Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 61

A chronicle of our BLEAK TWENTIES – Cambridge Union Online

The good folk at Cambridge Union invited me to deliver a talk over the internet during our lockdown days. I chose to deliver a speech, or text, reciting what I fear might prove an accurate assessment of our BLEAK TWENTIES from the perspective of, say, December 2030. My great hope is that it is proven grossly inaccurate. But my fear is that it won’t…

European Oligarchy Has Banned Transfer of Wealth to Poor: Interviewed by Vijay Prashad

Have Merkel & Macron just announced a eurobond-funded godsend for the EU? DiEM25’s view

On Monday 19th May 2020, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron announced a joint proposal for a 500 billion euro common fund, to be financed by allowing the European Commission to borrow from the money markets. The fund will, according to the Merkel-Macron proposal, finance directly businesses across the EU – by means mainly of transfers. Is this a breakthrough? Here is my answer on behalf of DiEM25.

Για το 5ο Μνημόνιο που έρχεται, την ΕΕ, τον Σόιμπλε, το ΜέΡΑ25 & τον πολιτικό πολιτισμό – ΕΡΑ1

Discussing movies in the age of lockdown with Valeria Golino on DiEM-TV’s ‘Another Now’ – VIDEO

Honoured that Valeria Golino was my guest in the latest episode of DiEM-TV’s ‘Another Now’. With the extraordinary actor we talked films, films, films, plus a little on some common biographical details involving Greece, Egypt, scoliosis, not to mention that she played my… wife in ADULTS IN THE ROOM
For previous episodes with Johann Hari, Roger Waters, Stephanie Kelton and Caroline Lucas click here.

Άρθρο Γ. Βαρουφάκη: Η Προοδευτική Διεθνής – Άρθρο στην ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ

Ακόμα κι όταν ο κορωνοϊός θα έχει νικηθεί, το νέο χρέος που θα έχει αφήσει στο διάβα του θα βαραίνει για χρόνια την υφήλιο δηλητηριάζοντας τις δημοκρατίες μας και συνεισφέροντας στην οικοδόμηση ενός κόσμου λιγότερο ανοικτού, φτωχότερου, γεμάτου τείχη και μισαλλοδοξία. Το υφεσιακό κύμα που έφερε η πανδημία βρήκε την παγκόσμια οικονομία ήδη ευάλωτη. Υστερα από μία δεκαετία «εύκολου» χρήματος που οδήγησε στην υπερχρέωση μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις στις προηγμένες χώρες και τις κυβερνήσεις των πιο αδύναμων κρατών, ο κορωνοϊός ήταν η ακίδα που όλοι φοβόμασταν ότι θα σκάσει την παγκόσμια φούσκα χρέους.



Το γεγονός ότι το υπερβολικό χρέος βαραίνει όλη την υφήλιο, όπως και ο φόβος της COVID-19, δεν σημαίνει ότι όλοι κινδυνεύουν το ίδιο. Η δημοσιονομική τονωτική ένεση που εξήγγειλαν οι αρχές των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών ξεπερνάει το 14% του εθνικού τους εισοδήματος. Η αντίστοιχη τονωτική ένεση της γερμανικής κυβέρνησης ωχριά μπροστά της. Με τη σειρά τους, οι αντίστοιχες τονωτικές ενέσεις των κυβερνήσεων του ευρωπαϊκού Νότου ωχριούν μπροστά στη γερμανική. Και, βέβαια, καλύτερα να μη μιλάμε καν για τονωτικές ενέσεις στις φτωχότερες χώρες της Ασίας, της Αφρικής και της Λατινικής Αμερικής. Με άλλα λόγια, οι παγκόσμιες ανισορροπίες, που γεννούν εντάσεις και πολιτικά τέρατα, γιγαντώνονται καθημερινά.
Το βαθύ «κούρεμα» χρεών –που αν δεν γίνει θα αποτρέψει την παγκόσμια ανάκαμψη– είναι ο μόνος τρόπος να διατηρηθεί ζωντανή η ελπίδα για διεθνή συνεννόηση όσον αφορά την καταπολέμηση της φτωχοποίησης χωρών και πληθυσμών, της κλιματικής καταστροφής και των γεωπολιτικών εντάσεων.
Προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση, την περασμένη Τετάρτη, τριακόσιοι νομοθέτες απ’ όλο τον κόσμο συνυπογράψαμε επιστολή του γερουσιαστή Μπέρνι Σάντερς προς τη Διεθνή Τράπεζα, με την οποία ζητήσαμε βαθιά «κουρέματα» του χρέους, αλλά και παροχή από το Διεθνές Νομισματικό Ταμείο νέων πιστωτικών μονάδων (SDR) για τις χώρες των οποίων οι οικονομίες επλήγησαν από την πανδημία.
Η πρωτοβουλία αυτή έχει προϊστορία. Τον Σεπτέμβριο του 2018, παρατηρώντας τον τρόπο με τον οποίο το μη βιώσιμο χρέος εκκόλαπτε νέες μορφές αυταρχισμού και εθνικισμού, με τον Μπέρνι Σάντερς διακηρύξαμε από τις σελίδες του Guardian την ανάγκη μιας νέας Προοδευτικής Διεθνούς, με ζητούμενο την υπέρβαση του δίπολου παγκοσμιοποίησης – απομονωτισμού. Στόχος μας, δηλώσαμε, ήταν να αναμετρηθούμε με τις δυνάμεις του αυταρχισμού που σκοπεύουν να μας διαιρέσουν και να στρέψουν τον έναν λαό εναντίον του άλλου. «Γνωρίζουμε», πρόσθεσε τότε ο γερουσιαστής Σάντερς, «ότι αυτές οι δυνάμεις συνεργάζονται διασυνοριακά. Πρέπει κι εμείς να κάνουμε το ίδιο».
Δύο μήνες αργότερα, στις 30 Νοεμβρίου του 2018, στο Βερμόντ των ΗΠΑ, με την υποστήριξη της πρωθυπουργού της Ισλανδίας Κατρίν Γιακομπσντότιρ, απευθύναμε ανοικτό κάλεσμα για την ίδρυση Προοδευτικής Διεθνούς που θα εκπονήσει παγκόσμια ατζέντα πολιτικής – μια Διεθνή Πράσινη Νέα Συμφωνία την οποία, κατόπιν, θα στηρίξουμε από κοινού σε κάθε χώρα κάθε ηπείρου.
Από την περασμένη Δευτέρα, η Προοδευτική Διεθνής, η οποία πρωτοξεκίνησε στο Βερμόντ από το Ιδρυμα Σάντερς και το DiEM25, είναι πραγματικότητα. Πενήντα πολιτικοί ηγέτες, όπως η Κατρίν Γιακομπσντότιρ και ο τ. πρόεδρος του Ισημερινού Ραφαέλ Κορέα, αλλά και διανοούμενοι όπως η Αρουντάτι Ρόι και ο Νόαμ Τσόμσκι, συνιστούν το πρώτο συμβούλιο που θα καθοδηγήσει τις εργασίες και τις πολιτικές δράσεις της Προοδευτικής Διεθνούς.
«Η συμμετοχή μου», γράφει η κ. Γιακομπσντότιρ, «έχει δύο κίνητρα: τη συλλογική αντιμετώπιση της Διεθνούς της αυταρχικής Δεξιάς, ιδίως στα ζητήματα της ανεξάρτητης Δικαιοσύνης και της ελευθερίας του Τύπου. Και, δεύτερον, το θετικό όραμα της Προοδευτικής Διεθνούς για κοινή ευημερία, ασφάλεια και αξιοπρέπεια για όλους τους λαούς».
Την Παρασκευή 15η Μαΐου, στις 8 μ.μ., μαζί με την Κατρίν Γιακομπσντότιρ, παρουσιάσαμε, μέσω ανοικτής τηλεδιάσκεψης, το σκεπτικό της πρωτοβουλίας που ξεκινήσαμε το 2018 στο Βερμόντ και η οποία σήμερα, ενόψει της νέας Μεγάλης Διεθνούς Υφεσης που απειλεί ιδίως χώρες υπερχρεωμένες όπως και η δική μας, είναι περισσότερο αναγκαία από ποτέ.

 

 

Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Yanis Varoufakis & Richard Durbin and 300 other lawmakers call for a cancellation of developing world’s’ debt – Washington Post

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in a Wednesday letter addressed to Georgieva and David Malpass, president of the World Bank, called on international financial organizations to consider “extensive debt forgiveness” for more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries. The letter, which also called for significant fiscal stimulus to help stabilize the global economy, was signed by more than 300 lawmakers from over two dozen countries, including former Argentine president Carlos Menem, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the most senior members in the U.S. chamber.


“The vulnerable communities that lack the resources and privileges to adopt adequate public health measures will ultimately face the disproportionate burden of coronavirus,” read the letter, a draft of which was shared with Today’s WorldView. “Such harm means that global supply chains, financial markets, and other interconnected exchanges will continue to be disrupted and destabilized.”

The two U.S. lawmakers called for a technocratic instrument in the IMF’s tool kit known as special drawing rights, or SDRs, that could bring hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars of new liquidity into the global economy. The last time the IMF allowed for a major infusion of additional SDRs was in 2009 as part of a $1 trillion injection into the global economy that followed the financial crisis.

The IMF’s gold reserves have soared $19bn since #coronavirus pandemic. This is more than the entire debt the poorest countries owe. The IMF should use these windfall profits to #CancelTheDebt to avert catastrophic loss of life in developing countries

Sanders and Omar, widely seen as occupying the left flank of Democratic Party politics, are pushing ideas about debt relief and crisis spending that are becoming increasingly mainstream. Economists and policymakers to their right have already made similar calls for a new round of SDRs, which would not make much of a difference for taxpayers in wealthy nations. Boosters of the idea say that rich countries could voluntarily transfer some of the funds generated by the SDRs — which are allocated on the basis of IMF quotas that give richer nations much larger shares — to poorer ones.

“Taking commonsense measures to cancel debts and provide financial stability — steps which do not cost U.S. taxpayers a penny — is the very least we can do to prevent an unimaginable amount of poverty, hunger, and disease that could harm hundreds and hundreds of millions of people,” Sanders said in an email to Today’s WorldView.

So far, the Trump administration, whose Treasury Department carries enormous influence over the IMF, has balked at the idea. One reason for its opposition is an unwillingness to create a mechanism that boosts the foreign reserves of adversarial countries such as China, Iran or Venezuela without forcing them to make any concessions…

For the letter’s signatories, debt forgiveness is an essential plank of a broader global recovery. “What this crisis shows us is that we are all in this together, as a global community,” said Sanders. “We have got to show unprecedented compassion, solidarity, and cooperation right now, because this pandemic has revealed for everybody that we are only as safe and healthy as the most vulnerable among us.”

For the original Washington Post article click here

Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Carlos Menem, Yanis Varoufakis & Richard Durbin and 300 other lawmakers call for a cancellation of developing world’s’ debt – Washington Post

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in a Wednesday letter addressed to Georgieva and David Malpass, president of the World Bank, called on international financial organizations to consider “extensive debt forgiveness” for more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries. The letter, which also called for significant fiscal stimulus to help stabilize the global economy, was signed by more than 300 lawmakers from over two dozen countries, including former Argentine president Carlos Menem, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the most senior members in the U.S. chamber.


“The vulnerable communities that lack the resources and privileges to adopt adequate public health measures will ultimately face the disproportionate burden of coronavirus,” read the letter, a draft of which was shared with Today’s WorldView. “Such harm means that global supply chains, financial markets, and other interconnected exchanges will continue to be disrupted and destabilized.”

The two U.S. lawmakers called for a technocratic instrument in the IMF’s tool kit known as special drawing rights, or SDRs, that could bring hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars of new liquidity into the global economy. The last time the IMF allowed for a major infusion of additional SDRs was in 2009 as part of a $1 trillion injection into the global economy that followed the financial crisis.

The IMF’s gold reserves have soared $19bn since #coronavirus pandemic. This is more than the entire debt the poorest countries owe. The IMF should use these windfall profits to #CancelTheDebt to avert catastrophic loss of life in developing countries

Sanders and Omar, widely seen as occupying the left flank of Democratic Party politics, are pushing ideas about debt relief and crisis spending that are becoming increasingly mainstream. Economists and policymakers to their right have already made similar calls for a new round of SDRs, which would not make much of a difference for taxpayers in wealthy nations. Boosters of the idea say that rich countries could voluntarily transfer some of the funds generated by the SDRs — which are allocated on the basis of IMF quotas that give richer nations much larger shares — to poorer ones.

“Taking commonsense measures to cancel debts and provide financial stability — steps which do not cost U.S. taxpayers a penny — is the very least we can do to prevent an unimaginable amount of poverty, hunger, and disease that could harm hundreds and hundreds of millions of people,” Sanders said in an email to Today’s WorldView.

So far, the Trump administration, whose Treasury Department carries enormous influence over the IMF, has balked at the idea. One reason for its opposition is an unwillingness to create a mechanism that boosts the foreign reserves of adversarial countries such as China, Iran or Venezuela without forcing them to make any concessions…

For the letter’s signatories, debt forgiveness is an essential plank of a broader global recovery. “What this crisis shows us is that we are all in this together, as a global community,” said Sanders. “We have got to show unprecedented compassion, solidarity, and cooperation right now, because this pandemic has revealed for everybody that we are only as safe and healthy as the most vulnerable among us.”

For the original Washington Post article click here

Covid-19 has “turbocharged” the EU’s failures – Interviewed by the NEW STATESMAN’s George Eaton

For Yanis Varoufakis, lockdown has not been a time of contemplation. “I have more work now than I ever did. As you know, everything has shifted to Zoom meetings, which means zero separation between the private and the public,” he explained when we spoke recently, during one such video call.
The 59-year-old economist, former Greek finance minister, game theorist and “erratic Marxist” has divided his time since Greece’s lockdown began in mid-March between his summer house on the island of Aegina and his country’s parliament in Athens. Varoufakis was returned as an MP last July as one of nine representatives of MeRA25, the Greek wing of the pan-continental Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), which he co-founded in 2016.
“It is a humbling process, it’s quite frustrating at times,” he said of the challenge of “building up a parliamentary party from scratch” (Varoufakis resigned from Syriza in 2015, in protest at then prime minister Alexis Tsipras’s support for a third austerity programme).
“We’re the smallest party in parliament but in the past couple of weeks I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that we have been the official opposition, the only ones who really make the government feel fragile. Because when Tsipras gets up, my former comrade, there is a standard line from the government which steamrolls over him: ‘This is exactly what you were doing for four years.’”
Varoufakis, who excoriated the EU for the austerity imposed on Greece in his memoir  Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment , believes the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the same flaws as the eurozone crisis. “Even more so — it’s exactly the same category error. 2010 was a crisis of insolvency and the EU treated it like a crisis of liquidity, so they kept lending, and the only way could pass these huge bailout loans through their parliaments was by attaching austerity strings to the loans.
“Now we have, even more evidently, an issue of bankruptcy. The tide has gone out… capitalism has been suspended, both supply and demand. That leaves behind a trail of bankruptcies. And they [the EU] continue to treat the problem as if it is one that can be solved by the means of loans… Covid-19 has turbocharged the failures in the handling of the euro crisis.”
Does he agree with those commentators who predict that the pandemic could lead to the collapse of the EU or the eurozone? “John Maynard Keynes’s expression that the market can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent is apt here because Europe is a very rich bloc, particularly the eurozone, there is so much wealth to fritter and waste and that’s exactly what they’re doing, they are imposing stagnation upon the eurozone in a way that magnifies the imbalances and the centrifugal forces that will eventually end this experiment. But I may not be around to see it because the wealthier an unsustainable system is, the longer it can be sustained.
“The more rigid the system becomes, the harder it is for it to break — but when it breaks, it will break with a gigantic bang,” he warns. “That’s my great fear.”
Varoufakis, who opposed Brexit during the 2016 EU referendum campaign (and helped persuade Jeremy Corbyn to endorse Remain), now believes that the UK should leave the current transition period without a new trade deal.
“After four years, you should just get out now, without a deal. I didn’t have that view two months ago but things change. So for instance, the Michel Barnier argument that you can’t pick and choose – if you want to have increased access to the single market, you have to take the single market as it is – well, that has collapsed. The single market no longer exists. You already see that under the weight of the coronavirus crisis, the rules have been suspended…  I hate to admit it, but if I was close to Boris I would say ‘get out’.”
The UK’s initial handling of the pandemic, however, has been viewed with concern in Greece, which has recorded only 150 deaths after imposing tough restrictions early in the crisis. “Most Greeks have taken the view that Boris Johnson got his comeuppance, both personally and as PM, from endorsing an outdated and callous social-Darwinist approach to Covid-19.”
Varoufakis singled out Germany – a country with which he clashed intensely as Greece’s finance minister – for praise. “I think Germany has done reasonably well, at least on the pandemic front, combining the lockdown with a superbly executed plan for moving to phase two through massive testing – that’s typical German ingenuity when it comes to organisation.”
On a geopolitical level, Varoufakis is haunted by the spectre of military conflict between the US and China. “The United States is going to become increasingly aggressive and belligerent in the South China Sea, so I’m very worried about war erupting there. And I will say something that I’m sure is going to be used against me, but I’ll say because I believe it, this is especially the case if Donald Trump loses the White House. Whoever comes next, whether it’s Biden or some stooge decided at the Democratic National Convention in August, is going to be far more war-prone than Trump is. One good thing about Trump – there aren’t many – is that he seems to be shying away from armed confrontation.
“A Democratic president that does not command respect like Obama did will be on very fragile ground. What is the best way of uniting the US behind the president? You start a war.”
Varoufakis may consider capitalism to have been “suspended”, but he does not share the optimism of those commentators who have hailed this as a “social democratic” or “socialist” moment. “I listen to my friends and comrades, like Slavoj Žižek, who are struggling to conjure up optimism out of this mess,” he explains, “and they leave me cold. Because already it’s quite remarkable — the financial markets are doing quite well, thank you very much, so much liquidity has been pumped into them. Once we are out of lockdown, I believe that this liquidity is going to translate into two things: first, greater inequality; and second, greater nationalism.”
Varoufakis emigrated to the UK aged 17 and stayed for over a decade, studying mathematics at the University of Essex, where he also gained a PhD in economics, before teaching at Essex, East Anglia and Cambridge universities. The Thatcher years were for him a debilitating lesson. “I remember when unemployment shot up from 750,000 people in the UK to 3.5 million. I thought right, that’s ok, that’s it — now the working class will automatically begin to organise and the bourgeoisie are going to get their comeuppance. And look what happened: the only beneficiaries were the spivs and the money markets, and the big banks in the City of London. The left was decimated and remains so to this day. There are no iron laws of history favouring the left.”
Nor is Varoufakis, who remained a consistent supporter of Corbyn, enthused by Keir Starmer’s leadership of Labour. He describes Starmer as a “very sweet bloke, but totally harmless from the perspective of the establishment”.
“It’s undoubtedly the case,” he adds, “that a Starmer administration is going to be business as usual, with a kinder face and a few tweaks of policy here and there to give some of the suffering people a little bit more. But this will not constitute an alternative in the way that the Corbyn-McDonnell Labour Party was intending to put on the table.”
What of Varoufakis’s own plans for the future? He is currently completing what he describes as a work of political science fiction that has, he quips, been “written exclusively on aeroplanes before lockdown and toilets”.
“I needed to write a sequel to  Talking to My Daughter About the Economy  [2017],” he explains, “because there was a very apt criticism that I’m shitting on capitalism, and then of course the question is, ‘so what’s the alternative?’ And I can’t say the Soviet Union, I can’t say Sweden, so I always resisted for decades coming up with an answer to this question – but I don’t think I can continue to resist it.
“Then again, I could not sit down and write a book on utopia. So I ended up narrating it as a science fiction story… It’s called  Another Now :  Dispatches from an Alternative Present . The gist of it is that in 2008 the crisis was so large that the timeline bifurcated; we are on one trajectory but there is another, socialist, one.”
In the real world, Varoufakis is not short of what the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called “pessimism of the intellect”. But does he retain optimism of the will? “I have no optimism at all, zero optimism,” he says, explaining that optimism requires evidence that things will change for the better.
“But I have hope,” he adds. “Hope is something you choose.”

George Eaton is senior online editor of the New Statesman.

For the New Statesman site, click here.

Progressive International: Today we began organising the world’s progressives. Join us!

 

In December 2018, the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) and the Sanders Institute issued an open call to all progressive forces to form a common front.”It is time for progressives of the world to unite. The Progressive International takes up that call. We unite, organise, and mobilise progressive forces behind a shared vision of a world transformed.”

Become a member today. If you have any questions or comments, please write to info@progressive.international and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

Our Vision

We aspire to a world that is:


Democratic, where all people have the power to shape their institutions and their societies.


Decolonised, where all nations determine their collective destiny free from oppression.


Just, that redresses inequality in our societies and the legacy of our shared history.


Egalitarian, that serves the interests of the many, and never the few.


Liberated, where all identities enjoy equal rights, recognition, and power.


Solidaristic, where the struggle of each is the struggle of all.


Sustainable, that respects planetary boundaries and protects frontline communities.


Ecological, that brings human society into harmony with its habitat.


Peaceful, where the violence of war is replaced by the diplomacy of peoples.


Post-capitalist, that rewards all forms of labour while abolishing the cult of work.


Prosperous, that eradicates poverty and invests in a future of shared abundance.


Plural, where difference is celebrated as strength.


Council

The Council of advisors is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the Progressive International. In September – pandemic permitting – the Council will convene for the inaugural Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, hosted by the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Left-Green Movement.



Julian Aguon – Micronesia
Julian Aguon is a human rights lawyer and founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm working across Oceania at the intersection of indigenous rights and environmental justice.






Kali Akuno -United States of America (USA)

Kali Akuno is a co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson. He served as the Director of Special Projects and External Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe Lumumba of Jackson, MS.







Slim Amamou – Tunisia

Slim Amamou is a blogger, activist, and a former Secretary of State for Sport and Youth in the transitional Tunisian government. He resigned from the role in 2011 — protesting the transitional government’s censorship of a number of websites.







Celso Amorim – Brazil

Celso Amorim is the longest serving foreign minister of Brazil to date (1993-1994 and 2003-2010). He also served as Minister of Defense (2011-2014). Amorim remains active in academic life and as a public figure, having written a number of books and articles on matters ranging from foreign policy to culture.







Andrés Arauz – Ecuador

Andres Arauz is a former Minister of Knowledge of Ecuador and a former Central Bank General Director. He is a founding member of the Dollarization Observatory and a former board member of the nascent Bank of the South. He is currently based in Mexico City as a Doctoral Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM.







Niki Ashton – Canada

Niki Ashton is a Member of Parliament for Churchill–Keewatinook Aski. She serves as the NDP’s Critic for Democratic Reform and Transport, and Deputy Critic for Women and Gender Equality.







Renata Ávila – Guatemala

Renata Ávila is an international human rights lawyer. She is a 2020 Stanford Race and Technology Fellow at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. She is a Board member for Creative Commons, the Common Action Forum, Cities for Digital Rights, Article 19 Mexico & Central America, and a Global Trustee of Digital Future Society. She also serves as a member of the Coordinating Collective of DiEM25.







Edil Baisalov – Kyrgyzstan

Edil Baisalov is the current ambassador of Kyrgyzstan in London. A renowned human rights defender and civic activist, Edil played a key role in bringing down authoritarian and corrupt governments in 2005 and 2010. His voice was persistent in the fight against corruption and organised crime, often at great risk to his safety. In 2008-2010 he lived in Sweden as a UNHCR refugee after facing a jail term for his opposition work as executive secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan.







Nnimmo Bassey – Nigeria

Nnimmo Bassey is the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF). He is a member of the steering committee of Oilwatch International, and was the chair of Friends of the Earth International (2008-2012) and Executive Director of Nigeria’s Environmental Rights Action (1993-2013). He is also a Member of the Action Research Network for a Wellbeing Economy in Africa (WE-Africa).







Sami Ben Gharbia – Tunisia

Sami Ben Gharbia is a Tunisian human rights campaigner, blogger, writer, and freedom of expression advocate. He is the Founding Director of the Advocacy arm of Global Voices Online, the anti-censorship network dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online. He is a co-founder of the award-winning collective blog Nawaat, a Tunisian citizen journalism website.







Khaled Ali – Egypt

Khaled Ali is a prominent lawyer and advocate of social justice and workers’ rights against corruption in Egypt. He is the former head of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) and co-founder of the Front for Defending Egypt’s Protesters and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC).







Áurea Carolina – Brazil

Áurea Carolina is a federal deputy for Minas Gerais state (BR), affiliated with the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). Áurea is part of the Muitas municipalist movement, of #partidA (an informal party composed dedicated to electing women into office), and of the Ocupa Política network (devoted to boosting the occupation of the institutional politics by progressive activists). Together with Andréia de Jesus, Bella Gonçalves, and Cida Falabella, she takes part in the “Gabinetona”, a forum where four parliamentary mandates work collectively.







Alicia Castro – Argentina

Alicia Castro is political and union activist. She was was the General Secretary of the Union of Aeronavegantes, the founder of the Argentine Workers Movement (MTA), and a member of the ITF Council. She served as the Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2016. Before that, she served in ambassadorial posts in Venezuela and as the National Deputy for the Province of Buenos Aires.







Noam Chomsky – United States of America (USA)

Noam Chomsky is considered the founder of modern linguistics. He has received numerous awards, including the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal and the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. Chomsky joined the UA in fall 2017, coming from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked since 1955 and was Institute Professor, later Institute Professor emeritus.










Rafael Correa – Ecuador






Rafael Correa is former Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador, 2007- 2017, and Chairman of the Eloy Alfaro Political and Economic Thought Institute (IPPE). Rafael holds a Ph.D. and MSc. in Economics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a MA in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain- la-Neuve, Belgium. He obtained his first economics degree from the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Ecuador.









Vanessa Nakate – Uganda





Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist. She was the first Fridays For Future activist in Uganda and founded the Rise up Climate Movement, which seeks to amplify the voices of activists from across Africa. She also spearheaded a campaign to save Congo’s rain forest, which is facing rapid deforestation. She is currently working on a project to install solar panels and stoves in schools.







Jean Drèze – India

Jean Drèze is a development economist and Visiting Professor at Ranchi University in India. His recent books include An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (with Amartya Sen) and Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone. Jean is also active in various campaigns for social and economic rights as well as in the worldwide movement for peace and disarmament.









Tasneem Essop – South Africa

Tasneem Essop is Executive Director of Climate Action Network International (CAN-I). She served in the first democratic provincial parliament in South Africa, and later in the Provincial Cabinet. She was an anti-apartheid activist from an early age in different capacities, student and youth activist, teacher and trade unionist.

Nick Estes
Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. In 2014, he co- founded The Red Nation, an Indigenous resistance organization. For 2017-2018, Estes was the American Democracy Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. Estes is a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a network of Indigenous writers committed to defend and advance Oceti Sakowin (Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota) sovereignty, cultures, and histories.






Miatta Fahnbulleh – United Kingdom (UK)

Miatta Fahnbulleh has a wealth of experience in developing and delivering policy to empower communities and change people’s lives. She has been at the forefront of generating new ideas on reshaping our economy inside government and out. Prior to joining the New Economics Foundation as Chief Executive she was Director of Policy & Research at the Institute of Public Policy Research. Before this, she has worked at senior levels for the Leader of the Opposition, the Cabinet Office, and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the United Kingdom.







Gael García Bernal – Mexico

Gael García Bernal is an actor. He began performing in stage productions with his parents in Mexico, and later studied at the Central School for Speech and Drama in London. He is a founder and the president of Ambulante, an itinerant not-for-profit documentary film festival promoting documentaries within Mexico and abroad. He has recently opened his new production company, La Corriente del Golfo, together with Diego Luna.







Álvaro García-Linera – Bolivia

Alvaro Garcia-Linera is a Bolivian politician from Cochabamba. He led the indigenist Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army rebel group during the early 1990s, and he was imprisoned from 1992 to 1997. In 2005, he was elected Vice President of Bolivia, serving until his resignation in November 2019.







Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta – Argentina

Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta is the Minister of Women, Genders and Diversity of Argentina. Previously, she practiced law from more than twenty years, representing victims of state terrorism and political prisoners. She is also Professor at the University of Buenos Aires, where she teaches criminal law. She has published numerous articles on criminal law, human rights law and gender. She holds a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires and has completed postgraduate studies in law, sociology and political sciences.







Fernando Haddad – Brazil

Fernando Haddad is a Brazilian politician and academic who served as Minister of Education (2005-2012) in the cabinets of both Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, served as Mayor of São Paulo (2013- 2017), and was the Worker’s Party (PT) candidate in the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil. Haddad holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law, a Master’s Degree in Economics and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of São Paulo (USP). He is a professor of Contemporary Political Theory at USP and of Public Administration at Insper.







Harry Halpin – United States of America (USA)

Harry Halpin is the CEO of Nym Technologies SA, a Swiss privacy company that produces mixnet technology that can even resist NSA-level surveillance. Previously, he led research projects at Inria, W3C/MIT, and received his Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh in Informatics. He is currently active in the global movement for democratic confederalism as inspired by Rojava.









Hilda Heine – Marshall Islands




Hilda Heine is Senator for Aur Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. She served as President of the RMI from 2016 to 2020, and the Minister of Education before that. As RMI President, Heine took the issue of climate change, an existential threat for the peoples of the Marshall Islands and others in similar situations, to the international stage to share the story and to increase others’ awareness of RMI and the difficulties it faces due to climate change.










Srećko Horvat – Croatia






Srećko Horvat is a philosopher. He has been active in various movements for the past two decades. He co-founded the Subversive Festival in Zagreb and, together with Yanis Varoufakis, founded DiEM25. He published more than a dozen books translated into 15 languages, most recently Poetry from the Future, Subversion!, The Radicality of Love and What Does Europe Want?.







Aruna Roy – India

Aruna Roy isa Founder-Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghathan (MKSS), National Campaign to People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), and the School for Democracy (SFD). She was with the IAS from 1968-1975. In 1975 she came to Ajmer District, Rajasthan to work with the SWRC and the rural poor. In 1987 she moved to live with the poor in a village called Devdungri, Rajsamand District in Rajasthan. In 1990 she was part of the group that set up the MKSS. She has worked for accessing constitutional rights for the poor – Right to Information, Employment, Food Security etc.She was a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) from 2004-06 and 2010-13. She is President of the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW).







Wang Hui – China

Wang Hui, the founding Director of the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing. He teaches at Tsinghua University, Beijing as Distinguished Professor of Literature and History. One of the esteemed scholars in fields of intellectual history, social theory and modern literature, and a leading figure of the “Chinese New Left”, Wang Hui’s work has attempted to chart the intellectual and political conditions of contemporary China and has remained committed to the project of deep engagement with both the history and the consequences of Chinese modernity.







Giorgio Jackson – Chile

Giorgio Jackson is a politician and activist. He started as an activist by being a national leader in the student mobilizations of 2011. He is founder and first congressman of the political party Democratic Revolution and the coalition “Frente Amplio” (Broad Front), achieving the highest number of votes in the last national elections. His main concerns in politics are the disputes on knowledge and technologies, and how international trade agreements contribute to global inequality, injustice and unsustainability. He is the co- author of Copia o Muerte (Copy or Death).







Katrín Jakobsdóttir – Iceland

Katrín Jakobsdóttir is the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Leader of the Left-Green Movement. Katrín was first elected to the Icelandic Parliament in 2007 and she served as Minister for Education, Culture and Science in the post-crash left wing government from 2009 to 2013. She is the second female prime minister of Iceland, representing Nordic left-wing politics linking democratic socialism, environmentalism, feminism, and anti-militarism.







Vicenta Jerónimo Jiménez – Guatemala

Vicenta Jerónimo Jiménez is deputy to the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala for the Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (MLP). She is the founder of Mujeres Madre Tierra México in Guatemala, with years in the struggle for indigenous rights and social justice in Guatemala.







Joacine Katar Moreira – Portugal

Joacine Katar Moreira is a historian, feminist and anti-racist activist, and an elected Member of Parliament. She is part of the Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees Committee and of the Environment, Energy and Territorial Planning Committee. She holds a Ph.D. in African Studies, a master’s degree in Development Studies and a BA in Modern and Contemporary History at ISCTE — University Institute of Lisbon. Katar Moreira is also the founder of INMUNE — Black Woman Institute and has been an active participant in public and academic debates on gender, colonialism, slavery, and racism.







Burcu Kilic – Turkey

Dr. Burcu Kilic directs the Digital Rights Program at Public Citizen and serves as the US Chair of the Digital Policy Committee at the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue. She was listed among the “300 Women Leaders in Global Health” by the Graduate Institute in Geneva in 2015 and currently leads a project on the intersection of health policy and digital rights. She completed her Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of London, holds L.L.M. degrees in Intellectual Property Law from Queen Mary, University of London and Information Technology Law from Stockholm University. She obtained her law degree with distinction from Ankara University.







Naomi Klein – Canada

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything, No is Not Enough and On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. She is Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, a Puffin Writing Fellow at Type Media Center and is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University.







Ertuğrul Kürkçü – Turkey

Ertuğrul Kürkçü is the current Honorary President of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and Honorary Associate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). He was the co-chair of the HDP in 2013-14 and the member of parliament for three successive terms between 2011-2018. He spent 14 years as a prisoner between 1972-1986 for his political activism in Turkey, after which he helped found the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP). After its disintegration, he joined the united block of ‘Labor, Democracy and Freedom’ in 2011 what successfully transformed into the HDP.







Avi Lewis – Canada

Avi Lewis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. His 25-year journalism career has spanned local news reporting to hosting and producing a variety of current affairs shows for television networks worldwide, to directing theatrically released documentaries that premiered in festivals like TIFF and the Venice Biennale. In 2017, he co-founded and is now Strategic Director of The Leap — an organization launched to upend our collective response to the crises of climate, inequality and racism.







Scott Ludlam – Australia

Scott Ludlam is a writer, activist and former Australian Greens Senator. He served in Parliament from 2008 – 2017, and as Co-Deputy Leader of his party from 2015 – 2017. Currently working as a freelance researcher and troublemaker, while writing occasional pieces for Meanjin, the Monthly, Junkee and the Guardian.







Harsh Mander – India

Harsh Mander is human rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher, and teacher. He works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, homeless persons and street children.












John McDonnell – United Kingdom (UK)

John McDonnell is a Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington. From 2015 to 2020, he served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under party leader Jeremy Corbyn.









Kavita Naidu – Fiji




Kavita Naidu is Climate Justice Programme Officer at Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) based in Thailand. She specializes in the area of international climate law and human rights, working with grassroots women in the Asia Pacific region.












Leah Namugerwa – Uganda

Leah Namugerwa is a 15-year-old climate activist from Uganda. She’s the Team Leader of Fridays for Future Uganda. She’s the Founder of Birthday Trees Project.







Nanjala Nyabola – Kenya

Nanjala Nyabola is a writer, independent researcher, and political analyst. Her work focuses on conflict and post-conflict transitions, with a focus on refugees and migration, as well as East African politics generally. She is the author of Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics and the co-editor of Where Women Are. Nanjala holds a BA in African Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham, an MSc in Forced Migration, and an MSc in African Studies, both from the University of Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.







Lyn Ossome – South Africa

Lyn Ossome is Senior Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, where she teaches politics and political economy. She is the author most recently of Gender, Ethnicity and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy: States of Violence and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Labour Questions in the Global South. She serves on several boards, including the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and organizes on several fronts with feminist and agrarian movements.










Varshini Prakash – United States of America (USA)






Varshini Prakash is the Executive Director and co-founder of Sunrise, a movement of young people working to stop climate change, build economic prosperity for all through a Green New Deal, and elect a new generation of politicians to office. Varshini has been a leading voice for young Americans, inspiring thousands of young people to fight for the Green New Deal alongside the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders and helped put the climate crisis at the top of the political agenda in the states.












Vijay Prashad – India

Vijay Prashad is the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Chief Editor of LeftWord Books, and Chief Correspondent of Globetrotter. He is the author of thirty books, most recently Washington Bullets with a preface by Evo Morales Ayma.












Carola Rackete – Germany

Carola Rackete studied nautical science in Elsfleth and conservation management in Ormskirk, England. She has mainly been working on polar research vessels and spent eight seasons in the Antarctic. Since 2016, she has been volunteering on NGO ships and aircraft in the central Mediterranean and, as captain of the SEA-WATCH 3, was arrested in 2019 for entering an Italian port to safeguard a group of rescued refugees.







Trusha Reddy – South Africa

Trusha Reddy is Head of the Energy & Climate Justice Program of the WoMin African Alliance. She is an experienced advocate for climate justice with more than 15 years in the fight for a jus transition in the Global South and around the world.







Asad Rehman – United Kingdom (UK)

Asad Rehman is the Executive Director of the radical anti-poverty and social justice charity War on Want. He was a founder of the Stop the War Coalition and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, amongst other initiatives. He has also served on boards of Amnesty International UK, Friends of the Earth International, Global Justice Now, and Newham Monitoring Project.







Arundhati Roy – India

Arundhati Roy is a novelist, writer and activist. She is the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize. She also has published several books of nonfiction including The End of Imagination, Capitalism: A Ghost Story and The Doctor and the Saint.







Apolena Rychlíková – Czechia

Apolena Rychlíková is a Czech filmmaker and journalist at A2larm.cz. Her feature film Limits of Work was named Best Czech Documentary in the Czech Joy section at the 21st Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and won also Audience Prize. She has also won a prize for Best Opinion Journalism in 2017. She is founder of project Memory of city — interdisciplinary collective of people researching on housing issues, overtourism and gentrification. Apolena has two daughters and believes that a better world is possible.







Alexey Sakhnin – Russia

Alexey Sakhnin is a Russian activist and a member of the Left Front. He was one of the leaders of the anti-Putin protest movement from 2011 to 2013, and was later exiled to Sweden.












Pierre Sané – Senegal

Pierre Sané is the Founder & President of Imagine Africa Institute was UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences from May 2001 – June 2010. He was Secretary General of Amnesty International from October 1992 to April 2001.







Mona Seif – Egypt

Mona Seif is an Egyptian human rights activist and struggling scientist. She is co-founder of the No Military Trials for Civilians movement, and the sister of software developer and political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.







Céline Semaan – Lebanon

Céline Semaan is a Lebanese-Canadian researcher and designer, and the founder of Slow Factory. With a background in digital literacy, transparency, and open data, Céline has worked at the intersection of fashion, politics, and climate since 2003. In 2013, she launched Slow Factory, a non-profit that works with companies to develop actionable and tailored solutions for a wide range of climate-related issues, with science and post-colonial theory at the forefront.














Sarika Sinha – India

Sarika is a part of the autonomous women’s movement in India and works with caste based sex workers, manual scavengers, Dalit, tribal, and Muslim women. She was instrumental in setting up the first one-stop crisis center in India for women survivors of violence. Sarika works closely with progressive social movements across India







Ahdaf Soueif – Egypt

Ahdaf Soueif is the author of the bestselling novel The Map of Love. Her account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, Cairo: a City Transformed, came out in 2014. She is the Founder and Chair of the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) and a widely published political and cultural commentator.












Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor – United States of America (USA)

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an author and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her books include From #BlackLives Matter to Black Liberation, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective and Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. She is also a contributing writer to The New York Times and The New Yorker.







Ece Temelkuran – Turkey

Ece Temelkuran is one of Turkey’s best- known novelists and political commentators, appearing in the Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, and Der Spiegel. Her recent novel Women Who Blow on Knots won the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award. She is the recipient of the PEN Translate Award, the New Ambassador of Europe Prize, and “Honorary Citizenship” from the city of Palermo for her work on behalf of oppressed voices.







Fawwaz Traboulsi – Lebanon

Fawwaz Traboulsi teaches Political Science, History and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. He has been a visiting professor at New York University, the University of Michigan, Columbia University, and Vienna University. He is a fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.







Yanis Varoufakis – Greece

Yanis Varoufakis is a member of the Hellenic Parliament and the Secretary-General of MeRA25. He is the co-founder of DiEM25, and the former finance minister of Greece. He is the author of several books, including Adults in the Room and And The Weak Suffer What They Must?.







Paola Vega – Costa Rica

Paola Vega is a Costa Rican congresswoman. She is the chair of the Environmental Committee and a member of the Economic and Women’s Committees. Her main goals in environmental matters are to change plastic consumption, pass a new and modern water law, ban gas and oil exploration and exploitation, evolve to sustainable fishing practices, and to promote green businesses and circular economies.







Paola Villarreal – Mexico

Paola is a systems programmer who, since 1998, has worked and played with all things ‘open’ in governments, NGOs, and the private sector. She is the Coordinator of Data Science for the National Advisory Board for Science and Technology in Mexico’s government. In 2018, she was awarded the MIT Innovators Under 35 LATAM and the Visionary of the Year 2018 awards for her work at the intersection of data science and justice. She was also a 2016-2017 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.