Quartz: A plan for the free movement of Africans across the continent is being held up by fears of xenophobia

The free movement of Africans between African countries could unquestionably facilitate growth. Allowing freer movement would encourage trade, tourism and investment between African countries. And it would allow students to study in other African countries and Africans with suitable skills to find rewarding jobs. [...]

But there are major obstacles that need to be cleared before the ambition of free movement across the continent can be achieved. The biggest is posed by concerns raised by the continent’s major economies like South Africa and countries in North Africa where unemployment rates are high and there are fears that increased immigration could contribute to increasing domestic tensions.

There are also concerns that if not well managed the free movement could worsen brain drain for poorer countries. Because of these concerns, among others, only 30 countries have signed the protocol. This is much lower than the 44 that have signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. [...]

A stronger African coordination around population registration, leading ultimately to an African ID or an African standard ID would be a neat way to address these technical issues. The technical committee could focus first on the obstacles to implementing Phase 1. Once that hurdle is crossed it could move on to Phase 2, and eventually to Phase 3.

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Spiegel: How the European Commission President Won Over Trump

Of course, it's still too early to tell how long that agreement will hold. Many fear all it would take is one nasty tweet from Trump for the whole thing to come unspun again. And then comes the fact that the deal does nothing to solve the many other problems the Europeans have with this unpredictable American president. The man who, for now at least, seems prepared to call a kind of cease-fire in the trade conflict, but still wants to abolish NATO, threatens Iran and dismisses climate change as nonsense largely promulgated by Europeans. [...]

One day before his meeting with Trump, Juncker sent Martin Selmayr, the European Commission's general secretary, to meet with Kudlow. The two drafted a few paragraphs at a hotel in Washington they could agree upon. These were the cornerstones of the deal that would later emerge. [...]

When he arrived at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, Juncker still didn't know whether this plan was also liked by the president. It's a familiar pattern with Trump. In the end, he often follows the advice of the last adviser he has met with. For the Europeans, this raised the question of whether that person this time was economic adviser Kudlow or a hardliner like Commerce Secretary Ross. [...]

Ultimately, the outcome of the Washington meeting turned out to be a victory for moderates in the EU over those urging a hardline trade policy against the U.S., especially in France. Shortly before Juncker's visit, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had declared: "We're in the midst of a trade war." He refused to discuss any reduction in levies until the U.S. withdrew its punitive tariffs. "We refuse to negotiate with a gun pointed to our heads," he recently said.

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Jacobin Magazine: Let Them Eat Privilege

By forcing the middle class to divert their attention downward (and within) instead of at the real power players above, Vox and Giridharadas are playing into the Right’s hands. It’s an attempt to shame the middle class — those with some wealth but, relative to the top one or one-tenth of one percent, mere crumbs — to make them shut up about the rich and super rich and, instead, look at those below as a reminder that it could all be much worse. [...]

When a cut in capital gains taxes is paid for by hiking state tuition and slashing social services, the one percent benefits while the vast majority of the 99 percent loses. When a new law is passed making it harder to organize a union or wages are squeezed to ring out higher and higher corporate profits, it’s the one percent — and their investment portfolios — that benefits and the majority of the 99 percent who loses. [...]

By substituting class relations for an arbitrary list of “privileges,” Vox is attempting to paint a picture of an immiserated America with no villain. It’s an America without a ruling class that directly and materially benefits from everyone else’s hard times. And this omission isn’t just incorrect — it robs us of any meaningful oppositional politics that could change it all.

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Jacobin Magazine: The New Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous consumption — the display of wealth as an expression of economic power — is not a new phenomenon but it has arguably never been as easy to practice. Social media has helped normalize it, providing a frame of competitive individualism and entrepreneurship in which the experience of affluence must be documented and shared online. Reveling in the thrill of a good purchase, the instinct is to share it with friends and followers online. [...]

These oil paintings were produced in a period marked by the consolidation of the mercantile bourgeoisie, an emerging class benefitting from expanded trading routes with the colonies. It was the age of the Grand Tour, when the noble sons of northern Europe journeyed through France and Italy in search of antiquity and the origins of European culture, on their way encountering art, music, and food, and enjoying occasional bouts of sexual revelry and wild drunkenness. The trips could last a few years, and often relied on seemingly unlimited funds from back home. [...]

The following sketches, which bring together a selection of two distinct image species (European oil paintings from 1650–1750 and Instagram pictures from 2012–14), draw on Berger’s insights. A work of visual analysis rather than art history, the comparisons connect a culture of the present with one of the past — both in order to better understand the selections themselves, and the desperately unequal world that produced them. [...]

But this is not about taste or enjoyment. It is about the spectacle of pleasure — his satisfaction comes not from the wine itself, but from the knowledge that others realize he possesses it. Such is the logic behind “sinking,” the fashionable practice of ordering two bottles of champagne and having one poured down the sink — a display of braggadocio signifying disdain for cost and a gratification in denying others the experience of wealth rather than sharing it.

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Politico: With anti-Muslim laws, Europe enters new dark age

What has become of Europe? New laws targeting Muslims are reminiscent of a time when innocent Jewish children were abducted by masked monks and imprisoned in monasteries to “save” them from the eternal fire of hell. In our blind mistrust of religious differences, we are returning to the Middle Ages, when the only model for integration was the forced conversion of the minority religion to the majority. [...]

Denmark is not the only country to target its minority populations and religious freedom in this way. Austria and Belgium have proposed limiting kosher meat slaughter, for example, and several countries — including France and Norway — have banned religious head coverings in schools or among civil servants. Bavaria and Italy have floated legislation that would require crucifixes to be displayed in public buildings. [...]

Violence and hate speech must be combatted, but security concerns cannot be used to justify discrimination against religious minorities. As long as Jews were the sole targets of Islamic terror, Europe’s response was silence and indifference. But following the attacks in Paris, Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin and Nice, when every European is a potential victim, Europe has woken up to the threat of religious hatred. The problem is that the policies European countries have put in place to fight the threat of religious extremism are themselves highly damaging.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt is president of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER).

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