Enver Motala is an associate of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT) at the University of Johannesburg and of the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at the Nelson Mandela University.
Although it ended in tragic defeat, the Communist International was one of the most ambitious exercises in transnational political activism ever conceived. Its rise and fall gives us a crucial window into the history of the 20th century.
Don’t let the AI of it all fool you — tech workers can still bring Silicon Valley to a halt.
Bob Dylan’s legendary 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival takes center stage in the new biopic A Complete Unknown. To really make sense of what happened at Newport, you need to understand the link between US folk music and left-wing politics.
The Trump team has hit on what it thinks is a winning formula: every time it wants to rip Americans’ health care away or let a predatory corporation off the hook, it just says it’s fighting “wokeness” or “DEI.” It’s lazy, cynical stuff.
America’s belief that it can be militarily dominant in every major region appears to be wavering. But without challengers, the Republicans’ loss of conviction in liberal internationalism will harden into a more dangerous global authoritarianism.
The February 4 school shooting in Örebro was the deadliest such attack in Swedish history. The killer didn’t leave a manifesto, and officials are reluctant to call this a “terrorist” attack. But this shooting was not apolitical.
In 1933, a young Melbourne communist scaled a moving tram to distract police while his comrade locked himself in a steel cage below. Their protest sparked the “Battle for Phoenix Street,” which resulted in the repeal of draconian anti-protest laws.
Despite now pushing for a more assertive economic agenda, center-left parties worldwide are on the defensive. Their vulnerability? They helped create the very neoliberal order they now claim to challenge.
As America’s health crisis deepens, some experts are calling to “depoliticize” public health. But what we need isn’t less politics in health care — it’s a mass movement to transform our broken system into one that serves everyone.
In the 1960s, leftist filmmakers from France to Japan revolutionized the documentary. Anti-fascism was not just the heritage of past generations but a message carried forward by the avant-garde on-screen.
The problem of case backlogs at the National Labor Relations Board goes deeper than budget shortfalls. Without serious penalties for employers who break the law, the board will continue to be hampered by a pileup of charges.
In France, trade unionist Anasse Kazib faces prosecution for pro-Palestinian tweets. The overheated allegations of “apologia for terrorism” express a broader crackdown on civil liberties, today targeted at Palestine solidarity activists.
Apple TV+’s The Gorge finds two attractive young snipers, Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, flirting across the abyss as they guard the gates of hell below. It’s a promising premise, but it never pays off.
Turkey’s ruling AKP views the fall of Assad in Syria as an opportunity to project power across the region. But the conflicting interests of the Gulf monarchies, Israel, and the US will make attempts by any one power to exert influence over Syria fraught.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration began the process of defanging the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act — a mandate that allows communities to protect themselves from polluters.
After what has felt like an eternity of Elon Musk and DOGE running rampant across the federal government, federal workers themselves and their unions are now leading the pushback.
J. D. Vance offended European colleagues on Friday by publicly doubting that they are champions of democracy. Some of the examples he cited were spurious — but the EU establishment’s shocked reaction itself spoke to their unreflective groupthink.
Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought has spent his life trying to cripple the ability of the state to benefit anyone but the rich, to the point that it can’t be put back together. With Donald Trump in office, he can finally do it.
The war industry has become a permanent fixture of US capitalism, channeling massive public subsidies to private corporations. The first writer to analyze this “Permanent War Economy” was Edward Sard, a brilliant Marxist economist working in the 1940s.
Bill Gates presents himself as a climate champion, but his trust has actually increased its fossil fuel investments since his divestment pledge. It’s just the latest example of the billionaire appointing himself to solve problems he helps perpetuate.