52nd edition – Myths – Pike & Hurricane

Re-Metamorphoses: The Misogynistic Legacy of Western Mythology

Oliver Ösmark — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 17:18:07 +0000

All cultures throughout history have had their ways of coming to terms with existence and how humankind came to be. People used stories to provide a narrative for the creation of the world; from the oldest recorded stories of the Fertile Crescent, the primordial egg of the ancient kingdoms of the Nile river, the cycle of creation and destruction of the civilizations of the Indus valley, the “Dreamtime” of the aborigines. All stories are rich with complexities. All marked by idiosyncrasies and peculiarities which constitute a collective neural network from which culture flourishes.

Stories are tools used to proliferate ideas. They provide us with a sense of authorship, a way to gather and amass a kernel of meaning from the overwhelming silence of creation. They can shape societies for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to come. Small remnants of values reside in traditions passed on by customs and rites and are so hidden in plain sight that a terrific effort is necessary on our part to sensitize ourselves and acknowledge their influence in our daily lives.

The civilization of Greek antiquity is considered to be the precursor of modern Western civilization. However, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees in giving the Ancient Greek culture too much credit where it isn’t due. Greeks regularly interacted with cultures of the Mediterranean and beyond, bringing back the arts of mathematics, geometry, astronomy, and inspiration for the makings of ideal government and laws. Though, by virtue of their susceptibility for innovation, Athens became the intellectual crucible from which ideas of government, literature, sciences, architecture, sports would proliferate and last for millennia to come.

Democracy is one of the most influential ideas handed down from the Greeks and is today the sine qua non of the modern liberal nation state. But this “rule by the people” begs the question: who are these people entrusted with the power to rule? Clearly, not everyone. It is known that slavery was an accepted practice in ancient Greece endorsed by writers of the day – notably Aristotle – as natural and necessary. J. G. A. Pocock, in the book “The Citizenship Debates”, notes that the Athenians claimed citizenship required being far-removed from the grind and toils of everyday life. And the Athenian males solved this problem by delegating those duties to slaves, immigrants, and women, effectively excluding them from the agora.

The subjugation of women in Classical Athens was overt. Women had no legal personhood and were assigned their place within the oikos; a word used to refer to the domestic trifecta of family, the family’s property, and the household. The legal term for a wife was “damar”, a word derived from the root verb “to tame” or “to subdue”. The average age for marriage was around 14, which was partly to ensure that the girls were still virgins when they were wed. The lasting boundary to achieve citizenship was gender, and to the extent of history no woman ever achieved full citizenship. It would take more than two thousand years for Greek women to get the vote; which they did in 1952.

The Roman statesman Cicero wrote in the fourth book “On emotional disturbances” of his Tusculan Disputations that the Greek philosophers considered misogyny a disease, one caused by a fear of women. Perhaps this fear can be traced back to their earliest stories, their mythos.

In the beginning…

In the beginning there was only Chaos. A vast void of infinite darkness. Out of nothingness – to the relief of metaphysicians – sprang something. More notably, Gaia, or the earth; along with her siblings Nyx (night), Erebus (darkness), Tartarus (the abyss), and – by some accounts – Eros (the god of love and sex). Gaia eventually bore the Titans, setting about a chain of events that would eventually lead to the creation of modern human beings by the Titan Prometheus and his betrayal of Zeus, king of the ancient Greek pantheon.

Out of the union of Gaia and the sea, a host of monstrous children would come about to be: Echidna, a half-woman, half-snake, and mate of the giant serpentine monster Typhon; the Gorgons, two immortal sisters Stheno, Euryale, and the mortal Medusa, with hair of made of living snakes, and eyes that turned anyone who beheld them to stone; the Graeae, three witches who shared one eye and one tooth between them; and the not-so-monstrous Hesperides, beautiful nymphs of evening light whose interchangeable names in the Greek sources is testament to their impersonality. The recurring motif of the characterization of the feminine in Greek myth could only be lost on the most zealous male chauvinist.

The Rape of Europa is a painting by the Italian artist Titian, painted ca. 1560–1562.

Stories of sexual and physical violence directed at women in the myths of the Greek Heroic age are abundant. One such being the fate of Medusa. In Ovid’s late account, she is described as originally having been a priestess of Athena. Being very beautiful, many suitors desired her. One of these was the sea god Poseidon who subsequently raped her in the Temple of Athena. The enraged Athena – goddess of wisdom, and a symbol of freedom and democracy since the Renaissance – transformed Medusa into a gorgon as a punishment for… well, what mortal could possibly hope to interpret divine judgement? Medusa was later beheaded by the more-than-willing Perseus on a wager made by a King on a cursory whim, and got all the aid he could hope for by the gods – including Athena.

Hand-me-downs

The rediscovery of Greek mythology in the Renaissance, through the poetry of Ovid, had an immense effect on the creative resources of artists and poets for hundreds of years to come: from Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” to Titian’s “Rape of Europa”, Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” to Goethe’s “Prometheus”, Joyce’s “Ulysses” to O’Neill’s “Desire Under the Elms”. Greek mythology and its themes have endured in the Western cultural consciousness for centuries. As Mary Beard writes in her article “Women in Power”, mythology has nurtured a “real, cultural and imaginary” separation between women and power.

“Perseus with the Head of Medusa” by Benvenuto Cellini in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence

Hillary Clinton experienced the brunt of this kind of antagonism full-force during her 2016 candidacy. A photo modelled after Cellini’s bronze “Perseus with the Head of Medusa”, with Clinton’s face superimposed onto the severed head failed to incite the same wave of hostility that a similar representation of Trump’s severed head did. Similarly aggressive rhetoric and crude allusions have been used against politicians such as Chancellor Angela Merkel, ex-Prime Minister Theresa May, Brazilian ex-President Dilma Rousseff. While such discourse is rare in mainstream media in its unmitigated form, it has its own, more pernicious, effects. A study shows that anticipated gender discrimination decreases women’s leadership ambitions and that these expectations are often that women leaders will be punished more harshly for failure than men.

There are of course varying degrees of severity around issues of misogyny and sexism between countries. There is a disproportionate number of death threats made to women MPs in the UK, while in Finland the party leaders of all five parties in parliament are women. In Greece, as previously mentioned, women were first allowed to vote in 1952. Excerpts of parliamentary discourse within the Greek parliament reveals aggressive and derogatory forms of speech that directly attack the gender of the addressees.

The correlation between laggard societies and how women are received in positions of power is not fully established, however, there are countries with strong and lasting traditions of portraying women as inferior by direct subjugation or implicit cultural characterizations. And these stories are powerful and incidentally unifying. Unifying in the sense that having assigned roles is a comfort in a modern age of existential crises and erratic individualism. Nevertheless, these roles have been assigned in an age that predates the notion of universal human dignity by an immense time span and there’s nothing as dull as a constant rehashing of the same characters in different productions. If we are, each of us, the product of the stories we tell ourselves, then we could use some new ones.

Related articles:

German hip-hop: misogyny in rap music

Photo credits

Bustos filsofia aristotle, morhamedufmg, Free for commercial use

Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545-1554), Rodney, CC by 2.0

The Rape of Europa, Titian, Public Domain

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Hong Kong’s Protests and the reality of news

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 15:43:47 +0000

What do you think about when you read a newspaper, listen to the updates on the radio, the news app on your phone, the news programme on TV? For me, since it is far away, it often seems like a story, a myth. And I have to stop and take a step back to remind myself that these are things that are happening right now. The burning of the Australian bush. The plague of locusts in East Africa. The spread of the Corona virus from China. All the other news we list under Yesterday’s News, Today’s Reality. It continues while I read about it and people are affected by it.

And sometimes, you are one of these people and the events happen where you are. Be it a catastrophe, a surprising election, anything – there might be the moment when you realise that what is happening around you is a part of history, it will be in the news later. But how does it change our perspectives and focus?

A picture that changes

I have interviewed Maike about this topic, a student from Malmö University who was on exchange in Hong Kong from August until November 2019. Maike studied in Hong Kong during the time of some of the major events of the protests: when Carrie Lam withdrew the extradition bill or the protests during the anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. When police forces entered the university campus in November and students defended it, the confrontations between protesters and government forces caused big destruction of campus facilities and the university was unable to continue the semester and Maike returned home. Since she was directly affected by the protests that were going on in the city at that time, she could reflect on the difference between the news and reality and shared her experience with me.

Pike & Hurricane (P&H): The protests in Hong Kong already started in June and the media reported widely on it. Therefore, you were prepared about the situation of her host country. But talking about myths and the story media tell of an event, did the image you had change when you got there and saw what happened?

Maike: Yes and No. I think Hong Kong is very privileged in how it is being covered. I mean 2019 was a year of global protest, there were in so many different regions of the world protests between governments and citizens and very similar topics actually. And if you look at the coverage that Hong Kong got versus the coverage that Haiti or Ecuador for example got than it’s very different.

What I think changed about my impression of it is that, surprise!, it is not as black and white as presented. What I think for me really changed was that what the media really lacks is this human face behind it. So you see, there is the movement and there is the police, and the government and the protesters. And either you are completely for the movement or you are completely against it. But you don’t show the people that are super torn. And I think that for me was a very important acknowledgement to make. Because I recognised that I in the beginning judged people in terms of that they told me something about the protest and I tried to put them into a category: I think this person is for the movement, I think this person is against the movement.

The media coverage as I said is very extensive, but it’s also very sensation-led. So they look a lot on “this big event happened” and there are so many pictures of fires and the violence, but they show less about the personal struggle of people.

Maike said that after spending several months in Hong Kong, the picture of the events became less clear cut, because she got to know more about the context and different layers of the conflict. “What I didn’t really grasp before I got there, since it is missing from the coverage, was the different levels- that there are not only two parties in the conflict and that opinions are not clear cut. People might disagree with the government, but feel like being culturally Chinese. How does one deal with that? You know these kinds of things and I think it is such an important aspect since identity in general plays a big role in this conflict. And it is lacking in a sense from the media coverage in terms of that it is very categorised.”

P&H: How do identity and character influence your perception of the events?

Maike: I think I would have experienced it very differently if I would have been a Hong Kong local, whereas I am a European, who was there for half a year. I knew from the beginning that I would be able to leave at any point if things would get critical. And I think that is something that still now is very much there.

I know that sounds stupid, but I feel guilty. Because I know that I couldn’t have done anything as such and that it is not my fight to fight and I have no power whatsoever to help and I know that it is not my position to take. But it felt wrong to just be able to leave.

Maike is back in Malmö, but living in a place builds a connection. You know what certain events mean for the people. And at the same time the distance is back. “It is definitely weird now in that sense that I can literally turn off the TV or wherever I see it, Instagram or news outlet, I can just turn off my phone and it will not affect me in a sense.”

Stories we hear about

Media is creating a story, they tell an event in a certain way. And depending on the narrator, this story can differ a lot. “I don’t think the media is wrong in being critical when it comes to police violence and the government”, Maike says, “but you can definitely see that they are very West-centric. So they are very much tempted to make China look like the bad guy, no matter what they do. […] It is very striking when the Chinese government uses the words ‘rioters’ and ‘extremists’ for the protesters, but it is also striking when Western news outlets always use the words ‘democracy fighters’ and stuff like this, it is very much about this language aspect. I don’t say I think it is bad, but neutrality-wise… you could definitely see that a lot.”

Every story is just part of a bigger one. They give a context and meaning to it, describe the actors and their position, leave out bits and are rarely completely neutral. Most people in Hong Kong still lived their normal life. While the news showed a lot of conflict and smoke and fires, this is in reality rather isolated and just in a few parts of the city. And what was in Hong Kong news topic number one, it was for the world one of several news.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

“Blätterwald”, Björn Seibert, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“HONG KONG-INDONESIA-SOCIAL-LABOUR”, inmediahk, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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The Mythology of Italian Fascism: Beginnings and Endings, Homogenized

Filip Zahariev — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 16:37:26 +0000

It is the unfortunate reality of Italian politics that fascism is alive and well, seventy-five years after the ignoble death of its great European architect, Benito Mussolini. Indeed, though Il Duce’s body may have been hung in the middle of Piazzale Loreto for all to see and revile, Italian politics still bears the marks of its notorious former leader. The country’s political arena is messy. It is cutthroat and it is, above all else, driven by personalities: Men (far more often than women [1]), oozing with machismo, their superficial charm rivalled only by their odious moral compass and the corruption charges levied against them.

A quick glance at the state of the country’s string of prime minister-led governments speaks of nothing so much as instability. Twenty-one government cabinets in thirty years – four of them led by Silvio Berlusconi, a populist in all but name long before it was cool, to use modern parlance. Mired in scandal since before his first term of office, Berlusconi is a far cry from Mussolini – he has, until recently leaned towards the centre-right, a liberal conservative unafraid to embrace a variety of policies, including traditionally liberal ones, as well as populist and Catholic ones. But Berlusconi’s personal political legacy is a foul one, his politics and conduct both a precursor to those of recent populists, with Matteo Salvini at the forefront of their ranks. Salvini’s allegiance with fascist ideology has long been a divisive question in Italian society but the fact of the matter is, neo-fascist parties such as Fratelli d’Italia see the leader of the Northern League as their natural ally.

The Internal Logic of Fascism

The Italian statesman Massimo d’Azeglio said, a day after the unification of Italy in 1861, “We have made Italy and, now, we must make the Italians.” Whatever else is said about Mussolini, he well grasped, perhaps at an intuitive level, the importance of a unified nation.

Fascism, as described by novelist and frequent NYRB contributor Tim Parks, is “an ideology not only repressive but also inward-looking.” It recalls the exceptional, reinforces the notion of a god-chosen people. In the Italian example, it offers a unified vision of Italy through history; Mussolini appropriated classical Antiquity, mythologized and streamlined it, offering simple, reassuring answers to the complex questions of the time. The history of the Ancient Roman Empire, this notion of Romanitá, thus became a unifying staple of Fascist ideology. In Mussolini’s own words, “For the Italian people all is eternal and contemporary. For us it is as if Caesar was stabbed just yesterday. It is something proper to the Italian people, something which no other people have to the same extent.”

This ideology’s underlying logic seeks to produce unity, a homology which the deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida warned against on the grounds that in creating a bounded unity, there must necessarily be a “constitutive outside,” an enemy to unify against, to drive out and abject. And indeed, both the early and the later years of the Fascist movement were defined by violence against those who would constitute the “other,” mainly Slavs – in particular Yugoslavs, Serbs and Slovenes.

To the fascist, this is a battle for nothing less than survival, for Antiquity offers a bitter lesson as to the failure in doing so: “It is not the change in political forms, from republican to monarchic, which indicates the beginning of Rome’s decadence, but the corruption of dominant races in too much and too frequent contact with inferior peoples”. Mussolini’s reasoning, unsurprisingly, has little to do with the realities of empire. It does, however, serve to reinforce the most overt messages of one of the most persistent works of classic literature in modern Italy, the Aeneid.

A Uniform Founding Myth?

At first glance, Virgil’s Aeneid presents a founding myth which perfectly embodies the notion of a “dominant race”. By the end of this great Roman epic, the shattered remnants and dredges of Troy are reforged into one people under the rule of Aeneas, a leader forged in the fires of war, a man who sacrifices his individual freedoms for the good of his people. Chased away from their sacked homeland, the progenitors of the Roman Republic become, as NYRB’s chief editor Daniel Mendelsohn notes, “a nation of victors rather than victims.” Divine providence – what better tenet to base national identity on?

Indeed, Virgil’s magnum opus presents questions no less relevant today than they were in Mussolini’s Italy, perhaps more. It is a text both informative and problematic. Individuality is suppressed for the sake of the common good and empire stands triumphant. The epic poem’s hero, Aeneas, is repeatedly caught red-handed, committing one morally outrageous act after another, all borne out of necessity, for the survival of his people.

But to reduce the great poet’s work to only these characteristics would be a disservice, though one a fascist would be happy to perpetrate. The Aeneid itself does not offer a singular, unified vision of the world – the voice of the African queen Dido is perhaps the strongest criticism to the notion of strength, unification and empire the fascist would place foremost in his reading of the work. Dido, who saves and aids Aeneas only to be betrayed by him at the behest of his gods, kills herself and thus becomes, to quote Mendelsohn, “a heartbreaking symbol of the collateral damage that ‘empire’ leaves in its wake.” Hers is not the only part to offer criticism to the notion and cost of empires; there is warning there, a cautious tale against the price paid by perpetrator and victim alike.

No homogeneous view of society thrives for long, and Il Duce’s vision of Romanitá has seen its decline in the seventy-five years since his fall from grace. But neo-fascism and far-right nationalism have gained enough ground in recent decades to echo the early rise of the fascist movement in troubling ways. One hopes that, for all Salvini’s accidental gaffes in apping Mussolini, the leader of the League Party will stay away from embracing the odious rewriting of history his political predecessor engaged in. Salvini’s track record, however, leaves much to be desired.

by Filip R. Zahariev

[1]Italy has long struggled with the vastest gender-gap in Western Europe.

Photo Credits

mussolini a colori,cripto, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas, Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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The myth of democracy: Beyond speeches, a muddled reality

Pauline Zaragoza — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 16:25:52 +0000

For a long time, democracy was imagined as a utopia. Today, its nice image is not ideal anymore due to impossible and impracticable promises. Nowadays, democracy has lost its credibility. Its beliefs became a myth. In the context of the rise of populism and restrictions of liberties, its definition and even its existence are questioned.

Democracy: An old and blurred concept

Native from the ancient Athens, the word democracy comes from the Greek words “demos” (the people) and “kratos” (the power) which can be translated as the government of the people. Democracy is universally seen as a sort of ideal founded on a political and philosophical tension between the concepts of liberty and equality. It is also a political regime including institutions and laws. One of the most famous definitions is the one of Abraham Lincoln: “It’s the government of the people by the people for the people.”

Historically, except in Athens, democracy was a synonym of a bad image. Plato considered it a tyrannic model and Rawls judged it not as the best regime to reach justice. Even at the time of Solon and Clisthène, the Greek theorists of this concept, this regime was rooted in a society where slavery was essential. Moreover, foreigners, women and slaves were excluded from the status of citizens which was allowing the rights to practice democracy. The structure of this old Greek society can remind us some similarities regarding the treatment of the migration crisis in 2015 and inequalities and discrimination toward minorities and women. Several centuries later, some things are not changing and it is as if it was set in stone. But this gap between this ideal and reality has consequences.

A gap between words and reality

After the Second World War,the democratic model was set as a universal aspiration, a sign of success. As proof of this international will, the 21st Article of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights aimed to promote it. However, beyond those beautiful statements there is another reality. In the nineties, the fall of the Berlin Wall reignited the hope of the democratic model’s victory. But some countries, presented as young democracies at that time, such as Russia or China, became arbitrary. As explained by journalist Fareed Zakaria, democracy might lead to authoritarianism. Actually, democracy is not just about holding elections, allowing political participation. It also implies the rule of law, the separation of powers, secularity, and the protections of minorities and individuals’ rights.

Democracy has become a label used for anything at any time which has the terrible consequence of it losing its meaning. During the Soviet period, most of the former Eastern Bloc countries were called Soviet Republics applying Soviet democracy knowing that they were belonging to the champions’ category when it comes to violating human and political rights. Also, this paradox exist in the name of some countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo which is well-known for its corruption case, existence of child soldiers and the common practice of female genital mutilation.

In our time, democracy seems to be a force without finality despite a will of expansion and its conquest of the world. Recalling the famous definition of Clausewitz, democracy can be seen as as tool to continue the fight for hegemony by others means. Indeed, perhaps democratic regimes are not just imperfect but they are guilty of crimes. The United States are the perfect example to illustrate the use of democracy to legitimize actions with the 2003’s invasion of Iraq or the use of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And in many Western democracies, the rise of terrorism has authorized the restriction of civil liberties and democratic values under the argument of security matters.

In addition, behind the beautiful speeches, the struggle for the right to abortion and other women’s rights, gay rights, rigged election, and minority rights have become our daily reality. The case of Hungary and Poland are symptomatic of this issue. In Hungary, Victor Orban, elected in 2010, set political and financial pressure, regulation, censorship and disinformation towards media. He also decided to weaken the rule of law by targeting judicial institutions, as example of his decisions, he forced the early retirement of judges. In Poland, abortion and LGBTQ rights are under threat and the President Andrzej Duda signed a law meant to pack the country’s judiciary with judges friendly to the party in power. Those various events and manipulations of the concept of democracy led to give it a bad image. However, recent protests remind us that this ideal is not dead yet.

A glimmer of hope: An ideal not dead yet

For researcher Isabelle Ferreras, the issues of democracy are located in our economic model. For her, democracy and capitalism are incompatible. If capitalism has a future, democracy cannot have one. Capitalism, according to her, allows political rights according to the amount of capital owned whereas democracy is based on the equality of rights for everyone. Perhaps, this argument can be related to protests in France with the Gilets jaunes and in Chile where the triggers for protest were rooted in economic inequalities.

Some of the democratic values are still alive in minds all around the world. France, Algeria, Lebanon, Chile and Hong Kong are recent fields of protest using pacific gatherings and social media as tools against a monopolization of power and economic and political inequalities within the population. Those recent events demonstrate a global need to recapture democracy.

Democracy has to be rethought in order to restore its legitimacy after all the disillusions that are associated with it. On one hand, this concept has to avoid what Tocqueville theorized as the tyranny of the majority which might not always have its reasons, can be easily manipulated and does not protect minorities. Also, democracy has to avoid being a nice label used for countries’ interests or a model that reinforces inequalities within populations. Perhaps, the role played by civil society and whistle-blowers is to influence decisions to preserve our rights and liberties, but also to act. Regarding numerous issues the can be our lifeboat and make the myth a reality.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Crowd, Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Parthenon, timeflies1955

20190818 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protest, Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0

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The myth of the right-wing East and how Thuringians proofed the opposite

Nina Kolarzik — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 16:03:50 +0000

The city Erfurt in the central German federal state Thuringia has a long tradition of being shaped by its citizens. This was shown again on the 5th of February, when an election woke up people and parties all over Germany. A regionally focused opinion about a global problem: citizens struggling with their elected representatives.

The progression of events

After the regional elections in Thuringia in November 2019, the election for the Bundesland’s prime minister (PM) took place in the regional parliament. For the context: the office holder Bodo Ramelow for the Left stood for election, as did Christoph Kindervater for the AfD, the right-wing nationalist party. The first two ballots saw no winner because no one gained the absolute majority. In the third ballot, when only a relative majority mattered, a third candidate suddenly appeared: Thomas Kemmerich from the FDP (liberal Democrats). He won with 45 votes against Ramelow (44 votes, Kindervater 0). To understand the political earthquake this created it is necessary to know that the FDP, with only 5% of the votes, barely managed to get into the parliament. The election of Kemmerich was only possible due to votes from the CDU (Conservatives) and the AfD. And with that, the chaos was perfect.

Protest against Kemmerich

Everything about the political events, statements and discussion of the parties can be read in the main German news outlets that constantly reported about it. What was little talked about is what happened in Thuringia’s streets, what moved civil society: They saw a problem and did not let it go without a comment. Spontaneously, demonstrations formed all over the state’s capital Erfurt. Around 5pm a crowd gathered at the state chancellery, where Ramelow’s office was located.

The message is spreading fast in social media. People are coming into the city just for the protest or join spontaneously while being on a walk. A speaker talks of 2000 participants. All generations are represented.

“Kemmerich wir woll’n dich nicht!” [Kemmerich, we don’t want you!]

It is cold but the crowd remains for hours in front of the state chancellery, peaceful, but shouting to the windows. Not everyone agrees – a man who passes says “Go home” to the protesters. But energy is rising with the call: “Bodo ans Fenster” [Bodo to the window]. It reminds of the historic meeting of Willy Brandt and Willi Stoph in 1970. The protesters demand the resignation of Kemmerich and re-elections. But Kemmerich refuses. After one hour, a human chain is forming around the chancellery to hinder Kemmerich from entering. He is not our PM, they say.

Why the protest?

In the political landscape there is not only Good and Bad. Maybe Kemmerich’s politics have some good ideas. A Kemmerich as PM is one thing – a PM who got into office thanks to the votes of a right-wing party is something different. One who thinks that the public is just going to accept that has miscalculated the situation, is short sighted or simple minded.

CDU and FDP decline a formal cooperation with the AfD, Kemmerich portrays himself as their opponent also in the future. So, what is the people’s problem? First, there is the size of the Thuringian FDP. Kemmerich is far from having a majority, since he declines to work with the AfD and the Left, and Social Democrats and the Green party decline to work with him. His government would have been incapable of working. With 5%, the FDP would have been governing a federal state that voted for something completely else. People felt ignored, their democracy betrayed.

The Left, that had the most support in the election, was the loser. Not because of the FDP’s own power, but only thanks to CDU and AfD. And there is the problem. Kemmerich only got his power thanks to a right-wing nationalist party. And even though he distances himself from them – is it justifiable? Not for the Thuringians on the streets. Kemmerich is positioning himself clearly against AfD, against Höcke, against the Right wing. But these words are apparently not enough, since he was so obviously supported in the election – even though he himself previously excluded an election through the AfD. The protesters fear that the AfD thus gains power in Thuringian politics and they criticise the hypocrisy of the Thuringian FDP. Some draw a comparison to the end of the Weimar Republic: “Wer hat uns verraten? Freie Demokraten!” [Who betrayed us? Liberal Democrats!]

Political chess

Many suspect a setup behind the election and the AfD is presenting itself as the puppet master. That it was planned shows in the way that the whole AfD voted for Kemmerich and not their own candidate. Pure political strategy: trusting that not enough delegates vote for Ramelow, waiting until the third ballot to then bring in a new candidate and bring him into office. The talks behind closed doors and the political manoeuvring are criticised. The election of the federal PM is not direct, but an indirect democratic process – in this case, too indirect for many. The people in front of the chancellery want Ramelow back, he has a lot of support. He brought about a lot of change in the past 5 years, necessary change, which is reflected by his growing popularity. His politics are described as integrative. The result of the regional election reflects the public’s wish for him to continue his work.

Whatever happens, the AfD is using it to present themselves as winners. What do they gain from the election? An overthrown left government and a lot of material to claim it was the will of the people. They portray the result as their own success and that Kemmerich did everything they wanted. Their goal: to prevent another left-social-green government. Party whip Gauland recently said, the AfD would also vote for Ramelow just to block him because he would not accept. This shows their destructive character. They celebrate that they cannot be ignored anymore but need to be included in decision-making. It could be seen how many oppose that just on Erfurt’s streets. But one thing was achieved: FDP and CDU walk into a crisis and are internally caught in an argument about their direction. The political parties are disunited in their reaction, fear to take any responsibility, are unsure about how to proceed.

All united?

I wrote based on my experience of the demonstration, that I supported and joined spontaneously. What impressed me was the fact that Thuringia can organize a protest like that. My home surprised me. It was a counterexample to the story of the right-wing East. When talking about the new federal states, it is often mentioned that so many nationalists are living there. That the East is different, less experienced with democracy. That right-wing tendencies are more accepted. Unfortunately, it is a fact that in Thuringia the AfD has particular strong support. But why is so little talked about why Thuringians went on the streets this time? A spontaneous demonstration for democracy and against nationalism? Yes, Thuringia can do that! People showed that they do not accept everything.

“Alle zusammen gegen den Faschismus!” [All united against facism!]

In everyday life, active participation in politics is not high on the agenda. You might complain, but on rare occasions there was as much interest as shown in the past weeks. People came together, they informed each other, with one common goal. This group dynamic and energy united people.

A breach of a taboo is what the events are frequently called in the media – and this is the central point of the political debate: what do you accept? The news is reporting a lot about the reactions in politics. Debates about re-elections or not, candidates and directions of the parties follow on an everyday basis and change quickly. Kemmerich announced his resignation after 25 hours. There is a lot of pressure coming from the top of the parties. But not only the pressure from above counts – also the one from below. From the population. Who talks about the people in Thuringia? They are the ones that showed: we are against nationalism! This article was supposed to show how pressure from below was done: peaceful, spontaneous, but with a clear message. Not only in Erfurt by the way, but also in Weimar, Jena, Gera und Ilmenau. There is much talk about a catastrophe in politics in Thuringia but little about the success of civil society there. And the protest goes on.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

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Action beyond protest: “A different world is possible”

Merle Emrich — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:46:30 +0000

Much like any other polytheistic society, the Ancient Greeks had a god.dess for just about any important aspect of their lives. One of them was Adrestia, the goddess of revolt, just retribution and balance between good and evil. Her name translates to “the inescapable”, and if we look at history social conflict and revolts are indeed a recurring theme – from the French Revolution and Gandhi’s Salt March to the Monday Demonstrations that helped bring down the Berlin Wall. More recent waves of protests, including Occupy Wall Street, the growing environmental movement and social justice movements from Lebanon over France to Chile, demonstrate that revolt and protests are still as inescapable as a means to bring about social and political change as it seemed to be in Ancient Greece.

Cathartic protest

First and foremost, protests are a form of opposition against an actual, planned or feared course of action. As such it can be “an end in itself”, a form of catharsis that resolves social tensions, and citizens’ frustration and discontent. Protest marches, rallies and vigils have a function as sign of objection, they are a means of communicating to the authorities the discontent or wish for change of the population, or at least a part of it. As such they also offer a platform to blow off steam, to voice anger, fear and hope, to start a conversation with people who share the same opinion, or who oppose it. Catharsis in protest can come through songs and shouts, to chance encounters with fellow protesters, or merely the knowledge to have been part of it, to have done something about the issue at hand.

Especially when protest alone does not lead to change, however, it becomes necessary to channel its cathartic energy into the development of new strategies and finding solutions and alternatives to the present condition. As philosopher Auguste Comte put it, “nothing really essential and enduring can be accomplished in the practical fold when its theoretical implications are not clearly worked out, or are at least well on the way to solution.”

“We must be able to […] propose alternatives”

In France, the organisers of the Vrai Débat are trying to capture the energy and ideas of the Gilets jaunes movement. As a reaction to Macron’s grand débat, they collected ideas and comments online on issues people consider important, followed by a series of deliberative assemblies in several cities throughout the country starting in mid-June 2019. “They allow us to combine democracy with social movement”, says participant Anthony Brault. “You prioritise and think together, we will create a political programme that will not replace the Gilets jaunes but can be useful for them.” During the assemblies between 15 and 40 people work on the most popular propositions for two days. They are divided by topic and small working groups analyse them to sum up the most frequent ideas and arguments in a concise document. “We must be able to exchange ideas”, explains another participant, Daniel, “to propose alternatives.”

In a similar manner climate camps aim at providing a platform for discussion, networking and exploring alternatives. One of these climate camps takes place every year in the Rhineland, Germany where there are three coal pits and five power plants that together are responsible for a third of Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions. The Klimacamp im Rheinland combines Ende Gelände’s civil disobedience actions against coal mining with trying out “tomorrow’s society – social, ecological and based on grassroots democracy”. Cultural programmes as well as courses, workshops, panel discussions on topics “from theoretical analysis of climate change to practical stuff like building a windmill” are organised, and the camp is structured based on anti-authoritarian self-organisation.

Climate of change

In the same region the Hambach Forest is located, an ancient forest that was supposed to be cut down to expand a coal mine, and even though the forest is now supposed to remain it’s future is still not guaranteed as water that sustains the trees needs to be pumped out of the ground to prevent the flooding of the coal pits. There, environmental activists are combining protest with the development of alternative ways of living and organising society in a similar, yet more permanent, way as the climate camps. To prevent the destruction of the forest, the activists began to occupy the forest in 2012. They built tree houses to make eviction more difficult, and on a meadow nearby a communal kitchen, a building for assemblies, a library and a museum was set up.

780 kilometres away, the ZAD (zone to defend) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (ZAD NDDL) that began as an occupation to prevent the destruction of 1650 hector of agricultural land and wetland for the construction of an airport has become a social project of an alternative form of structuring collective life, a vision of what society could look like. This shift of the ZAD as a means of protest and resistance to an end in itself has resulted in the Zadists’ refusal to leave the area even when the airport project was abandoned by the government in 2018. Over the course of its existence since 2000, the ZAD NDDL has become a political space “in which social and ecological experiments take place” within a framework of “self-governance, egalitarian sharing of tasks, hospitality, gratuity, and work without hierarchical subordination”.

“A different world is possible”

In an interview published on mediapart’s participative blog, activist and Gilet jaune Geneviève Legay said: “We must think of utopia as something attainable. Otherwise I would not continue to fight, if I thought it wasn’t possible. And if people hadn’t fought for utopias, we wouldn’t have the rights we have today. […] a different world is possible, it is necessary to build it together.” The same is emphasised by writer, director and environmental activist Cyril Dion. To bring about change we need NGOs and Zadists, civil disobedience and guerilla gardening as well as social entrepreneurs and novelists.

To increase the likelihood that “the inescapable” revolt results in the envisaged change and does not end with its first cathartic infant steps, a common effective strategy is necessary. Thus, in the beginning, according to Dion, is a set of questions that need to be answered: “Can we hope to find solutions within our democracies or not? Must the strategy to stop the destruction and the warming [of the planet] be political, citizen-based or both? Can it be done without using violence?”

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Ende Gelaende 20119, Besetzung nder RWE Strukturen im rheinischen Braunkohlerevier: Der Goldene Finger bricht aus der Fridays for Future Demonstration bei Hochneukirch aus und stürmt über die Kante in den Tagebau Garzweiler. Alle Bagger werden abgeschalte, David Klammer, CC BY-NC 2.0

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FYI, the name’s Macedonia

Louis Louw — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:40:58 +0000

While recently scrolling across Google Maps to untangle the web of Balkan nations, my attention was caught by a newly etched-out national entity. Or at least so I thought. In truth, after some further investigation into the matter, what I had glimpsed was less a newly forged nation and more the latest installment in a longstanding dispute over the nomenclature of Macedonia, upon which both the “former” former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM and now North Macedonia) and Greece lay historical, territorial and identity claims.

Fast-tracking things a bit, this topsy-turvy dispute, which ostensibly spans all the way back to the conquests and spoils of Alexander the Great, took a new turn at the fall and partitioning of Socialist Yugoslavia. Ever since, both sides across the border have been involved in some feisty name-calling, with both sides refusing to back down on their claim over the cultural and territorial heritage of Macedonia. Underscoring this hard egg-or-the-chicken-first stance, a Greek veto all but barred the FYROM from ascension to the EU and by extension opportunities for development, growth, and prosperity.

Let them eat marble statues!

Fuelled by what it perceived as unfair treatment, the FYROM government ramped up its rhetoric by decreeing the fateful Skopje 2014 project, which was supposed to tie the FYROM closer to the glory of its, imaginary, epic past. However, this much derided project, which sought to remake the capital in the light of Greek antiquity, has left some to brand Skopje as the world’s “capital of Kitsch”. Adding insult to injury, the flood of neoclassical statues perched in lofty heights around the capital blew the project’s budget wide open in a country that continuously ranks as one of the poorest in the region.

Ironically, it was only by abandoning this bizarre showcasing of cultural appropriation and political escalation that a mutually beneficial breakthrough was achieved in 2018. Indeed, by re-establishing meaningful diplomatic ties, a formal agreement was reached, which consequently recognized North Macedonia as a nation distinct from the northern Greek province of Macedonia. In this instance, choosing the path of deescalation through dialogue truly paved the way for a better future for both parties. Bearing this in mind, can Skopje 2014 then be seen solely through the lens of the financial debacle that it undoubtedly was? Moreover, should the Macedonian government be considered the Atlas-esque bearer of all the brunt and backlash for its failure?

The M is for misunderstanding

One of the main reasons cited by Greek politicians for the controversy sparked by Skopje’s 2014 great leap backwards, was that the FYROM would potentially not only lay claim to what is seen as essentially Greek identity, but more importantly, that territorial aspirations on Greek soil would arise in tandem. This line of argumentation is reminiscent of the common trope of self-determination, which sees cultural imposition go hand-in-hand with territorial convergence.

However, what this line of argumentation fails to understand — and what I would suggest that the policy-makers behind the botched Skopje 2014 project failed to understand as well — is that the term Macedonia itself had semantically shifted away from the brittle aesthetics of antiquity to an entirely unique Slavic interpretation of the term long before the dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia. After all, Slavic populations had been lively in Northern Macedonia for well over a century while carrying the denomination of Macedonia. Therefore, if culture is what one makes of living practices understood in the more mundane configuration of everyday life and experience, how is it to be presumed that Macedonian identity as a concept was frozen in time and space before, during and immediately after the unravelling of Socialist Yugoslavia?

Get off your high horse, Alexander!

Therefore, I am putting the following proposition on the table; I believe that one can fairly assume that, had the Greek claims on Macedonia not arisen in the way they did — territorial integrity of the state at risk! — with the particular meaning they carried — cultural appropriation of classical antiquity as a threat!, then perhaps Skopje 2014 could have been entirely avoidable altogether.

This goes without saying that I am not tip-toeing towards a justification for its bamboozling execution. Rather, what I am suggesting is that by accentuating territory linked to antique culture from a uniquely Greek perspective, the breeding ground for the self-confounded chimera of embittered Greek and Macedonian relations was set to roost birds of exotic feather such as the Skopje 2014 project or the Greek “cultural” riots over ‘identity capitulation’. In this light, Skopje 2014 can almost be seen as the logical consequence of two nations engaging in foreign policy on equally egregious terms.

Instead of negotiating a compromise with consideration to the needs and wishes of everyday citizens on both sides of the divide, the Macedonian and Greek governments failed to live up to their responsibility to foster the well-being of their citizens. What’s more, they made things worse by clashing over dead concepts of identity that have little bearing on the everyday workings, experiences, and problems of the common (wo)man. To conclude, when Guy Delauney inadvertently states that Macedonia “might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb” with its fumbling extravagance, one may indeed ask how else to get Alexander off his high horse?

by Louis Louw

Photo Credits

Alexander the Great, Mite Kuzevski, CC BY-NY 2.0:

DSC_0069.jpg, mrhong42, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0:

Image, Rosino, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0:

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What Goes Around Should Always Come Back Around

Kristina Bartl — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:31:59 +0000

I still remember the first time I went to visit the British Museum with my brother. I found myself staring at the museum’s collection map and, as indecisive as I am, I could not pick a starting point for our journey. Did I want to be taken back to Ancient Rome and Greece and stroll through halls full of temples and statues? Or was I rather in the mood for South Indian Artifacts such as the statue of Shiva Nataraja? And what about Ancient Egypt — I always wanted to see a Sphinx! I was amazed by the fact that all those treasures could be found within one building in Central London, but my brother only rolled his eyes and said: “Ever heard of Colonialism?” and all of a sudden I was not that amazed anymore.

They came, they saw, they took

People who grew up in western parts of the world tend to forget that exhibition material is more than just a collection of pretty things to look at. Those objects are related to ancient myths and represent the origin of entire cultures. One of the many ways Britain exploited several parts of the world as a colonizer, was the theft of cultural assets, only for them to be displayed in their museums. Especially in the last few years, countries have started to demand those stolen artifacts back. Since then it’s been heavily discussed in the media if those artifacts should be returned or not.

Museums have two main arguments that speak against them handing back the artifacts. Firstly, it is claimed that the countries of origin do not have the required knowledge and means to maintain the objects. The fact that western museums consider their knowledge regarding ancient artifacts as superior to eastern museums, is not a good look considering the entity of this discussion. Furthermore, and almost a bit ironically, there is a claim that returning some of these goods is almost impossible, because the original owners are not traceable, even though researching the artefacts’ origins is a huge part of the museums’ work. Yes, returning heavy marvel-built parts of Greek temples back to their home country would be without a doubt an intense process, but maybe this is just one more hint that they were never meant to be displayed in foreign museums in the first place.

Cultural appreciation or exploitation?

Museums are not the only places where we can find awkwardly placed ancient artefacts. Within one mile distance from the British Museum stands Cleopatra’s Needle, which has no connection to Cleopatra besides its origin. It came all the way from Alexandria in 1877 after being gifted to Britain by the Sultan of Egypt and Sudan. Two similar obelisks found their way to Paris and New York. Shipping those enormous artifacts to their current placements was expensive and nearly took the lives of some of the sailors. All this expenditure for a monument. What is it with the West and its obsession with other cultures? Whilst cases such as Cleopatra’s needle are at least not as ethically questionable as the display of stolen artifacts, it is still an example of the West and its exceptionally strong interest in other cultures. On the one hand, some representatives have openly spoken about appreciating the fact that their culture is being displayed to a huge audience, yet it should also be possible for their citizens to see the artifacts that have been crafted by their ancestors.

Some museums, such as the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, introduced a policy which is dedicated to the returning of goods that are reclaimed by their original owners. There are also private collectors who handed back artifacts that they inherited, which is how some of the famous Benin Bronzes found their way back home, while most of them are still in the British Museum in London or in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. France handed back a few objects in November last year, but it does not outweigh the fact that former colonies only own a small percentage of their cultural artifacts, whilst their former colonizers withhold most of them. For example, 90 percent of African artifacts displayed are exhibited in European museums.

The discussion surrounding the stolen artifacts has, of course, many more factors and stories that have to be considered, but in the end; theft is theft. If former colonies reclaim their cultural heritage, they have every right to have them handed back. And if it is, for whatever reason, not possible to return stolen goods, then there has to be at least enough transparency regarding how they ended up in the museum’s possession. Britain, and other former colonizers, have profited from other cultures for long enough and it is time for them to talk about their history. After all, that’s what museums are here for, isn’t it?

by Kristina Bartl

Photo Credits

London, Das British Museum, symbol

Museum, Roof, Architecture, London, hurk

Benin Bronzes, Archie, CC BY 2.0

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“The European Union wants to kill our cuppa”: How Euromyths and fake news affected the Brexit vote

Isa Tiilikainen — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:26:00 +0000

On 31 January 2020, Britain became the first country ever to leave the European Union. The Leave campaign leading up to Brexit was, to the surprise of many, a success. But how did they manage to do it?

Britain’s relationship with the EU has always been a problematic one. Their accession to the European Union, then EEC, in 1973 was preceded by two previous attempts, both denied by the French. Then, only two years after joining, a referendum was held in 1975 asking the British people: “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community?”. With two thirds of the population voting yes, the country continued to be a member, but the suspicion and mistrust towards the Union always accompanied the 47 years of British membership.

Scepticism appears to stem from this belief of British exceptionalism: they are fundamentally different, and superior to, other nations. In a similar manner, the thought of personal exceptionalism led David Cameron to believe that he could win the referendum on Brexit. The imperial myth of Britain as a superpower leads to the nation approaching the EU from a standpoint that their country deserves a special status and preferential treatment.

To this idea of exceptionalism, the Leave campaign built its narrative. On one hand, the sense of superiority, and on the other hand the myth of being the underdog of the EU facing unfair treatment. Their strategy can be broken down to three parts: (1) simple messaging appealing to people’s emotions, (2) massive social media campaign by micro-targeting, and (3) controlling the debate framing with falsehoods.

False narratives

“We send the EU £350 million a week: let’s fund our NHS instead”, read the side of the infamous Brexit Battle Bus we can all remember. To suggest that such an amount of money would be available for extra spending when the UK leaves the EU was both misleading, as well as a straight up lie. According to different estimates, the actual amount of net payment, after deductions, agriculture subsidies and regional grants, comes down to about £160-190 million a week. And even this amount of money is surely not going to be fully budgeted for the NHS, as post-Brexit customs and legal institutions, among other things, will take up a large part. But the facts didn’t matter. What was important was to build a strong Eurosceptic narrative and appeal to the already existing cynicism of the population.

During the last 25 years or so, British newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have been whipping up paranoia related to all kinds of things the EU allegedly wants to ban. Whether it’s curvy bananas, vacuums, kettle pots, lawnmowers or double-decker buses, the EU is about to ban it and Britishness is being severely threatened. These false narratives about the EU are called Euromyths and there have been so many of them circling around, that the European Commission has its own web page dedicated to addressing them. The openly EU-critical news coverage has been widely spread in the British media over the last few decades and that, without a doubt, contributed to the Euroscepticism among the nation. The seed of Brexit has therefore been developing for years before the actual referendum took place.

Social media targeting

A key component in winning the Brexit vote was the massive social media campaign spreading false narratives. The Leave campaign spent 40% of it’s campaign finances on one single technology firm: AggregateIQ. In pounds, this sums up to about 2,7 million, which translates to about 3,2 million euros. AggregateIQ is essentially referred to as a ’’department’’ within Cambridge Analytica; the company that many associate with the ’’fake news’’ around Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign. The same methods of micro-targeting in social media were substantially used in the Brexit campaign. What this microtargeting essentially boils down to, is targeting individuals based on specific information gathered about them online. Cambridge Analytica is, for example, legally able to buy consumer data sets from airlines and magazine subscriptions and then connect this information with people’s personal data. The aim is to find persuadable voters and target them with suitable triggers. Facebook has proven to be a great source of psychological insights to millions of voters and fundamentally make all of this targeting possible.

While some of the Leave campaign’s ads run on Facebook maintained that new trade deals outside of EU would create 300 000 new jobs in Britain, others included claims ranging from the EU wanting to “kill our cuppa”, banning tea kettles, complaining about “5 million immigrants coming to the UK by 2030” and “Turkey’s 76 million people are granted visa-free travel by the EU”. So the message was not only focused on “costs and control”, but also based on the nationalist and even xenophobic sentiments. Thus, the campaign was successfully able to target a vast amount of people with a diverse set of values. The way in which the falsities were spread, not only through social media but also through mainstream media, was systematic and strategically intelligent.

Controlling the framing

As was established later on, the Leave campaign’s political message was in many ways built on lies, but initially the lies were not intended to be believed; that just came as a bonus. The intention was to frame and warp the debate. Vote Leave’s strategy was to constantly put out misleading information that would then distract the Remain campaign from having to interfere. By this, the Leave campaign managed to set the stage in their own benefit and get the opposite side to play into their hands.

As the Remainers were forced to correct the falsehoods the Leave campaign was actively repeating, they ended up just reinforcing the myths. You see, even though the claim of sending 350 million pounds a week to the EU was false, it impelled the Remain campaign to talk about the fact that Britain does send money to the EU, and that is exactly the subject that the Leave campaign wanted to talk about. Remain’s efforts to concentrate on the single market, economic affairs and all the benefits EU brings to Britain, went to waste. As Dominic Cummings, the campaign director and mastermind behind the Leave campaign, said: “Would we have won by spending our time talking about trade and the single market? No way.”

by Isa Tiilikainen

Photo credits

Banksy does Brexit (detail), Duncan Hull, CC BY 2.0

UK News Brexit Headlines 22nd June 2016, Jeff Djevdet, CC BY 2.0

Vote-leave-misleading-headlines, Abi Begum, CC BY 2.0

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