Possibilities for Creating Thinking Spaces to Resist Right-Wing Digital Circulations

An exploration about the ways in which right-wing digital circulations can be challenged by creating thinking spaces within communities through the use of arts-based research

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New Study: Independent Media in Myanmar Since the Military Coup

Nine months after the elected government was overthrown, free and independent media is almost non-existent

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“Impossible Is Not So Easy”: An Interview with a Political Analyst from the Philippine Left

After more than five years of authoritarian rule, rent-seeking, and a kind of ‘gangster’ neoliberal economic policies, the strongman rule of Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte has begun to unravel as the Philippines gears up for the national elections in May 2022. Realignments of social and political forces are beginning to reconfigure the political landscape amidst the continuing Covid-19 pandemic. Progressive and traditional social forces are drawing their political lines as the mounting opposition against Duterte expands. This conversation with Joel Rocamora, a renowned author, political analyst, and progressive governance practitioner, seeks to examine the rise of Duterte’s authoritarian governance, the reconfiguration of the Philippine elite and other social classes, the political/ideological debates within the Philippine Left, and the political realignments towards the Philippine presidential elections in 2022.

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How to Achieve Transnational Solidarity in the Age of Neoliberal Authoritarianism and Border Securitization?

In this essay, I want to address the complications stemming from the political economy of transnational solidarity networks and the power asymmetry in them, mainly through discussing the Turkish case. Neoliberal globalization and its political geography built upon colonial divisions have become the framework for cross-national solidarity as well as the recent authoritarian turn, while at the same time bringing in structural setbacks to the former. Furthermore, the recent migration “crises”, that are caused by imperialist interventions, have been met with heightened border securitization in the Global North, limiting the field for international human rights activism. This introduces a serious additional challenge to the conception and practice of transnational solidarity.

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Making business accountable: The voice of civil society on Telenor’s sale of its Myanmar business to blacklisted company

Even before the coup in Myanmar, the military was preparing to strengthen surveillance mechanism by pressuring telecommunication companies to enforce intercept spyware. Although it was not confirmed whether the Ministry of Transport and Communication under the National League for Democracy government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was involved to some extent in the implementation of these surveillance procedure, the budget amounted to nearly 3.4 million Euro were approved in 2019-2020 financial year for the purchase of spyware products and phone hacking technology. Since the coup, Myanmar military has been exerting control over the Internet service providers and telecommunication companies. The military’s order to intensify electronic surveillance systems lead to a recent speculation that Telenor, Norwegian multinational telecommunications would sell its business in Myanmar. Eventually, Telenor picked up a blacklisted company with bad track record for selling 100% of its share in Myanmar without giving any notice to its customers. This interview shares the voice of an activist who leads the movement for digital rights and the cancelling of Telenor’s sale to M1 group for the data security of 18 million users. The identity of the activist is kept under anonymity due to security concerns.

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Campuses in Action: Myanmar’s Academia Resisting against the Coup

“My decision was firm since I left my university in mid of February. My aunts are now giving me pressure to go back to my professor job. After seeing atrocities and mass killing of the junta, I no longer want to be part of the system they are ruling.”

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“We don’t keep quiet, we are not afraid, we don’t obey”

Femicides stand out as one of the biggest social problems in Turkey today causing a widespread and pronounced public reaction. The femicide cases are frequently on the news exploited by mainstream media with graphic coverage. The names of murdered women and pleas for retribution regularly become trending topic on Twitter. The outrage against femicides is expressive of the liberalizing worldviews and gender ideology in Turkish society while also conveying the popular contention against the government’s overall authoritarian politics along with its efforts for the recomposition of patriarchy.

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Myanmar’s Election Under the Threat of Right-Wing Populism

Life under Myanmar’s military dictatorship, which has existed in various guises since 1962, has been harsh, which is why people wish to send the military back into the barracks as soon as possible. On 8 November 2020 they chose the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, as the winning party in the country’s general election held every five years. Voter turnout was high in both Burmese-dominated areas in Central Myanmar and the other seven states representing the seven major ethnic groups: Kachin, Kayar, Kayin, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, and the Shan from the frontier areas bordering China, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.

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