BBC4 Analysis: Europe Unbound

Edward Stourton asks how the European Union might change after Britain leaves. "The wind is back in Europe's sails", according to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In September, in his annual address to the European Parliament, he set out a bold dream for the future. Soon afterwards it was echoed by another, this time from French President Emmanuel Macron who declared that "the only path that assures our future is the rebuilding of a Europe that is sovereign, united and democratic". Amongst the proposals that the two leaders put forward were a European budget run by a European finance minister, an enlargement of the Schengen passport-free travel zone, and much closer collaboration on tax, defence, and a host of other issues.

But at present, the European project faces huge challenges. Britain is about to leave the EU, whilst Catalonia's bid for independence is causing turmoil in Spain. In the face of such developments, how realistic are the grand visions that Europe's leaders have for the future of the continent?

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Dazed: Intimate photos explore Iran’s hidden gay community

In February 1979, the Persian Empire came to an end. After 2,500 years of a continuous monarchy, Iran became an Islamic Republic governed by Sharia Law – making homosexuality a crime subject to the imprisonment, corporal punishment, and execution.

At its core the issue is intercourse. Any activity outside heterosexual marriage is viewed as a violation of religious law. Interestingly, transgender people are considered heterosexual and will not be persecuted if they complete gender confirmation surgery, which may be partially funded by the state. As a result, Iran ranks as second in the world, following Thailand, for gender realignment surgeries. Many gay men have been pressured by their families to become transgender – or are forced to flee the country in order to save themselves.

Many come to Denizli, an industrial city in southwest Turkey that acts as a transit zone, allowing Iranian refugees to live in a state of purgatory while they wait patiently for a visa to live in yet another country. Since the U.S. travel ban was implemented and Canada stopped accepting Iranian refugees, their circumstances are becoming increasingly dire and difficult. While homosexuality is legal in Turkey, homophobia remains an issue that all LGBTQI people must face. Although free from the Kafkaesque struggles of their native land, the Iranians must remain anonymous in order to protect themselves. [...]

“The city of Denizli is an important part of the story as well. It plays an important role in their lives as they must wait here indefinitely – until they are able to get a visa to live in another country. I wanted to show this town where time is like being on pause. We tried to find a place that could echo their life while hiding in Iran or simply places they liked. Even though homosexuality is allowed in Turkey, there are still lots of homophobia and taking some of the couple pictures outside wasn’t easy because we had to wait until no one was around.”

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Vox: Inside North Korea's bubble in Japan

For this episode I found myself embeded with a small community in Japan. They were born there, they speak the language. But they're not Japanese citizens, or even ethnically Japanese - they're North Korean. There's about 150,000 of them living in Japan today, and they've been there for over a century.

This community has close ties with the regime in Pyongyang, which supports them financially (and vice-versa). But more importantly, Pyongyang offers them an identity, a heritage, and cultural legitimacy - things that some elements of Japanese society work to deny them. 

Jacobin Magazine: The Revolution of 1517

Religious thought and practice influenced vast areas of social life, profoundly impacting adherents’ consciousness. Indeed, the modern state would eventually have to absorb many of the church’s functions. In the medieval period, moral, social, and what we would today call political thought all took place almost exclusively within religious institutions. Terry Eagleton has argued that no such hegemonic force could exist in modern society and that capitalist societies have struggled in vain to fill the vacuum left by religion. [...]

Economic crisis convulsed Europe in the late medieval period. By 1300, a growing rural population began to exceed the traditional feudal plots’ capacity. Food prices increased with grain shortages, and displaced peasants fled their traditional agricultural roles to cities, where they worked as wage laborers. The increase in available workers drove down pay.

The climate changed, becoming cooler and wetter, contributing to famines across large swaths of Western Europe between 1315 and 1317, killing between 10 and 15 percent of the population. [...]

These crises changed the patterns of economic and social life. Between 1375 and 1400, as many as a quarter of the villages in German-speaking territories ceased to exist, as collapsing prices for agricultural products forced rural workers into wage labor. Nature reclaimed the land farmers had cleared for cultivation in previous centuries. [...]

Typically, radical reform movements opposed clerical wealth and corruption. They used independent readings of the gospel to establish their authority, making them fundamentalist in the true sense of the word: they eschewed traditional religious thought and practice in order to return to the essential elements of worship. They often foregrounded rebellious clergy, who broke from church hierarchy and continued to provide intellectual leadership to militants from lower social classes.

Crucially, these movements tended to divide into moderate and radical wings. Starting with a demand to reform or abolish certain church practices or rituals, segments of these organizations eventually radicalized into millenarian cults that called for the destruction of the existing social order.

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Al Jazeera: What happened to Catalonia can't happen to Scotland

There is, in fact, no wave of separatism across Europe. In Belgium, the Flemish nationalist party is part of the national government but has not even insisted on a constitutional reform. It talks about confederalism; independence is, at most, a long-term and rather vague aspiration. [...]

Within the European Union, there are precisely two independence-seeking movements of any significance, in Catalonia and in Scotland. In both cases, support for independence is around 40-45 percent. Both are governed by nationalist parties, which have sought to test support in independence referendums. [...]

The Scottish referendum was won by the anti-independence forces, who gained 55 percent of the vote. While the nationalists were defeated, however, they had demonstrated that they are a considerable force in Scottish society. Neither side had scored a knock-out victory. So, after the referendum, the two sides engaged in a negotiation to produce a compromise of further autonomy for Scotland.  [...]

Catalonia has gone into a confrontation that could have been avoided some years ago with a bit of statesmanship. With some recognition of Catalonia's national status, stronger guarantees for its competences and language and a deal on taxation and spending, the great majority of Catalans would have been content to remain in Spain and Spain itself would have been strengthened. Instead, there has been a series of miscalculations on both sides and a failure to think through the consequences of their actions. [...]

The same proportion thought that the actions of the Spanish government had encouraged pro-independence forces. A clear majority favoured proceeding gradually towards more autonomy, as the current Basque government is doing. A poll taken after the referendum showed 44 percent in favour of independence (where it has been for the last few years) but, when Catalans are offered the alternative of more autonomy, support for independence falls to 29 percent.

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