Chronicle of a Ukrainian Election Foretold
Vote-rigging, corruption scandals, right-wing violence. Twenty days before the election, the struggle to become Ukraine’s next president is being waged ever more intensely.(...)
Labour’s Struggle With Remain
The worst thing about the 2016 EU referendum wasn’t its outcome. It was the sense of claustrophobia it gave Britain.(...)
Enzo Traverso’s The New Faces of Fascism
It has been a nostrum of European life since 1945 that its epitaph was written amid piles of corpses and mountains of ash in the death camps of the Third Reich. But there is no idea so awful or bankrupt that, with the passage of time, will not seem ripe for rebirth.(...)
Germany and Its Military
In a widely noticed speech at the 2014 Munich Security Conference, President Joachim Gauck called on Germany to play a more “active” role in the world. This would include “not to say ‘no’ on principle” to military interventions.(...)
Germany and Its Military
I tried to get out of military service, I really did. When I was called up for inspection in 2010, it was easier than ever to evade the draft. They just didn’t seem to care anymore.(...)
Three Decades of Satanic Verses
Even after 30 years, Salman Rushdie will forever be associated with the fatwa against him. The Satanic Verses still divides opinion today, but what more can be said about the controversy?(...)
France Sending Mixed Signals
He is the perfect straw man. For anyone looking to discredit the gilets jaunes, Victor Alfonso Lenta is their man.(...)
A Progressive Jewish View of the EU
“Israel is outraged over the legislation against it in the Dail which is indicative of hypocrisy and anti-Semitism.” That was the statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the lower house of the Irish parliament advanced a bill in late January that would make it illegal for anyone in Ireland to buy goods or services from Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.(...)
Brussels, Brexit and Bannon
Bogeymen are everywhere — from illiberal presidents to government assassins to new-look fascists. No longer lurking in the shadows, or hiding under our beds, they’re out in the open, operating in plain sight.(...)
Travelling Through History
The passengers were black. The conductor was black. Everyone was speaking fluent English. Accented, that is. They must be from Liberia or Ghana, I reckoned.(...)