Contemporary Islam in Europe, its modes of public expression and the visibility of associated religious signs and symbols all raise questions concerning the values of the European public sphere. And yet, writes Nilüfer Göle, religious agency itself remains a blind spot in the public debate.
As the use of the Internet in the post-Soviet space continues to evolve, Natalya Ryabinska shows how tools of control, surveillance and propaganda are more than up to the task of hindering online sources that promote democratization. Once again, the fate of civil society hangs in the balance.
A re-designed city is a means to an end. And for Peter Marcuse, that end is the welfare and happiness of those whom the city should serve: all of us. Moreover, he shows how the realm of work could be shrunk significantly without impacting negatively on a desirable realm of freedom.
One of the most important and ominous aspects of the NSA scandal is the secretive essence of the system, writes Ilija Trojanow: transparency is clearly the biggest enemy of the alleged guardians of freedom. This much Trojanow now knows from personal experience.
Acclaimed novelist Ilija Trojanow was denied entry to the United States en route to the German Studies Association’s annual conference on 30 September. Could this possibly have something to do with Trojanow’s critical stance on NSA-led surveillance?
Should the printed book soon become a relic of a bygone era in publishing, uncertainty as to modes of sharing knowledge and experience will remain. Neither will we know, according to Manuel Arias Maldonado, whether to mourn the loss of the well known or of the valuable.
Twenty years after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat shook hands over the Oslo Accords, Frida Skatvik reveals how Norway ended up a broker of peace in the Middle East and assesses the legacy of the ensuing peace process.
A controversial tweet by Richard Dawkins prompts incoming New Humanist editor Daniel Trilling to set out some basic principles concerning the way we discuss religion. He argues that finding common ground between people of different religious beliefs and none is key to political progress.
The prospect of Romania’s parliament passing new legislation, allowing the expropriation of citizens’ homes to make way for Europe’s largest gold mine, has prompted some of the country’s most significant protests since the fall of communism. Claudia Ciobanu reports.
Basic connectivity, defined as the capacity to speak and associate online, should be considered as something approaching a civic entitlement rather than a service available to consumers in the marketplace, argues Robert Reich.
Until 1991, Ukraine had largely failed to establish a narrative for itself in the world. Peter Pomerantsev shows how, thereafter, a new literature emerged that made contemporary Ukrainian writers Europe’s grittier Latin Americans, mixing magical realism with domestic abuse, folklore and mafia.
Widespread calls for the resignation of those responsible for the police brutality in Gezi Park prompted Erdogan to retort at the time: “Since when have the feet become the head?” Such rhetoric leaves Osman Deniztekin deeply concerned for the state of democracy in Turkey.
When people refuse to engage with the state, they present an opportunity for the state’s worst autocratic tendencies to kick in, argues Paolo Gerbaudo. Wherein lie the roots of the Egyptian army’s removal of the country’s first elected president after the massive 30 June protests.
Though homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, an increasingly restrictive legal climate and widespread intolerance continue to hamper the lives of gay men and women. Nonetheless, LGBT networks continue to develop support systems of their own.
In an unpublished, semi-autobiographical novel, Sergey Khazov draws on his experience of growing up gay in Russia. Extracts.