Feed
donate Sport and politics
Torch bearers
Sport and politics George Orwell called sport "war without the shooting". Yet sport's democratic aspect inevitably means politics is involved, argues Paul Sims. Indeed, sport has become so big, so popular, that it has taken on the characteristics of a modern secular religion. [ more ]
Blurred boundaries
Sport, art and activity
Sport and politics Is the convergence of art and sport under the pressure of pseudo-participatory spectacle undermining the utopian potential of both? Benedict Seymour goes back to the future to recover the new kind of activity which, in different ways, is still informing them. [ more ]
Murder in Mexico
Chronicle of a massacre
sport and politics Sent to Mexico City in 1968 to cover the Olympics, sports journalist Brian Glanville instead found himself reporting on the anti-government demonstrations at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. He recalls how, despite the ensuing massacre, indifference reigned at the Olympic Village.
[ more ]
Read also Alejandro Cervantes-Carson on obtaining an interview with former Mexican president Luis Echeverría, who as interior minister in 1968 was widely blamed for the Tlatelolco massacre.
"Zu Gast bei Freunden"
How the Federal Republic of Germany learned to take sport seriously
Sport and politics Haunted by memories of 1936, West Germany had tried to keep politics out of sport throughout the 1950s. In 1972, however, the ideologically motivated sporting policy of the GDR prompted a return to the use of the Olympic Games for national self-projection. [ more ]
Fish 'n' freedom fries
On regeneration and other London Olympic myths
Sport and politics In July 2006, London rejoiced at winning the bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012. But who is really doing the rejoicing? Urban planners, certainly, who have been handed carte blanche to carry through a programme of reconstruction beyond their wildest dreams. [ more ]
Protest
Seeds of resistance
protest While the resistance in Tibet has drawn the most attention, two other groups are making life uncomfortable for the Chinese government: dispossessed landowners and environmentalists. Popular protest is set to dominate the agenda beyond the Olympic Games, writes He Qinglian. [ more ]
The city at the empire's edge
protest Since 9/11, violence in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region of China has been portrayed by the authorities as the work of Islamist separatists. Nick Holdstock reports on a more nuanced reality of unemployment, religious repression, and the wish for independence. [ more ]
"The personality cult must be ended now!"
Paint-bombs at Tiananmen Square
protest The outcome of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in June 1989 is well known. Less so is the fate of the three young men who threw paint bombs at the portrait of Mao Tse-tung adorning the gate to the Forbidden City. Wolfgang Kraushaar chronicles the events of twenty years ago. [ more ]
"Chile Si, Junta No!"
Political protests at the 1974 FIFA World Cup
protest Chile's participation in the 1974 FIFA World Cup in Germany provided an opportunity for leftwing groups to make their opposition to the Chilean government junta visible to an international public. A chapter from the "Protest Chronicle". [ more ]
Background reading: China
From "big character posters" to blogs
Facets of independent self-expression in China
China Blogging in China has often been compared to samizdat publishing during the Cultural Revolution. Yet despite predictions to the contrary, the Internet has not brought abrupt political change in China. Its significance and implications for Chinese society lie elsewhere, writes Martin Hala. [ more ]
Surfing the dragon
china Can China ever break out of the narrative in which it has bound itself? Can there be peaceful change and equal space for political and economic freedom? [ more ]
Also in Eurozine: Philippe Pataud Célérier on the 2.5 million citizens displaced since 1990 in Shanghai's rush skywards; Agnès Sinai on Beijing's ecological change of heart; and Sven Hansen on the end of Chinese patience (all articles in German).
From Index on Censorship In issue 2/2008, "Made in China": Isaac Mao writes that it's not freedom of expression but freedom of thinking that China needs most and the Internet is the force for change; Rebecca MacKinnon describes how China's online pioneers are pushing the boundaries of free speech; leading novelist Yan Lianke contests that state censorship is not the greatest threat to a writer's progress – the tyranny starts from within; and Ai Weiwei, star of the Chinese avant-garde, tells Simon Kirby about challenging the status quo.
From Mute Paula Cerni argues that the real fascination of Tibet is not its exoticism but its similarity to the rest of an undemocratic global system; and Daniel Berchenko dismisses sociologist Giovanni Arrighi's invocation of the political economy of Adam Smith to claim that China's "labour intensive" mode of production is the future of capitalism.
Advertising
More focal points
Changing media – Media in change
Media-technological developments are causing a fundamental re-structuring of the newspaper and book publishing sectors, with traditional media locked in fierce competition with online newcomers for market superiority. Yet media change is about more than the "newspaper crisis" and the iPad: property law, privacy, free speech and the functioning of the public sphere are all affected. [ more ]
The bonfire of the universities
The uni's burning! The slogan was everywhere in the German-speaking space last winter, as the protests at the University of Vienna set off a wave of similar strikes, first at Austrian universities, then beyond: in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Marburg, Zürich... 2009/10 saw further protests at universities in Athens, Zagreb, Marseilles and London. The Bologna Process, one of the main points of contention, also marked its ten-year anniversary on 12 March this year by officially inaugurating the European Higher Education Area. Eurozine surveys a debate enflaming (not only) Europe. [ more ]
Climate of change?
Social agreement about the necessity of radical ecological change may be unprecedented, yet rhetoric and reality go their separate ways. As ambitions for a legally-binding agreement at the Copenhagen recede, serious doubts arise about the efficacy of multilateral climate deals and the assumptions behind cap-and-trade. [ more ]
Media landscapes
Those in central and eastern Europe who in '89 took the commitment to free expression seriously, who saw the media as the handmaiden of democracy and the conventional watchdog on political and commercial power, today have become targets for new and subtler forms of censorship. [ more ]
Dilemma 89
Twenty years after 1989, most former communist states in central and eastern Europe are members of the EU. Yet the transition from closed to open societies is far from "complete". '89 not only historic moment of liberation, but also political and social dilemma for the present day. [ more ]
Shared space, divided society
Migration is part of modern society, meaning more and more people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds live together in Europe. The multitude of perspectives and experiences represents an enormous resource, but as cultural conflicts inherent in today's urban societies become visible, doubts are also raised about the value of diversity. [ more ]
1968: Beyond soixante-huite
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time." Including articles on '68 in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, France and West Germany. [ more ]
Illiberal Europe?
Parliament or the soapbox? Populist politics are enjoying renewed success in Europe, above all in the former socialist countries. Ivan Krastev, G.M.Tamás, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jacques Rupnik and others investigate the rise of "democratic illiberalism". [ more ]
Cultural citizenship
The concept of cultural citizenship responds to the multicultural context of contemporary societies, in which the concern with equality is increasingly being complemented with a concern with difference. Contributors include Gerard Delanty, Axel Honneth, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro. [ more ]
Decentring Europe
Any reinvention of the concept of Europe that takes into account the complexities inherent in Europe's place in a globalized world must contain a critique of Eurocentrism. Learning from the South, i.e. absorbing the full critical impact of alternative approaches may be a key element in the rethinking and unthinking of "Europe".
[ more ]
The future of war
Are wars that are fought between nations a thing of the past, and are the future challenges more a case of ethnic strife, break-up of failed states, secession and civil wars? In a special focal point, Eurozine analyzes the changing face of warfare in the twenty-first century, in which terrorism and new security threats have profoundly transformed the way wars are conducted. [ more ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
From the western European city to the Third World megacity, one is able to observe how a single principle asserts itself in the social structure of the urban space. That principle privatization is geared towards the concentration of wealth and assets on an increasingly global scale, a manoeuvre its beneficiaries seek to naturalize. [ more ]
Big brother goes global
Post 9/11, governments are increasingly tailoring "international standards" to ratify domestic policies that intrude on civil liberties. Welcome to the phenomenon of "policy laundering". [ more ]
Changing Europe
As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
Is religion a public or a private matter? Can there be such a thing as a European Islam? If so, what characterizes it? What role can religion – or religions – play when it comes to the emergence of a European solidarity? [ more ]
European histories: Towards a grand narrative?
In order for there to be solidarity within the enlarged EU, it will be necessary to develop a broader historical consciousness that includes both western and eastern experiences. [ more ]
Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
The European integration project has made the discussion about transnational spaces for cultural and political debate acute. Can there at all be a common Europe without a pan-European public sphere? [ more ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
Have borders become irrelevant with the project of a united Europe? No, just the opposite. On the dilemmas of border building and cross-border cooperation in the EU and its neighbourhood. [ more ]
Documenta 12 magazines
Eurozine is participating in the Documenta 12 magazines project, which links over 90 print and on-line periodicals worldwide. Read Eurozine's contributions to the documenta leitmotifs "Modernity" and "Bare Life" here.[ more ]
Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
Free speech is a fundamental human right and a central tenet of democracy. Or is it? Reactions to the Danish cartoon controversy show that liberals are re-evaluating what the right to free speech entails. [ more ]
Politics of translation
Translation today is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. [ more ]
Conferences
Changing places (What's normal anyway?)
The 20th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Sibiu, 21-24 October 2007
Under the heading "Changing places (What's normal anyway?)", the Eurozine network conference 2007 in Sibiu, Romania, addressed the challenges facing societies, literature, and the media as the need for change meets the urge for normality. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Friend and foe. Shared space, divided society
The 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
London, 27-30 October 2006
Speakers at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals opened up the discussion on cultural diversity in two directions: first, as it is experienced in the physical urban space, and second, as it is reflected in the mirror of the media. [ more ]
Neighbourhoods
The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Istanbul, 4-7 November 2005
Contributions on the notion of neighbourhood and the Turkey-Europe question from a range of intellectual and geographic perspectives. [ more ]
Focal points click for more 
Social media 
