Near the Liebig Collective, I came upon activists protesting rent hikes. Across the street, a building was strewn with graffiti and political propaganda. In Friedrichshain, anarchist graffiti mixes with other odd motifs drawn from Marvel comics. More posters featuring comic book art.
Walking in Friedrichshain, I came upon Liebig Collective, an anarcho-feminist community. Strange motifs and politics mix near the Liebig Collective. There’s plenty of feminist messaging in the vicinity. Nearby, the visitor is struck by anti-fascist banners and posters.
In Kreuzberg, I came upon an anarchist library which had recently been raided by police. Nearby, I spotted another anarchist center in a nearby park. Anarchist colors of red and black, in Schillerkeiz, another neighborhood in the vicinity. Kreuberg and Friedrichshain are plastered with wall posters honoring Rojava, a Kurdish […]
Walking along Kreutziger Straße in the Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain, I was struck by an unusual building adorned with murals and political banners. The facade displays many motifs, for example a skull which looks like it belongs in the Mexican Day of the Dead. Another section of wall looks like […]
As if the 2016 U.S. presidential election wasn’t contentious enough, Mexico stands to be no less divisive and ridden by controversy. Current front runner for the July 1st presidential contest, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (often simply known by the acronym AMLO), is a longtime fixture of the outsider political left, […]
To what extent will the festering matter of Crimea inflame east-west tensions and further contribute to a “new Cold War”? Late last year, I was invited to the Yalta European Strategy meeting (or YES), an annual Kyiv gathering of policymakers, experts and others. Ever since Russia militarily occupied Crimea in […]
Recently, in the process of reading about the Trump-Russia affair, the U.S. public also learned a bit about the inner politics of Ukraine’s power elite. As part of the larger investigation into foreign money streaming to Trump and his associates in advance of the 2016 election, special counsel Robert Mueller […]
One can scarcely read the news these days without coming across references to the threat of an imminent “new Cold War.” Gravely, experts warn of escalating tensions being ratcheted up as a result of western sanctions against the Kremlin, ongoing friction in Ukraine in addition to any number of other […]
Nearly five years after the EuroMaidan revolution convulsed Ukraine, Kyiv’s youthful cultural scene is flourishing. Even in the midst of war and economic turmoil, the city’s creative milieu is booming from fashion to raving to partying to film to theater to outdoor concerts to food events to chic, hipster-like bars […]
Rallying on Maidan square during protests against the Viktor Yanukovych government, Ukraine’s LGBT community hoped that western integration might eventually help promote social equality and tolerance. But now, five years later, some wonder whether the West offers such a hopeful and optimistic model for the future. Take, for example, post-Brexit […]
