It is no longer possible to contrast a “secular” West with a “religious” East, writes Olivier Roy. Secularization and the de-culturation of religion are taking place in both East and West. The difference is the political forms that the de-culturated religions take.
It may well be that the Euro-Summit agreement of 12 July 2015 is forced through in a process at least as brutal, and even more divisive, than the extremities of the eurocrisis seen over the last five years. But even this does not necessarily preclude the renewal of European politics.
In her contribution to the editorial in Soundings’ summer issue, Syriza member Marina Prentoulis assesses the options for grassroots movements in a European Union that has lost sight of any notion of a “Social Europe”; a union determined to preserve a neoliberal agenda. The following was written prior to the 12 July Euro-Summit agreement.
There are many words that neoliberalism has emptied of content – democracy, social justice, citizenship, sovereignty – that can be reclaimed, filled with progressive ideas and used to drive change. So says Sirio Canos Donnay, an archaeologist and member of Podemos.
The ongoing revolution in knowledge and service economies is every bit as dramatic as the revolution in the industrial economy during the nineteenth century, says Adrian Wooldridge. And it is displacing or disorientating workers in the same way too, but probably at an even faster rate.
The hope of the Arab Spring, as pro-democracy revolutions swept the Middle East, is now a distant memory, as Yemen, Syria and Egypt remain mired in chaos and conflict (to varying degrees). But where did it all go so wrong? In his new book, From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and its Jihadi Legacy, Jean-Pierre Filiu examines the destructive role of Arab dictators in funding and arming hardline Islamists – boosting groups such as Islamic State (IS) – with a view to dividing the opposition and convincing western powers to back their dictatorships. Here, he discusses his arguments with New Humanist editor Samira Shackle.
Earlier this year, a hologram protest against Spain’s new “gag law” was staged in Madrid. A proxy protest fit for the age of proxy politics? Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann weigh up the options now that power increasingly enjoys a prerogative to obscurity, while political subjects are rendered increasingly transparent.
As anti-gender movements gain momentum throughout Europe, using the concept of gender as a technical category may, in the long run, prove more self-destructive than useful. Andrea Peto argues for the re-enchantment of feminist politics.
Responding to Slavenka Drakulic’s recent Eurozine article on the situation of women caught up in the post-’89 transition, Kristen Ghodsee and Adriana Zaharijevic reconsider notions of “emancipation from above” and the grassroots participation of ordinary women in both the East and the West.
At a certain point, every authoritarian state must choose democratization or collapse. But according to Ella Paneyakh, the Russian system is seeking a third way. It has in its sights nothing less than the social fabric: human interrelations, mutual support mechanisms and the capacity for joint action.
Given its global impact on the free speech rights of citizens versus those of corporations, the regulation of the Internet cannot be left to chance, writes Dana Polatin-Reuben. Hence the importance of recent efforts by the US Federal Communications Commission to effect net neutrality.
Art is suffering in Hungary’s oppressively nationalist climate, writes Edit András. Criticism of the state-supported cultural system is weakened by a gradual acceptance of the new configuration; and due to general exhaustion, the protest movement among artists has also lost its vigour.
The shadow citizenry is a territorial reserve army of foot soldiers, who want in but are forced out; often defiant yet somehow disunited, disgruntled and raging in a global civil war of austerity and high frequency piracy.
To coincide with its fifteenth anniversary, the Austrian journal of urbanism ‘dérive’ has launched its 60th issue, devoted to Henri Lefebvre and the right to the city. It includes the following article by Andy Merrifield.
The sooner Europe gets used to a future without the nation-state, the better, writes Robert Menasse. Amnesia about what the unification project originally meant is causing a catastrophic lack of imagination about where it is heading.
In societies with colonial histories and that are traditionally open to the world, there is widespread tolerance of diversity at a fundamental level. So says Aleksander Smolar; who is afraid that, for Poland, the smallest step towards adaptation will be a dramatic struggle.