The New York Review of Books: Not Another Brexit Jeremiad

Remainers and Leavers alike have been caught off-guard by the strength of feeling aroused. And it’s not even remotely fanciful to imagine that the schism within Britain will haunt the polity for decades. Remainers might still see themselves as British, but they might not now see themselves as British in the way some Leavers do. For that matter, perhaps Brexit will put one tedious debate about Britishness—namely, the never-ending one that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US and, later, the 2007 terrorist outrages in London about the Britishness of the country’s immigrants, particularly its Muslim ones—on the back-burner for a while. One can only hope. [...]

Right after June 23, 2016, the day of the referendum, Britons of my acquaintance—native-born, white, home counties centrists of the almost interchangeable David Cameron or Tony Blair variety—commented that their country suddenly seemed alien to them, musing that they had more in common with me than with many of their fellow native-born Englishmen who’d voted to leave the European Union. This realization evidently came as a surprise to them. The sociological explanation for why I now feel closer to Britain might be that by confronting all Britons with this variety of native British identities, Brexit has created space for other British identities. [...]

The elites—roughly, the top fifth of earners—largely voted Remain. And relatively speaking, they will be insulated from whatever adverse economic consequences attend Brexit, but they will be reminded again and again of the cultural and social deficit that leaving the EU has meant to them. And since that fifth dominates the media and controls the public conversation, their grievance will continue to be heard in the public space. Their condescension, compounded by being right on almost all the verifiable facts, will continue, as will the mutual alienation.

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The Atlantic: A Strongman Falls, and a Post-Colonial Era Ends

An outspoken free spirit and a columnist for Le Quotidien d’Oran, an Algerian daily, Daoud has long written that his country deserves better than a choice between military dictatorship and Islamists. A former Islamist himself, Daoud, now 48, has been harshly critical of how conservative religious forces in Algeria have tried to suppress individual liberties and the rights of women—views that are progressive at home but that have also won him fans on the right in Europe. [...]

But I think this is the usual strategy that dictatorships turn to when they’re forced to. They try to start a dialogue and reforms, which is what I’d call the first phase. That’s what’s happening now in Algeria. I think the regime pushed Algerians’ sense of humiliation too far. We reached a point of electing a photo, which Algerians can’t tolerate.

There’s an even deeper force: demographics. Half of the Algerian population is under 30. The entire regime is old. The people of the regime are all 85 years old, and sooner or later this generational rupture was bound to cause a crisis. I also think that the generation of the decolonizers has come to an end all over Africa, but it arrived quite late in Algeria. And that was going to have consequences sooner or later. [...]

Daoud: Yes. For several years now, I’ve tried to write about how to get out of the post-colonial mentality. A lot of people reproached me for this—a lot of people in France and in the United States and elsewhere—because post-colonialism has become a comfort. For years, I’ve been writing about how we need to stop using post-colonialism as a complete and total explanation of reality. I think now we’ve reached a sort of political expression that’s very clear: People want to get out of the post-colonial era. They want to be done with that generation. [...]

Daoud: I think there are two major factors. First, to declare the end of the FLN, the old party [of Bouteflika] that won the war of liberation. This party must be defeated because it should no longer continue to be business as usual. And the second is the status of religion. Religion must respect secularism in the country. We need to separate the political from the religious. I think those are the two most important things. The third thing is to repair Algerian identity. Arab culture is a beautiful culture, but it’s not an identity; it’s a culture. We need to return to our real identity.

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Foreign Policy: Can Zuzana Caputova Save Slovakia?

A talented orator, Caputova comes across as reserved but confident, the qualities she first showed to the public in televised presidential debates in February and March. She speaks openly about truth, justice, and equality, which, according to her supporters, embodies a positive message reminiscent of Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright turned president of Czechoslovakia, who has remained a political and moral icon in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic since they split apart. [...]

Caputova’s greatest triumph as a lawyer—and her ticket to the national political stage—was a victory against an illegal dumpsite in her hometown of Pezinok in western Slovakia. The 14-year battle against a wealthy developer with ties to local authorities—which involved filing lawsuits, organizing protests, and petitions to European Union institutions—won her the 2016 Goldman Prize, a leading award honoring environmental activists often called the Green Nobel. [...]

Given the ruling party’s close ties with an indicted tycoon, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Caputova, who was a frequent participant at anti-government demonstrations after the murders, has cast her campaign as a struggle between good and evil. With the catchy Star Wars-like election slogan “Postavme sa zlu, spolu to dokazeme” (“Let’s face the evil together”), she offered herself as a new breed of politician: exciting, different, and untainted by scandals. [...]

The most recent presidential polls show Caputova hovering around 60 percent of the vote, well ahead of second-place Maros Sefcovic, a current EU commissioner. A 52-year-old Soviet-educated career diplomat who has gained a reputation for being genuinely pro-European, he was accused by opponents of pandering when, in order to attract right-wing voters, he appealed to “traditional, Christian values” in contrast to what he called Caputova’s “ultraliberal agenda.”

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CaspianReport: Geoeconomics of Egypt's new capital

BAKU - For over a thousand years, Cairo has served as the heart of Egypt. Yet, some 40 kilometres to the east, the government is constructing a new city, and if all goes to plan, it will act as the new seat of Egypt’s government. It promises to be bigger, better and newer, but a project of this magnitude also carries significant geo-economic implications.

AJ+: Republicans Were Super Pro-Environment, So What Happened?

The Guardian: Japan poised to reveal name of new imperial era as Akihito abdicates

The early announcement will give companies and public bodies time to incorporate the new era’s name into their paperwork and computer systems, and avoid any Y2K-style glitches when Naruhito becomes emperor on 1 May. Local governments say they have been preparing for the change for months and are confident they will be able to update their records in time. [...]

The names given to Japanese imperial reigns can have far-reaching consequences. The choice of characters can help determine the national zeitgeist and, over time, the name becomes a byword for collective memories of the era in question. [...]

It remains to be seen if the new era will revive the popular use of gengo amid a preference for the Gregorian calendar. A recent poll by the Mainichi newspaper found that 34% of people used gengo most of the time, a similar proportion used both in roughly equal measure, while a quarter preferred the Gregorian calendar. In 1975, 82% of people said they used gengo more frequently.  [...]

But the panel of experts tasked with devising a shortlist of contenders – with the cabinet to make the final decision – will be eager to avoid accusations that their choice has political overtones, given the constitutional ban on postwar emperors from wielding political influence.  [...]

For the past few months, a secretive eight-member panel of experts, including scholars of Japanese and Chinese classical literature, has been debating the merits of scores of possible names for the new era, the latest of almost 250 gengo stretching back to the seventh century.  

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Quartz: The most common destination for African immigrants is neither Europe nor North America

A new Afrobarometer survey of respondents in 34 African countries shows that 36% of Africans are more likely to move to another country within the continent. The trend noted in the report is also backed by reality as only 20% of African migrants who decide to emigrate from their countries actually leave the continent, according to the African Union. For example, many more people move from the Horn of Africa to southern Africa than those crossing the Sahara to north Africa to reach Europe.

The destination preferences also vary by region, the report shows. While a majority of west and north Africans prefer to move to Europe, intending immigrants in central, east and southern African largely prefer to move to another African country, specifically one within their regions. [...]

Crucially, as Afrobarometer’s report shows, 47% of respondents aged between 18 and 25 have considered moving elsewhere—the most of any age group. The trend is a consequence of unabating local unemployment which respondents cited as the leading reason for looking to emigrate.

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Politico: EU countries reject proposal on social security coordination

But EU countries rejected the proposal in a meeting of diplomats on Friday, with Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden banding together to block it from reaching the qualified majority needed for approval. Hungary, Malta and Poland abstained.

The battle over changing the rules on unemployment benefits had led to an unusual alliance between Eastern European countries and France, which is more typically aligned with the wealthier nations of Old Europe. France has a large number of workers who commute to work in neighboring countries like Germany. So a French worker receiving jobless benefits would get their payment from their employer's country — a change that France's unemployment benefits agency had estimated would save €550 million to €610 million. [...]

"The Romanian Presidency of the EU Council has been firmly committed to the complex and difficult discussions on the coordination of social security systems in the EU," the presidency said in a statement. "This was with the aim of achieving a balanced perspective on the implementation of progressive measures in the field of labour mobility in the EU and the Pillar of Social Rights. We regret that the provisional agreement reached by the Romanian Presidency and the European Parliament was not confirmed ... although a large majority of member states supported and appreciated it."

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Quartzy: Scandinavia may not be the happiest place on Earth, after all

We recently applied the scale in Denmark and compared the national mental well-being estimates of Danish people with people living in Iceland, Catalonia, and England. We found that people in Catalonia scored considerably higher on mental well-being than people in all three northern European countries—challenging the prevailing idea that places in northern Europe are typically happier than those in southern Europe.

In the World Happiness Reports, which tend to show the Nordic countries as leading, happiness is measured using Cantril’s ladder of life evaluation. This asks people to rate how they currently view their life on a ladder scale in which zero is the “worst possible life for you” and 10 is the “best possible life for you.” But such measures are strongly influenced by economic conditions and are poor proxies for mental health and well-being. [...]

In other words, high income may buy better life evaluations, but this is not the same as positive mental health and well-being. A recent report also showed that inequalities in life evaluation appear to be rising in several places in Scandinavia, and that a considerable amount of people in the Nordic countries appear to be struggling, contrary to what these countries are famous for.

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