Portside

When she was 30, Suzy Hansen left the US for Istanbul – and began to realize that Americans will never understand their own country until they see it as the rest of the world does. In college, she read James Baldwin, giving the sense of meeting someone who knew her better, than she had herself. This came as a shock, not necessarily because he said I was sick. It was because he kept calling me that thing: “white American”.

Left parties and movements have a huge role to play to respond to the call and despair of ordinary people in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Mideast. We need to build a movement for social and climate justice, democratic participation, peace and socialism to oppose austerity, oppression, militarization and a lack of democracy.

The narrowness and dubious nature of Erdogan’s electoral “success” is unlikely to make him more conciliatory and, going by his actions after failing to get the majority he wanted in a general election in 2015, he will become even more aggressive in stamping out opposition.

Tomorrow's referendum in Turkey is about one thing: Erdogan's brazen bid for dictatorial power.

Flynn could be questioned about which associates of Trump — including the president himself — knew about his associations with Russia, what they knew, and when they knew it.

Juliette Kayyem cites sources saying that Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's former national security adviser, is now a potential witness for the FBI.

In April, Turkish voters will vote in a national referendum designed to deliver unprecedented power to President Recip Erdogan. Yet, the most articulate opponent of this “executive presidency” is in custody facing an indictment on “terrorism” and a 143-year jail term. And the trial of Selahattin Demirtas, Turkey’s premier Kurdish politician and leader of the progressive opposition to the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan won’t be held until after the referendum.

According to the back of Meredith Tax's A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State, a 'democratic society' with 'women on the front lines as fierce warriors and leaders' is growing in the midst of Syria's destruction. This new society - Rojava - was founded by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian-Kurdish offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). How does the PKK function internally, how will it deal with class divisions or regional differences?

The Turks don't want a Kurdish mini-state on their frontier any more than the Syrians want to lose territory to the Kurds (and neither do the Iranians, nor do the Russians want a Kurdish state on their border). And, Turkey is warming up to Russia and Iran in a bid to exit before a total rout of its proxies in Syria. Here Robert Fisk and Vijay Prashad present two nuanced perspectives.

Middle East Eye profiles Fethullah Gulen, his network and antagonistic relationship with Turkey's President Erdogan.