Senior editor at Eurozine.
At one point in his 1984 essay ‘Permission to narrate’, Edward Said described urging family and friends in Beirut to record what was happening during the Israeli siege, in order to tell the world ‘what it was like to be at the receiving end of Israeli “anti-terrorism”’.
Into its 25th year as an online cultural magazine, Eurozine can boast of a longevity unusual for an independent journalistic project of its kind. But 25 years testifies not just to longevity. Eurozine can also claim consistency.
If we define culture as a set of values and practices around which communities identify and cohere, then few things are more cultural than food. Where else is the narcissism of small differences greater than in matters gastronomic?
In this war, any standards of bellum justum are not worth the paper they are written on. More violence lies ahead, yet escalation is essentially a political choice.
The Eurozine series ‘The writing on the wall’ provides insights from analysts in Europe’s east into the political situation in their countries, over a year into Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Two new articles in Eurozine’s series on democracies in the east of Europe focus on countries particularly susceptible to Russian influence: Serbia and Moldova.
Death by stalemate: how terminal splits down the middle of electorates favour authoritarian interference; why democratising the ‘biosphere’ is not about conservationism; and François Fejtő’s thought before and after communism.
Ever since the French Revolution, all modern regimes that have claimed to be democracies have rested on some form of people power. Can we really be so sure of the principle that divides the democratic ‘us’ from populist ‘them’?
Very little information is available to the outside world about the situation for Ukrainians who have remained in the regions occupied by Russia since 24 February 2022. A new article in Eurozine provides a rare insight on life behind the Russian lines.
The arts are a source from which Ukrainian society draws its sovereign will. A compendious new issue of ‘Osteuropa’ explores that proposal in depth.
Europe is facing a vast humanitarian crisis. This time, there is a good chance that governments will rise to the challenge. If only because it is all too clear that uncontrolled mass migration is one prong in Russia’s hybrid war against ‘the West’.
Amidst the geopolitics, Ukraine lacks a sense of agency, observe two leading journalists of the Euromaidan generation. But cultivating confidence is difficult when journalism itself seems to have lost its bearings.
A pluralist mainstream requires a flourishing media ecosystem outside it. The mainstream has important democratic roles, but catalysing change is not one of them.
It is no coincidence that in both France and the US, nations uniquely proud of their democratic traditions, debates are emerging about constitutional reform. Recent articles explain why.
Although a Social Democrat-Green-Liberal coalition in Germany has moved one step nearer, nothing is assured. With the smaller parties wielding unprecedented leverage, a willingness to compromise on policy could still outweigh the winner’s prerogative.
To describe Afghanistan as a ‘humiliation’ for the US and its allies misses the point. If at all, it is a humiliation for a generation of politicians who viewed foreign policy as grand strategy conducted over the head of electorates.
