The myth of European exceptionalism no longer holds: the continent’s boundaries are arbitrary, its heritage mixed and controversial, and unfit for a unified identity to hold it together. If we give up the commonplaces that have proven insufficient, what can then define and unify this peninsula of peninsulas? True democratic dissent, Ferenc Laczó argues.
The covid crisis has hit Turkey hard and made its mark on the government’s approval ratings. The country already has the highest number of police officers per capita in Europe and the regime is clamping down on dissent with increasing force – be it Pride marches or women’s protests for the Istanbul Convention.
After lengthy COVID-19 restrictions, economic recovery is at the top of many political agendas. The EU’s comeback strategy – a €750 billion grant and loan repayment scheme – heralds an anti-austerity, environmentally friendly vision. But how realistic is reform when employment legislation still tows a market-driven line? And what lasting ecological provisions can be made from such a rapid, goal-focused turnaround?
To describe Afghanistan as a ‘humiliation’ for the US and its allies misses the point. If at all, it is a humiliation for a generation of politicians who viewed foreign policy as grand strategy conducted over the head of electorates.
The polemic intention of the ‘German catechism’ argument – that Holocaust memory serves a quasi-theological function and is therefore policed – has distracted from the empirical claims on which it rests. So how strong is the evidence of continuity between the colonial and the Nazi genocides? And does a direct connection need to be established in order to justify reconsideration of the ‘singularity theory’?
Comparisons to the evacuation of Saigon fail to account for the speed and scale of the Afghanistan collapse and the shock it has caused the US public. However, the post-war history of the Vietnam war may point to how the Afghan refugee issue offers the US a chance to redeem itself, and how, despite persistent hostilities, diplomatic relations could normalize.
Read me: words can change the relationship between lived reality and idealistic dreams, as writers from Gorgias and Plato to Cervantes and Flaubert – whether they embraced or feared literary seduction – testify.
Under Soviet rule, Ukrainian national consciousness remained dormant and independence an unspeakable taboo. When the desire for freedom erupted, it expanded far beyond the marked route of perestroika. On the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian sovereignty, Mykola Riabchuk recounts a personal history of how independence was conceived, formed and defended.
The poetic writings of Inger Christensen, Kirsten Thorup, Vita Andersen and Sonja Åkesson shed light on the sensibilities of homemakers and carers in invisible reproductive workplaces, demanding the social and political acknowledgement of their labour merits.
With every step taken by the Russian authorities, the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine becomes ever more difficult. How can Ukraine claim back rights to a territory that citizens of another country de facto own?
One year after the rigged presidential elections, protesters in Belarus are still demanding a democratic shift and respond with mutual solidarity to a repressive regime. But what does it take to keep on fighting when your cause falls out of the spotlight?
A former Belarusian political detainee reveals the remarkable depth of cohesion and trust between women activists confined for weeks in overcrowded prison cells.
Once the heart of a civilization, the inland sea connecting Europe and Asia has lost most of its astonishing wildlife and is suffocating under marine mucilage. Industrial pollution and reckless sewage policies feed the phytoplankton that took over the sea. Kaya Genç recalls the rich history of his beloved Marmara and identifies the culprits behind its rapid demise.
Attacks on academic freedom in Hungary are rife: the Central European University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences being recent victims. But what does ‘freedom’ mean in a country with such a short history of democracy as Hungary? And how is the situation in post-Brexit UK different?
Public housing projects in French Algeria often sought to further the social and political aims of the colonisers. But residents weren’t always prepared to play ball.
Oppressed people who retaliate are up against the privileged and powerful. Fighting back often places them outside the system. But what happens when the suppressors’ tools are turned on themselves? Can a colonial education – the underhand offer of ‘a pencil for land’ — be turned into an emancipatory counter movement?