The Syrian uprising has divided the international Left between those who support Assad and those who support the Syrian opposition, while muting the voices of Syrians whose realities force them to reject simple binaries.
How did the struggle for Palestine gain such prominence on the left? The answer might tell us something about broader patterns of thought in left-wing politics today.
The recent attacks in Paris were the latest round in a conflict of violence, not of “values”. The primary perpetrators of this violence are western states, with Islamist terrorism representing an inevitable blowback.
We must support the people of Kobane in their fight against ISIS and Turkey's plans to install a buffer zone, both of which are plots to assassinate the democratic project in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan).
The unravelling of Iraqi society set the context for the emergence of the Islamic State-led insurgency in Iraq. But the role played by IS is a byproduct of the flows of capital and ideology in a much wider theatre of power.
