Europe
Europe
Fair Observer provides insightful and informed analysis about important European issues, events and trends.
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United States / Europe / 360° Context / Middle East / Americas / Africa / Global Security / Asia / Oceania / Environment & SustainabilityNatural resources are becoming the new powerful key to defining geopolitics and securing economic and strategic interests. Background Global power shifts in the post Cold-War era have characteristically moved away from traditional military rivalries to economic expansion and prowess. The paradigm, in part fuelled by technological advances and the ferocious scale of globalization in recent decades, has highlighted the strategic advantages lent in particular by natural resources. Historically linked to prolonged conflicts and civil wars in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia, natural resources such as hydrocarbons, gold, uranium, diamonds, copper, zinc and rare earth minerals are now...
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An important development in radical right activism this century – albeit one that shares many similarities with the past – is the turn toward anti-Muslim politics. In the aftermath of mass-casualty terrorist attacks by Islamist militants in the United States on 11 September 2001, Madrid on 11 March 2004, and London on 7 July 2005, the emergence of an illiberal anti-Muslim politics has offered a crucial hook for a new generation of radical right politicians – one also palpable in some sections the mainstream media and wider public. In 2005, Nick Griffin, the current chairman of the British National Party (BNP), urged party activists to turn away from an unhelpful anti-...
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Politics / United States / Europe / Focus Article / Middle East / Americas / Africa / Asia / OceaniaFair Observer's five best articles for October. This is the season of festivals. Eid al-Adha was just celebrated, Halloween is today and Deepavali follows soon thereafter. In the northeast of the US where our hyper kinetic Editor-in-Chief is on tour, Hurricane Sandy has departed after devastating the daily lives of many millions. In Munich it is already snowing in October and winter seems to be setting in early in the northern hemisphere this year. Yet, despite all of nature’s power, the most important event on everyone’s mind is the US election. Two candidates, both Harvard graduates, are engaged in a bitter slugfest and the results are too close to call. A large section of...
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By Uli BrücknerA populist message is usually simple, but the explanation for the rise of populism in Europe is not. The European integration project started after WWII as an attempt to overcome nationalism as the source of the militant conflicts that destroyed and divided the continent. Two decades after the fall of the iron curtain, and just a few years after the successful reintegration of central and eastern European countries into the European Union, there have been a wave of nationalist tendencies. These can no longer be seen as isolated phenomena, brought about by specific domestic conditions or as a long-term consequence of the east-west divide. It seems rather to be a European-wide trend,...
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The Europe (to the power of) n project is a transnational collaborative art project founded to explore the possibilities of community in Europe today without transforming “us” into a substantial and exclusive identity. The attempt of offering warm-hearted identification for its members mainly in their cultural programmes, mimicking principles of communities or at least encouraging them, can be seen as an obvious response to the EU´s more pragmatic attitude when it comes to politics and economy. Significantly there is an inherent contradiction within the European Union´s agenda. The strengthening of common values, shared identification and even emotional relatedness...
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The political elites in Greece keep warning us of the danger of “populism”. But what we should bear in mind is that contrary to “populism”, neo-Nazism and right-wing extremist violence pose a real threat to democracy here and now. Over the last couple of years, Greece has been at the center of European and world attention. Analysts and politicians in Europe, the US and elsewhere seem to perceive the Greek “debt crisis” as a potential threat to the global economy that could “infect” other countries or even trigger a domino effect with unpredictable social and political consequences. Up to this point, the extreme austerity measures that the...
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On October 10, 2012, a Moscow appeal court upheld the two-year jail sentence for two members of the punk band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyoshina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, while a third member, Ekaterina Samutsevich, received a suspended sentence following a change of defense lawyer. “The devil has laughed at all of us.” “The dark forces are uniting against us.” This is the rhetoric Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, uses when speaking of Pussy Riot and their punk-prayer staged in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in February this year. Church activists have been harassing supporters of the band. One incident particularly stands out: when...
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by Kevin Kwok and Anna Pivorvarchuk. As social mobility increases, nationalism and right-wing extremist groups worldwide are gaining popular support. Background Populism is defined as a political doctrine that represents the interests of ordinary people, especially in a struggle against a privileged elite. It is a potent political catalyst harnessed by leaders to increase their circles of influence by channeling the broad support of a society’s population, often by blurring people’s perceptions of their own interests with the interests of the nation-state they identify with. This fusion of populism and nationalism is behind the creation of many contemporary far right...
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360° Analysis / Football / Israel / Palestine / Politics / Soccer / Europe / Arts & Culture / Middle EastHamas’ call to boycott the Barcelona soccer match, offers Palestinians an opportunity to vote with their feet against continued feuding Palestinian groups that have proven unable to further national aspirations or improve economic conditions. When Spanish giants Real Madrid and FC Barcelona clashed this weekend, two matches separated by thousands of kilometers were played; one on and one off the pitch. The Spanish clash ended in a draw in Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium; a rare show of public defiance to Gaza’s Hamas rulers ended with a victory for what amounted to Palestinians rejecting the Islamists’ call for a boycott of the popular Catalan champion. The Spanish...