The Russia-Ukraine war: a view from the Southern Left

ABSTRACT

The Left is under siege across the globe. Anti-NATO arguments are ridiculed as pro-Putin. The US military-industry nexus is rapidly extending to become a global military-industry-finance-media nexus. The Left in China, India, Turkey, Brazil and many other countries have been crushed or became complicit with authoritarianism. In Europe, progressive ideals that have enjoyed wide support since the end of World War Two are being seriously challenged. In this conversation, Ranabir Samaddar from India and Biao Xiang from China reflect on the shortcomings of the Western Left in their response to the Russia-Ukraine war, and argue that the international Left must take viewpoints from the Global South much more seriously.

KEYWORDS:

• The Left
• war
• historical consciousness
• peace
• Global South
• mass movement

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ranabir Samaddar

Ranabir Samaddar is the Distinguished Chair in Migration and Forced Migration Studies at the Calcutta Research Group in Kolkata, India. His writing on migration, forms of labor, urbanization, and political struggles have signaled a new turn in post-colonial thinking. Among his influential works are The Marginal Nation: Transborder Migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal (1999) and Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age (2018). His most recent publication is written against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, A Pandemic and the Politics of Life (2021).

Biao Xiang

Biao Xiang is a director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. His work takes migration as a lens to examine a wide range of issues in Asia, including state-society relations, labor, social reproduction, and governance. His books include Global Body Shopping (winner of the Anthony Leeds Prize, 2008), 跨越边界的社区 (published in English as Transcending Boundaries, 2005; reprinted in 2018 as a contemporary classic), and 自己作为方法 (co-authored with Wu Qi; ranked the Most Impactful Book 2020 in China on leading Chinese social network Douban; published in English as Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World, 2022). His work has generated wide discussions in China and beyond and is translated into multiple languages.