Eurozine Editorial

Black Europeans, faulty vaccines, dying seas and politics in football: here are the Top10 articles from Eurozine in the second pandemic year.

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New COVID-19 variants keep the international public anxious, and this crisis, permeating all social, economic and political spheres, isn’t even in full bloom yet. Although impossible to contain, it also highlights many potential solutions, which had been lying around for a long time without the political will to act upon them. In gearing up for the much bigger turmoil of an ecological nature, we need to stop concentrating on global centres of power, and give more credit to young motivated people.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, learning and teaching have come under additional strain both at school and in the home, exacerbating existing weaknesses in the system. How to move forward – to diminish rather than increase inequality, to question the labour market’s hold over education and to uphold academic freedom — is critical for students, parents, teachers and society as a whole.

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.

How is the lexicon of war chosen? And can the target of this speech, the perpetual ‘other’ use those very words to their own emancipation?

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.

One year after the rigged presidential elections, protesters in Belarus are still demanding a democratic shift and respond with mutual solidarity to a repressive regime. But what does it take to keep on fighting when your cause falls out of the spotlight?

Journalism is steadily becoming less and less liveable, due to structural problems and political interference. From heroic poses to varying degrees of denial, each professional develops their own individual strategies to cope with sustained pressure.

A Russian, a Turk and a Hungarian, all journalists, walk into a bar … well, an online talk, actually. Irina Borogan, Ece Temelkuran and György Kerényi spoke about censorship and repression, the impossibility of exile and the performance of care.

Traditionally, young women used to be presented with goods as a send off into adult life. Today’s bottom drawers aren’t necessarily tied to marriage, nor are they strictly material. Yet, the bundle one leaves the house with is as important now as ever. In this focal point, we take stock of the notions our foremothers presented us with: women’s ideas and achievements that define our understanding of power, gender and violence, bodies, identity and agency.

Not all standards may be inherently good. Cultural debate, when healthy, should question social norms. But what occurs when one person’s political correctness becomes another’s political weapon? And how can a positive position be struck in the battles over diversity and racism?

Industrialized nations have heavily plundered natural resources for around 160 years. It’s now payback time. The US and EU, having just pledged to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030, link environmental recovery with economic opportunity. Will their innovation challenge coax other leading nations away from fossil fuels in time?

In an insane game of geopolitical musical chairs, some post-Soviet European states try to cast themselves as Central, although they don’t feel quite the same way about their neighbours. Why won’t they just identify with the East? A pair of reads from opposite ends of the Union offers fresh insight into the discourse of Central Europe.

I was going to write a fiery editorial for Women’s Day about how the pandemic has eaten up women’s time and energy – but then I ended up homeschooling instead.