘win’, they must evolve and proliferate. The game had enjoyed moderate popularity...
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaking to supporters following his victory in the 2022 Brazilian general election (Credit: Ricardo Stuckert) References to a Latin American left should come accompanied with an asterisk, as left-wing governments and movements...
From left to right: Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lyudmila Pavlichenko If the names Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Inessa Armand and Elena Lagadinova are unfamiliar to you, Kristen Ghodsee’s new book will provide an...
‘Democracia Real YA’ demonstration in Madrid on May 15, 2011. Photo by Olmo Calvo (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0) Giorgos Venizelos: More than 10 years have passed since the so-called movements of the squares were first observed. Their proliferation in...
EndSARS protestors in 2020. Photo credit: TobiJamesCandids On 4 October 2020, footage surfaced on social media showing officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) dragging two unarmed men from a hotel in Ughelli Delta state and shooting one dead outside. That...
Industrial militancy is (at least briefly) back in fashion and for many trade union members this will be their first time living, and participating, in a sustained period of industrial strife. However, the long-term efficacy of militancy as a knee-jerk reaction to...
Celebrations of the centenary since his birth on 31 August 1921 have cemented the resurgence in interest in Raymond Williams (1921-1988), one of the Twentieth Century’s leading thinkers on the left. On 15 October, in partnership with the Raymond Williams Foundation, I...
A Sivanandan speaks at the IRR emergency general meeting in April 1972 (Image courtesy of the IRR) On a balmy evening on 18 April 1972, a somewhat incongruous group of people entered the basement hall of St James’s Church, Piccadilly, for a meeting that would have...
Gustavo Petro gestures to the crowd at the presidential inauguration on 6 August, 2022. Photo by Daniela Díaz Rangel The government of Gustavo Petro and his vice president, Francia Márquez, began with a bang. The duo was sworn in on 6 August, 2022 amid a diverse crowd...
Industrial militancy is (at least briefly) back in fashion and for many trade union members this will be their first time living, and participating, in a sustained period of industrial strife. However, the long-term efficacy of militancy as a knee-jerk reaction to...