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?