Al Jazeera: The case against Catalan secession

The Spanish constitution is not exceptional in guaranteeing national sovereignty and territorial integrity of its borders, and is, in fact, in line with other Western democratic nations such as the United States, France, Italy and Germany. In a recent ruling on the hypothetical secession of Bavaria, for example, the German Constitutional Court indicated that the federal states are not sovereign but fall within the Federal Republic of Germany where questions of national sovereignty lie with all German people. [...]

It is bad enough that nationalist leaders have managed to normalise a disdain for the rules of our democratic, constitutional system. But what is worse is that they have managed to do it from within the very institutions of the system that they so scorn. To those who would constantly try to caricature Spain as being a nation of "low democratic quality", it is worth pointing to The Economist's Democracy Index, which in 2016 grouped Spain once again among "full democracies", akin to Germany or the United Kingdom. [...]

They face the problem that, as the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon has explained, the case of Catalonia does not fall within any of the circumstances provided by the UN for this right to apply. This right is limited to decolonisation processes and undemocratic regimes that do not respect the rule of law, subject to conditions established by the UN that have nothing to do with the situation in Catalonia. [...]

With good reason, the rise in support for independence coincided at the time with the worst point of the economic crisis, which hit Spain particularly hard. Instead of recognising that their electoral growth had much to do with the uncertainty and social unrest resulting from the crisis, the separatists endeavoured to prove that this progress was because the Catalan people had finally understood their "manifest destiny": separation, because "Spain doesn't care about us", "They're robbing us", "They're treating us badly", "They don't let us vote". This is the creed the nationalists have been preaching for years, notwithstanding the ominous consequences of their discourse for coexistence between Catalans, and between them and the rest of the Spanish people.

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BBC4 Beyond Belief: Begging

Is it a religious duty to give to beggars?

If you go into the centre of a city like Yangon or Bangkok, you will also come across people begging. Among them will be fine robed Buddhist monks with their begging bowls. They're highly respected members of society, following the tradition of religious mendicancy. What differentiates them from what we know as street beggars? What should inform our decision on whether or not to give?

Joining Ernie to discuss religious and moral attitudes to Begging are Jon Kuhrt, Chief Executive of the West London Mission; Eleanor Nesbitt, Professor Emerita from the University of Warwick and founder-member of the Punjab Research Group, and Dr Andrew Skilton, Senior Research Fellow in Buddhism at Kings College London.

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Political Critique: Hiding in plain sight: Voice and silence in contemporary Polish curating

The pretext for this short set of observations is a visit to the newly opened exhibit Poland: Land of Folklore? at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. The compelling, beautifully installed exhibit showcases the Communist-era “branding” of Poland as a modern yet deep-rooted land, a colourful vision of a united, forward-looking Polish peoplehood inspired by tradition. The image was at once ideologically appropriate, nationally celebratory, and globally exportable. From the performance of Poland at international youth gatherings through song and dance, to the patronage, mentoring, and marketing of its handicrafts and design via the institution of a state-run network of Cepelia stores at home and abroad, the exhibit takes a critical look at the whole-cloth invention of a new national imaginary in the early years of Poland’s People’s Republic (PRL). [...]

Fascinating and true though this view may be, the introductory text enables the exhibition to answer a broader set of questions – among them how the “people’s” government used folklore, and how its status changed when it moved into museums and galleries in the first decades of the PRL. It also states that the exhibit inquires about the “place of the folk artist – the other – in the art world.”  But the breadth of both the exhibition’s exploration of the state’s use of folklore and its inquiry into “otherness” is curiously lacking, in ways that replicate some of the very silences it seeks to critique. Indeed, the curatorial gaze brought to bear on the PRL’s production of “the folk” in Zachęta’s gallery shares some of the same blind spots with the  “countryside as seen by ethnographers” that is the partial subject of the exhibition. [...]

The best ethnography from the era captures humorous descriptions of rural woodcarvers trying to grasp precisely how to be “folk” enough to please the elites who encouraged and might purchase their works – a bottom up process of “self-folklorisation” catalysed by the state’s top-down version. Where are their voices? It is almost a truism that the new crafts encouraged by the state, and the new forms of artistic production like “design collectives” and academic-rural collaborations, not only imposed on, but also served those entrained to produce the desired “culture.” But how did they do this, and by how much? Beyond potential money or a modicum of fame, what did the new creative language and new aesthetic horizons for expression produce in existential terms? Even in authoritarian settings craftspeople put their personal stamp on what they produce – they make their worlds, even if not under conditions of their choosing. The process by which many peasants became and thrived as folk artists due to state encouragement is perhaps too anxiously close to the PRL’s own celebratory narrative to garner attention in this show. (A small photograph of the original 1966 “Others” exhibit partially replicated in the current exhibit, shows the central place given to the makers of the art on display – however instrumental – in form of life-size photo-banners. The one, fascinating nod in the present exhibit in the direction of acknowledging the artists as actors is the curator’s description of women weavers from Janów, who saw the new, specially-commissioned works they produced for city buyers as “folk”, while they continued to produce items for local use to their own taste).

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FiveThirtyEight: Six Charts To Help Americans Understand The Upcoming German Election

To achieve the right proportions, the total number of representatives in the Bundestag can vary with each federal election, but it is always at least 598. Unless a single party wins a simple majority — which is rare — multiple parties will need to join forces to form a governing coalition that, collectively makes up at least 50 percent of the Bundestag. The Bundestag then elects a chancellor, who typically comes from the biggest party in the governing coalition. [...]

Like the division between the Union and the Confederacy in the United States, historical divisions between the former East and West still play a role in modern German politics. The eastern part of the country is a stronghold of a party called The Left, which grew out of East Germany’s socialist party, according to Andrei Markovits, professor of comparative politics and German studies at the University of Michigan. Other parties tend to fare better in one region or the other because of historic ties to the area or persistent socio-economic differences between the two (in general, the West is wealthier). [...]

Although it began as an anti-euro party full of academics, AfD became increasingly xenophobic in response to the influx of refugees Germany accepted in 2015, causing its founder, Bernd Lucke, and other original members to leave. Now the party places a strong emphasis on immigration, and is known for making xenophobic statements and being skeptical of climate science, though it retains its stance on returning Germany to its own national currency. The party’s platform does echo President Trump’s brand of nationalism, but AfD is more extreme, according to Christian Breunig, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Konstanz. For example, the party’s official manifesto states that Islam is fundamentally political and is incompatible with the German constitution — a harsher view of the religion than what Trump has publicly expressed.

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Wireless Philosophy: Symmetry Argument Against the Badness of Death - Ethics

Almost everyone fears death. But is this fear rational? Should we fear death? In this Wireless Philosophy video, Travis Timmerman (Seton Hall University) discusses the Symmetry Argument against the badness of death. He explains why one of the most popular responses to the argument fails. He also offers his own response, one that preserves the judgment that death can be bad for the one who dies.

Politico: Juncker proposes fast-tracking EU trade deals

Juncker is expected to use his State of the European Union speech September 13 to call for a quick start of talks with Canberra and Wellington. Negotiating proposals based on the new model will then follow within “days,” according to a trade diplomat and several lawmakers in the European Parliament familiar with the dossier. Member countries would have to approve Juncker’s proposals.

The new model involves splitting deals into two parts. The vast majority of chapters in trade accords fall under the exclusive competence of the EU, meaning those sections can be ratified by the European Parliament and EU governments as represented at the Council. [...]

Reducing the say of national parliaments is sensitive, however. Germany — the heartland of last year’s protests against new trade deals — asked the Commission not to push too far ahead with this tactic until the country’s federal elections on September 24, several trade diplomats in Brussels said. [...]

The new approach follows a European Court of Justice ruling in May, which said that all parts of the EU’s trade deal with Singapore except non-direct foreign investment and investment dispute mechanisms fall under exclusive EU competence. The ruling is considered relevant to other EU trade deals because of their similarity to the Singapore agreement.

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The Conversation: So few Muslim women wear the burqa in Europe that banning it is a waste of time

To look at it, the burqa is simply a veil which covers the body and face – and yet it is also sometimes associated with oppression, terrorism, and extreme religious beliefs. Some burqas only have a mesh screen for the wearer to see through. The niqab, on the other hand, is a face veil worn with a headscarf which leaves the eyes uncovered, while the hijab is a scarf which covers the head and neck. In Europe, the term “burqa” is used to refer to women who wear robes to cover the body and face, but their eyes may be left uncovered, as seen in the main image of this article.

Putting aside the contradiction between laws dictating what women can and cannot wear, human rights issues, and the history of women struggling to have the right to choose their own clothing, the number of Muslim women who wear the burqa alone does not necessitate this fear, nor any expense and time in creating new laws to ban the burqa. [...]

In 2011, France became the first European country to ban the burqa. At the time of legislation in 2011, there were 4.7m Muslims in France, making up 7.4% of the population. As of July 2016, Muslims now account for 7.2% of the French population. Legislative documents supporting the ban reported that 1,900 Muslim women wore the face covering burqa in the country in 2011. This number represented 0.04% of the French Muslim population, and less than 0.003% of the general population of France. [...]

It is almost inconceivable that so much time, effort and cost would be spent bringing in a law that only affected 367 people in a country of over 63m.

The low number of women wearing the burqa in France reflects wider European estimates of Muslim women who cover their faces, where figures are either correspondingly low, or so low as to be impossible to record.

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The Conversation: Racism is real, race is not: a philosopher’s perspective

The reader may object – “surely, I can see race with my bare eyes!” However, it is not race we see, but the superficial visible biological diversity within our species: variation in traits such as skin colour, hair form and eye shape. This variation is not enough to justify racial classification. Our biological diversity is too small, and too smoothly distributed across geographic space, for race to be real.

This is not merely an opinion. From a scientific perspective, the best candidate for a synonym for “race” is “subspecies” (the classification level below “species” in biology). When scientists apply the standard criteria to determine whether there are subspecies/races in humans, none are found. In chimpanzees yes, but in humans no. [...]

Once the idea of race is divorced from biology, strange things start happening, conceptually. What makes a group a “race”, if race is social, rather than biological?

We could say that races are just the groups that are labelled as races, but this doesn’t work. Just as witches are not women accused of being witches, races are not merely groups labelled as races. There has to be something more to the group for it to qualify as a social kind. [...]

Racialised groups are not biological groups, in the sense that they are not biological races. Yet how you are racialised does depend on superficial biological characteristics, such as skin colour. That is to say, racialised groups have biological inclusion criteria, vague and arbitrary as they may be.

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The Atlantic: Mosul Holds Clues About a Post-ISIS Future

The devastation the so-called Islamic State wreaked on the Iraqi city of Mosul stuns the senses. Suicide bombers blew up the hospital so that ISIS leaders being treated there couldn’t be captured and interrogated. A water plant mechanic tells of being lashed 40 times because his wife answered the door unveiled. An engineer tells of seeing neighbors burned alive. Children haven’t been to school in nearly three years. The jewel of a university, some of the most modern buildings in the city, are rubble; its library’s 2 million volumes now ashes. ISIS defaced statues, burned churches, blew up the central mosque, and knocked over the minaret of Mosul’s landmark mosque. Junk yards of burned vehicles extend thousands of yards along the highway.  I witnessed all those things in Iraq at the invitation of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to look at the challenges of political, economic, and social reconstruction.

An extended Sunni family from the Kurdish region that came to Mosul during the fighting, suspected of complicity with ISIS, isn’t being allowed to return. The Kurdish regional government argues it needs to screen everyone who fled toward ISIS to prevent infiltration; others see a pattern of Kurds consolidating control over disputed territory. Kurdish leaders say political and military failures of the Baghdad government necessitate military forces independent of Baghdad; the central government argues it is yet one more effort by Kurds to destroy the country—an accusation reinforced by Kurdistan holding a referendum in September on becoming an independent state.

Catholics are hesitant to return to Mosul because they have lost trust in the people around them; others resent government money going to Catholics because the global faithful have contributed so generously to them. Sunni complain security forces are rampantly pillaging and wonder why the U.S. and Europe care so much more about the fate of Catholic and Yezidi communities than them, who hold the country’s prospects for peace in their hands. They wait expectantly for largesse from the Gulf states to rebuild their homes and press their case to the Baghdad government. Many Iraqi Army and peshmerga units folded quickly or engaged in retribution, alienating communities they were sent to protect. Iraqi National Army soldiers fly flags of Shia militia over their posts, and say they can’t wait to get back to the south because “all Mosul is ISIS.”  

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