What role can and should the diaspora play in left organizing? How do diaspora groups stay accountable to the communities they find themselves in the US, and stay connected and build international solidarity with movements in the Global South? This panel will look at the role of diaspora from South Asia as a point of departure to explore the potential for local and internationalist mobilization from the left.
Aman Bardia is a graduate student of agrarian political economy. They are a founding member of SALAM, and have been involved in union movements for students and taxi workers.
Maithreyi Rajeshkumar is a SALAM or and works at the Center for Humanities at CUNY. They have worked and campaigned for over 15 years on gender equality, racial justice, incarceration and mental health.
Raza Gillani is a Community Organizer with DRUM. He is a founding member of Progressive Students Collective and Haqooq-e-Khalq Party, and he has worked as an investigative reporter for Lok Sujag in Pakistan.
This panel examines Putin’s repression of critical voices, those who have publicly opposed his war of aggression against Ukraine. Boris Kagarlitsky, the well-known Marxist critic of Putin's regime, is currently serving a five year sentence in a penal colony for "justifying terrorism" – a charge stemming from a satirical comment about the Crimean bridge explosion. While Kagarlitsky’s case has drawn international attention, many other leftwing critics remain imprisoned in obscurity, often held in appalling conditions.
Suzi Weissman: Professor Emeritus of Politics, Saint Mary’s College of California, author of Victor Serge: a Political Biography; editorial board member of Against the Current and Critique, host of Beneath the Surface on KPFK Los Angeles, and the Jacobin Radio podcast; Board... Read More →
Ksenia Kagarlitskaya, daughter of Boris Kagarlitsky, founder and organizer of the international festival in support of political prisoners "Freedom Zone". pruesha@gmail.com
Boris Kagarlitsky, Prominent Russian leftist public intellectual; longtime critic of Kremlin policy; author of numerous translated works and host of popular YouTube channel; imprisoned under Brezhnev, Yeltsin and now Putin. Arrested in 2023 for a satirical social media post, he is... Read More →
Simon Pirani historian, activist, and energy researcher writing on Russia and Ukraine. Author of Change in Putin’s Russian and the forthcoming Final Speeches to the Court; blogs at peoplenature.org... Read More →
In the March elections, the Left Party made a surprising comeback. At the same time, the far-right AfD is now leading in the polls - especially among workers and low-income voters. With the new Merz government pushing austerity and militarization, the urgent question is: how should the left in Germany respond to this political landscape?
The historical Left present in Mexico 2025 is linked to a project of Socialism and participate of the promotion of the Fourth Transformation in Mexico, inside and outside the MORENA party, close to the Lopez Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum governments. Its trajectory dates back to 1968 and includes the organization LEFT UNITY.
Arturo Ramos is a Mexican retired professor from UNAM and the Autonomous University of Chapingo, as well as a university unions leader and socialist activist since 1978.
Syrians have overthrown Bashar al-Assad's brutal dictatorship, liberated cities, freed political prisoners, and opened space to struggle for an inclusive, democratic, and egalitarian country. But internal, regional, and imperial forces are angling to contain the revolution. So, the country stands between hope and possibility on the one hand, and, on the other, challenges and pitfalls.
Trump’s new policies have driven an increased militarism, nationalism, and patriotism across the world aimed at rallying workers in each country behind its own governments. Internationalism is the only perspective that can advance the interests of the working class. Hear revolutionary activists in France, Germany, and the U.S. discuss the importance of organization across borders in the revolutionary workers tradition.
Damien S, French railway worker, steward in the CGT union, national spokesperson of the Nouveau Parti Anitcapitaliste-Révolutionnaires (NPA-R) and candidate in the last European and legislative elections.
This talk surveys the history of Pan-Africanism with specific attention to key inflection moments such as the late nineteenth century and the era of decolonization to consider its on-going resonances. Through specific attention to the cultural politics of Pan-Africanism, it demonstrates why visions of global Black solidarity continue to be activated even as the political projects of African federation and other forms of political and economic integration have declined.
Adom Getachew is Professor of Political Science and Race, Diaspora & Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019) and co-editor, with Jennifer Pitts, of W. E. B. Du Bois: International Thought... Read More →
From the weaponization of Facebook to successive elections of authoritarian leaders; the Philippines has been a testing ground for the Far-Right. How have the left been able to fight back under such conditions? Hear insights and perspectives from a representative from the newly formed Partido Sosyalista of the Philippines.
