Lives are being lost in a brutal government crackdown on protests for women’s rights after Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody. Can the long-standing control of Iran’s morality police on women be unsettled by a majority already resisting the dress code?
To understand why the imitation of western-style liberal democracy failed post-communist Central Europe, one has to consider the agency of the lead partner, the West. Mimicry is a strategy of colonial power, that stems from the logic of the dominant: it is encouraged on the condition that it fails.
Times have changed, and the conditions that fostered the rise of liberal arts and sciences programs after the start of the Bologna reforms no longer obtain. This raises the question of how the liberal arts and sciences movement will continue in the near future. Can it still have any relevance in a changing context?
The Belarus Revolution started in 2020 after a rigged presidential election. It ended, at least to outward appearances, with Lukashenka’s brutal repression and stricter outlawing of future protests. But, for many, the struggle continues: a new study on protestors’ recollections refutes the perception that the revolution failed.
When Boris Yeltsin told George Bush in 1991 that the USSR couldn’t exist without Ukraine, he wasn’t referring to the economy: culturally, Russia would have been isolated. Today, the same thesis about Slavic identity is being debated with rockets. Serhii Plokhy on Ukraine’s special role in Soviet and post-Soviet history.
Every era has its myths and rituals, doomed to seem absurd to future generations. Today, we believe in psychology, a suspicious science occupying the realm between belief and emotion.
Climate change affects us all yet not equally. The plight of those forced to migrate as a result – often called ‘climate refugees’, though not officially – has become contested ground between human rights/environmental activists and anti-asylum lobbyists. Could ‘ecologically displaced’, avoiding racialization, xenophobia and division, be a viable alternative?
Giorgia Meloni could become Italy’s first female prime minister. Her political rise is no isolated case: ‘femonationalism’ is flourishing throughout Europe, disguising extremes as the next socially acceptable, mainstream choice.
With Russia closing its gas pipeline to Europe, predicted economic downturns have hit the markets. Skyrocketing energy bills mean production cuts and job losses, as well as a cold winter ahead. With a feared backlash to the Ukrainian cause, discussion between frontline war journalists contextualizes Russia’s power-play tactics.
The war in Ukraine gave Lithuanian anti-gender movements a pretext to postpone debates on civil rights issues, deemed all too divisive in times of geopolitical turmoil. Behind the rhetoric of internal unity, however, is a faithful reproduction of the Kremlin’s crusade against ‘gay propaganda’ and the ‘rotten West’.
From a childhood where fraternity rites were common to playing the lead role in a film about gay love: how a heterosexual, Roma man — a father of three from a traditional community in Ploiești, Romania — overcame his reservations and inhibitions about challenging the masculine norm on-screen.
Taking on imperial knowledge, cultural denial and dogmatic absolutism requires authors who can find their way around tricky narrative strategies, using their wits to juggle cultural preconceptions.
While Ukrainian resistance shows no sign of abating, time plays in Putin’s favour. As for the West, it faces complex diplomatic choices. Clocks are ticking on all sides, but at different speeds.
This year’s Venice Biennale proudly features a Roma Pavilion. But Roma people are still often underrepresented. Romania’s recent population census was an opportunity for minorities to acknowledge their identity, and yet discussion suggests that Roma may officially deny or hide their ethnicity, fearing repercussions. Activists describe why this happens and what is at stake.
After fleeing war-ravaged Kharkiv, many have found refuge and hospitality in Poltava. How does it feel to be an internally displaced person in one’s own city of birth?
A four-day-working-week trial is underway in the UK. The long-awaited attempt to improve the nation’s poor work-life balance and reduce related environmental impacts coincides with the conservative government’s ‘zombie’ prime ministerial handover period – one much more seriously anticipated than the other.