Jacobin Magazine: Independence on Hold

The Scottish independence movement did indeed continue after the referendum, and the SNP itself reached historic highs in the 2015 general election, winning fifty-six of fifty-nine seats, and a fresh mandate at the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. In March 2017, new SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon announced her intention to organize another independence vote. [...]

Labour minister George Robertson famously promised that Tony Blair’s creation of a devolved assembly in Edinburgh would “kill nationalism stone dead,” satisfying the demand for national autonomy. Yet this parliament in fact provided a platform from which the SNP could build itself as a party of Scottish government, even while in permanent opposition to UK administrations. [...]

In office in Edinburgh starting in 2007, the SNP pointed to its flagship free education policy and measures to thwart the Tory “bedroom tax” (benefit cuts for those with supposedly “unoccupied” rooms) as evidence that Scotland could follow a different course. While Salmond’s SNP was always a pro-business party interested only in electoral politics, it projected a strong progressive image. Its sometimes-sharp opposition to Tony Blair’s foreign policy particularly focused this agenda. [...]

Purely episodic factors do much to explain the SNP’s difficulties. While Sturgeon has been First Minister for less than three years, the party has been in government in Edinburgh since 2007. This is a long time for any administration to maintain support; by the end of this parliament, the SNP will have been in office longer than either Thatcher or New Labour. [...]

Yet with the UK heading out of the European Union and the meaning of Scottish independence unclear, it is difficult for Sturgeon to provide a sharply defined vision of what comes next for Scotland. The fate of the now-weakened Tory government in Brexit talks will be decisive for the SNP’s chances of recovery.

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Slate: Why Trump Is Like This

It’s everything from his unitary focus on himself and what’s good for his bottom line to his very solitary, lonely nature as a man, to his willingness to run over and destroy anyone he sees as being in his way. He is quite consistently someone who likes to make mischief and thinks of himself as a jokester, and yet he’s also someone who deeply believes that he can manage and fix just about anything.

Probably one of the most important aspects of his personality is that for Donald Trump there’s really no tense other than the present tense. He doesn’t think terribly much about the future, and he also doesn’t at all acknowledge that the past exists. I think he almost uniquely, in my experience, doesn’t really experience the past in his day-to-day life. When you ask him about things that took place earlier in his life, it’s almost as if they come fresh to him every time you mention them. [...]

I think he has a remarkable capacity for denial, and I think there have been very few occasions over the course of his life where he has been slapped in the face with his failure, whether it was his bankruptcies, the failures of any number of his businesses, the failures of two marriages. In each case, he has an almost admirable ability to move through life as if those losses and failures hadn’t happened, and to portray them not in a crass political spin sort of way but in a really gut-level, deeply felt way as things that didn’t bother him and things that he didn’t even acknowledge. [...]

Trump doesn’t really have the capacity to enjoy things in the way that most people think of that word. You never see him laughing. He’s not a terribly optimistic person, as we saw in the campaign. I think he relishes the authority, the power, and above all the stature of the position. He loves the trappings of his office, but there’s really no evidence that he loves the day to day of most of the things he does, with the exception of dealing with the media. He has this reputation that he’s cultivated of being tough on the media. He’s certainly staking a lot of the rhetoric of the administration on bashing the media, but there’s nothing he loves more than talking to the reporters and working the press and working his image. That really is more of a source of satisfaction to him than anything that might have to do with policy, which bores him to tears.

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The Atlantic: Southern Baptists Embrace Gender-Inclusive Language in the Bible

Last fall, the publishing arm of the 15-million member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) released the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). LifeWay Christian Stores, America’s largest Christian retailer, which is owned by the SBC, sells the translation at hundreds of its locations nationwide and touts it as a work of superior scholarship. But patrons are largely unaware that the denomination-approved translation is gender-inclusive.

Such news would presumably shock many in the evangelical body. The denomination has affirmed that the Bible commands wives to submit to their husbands and that modern notions of transgender identity blur the line between God-ordained masculine and feminine roles. The group has passed numerous resolutions since the late 1990s publicly condemning Bible translations that attempt to utilize gender-inclusive language. [...]

The rationale behind the rebuke was two-fold. First, inclusive translations abolish many gender-specific terms. For example, they may change “father” to “parent,” “son” to “child,” and “man” to “mortal.” And second, these translations added words and phrases not found in ancient manuscripts for the sake of inclusion. A common example is the translation of “brother” as “brother or sister.” [...]

The CSB now translates the term anthropos, a Greek word for “man,” in a gender-neutral form 151 times, rendering it “human,” “people,” and “ones.” The previous edition had done this on occasion; the new revision adds almost 100 more instances. “Men of Israel” becomes “fellow Israelites;” when discussing Jesus’s incarnation the “likeness of men” becomes “likeness of humanity.” The CSB translates the term adelphoi, a Greek word for “brother” in a gender-neutral form 106 times, often adding “sister.” “Brotherly love” is translated “love as brothers and sisters.”

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The Atlantic: 'Gay Syrians Are Only Those Killed in ISIS Videos'

A new feature documentary called Mr. Gay Syria follows members of the gay Syrian community in Turkey. This excerpt from the film toggles between characters in Istanbul and Berlin, as they plot to send a member of their community to the “Mister Gay World” competition. It’s a close look at a tight-knit and often glossed-over community. “The main idea behind the competition was to launch a campaign to resettle LGBT Syrians from Turkey,” says Mahmoud Hassino, the event organizer. “The country is becoming more homophobic and it's more difficult for LGBT refugees.” The filmmakers are currently crowdfunding the full production costs for their film; learn more on their website.

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The New York Review of Books: Britain: The End of a Fantasy

Theresa May is a classic phony Brexiter. She didn’t support it in last year’s referendum and there is no reason to think that, in private, she has ever changed her mind. But she saw that the path to power led toward the cliff edge, from which Britain will take its leap into an unknown future entirely outside the European Union. Her strategy was one of appeasement—of the nationalist zealots in her own party, of the voters who had backed the hard-right UK Independence Party (UKIP), and of the hysterically jingoistic Tory press, especially The Daily Mail. [...]

This is why May called an election. Her decision to do so—when she had a working majority in parliament—has been seen by some as pure vanity. But it was the inevitable result of the volkish rhetoric she had adopted. A working majority was not enough—the unified people must have a unified parliament and a single, uncontested leader: one people, one parliament, one Queen Theresa to stand on the cliffs of Dover and shake her spear of sovereignty at the damn continentals. [...]

There were three problems. Firstly, May demanded her enormous majority so that she could ride out into the Brexit battle without having to worry about mutterings in the ranks behind her. But she has no clue what the battle is supposed to be for. Because May doesn’t actually believe in Brexit, she’s improvising a way forward very roughly sketched out by other people. She’s a terrible actor mouthing a script in which there is no plot and no credible ending that is not an anti-climax. Brexit is a back-of-the-envelope proposition. Strip away the post-imperial make-believe and the Little England nostalgia, and there’s almost nothing there, no clear sense of how a middling European country with little native industry can hope to thrive by cutting itself off from its biggest trading partner and most important political alliance.

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The Conversation: Most countries score an F on our LGBT human rights report card

Our research gives most countries in the world a failing grade in LGBTQ rights, reflecting widespread persecution of sexual minorities. Only one country in 10 actively protects the human rights of sexual minorities. [...]

It looks not only at constitutional protections, but also societal indicators, political opinion, civil society and economic factors. For example, we look at whether the majority of citizens are accepting of sexual minorities and if gay rights organizations can peacefully and safely assemble. [...]

The extremes are stunning. In 2017, 23 countries have legalized same-sex marriage, yet 71 countries still criminalize same-sex acts.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen score lowest on our scale, with an overall GBGR score of 3 out of a possible score of 100, while Luxembourg, Malta and New Zealand score highest, with 100 percent. A score of 100 percent doesn’t mean a country is perfect in its treatment of LGBT individuals, but it does mean they protect LGBTQ rights. [...]

Our initial findings suggest that higher income, lower rates of religiosity, higher life expectancy, a higher freedom rating by nonprofit Freedom House and having a democratic political system are the best predictors of how much a country respects or abuses the rights of sexual minorities.

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Quartz: The silence of the Hindus and the rise of the Hindu nation

At the turn of this decade, such ideas evoked derision. Although 79.8% of India is Hindu, the country never seriously considered declaring itself a Hindu nation. If this is now a possibility, it would imply that a majority of Hindus is considering the idea. It is hard to say if this is the case, but it is equally hard to say it is not.

There is little doubt that what were once considered nutty, fringe organisations—and fringe, extreme beliefs—have gone mainstream. This did not begin with Narendra Modi’s ascent to power in 2014. The empowerment of popular hate began, I wrote last year, after the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992. Instead of taking a stand, the Congress often pandered to emerging prejudice—soft Hindutva, as some call it—allowing it to become a part of Indian majoritarian thinking. A sharp acceleration is evident since Modi became prime minister three years ago. The most proximate evidence is from Uttar Pradesh, which appears to have gone even more extreme with the installation of Adityanath—an unabashed Hindu supremacist with a police record for stirring up violence against Muslims—as chief minister in March. [...]

Some issues: How to create an “awakening” of dharma (duty), which includes lessons on how to worship, dress, comb one’s hair “as per Hindu culture” and the “futility of Bharatiya democracy”; how to counter “love jihad,” the notion that Muslim men want to marry and convert Hindu women as part of a conspiracy to Islamise India; conversions by Christians and other acts by “anti-Hindu sects”; how to defend yourself—“trainers” are available—with sticks, catapults, nanchakus (to mention anything deadlier may invite unwanted attention, but members of the Samiti’s sister organisation, the shadowy Sanatan Sanstha, have dabbled with improvised explosive devices, and on which the Maharashtra government, in 2016, sought a ban); how to oppose “symbols of slavery,” from trying to stop Valentine’s Day to changing the names of some cities, such as Aurangabad and Osmanabad; how to protect temples; and of course, cows.

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CityLab: London's Richest Neighborhood Just Voted Labour. That's Astounding.

The richest cluster of neighborhoods in Europe has just for the first time in its history voted in an MP from the center-left Labour Party. The last, now-rejected count found Labour just 35 votes ahead, a first for an area whose electoral boundaries have shifted but never yet returned anyone but a Conservative to Parliament.

It may be understandably hard for an American reader to understand how seismic this shift is. The U.K.’s Labour Party, which first rose to prominence as an explicitly socialist party in the 1920s, has never had much of a foothold with the old guard that Kensington is associated with. It’s historically been to the left of U.S. Democrats, a position it has returned to under current leader Jeremy Corbyn, who's stood on a platform of nationalizing railways and postal services and abolishing university fees. This isn’t like citizens of the Upper East Side or Bel Air cheerleading for Hillary. A better example: Imagine the affluent Dallas enclave of Highland Park turning out big for Bernie Sanders. It’s like raising the red flag over Downton Abbey. [...]

That’s because, despite its wealth, Kensington is one of the most drastically unequal areas in all of Britain. In the south of the district lies some of the world’s most eye-wateringly precious real estate, including the world’s most expensive apartment, valued at £75 million, as well as Princess Diana’s former home at Kensington Palace. Behind main drags lined with boutiques and department stores lie streets of lavish look-but-don’t-touch Italianate townhouses, places where security cameras whirr behind strategically placed ornamental orange trees.

How could such an area opt for a Labour MP? It’s highly unlikely that this is a case of radical chic, with mansion owners dabbling in electoral socialism as a way of spicing up lives jaded by abundance. One factor may be that the area’s Conservative MP voted to leave the EU, while her constituents overwhelmingly voted to Remain. (These are globe-trotting, affluent people with lots of business ties to European countries.) There’s another, more striking factor that’s likely in play, however—it’s possible these wealthier residents weren’t even there.

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Katoikos: Is Portugal on the path to solid economic recovery?

Costa’s left-wing government took power in October 2015, after ousting the Social Democrats (PSD) in coalition with the Popular Party (CDS-PP), following a censorship motion in parliament. Costa, the former mayor from Lisbon, vowed to reset wages and pensions as well as to reverse the austerity cycle that had pushed the country to its knees. Many deemed this coalition a failure, as it seemed, at first glance, unworkable – but significant progress has been achieved since the Socialist Party, backed by the left, took control over the country. [...]

According to the spring forecast released by the European Commission last week, “Portugal’s economic growth is set to rise further in 2017 before easing off in 2018. The labour market is also expected to improve with unemployment falling from 11.2% in 2016 to 9.2% in 2018. After turning out at 2.0% of GDP in 2016 the general government deficit is set to remain below 2% over the forecast horizon.” [...]

However, Portugal still carries a high general public debt as a proportion of GDP; it rose slightly to 130.4% in 2016, mainly due to higher issuance of government debt for the ongoing recapitalisation of the state-owned bank CGD. However, the ratio is forecast to decline to 128.5% in 2017 and to 126.2% in 2018, due to primary budget surpluses and continued economic growth.

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