Global Left Midweek — July 1, 2026

https://portside.org/2026-07-01/global-left-midweek-july-1-2026
Portside Date:
Author:
Date of source:
Portside
  1. LGBTQ in Africa
  2. How Stands Cuba?
  3. Albania’s Flamingo Revolution
  4. Mexicos Gig Workers Fight
  5. The Russian Left and Solidarity with Ukraine
  6. Ferment in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir
  7. Colombia: Stormy Weather
  8. Notes on the South African Left
  9. Europe: Legal Action Over Climate Change
  10. From His Cell: Kagarlitsky on Leninism

 

LGBTQ in Africa

Nyasha Karimakwenda / Africa is a Country (New York)

Despite renewed efforts to criminalize and erase queerness, LGBTQ Africans continue to challenge the myth that their lives and identities are somehow un-African.

__________

How Stands Cuba?

War Fears   / The Financial Express (Noida)

Where is the Love?   Eric Toussaint / Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (Liège)

Assessing the Reforms   Juan Triana Cordoví, Omar Everleny Pérez-Villanueva, Julio Carranza and Rafael Hernández / Links (Sydney)

Why All Socialists Should Care About Cuba   Albert Gil / Cosmonaut

__________

Albania’s Flamingo Revolution

“We Want a New Albania”   Helena Smith / The Guardian (London)

Growing Revolt   Ariela Zeneli / transform! europe (Vienna)

The Left in the Movement   C.J. Polychroniou / Truthout (Sacramento)

__________

Mexicos Gig Workers Fight

Natascha Elena Uhlmann / Labor Notes (Brooklyn)

While app workers may not be their own bosses, they can still run their own unions. One tactic to foster member leadership: UNTA’s digital courses on organizing tactics, economics, and writing skills. The classes are open not just to UNTA members, Guerra said, but to any app worker who’s interested, and to members of other unions.

__________

The Russian Left and Solidarity with Ukraine

Simon Pirani / People and Nature (Oxford)

The Left for Peace Without Annexations alliance brought together people from a range of political traditions, activists who are more or less radical. What unites us is the conviction that we will not connive with “our” imperialism, and that the struggle of an oppressed nation against aggression is a just one.

__________

Ferment in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir

Umair Khurshid / Alternative Viewpoint

Pakistan-Administered Jammu and Kashmir (PAJK) is passing through one of the harshest phases of confrontation it has seen in years. The wave of mobilisation led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) – which grew out of grievances over electricity, taxation, and the question of seats reserved for refugees settled in Pakistan – has met a sharply escalated state response.

__________

Colombia: Stormy Weather

Josep Freixes / ColombiaOne (Bogotá)

Left leader Iván Cepeda is considering calling for civil disobedience if President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella fails to respond to the requests for clarification he has made regarding various issues related to his future administration. Senator Cepeda, an ally of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, is emerging as one of the leading figures of the opposition during the next government.

__________

Notes on the South African Left

Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara / Tricontinental Pan Africa

A solidarity-economy approach to land combines redistribution with public investment, co-operative production, agroecology, local markets, farmer-led funds, resource networks and mass power from below. It means communities and workers reorganising production, land, and resources in their own interest.

__________

Europe: Legal Action Over Climate Change

Annabelle Timsit and Zach Wener-Fligner / Quartz (Victoria BC)

More than 1.7 million people have signed a petition in favor of suing the French government, accusing it of inaction on climate change. Four NGOs—Oxfam, Greenpeace, Notre Affaire à Tous, and Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme—have initiated legal proceedings saying France has defaulted on its environmental obligations.

__________

From His Cell: Kagarlitsky on Leninism

Boris Kagarlitsky / Links

Even today we must reflect on the possibilities of political action under conditions of systemic crisis, on Lenin’s famous observation that “the upper classes cannot rule in the old way and the lower classes do not want to live in the old way”; on the dialectic of spontaneous protest and class consciousness. Lenin was continually rethinking and rewriting his ideas.


Source URL: https://portside.org/2026-07-01/global-left-midweek-july-1-2026