Articles

The success of Germany’s anti-immigrant party signals a mood-swing in public debate on the refugee crisis. The solidarity expressed by Angela Merkel’s ‘We can manage’ has given way to something much less generous, writes Daniel Leisegang.

In his latest dispatch from the frontline of the US election campaign, George Blecher watches as the candidates unearth the dirt in each other’s pasts. Policy he asks, what’s that? Forget it.

This is an attempt to give a portrait of Ukrainian youth, with all the limitations implied when one sets out to analyse something that is living, heterogeneous and in a state of continuous transformation. More than two years after the revolution of the Euromaidan, what are the main goals of the new generations? And what are their aspirations?

Fidesz’s constitutional counter-revolution has reversed the process of democratization begun in Hungary in 1989. Seeking reasons for Hungary’s ‘backsliding’, Gábor Halmai argues that democratic culture is more crucial than formal legality to guaranteeing rule of law. Hungary challenges the EU’s ability to prevent illiberal democracies emerging in its midst.

From a distance it isn’t visible, but talking with local residents, you can feel it: something is changing. Ukrainian novelist and poet Serhii Zhadan reports from Starobelsk, a town in the Luhansk region near the ceasefire line, held by the Ukrainian government.

Duck and dodge, wheel and deal, lies, lies and precious few facts or statistics. In the second of his Battle Dispatches covering the US elections, George Blecher explains how lying – or what he calls ‘evasive rhetoric’ – has become the campaign’s central issue on both sides.

The assumption that self-loathing is the root of homophobia ignores the fact that heterosexuals are more than capable of anti-gay damage, and is a convenient absolution for straight people. Alex Macpherson criticizes media fascination with the supposed homosexuality of Omar Mateen.

In his recent book Black Earth, the historian Timothy Snyder analyses the Holocaust in terms of the destruction of the state. This allows him to compare the roles of the Nazi and Soviet regimes in causing the Holocaust, despite their different ideologies and intentions. In interview with the Slovenian journal Razpotja, Snyder explains this argument and its implications for contemporary conflicts in Europe and beyond.

For 5 weeks Radio Bullets will broadcast “Postcards from Kyiv”, a programme produced by Cecilia Ferrara as part of the “Beyond conflict stories” project coordinated by Eurozine. To listen to the programme tune in to www.radiobullets.com

It’s about to get rough and with all still to play for, in the first of his US election ‘Battle Dispatches’, George Blecher challenges Hillary to come out fighting.

One issue alone came to dominate the debate – and in the end to determine the result – in the recent UK referendum: migration, not the economy, stupid, won the day for those in favour of exiting the EU. The climate of fear and xenophobic loathing fostered by newspaper front pages is likely to set the tone for future discussions of the subject.

The situation in Ukraine is complicated. Between war, nationalism and rapprochement with the West, women are changing society.

It is fair to say that what is called globalization used to be built on the unexamined premise that the whole planet will end up modernizing toward some convergent omega point called the Globe. This is no longer the case – observes Bruno Latour in a lecture given in May 2016 at Humboldt University, Berlin.

The debate about migration in political and media discourse is dominated by issues of economics and culture, while only the ethical approach reveals the question of power, writes Phillip Cole. The left must on one hand understand anxieties people have about immigration, but on the other show courage in contesting beliefs based on untruths.