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The blog will resume on 6 January 2018.

Image source: http://rideforlifechallenge.com.au/stay-tuned-for-2017-news/

Haaretz: The Israeli Settler Elite's Fake Libertarian Agenda

The love affair of the settler elite with libertarianism of the American Tea Party type did not begin with the Shaked family’s Italian vacation. Dozens of institutions across Israel – think tanks, journals, training programs – are engaged in imparting the doctrine of the unrestrained market to the young generation of the national-religious public. More often than not, their funding derives from conservative American Jews and evangelical Christians. For Shaked and her party’s leader, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, that imported worldview is particularly profitable. [...]

Let’s begin with the self-evident: A party whose basic principle is the perpetuation of military rule over millions of people cannot evoke the concept of freedom as the rest of humanity understands it. The economic thinkers of the right whom Shaked quotes would, if forced to choose, probably prefer to sing the “Internationale” in the town square than to validate the occupation project, which undermines all rights that underlie the principle of Western liberty. Friedrich Hayek lauded the free market not out of concern for the right of hoteliers trying to save a few shekels on lifeguards, but because they wanted to protect citizens from the unlimited power of the state.

But the absurdity goes deeper than that. An examination of the record of Habayit Hayehudi reveals that the party is an enemy not only of the principle of freedom, but also of the free market that Shaked purports to sanctify. As minister of economy, whenever a factory in the Negev or Galilee ran into difficulties, Bennett declared that the government must not support a workplace that cannot stand on its own feet. But for some reason, when it comes to the settlement project – another enterprise that is unable to stand on its own without assistance – his approach is the polar opposite.

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Haaretz: Right-wing Dissent Against Netanyahu Is Growing, but They’re Not Turning on Him Just Yet

On Saturday night, an assorted group of right-wingers, settlers and religious folk will gather in Jerusalem’s Zion Square for a rally in support of the rule of law and against corruption. It is intended as a riposte to the now weekly anti-corruption Saturday rallies in Tel Aviv, which are largely dominated by left-wingers and open calls for the removal (and imprisonment) of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [...]

Their comments echoed similar recent sentiments written by other leading right-wing journalists, including Kalman Liebskind and Yoaz Hendel, who is one of the organizers of the Jerusalem rally and also served as Netanyahu’s communications director from 2011 to 2012. Without necessarily targeting Netanyahu, they have served as a counterpoint to the regular right-wing rhetoric that attacks the police, the prosecutors, the left and the media for unfairly persecuting the prime minister. 

The most powerful voice so far has been that of Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, who’s one of the more mainstream rabbis on the religious right. Defying his own public, he appeared at the Tel Aviv rally last Saturday, where he said “corruption is a strategic threat to Israeli society. The meaning of corruption is abuse of power by those who have been given it – power that is used for the wrong reasons. Power is essential, but it is dangerous and can topple the state into the depths.” [...]

The trauma of 1992 is still deeply felt within the Israeli right. Yitzhak Rabin won that election, even though the religious and right bloc received more votes than the center-left parties. Fragmentation on the right led to the ultranationalist Tehiya party not crossing the electoral threshold, with its votes rendered useless.

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America Magazine: The Editors: Pope Francis needs to restore trust in response to sex abuse crisis

It is typical protocol for the pope to offer the final commendation at the funeral of a cardinal in Rome, and long waits for official Vatican actions and announcements are nothing new. But the juxtaposition of these events is jarring to the world outside Rome. As attention is again focused on Cardinal Law, a symbol of the church’s abject failure during the sex abuse crisis in the United States, many survivors of abuse and other Catholics are wondering when the church will publicly hold bishops accountable for misdeeds and inaction in responding to sex abuse.

Pope Francis’ apparent lack of urgency in re-appointing members of the sex abuse commission and the lack of clarity about how survivors will be represented among those members is alarming. Confidence in the commission was already damaged earlier this year when Marie Collins, the only survivor of sexual abuse still active on the commission, resigned in protest against curial opposition to the process of reform. Healing and reconciliation within the church would be assisted immeasurably by a clear papal statement recognizing the need for transparency around the work of the commission and the reforms it proposes.

Catholics are called to trust the church and its leaders, and they want to respond to that call generously. But in its handling of sex abuse, the church spent decades squandering that trust. Continued bureaucratic delay on the renewal of the commission further erodes that trust. The lack of clear public action to hold church leaders accountable for their role in allowing sex abuse to happen damages that trust as well. Pope Francis should recognize that, for the world outside the Vatican, much greater transparency is necessary. He should act swiftly to establish it.

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Haaretz: What Really Happens to U.S. Orthodox Jews When They Come Out

According to Mordechai Levovitz, the co-founder and executive director of Jewish Queer Youth, a group supporting and empowering LGBT young people in the Jewish community, over 70 percent of drop-in participants report suicidal thoughts or past suicide attempts. [...]

Upon realizing he wasn’t “any less of a man for being gay,” and in retrospect understanding the harms of conversion therapy, Penner returned to the United States and told his Modern Orthodox parents he would live as a Jewish gay man. “Having a gay son in the Orthodox community is considered anywhere between shameful and a failure – it was at the time, at least – and it took them a while to get over that,” he says. [...]

Levovitz says one of the main obstacles LGBT Orthodox youth face today is a “strange form of homophobia,” expressed in the pressure the family applies once someone comes out. “Their family will say, ‘We don’t have a problem with you being gay, but the community has a problem and they will punish your brother and your sister, and your father’s job will be in jeopardy.’”

Kicking children out of the house is less common in Modern Orthodoxy, Levovitz says, though it’s still prevalent in the ultra-Orthodox community. But he sees the predominant issue within Orthodoxy today in the cop-outs of parents, schools and “well-meaning rabbis.”

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The Atlantic: Nikki Haley's New Best Friends at the UN

The invite list includes seven countries, mainly on Pacific islands and in Central America, plus one in Africa, that joined the U.S. and Israel in voting “no.” That’s not necessarily the set of guests one would expect at an American influence party, since America’s main treaty allies in Europe and Asia didn’t vote with Washington. (Also invited were the 35 countries that abstained, even though some, like Canada, reportedly abstained as a snub to the U.S. One hundred and twenty-eight countries voted “yes” and will not be invited.) But the friends list may not be so much a reflection of American influence as Haley’s invitation would suggest. In most of the cases, Israeli diplomacy has been softening the ground for this decision for years, even as President Donald Trump’s America First policy alienates world leaders. The vote, in other words, may say more about Israel’s global standing than America’s. [...]

Three of the Pacific island states almost certainly would have been invited to the friendship party in any case. The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau have historic relationships with the U.S. dating back to the period after World War II, when they were under formal American control. They are now sovereign countries, but they have kept up close ties with the U.S. under “Free Association” agreements with Washington. Those countries get U.S. aid and other benefits, and in exchange, they vote in near lock-step with Washington at the UN. Those agreements have been in place for decades and, for the most part, still have years to run. In other words, it would have been remarkable had any of those three countries not voted with the U.S. [...]

Israel’s outreach includes the fourth Pacific state to vote “no,” Nauru, which doesn’t have the formal ties to the U.S. that its Pacific neighbors share. Nauru has only about 10,000 people and few natural resources. Its best strategic asset, arguably, is its seat at the UN. In U.S. terms, Nauru having the same UN vote as every other big country is like Wyoming having the same number of senators as California. That lets Nauru monetize its sovereignty by offering diplomacy in exchange for aid. It is one of a handful of countries that still recognizes Taiwan instead of China, a relationship that wins it badly-needed development aid. It hosts a detention camp for refugees that Australia would prefer stay outside its borders, also in exchange for aid. It recognized Russian-occupied territories in Eastern Europe as sovereign states, and gets Russian money. As of May, that put Nauru afoul of a new American law that forces the U.S. government to cut off aid to any country that recognizes those territories. Meanwhile, Israel is reaching out. Netanyahu hosted Nauru’s president in June, which is like hosting, not a senator from Wyoming, but the mayor of Cheyenne—a city that, incidentally, has six times the population of Nauru. A friendly relationship with Israel, in other words, is no surprise. [...]

But what about Togo? There too, the vote seems to be more about Israel than the U.S. Togo’s authoritarian ruler, Faure Gnassingbé, has been outspoken about his love for Israel. “I am dreaming of Israel's return to Africa and Africa's return to Israel,” he wrote in a guestbook on a visit to Israel in August, a fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly tweeted. Netanyahu has supported Gnassingbé through a period of political turmoil, a decision that led to the embarrassing scene of having to cancel a planned Israel-Africa summit in Togo after pro-democratic protests against Gnassingbé got out of hand. And though the U.S. provides aid to Togo as well, the Togolese were apparently frustrated by American threats to “take names” of anyone who voted yes on the measure. Togo voted no—in support of Israel—but released a statement saying it had done so “despite the threats” from Washington

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Al Jazeera: Interpreting the Catalan elections

This was a landslide win, in votes (over 1.1 million and 25.3 percent) and seats (37), for pro-Spain Ciudadanos (liberals). This is no doubt a historic win for many reasons. It is the first time since 1980 that a non-nationalist party clearly wins elections in Catalonia. [...]

Led by the young Ines Arrimadas, the party ran a clear anti-secessionist campaign and endorsed the Mariano Rajoy government's application of temporary direct rule. So, while the secessionists claim that the "Catalan Republic defeated the tripartite of article 155" (Ciudadanos, PSC and Rajoy's Popular Party), the biggest advocate together with the Popular Party(PP), of article 155 (even of harsher forms of federal coercion than the one finally agreed to), actually won elections in Catalonia, somewhat denting the secessionists' narrative. A pyrrhic victory nevertheless, as Arrimadas will be unable to get enough votes in Parliament to be elected the next Catalan premier.

This was a severe blow to Prime Minister Rajoy's PP and the government. The PP has gone from 19 seats in the Catalan Parliament just five years ago to 11 seats in 2015, to a meagre 3 seats this year, and will have to humiliatingly join their foes from the anti-establishment, secessionist CUP (the other loser last night, from 10 seats to just 4) in the parliament's Mixed Group. [...]

This was a severe blow to the leftist Podemos (Podem). Podemos is a Pablo Iglesias-led coalition of leftist parties in Catalonia, based on a rejection of independence (especially the unilateral independence pursued by Puigdemont's bloc) and rejection of Rajoy's policies too. It has also failed in these elections, further weakening Podemos in Spain as a whole.

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Politico: 3 ways the election changed Catalan politics

The three pro-independence parties won 47.5 percent of the votes in this week’s regional election, compared to 47.8 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, the unionists increased their share from 41.6 percent to 43.4 percent. Support for a third option— a scattering of leftist parties that refuse to be considered as part of either of the two other blocs — dropped from 8.9 percent to 7.4 percent.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the election was a truly exceptional turnout. Some 82 percent of the electorate cast a ballot — the highest level of participation in any electoral contest in Catalonia since the restoration of democracy after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.  [...]

The second fundamental change regards the unionists. The party that received the most votes was Ciudadanos, a center-right, liberal upstart that opposed independence. Meanwhile, support for Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party plunged, cutting its seats in parliament from 11 to three. [...]

On the pro-independence side, the most important difference in this election is the decline of the radical, anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy party, which saw its share of votes drop from 8.2 percent to 4.5 percent and its representation in parliament cut from 10 to four deputies.

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openDemocracy: Was 2017 the year that the tide finally turned against fossil fuel projects?

The AXA decision comes just weeks after BNP Paribas broke the news that it will no longer finance new shale or tar sands projects, nor work with companies that mainly focus on those resources. Last Friday, Norway’s largest life insurer, KLP announced that it would exclude from its portfolio any firms that derive 30 percent or more of revenues from the extraction of tar sands. In the same week the World Bank announced it would cease financing upstream oil and gas after 2019.

It’s welcome news. Based on the financial risks, climate impacts and indigenous rights violations, we have seen a significant shift in financial institutions backing fossil fuels. The Bank of England now recognizes the monetary risks associated with climate change and is advising the central banks and governments to get out of highly polluting fuels due to the pending carbon bubble and the bad business associated with ‘extreme’ energy extraction. As a result BP, Shell, Exxon and others have pulled out of major tar sands projects and pipelines. [...]

The Canadian government has done little to recognise indigenous land titles. Tar sands expansion continues at an alarming rate, with even more pipelines being approved. We cannot rely on Prime Minister Trudeau’s support to join the climate action force anytime soon. [...]

All of these decisions and ‘wins’ need to be grounded in an intersectional divestment movement that takes the time to think about the reinvestment strategies, that is twinned with a just transition model and opens up the seats at the table for dialogue with those most impacted by climate change and holding the climate solutions. If we can do this, 2018 is going to be an incredible year for our movements and hope for the climate.

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openDemocracy: What motivated the 60,000 people who joined the far-right Polish Independence March?

On November 11th, the same woman who had taken it upon herself to spread Szczęsny’s words, Gabriela Lazarek, entered a Catholic Church where the far-right Independence March organisers held their pre-demonstration mass. She held a sign that quoted the late Polish Pope John Paul II: ‘Racism is a sin that constitutes a serious offence against God’. She was pushed out of the church while the priest lectured about the importance of nationalism and Polishness. The congregation later joined 60 000 people in the Independence March.

In Poland, we rarely talk about racism – it is wrongly understood as something that Poland has little historical encounter with. Racism has a long, if not often talked about, history in Poland. Racism in Poland is expressed through ways in which racialised people have been treated in the country, including Jews, Roma and Muslims. We can’t ignore the connection between race and Polish homogeneity, where whiteness and racial politics have become key to a nationalist project promoted by the current Polish government that perceives heterogeneity as a threat. [...]

Nationalism expressed through racist sentiments has become mainstream in Poland. In Poland, like other parts of Europe, racist views are on the rise and becoming more commonplace acceptable with the shift to the right following the election of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) party. As Rafał Pankowski of the Nigdy Więcej [Never Again Association] emphasised, there is a climate of acceptance for extreme nationalist ideology. In 2016, the organisation recorded the ‘biggest wave of hatred’ in the country’s recent history, reporting several incidents taking place every day. While the mainstreaming of racist discourse and corresponding violence has to be partially attributed to the current ruling party, the phenomenon of racism in Poland is not new, even if it is rarely discussed. [...]

The Polish Law and Justice (PiS) government needs to take concrete actions against the culture of hate that is growing, and going unpunished, in Poland. It is time for Poles to recognise that Poland has a problem with racism, that the nationalism currently promoted by its government and right-wing groups is intimately tied to a long history of dangerous racial exclusion. It is time that the call to action of Piotr Szczęsny be answered by all sections of the Polish society: “We, ordinary human beings, like you, hear your call – and we won’t wait any longer!”.

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Foreign Affairs: Europe's Authoritarian Equilibrium

For the time being, EU politics is trapped in an authoritarian equilibrium. In this half-baked steady state, the union has become politicized enough that the EU-level allies of these semi-authoritarian governments have both the tools and the incentives to protect them from censure; but the EU has not become sufficiently politicized for the opponents of these governments to intervene in order to rein them in or break their grip on power. Ironically, the EU, which has done so much to promote democracy across Europe—indeed it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 partly for that reason—now provides a safe haven (and ample funding) for semi-authoritarian regimes such as those in Hungary and Poland. The Commission’s latest action on Poland is a step in the right direction, but the EU will not escape this authoritarian equilibrium until it addresses the situation in Hungary as well.

Why has the EU more forcefully countered attacks on the rule of law in Poland than in Hungary? In part, the difference can be explained by the blatantly unconstitutional nature of the PiS government’s attack on judicial independence and its brazen dismissal of the Commission’s efforts at dialogue. Although Prime Minister Viktor Orban has successfully taken over the judiciary in Hungary, his government had a legislative supermajority that enabled it to amend the constitution to allow for the takeover. And when the European Commission did challenge aspects of Hungary’s judicial reforms, the Orban government at least pretended to take these complaints seriously and make some superficial changes to address them.  [...]

Kaczynski has fewer friends. His PiS government does not enjoy the protection of a powerful EU-level party such as the EPP—it is a member of a small, marginal group of nationalists called the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The ECR’s only other significant party is the British Conservative Party, which left the EPP in 2009 for being insufficiently euroskeptic. The Tories have attempted to protect their PiS allies, supporting them even as the vast majority of the European Parliament—including most EPP members—voted in November to condemn Poland’s attack on the rule of law. British Prime Minister Theresa May has also done her part: during a visit to Warsaw on December 21, she hinted that her government might support Poland against the European Commission, saying, “These constitutional issues are normally, and should be primarily a matter for the individual country concerned.” But with the United Kingdom soon to leave the EU, May has little leverage and PiS finds itself nearly isolated.[...]

For a start, they might expel Fidesz from the EPP, making a clear political statement that the party’s attacks on the independent judiciary, the free press, civil society organizations and the media have no place in the alliance of the democratic center-right. They should also make it clear that in the next multi-annual EU budget, beginning in 2021, EU funding will be tied to respect for democratic values.  Finally, they could take the long overdue step of triggering Article 7 against the Orban government as well, a move that could prevent Hungary from vetoing sanctions against the Polish government.

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Vox: How Trump makes extreme things look normal

The scariest part of Trump's first year as president isn't how abnormal he is, it's how normal he makes everything else look by comparison.

“Don’t normalize this” has become a kind of rallying cry during President Trump’s first year in office -- a reminder to not get too acclimated to Trump’s norm-breaking and erratic behavior. But the real danger of the Trump presidency might have less to do with Trump’s abnormality and more to do with how “normal” he makes other Republicans look by comparison. And the concept of the “Overton Window” helps explain why our politics and media might be warped long after Trump’s presidency comes to an end.

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: How to Make an Elephant Explode with Science – The Size of Life 2

Politico: Republicans warn Trump of 2018 bloodbath

The backstage talks provide a window into how those closest to Trump are bracing for a possible bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, which could obliterate the Republican congressional majorities and paralyze the president’s legislative agenda. The potential for a Democratic wave has grown after Republican losses this fall in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama, and as the president’s approval ratings have plummeted to the 30s.  [...]

Among GOP leaders, however, there is widespread concern heading into 2018. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said privately that both chambers could be lost in November. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has told donors that he fears a wave of swing district Republican lawmakers could retire rather than seek reelection. [...]

Trump is well aware of the dangers his party faces in 2018, those who’ve discussed it with him say. During political briefing sessions, top aides highlight positive developments — but also more concerning ones, such as his declining numbers among well-educated voters and higher earners. He has peppered advisers with questions about his approval ratings, and about whether he is getting enough credit for his accomplishments. [...]

“There are 10 months to improve the fundamentals here, and the Senate map is, on paper, good. But maps don’t make majorities and I think there’s a realization that there’s at least a 50 percent chance one or both chambers could fall,” Jennings said. “In less than one year, this first term could be, for all intents and purposes, over if the Democrats take control of either chamber.”

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The New York Review of Books: South Africa’s Cattle King President

Ramaphosa is a Soweto homeboy, the son of a police sergeant, who now lives in a grand home in Hyde Park, one of Johannesburg’s wealthiest suburbs. He qualified as a lawyer—no mean feat in apartheid South Africa—but his roots are in the labor movement and he played an important part in the downfall of the apartheid regime, mobilizing mineworkers. He has long been an avid fly-fisherman and now owns a cattle-ranch. When I profiled him for a South African newspaper in 1996, just after he left politics and joined the country’s largest new black-owned business, New Africa Investments, I described him as “charming and unflappable, entirely in control”:  [...]

I have followed Ramaphosa’s career for three decades. I was astounded by his skills in the 1990s, when he led the ANC’s negotiating team, thrilled at the possibility that he would be Mandela’s successor, and then disappointed by his hubris when he flounced out of politics: he refused, even, to attend Mandela’s inauguration in 1994. When I wrote that profile two years later, I was warily interested in the way he was leveraging his political credibility to gain a place at the high table of industry, as a beneficiary of the official policy of “black economic empowerment.” But some fifteen years later, in 2012, I was—like so many South Africans—distressed by the way he used his political connections to insist that the police take action against a wildcat strike at a platinum mine in which he held a stake. In the resulting “Marikana massacre,” thirty-four striking miners were killed by police, in an echo of the 1960 Sharpeville shootings. [...]

Even if these regal cattle and this glossy book are signs of swagger, or hubris, Ramaphosa has always been intensely conscious of his image. I have no doubt that there is a plan to the way he has cultivated his cattle-obsession and put it into the public domain. Released in the middle of his leadership campaign, Cattle of the Ages is Ramaphosa’s equivalent of Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father. “Somewhere in the depths of my soul is the connection my father had to his cattle, the hills of Khalavha and his people,” he writes. “My love for cattle could be a reflection of my father in me; or some form of agency on behalf of my father, Samuel Mundzhedzi Ramaphosa,” because as “in most African cultures, cattle are a sign of wealth and stature among my father’s people,” the vhaVenda. Samuel Ramaphosa had tended his family’s herd but he had no opportunity to acquire his own, as he was forced in the apartheid era to migrate to the city for work. [...]

In his victory speech on Thursday, Ramaphosa diverted from his prepared notes to address the party congress’s standout resolution: to revise the country’s constitution so that land could be expropriated, without compensation, for redistribution to black South Africans whose ancestors were dispossessed by the 1913 Natives Land Act. When black people lost their land, he said, “poverty set in, because our forebears… [had] led a fulfilled life from the land. They were able to feed their families. And when the removals and dispossession took place, poverty became a partner to the people of our country.”

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My Modern Met: 100 Gigantic Skulls Spill Through the Vast Halls of a Museum

Australian artist Ron Mueck has unveiled his largest installation ever with Mass, a collection of 100 monumental hand-cast skulls. Commissioned specially for the National Gallery of Victoria's International Triennial, the imposing and ominous skulls pour through the galleries, each skull artfully placed into a tumbling mass.

Mueck, known for his hyperrealistic sculptures, forgoes his typically obsessive detail in bringing to life his hyperrealistic sculpture by focusing on what remains long after our bodies have decayed. “Mass intrudes into the 18th Century Galleries like a glacier inching across a landscape, crowding out the powdered, bewigged lords and ladies, a reminder of all our fates,” the artist shares.

Each hand-finished skull, cast in resin, is also a tribute to Mueck's artistic dedication to precision. The slight variations in form individualize each of the 100 skulls, adding his signature realistic touch to the surreal installation. Mass is just one of the pieces in the inaugural Triennial, which is hosting 100 artists from 32 countries. Twenty of the pieces, including Mueck's, were commissioned specifically for this ambitious exhibition, which runs through April 15, 2018.

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Politico: Marriage Italian (right-wing) style

As Italy heads toward a March general election, the two major right-wing parties —Silvio Berlusconi‘s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s Northern League — hope to join forces in a coalition to maximize their chances of winning individual constituencies, which have taken on more importance since the introduction of a new electoral law, and taking power from Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s Democratic Party (PD).

The deal is almost done, but there is one small detail stalling the negotiations: The charismatic 44-year-old leader of the Northern League fears that the rejuvenated 81-year-old Berlusconi is already eying up the PD. To avoid this scenario, Salvini wants the three-time premier to put his commitment to the coalition deal in writing — which Berlusconi has so far refused to do.

With the Italian political landscape highly fragmented, and dire predictions of ungovernability abounding, the current front-runners in the opinion polls are the anti-establishment 5Star Movement (currently polling at 29 percent) and just one point behind them — the PD, which is still run by Gentiloni’s hyperactive predecessor as premier, Matteo Renzi. However, neither party appears to have a realistic chance of reaching the 40 percent level of support needed to establish a governing majority and the 5Stars have diagnosed themselves as allergic to coalitions of any sort. [...]

Under Salvini’s leadership, the League has gained popularity by moving further to the right and is considering dropping “Northern” from its name to reflect its geographical spread. The party now occupies a roughly similar space to Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France.

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Jacobin Magazine: Where Next for Finland’s Welfare State?

That’s something with which we’re struggling. The welfare state is a good concept and still retains widespread support among Finns. We represent a certain continuity in terms of these structures but understand that change is needed because they are under attack. One thing that separates Finland from Sweden is that we had a lot of influential autonomist-leftist debates in the mid-2000s which impacted policy and thinking in the Left Alliance. I come from that scene — as do many others — in the squatters’ movement and the politics of urban space.  [...]

We propose to put it at a level where people feel empowered to refuse bad jobs. The social democrats believe they can end all precarious work by introducing new laws. We’re saying no, entrepreneurship and self-employment are here to say. People want to do it and it’s also something that brings with it a freedom to be your own boss. What worker does not want to be their own boss? Instead of saying that we need to reverse all these changes we’ve seen in the labor market through new laws, we need a welfare structure that isn’t based on two categories: employed and unemployed. Basic income concerns the whole employment system. [...]

Another example is the so-called sharing economy, which is really more like a renting economy. It’s possible to imagine how these platforms could be run collectively in a way that resembles the traditional socialist concept of co-ownership of the means of productions. We should also look at data. If instead of it being hoarded by large corporations all the data we produce in society were open assets, it would provide a base for innovation which would be radically different compared to an economy with a few private actors owning patents. If data was owned collectively, it would be a great equalizer. Then there is the rapidly occurring automatization of industrial labor. We could respond to that by taxing the robots, creating a universal basic income and moving to a six-hour work day. This is an optimist view of the future — but we need to start thinking that way if we want to avoid the worst outcome. [...]

It should be remembered that the party differs from other populist-right forces in its origins. Unlike, say, the Swedish Democrats and the Front National, it began as an agrarian party with migration playing a relatively minor role. Its rhetoric was much more traditional populism — the ordinary man against the elites, particularly against the EU. In the mid-2000s anti-immigrant, right-wing groups in Finland were looking to come together and saw the potential of the True Finns as a vehicle. The party that rose to prominence was founded on this mix of xenophobic, migration-focused politicians and an agrarian populist base. 2011 was their big breakthrough and research suggests a broad range of sentiments about change propelled them. They said they were outside of politics, with the regular people, rhetoric you can even find in more centrist figures like Macron in France. So it wasn’t some kind of pure anti-immigrant vote.  

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The Atlantic: Memphis's Novel Strategy for Tearing Down Confederate Statues

In a surprise move Wednesday evening, Memphis’s city council voted to sell the two parks to a new private nonprofit corporation that will run them, on condition that they keep the parks public. Mayor Jim Strickland signed a contract with the nonprofit, Memphis Greenspace, on Friday, and the council ratified it. Soon afterward, Greenspace, which was incorporated in October, began removing the statues, with celebratory crowds gathering to watch, singing, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” The statues have been removed to a place nobody can find, according to the city’s chief legal officer. [...]

Leaders in Memphis have long wanted to get rid of the statues. Tennessee seceded during the Civil War, though it was a hotbed of loyalism and sent more soldiers to fight for the Union than any other Confederate state. But while the Volunteer State is conservative at the state level, Memphis is not. The city is nearly two-thirds African American, and the presence of monuments to Davis, who led a traitorous revolt from the United States dedicated to maintaining black slavery, and Forrest, a Confederate general infamous for slaughtering surrendering black soldiers and for later co-founding the Ku Klux Klan, was offensive and nonsensical. [...]

Over the last few months, local officials in some jurisdictions have simply acted to remove monuments. In Birmingham, Alabama, another majority-black city saddled with a Confederate monument the local government detested, the city council and mayor decided in August to simply cover up a monument, drawing a lawsuit from the state government and more than $3 million in fines to date. In Durham, North Carolina, where state law prevents removal of monuments, a crowd of protesters gathered and tore down a statue commemorating Confederate soldiers that sat on the lawn of the former county courthouse.  

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Al Jazeera: Cracking down on independence movements is a bad idea

How should central governments treat independence movements? My own research shows that central governments can limit the uncertainty and violence over secession campaigns when they provide a legal path to independence. The most recent scenes in Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan only serve to further confirm this finding. When central governments crack down on independence movements, political and economic instability and even violence are the usual outcomes.

There are two major reasons why suppressing secession attempts by force is no solution to the issue. First, it is impossible to efface the dream of independence from people's minds. Repression raises latent support for independence, even if it removes all public expression of that support. If the state eventually faces a moment of weakness or crisis, that latent support could quickly break out into a mass movement, as happened in various parts of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Second, when governments try to eliminate the possibility of independence, they give themselves a freer hand to mistreat their ethnic minorities. My research shows that democracies that define themselves as "indivisible" in their constitutions are less likely to decentralise power to their regions and give more rights to local communities to govern themselves. [...]

Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom, secessionism generally does not spread across borders. Some evidence suggests that self-determination claims are more likely to arise when there are more such claims in nearby countries, but no one has yet found that the success of independence movements in one country causes independence movements to become more successful in nearby countries.

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Al Jazeera: What India's BJP lost in the Gujarat elections

The narrow victory India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured in the assembly elections in the western state of Gujarat and northern state of Himachal Pradesh has brought some relief to its leadership. [...]

Yet not all was quiet and smooth in Gujarat. Before the elections, the state saw massive protests by traders against a new taxation regime introduced by the central government. There were reports of widespread resentment in rural areas and farmers were on a war path against the ruling party. Repeated atrocities against Dalits had shaken the conscience of the country, and the Dalits were out on the street, blaming the BJP for the violence. [...]

The emergence of these three leaders was significant, as they were opposition voices coming from within Gujarat. Earlier efforts against the Gujarat government did not have strong local or indigenous voices to back them. Modi as State Minister succeeded in convincing the Hindus of Gujarat that opposition to him was actually an insult to them and Gujarat. But it seems that since he's moved from Gujarat to Delhi, other local party leaders were not as successful in controlling public opinion. [...]

Gandhi also framed his campaign in economic language, constantly talking about the distress of the farmers and the unemployed youth. He presented himself as a devout Hindu, thus deflecting BJP attempts to brand him an imposter and pseudo-Hindu. Gandhi also strategically refrained from talking about the atrocities and isolation faced by the minorities in Gujarat. [...]

Modi's image, despite the electoral win, has taken a severe blow in the eyes of the public and the media. This has opened up many possibilities for politics of India and the 2019 parliamentary election which till yesterday was seen as yet another easy win for the BJP. Suddenly, it now seems that the 2019 vote is open game.

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Politico: Hungarian left’s far-right dilemma

“Of course it’s sad that the second-largest opposition party is also a far-right party,” he said. But he argued that Jobbik was now “a moderate far-right party” — an assessment that chimes with Jobbik’s own efforts to recast itself as a milder alternative to Orbán. [...]

A survey last month by pollster Median found 39 percent of all adults — and 56 percent of those who know who they will vote for in the election — support Fidesz. Jobbik lies second, with the support of 11 percent of all adults and 15 percent of those who know how they’ll vote in the election, to be held in April or May. [...]

“Although we reject the redistribution of migrants in Europe on the basis of quotas determined by Brussels, we also warned the government of making statements that basically spark Islamophobia,” said Gyöngyösi. “We cannot go against a world religion … Moderate Islam is our ally in fighting extremism.”

Jobbik’s leaders also point to their recent support for embattled NGOs and the Central European University and their opposition to a government campaign against financier and philanthropist George Soros. They have also teamed up with trade unions to fight wage inequality between Western and Eastern Europe.

The party has even begun to distance itself from Western European right-wing Euroskeptic parties. Gyöngyösi says France’s National Front and the Alternative for Germany now have more in common with Fidesz than Jobbik.

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Haaretz: Israel's Warming Relations With Africa Survived a UN Vote. But Will Further Political Tension Break Them?

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) just "unanimously resolved to direct the South African government to immediately and unconditionally downgrade the South African Embassy in Israel to a Liaison Office" as an "expression of solidarity to the oppressed people of Palestine,"  in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Furthermore the ANC called on the Palestinians "to review the viability of the two-state solution." [...]

In September, the Israel-Africa summit scheduled for October in Lomé, Togo was cancelled. According to Israel, this was due to widening unrest in the West African nation. Official Palestinian sources claimed that a boycott campaign was instrumental in its cancellation. According to the Johannesburg-based Afro-Middle East Centre, under half of all African nations were likely to attend. [...]

Israel has, since 1960, more than quadrupled its average income per capita (in real terms) to nearly $34,000. Sub-Saharan Africans have increased their average wealth just 1.5 times over the same period to just over $1600. [...]

First, Israel is keen to diversify its pattern of trade. Currently there is a lot of upside in relations with Africa, given Israel’s total trade with the continent is less than that it enjoys with Vietnam alone. And, second, for Israel, better relations with Africa offer diplomatic protection and votes, especially at the United Nations. That contention is now going to be tested.

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Quartz: New research finds the areas of the UK that could be hurt most by Brexit are those that voted for it

While researchers from the University of Birmingham admit it’s difficult to predict the likely long-term impacts of Brexit, they were able to quantify the shares of regional and national GDP and labor income (both in the UK and the EU) that are at risk due to Brexit. As such, researchers found that the Midlands and Northern England (the UK’s economically weaker regions) are particularly vulnerable. In contrast, London and Scotland were far less at risk.

Brexit highlighted deep divides within the UK. While Scotland and London voted to remain in the EU, Northern England and the Midlands, as well as Wales, voted to leave. The study’s finding echo previous research that found that Wales and northeast are among the areas most vulnerable to loss of funding, bad trade agreements, and a shortage of European workers. In short, these areas, which voted to leave the EU, are worst exposed to the economic impact of Brexit. [...]

The UK’s exposure to Brexit is some 4.6 times greater than that of the rest of the EU as a whole. The study estimates that 12% of UK GDP is at risk of Brexit trade-related consequences, compared with 2.64% of EU GDP. The study also notes that if the UK were to leave the EU without a beneficial trade deal in place, or with a deal in which the UK’s access to the block is severely restricted, it would be left in a far more damaging position than the rest of the EU. 

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The Guardian: Trump may celebrate his tax giveaway – but it could speed his downfall

For this bill hands the Democrats just the ammunition they need for their campaign to win back control of Congress in next November’s midterm elections. It’s unpopular – opposed by 55% of US voters, and supported by just 33% of them – and with good reason. [...]

The mega corporations stand to gain the most, as their taxes fall from 35% to 21%. Republicans are trying to cast this as help for “America’s families and small businesses”, as if the chief beneficiaries will be the Mom and Pop who run the neighbourhood general store. But the reality is that Republicans are paying back the mighty plutocrats who have been bankrolling them for years. Admire the candour of congressman Chris Collins, who last month said of tax cuts, “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’” [...]

Trump will brag and crow, but there is a danger here for him too. Passing this tax cut has been the driving mission of the likes of House speaker Paul Ryan for decades. It’s why they’ve tolerated the daily outrages committed by Trump: they were ready to swallow anything for the sake of having someone at that Oval Office desk who would sign their tax bill. Once he’s done it, his usefulness diminishes. Should the Russia probe gather pace, should Trump’s poll numbers go even deeper underwater, then the passing of these tax cuts will lead some Republicans to conclude that he is no longer indispensable.

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The Guardian: The Guardian view on Poland: Brexit will worsen the EU’s dilemmas

Amid this tricky transcontinental row, Theresa May flew to Warsaw with senior cabinet ministers, seeking to develop a strategic alliance with Poland ahead of the second phase of Brexit talks. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki obligingly signalled that Poland would back the UK on a bespoke deal, including services. Mrs May offered a security partnership with a country anxious about an ever more assertive Russia. This bilateral bargain is complicated by the European commission’s deep suspicion of UK efforts to negotiate behind its back. It fears that London’s divide-and-rule strategy will work better in the second phase of Brexit talks than in the first, when it hit a wall of pan-EU solidarity. The Tories have made common cause with Law and Justice before. Many European leaders wanted Mrs May to signal her goodwill to them by transmitting in Warsaw their view that Poland has crossed a line. Instead, she described constitutional issues as “primarily a matter for the country concerned, not the EU”. [...]

The possibility of a premier league of EU states, based around single-currency membership, is much enhanced by Brexit. It leaves Poland as the biggest non-eurozone member. The UK was also a leading advocate of EU enlargement, partly because it wanted a wide and shallow union. Eastern expansion was partly intended as a brake on western-centred integration.

Hardly anyone in Brussels welcomes the UK’s departure, but as talks get tough it might increasingly be seen as a blessed relief – the amputation of an infected limb, permitting less inhibited forward movement. British Euroscepticism has been an irritant to EU officials over the years, but it has also been a valuable component in the mix. Brexit is, by definition, a uniquely British phenomenon. But nationalist politicians blaming the EU for domestic woes is not. The Polish government’s undemocratic lurch deserves criticism. The unsolved riddle for Brussels is how to uphold the values on which the EU was founded, using methods that do not cultivate resentment and so further undermine those values.

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openDemocracy: Eight lessons from Barcelona en Comú on how to Take Back Control

In Barcelona, there is a relative absence of public discourse that blames the social crisis on immigrants, and most attempts to do so have fallen flat. On the contrary, on 18 February over 160,000 people flooded the streets of Barcelona to demand that Spain takes in more refugees. Whilst this demonstration was also caught up with complexities of Catalan nationalism and controversy over police repression of migrant street vendors, it highlighted the support for a politics that cares for migrants and refugees.

The main reason for this is simple – there is a widespread and successful politics that provides real explanations of why people are suffering, and that fights for real solutions. The reason you can’t afford your rent is because of predatory tourism, unscrupulous landlords, a lack of social housing, and property being purchased as overseas investments. The reason social services are being cut are because the central government transferred huge amounts of public funds into the private banks, propping up a financial elite, and because of a political system riddled with corruption. [...]

BComú’s vision of a “feminized politics” represents a significant break with the existing political order. “You can be in politics without being a strong, arrogant male, who’s ultra-confident, who knows the answer to everything”, Colau explains. Instead, she offers a political style that openly expresses doubts and contradictions. This is backed by a values-based politics that emphasizes the role of community and the common good – as well as policies designed to build on that vision. [...]

This process resulted in a political platform that stressed the need to tackle the “social emergency” – problems such as home evictions on a huge scale, or the effect of uncontrolled mass tourism. These priorities came from listening to citizens across the city rather than an echo-chamber of business and political elites. BComú’s election results reflected this broader appeal: it won its highest share of the vote in Barcelona’s poorest neighbourhoods, in part through increasing turnout in those areas.

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BBC4 Beyond Belief: Thomas Becket

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who was Henry II's Chancellor and then Archbishop of Canterbury and who was murdered by knights in Canterbury Cathedral (depicted by Matthew Paris, above). Henry believed that Becket owed him loyalty as he had raised him to the highest offices, and that he should agree to Henry's courts having jurisdiction over 'criminous clerics'. They fell out when Becket agreed to this jurisdiction verbally but would not put his seal on the agreement, the Constitutions of Clarendon. The rift deepened when Henry's heir was crowned without Becket, who excommunicated the bishops who took part. Becket's tomb became one of the main destinations for pilgrims for the next 400 years, including those in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales where he was the 'blisful martir'.

With

Laura Ashe Associate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford

Michael Staunton Associate Professor in History at University College Dublin

Danica Summerlin Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield

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Politico: Why Europe needs US-style primaries

Introduced in 2014, the process amounts to little more than putting democratic lipstick on a pig. The candidates are put forward by their own European Parliament political groups, with hardly any open consultation. The choice ultimately depends more on backroom negotiations between political groups and a handful of key member countries.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this if you believe national leaders are best placed to decide who should lead the Commission. It is also reassuring for national governments who feel they still keep a controlling hand on the EU institutions. But the process also opens Brussels up to heavy criticism at a time when Euroskepticism is rampant. [...]

European elections suffer from a chronic lack of participation, with turnout falling from 62 percent in 1979 to 42.54 percent in 2014. Some have put forward proposals to reform the vote. But Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s idea for a directly elected president of the European Council is unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon. And French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a transnational list is too symbolic — as it would represent only 20 to 30 seats — to fundamentally change European politics.

Holding primaries within each political group ahead of the European election would be a game-changer. It would encourage each political family to engage with their voter base early on and allow them to be more open about how they choose their leaders. Parties willing to take the risk of holding primaries would significantly raise their profile across Europe; those too afraid would be seen as retrograde.

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Vox: How smart is today's artificial intelligence?

Something incredible has taken place in the past 5 years: a revolution in artificial intelligence. After decades of little progress, the combination of big data and advances in computer hardware have brought AI applications to life: from self-driving cars to home assistants to augmented reality and instant language translation. If some of these applications feel like science fiction it's because deep learning algorithms are powering a true breakthrough in machine intelligence. But with these truly impressive advances comes a great deal of hype: fears of terminator-type bots turning on humans and stealing all our jobs. In this video we sort out the fact from fiction in this very exciting field. 

SciShow Psych: Are Repressed Memories Real?

CGP Grey: How Machines Learn

Quartz: How a severe drought in Sicily in 1893 created the Mafia

A drought in France in 1788 resulted in widespread crop failure (pdf) and soaring food prices, which historians believe stoked the French revolution of the following year. More recently, four years of drought in Syria between 2006 and 2010 created mass unemployment, contributing to the civil war that rages to this day. [...]

The Mafia first appeared in Sicily around 1860, taking advantage of the island’s weak regional government and its distance from Rome to run local protection rackets. For decades, the organization was made up of unremarkable criminals, concentrated around Palermo, the provincial capital. That changed dramatically in 1893, a year of severe drought in the region, according to research (pdf) from Daron Acemoglu, an MIT economist, and his co-researchers, Giacomo De Luca of the University of York, and Giuseppe De Feo Strathclyde Business School, in Glasgow.

The study, released as a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (which means it hasn’t yet been reviewed by other academics) argues that Sicilian peasants were already vulnerable before the draught. Most either rented small plots of land or worked as day laborers at the mercy of the elites who controlled much of the farming estates in Sicily. The drought, which followed a bad harvest the year before, cut the island’s wheat crop in half and similarly crippled olive oil, wine, and barley production. In some regions, 1983’s agricultural production was as much as 65% lower in 1893 than in recent years, according to the paper. [...]

That resulted in weakened local governments, which had serious, long-term negative consequences for Sicily’s economy and the effectiveness of the island’s institutions, the researchers found. For example, in regions where Mafia presence increased from 1 to 2 on their index from 1885 to 1900, literacy fell about 10% by 1921, and high school completion 33% by 1961. The researchers also found that the rise of the Mafia is correlated with an increase in infant mortality and in reduced spending on public infrastructure like water delivery. Weak states are unable to provide public goods, the authors write, and “one of the many factors holding back the development of local state capacity is the impact of various criminal organizations. None is perhaps as famous as the Sicilian Mafia.”

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CityLab: Europe Says Uber Is Officially a Taxi Service

Uber is a taxi company. That’s the ruling today from the European Court of Justice, the highest court in the European Union, which interprets the union’s laws and ensures their application across all member states.

Uber, of course, has long resisted that label. It presents itself as a digital platform for connecting people, rather than as a taxi service. But a Barcelona taxi association  challenged that claim in court in 2014, frustrated that Uber’s revenues had been partly and unfairly bolstered by worse pay and conditions for drivers. And Wednesday’s resounding judgement against Uber, who sought to appeal the Spanish ruling at the ECJ, is a bombshell. Not only does it mean the company faces far stricter regulation across the E.U., it also undercuts the very way Uber has tried to define itself globally. [...]

More broadly, there’s a degree of existential threat in the ECJ decision. Uber has largely attempted to sail above the notion that it is a regular company employing actual humans, enabling it to deny such basic employee necessities as sick and holiday pay. Wednesday’s ruling bursts that bubble. Uber’s app-based hailing system may have been the ground-breaking key to its success, but the suggestion that it is not a transportation company is increasingly hard to sustain.

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statista: Where ISIS Gets Its Weapons

When ISIS took over massive swathes of Iraq in 2014, it captured huge amounts of weaponry from the collapsing Iraqi army. Some of the hardware was U.S.-made and the group subsequently attracted headlines for using American M4 and M16 rifles in its propaganda videos as well as humvees in suicide bombings. In 2015, the Iraqi prime minister said that ISIS managed to capture 2,300 humvees when the group took over the city of Mosul.  

Despite its seemingly impressive haul of western weaponry after its conquests in Iraq, about 90 percent of all weapons and ammunition deployed by ISIS are of Warsaw Pact calibers, mainly originating in China, Russia and Eastern Europe. That was the result of an extensive analysis of 40,000 items of ISIS weaponry recovered in Syria and Iraq, conducted by Conflict Armament Research between 2014 and 2017.

The unauthorized retransfer of weapons originally destined for Syrian opposition forces has also turned into a key source of arms for ISIS, particularly anti-tank guided weapons systems. 43.5 percent of all ISIS weapons documented in Syria and Iraq were manufactured by China while Russia only accounts for 9.6 percent. Despite that, Russian weapons still outnumber Chinese weapons in Syria, more than likely due to Russian arms supplies to forces loyal to the Assad regime. Even though ISIS has shown off captured western hardware, American wepons only accounted for 1.8 percent of the total documented. 

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The Conversation: Michael Kirby: the rainbow in Asia and the fight for gay rights in our region

In many of the countries represented at the Bangkok conference (Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan and Singapore) the criminal law continues to punish gays. Getting rid of those laws was proving extremely difficult both because of religious and cultural conservatism.

Throughout much of Asia and the Pacific, the victims of stigma did not have the astonishing spectacle of religious opponents solemnly denying homophobia while urging that we should do hostile things. In much of Asia, Islamic, Christian and other religious leaders outdo each other in exposing frank and honest homophobia. In many places, they whip up hostility and promote deadly violence.  [...]

The HIV Hero award was specially moving because no-one in the audience who had lived through the early burdens of HIV on gay men would not have lost friends, or known of suffering by the combined power of the HIV virus and ongoing community stigma. That award went to Gautam Yadav for his exceptional work in India as an activist, personally living openly with HIV and as role model for young people facing that predicament in India and the region. [...]

In South Korea there are no general criminal laws against gays. However, a special law targets gays in the military. As all young men must undergo military service, this exposes a vulnerable group to special pressure. The new president, Moon Jae-in, told an election rally in April 2017 that he was “opposed to and did not like” homosexuality.

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Haaretz: Netanyahu’s Speedy Absolution for Austria’s neo-Nazis

Establishing ties with Germany remained a sensitive issue for decades. The deal with Adenauer included not only financial reparations (and secret arms deals) but also a speech to the Bundestag in which the chancellor acknowledged Germany’s sins against the Jews. Ben-Gurion also made sure that the Israeli government was not alone in making peace with Germany; his moves were coordinated with World Jewish Congress President Nahum Goldmann, who was a partner to the negotiations with Bonn. The ground rules for atonement were established. For a state or a political entity to absolve itself of its anti-Jewish past, it would have to publicly repudiate its sins and prove itself to be pro-Israel. Jerusalem’s stamp of approval would not be sufficient; it would need the blessing of the Diaspora as well. 

These standards would remain. When, in 1986, 53 percent of Austrian voters chose as their president the former Wehrmacht officer Kurt Waldheim, who had been tainted by his Nazi-era associations with the SS and war crimes committed in the Balkans, Israel downgraded its diplomatic relations with Vienna. The same happened in 2000, when the Freedom Party became part of the ruling coalition.[...]

TIn his meeting with the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) in July, Netanyahu felt comfortable enough among friends to describe the EU’s policy towards Israel as “a joke” and “actually crazy.” He was relying on the leaders of these four countries to help Europe “decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear” and the way to do that was “a different policy toward Israel.” To get these nations to stand by Israel in the European forums, Netanyahu has been prepared to overlook the inclusion of racist politicians and Holocaust revisionism of the Polish government and the anti-Semitic tone of the Hungarian government’s campaign against Jewish financier George Soros. Israel’s silence under Netanyahu has been in contradiction to that of major local and international Jewish organizations – just as he has ignored the distress of American Jewish over U.S. President Donald Trump’s embrace of anti-Semitic white supremacists. Now he is looking to the new Kurz-Strache government in Vienna to add Austria to his pro-Israel coalition in the EU.

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Haaretz: Pakistan's New anti-Soros Campaign Boosts Its anti-Semitic, Conspiracy Theory-Infested Political Culture

This is because while analysts see the rise of the anti-Soros phenomenon in the West as a reincarnation of old anti-Semitic tropes about nefarious Jewish financial and social engineering designs, this kind of conspiracist thinking about Jews have never left the Pakistani ethos  - so it's more a question of continual peaking rather than resurfacing. In other words, anti-Semitism is a feature, not a bug, of Pakistani politics. [...]

Last Friday, for instance, in expectation of the Supreme Court verdict on Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), the main opposition party in the country, the Federal Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb accused Khan of being "funded by Jews and Hindus." [...]

While the prevailing anti-Hindu bigotry is rooted in the legacy of the violent Indo-Pakistani Partition, and Pakistan’s need to justify its creation, the ubiquitous anti-Semitism in the country has Islamist roots. A literalist reading of the Islamic scriptures serves as a justification for espousing violent anti-Jewish sentiments, a characteristic of jihadism. [...]

This has meant that Pakistan, with a registered Jewish population of precisely one person, where both the left and right wings perpetuate anti-Semitism through quasi 'anti-colonialism' and Islamism respectively, remains ripe for political point-scoring through perpetuating anti-Jewish bigotry. 

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Scroll: What proverbs about women’s feet (and bodies) from across the world teach us about gender norms

A small woman usually has small feet; both small women and small feet seem to be considered more attractive. In ancient China, many women’s feet were bound from toe to heel, to make them more seductive. Larger female feet are not only literally regarded as a sexual turn-off but, when referred to in proverbs, they usually stand for something else. Metaphorically women’s small feet indicate “the right measure” in marital relationships. In general, women that look vulnerable seem to have more sex appeal to men than strong-looking females, as female vulnerability confirms the established gender hierarchy. The “right measure” presented in proverbs equates with a relationship on an unequal footing. The Sena who live in Malawi and Mozambique warn against the danger of big female feet, in a proverb with several variants: [...]

And the Hebrew saying “I do not desire a shoe that is larger than my feet” means: I do not desire to marry a wife who is from a higher class than my own. Bigger feet do not only metaphorically refer to her belonging to a higher social class, but also to other matters threatening the status quo. The apparent male aversion to women with bigger feet reflects a deep-seated fear of losing control. Given the fact that women usually have shorter feet than men, proverbs use the image as a convincing metaphor of how things ought to be arranged in gender relationships. That women have an impact in spite of all the messages trying to prevent this from happening, is also expressed in a European proverb: “Without touching with her feet, woman leaves footmarks” (Portuguese and German).

A woman’s feet, and especially her heels, are a standard for her beauty in some cultures, among the Ethiopian Oromo, for example, “A girl’s beauty can be recognised by her heels”, referring to a woman’s perfect heels as an indication of beauty. It is linked to the tradition of veiling the face. In that context, looking at a woman’s naked feet is the only way to find out whether she is old or young. As my Kenyan friend Zera, born in Mombasa on the Islamised Swahili coast, told me: before she was married, her mother wanted her to veil herself, because that was what a virtuous woman ought to do. However, covering herself and wearing the veil did not protect her from men pinching her behind. “But how,” I asked her, “did they know that you were not an old woman? Or did they just take that risk?” Her answer was that men guess your age by your feet, so that they always first look at your feet before deciding whether a pinch is worthwhile.

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YES! Magazine: In Norway, Racism Is Losing. Here’s Why

At first it seems a paradox that expressions of racism can intensify even while substantial progress is being made. On reflection, I realized why: Those on the losing side will fight harder exactly because they see they are losing. [...]

It’s true that some job discrimination and random insults from ethnic Norwegians do continue, but from the point of view of committed racists in Norway, the situation is alarming. Muslim women are pursuing excellence in university studies; Afro-Norwegians are taking influential jobs. One in 5 Norwegians is foreign-born—a higher proportion than in Britain or the U.S.—and more immigrants are arriving. [...]

The forces for and against racism continue to experiment with different tactics as the conflict continues. The largest and most mainstream force doing fear-mongering about immigration is the Progress Party. The party picked up a racist thread that has historically been a part of Norwegian culture and hopes to persuade the citizenry that immigration is “not working.” [...]

The lesson from Scandinavia is that those Black American leaders are right. When Americans of goodwill focus on the level of words and gestures and statues, they severely limit their effectiveness. Racism is much more than culture. If the anti-racist Norwegians and Swedes did not have their economic model of universal services backing them up, they might be losing their struggle now instead of winning it. Free university and vocational education, full employment policies, universal health care and child care, subsidized housing and mass transit, support for new entrepreneurs, and other measures all spell “opportunity” for everyone in capital letters.

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openDemocracy: Why are Polish people so wrong about Muslims in their country?

The recent Ipsos survey Perils of Perception showed that most countries believe their population is much more Muslim than it actually is. But the Poles emerge as the unquestionable leader in these overestimations. Although Muslims make up only around 35,000 of a 38 million population, Poles believe that their number is actually 2.6 million, which would make the Polish Muslim population one of the largest in the European Union after France, Germany and the UK.  

Furthermore, Poles believe that the number of Muslims in the country will grow to up to 13% by 2020. If this were to happen the Muslim population in Poland would have surpassed not only that of Italy, Spain and the Netherlands but even the British which has grown dynamically in the last decade. [...]

Politicians have frequently invoked Islamophobic rhetoric, empowering far-right groups and contributing to a climate where not only Islamophobia, but also anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and other expressions of hate seem permissible. This in turn empowered far-right groups that organised several anti-refugee and anti-Muslim demonstrations in 2015 in cities that are home to Muslim minorities such as Białystok. Wrocław, Gdańsk and Kraków. [...]

According to Association Never Again (Nigdy Wiecej) the numbers of homophobic, racist or xenophobic incidents per month drastically shot up from around 20 a month to 20 a week. In recent years we have also observed a particular focus with Muslim women at the centre of both far-right and liberal anti-Muslim agendas.

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Al Jazeera: How Saudi tried to bully Jordan and failed

Unfortunately for Riyadh, most of its actions have failed to achieve their goals, and in almost all cases they have backfired. These include the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE)-led calamitous war in Yemen, the failed siege of Qatar, the unravelling of Saudi-backed rebels in Syria, and the embarrassing forced detention and "resignation" of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. [...]

The presumed tripartite Saudi message was this: Amman and Ramallah should lighten up their criticisms of Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital; not join the Organization of Islamic Cooperation emergency summit that convened in Turkey last week; and, support Saudi Arabia's desire to promote an expected Israel-Palestine "peace plan" that is being developed by the White House. [...]

Jordan and Palestine - like Qatar, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon before them - instantly rejected Riyadh's wishes, defied its threats and intimidation, and pursued policies that more closely aligned with the sentiments and interests of their own people. King Abdullah and President Abbas attended the summit in Turkey, strongly denounced the US move on Jerusalem, and for good measure also placed themselves next to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the ceremonial summit photo.

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Politico: Angela Merkel’s ticking Bavarian time bomb

But the Bavarians have an election for the state assembly coming next fall, which ultimately matters more to them than national politics. For that campaign, CSU leaders are convinced the party has to reassert its die-hard conservative credentials — just as Merkel will be trying to establish and lead a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin, which will inevitably mean tacking to the center.

CSU officials worry such a course at the national level could harm their new champion, Markus Söder, who will take over from Seehofer as Bavarian state premier early next year and lead the campaign to defend the party’s absolute majority in the state assembly. [...]

At the party conference, Söder, who is currently Bavaria’s finance minister, gave a foretaste of his campaign, taking aim at left-leaning newspapers and “champagne drinkers,” and striking a tone that seemed designed to win back voters from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).  “Our world is occidental-Christian, Jewish-humanistic,” he declared.

“Islam has not made an outstanding contribution to Bavaria in the last 200 years and now we have to be clear about the roots of our own land.”

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The Guardian: The Guardian view on Theresa May and Brexit: time to get off her fantasy island

Mrs May probably gets this by now. But a significant minority of her cabinet and her party either doesn’t get it or is recklessly determined not to have it. That is particularly true of the part of the Conservative party that sees Brexit as a deregulatory opportunity, for whom “taking back control” means scrapping as many business costs – taxes, regulations, pension obligations, workplace rights and employment protections – as possible. Reports at the weekend suggested that Michael Gove is leading a cabinet push for the UK to abandon the terms of the EU working time directive – which among other things ensures a maximum 48-hour working week. This is the opposite kind of Britain to the one for which large numbers of working-class leavers voted in 2016. They wanted more security, as they saw it, not less. They did not vote for the freedom to work more hours for less pay and fewer rights. But this deregulated country is the one the Brexiter right is determined to give them. [...]

The third great fantasy is in many respects the most dangerous of them all. This was embodied in last week’s European council decision on phase one. As Mrs May put it on Monday, Britain is committed to uphold the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, to maintain the common travel area with Ireland and, crucially, to avoid a hard border in Ireland. But these goals – all massively desirable – are not compatible with the UK’s departure from the single market and customs union, to which Mrs May remains committed. Any future regulatory divergence between the UK and the EU – between the UK and Ireland – can only create a dangerous situation on the Northern Ireland border with the republic. 

It is hard to know which is worse: that Mrs May knows this and does not mind such an outcome, or that she knows it and is pretending to parliament and the public that it is not a problem. Either way, this is the politics of impossibilism and of circle-squaring. Either way, British politics is crying out for truth not fantasy on Brexit. But Mrs May will not and cannot provide it.

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Salon: Black voters won Alabama for the Dems. Here’s what they need in return

According to exit polls, 30 percent of the over 1 million people who participated in this election were black, and 96 percent of black voters supported Jones. In short, in an election where Jones’ margin of victory was less than 2 percent, Alabama’s near-unanimous black voters were the deciding factor. [...]

Poverty is probably top on that list of concerns. Alabama is the sixth poorest state in the nation, with a poverty rate of 18.5 percent. In some counties more than 40 percent of people live in poverty. Alabama’s rural areas have been said to show “the worst poverty in the developed world.”

Most of those areas are in the state’s so-called “Black Belt.” In Wilcox County, for example, the white poverty rate is 8.8 percent, but the black poverty rate is 50.2 percent. Nearby Lowndes County has the lowest white poverty rate in the state — 4.1 percent — but almost 35 percent of black people there live in poverty. [...]

Entrenched poverty means that health care access for black Alabamians is also dismal. The Black Belt region has fewer primary care physicians, dentists, mental health providers, and hospitals than other parts of the state. It has a much higher rate of uninsured people than other regions. In most of its counties, more than 25 percent of residents lack access to health care — and that’s with the Affordable Care Act in place. [...]

Finally, black Alabama voters have expressed concern about crime and punishment in the state. Just 26 percent of Alabama’s population is black, yet more than half its prison population is, according to the Sentencing Project.

At the same time, in 2016, Alabama also had the third-highest homicide rate in the U.S., after Louisiana and Missouri, data from the Death Penalty Information Center shows. More than 71 percent of homicide victims were African-American.

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The Atlantic: The Impossible Task of Remembering the Nanking Massacre

While Chang faced a barrage of attacks from other historians, as well as from the publisher contracted to translate her book into Japanese, the debate over what happened in Nanking from December 1937 to January 1938 had been raging before the publication of her book. Japan, for instance, remains divided over the number of Chinese killed in Nanking during those six weeks. The massacre camp generally supports the Tokyo War Crimes Trials figure of “upwards of 100,000” deaths; skeptics claim 15,000 to 50,000, while others venture only up to 10,000. Outside of Japan, James Yin and Shi Young, whose work Chang frequently cited, place the minimum death toll as high as 369,366. [...]

My grandfather, or Yaya, as I call him, grew up in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Life among the soldiers was “not much different,” he’d say when he visited us in Texas. Of course, he had to bow whenever he passed the Japanese on the street. Rickshaw drivers couldn’t complain when the soldiers didn’t pay them. If you failed to remove your hat in the presence of a Japanese soldier, he might beat you with the butt of his rifle and throw you in jail. Yaya himself was never beaten, but he witnessed beatings every day, he said. [...]

With Japan’s recent re-election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who aspires to legitimize the military renounced long ago in the country’s post-war constitution, China has greater reason to revive its image as an imperial conqueror. Even as Abe and China’s President Xi Jinping talk of a “fresh start,” Xi stays mum during the recent anniversary of the start of the Nanking massacre. Territorial disputes roil the East China Sea, and China expands in the South China Sea. And there is the escalating threat of China’s strained ally North Korea, as well as America’s volatile role in all this. The answer to who will lead East Asia into its future may hinge on how each country makes sense of its muddled past. Or makes use.

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