Maya Diekmann – Pike & Hurricane

hejhej – Founding a sustainable business at Malmö University

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 10:32:14 +0000

In 2017 Anna Souvignier and Sophie Zepnik, then-students at Malmö University, founded hejhej. Starting out by selling recycled and closed-loop yoga mats, the company now sells a range of circular yoga products. We have talked to one of hejhej’s members, Pia, about the brand, what it stands for, and what it takes to found a sustainable business as a student at MAU.

Pike & Hurricane: Can you tell us a little bit about the background of hejhej? How did Anna and Sophie get the idea to found a business selling recycled yoga mats?

Pia: When Anna and Sophie got the idea, they were studying the master’s programme Leadership for Sustainability at Malmö University. While the nature of the programme made them consider sustainability issues all the time, it was an art exhibition in Gothenburg that gave them the actual idea for hejhej. There was one piece by an artist called Pinar Yoldas that was calling out the hypocrisy of yogis: On the one hand they very much embrace the respect for the people and environment around them but at the same time they practice with equipment that is made out of plastic. And Anna and Sophie felt like they were caught red-handed. And they absolutely agreed with the artist. They were practicing yoga without even thinking about the implications of what kind of material they used. So after the exhibition they kept thinking about the issue. They never really considered the option to found a business before, so in their case the whole foundation process was very intrinsic. They departed from this problem that really spoke to them and then weighed their options: What can we do, what do we want to do? That’s how they came up with their very first product, the hejhej-mat. And when they thought about the product that they wanted to produce, and how they wanted to go about it, it was clear to them from the beginning that they wanted to reach for the highest sustainability standard, which is the closed-loop approach, the circular approach. They would never create a product that does not fulfill these sustainability criteria.

P&H: So they created a business because there was a need for it rather than because they wanted to merely supply something?

P: Exactly. hejhej follows something called the “sufficiency strategy”, which means that they openly communicate: “Do not buy our product if you don’t need it.” It’s a major part of their communication and their beliefs that you should only buy if you need it and that you ask informed questions about where and how something is produced. For their second crowdfunding campaign, they launched a video that started with: “If you already have a bag for your yoga mat, then this video isn’t for you.” That’s a pretty bold statement and they felt that this was something very courageous––of course they need people to buy their products. But they 100% believe in the sufficiency strategy and that they only want people to buy when they need it. Because that’s part of the highest standard of sustainability, that you consume when you need to, not for the fun of it.

P&H: hejhej advertises their products as being 100% recyclable. How about the resources that are used in the production? Are those 100% recycled, too?

P: Most of the material that we use is already recycled, yes. And as you said we only use material that is recyclable. Otherwise that wouldn’t meet the closed-loop criteria, if we couldn’t take back the products at the end of their lifespan and recycle them. So every product is designed to be sent back to us and be recycled.

The biggest part of the mat is the foam and that is made from recycled foam off-cuts that we get from other productions, like mattress productions for example. So it is actually waste for others but we turn this waste into a new resource and turn it into the hejhej-mat. There is a textile between the foam layers that is keeping the mat together and making it tear-proof and very durable. In the beginning it was not recycled, but a few months ago we finally developed this layer to be made of a recycled material. Often it is also a very long process for us to talk to our producers, develop new ways of doing things, or producing these materials. The one part of the hejhej-mat that is not made from recycled material is the top layer, because that needs to be medically confirmed. So there is a very thin layer on top that is made from a virgin material. We would love to also use recycled material there too it is just not existing yet. Once we recycle the mat though, we can use all of the material again––including the top layer.

The bag is made of recycled PET bottles and the zipper is made from recycled fishing nets. The strap of the bag, which is also the yoga belt, is made from hemp. This material is chosen very consciously because it uses much less water than other alternatives like cotton for example. But we actually have to import this from Asia, just because there is so little hemp being cultivated in Europe. This is the only material that we import from afar, all the other materials are from Germany or neighbouring countries, like Austria, Switzerland,France, and Italy.

The outer layer of the bolster is made from a mix of material: cotton, recycled cotton, and hemp. With these, as with all materials, we always opt for the organic version. We also, if possible, try to go for recycled materials or at least a mixture. What is also cool about the bolster is that it is filled with the husks of spelt grains. It can be given to animals as a supplement to their food or as a natural fertilizer for soil, but in the end it is mostly considered as waste product by the industry. But we can use this perfectly as a filling for our bolster instead of using a virgin material. So what we always try to do is to use material that either exists in abundance or is considered waste by other producers.

P&H: “Sustainability” is such a catch phrase these days––it’s the red thread in every major company’s responsibility report, even those whose nature is wholly unsustainable. As a circular business that whole-heartedly believes in and promotes sustainability, how would you create more awareness around the problem of greenwashing?

P: Yes, many companies have started introducing what they call “circular products” or “sustainable fashion”. The problem is that there is no catalogue of criteria that a company needs to fulfill before they can call something sustainable. So even Primark offers “sustainable” jeans now, that still only cost 20€. At this price it is self-evident that there will be workers in the supply chain that are not paid fairly, and it is virtually impossible to uphold environmental standards in the production at such a low price. The same goes for closed-loop or circular products: There are big companies that are advertising circular denim––but they are not taking the products back. They are not closing the loop, which means it is not circular. They merely use recycled fabric, which in itself does not fulfill the circular standard. We sent them a message because we are always interested to see how other companies apply the concept and they replied: “Bring the product to your local denim recycling at the end of the lifespan.” There is no such thing as a local denim recycling!

We always have to remind ourselves that not everyone is familiar with the concept of a circular economy and we have to keep explaining a lot and try to be as transparent as possible about everything. So that includes being honest about our progress, for instance the top layer of the mat. Okay, the top layer isn’t made from recycled products yet but hey, we just found a way to use a recycled middle layer. We are not perfect but we are always aiming to become better, more sustainable and circular in every aspect. And most importantly we are transparent about it. People know exactly what material we are using, where we are producing, how we are producing, that we take products back and so on. And by that we want to motivate people to ask well-informed questions-–Where is it from? Do I need it? Who is involved?––when they are buying products elsewhere, too. So hopefully people will realise that when other companies advertise something as “sustainable” or “circular” that this might not actually be the case.

P&H: What role do sustainable startups play, in your eyes, when it comes to building a truly greener economy?

P: I would say that especially startups that are financially independent from investors and follow a strong vision––something which I have often experienced to be the case––are moving towards their goals in very determined and fast ways. Larger companies, where many more people, especially investors, are involved take longer to achieve these goals. Of course you can’t generalize this, but in my perception, there are so many startups with great visions, full of ideals, that are striving to change the way people think and consume for the better. They are really acting out of their ideals and their wish to change the economy. They are not only driven by their profit but by people and the planet. They are just always a great source of inspiration and they help create a climate in which well-informed customers ask the right questions. And that pressures larger and less-sustainable companies to change their approach.

P&H: Sustainability does not just include environmental aspects but also social dimensions. How does hejhej score in this area?

P: That’s definitely a very big and important part of hejhej’s business. For one, the company is donating a Euro for every product sold to a non-governmental organisation in Cape Town, South Africa, called “Earth Child Project”. The NGO is supporting children in difficult life situations, by enabling them to have weekly yoga classes and gardening classes. The aim is to teach the children resilience: How to listen to their bodies, take care of their bodies and minds. They support kids that already have faced a lot of struggle in their young lives. Through our donations over the years we have enabled 327 kids to participate in weekly yoga classes for a year, and 235 to attend the gardening classes.

Locally, parts of the production take place in workplaces for people with disabilities. So the yoga mat bag is produced there and they also take care of sewing the label on the mats, and they handle the shipping of products. So there is a team in the workplaces that is dedicated to working with hejhej. Sophie visits them approximately once a week to keep in touch, make sure the processes are clear, and include them in the bigger process. It is Sophie’s and Anna’s goal to one day employ a team of their own that can for instance handle the shipping and that hejhej can be an inclusive team, too. Of course, for now that is not possible because we all work remotely all over Germany and we don’t even have an office. But Sophie tries to still work very closely with them.

P&H: hejhej was founded with the help of Drivhuset Malmö, the startup hub for MAU students. How was the experience with Drivhuset?

P: Anna’s and Sophie’s experience was extremely good. They just took the idea to Drivhuset and they found it really helpful to get feedback, to have someone asking the right questions, to get input from people with entrepreneurial experience. They said that before it was just them and their friends talking about the idea and planning, and then through Drivhuset they had contact to experts that helped them develop and grow their idea. They also instructed them about the next steps, which is very important because in the beginning you have no idea about so many things that are awaiting you down the line. Drivhuset also connected them with external experts who could help them further down the line, and informed them about scholarships like Leapfrog, for which they applied and received funding. They really recommend Drivhuset and are very thankful for the experience. They would suggest to anyone with even just a vague idea to go there, make an appointment, and make use of this great opportunity. The Swedish spirit of founding is so different from the German one, for instance, so for them it really was a unique opportunity to start a business. Especially because that wasn’t on their agenda before.

P&H: What are some of hejhej’s favourite circular startups founded in Malmö?

P: Seljak Brand is definitely a startup that we’d recommend. They produce wool blankets made from wool offcuts. They are located in Tasmania, Australia, but Sammy, one of the co-founders, also studied at MAU. Anna and Sophe met her during their master’s. They have been a great inspiration for hejhej because Sammy had already founded the startup before starting her studies at MAU, so she gave some really helpful advice. Basically all the lessons that Sammy had learned, she passed on to Anna and Sophie so they could avoid those mistakes.

There is also Repamera, located in Malmö. They are founded by Henning (who is the founder of Circular Monday) and they are a shop that repairs clothes. A very cool circular startup!

P&H: Is there anything that has been left unsaid?

P: I have some advice from Sophie and Anna: They say that the most important thing when it comes to founding is to really trust in your idea. There will be a lot of obstacles––there is no way there won’t be––so that basic trust is absolutely necessary. Also, talk to other people! In the beginning, they were worried to talk to others, because they worried others might be stealing their idea. But there is so much to be learned from others and advice to be gained if you discuss your idea.

Check out their website here.

Related articles:

Circular Economy – Interview with the founders of “sveeka”

Photo credits:

hejhej founders Anna Souvignier and Sophie Zepnik. Photo Credits: Maria-Bayer

hejhej mats and straps. Photo Credits: Maria Bayer

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Rights Won’t Cure a Pandemic

Maya Diekmann — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:55:56 +0000

In recent months, human rights have experienced a rapid proliferation in public discourse. People are unusually concerned with the status of their fundamental rights—for a good reason. Few liberal democracies have witnessed such heavy-handed state intervention and liberty rights restrictions as in 2020.

Lockdowns infringe on the right to freedom of movement, strict distancing measures and gathering regulations on the freedom of assembly. Religious service is limited, hymns of praise are a big no-no in virus containment—restricting free religious practice. Not even the right to choose one’s employment is guaranteed where restaurants, theaters, and other non-essential businesses are forced to shut down.

As much as these restrictions might feel like a dictatorial rule to those privileged enough to have grown up in a liberal democratic society—who have not the slightest of ideas of what such implications even mean—it couldn’t be further removed from rights and freedoms as they work in practice. As much as some might want to equivocate their rights with a kind of untouchable, inviolable decree—human rights were never meant to play that role in the first place.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”

“…born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Or so the fairy tale is told, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Granting humans rights merely on the basis of their existence as a human being is a fundamental underpinning of the Declaration. It is an ideal worth striving for but in practice, it could not be more problematic. It is no surprise that critical opposition to the notion of universality of human rights did not take long to arise after the Declaration first entered into force. With her essay The Rights of Man: What Are They?, Hannah Arendt launched what would become one of the most prominent critiques against the supposedly inalienable status of human rights. At the core of her critique is the critical question of how human rights are supposed to be universal, if their enforcement is conditional on the existence, willingness, and capability of the institutions of sovereign states to do so.

In short, and without granting Arendt the attention that she deserves, the answer to said question is: They are not universal. Not simply by virtue of existing. The respect and protection of human rights directly depend on citizenship and institutions, because rights—just like people—do not exist in a socio-political vacuum. They exist in a world divided into a map of sovereign states, holding societies to which people are assigned by birth. If one is lucky enough to be born into a state where democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights governs, one, along with everyone else born in that state, has fundamental rights.

Being a citizen of a liberal democracy is principally like being a member of an exclusive club. You pay your membership, vote for your board, and avoid violating club rules. In return you reap the benefits of being a member. As do others. This is essential to keep the club running. The problem with membership, and its connected perks and duties, is that there is a risk to forget about the conditions on which this whole association is founded in the first place: To gather together with a common purpose. In the case of liberal democratic societies this is to live together, peacefully under the law, and to equally profit from the fruits of human cooperation—including the guarantee of certain fundamental rights.

It doesn’t take much calculating to figure out that in a society where all the members lay claims to their rights, there is bound to be some conflict sooner or later. You cannot have every single member of society demanding their freedom without any external interference. The current pandemic is paradigmatic of this: Were the COVID-19 “freedom fighters” to have their way, and states were to lift all kinds of restrictions, they would infringe on the rights to life and good health—enshrined in Article 6 of the ICCPR and Article 12 of the ICESCR respectively—of other members of society. This is why the freedoms set forward in international human rights documents are usually understood as liberties. And although the terms are often used interchangeably, there exists a conceptual difference: While freedom denotes the ability to do whatever one wishes without interference, the latter refers to the ability to do something without arbitrary interference. Liberties are what is granted, guaranteed, and protected by national laws.

COVID-19 Anti-Lockdown Protest in Vancouver, May 3rd 2020

Of Lives and Livelihoods

Few human rights are absolute. Among them are the prohibition of slavery and torture. This means that these rights can never be “put on hold”. Not in war, where allegedly anything goes, not ever. Most articles in the International Bill of Human Rights, however, come with limitations. This means that in cases of national emergency, where public order or public health are threatened, these rights can be derogated from. As long as measures are based in law, are necessary and proportional to the threat, it is perfectly legitimate for a state to limit rights, such as freedom of assembly or freedom of movement.

For many in the “corona-resistance” movement, these measures are neither necessary nor proportionate. Falsely claiming SARS-CoV-2 to be little more than a flu virus, which poses no serious threat to a vast majority of the population, they demand an end of the tyranny that restricts their personal freedoms and threatens their livelihoods. And while it is correct that in most cases, a COVID-19 infection takes a mild course, it is equally correct that there is a certain part of the population which is much more likely to be seriously affected by the disease. But even to those that acknowledge this fact, the equation still seems straightforward: The lives of the few do not justify risking the livelihoods of the many.

One of the great features of human rights is that they protect minorities from the will of the majority. Just because those facing a serious risk from SARS-CoV-2 are outnumbered does not mean that they do not deserve a healthy and safe life. This is part of what characterizes the liberal democratic society that so strongly protects exactly those fundamental rights that some understand as their personal trump card in the current crisis. Those same rights are designed to work as a protective shield for all the others whose lives and health endangered are endangered.

It is easy to demand something that unlikely affects oneself negatively. The vast majority of lockdown protesters in the US are white, whereas those disproportionately affected by the virus are people of color. Conversely, in Germany, 93% of those aged 60 and older, people facing higher risks from the virus, have no sympathy for anti-lockdown demonstrations. Undoubtedly, many of those demanding the end of corona-measures are negatively impacted by them, some disproportionately heavily. Their entire existence is at risk because of government restrictions. This should by no means be downplayed. Neither should human rights in times of the pandemic. The point is that there is a difference between making oneself heard by participating in a productive socio-political debate, and obstinately chanting for some sort of personal freedom which was never there in the first place.

There is no easy solution to a crisis as multifaceted as the current one. In fact, one of the greatest challenges in handling the COVID-19 pandemic is that alleviating one crisis seemingly aggravates another. Where individuals find themselves in the crossfire of government crisis-response mechanisms, it is easy to clutch onto the one tower of strength that promises protection from the great sovereign: Human rights. But once the underlying dynamic of this symbolic narrative is taken into consideration, one thing becomes painfully obvious: Insisting on your personal rights won’t heal a sick collective.

Related articles:

The Swedish COVID-19 pandemic strategy or: The Comeback of the “Ättestupa”

Back from the borderlands: taming and framing COVID-19

Socially Progressive, Economically Conservative: What Does It Mean to Be Liberal?

Human Rights Crisis

Photo credits:

“COVID-19 Anti-Lockdown Protest in Vancouver, May 3rd 2020” by GoToVan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Nowhere to Stay Home

Maya Diekmann — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 19:03:56 +0000

It is a challenge to find positive side-effects that a deadly global pandemic may bring to the world. With so much uncertainty, pain, fear, exhaustion, and death immediately surrounding us every day, the silver linings are hard to spot. Often, these silver linings turn out to be temporary: Healthcare workers that reaped applause from the balconies of this world several short months ago, are now expected to treat the organizers of anti-lockdown demonstrations with the same means as someone who has, for the last ten months, tuned down their personal whims in favour of a safer and more effective pandemic response. Those states that once delivered personal protection items and financial aid to less well-equipped parts of the world, are now hoarding vaccine doses that don’t even exist yet. How can you see the opportunities that an economic crisis might bring for the implementation of a promising European Green New Deal, if you have just lost your job and don’t know how long you can provide dinner for your family? How can you see some of the most effective responses to homelessness in years, while simultaneously so many people around the globe are pushed to their existential minimum, to the brink of losing their own homes?

The ones who cannot stay home

Upon giving out their first lockdown orders, many European governments quickly realized that to stay home, one must have a home to begin with. In one of their most rapid homelessness policy executions in years, the UK’s government ordered for almost 15,000 persons without permanent shelter to be relocated to empty hotel rooms, student dorms, and vacant housing. Similar governmental projects have been undertaken in France, Australia, and the U.S. In Germany, where coherent nation-wide policies on homelessness solutions not just during the corona pandemic are sparse and slow, non-governmental organizations have taken the lead when it comes to organizing hotel rooms for persons in need.

The message conveyed by a response such as the U.K.’s makes apparent how far policies to combat homelessness, provided they are backed up with sufficient funding, can come. Yet, it is also obvious—and so it has been for years for those engaged with this issue—that one emergency response upon another is not enough to overcome the issue once and for all. The urgency with which the matter has been addressed during times of crisis needs to become a new normal, if homelessness is to be confronted successfully.

Addressing homelessness is as complex as the diversity of the problem’s root causes. Among the main factors that push people on the street are stagnant wages and unemployment, matched with a lack of affordable housing and healthcare, discrimination, domestic violence and family problems.

4 Million people in the EU are homeless, 700,000 people sleeping rough every night—a figure that has increased by 70% in the last ten years alone. The disproportionate development of housing prices and inflation rates on the one hand and minimum income on the other put more and more individuals inside the EU in precarious situations. Over the past 10 years, the EU consumer price index (CPI) has increased by about 15%—inflation that remains unmatched by the increase in minimum wages, averaging 4.4% in the same time span. On top of this, housing costs in major European cities are skyrocketing: Rent has increased by 35% in Barcelona between 2010 and 2018, by over 50% in Paris between 2004 and 2019, and by over 70% in Berlin between 2004 and 2016.

Housing is becoming an especially disproportionate burden for low-income earners: In 2018, over one third of those households at the risk of poverty in the EU spent 40% of their income on housing. This makes livelihoods extremely prone to economic hardships—such as unemployment, furlough, or short-time allowance. U.K. authorities are gloomily predicting that “as many as half a million households could be at risk of homelessness once the full economic impact of the coronavirus is realized.” In other words: Mix unaffordable housing with a weakened economy, as we see it in times of the corona pandemic, give it a good stir and you have the perfect potion for a very real crisis.

The case of Vancouver provides a tragic example of the damage such an explosive cocktail of unaffordable housing and stagnant income can cause. The cut of governmental support for housing in the 1980s kicked loose a wave of homelessness that even caused the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR) to urge the Canadian government to declare the situation a national emergency. Within three years, between 2002 and 2005 the number of those without shelter in the Vancouver area nearly doubled, from 1,121 to 2,174. While the growth has been significantly slowed down since 2005, the trend has not yet been reversed and the most recent count in 2019 marked a peak of 2,223 people living on the streets of Vancouver.

In Canada, emergency responses, such as overnight shelters, have long been at the centre of homelessness management. While indispensable to addressing the issue, they are no sustainable solution to combat it in the long run. Unconditional access to permanent housing, known as the Housing First approach, has been identified as a key contributor to improve the situation of homeless people and communities in Vancouver. The Vancouver at Home (VAH) study, investigating a Housing First trial among homeless adults suffering from mental illnesses, has found that Housing First as compared to standard responses “produce significant benefits for participants, improve public safety and reduce the use of crisis and emergency resources.”

The City that Never Sleeps Rough

Similarly positive attitudes toward a readily accessible housing market are reflected by organizations around the world who stress that those provided with permanent shelter are more likely to seek help in other areas of their lives, too. One of the flag store implementations of the Housing First approach can be found in Finland: by investing over 250 million euros into affordable housing and support workers, the Finnish state, together with regional and non-governmental actors, has one of the most successful homelessness response mechanisms and prevention systems in the world. As a result, Finland is the only EU member state in which numbers of homeless are decreasing, with its capital Helsinki having virtually eradicated rough-sleeping.

While there are multiple success stories of individual cities’ and regions’ approach to homelessness—such as that of Trieste in Italy tackling homelessness by improving its mental health care system—the only lastingly effective approach is a systematic one. Only with common standards within a given state, or even beyond, can homelessness be eradicated once and for all. And what better way to create common standards than through common institutions? In a resolution from November 2020, the European Parliament urges the EU and its member states to end homelessness by 2030. While a detailed agenda is yet to be published, the Parliament recommends better access of homeless individuals to the labour market and healthcare, and a shift of focus from emergency responses to Housing First and prevention mechanisms. Concerning the latter, they recognize the pressing problem of unaffordable housing in European cities and announce a proposal to guarantee more inclusive housing markets. It might be just another policy proposal. But at least it is the long-overdue first step towards solving a problem that has been invisible, yet ever present on the horizon, for so many years.

In the summer of 2020, Barcelona cracked down on companies owning vacant apartments in the city by implementing a law that would allow the city to buy empty apartments at 50% of market values. In an unprecedented effort to create affordable housing, local authorities presented companies with an ultimatum of either renting out available apartments within a month or be subjected to compulsory sales at the described conditions. Paris, where as of 2017 over 26% of apartments are vacant, is imposing harsh fines on apartment owners breaking rules for Airbnb rentals, which “encourage property speculation and reduce the housing available to residents.” Berlin has implemented a temporary rent freeze for the year of 2021 and a permanent rent cap that regulates the allowed increase in rent in the following period.

The author Jonathan Safran Foer once wrote: “It’s always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.” The pandemic has unleashed a crisis on so many different levels, producing so much noise that it becomes difficult to decide which problem to focus on first: healthcare professionals—to mention just those essential workers most immediately linked to the question of life and death—are ridiculously underpaid and undervalued, yet they remain equally taken for granted. Shutting down an entire economy, or at least having it run on low power mode to unburden healthcare workers, threatens the livelihoods of small businesses and their owners while feeding into the hands of enterprises. Limiting children’s right to education—while absolutely necessary when classrooms become a turnstile for a deadly virus—bears and exacerbates immense inequalities in opportunity. Living in a city and losing one’s job in the middle of all this very easily becomes an eviction notice. But all this noise, as overbearing as it might be, has also opened many eyes. We have to keep treating the invisible crises that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light with the urgency they deserve. We have to make sure that people can stay home. We must not go back to sleep.

Related articles:

Such a big world and still not enough space to live?

Photo credits:

By The Humantra on Unsplash

“On the scrapheap”, by Jon Berkeley on behance, CC BY-NC 4.0

“Balconies”, by unitednations on Unsplash

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Eternal Putin

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 18:33:49 +0000

How does one leave the Kremlin after nearly two decades in office? And can one leave it gracefully and even more importantly—perhaps—alive? Russia’s Vladimir Putin has little to learn from his predecessors. Of the nine de facto Russian leaders since Lenin, five died in office, two were more or less officially exiled and eradicated from the Russian political scene, one became one of “the most reviled men in Russia”, and the last one remains nothing but the drunk memory of Russia’s chaotic stumble into the 21st century. Putin, the founding father of post-Soviet Russia, surely has no interest in following in his immediate predecessors’ footsteps or becoming yet another Russian leader among many.

Till death do us part

Recent constitutional reforms in Russia, initiated by the president, have commentators pointing to the possibility that Putin might in fact be choosing the more popular mode of transportation out of the Kremlin—that is in a coffin. With the annulment of his presidential terms, Putin could seek reelection in 2024 and technically stay president until 2036, ensuring him a de facto presidency for life, given that the life expectancy in Russia averages 67.75 years for males—an age which Putin has already exceeded.

Putin’s legacy is withering away, unless he makes one of two decisive moves: Tightening his grip on power or—almost unimaginable—letting go.

But why go to such lengths of reforming an entire constitution to be re-elected president if playing a game of musical chairs with a designated side-kick, in Putin’s case Dmitry Medvedev, is just as effective? Unless, of course, the partner is increasingly weak and no longer suitable for the game, as Medvedev’s plummeting approval ratings after 2014, from which the former Prime Minister never managed to recover, indicate. Only after Medvedev resigned upon Putin’s proposition for constitutional changes, and Mikhail Mishustin assumed his position, have the approval ratings for the new Russian Prime Minister started to recover. Perhaps, Putin has found a new president-in-waiting in Mishustin. Though this still wouldn’t explain the constitutional reform.

More realistically, Putin may have realized that his own image might just never fully recover either, after the 2018 anti-government protests—least when the organizer of these protests and Putin’s main political opponent almost miraculously survives a “mysterious” attempted assassination. And only so many political opponents can end up poisoned before an explanation to the Russian people and the international community is inescapable. Approval ratings will unlikely ever reach those peaks of Putin’s early presidency and opposition is only likely to grow louder. In other words, Putin’s legacy is withering away, unless he makes one of two decisive moves: Tightening his grip on power or—almost unimaginable—letting go.

The last responder

If Putin does in fact want to be reelected in 2024, he needs to have sufficient support from the people of Russia, meaning he needs to stabilize his approval ratings. Those are in fact looking pretty stable—albeit not great—even if one accounts for a temporary corona-induced low. Yet, if he actually plans to retire, doing so with such mediocre ratings—a far cry from his heydays—would leave a bitter aftertaste for the man who has been ranked Russia’s second greatest leader after Stalin by the Russian people. Whenever and however Putin leaves the Kremlin, he will want to do so on a high note. Since Putin first assumed power he has only experienced two major crises in approval ratings—not counting the most recent one triggered by the Kremlin’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The first were the large scale anti-government protests between 2011–2013, that were, among others, motivated by Putin’s decision to run for reelection. It was essentially Russia’s suspiciously successful performance at the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi—cue: the 2017 documentary “Icarus”—that propelled Putin’s ratings back up after these protests.

The second were the large-scale anti-corruption protests against the government between 2017–2018 and although not immediately linked to Putin’s reelection, these—once again—occurred in the year of the Russian presidential elections out of which Putin would emerge victorious. Unfortunately for him, there were no more major sports events scheduled in the near future that could prove handy to Putin’s agenda. If the Kremlin wants to keep an already strained Russian population under control for the next presidential election—or even just until then—they need to find a remedy for the dissatisfaction. And how better to please the opposition than to give them what they have been asking for ever since the President circumvented the constitution in 2012: a Russia without Putin.

A Piece of Eternity

Enter the constitutional reform. However near or far the amendments project the end of Putin’s reign, it does project it. It is almost a guarantee for no one like Putin to ever happen to Russia again. And Russia was thrilled about that: A sweeping 78 percent of Russians approved Putin’s suggested reforms, even in a time where the President’s popularity itself was scraping at a corona pandemic induced near all-time low, and even at the risk that Putin might in fact run for another term. At least the end is in sight.

“But Putin’s reform might just prove successful, regardless of future presidential terms or even approval ratings.”

Had the corona pandemic not happened, Russians might have even been thankful enough for their president offering his own head, to spare some more positive opinions towards him, too. Then Putin’s master plan might have worked out––he could have left with a bang or ridden his wave of approval a bit longer. But Putin’s reform might just prove successful, regardless of future presidential terms or even approval ratings. In the end, the reforms have gifted Putin with one thing: He has enshrined his legacy—his rediscovered Russian greatness—into the heart of the Russian state, while ensuring that no president after him will even come close to this legacy. And that itself is a piece of eternity for Putin.

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Photo credits

Kremlin, Luigi Selmi, CC BY-SA 2.0

Chris Liverani, Unsplash

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The Teacher Feature – Mikael Spång on Rights, Emancipation, and Domination

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 04:00:11 +0000

Mikael Spång is a professor in political science at the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmö University. He teaches in human rights and democracy. In 2017 he published a book with the title “Emancipation, Democracy, and the Modern Critique of Law: Reconsidering Habermas” in which he addresses the dialectic of law as an instrument of both emancipation and domination.

P&H: Hello Mikael and thank you for taking the time to share some insights into your research with us. Let’s start with a simple question, that will reveal something about your professor-persona. Between Niagara, Gäddan, and Orkanen, which is your preferred building and why?

M: Out of the current buildings, I think that Niagara is a nice and beautiful building, but it is not the most functional building. It is very nice to have such a big atrium, but from a functional point of view it is a confusing way of having a building in which you take away all the floors that you could use for lecture space and office space and so on. I think it is also a problem that the construction is that you have locked sections where students may not enter.

P&H: Would you like to say something about your book before we dive into more specific questions?

M: The basic argument is that law is both condition for freedom and for domination and that this is relevant for discussing, for instance, rights. And to that extent, I address what I call “the modern critique of law”, which is partly relating to Hegel and partly to Marx. This critique concerns such dialectic of law and addresses a certain history of law that one would need to take into account. But it always runs into the problem of seeming to be reductionist in its argument. Either that law and rights become a sort of semblance—that is something which glosses over inequalities and relations of power—or in some historical or theoretical sense it gets reduced to the base superstructure construction. But these problems, I think, are not reasons to ignore the relevance of that kind of critique.

So that is really the background for writing it in this way. Additionally, I worked a lot with Habermas’ theories for my dissertation and onward. It’s been a very important set of theorisations—Habermas more specifically and the Frankfurt School in the broader sense. And I thought that Habermas’ analysis in The Theory of Communicative Action is pointing to something quite relevant, when he talks about “the colonization of the lifeworld”. But he fails to address this in his later work Between Facts and Norms.

P&H: You just mentioned that your critique builds on that of Marx. Could you summarise Marx’ main point when addressing the dialectic of law?

M: First of all, my two main examples are Marx and Habermas. Marx addresses the problem of labour contract, in the private law context, whereas Habermas addresses the problem of welfare state law.

For Marx the labour contract is a condition for freedom, in one sense. That lies partly in the idea of the contract itself, being between free and equal parties and in the historical transformation, where the transition to the labour contract—a defining characteristic of the capitalist mode of production—means a transition away from largely forced labour.

But then at the same time, there is the exploitation of workers within the capitalist mode of production. And in the labour contact this exploitation finds a legal basis. So, the labour contract is enabling the form of exploitation in a capitalist mode of production where labour is free. And that is the key thing: it is free but exactly that is also a constituting aspect of exploitation. You can’t say that labour is inherently free and exploitation is something that comes afterwards, depending on certain factors and circumstances.

It is something which has a legal basis and that means that one needs to attend to this enabling of exploitation.

The second point to keep in mind is that Marx is talking about this mostly in a private law context. He claims that in this sort of contract, where you have equal rights, it is force or power that decides. When Marx seems to be very, very skeptical of rights, we need to have in mind this exact context. Because otherwise one doesn’t understand why he is so critical, thinking that rights have a very limited value in terms of emancipation. That is sometimes taken—from our contemporary point of view—to be a certain Marxian scepticism of rights. There is a famous essay by Steven Lukes titled Can Marxists Believe in Human Rights?, but this is not the question. It is not whether Marx believed or didn’t believe in this kind of rights, instead he is trying to analyse how do they function within that context.

P&H: So where exactly lies the importance of considering private law, as well as public law, when we talk about rights?

M: I think this reading of Marx, as a question of whether Marx believed that rights are emancipatory tools or not, is a reading that considers rights from within a public law understanding and then reads that back as if Marx’ context was the same. And it is not the same.

The other thing is that when we want to understand how rights, including human rights, were formulated, we need to pay attention to two things: One is that rights have a history that is a private law history. The other one is that through a historical transformation from the dominance of private law to one of public law—through legislation and partly through collective bargaining—the labour contract is modified. So by the late 19th, early 20th century comes this idea that these parties, the workers and the capitalists—even though it’s not just these two—are in fact not equally powerful and we need to intervene through public law to regulate that contract in such a way that it regulates contracts for the workers. That means various forms of workers’ rights. And that transformation means that you start to dismantle this whole package and as such you enable a transformation where you can start to formulate something on the basis of public law.

P&H: And this is then where various labour rights and social rights enter the scene?

M: Yes, and all kinds of rights. It’s a whole slew of transformations. So what one begins to consider is, let’s say, what was called “public utility”—things like water provision or railways. If we look in the mid or late 19th century most of this in many European countries was privately owned. And then the situation arises that all of these private corporations are now providing something which is supposed to be enjoyed by the public. Regulating these things through public law is part of a very broad transformation that involves privately owned corporations performing public functions. Then you have another big chunk, which is the labour rights, and then comes what we call “social rights”.

P&H: Do you think Marx would be happy about these regulations we now find in public law? Would he be less critical?

M: Yes, sure. But we may note that traditionally Marxists have huge problems to make sense of what we call “the welfare state” and social rights and so on, because they seem to run counter to not only the theorisation that you find in Marx, but also the prognoses he made. He foresaw what were likely developments of capitalism—that the impoverishment of workers was going to continue and be exacerbated—and for many people in the working-class movement in the late 19th early 20th century this starts to no longer make much sense. You don’t really see that severe impoverishment—at least of certain sections of the working class it actually seems to be the opposite. You don’t really see the polarization of two major classes and the disappearance of different classes that would eventually lead to an opposition between workers and capitalists. Again, it seems to be the opposite. Sure there is the disappearance of a strong peasant class in a lot of European countries but there is instead the rise of middle classes of different kinds.

So that might not be really answering your question. But if you want to understand a background for the formulation of what we call “reformism” within the labour movement, it is quite important how a lot of people from the late 19th century start to question these development tendencies. Besides a lot of other questions about strength, tactics and strategy and so on, this seems to play a role for a shift where eventually, not all but many, labour movement organizations would endorse this idea of social rights and welfare, even though they initially didn’t.

P&H: Perhaps this is making the best of the situation that presents itself. If the revolution isn’t coming you might as well work concretely with what you have.

M: Yes, and this becomes very important for many reformists. You need to show that you are doing something that produces tangible results in an ordinary situation.

P&H: You write that “the understanding of the political community as a legal community has played a key role in much of modern thinking about politics.” Do you think that there could be something problematic with this overall legal approach, perhaps that we are too quick in framing everything within our society through rights and freedom?

M: I think it is a characteristic and more of an observation. It certainly means that you understand the political community in a specific way. If you then consider the role of rights in that context there is a question concerning how much of the background to that—including private law—do you inscribe actually in the political community? If we think of a modern understanding of political community a lot of people don’t want to talk so much about, let’s say, the capitalist means of production or other problematisations of modern society. But obviously they are connected. The question is then, in which ways can you trace such a connection? One of the ways you can do it—though not the only—is through the idea of a legally constructed community as such. The question there, I think, is not so much what are the alternatives to that? but rather what are the consequences? Often we get this attitude that if you come with any sort of criticism you need to present alternatives. This is short-circuiting. It is short-circuiting the critical question which is asking what the consequences are.

P&H: Habermas is in the title of your book, so he deserves at least some attention here. You criticise him for giving law too much credit when it comes to emancipation of the individual. He does address—although in your view not persistently enough—something that he calls “the colonisation of the lifeworld”. What does he mean by this?

M: Marx and Habermas are similar in their criticism of the dialectic of law, although they are addressing different contexts. Welfare state law is emancipatory, for instance—if you keep to the Marxian question—vis-a-vis dependence on wage labour. For Habermas law dominates through normalization. This isn’t as sophisticated as the account of normalization that you find, for instance, in Foucault, but it is pointing into the same direction. Normalization here means that the individual becomes a beneficiary of rights but only in a specific standardized way.

This, according to Habermas, is due to a lack of involvement of those who have rights, in the process of drafting rights. That’s a very common criticism of bureaucracy: Bureaucracy offers this one size fits all approach from which one can select. This constructs a certain life pattern as “normal”, where other situations become a problem in terms of addressing or dealing with them. We can think of people with several different medical conditions. These often have more difficulties in the healthcare system, because usually, there is a certain way of how medicine and healthcare works. And if you then have two, three, four conditions, you are treated by one specialist on this, by another on that, and by third on the third thing. But taking into account these combined is something, then, that one would be less able to do. And that is, in a way, a form of colonization. You have a way through which administration can work with something and that constitutes the de facto right of certain people with multiple conditions, for instance, to healthcare.

I think Habermas is doing an important job with this problem in The Theory of Communicative Action. He says that the welfare state is “dilemmatic” in itself but then he retracts from that position. There may have been good reasons for him to reconsider the way he is thinking about colonization, but he doesn’t really bring aboard that problem in Between Facts and Norms. That is my basic “complaint”. He is not taking his own analysis seriously enough when he wants to construct the legal basis for democracy and the democratic community. And he reformulates his own problematization into one that fits the legal construction, namely as a question of factual and de jure equality.

P&H: You emphasise the limits of the legal medium as a means for acquiring political autonomy. Can we overcome these limitations and if yes, how? Sorry for asking you for alternatives, which you clearly criticised earlier on.

M: I think if I knew about alternatives, I wouldn’t be writing a book like this. I would try to do something instead or work with that in other ways.

P&H: Whom would you rather have over for dinner, Marx, Hegel, or Habermas?

M: Well, Habermas is still alive so that is one reason for why I would like to have him over. I also have some questions to him.

P&H: Is there another philosopher or sociologist that you’d invite to join?

M: To pick someone very different, maybe I would like to have Spinoza for a visit. He seems like a fascinating person.

P&H: Thank you for your time, Mikael, and some insightful answers! Take care

Photo credits:

Karl Marx | Карл Маркс, 1875, by Olga, modified under CC BY-SA 2.0

Jürgen Habermas, by Wolfram Huke, modified under CC-BY-SA-3.0

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Freedom in the Russian neighbourhood

Maya Diekmann — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 11:01:11 +0000

“Eastern Europe is free. The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom.” When US President George H. W. Bush, declared victory over the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, after a Cold War that had nearly lasted half a century, he set the tone of what would become a given in Western understanding of history. The Soviet Union lost, communism lost, there is no longer any threat coming from the East. Just how wrong this framing of the end of the Cold War turned out to be, would slowly unveil itself over the years to come.

Of geopolitical disasters

Russia’s Vladimir Putin once called the dissolution of the Soviet Union “a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” What he referred to, was the fact that millions of ethnic Russians suddenly found themselves on foreign territory when the Union ceased to be in 1991. Time and time again this disaster turned out to be quite useful as an excuse for Russia to meddle with its neighbours’ politics. It even went so far as to inspire much of Putin’s speech to the Russian Federal Assembly that initiated the annexation of Crimea in 2014. No wonder that in other former members of the Soviet Union, where the integration of ethnic Russians has been rather draggish, fears of the big bad neighbour persist even almost thirty years after the Soviet Union disintegrated.

But would Russia really go as far as to annex a tiny peninsula home to roughly 1.5 million lands-people, despite being aware of the implications of such actions internationally? Of course not. The fact that Crimea’s inhabitants are mostly of Russian descent surely added a nice detail to the story, but ultimately Putin’s real asset on the peninsula were the deep, blue, and, most importantly, warm waters around it––the Russian naval base in Crimean Sevastopol, the only port that does not freeze over in the winter.

Which brings us to the real geopolitical disaster: Russia, like any other country in the world, is a slave to its own territory. There are some developments, which Russia is unlikely to ever accept. Losing the Ukraine would be one of them, and not just because of Sevastopol. Tim Marshall, author of the book “Prisoners of Geography,” writes that if Putin was the religious man he claims to be, he would pray for mountains in the Ukraine. Then, Russia wouldn’t have to worry about security threats from the West effortlessly cruising through the great corridor, the Northern European Plain, straight up to Moscow. Then, Russia wouldn’t have to worry about NATO at their doorstep.

Beware of NATO

And what a worry NATO is. Since its foundation, NATO has been a thorn in Russia’s (western) side. As an alliance created for the purpose of providing collective security against the Soviet Union, not even Mikhail Gorbachev, the ‘liberator’ of the East Bloc if you will, was particularly keen on having the pact’s forces anywhere near the Russian border. Moscow’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy declared that NATO expansion would make “the Baltic states and Ukraine… a zone of intense strategic rivalries.”

Fast forward three decades and we have an armed conflict in the Donbass region of the Ukraine. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has actually listened to the Kremlin’s threats in the 1990s. The case of the Ukraine is a difficult and complex one and it combines the worst of both worlds of Russia’s problems: A big share of its population consists of ethnic Russians and it is of immense strategic importance to Russian territorial security. This makes it virtually impossible for Russia not to act when it sees the Ukraine flirting with the West. With over 3,000 casualties, and roughly 1.6 million displaced persons, the war in the Ukraine and, in particular, potential Russian involvement cannot and must not be justified. But it can be understood. And to understand, we cannot ignore the behaviour of the USA, Europe, and the historic West.

New peace, old fears

Perhaps after the end of the Cold War, one could have attempted what Germany and France managed after the Second World War. A similar mutual distrust, exacerbated by the lack of natural borders protecting against invaders, had kept Germany and France at odds in a similar fashion that Russia is at odds with Western Europe today.

But even if the NATO powers had wanted to, Russia simply could not have been integrated in the existing Atlantic security system after 1991. As Richard Sakwa writes: “In structural terms, Russia was too big, too independent, too proud and ultimately too strong to become part of an expanded ‘West’.” And instead of reforming existing structures and actively seeking cooperation and compromise with Russia, building the ‘Common European Home’ that Gorbachev had envisioned, the capitalist West saw itself to have won the day, leaving Russia with an unjustified sense of defeat, a questionable new ‘Cold Peace’, and old fears of the Great European Plain.

With its continuing “triumphalism”, the USA would go on to unilaterally influence international politics like no other, ultimately turning Russia away from Europe and the West. Sakwa describes 2003 as the year in which Putin decided that US involvement in the Iraq War demonstrated the nation’s true ambitions, its expansionist policies, which were incompatible with his embrace of national sovereignty––a firm position Russia has kept until this day. NATO’s and the EU’s expansion eastwards were a confirmation to Russia of what they were already suspecting. The West was coming for their neighbours, and ultimately, for them. And when the West reached Ukraine, Russia pulled the emergency brake.

Freedom in the Russian neighbourhood

Even as recently as 2014, the USA remains convinced that Ukraine can be anything but Russia’s neighbour. “[T]he future of Ukraine must be decided by the people of Ukraine”, were US President Barack Obama’s words before unleashing sanctions on Russia which, together with those of the EU, nearly “brought the Kremlin to its knees.” But Russia has adapted to the sanctions and proved surprisingly resilient to the external pressure. Rather than forcing the Kremlin to obey, they have been, if anything, marginalized even more, once again turning inwards, relying on no one but themselves––and their Ukrainian buffer.

When we look at a map, one of the first things that stand out are the carefully carved lines that make the borders of a state. The end of the Cold War has added many new lines and shapes to the map of Eastern Europe, but it has not added a new topographical alto-relief, indicating the mountains that Putin keeps praying for. The stretch between Moscow and the Atlantic Ocean remains dark green, and, most importantly, flat. This means that Russia has to rely on other means of creating a defense line––its immediate neighbours. So, when Bush announced the end of the Soviet Union, what he meant was the end of an ideology, rather than the end of geopolitical power struggles. And when he called Eastern Europe “free,” what he meant was: “As free as one can be when sandwiched between Russia and the rest of Europe.”

Related articles:

Ukraine: Revolution of Dignity

NATO Membership: Better Defence at a Lower Cost

Photo credits:

Sam Oxyak, Unsplash

Марьян Блан (@marjanblan), Unsplash

Jeroen, Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

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Of brain drain, K-Pop, and other threats at the inter-Korean border

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 09:36:54 +0000

The mayor of Daeseong-dong is concerned. His village is facing an existential threat: The young are leaving increasingly for bigger cities, where they can make twice as much money as through the work in the surrounding rice fields. Barely anyone moves to the village from the outside. Barely anyone can move to the village from the outside. There are strict rules: Only those who have lived in Daeseong-dong before 1950, and their descendants, may live here. Women, who marry villagers, may move in, but not vice versa. Outsiders need to be invited to visit the village and apply for military escorts two weeks in advance. They are, after all, approaching one of the world’s most heavily guarded borders. They are entering the 한반도 비무장 지대; the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Korean Peninsula.

Broadcasting warfare

Daeseong-dong is one of two official “peace villages” inside the Korean DMZ and it might be the only one that is inhabited. The North Korean pendant, Kijŏng-dong, despite its wealthy and neat appearance from afar, is not actually a place where any North Koreans live. Much like what the Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin (Stalinallee back in the day) was to the GDR during the Cold War, Kijŏng-dong is little more than a propaganda tool––a flagship village with colourful houses that couldn’t be further removed from the day-to-day reality of most North Koreans. For a majority of time since the end of the Korean War, the imagery has been accompanied by broadcasts of propaganda messages, blasting towards the south, before hitting South Korea’s own––quite literal––sonic barrier. In a way, the Korean War continued long after 1953, with massive speakers as the weapon of choice.

It wasn’t until the early 2000s that an audio-armistice was first introduced. This was a consequence of the unprecedented meeting between leaders from the two Koreas, which temporarily eased tensions on the Korean peninsula. But after a border incident in 2015, when landmines, believed to have been planted by the North, seriously wounded two South Korean border guards, South Korea decided to reactivate their ear-splitting broadcast. And Pyongyang did not hesitate to resume directing electricity––which isn’t particularly of abundance in North Korea––into their own speaker system. It would be another two years of psychological warfare––with the South firing K-Pop torturous enough for Kim Yong-un to prepare an actual, armed attack against the neighbour’s loudspeakers. Only in 2018, after another inter-Korean summit, did the South dismantle their speakers once again and in return receive a break from the North’s anti-capitalist, Kim-leadership-glorifying tunes.

The scariest place on earth

Prior to the first formal contacts between the Koreas in 2000 and the following decades of easing tensions (at least from a perspective relative to the second half of the 20th century) the DMZ was nicknamed “the scariest place on earth” by former US President Bill Clinton. Particularly the DMZ Conflict, which some refer to as the Second Korean War, painted a picture of terror inside the border zone. During the cross-border conflict, which lasted from 1963 until 1966, over 700 North- and South-Korean as well as American soldiers lost their lives. But there have been other deaths and injuries, resulting from the seemingly slightest missteps: During a routine tree-pruning operation, through which visual contact between the UN observation Post in the Joint Security Area and a UN Checkpoint at the Bridge of No Return was to be ensured, two US Army officers were killed and a group of South Korean severely injured by North Korean soldiers. This “Korean Axe Murder Incident” nearly put an end to the Korean armistice in 1976. Then there was said mine incident in 2015, wounding two South Korean border guards, which the country retaliated with K-Pop at about 147 decibels––the equivalent of an air-raid siren, above the physical pain threshold.

Civilians haven’t been spared by the two states’ cross-border power play either. In 1996, two villagers from Daeseong-dong, a mother and her son, were arrested and detained for five days by North Korean border guards for accidently crossing the demarcation line when picking acorns. This is the risk that comes with the privilege of being allowed to move around the DMZ freely and only having to report back for the nightly headcount at curfew, 23:00.

Free lunch and lush fauna

Despite the looming threat of getting caught in a propaganda cross-fire or being arrested for picking acorns––and other concerns that come with life only a few kilometers away from a rising nuclear power––Daeseong-dong does have its charm. For instance, the primary school. If it wasn’t for the “commuters”, children from nearby villages, the school would have four students. But the possibility to learn English from American soldiers and UN officials, who oversee the DMZ, is perceived as a great opportunity by many parents in the area close to the border and make the primary school a cheaper alternative to many expensive private schools. With lessons (and lunch!) being free, too, places even have to be given out through a lottery.

Just a few hundred meters outside Daeseong-dong stretches one of South Korea’s best kept nature reserves. A very low and strictly managed population density has turned the DMZ, and the surrounding civil control zone, into a wildlife sanctuary. Over 5,000 plant and animal species have been spotted inside the DMZ, including over 100 endangered species. The area is closely observed by the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. Members of the organization have expressed their concerns that increased cooperation between the Koreas may actually pose a serious risk to the unique biodiversity inside the DMZ and its surroundings. Mine clearance, for instance, would destroy much of the local flora. Increased industrial activities and planned railroad services between North and South Korea––and inevitably its buffer zone––would disturb the residing wildlife. Perhaps, it is better to leave the DMZ as it is, thinks Jung Suyoung, researcher at DMZ Botanical Garden nearby.

In many regards, cooperation on the Korean peninsula is at its most active point since the division of the country nearly seventy years ago. And cooperation, particularly across the DMZ, does not solely have to come in the form of economic activity or political acts of clearing mines. Both countries have been pushing for the declaration of the area as a biosphere reserve through UNESCO, very much to the delight of the members of the DMZ Ecology institute. Of course, as for natural resource conservation any kind of industrial human activity is worse than none, and increasing land utilization in the area poses a threat to its natural beauty. But so does yet another broadcast-war or continuing military training just a few kilometers away. Not to forget the threat looming over the area coming from the moody neighbour’s pet nuclear project… Whether cooperation will continue to increase or whether another provoking act in the neighbourhood will cause a resurrection of loudspeakers and other weaponry––for now there is hope. For Korean citizens, the natural beauty of the DMZ, but most of all for the villagers of Daeseong-dong, who have been craving some peace, and mostly quiet.

Related articles

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Photo Credits

Tae Song Dong, Jeffrey Allen, U.S. Air Force, CC BY 2.0

DMZ, Korea, Piero Sierra, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

President Moon Jaein Gangwondo, Kang Min-seok, CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Nazi Treasure

Maya Diekmann — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:42:33 +0000

When my sister was living in Argentina a few years back, she, more than once, encountered the myth of the Nazi-Treasure. Does she know where to look? Does she know what exactly to look for? She is German, she must know something. And although South and Central America are known to be popular destinations of refuge for accused Nazi criminals, it turns out their treasure never made it over the big pond. In fact, it never even made it out of Germany.

In February 2012, German authorities made a spectacular discovery. What started out as an investigation for tax evasion against Cornelius Gurlitt, resulted in the finding of over 1,400 works of art that had disappeared over the course of the Nazi art theft. Although an official inventory was never published, the findings include pieces by renowned artists like Picasso, Monet, Liebermann, Matisse and Dürer. A minimum of 300 pieces were declared to belong to the body of Nazi “degenerated” art. The question is, how did this collection of Nazi stolen art art, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, end up in a small apartment in Munich?

An Expensive Ingenious Idea

It is commonly known that Adolf Hitler had a thing for art. Rejected as an artist by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he understood himself to be an unrecognized genius ruling both politics and culture with the power of a true artist. The notion of the genius and the Ingenious Idea, which Hitler largely adopted from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, would become a major influencing factor on the Nazi’s disdain of modern art. According to Schopenhauer, the genius perceives an idea from the phenomenal world. Through technical skill he will manifest this idea into a piece of art and thereby help the ordinary person embrace the idea that is invisible to him normally. Vice versa, in Hitler’s opinion flawed and inferior ideas could also be worked into a painting or sculpture and consequently be internalized by the observer–something that would cause great harm to his perfect Aryan population.

What started out as an ideological move against any non-Aryan artistic idea soon turned into million dollar–or rather Reichsmark–business. Overall, Nazis stole an estimate of one-fifth of all artworks within Europe. Confiscated art, both from museums and private ownership, wasn’t only pilloried but sold to foreign buyers to finance war efforts, or traded for classical artworks Hitler desired for his planned Führermuseum. The business of stolen art caused a boom in the global art market, with artworks confiscated in Germany and German occupied countries ending up in museums and private hands all over Europe and North America.

Monuments Men

The first big Nazi-Treasure was discovered right after the end of the Second World War by the Allied armies’ Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Program, better known as the Monuments Men. The Altaussee salt mine in Austria contained over 12,500 stolen artworks, including 6,577 paintings, 230 sketches and watercolors, 954 illustrations, 173 statues, 1,200 cases of books and more. The MFAA, after a laborious recovery, soon began the long process of returning the stolen pieces of art to their rightful owners. And this is where the first problem arises–figuring out the rightful owner. Whereas the only appropriate thing to do–ethically and according to the ‘Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art’–was return the art to those it had been stolen from, things rarely happened that way. Buyers of stolen art, among them Hitler’s left hand Hermann Goering’s family, successfully claimed art confiscated from the family after the end of the war. Museums are often reluctant to give up pieces which have been claimed by their rightful owners. An example is the legal battle between the family of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy–a descendant from famous classical composer Felix Mendelssohn–and the state of Bavaria. At dispute is Picasso’s ‘Madame Soler’, with an estimated worth of $100 million.

The Burden of the Gurlitt Name

The 2012 Munich discovery hasn’t only revived the legal and historical issues around looted art but also the controversy around the Gurlitt family name. Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, was one of the four art dealers in the Third Reich entrusted with the business of looted art. Being one-quarter Jewish and an aspiring young museum director with a liking for modern art, his relationship with the Nazis couldn’t be more complex. The chance to protect his family and save modern art from destruction by selling it abroad does not hide the fact that Gurlitt profited immensely from his deals, let alone that he knowingly dealt with stolen art. It’s difficult to pin him down as the good or the bad guy, and it is even more difficult to reappraise his deeds through his son, Cornelius. In an interview with him, German news magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ portray Cornelius as a man whose life “has become an infinite loop of remorse and coincidence”, a tragic figure bearing the consequences of his father’s actions. Whether Cornelius was aware of the full dimensions of his father’s business, remains questionable. What the interview does reveal is the intimate relationship of an 80-year-old man, “the heir of a collection with dubious origins”, with long-lost masterpieces of art. It is cases like these, which illustrate the difficulties that come with the restitution process, going far beyond legal issues. How can you ever truly make past injustices right and what if this involves an unjust procedure in the present?

An undeniably positive effect of the Gurlitt discovery is the attention and publicity it has drawn to the issue of stolen art. The Louvre has started to highlight works in their collection suspected of having been looted by the Nazis and then returned to France and the V&A Museum in London has invested in their provenance research. These little improvements initiated by individual museums, however, don’t release governments, above all the German, from facilitating the restitution process. Only if the government stuck to their obligations under the Washington Conference Principles and systematically identified looted art and encouraged pre-war owners to come forward and claim their property, could there be a chance of obliging museums to return objects of questionable nature to their rightful owners.

Even a domestic law in accordance to the Washington Conference Principles would not solve the problem of looted art as a whole. The Principles only apply to looted art in museums and do not concern private ownership, such as the case of Cornelius Gurlitt. So who knows how many more treasures of long-lost art are waiting to be discovered behind the plain doors of an ordinary apartment?

by Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits

IMG_0470A Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973, Jean Louis Mazieres, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Stolen Art, RV1864, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Divided We Fall

Maya Diekmann — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 15:09:34 +0000

On November 21, 2013, Senate Democrats confirmed Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Not literally, of course, yet the essence of Kavanaugh’s successful confirmation to the highest federal court of the United States can be traced back to the elimination of the filibuster, which took place on said November day.

“Filibuster Out”

What actually happened that day in 2013 was a historic amendment of Senate rules by the Democrat majority. Democrats, under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, eliminated the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of Supreme Court nominations, in response to a partisan gridlock caused by Senate Republicans repeatedly drawing on their right to indefinitely extend debate.

While filibustering itself is a long established tool in the Senate, its use has “skyrocketed to unprecedented levels during the Obama Administration” – 27 cloture votes have been invoked on executive appointments made by President Barack Obama. That is more than under the ten presidents before him. Combined.

Unsurprisingly, the move had caused great dissent among Republicans, who were convinced that “Democrats would ultimately reap what they sowed”. They eventually did: First, in 2017, with Republicans eliminating exceptions of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to move forward with the confirmation of President Trump’s appointee Neil Gorsuch.

And again, with the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh just a few days ago.

An Impartial Supreme Court?

One can see why Democrats thought it necessary to put an end to the filibuster’s unproductive political repercussions. Yet, eliminating such a powerful political minority tool can be considered a bold move. Especially, when the Executive and Legislative Branches are controlled by the same political party, overreaching into the Judicial Branch is now much easier than before. And we may be witnessing this first hand.

With Kavanaugh – appointed and confirmed by the Republican Party – replacing swing vote Anthony Kennedy, the court is now dominated by conservative justices, aligning with Republican ideology. The great partisan animosity carried by Kavanaugh places the Supreme Court in an equivocal position. Created to offer checks on the Legislative and Executive Branches, the supposingly apolitical court has suddenly become a part of what New York Times author Charlie Savage accurately titles Senators’ “tit-for-tat escalation of partisan warfare”.

Legitimacy of the Supreme Court rests with the faith of the American people and a potential shift of the Supreme Court towards a more conservative interpretation of the law is not unlikely to result in a loss of said faith among liberals, which, according to a 2017 poll, make up 46% of the American people. For the Supreme Court, losing back-up from almost half of the American population will have consequences of inconceivable magnitude.

The Future of Justice

So where do we go from here? The filibuster is dead and the consequences of this are real. If there is one positive effect of the dissension around Kavanaugh’s appointment, it is the reignited call for reform of the Supreme Court.

A popular proposal is the abolition of lifetime tenure and its replacement with single, staggered 18-year-terms. Not only would a faster turnover de-intensify confirmation battles in the Senate, it would also allow every president to appoint two justices per term, with a minimized risk of one party appointing a majority of the court. Rather than Supreme Court openings being “lotteries to be won by lucky presidents”, a guaranteed set of appointments per president adds a more democratic character to the nomination of justices.

Another widespread idea revolves around “packing” of the court. Rather than trying to run from its fate, according to Jacob Hale Russel, the Supreme Court should embrace the inevitable: politicization. A larger judicial body would increase representation and diversity, and generally be more productive. Justices would be less likely to get stuck on a bloc-voting pattern and coalitions would form more easily regardless of partisan divide.

Yay or Nay?

How likely is an actual reform of the Supreme Court? In theory, the Supreme Court as we know it today can be – more or less easily – reformed. The number of judges on the court is not defined in the Constitution but rather by a congressional act, correspondingly simple would be a change in terms of membership – also through a congressional act. Somewhat more complicated, but by no means impossible, is the introduction of limited terms, since lifetime tenure is indirectly provided for in the Constitution. A change in tenure would require an amendment to the Constitution, which certainly is significantly more time-consuming than an Act of Congress.

In practice, however, a reform of the Supreme Court may alter the legal framework but the core issue of politicization is likely to remain untouched. Washington Post’s Robert Barnes reminds us that, by definition, only those issues most difficult to resolve end up before the Supreme Court. That includes hot-button issues like gun control, abortion rights, death penalty – issues that have done a great deal in separating the people along partisan lines. Barnes is convinced that an honest judge should not only separate interpretation of the law from his personal political views but moreover judges in accordance to what’s best for the country. A deeply divided population cannot be considered to be in anyone’s best interest, yet Kavanaugh’s confirmation itself has further entrenched the gap between Republicans and Democrats. It will be in the hands of the Supreme Court to reverse the crisis Kavanaugh may have triggered for the judicial branch. After all, according to Barnes, a happy ending is in everyone’s best interest. Let’s just hope he is right.

By Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits:

The End Of The Government Shutdown 2013, Stephen Melkisethian, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Justitia, Tim Reckmann, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Filibuster Gorsuch, Master Steve Rapport, CC BY 2.0

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Hitting the (Pay)wall

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 16:00:22 +0000

Everyone loves Spotify. And how could you not? The concept of listening to whatever music you feel like, whenever you feel like it and however much you want to for a fixed monthly fee has become so popular that the number of worldwide subscribers has skyrocketed over the past few years – from 15 million paying subscribers in the beginning of 2015 to almost 83 million subscribers as of June 2018. Spotify is just one of many popular content players that show the willingness of consumers to pay for quality content – something that many newspapers have been struggling with over the last few years in their attempts of making digital profitable.

Building a Wall

With a decrease in advertising revenues, newspapers are forced to reform their digital framework. Offering online articles for free is no longer an option, yet the alternative of charging monthly or annual fees doesn’t seem too appealing to the readers. And how can you blame them? Ever since the first newspapers started publishing online, almost all articles could be accessed free of charge. Absurdly enough, people have no problem paying to buy a printed newspaper but paywalls usually cause dissent if not anger among readers. The alteration from freely accessible to paywall protected articles does not necessarily make it easier for newspapers to consolidate their position in the digital business.

Paragon New York Times

One of the forerunners regarding profitable transition from print to digital and the implementation of paywalls online is the New York Times (NYT). Out of their 3.8 million subscribers, 2.9 are digital only. The newspaper’s digital success can be traced back, among other factors, to a high level of engagement with their audience. Using customer data, the NYT strives for a better understanding of potential subscribers and their behavior towards the newspaper. With what frequency do readers visit the website? What articles do they read and what measures can be taken to make them more engaged to ultimately become paying subscribers?

A series of studies conducted by the Media Inside Project reveals readers’ motives for becoming subscribers. Among the findings is the relevance for certain preconditions that will eventually lead to subscription, such as a degree of interest in news and even more so the accuracy of news that social media often fail to provide. The final ‘hop’ over the paywall is prompted by so-called ‘trigger factors’ which can be a certain incident – a famous example is the ‘Trump-bump’ – but more commonly a promotion or a free trial.

Measuring audience engagement is at its core simple and effective, especially on the highly competitive news market. Newspapers can no longer rely on the readers coming to them but they have to meet them—three quarters of the way. Overall, focusing on subscribers certainly is a more sustainable approach to making digital profitable than trying to maximize clicks—a concept with the inherent risk of the proliferation of headline sensationalization. However, a marketing concept based on circulation revenue also entails risk, especially with regards to newspaper content.

Creating Content

Said risk comes with applying analytics to create popular content. If customer data shows a high popularity of sport articles, a strategy to increasingly cover sports is not far-fetched. Yet, such a direct response can be tricky. According to a 2017 article of the Guardian, the newspaper’s most popular article since 2010 with nearly 4,000,000 clicks deals with Edward Snowden’s activities as an NSA whistleblower. In 2017, the Economist’s third most popular article revolved around the world’s most dangerous cities and the New Yorker’s most popular piece was on the sexual assault accusations against Harvey Weinstein.

This should not in any way imply that coverage of these topics is unimportant. However, a general trend of the popularity of articles related to politics, crime, and celebrities and a following ‘over-coverage’ can be observed. Rather than letting customer data dictate topic coverage, analytics should be used by newspapers to allocate resources to content which is not as popular to make it attractive to more readers.

Quid Pro Quotability

Readers traditionally hold a key position when it comes to the success of newspapers. This makes sense: as a journalist you can invest an immense amount of time and money into researching and writing an article but in the end, if no one is buying the finished product, you will not survive in your profession.

Perhaps the most important aspect to consider in the newspapers’ ongoing struggle for digital profitability is not to grant too much power to the reader. There is no doubt that subscribers play a vital role in the fight for survival, but rather than making the audience a content tyrant, newspaper-reader relations should be a symbiosis where in return for keeping the industry alive, newspapers provide authentic content with an added value that is worth paying for. The added value to be received are the factors of professionality and truth – something of great importance in a world of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’.

Busting the Paywall

Content-wise Spotify and online newspapers are two entirely different worlds, yet their marketing concept is pretty much identical. However, while the music streaming service seems to be perceived as the invention of the century, which listeners are more than happy to invest their money into, newspapers are struggling to gain a foothold in the world of subscriptions. For now, paywalls act more than anything as a deterrent. But the human being is a creature of habit, and time will tell whether subscription based news is a sustainable concept for digital newspapers. In the end it all comes down to people’s willingness to award the same value to authentic news as they do to good music.

By Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits

Paywall, Sofiya Ballin

new york times, samchills, CC BY 2.0

Newspaper readers, Dmitry Dzhus, CC BY 2.0

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