Portside

1. Iran Voices
2. What’s Next?
3. Indonesian Women Speak Out Ahead of IWD
4. UK: Green Candidate’s Win Changes the Rules
5. Ukraine, Four Years In
6. Rivers Rescued: A Win for Brazil’s Indigenous 
7. Rohingya Resistance and Survival
8. French Municipal Elections: A Word to Antifascists
9. Democracy and Capitalism
10. Feli Kuti and the Nigerian Left

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Iran Voices

Sina Toossi / The Nation (New York)

Now that war has been launched—after weeks of US and Israeli officials speaking casually about “bombing” and “military buildup,” and many of the people most battered by the Islamic Republic warning that foreign military intervention would not liberate them. It would bury them.

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What’s Next?

Lior Sternfeld / +972 (Tel Aviv)

On university campuses and beyond, protesters chanted “Khamenei is Zahak,” the embodiment of evil in Iranian mythology. Some chanted in support of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah, while others chanted “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” — “woman, life, freedom” — which, in today’s climate, is used against both the Islamic Republic and the proposed return of the monarchy. 

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Indonesian Women Speak Out Ahead of IWD

Aliansi Perempuan Indonesia / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (Paris)

Ahead of International Women’s Day 2026, the Aliansi Perempuan Indonesia (API, Indonesian Women’s Alliance) — a coalition of 93 organisations — issues a political platform assessing one and a half years of the Prabowo–Gibran government from women’s lived experience. The statement identifies three interlocking forms of destruction directed at women’s bodies.

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UK: Green Candidate’s Win Changes the Rules

Aaron Bastani / Novara Media (New York)

In Gorton and Denton, the Green party won the by-election in the Greater Manchester seat, with Hannah Spencer its fifth MP. The Green party crushed its two rivals, with Spencer enjoying more than 4,400 votes over far-right Reform’s Matt Goodwin. Labour, which finished third, was more than 5,600 votes behind. In the last general election, the party had scooped up over half the vote.
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Ukraine, Four Years In

Can Ukraine Survive?   Artem Chapeye, Tanya Vyhovsky, Denys Bondar et al. /  Links (Sydney)

From Below   Patrick Le Tréhondat, Denys Gorbach and Stéfanie Prezioso / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières

Taras Bilous, Socialist Soldier   Sasha Talaver / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

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Rivers Rescued: A Win for Brazil’s Indigenous 

Laura Burocco / il manifesto Global (Rome)

Brazil’s government ended the planned dredging in the Tocantins, Madeira and Tapajós rivers on February 23, following a month of protests by the indigenous peoples of the Tapajós River territories, who have been occupying the U.S. multinational Cargill’s port in Santarém, in western Pará state, for over a month.

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Rohingya Resistance and Survival

Noor Sadeque / Commons (Kyiv)

In this interview, you can learn firsthand how those who experienced genocide and continue to suffer from war and exile — the Rohingya refugees — survive under these conditions. Our comrade from the refugee camp tells us about their daily lives and prospects, as well as the importance of understanding mutual experiences and international solidarity.

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French Municipal Elections: A Word to Antifascists

Catherine Tricot / Regards (Paris)

[Excerpted and translated from a French essay. Read the original here.]

All the lists were submitted yesterday to the prefectures, and in two weeks’ time, the first round of municipal elections will take place. The pace of debates, public meetings, and leafleting is intensifying. At the end of this election, several cities could swing from right to left, as in Nîmes, Le Havre, Roubaix, and Aubervilliers. From left and green to right, as in Lyon and Annecy. From left to far right, as in Marseille, or to the extreme right, as in Paris. After the previous municipal elections, which, due to Covid, were marked by the re-election of incumbents, the number of cities that could change sides this time around is high. These numerous “swing cities” reflect the political realignment at the heart of the electorate.

In all these cities, daily life and the general atmosphere could be significantly altered. For all these residents, the outcome will determine everyday policies for children, the most vulnerable, and the elderly. It will make the air more or less breathable for immigrants and all those who descend from them. It will prepare (or not) the city for global warming. It will define cultural and sports policies. And it will give more or less strength to the various political parties that will run in the next presidential elections.

Under these circumstances, it’s inexplicable that the left and the Greens aren’t united in the second round. In principle, they would be. This tradition of left-wing unity is taking on renewed importance, particularly in Marseille and Paris. Since the threat is becoming more apparent and everyone claims to be antifascist, how can we tolerate disunity potentially tipping cities to the far right or extreme right? A poll (yet another one) confirms that 52% of NFP [Nouvelle Front populaire] voters want this unity in the second round; a third don’t. Seven percent want no agreement at all. Left-wing voters distinguish between media analyses, the calculated provocations of leaders, and their own convictions, values, and histories, which they share with the entire left. 

This desire for unity must be strong and well thought out. We must recognize that it needs to be tenacious. It has suffered many setbacks over the past few months and has been particularly battered for the last ten days. This Thursday, we received confirmation: the solution will not come from the top. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, speaking at a rally in Lyon, did nothing to pacify the situation; and Emmanuel Grégoire, the candidate for the united left in Paris (excluding La France Insoumise), asserted that there would be no alliance with [Paris LFI parliamentarian] Sophia Chikirou’s list in the second round. 

It is vital for our lives and our struggles that this destructive madness ends, that we put a stop to it. Each of us is in control of our vote. In the second round, we must win and save what can be saved, vote for the left-wing list that can win. And until then, make these alliances possible.

Stop the destructive and boastful madness of roosters and cockerels. Our lives are worth more than their hallucinations.

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Capitalism and Democracy

Joseph Stiglitz and Jayati Ghosh / Social Europe (Berlin)

Ongoing efforts to derail multilateral tax cooperation lie at the heart of a global program to replace democratic governance with coercive rule by the extremely wealthy – or what we call 21st-century Caesarism. Any strategy to counter this program therefore must recognize that taxing extreme wealth is essential to saving democracy.

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Feli Kuti and the Nigerian Left

Sean Jacobs / London Review of Books 

Recent major exhibitions, one in Paris in 2022 and another in Lagos in December 2025, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys last month, cast Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì as a singular cultural icon, an eccentric genius or global rebel shaped by Pan-Africanism and the Black Atlantic, while downplaying how deeply he was formed by left radical currents in Nigeria.