Katoikos: Deciphering Europe’s ‘populist moment’

Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau claim that “populism is not an ideology or a political regime and cannot be attributed to a specific programme. It is compatible with different forms of government. It is a way of doing politics which can take various forms, depending on the time and the place. It emerges when one aims at building a new subject of collective action – the people – capable of reconfiguring a social order experienced as unfair.” [...]

Moreover, Mouffe sees this emergence of populist parties as a reaction to ‘post-politics’, i.e. the blurring of the traditional political frontiers between right and left and the embrace of the idea that “There Is No Alternative” (TINA) to the neo-liberal world.

The spread of free trade, a product of post-war globalisation, was encouraged as a way to prevent future wars and keep the peace. Michael Hirsch, a former national editor for Politico Magazine, points out the fact that it made conditions more equal between countries, but at the cost of creating more inequality within countries. “In the aggregate global trade does bring growth – but in the richer countries, that growth has been largely captured by elites and white-collar workers, and it often comes at the expense of people who actually make the things that get traded.” [...]

The predominance of neo-liberal ideology has contributed to a situation in which the left and the right are divided primarily over the question of culture. Analysing campaign and survey data at the London School of Economics and Political Science, researcher Sara Hobolt found that the divide between the winners and losers of globalisation was a key driver of the vote in the Brexit referendum. Concerns about immigration and the loss of a distinct national identity were issues that clearly split the Leave and Remain camps in Britain. [...]

To save the EU from the growing political anger of the Europeans and to avoid the contagion of Euroscepticism, politicians will need to address current economic and political challenges, trying to reconcile radically different views on the appropriate scope and depth of integration across and within member states.

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Katoikos: Animals on the rise: Cinematic alerts from Hungary and Poland

Despite all expectations, or perhaps precisely because these were too high, Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope, “a European comedy about refugees” as it was dubbed by Deutsche Welle, did not receive the Golden Bear for Best Film at Berlin’s International Film Festival. The prize went instead to the Hungarian director and screenwriter Ildikó Enyedi for her film On Body and Soul (Hungarian: Testről és lélekről).

Another Central Eastern European film, Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor (Polish: Pokot) received the Silver Bear “for a feature film that opens new perspectives”. But the crucial parallel between the two films lies less in their region of origin than in their strikingly similar opening scenes. In both films, as soon as the lights go off and the screen ignites, the spectators, crammed in their seats, suddenly find themselves out in the open — in a forest and among deer. [...]

Moving between the genres of thriller and comedy, Spoor tells the story of Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat), a charismatic retired engineer, feminist, vegetarian, and astrology enthusiast. She lives in the Polish countryside with her two female dogs and fights the local patriarchal customs based on hunting, money, religion, etc. [...]

Nevertheless, I could identify with the film’s obsessive and somewhat helpless rage at the face of the reactionary developments under Poland’s new government, epitomised by the infamous remark by Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, resenting the “new mix of cultures and races, a world of bicyclists and vegetarians”. [...]

If dreams gave voice to Marta’s and Endre’s unfulfilled desires by sending signals that circumvented the limits set by their rationality, then cinema as an industry of dreams can be seen sending, with these two films, its own warning about the current state of affairs. If we allow ourselves to inhumanly repress the animal within, then, to quote the famous opening of Terry Gilliam’s dystopian classic Twelve Monkeys, “once again the animals will rule the world”.

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Jacobin Magazine: The Failure of ‘Choice Feminism’

But this growing strand of feminism — the one that wants to build the foundation of women’s rights on the idea that women are more virtuous humans than men, and that wants to buy t-shirts proclaiming it — is seen by many as a move in the wrong direction. Jessa Crispin’s new book Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto is a searing critique of contemporary feminism’s focus on individual choice and “self-empowerment” at the expense of systematic radical change and collective action.

Crispin takes aim at feminists who believe power can be located in the decision to watch one television show over another, to consume one product over another, or to use particular words instead of others. She calls this position “choice feminism,” and describes it as “the belief that no matter what a woman chooses, from her lifestyle to her family dynamic to her pop culture consumption, she is making a feminist choice, just from the act of choosing anything. The idea is that under the more rigidly patriarchal past, women’s choices were made for them. So simply by choosing anything at all, you are bucking the patriarchy and acting like a feminist.” [...]

Crispin argues that “the actual obstacles and inequalities that women face are mostly obstacles only for the poor — middle-class women and above can now buy their access to power and equality.” She takes the mainstream feminist movement to task for focusing primarily on inclusion and adopting the traditionally masculine values of patriarchal capitalist society that prioritize paid labor as a source of freedom and empowerment, rather than mind-numbing work that dominates our time and provides too little compensation, as it is for the majority of people. [...]

It is not wrong to interrogate the goals and strategies of other progressive movements, or to question the implications of trans identity for our beliefs about gender essentialism or how to build a strong feminist movement divorced from biology — or even to criticize the elevation of Caitlin Jenner, a millionaire with the ability to avoid most kinds of suffering and discomfort, to the level of people’s champion. But it’s not necessary to attack other oppressed groups in order to engage in this dialogue, as though the achievement of self-determination by trans people somehow detracts from the ability of cis women to understand the ways that their bodies figure into gender discrimination.

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Foreign Affairs: Securing Somalia

Despite the so-called Somali New Deal Compact of September 2013, in which the country’s government pledged to international donors and its people that it would hold an inclusive election by the end of 2016, the process was highly imperfect in both design and execution. Once again, insecurity stemming from the jihadist al Shabab insurgency, clan rivalries, tensions among newly formed subfederal states, and violent criminality prevented a broadly participatory national election. Instead, the vote was left to 14,000 elders and influential political figures who, over the course of several months, elected 275 members of the Parliament and 54 senators. These officials went on to pick the new president. Extensive corruption and vote buying tainted the process. To secure support from the elders and influentials, potential parliamentarians were reputed to have paid tens of thousands of dollars for a vote. Intimidation and clan politics also marred the process. But the fact that the incumbent President Hassan Sheik Mohamud accepted defeat and stepped down is an important win, not just for Somalia itself but in the continent more broadly.

The new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has some strong credentials, not the least of which is a reputation for not being corrupt. He is a dual citizen of Somalia and the United States, with technocratic experience from both countries. But Mohamed, known by his nickname Farmajo (derived from the Italian word for cheese), is facing many tough challenges. These include fractious politics and entrenched corruption, a stubborn insurgency and insecurity, and an increasingly challenging external environment. [...]

Somalia’s formal legal federalism and its implementation, including the establishment of new federal states, is one of the main achievements of the past four years. The upper house of the Parliament is now made up of representatives from these states. The hope was that such devolution would lead to a more peaceful Somalia, but the new ruling elites of the states are not necessarily more accountable to their people than politicians in Mogadishu. Meanwhile, the shape of the new states continues to be contested, sometimes violently, by clan and regional groups within the new states and among the states as well. The balance of power among the states and between the states and the federal government will remain a work in progress. [...]

Salaries or not, it will be a long time before the Somali army will be able to stand on its own. And yet it may soon have to, since the AMISOM mission is set to end by 2020. Although AMISOM suffers from numerous problems, its departure will be devastating for Somalia. More immediately, the current 21,000-member force, comprising soldiers from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, will be decreased by 10,000 by the end of 2017. No one believes that the Somali army is ready to pick up the slack. A key priority for the new Somali president will thus be to halt the AMISOM exodus. When Ethiopia withdrew 4,000 soldiers who operated in Somalia separately from AMISOM (another 4,000 remain within the AMISOM framework), the vacated territories immediately came under al Shabab’s attack or influence.

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Curbed: All the single homeowners

The first movement at play here is minimalism, an obsession that is spider-veining across mainstream consciousness. Tiny houses in particular—which tend to be between 100 and 400 square feet and built on a mobile platform like a trailer bed—have captured the public’s curiosity. There are at least seven reality shows dedicated to tiny houses—buying them, building them, living in them—and they’ve become the darlings of home and design publications. This one alone has published 456 articles on the topic. 

The second movement is singledom. The single population is growing in the United States, and we’re seeing a long-overdue acknowledgement that building a life for one is a valid and worthy desire, rather than a state of incompleteness. Millennials are waiting much longer than their parents to marry—the median age of first marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men. Some are rejecting the idea of marriage altogether. For single people who can afford it, purchasing homes (of both the tiny and the regular-sized variety) is an increasingly attractive option, but not one without its challenges. [...]

Also, tiny houses aren’t a tiny commitment. Zoning rules in many places restrict owners from parking mobiles homes on lots as the only structure. Which can mean moving your tiny house from place to place, or living on someone else’s property. And while they can be cheaper in the long run, as most tiny-house owners aren’t accruing interest on a mortgage, you do need a chunk of money to build or buy in the first place. It’s possible to build for as little as $8,000 (you’ll need some construction experience), but the average tiny house costs around $20,000, and homes from the nation’s leading company in premade options, Tumbleweed, run between $57,000 and $70,000.

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Together: A Polyamorist View of Monogamy

As a formerly monogamous person, I have great respect for the polyamorous, for their excellent communication skills and ability to transcend cultural norms. Navigating multiple romantic and sexual relationships tends to bring up more of their “stuff,” faster, necessitating the need to address feelings like jealousy. The polyamorous work hard to foster the opposite of jealousy: compersion (the warm enjoyment of your lover’s happiness with another lover).

Arguably, polyamory requires a lot more “work” than monogamy. It’s logistically more challenging managing multiple relationships—there are  only so many hours in a week. With more people, there are more emotions, more stories and needs and personalities to address, so there is more learning and personal development required. [...]

And while secure attachment between two people is very natural, the assumed exclusivity and the duration of monogamy are unnatural, a purely human creation that requires the restraint of our nature. If monogamy were natural, an expression of our inherent well-being, it wouldn’t require so much willpower. It wouldn’t require a commitment. Cheating and divorce wouldn’t be as common, and staying committed would be just as easy as when you first fell in love.

Monogamy is normal, but not natural. It is the cultural norm, with centuries of assumptions and confirmation bias backing it up, and it may seem like sacrilege to say that it is unnatural, but then again it was once sacrilege to say that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around.

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Land of Maps: Languages and dialects of Italy

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The Guardian: The 'Jessiah': the Dutch progressive trying to turn back the populist tide

Klaver’s father has a Moroccan background, his mother is from mixed Dutch and Indonesian stock. He is unashamedly “pro-EU and pro-refugee”. And in a few short months, while the far-right Freedom party’s Geert Wilders has been complaining about “Moroccan scum”, Klaver has quadrupled his party’s standing in the polls. And he’s done it with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a smile on his face. [...]

The Green Left party in the Netherlands was formed 25 years ago by the merger of four political groups: the communists, pacifists, evangelicals and the self-styled political radicals. Unlike many green parties elsewhere in Europe that emerged from environmental activist groups, Groen Links has always had a social dimension to its politics and traditionally done well in a general election after the Dutch Labour party has been tainted by being in power. But the Greens have never before managed to connect with the highly educated segment of the electorate as Klaver appears to have done, let alone had the chance to be part of a Dutch government. [....]

Along with the collapse of the Dutch Labour vote from about 25% to as little as 8%, another ingredient of Klaver’s success is the stark contrast he offers to Wilders. Klaver says that in his dealings with the leader of the PVV, who was convicted of racist speech in December, he tries to keep things civil. But asked whether the rhetoric Wilders aimed at Moroccans had ever touched him personally, given his family roots, there is a discernible edge to the response. “No, only when... Most of the time not,” Klaver says, pausing. “Only once. I am a father of two sons. One and three years old. When the oldest was a couple of weeks old he [Wilders] yelled in this cafe ‘less, less Moroccans’. It was why he was in court.

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Jakub Marian: 5 weird things you didn’t know about time zones

To understand the examples below, note that time zones are defined relative to the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which, roughly speaking, corresponds to time measured in London, UK (if we ignore Daylight Saving Time). By the way, the abbreviation UTC is yet another historical oddity: English speakers wanted the abbreviation to be CUT, whereas French speakers wanted TUC (“temps universel coordonné”). UTC emerged as a compromise between the two—so it, in fact, does not stand for anything. [...]

If you look carefully, you will notice that Nepal lies in an even weirder time zone: UTC+5:45. If you cross the border from India to Nepal, you will have to set the time on your watch 15 minutes forward, and if you move just 150 km (93 mi) further north and cross the Chinese border, the time suddenly jumps 2 hours and 15 minutes forward. [...]

China is a huge country, spanning about 5000 km (3100 mi) from east to west, which is more than the continental United States (excluding Alaska). As you can see from the map below, the neighbouring countries of China (most notably Russia) manage to squeeze 7 different time zones (from UTC+5 to UTC+11) into the same geographical span, while China officially uses just one. [...]

If you travel 180 degrees of longitude from London in either of the two possible directions, you will end up in the same spot on the other side of the globe. This means that the UTC+12 and UTC–12 time zones should theoretically cover the same area… but they are 24 hours apart. This is why this time zone is split into two “sub-zones” of equal width (fully applying only in international waters), one being 12 hours ahead of London and the other being 12 hours behind.

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