As a historian his expectations are gloomy, but as a political writer his optimism is strategic: Timothy Garton Ash talks about the European Union’s internal flaws and debates whether crises and collapses are always necessary for renewal. Editorial from Eurozine.
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 neighbors. Why won’t they just identify with the East? A pair of reads from opposite ends of the Union offers...
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. Editorial from Eurozine.
Post-Socialist baggage is sometimes still blamed for Hungarians’ support for an illiberal supermajority. But can a society be expected to democratize when its social institutions have been subjected to decades of attrition? An article for New Eastern Europe 6/2020.
The sex-party scandal around Fidesz MEP József Szájer has brought undeniable entertainment. But this is far from being a case of hypocrisy meeting its comeuppance. Orbán’s grey eminence fell from grace and into ridicule, but will not be held accountable for his much darker deeds. Editorial from...
Can language be separated from its users? Who owns English, when everybody needs to learn it? Some additions on the use of the current lingua franca. Editorial from Eurozine.
Does the comfort of the quarantined consumer outweigh the life and safety of the slaughterhouse workers who cannot afford to stay home? The recent coronavirus outbreaks in meat processing plants pose a dreadful question. Editorial from Eurozine.
The US has no monopoly on under-serving and over-policing minorities. Police brutality is reported from the French suburbs to the Bulgarian countryside, and neo-Nazi resurgence is threatening European Roma in Hungary and Ukraine. Europeans must not wait for another horrific murder to draw...
Dataism is the new positivism, promising to make humans more effective. But we’ve seen horrific attempts at perfecting humans before. Instead, we need a better understanding of differences, and the wisdom that lies in the love of life.
While the rest of Europe is trying to keep citizens from mass economic ruin, the Hungarian government uses the coronavirus for another power grab, also coming down on theatres and transgender people. Orbán knows he can get away with it because he offers a key political product. Eurozine editorial.