Welcome! Newsletter number 53.
A new review! It took me almost a year. But with books about football, everything comes more easily. I had a look at Vasilis Kostakis’s Beyond the Final Whistle: Football for a Better World. (I realized that the last review, from July 2024, also was about a soccer book, even by the same publisher, Pluto Press.)
Let’s stick to football: I watched the first Austrian participant in a European cup quarterfinal in, like, forever. And the setting couldn’t have been more perfect. Rapid Vienna was playing against the Stockholm side Djurgården, a mere ten minutes by bicycle from my home. You can read a short account – including a tribute to a dear friend – from the press terraces on the PM Press blog.
To prove that I do not only review football books, I wrote a short review of Durchlöchert den Status quo! by Michael Hirsch and Kilian Jörg for analyse & kritik (I wasn’t too excited about the title).
Reviews reversed: From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas: A Documentary History of the 2nd of June Movement was reviewed by Jonas Lundström on his blog and by Ron Jacobs on Counterpunch.
Comrades in Sweden presented me with a treat by translating the pamphlet Full Body Scan: Imperialism Today. It is now available in Swedish under the title Förtidsobduktion: imperialismen idag. You can find it if you move in the right circles! (And, yes, living in Sweden is an advantage, too.)
On a related note, I was allowed to lend a blurb to the new edition of an antiimperialist classic, Unequal Exchange and the Prospects of Socialism by Denmark’s Communist Working Group. (For background info, see Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers.) The new edition has been released by the fine folks of Iskra Books (check out their exemplary publishing policies).
Another blurb I wrote, in that case many years ago, traveled with the Greek translation of Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts. The translation is well deserved, it’s a great book.
At the union office (SAC), we had quite a few international visitors last month. Always nice. An entire weekend was spent with rank-and-file activists from other Nordic countries: Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland (comrades from the IWW Iceland wrote about the trip on their website). It was great to exchange experiences and we hope to present a pamphlet titled “Radical Union Organizing in the Nordic Countries” soon.
My contribution to May 1 this year was answering some questions from the Academy of Democratic Modernity for the May 1 article they published.
Fairly big news (it’s all personal) is that the first podcast series I was ever part of conceptualizing and hosting is now online: in Linker Schwede! Ein Ossi und ein Ösi im Volksheim, my friend Volodya and I chat about Sweden and how coming from different parts of the German-speaking world has shaped our experiences. I owe Volodya many thanks for all the technical work, which I am utterly unqualified to do. It was a fun project to partake in, and, hopefully, some folks will even appreciate our chatter. If you want to spread the link, don’t be shy! (I still don’t have a single social media account.)
Speaking of fun projects: We have now listed the recipients of the 2025 DIY Solidarity funds on the DIY Solidarity web page. Already looking forward to the 2026 applications!
Finally, a recommendation: the film Defending Sápmi: “Green” Colonialism in Northern Europe, made by good friends.
More next month. Stay safe!