Hugh McDonnell holds a PhD in history from the University of Amsterdam.
Spain’s far-right Vox party began its Madrid election campaign with a rally in the multiracial working-class suburb of Vallecas, prompting clashes with locals. Media responded with a condemnation of the “twin extremisms” — showing how those who defend the poor and marginalized are falsely equated with those who abuse them.
Hard work doesn’t get you a billion dollars — rent extraction, financial speculation, resource monopolization, and exploiting working people does. We don’t envy the superrich, we want to stop them.
The church is responsible for a litany of injustices — and today Christian rhetoric is used to defend a violent neoliberal capitalism. But the glorious tradition of liberation theology can’t be forgotten.
Emmanuel Macron celebrated New Caledonia’s vote to remain part of France as an indication of the Republic’s strength. Yet France’s continued control is based on a bloody history of repression against the independence movement.
The life of French General Jacques Pâris de Bollardière shows how the strongest voices against war and militarism can come from the military’s own ranks.
Marine Le Pen has taken the National Front into the French mainstream without shedding the party’s far-right politics.
The perception that Western European police are benevolent doesn’t match reality.