Jonathan Shainin
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shainin.bsky.social
Jonathan Shainin
@shainin.bsky.social
510 followers 210 following 12 posts
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Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
elifriedman.bsky.social
I love China and hip hop so I was an easy sell but I can't recommend this @equatormag.bsky.social piece enough. It is so hard to get good essays in English about life in China; this one is about so much more than music (though it's got that too)
Have Money Daddy • EQUATOR
Kafe Hu was a pioneer in the underground scene that made Chengdu into China's hip-hop capital. But what happens when the counterculture blows up?
www.equator.org
February 4, 2026 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
equatormag.bsky.social
After jailing Imran Khan two years ago, Pakistan’s military establishment has tried to erase him from public life. @osmansamiuddin.bsky.social travelled to Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore to report on this bizarre effort to disappear the country’s most famous man.
www.equator.org/articles/the...
The Hidden Imran • EQUATOR
The cricketing legend is Pakistan’s most famous man. Can the state make him vanish?
www.equator.org
January 22, 2026 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
flyingrodent.bsky.social
Amazing how they just say this stuff out loud now. I assume they understand people can see them saying it.
NEW: Allies of Keir Starmer say Andy Burnham will not be allowed to stand - and one well-placed source suggests an all-BAME shortlist could be used:
January 22, 2026 at 6:50 PM
shainin.bsky.social
This week's big new Equator story

The Hidden Imran
by Osman Samiuddin

The cricketing legend is Pakistan’s most famous man. Can the state make him vanish?

www.equator.org/articles/the...
The Hidden Imran • EQUATOR
The cricketing legend is Pakistan’s most famous man. Can the state make him vanish?
www.equator.org
January 22, 2026 at 8:33 PM
shainin.bsky.social
Find out more at equator.org
January 21, 2026 at 3:04 PM
shainin.bsky.social
The true essence of Starmerism: smug grandstanding about how he's not grandstanding. (Recall his pre-prepared response to a protestor at his conference speech in 2021: "Shouting slogans or changing lives, conference?")
heartinamber.bsky.social Tamar @heartinamber.bsky.social · 26d
Not a serious person
Starmer criticises politicians who have responded to Greenland crisis with 'grandstanding' Starmer concludes by welcoming the stance taken by Kemi Badenoch on Greenland. But, he goes on: [In] moments like this there will always be people who reach for the performative, who think an angry social media post or grandstanding is a substitute for hard work. That’s an understandable instinct, but it’s not effective. It never has been. It may make politicians feel good, but it does nothing for working people whose jobs, livelihoods and security rely on the relationships that we build across the world. This seems to be a jibe at people like Ed Davey and Zack Polanski.
January 19, 2026 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
keshavarziana.bsky.social
“People are emboldened in part by the weakness of the regime, but also because society has been brimming with energy from both previous national protests & daily claim-making by nurses, teachers, truck drivers, farmers, pensioners, oil workers & many others. These protests don’t exist in a vacuum.”
‘An Explosion Long in the Making’ • EQUATOR
A conversation about ‘the most intense protests’ since 1979, the prospect of American intervention, the surreal resurgence of Reza Pahlavi – and the future of Iranian society
www.equator.org
January 18, 2026 at 1:22 PM
shainin.bsky.social
From this weekend's @equatormag.bsky.social newsletter, an interview with Arang Keshavarzian on the scale and significance of the protests in Iran: www.equator.org/articles/ira...
Even five years ago, I would have scoffed at this suggestion. Reza Pahlavi hardly represented a serious political movement. I still don’t see a well-articulated, let alone coherent, political project, but we have to acknowledge that something has shifted and a return to Pahlavism has become meaningful to many Iranians. I can’t give you percentages, but we see it in urban areas and across many classes. That said, this is a reflection of the lack of viable alternatives to the Islamic Republic. At every turn in the past decades the Islamic Republic has cut off avenues for participation, representation, and for imagining a new political future. At the same time, it has violated the moral economy that was one of the core tenets of the revolution – that wealth and development was for all.
January 18, 2026 at 11:07 PM
shainin.bsky.social
A question we can't stop asking is whether Trump is radically novel in American history or just a revival of the most reactionary past. This essay by Nikhil Pal Singh provides a new understanding the nature of Trump's hybrid regime: call it Homeland Empire

www.equator.org/articles/hom...
Homeland Empire • EQUATOR
From Venezuela to Minnesota, Trump is trying to create a borderless American power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic into a single domain of impunity
www.equator.org
January 15, 2026 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
will-davies.bsky.social
New genre of Binmenism (cf @danhancox.bsky.social ) slop has dropped: nostalgia for watching tv in the nineties
January 8, 2026 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
janinegibson.ft.com
BREAKING Chinese spies only people brave enough to move to world's most dangerous city
January 13, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
danhancox.bsky.social
New Substack from me - on "the battle for the soul of this country", fascism and UK rap's Flag Play danhancox.substack.com/p/i-think-i-...
i think i would die if i had to leave this country
uk rap v the ravey right on rainy fascism island
danhancox.substack.com
January 13, 2026 at 1:42 PM
shainin.bsky.social
“Everyone wants Ukraine to be a nation of heroes – but no one wants to talk about the violence required to sustain armed resistance to Russia’s invasion.”

A powerful new essay for EQUATOR by the Ukrainian writer and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets equator.org/articles/the...
The Demand for Silence • EQUATOR
Everyone wants Ukraine to be a nation of heroes – but no one wants to talk about the violence required to sustain armed resistance to Russia’s invasion
equator.org
December 3, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
equatormag.bsky.social
New @equatormag.bsky.social: @naomiaklein.bsky.social on how the Surrealists transformed the wreckage of history into revolutionary art – and what their example can teach us about the fight against fascism today www.equator.org/articles/sur...
November 26, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
will-davies.bsky.social
this piece, recommended to me years ago by @shainin.bsky.social , has always stayed with me www.ftrain.com/wwic
November 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
will-davies.bsky.social
Important and remarkably timely piece by @trillingual.bsky.social in @equatormag.bsky.social www.equator.org/articles/ins...
Inside the BBC’s Gaza Fiasco • EQUATOR
How the world’s most trusted media organisation fell apart
www.equator.org
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
trillingual.bsky.social
For the @equatormag.bsky.social newsletter, I talked about how I reported my piece on the BBC and Gaza, and what's at stake in the current crisis. You can read/sign up below - Equator is a brilliant and necessary new magazine, so give it your support!

www.equator.org/articles/ins...
November 15, 2025 at 10:52 AM
shainin.bsky.social
We have just published Equator's editorial declaration — our commitment to build something new. Read more and be a part of what comes next: equator.org
Equator is founded on our conviction that these storied titles of the Anglophone West cannot be internally reformed, nor redeemed by their periodic U-turns and belated mea culpas. The time has come to create something new.
October 10, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
equatormag.bsky.social
The end of the West is not the end of the world.

EQUATOR: a new magazine of politics, culture, art.

** If you haven't signed up to our mailing list, do so at equator.org **
September 22, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
jamellebouie.net
trump’s numbers are tanking and there is a palpable desire in the electorate for a real alternative and yet the only money in democratic politics is for doing starmerism
September 17, 2025 at 3:20 PM
shainin.bsky.social
Our new magazine, Equator, is officially out in the world — and here @equatormag.bsky.social
Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event in London: equator.org
A group of high-profile writers is launching a new magazine called Equator “to challenge the reigning assumption that global events should be narrated by and for the West,” according to a description shared with Semafor. Its founding team includes Pankaj Mishra, Mohsin Hamid, Nesrine Malik, Samanth Subramanian, and Suzy Hansen, with editing by Guardian long reads creator Jonathan Shainin. “In a post-American era, the task of a new magazine is to engage the rich variety of this historical moment on its own terms, without compulsively asking ‘What does it mean for the US?’” the nonprofit outlet, which is primarily based in London, will ask.
September 15, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
profafinlayson.bsky.social
I think a key UK political science question is how the current government can shoot itself in more feet than it actually has. And for theorists the issue is how to characterise a form of rule in which the government shoots itself in the foot, then puts the foot in its mouth and shoots it again.
September 3, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
stephenkb.bsky.social
Indeed. Far too much worrying about Polanski, about Farage, about the Ipsos' issues index, about individual polling, and not enough on 'how can we deliver election-winning budgets and spending rounds in 2027-8 and 2028-9'.
cjayanetti.bsky.social Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · Sep 3
Labourites seem to have gone from "ha ha hypnotits" to "oh fuck Polanski will make Farage PM, is that what you want???" very quickly.

But lads, if you want people's votes, win them. You're the government ffs.
September 3, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Shainin
chrisdillow.bsky.social
How it started How it's going
June 30, 2025 at 6:43 AM