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This is a video about people talking about the German accent. I think accent and the way we speak is also part of the German identity.

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Essay "End of Trump Era - End of Trumpism?"

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Essay "End of Trump Era - End of Trumpism?"

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Amanda Gorman - “The Hill We Climb” & Activism Through Poetry | The Daily Social Distancing Show

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The Scots Makar Jackie Kay has opened up on her experiences of racism, including being bullied at primary school and targeted by "fascists" at university, for a new TV documentary.

Kay, 59, who was born Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and Scottish mother before she was adopted and brought up in Glasgow, reveals how she is still "deeply hurt" at being questioned about where she comes from.

She tells the programme, which will be broadcast on the BBC Scotland channel on Sunday, that she said she did not feel a proper sense of "belonging" to Scotland until she was appointed the country's national poet, to succeed Liz Lochhead, five years ago.

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Kay is the presenter of the hour-long documentary, Beyond Burns, which explores the impact and legacy of Scottish poets, past and present. Kay discuss her experiences of racism with another mixed-race Scottish writer, Hannah Lavery.

Kay tells Lavery: "As a young girl growing up in Bishopbriggs in Glasgow I felt quite isolated and writing was my companion. I was a victim of a lot of racism.

"A boy was expelled from my primary school for making up sweets made of mud, shoving them into my mouth and saying: 'That's what you should eat because you're from mud hut. That was my earliest experience of repeated racism and that was at the age of seven.

"When I went to Stirling University there were fascists there then. They put up posters with my name on them saying: 'Would you be seen with that Irish Catholic wog called Jackie Kay?' For some reason they thought I was Irish Catholic.

"They put razor blades behind the posters so that anybody who tried to rip them down would also get their hands shredded.

"I remember responding by calling a public meeting. I thought the thing to do when people are trying to attack and silence you is not to be silenced if you can help it."

The two poets discuss how their experiences of racism have inspired their work, including Kay's piece "In My Country" and "Scotland, You're No Mine," by Lavery.

Kay said: "It (In My Country) was inspired by so many people stopping me and asking me where I'm from in my own country. They were so busy seeing my face that they wouldn't hear my accent.

"If you live in a country that you feel you belong to you and that you love and people ask you where you are from all the time it is deeply hurtful.

Lavery tells Kay: "I was very vulnerable when I was writing it (Scotland, You're No Mine) because it felt for a long time, especially growing up, like quite a complicated identity to own. It didn't feel like one that really included me.

"I think the pain of being constantly questioned about your right to belong or right to claim an identity still feels very real and current.

"You being our Makar is a huge thing for women of colour, to see you representing us, representing poetry and words, and the way in which you embrace, and are hugely embraced by, this country."

Kay says: "I've certainly found it's been a long journey - it actually took me until I became the Makar - to feel that I properly belonged to my country."

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Scots Makar Jackie Kay speaks out about her experiences of racism in Scotland

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Kay, 59, who was born Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and Scottish mother before she was adopted and brought up in Glasgow, reveals how she is still "deeply hurt" at being questioned about where she comes from.

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Here's the link to the article I was referring to in my presentation :)

https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/17/piece/583

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Apartheid, from an Afrikaans word meaning "apart-hood," refers to a set of laws enacted in South Africa in 1948 intended to ensure the strict racial segregation of South African society and the dominance of the Afrikaans-speaking white minority. In practice, apartheid was enforced in the form of "petty apartheid," which required racial segregation of public facilities and social gatherings, and " grand apartheid," requiring racial segregation in government, housing, and employment.

While some official and traditional segregationist policies and practices had existed in South Africa since the start of the twentieth century, it was the election of the white-ruled Nationalist Party in 1948 that allowed the legal enforcement of pure racism in the form of apartheid.

The first apartheid laws were the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, followed by the Immorality Act of 1950, which worked together to prohibit most South Africans from marrying or having sexual relationships with persons of a different race.

The first grand apartheid law, the Population Registration Act of 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups: "Black", "white", "Colored", and "Indian." Every citizen over age 18 was required to carry an identity card showing their racial group. If a person's exact race was unclear, it was assigned by a government board. In many cases, members of the same family were assigned different races when their exact race was unclear.

This racial classification process may best illustrate the bizarre nature of the apartheid regime. For example, in the "comb test," if a comb became stuck while being pulled through a person's hair, they were automatically classified as a Black African and subject to apartheid's social and political restrictions

Apartheid was then further implemented through the Group Areas Act of 1950, which required people to live in specifically-assigned geographic areas according to their race. Under the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951, the government was empowered to demolish Black "shanty" towns and to force white employers to pay for houses needed for their Black workers to live in areas reserved for whites.

To help enforce apartheid's segregation of the races and prevent Blacks from encroaching on white areas, the government strengthened existing "pass" laws, which required nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas.To further enforce the physical separation of the races, the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, reestablished tribal organizations for Black Africans, and the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 African "homelands," called Bantustans. The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970 made every Black South African, irrespective of their actual residence, a citizen of one of the Bantustans, which were organized on the basis of ethnic and linguistic groupings. As citizens of the Bantustans, Blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship and thereby barred from South African political activity. The South African government manipulated the politics of the Bantustans so that compliant chiefs controlled the administrations of most of those territories.

Under the 1953 Bantu Education Act, separate educational standards were established for nonwhites. The law established state-run schools, which Black children were required to attend. Students were trained for manual labor and menial jobs that the South African government deemed suitable for people of their race. Established universities were largely prohibited from accepting nonwhite students.

Between 1960 and 1983, over 3.5 million nonwhite South Africans removed from their homes and forcibly relocated into racially segregated neighborhoods. Especially among the "Colored" and "Indian" mixed-race groups many family members were forced to live in widely separated neighborhoods.

The Beginnings of Resistance to Apartheid

Early resistance to the apartheid laws resulted in the enactment of further restrictions, including the banning of the influential African National Congress (the ANC), a political party known for spearheading the anti-apartheid movement.

After years of often violent protest, the end of apartheid began in the early 1990s, culminating with the formation of a democratic South African government in 1994.

The end of apartheid can be credited to the combined efforts of the South African people and governments of the world community, including the United States.

Inside South Africa

From the inception of the independent white rule in 1910, Black South Africans protested against racial segregation with boycotts, riots, and other means of organized resistance.

Black African opposition to apartheid intensified after the white minority-ruled Nationalist Party assumed power in 1948 and enacted the apartheid laws. The laws effectively banned all legal and non-violent forms of protest by non-white South Africans.

In 1960, the Nationalist Party outlawed both the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), both of which advocated for a national government controlled by the Black majority. Many leaders of the ANC and PAC were imprisoned, including ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who had become a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement.

With Mandela in prison, other anti-apartheid leaders fled South Africa and mustered followers in neighboring Mozambique and other supportive African countries, including Guinea, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Within South Africa, resistance to apartheid and apartheid laws continued. As a result of a series of massacres and other human rights atrocities, the worldwide fight against apartheid grew increasingly fierce. Especially during the 1980, more and more people around the world spoke out and took action against white minority rule and the racial restrictions that left many non-whites in dire poverty.

The United States and the End of Apartheid

U.S. foreign policy, which had a first helped apartheid flourish, underwent a total transformation and eventually played an important part in its downfall.

With the Cold War just heating up and the American people in the mood for isolationism, President Harry Truman's main foreign policy goal was to limit the expansion of Soviet Union's influence. While Truman's domestic policy supported the advancement of the civil rights of Black people in the United States, his administration chose not to protest the anti-communist South African white-ruled government's system of apartheid. Truman's efforts to maintain an ally against the Soviet Union in southern Africa set the stage for future presidents to lend subtle support to the apartheid regime, rather than risk the spread of communism.

Influenced to an extent by the growing U.S. civil rights movement and the social equality laws enacted as part of President Lyndon Johnson's " Great Society " platform, U.S. government leaders began to warm up to and ultimately support the anti-apartheid cause.

Finally, in 1986, the U.S. Congress, overriding President Ronald Reagan's veto, enacted the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act imposing the first substantial economic sanctions to be levied against South Africa for its practice of racial apartheid.

Among other provisions, the Anti-Apartheid Act:

Outlawed the importation of many South African products such as steel, iron, uranium, coal, textiles, and agricultural commodities into the United States;

prohibited the South African government from holding U.S. bank accounts;

banned South African Airways from landing at U.S. airports;

blocked any form of U.S. foreign aid or assistance to the then pro-apartheid South African government; and

banned all new U.S. investments and loans in South Africa.

The act also established conditions of cooperation under which the sanctions would be lifted.

President Reagan vetoed the bill, calling it "economic warfare" and arguing that the sanctions would only lead to more civil strife in South Africa and mainly hurt the already impoverished Black majority. Reagan offered to impose similar sanctions through more flexible executive orders. Feeling Reagan's proposed sanctions were too weak, the House of Representatives, including 81 Republicans, voted to override the veto. Several days later, on October 2, 1986, the Senate joined the House in overriding the veto and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was enacted into law.

In 1988, the General Accounting Office - now the Government Accountability Office - reported that the Reagan administration had failed to fully enforce the sanctions against South Africa. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush declared his full commitment to "full enforcement" of the Anti-Apartheid Act.

The International Community and the End of Apartheid

The rest of the world began to object to the brutality of the South African apartheid regime in 1960 after white South African police opened fire on unarmed Black protesters in the town of Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding 186 others.

The United Nations proposed economic sanctions against the white-ruled South African government. Not wanting to lose allies in Africa, several powerful members of the U.N. Security Council, including Great Britain, France, and the United States, succeeded in watering down the sanctions. However, during the 1970s, anti-apartheid and civil rights movements in Europe and the United States several governments to impose their own sanctions on the de Klerk government.

The sanctions imposed by the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1986, drove many large multinational companies - along with their money and jobs - out of South Africa. As a result, holding on to apartheid brought the white-controlled South African state significant losses in revenue, security, and international reputation.

Supporters of apartheid, both inside South Africa and in many Western countries had touted it as a defense against communism. That defense lost steam when the Cold War ended in 1991.

At the end of World War II, South Africa illegally occupied neighboring Namibia and continued to use the country as a base to fight communist party rule in nearby Angola. In 1974-1975, the United States supported South the African Defense Force's efforts in Angola with aid and military training. President Gerald Ford asked Congress for funds to expand U.S. operations in Angola. But Congress, fearing another Vietnam-like situation, refused.

As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s, and South Africa withdrew from Namibia, anti-communists in the United States lost their justification for continued support of the Apartheid regime.

The Last Days of Apartheid

Facing a rising tide of protest within his own country and international condemnation of apartheid, South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha lost the support of the ruling National Party and resigned in 1989. Botha's successor F. W. de Klerk, amazed observers by lifting the ban on the African National Congress and other Black liberation parties, restoring freedom of the press, and releasing political prisoners. On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked free after 27 years in prison.

With growing worldwide support, Mandela continued the struggle to end apartheid but urged peaceful change. When popular activist Martin Thembisile (Chris) Hani was assassinated in 1993, anti-apartheid sentiment grew stronger than ever.

On July 2, 1993, Prime Minister de Klerk agreed to hold South Africa's first all-race, democratic election. After de Klerk's announcement, the United States lifted all sanctions of the Anti-Apartheid Act and increased foreign aid to South Africa.

On May 9, 1994, the newly elected, and now racially mixed, South African parliament elected Nelson Mandela as the first president of the nation's post-apartheid era.

A new South African Government of National Unity was formed, with Mandela as president and F. W. de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki as deputy presidents.

The Death Toll of Apartheid

Verifiable statistics on the human cost of apartheid are scarce and estimates vary. However, in his often-cited book A Crime Against Humanity, Max Coleman of the Human Rights Committee places the number of deaths due to political violence during the apartheid era as high as 21,000. Almost exclusively Black deaths, most occurred during especially notorious bloodbaths, such as the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the Soweto Student Uprising of 1976-1977.

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Major Events Leading to the End of South African Racial Apartheid

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Led by an imprisoned Nelson Mandela, the struggle to end racial apartheid in South Africa took over a decade. When and how did apartheid end?

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Comedian Trevor Noah On being mixed race in South Africa

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I thought this might be interesting and can be looked at from different angles

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How Climate Change Unfairly Burdens Poorer Countries

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Wealthy countries that have contributed the most to causing climate change tend to be most immune to its effects

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As the UK sets out alone, we look back at some highs and lows of its relationship with Europe

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David Goodhart: Are you an 'Anywhere' or a 'Somewhere'? - Viewsnight

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Some questions for the discussion in small groups

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Some questions for the discussion in small groups

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Brexit: Facts vs Fear, Boris vs Truth, with Stephen Fry.

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You might be familiar with gaslighting in the context of relationships, but this manipulative tactic also works en masse. This is what some experts call "structural gaslighting".

Has someone ever told you something that made you doubt your own memory? And have you been convinced after the fact that they were doing so to manipulate you?

Over the past few years, the use of the term "gaslighting" to refer to this phenomenon has shot through the roof. While the word has been in our dictionaries for over half a century, its precipitous increase in usage began around 2013 and hasn't slowed since.

Gaslighting is defined as manipulating someone into thinking they're wrong even when they're right. A form of emotional abuse, it can be used to make the victim question their own mental wellbeing. It was used by the medical profession for decades before being named the buzzword of 2018. The word itself comes from the name of a 1944 movie in which the male protagonist convinces his wife she is losing her mind. While you may have heard about gaslighting in this context of relationships, it's actually present in many other aspects of day-to-day life.

While the origin of the term gives the impression it's a tactic of the master manipulator, some of us might gaslight without ever realising. "Gaslighting can happen in work, family or platonic relationships as well as romantic ones," says Cheryl Muir, a relationship coach based in the UK. "Sometimes, people who gaslight you in life aren't doing it out of malice or to deliberately harm you but rather due to a lack of self-awareness," or perhaps even to protect you.
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Muir noticed that children who witnessed alcoholism, domestic abuse or substance abuse in the home were often told it didn't happen when they confronted their parents about it. Those parents might have the best intentions - to protect their child - but it actually come across as unreliable, she says. "That is a form of gaslighting, so from a young age if you're not able to trust what your parents are saying, you go on to not be able to trust anyone else." It has also been shown that denial is a common tactic of child abusers.

Paige Sweet, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, studies domestic abuse and believes gaslighting is deeply rooted in societal structure and social inequalities. Women are more likely to experience gaslighting both in professional environments and in their personal lives due to these inequalities, she says. "The assumption and stereotype that women are overly emotional, sensitive, irrational or fly off the handle easily is used to excuse the dismissal of their feelings and experiences," says Sweet. She uses the example of women being treated for 'hysteria' in the 19th Century, adding that women's emotions are still used as evidence for them being unwell in the stereotypes put on them today.

Black women also experience a stereotype where they are expected to be strong and unbreakable, and end up feeling like they can't reach out for help because of it, says author and activist Sophie Williams in her upcoming book Millennial Black. "Mental health is not something that is spoken about openly and honestly in the black community, which is changing, but there is this image of the strong black woman who can't be broken and doesn't need help."

In 2020, politics and racial gaslighting have often overlapped (Credit: Getty Images)

Researchers use the term "racial gaslighting" to describe a way of maintaining a pro-white/ anti-black balance in society by labelling those that challenge acts of racism as psychologically abnormal. Williams says the stereotype that black women cannot ask for help makes it even more difficult to challenge this kind of racism. Where the appearance of mental strength would have been useful in combatting other forms of racism previously, with racial gaslighting it "is not serving us the same way it would have in the past," she says, adding that while "outcomes for women are improving, black women's mental health is becoming worse and worse - just not in a visible way."

Racial gaslighting is something that Williams experienced growing up, although she didn't know the definition of it until this year. "It makes us seem like unreliable narrators of our own lives. Imagine the toll it takes on you, to go through something and then be told it's not true and having it dismissed. It's deeply unfair and unacceptable."

The Black Lives Matter protests that came after the death of George Floyd in the United States show how racial and political gaslighting often go hand-in-hand, explains Williams. After people watched the video of Floyd dying while a white police officer knelt on his neck, they were told one thing by officials (that his death was an accident) that contradicted their own interpretation of what they had seen, she says. The police officer in question has since been charged with murder.

The protests that followed were then used as a political tool to make those appealing for justice look criminal for their actions, she continues. "It's damaging when gaslighting comes from people who have a responsibility or are in a position of power," Williams says, "because we're then disenfranchised from being able to exercise our rights in the way we should be."

Angelique M Davis and Rose Ernst, professors of political science at Seattle University, have been researching how racial gaslighting maintains a pro-white/ anti-black balance in society. The two worked together to unpick how these ideologies were ingrained in the culture of the United States. "So many of the examples of racial gaslighting we've experienced and looked at are embedded in the structure, history and culture of the United States," says Ernst. "It's incredibly difficult to tackle this on an individual and group level, let alone societal."

Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to view recent protests as an opportunity to learn (Credit: Getty Images)

But does the data support Davis, Ernst and Williams's points that issues of race equality are not treated equally by white and black citizens?

In September 2020, over 10,000 US adults were polled on whether they thought race equality had progressed enough in their country by Pew Research Center. For black Americans, 86% said not enough progress had been made (up from 78% the previous year), compared to 39% of white people (up from 37% in 2019) who agreed with them.

From the same survey, almost four-fifths of black Americans (compared to two-fifths of white Americans) said that it was important to educate themselves about the history of racial inequality in the US. Americans' actions also seem to back this up as 64% of black Americans said they paid a lot of attention to issues of racial equality compared to 40% of white people and black Americans were also 18% more likely than white Americans to have recently taken action to educate themselves on issues of inequality.

There is, based on this sample, a difference in the attitudes of white and black Americans towards race equality, which is the "ingrained culture" the researchers say causes racial gaslighting.

But Davis was shocked at how many black Americans didn't have the means to describe what was happening to them. "The Black Lives Matter protests, for example, represent how racial gaslighting is used to set people up to appear a certain way to the public. It's political theatre, it's calculated and deliberate."

Davis and Ernst use their expertise to equip employees of multi-national companies with the skills to spot and respond to racial gaslighting. In the US, this type of work has recently been banned in an executive order.

Davis and Ernst's training methods have been banned in the name of combatting 'anti-American' race and sex stereotyping. Davis claims that the language used in the order is an example of just how subtle these controlling tactics are. "[The order] specifically talks about race theory, gender discrimination and racism only being perpetuated by white people or white men, saying [this focus on white people's racist actions] encourages a 'false belief' that America is a racist and sexist country."

The term "gaslighting" derives from the 1944 film Gaslight (Credit: Getty Images)

In a similar survey of US adults by Pew from 2019, 73% of black Americans (compared to 49% of white Americans) said that Donald Trump had made race relations for all ethnicities worse in their country, over 18 months before he signed the executive order. For Hispanic and Asian adults the figures were 57% and 56% respectively. (We contacted The White House for comment and have yet to receive a reply.)

Now the US will have a new administration, Davis and Ernst are hopeful that times are changing and their work will become more valuable than ever. "I'm relieved that my area of expertise will not be under attack by the incoming presidential administration," says Davis. "The US still has a lot of work to do in this area."

Ernst shared her relief at the US election results, but stressed that there is still much to do. "Racial justice work builds on the collective labour of so many people, past, present, and future. The election does not change the unalterable facts of history that still demand recognition and atonement."

Regardless of which political party is represented in the White House, racism is still very prevalent in the US, according to opinions of both white and black citizens. But where racial gaslighting veers into the political space as well as people's personal lives, it may contribute to outdated ideologies and stereotypes. Davis and Ernst hope, by recognising the signs we can begin to unpick the damage.

--
Domestic abuse: Useful contacts
US: The National Domestic Violence Hotline www.thehotline.org

Spain: National helpline 016; email 016-online@mscbs.es; psychological support service via WhatsApp +34 682 916 136/+34 682 508 507; ask for Mascarilla-19 in a pharmacy

UK: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247

Italy: Government helpline 1522

Belgium: Access support via 0800 30 030 in French or in Dutch on 1712

France: the national helpline is 3919, and in an emergency send an SMS to 114 or call 17.

Russia: Anna Centre helpline - 8 800 700 06 00

Across Europe support services via Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE) Network.
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You might be familiar with gaslighting in the context of relationships, but this manipulative tactic also works en masse. This is what some experts call "structural gaslighting". Has someone ever told you something that made you doubt your own memory? And have you been convinced after the fact that they were doing so to manipulate you?

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Please watch this video and the TEDxTalk on slum tourism in preparation for the presentation on Monday.

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PowerPoint from Group 1 (12-14) Thank you Miriam and Jakob for your thought-provoking presentation.

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PowerPoint from Group 1 (12-14) Thank you Miriam and Jakob for your thought-provoking presentation.

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Still Becoming: At Home in Lagos with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

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Still Becoming: At Home in Lagos with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

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https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a27283913/still-becoming-at-home-in-lagos-with-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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s the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump's ideological kindred spirits - rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere - are instead taking a sharp breath.

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about "populist wave" of recent years may be subsiding.

For Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has yet to recognise Joe Biden's victory, Trump's dismissal struck close to home. "He was really banking on a Trump victory ... Bolsonaro knows that part of his project depends on Trump," said Guilherme Casarões, a political scientist from Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil.

As the reality of a Trump-free future sunk in last Thursday, Bolsonaro reportedly sought to lighten the mood in the presidential palace, telling ministers he now had little choice but to hurl his pro-Trump foreign policy guru, Filipe Martins, from the building's third-floor window.

The election result represented a blow to Bolsonarismo, a far-right political project modelled closely on Trumpism that may now lose some of its shine. And on the world stage the result means Brazil has lost a key ally, even if critics say the relationship brought few tangible benefits. It brings an end to what Eliane Cantanhêde, a prominent political commentator, called Bolsonaro's " megalomaniacal pipedream" of spearheading an international rightwing crusade.

"Without Trump, who's going to lead this? Brazil, Poland and Hungary?" Cantanhêde said. "The party's over ... No one was taking this seriously anyway - but now without Trump, they'll just laugh."

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whom Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon once called "Trump before Trump", had also set out his stall firmly behind the incumbent before the vote, saying he had no plan B in the event of a Trump loss.

"I am convinced that President Trump has saved conservative America and become one of the greatest American presidents. We wish him, and ourselves, total success in his election," Orbán said shortly before the vote.

Trump's White House has given tacit backing and sometimes open support to far-right movements and leaders. Trump sent an old friend, the jewellery magnate David Cornstein, to be ambassador in Budapest and flatter Orbán, while his ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said he planned to "empower" rightwing forces across Europe, infuriating his German hosts.

Orbán said his support for Trump was partly because Hungary was tired of being lectured by Democratic politicians. "We didn't like it and we don't want a second helping," he said.

Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, said it was the prospect of this kind of criticism under Biden, rather than any concrete political benefits of Trump per se, that was behind European illiberal politicians' embrace of Trump.

"I doubt most far-right leaders will feel their electoral success is going to be impacted by Trump's defeat. Neither will it really change their access to the White House, which was limited under Trump too," he said.

"What they mainly worry about is what Orbán has called 'liberal imperialism' - having the US criticise democratic erosion and the abuse of human rights around the world again."

Most populist leaders waited as long as possible for the results before grudgingly congratulating Biden, or simply remaining quiet. Orbán sent belated congratulations on Sunday, but Hungarian and Polish state television played up Trump's claims of fraud and suggested the result was still in the balance.

Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called AMLO, declined to congratulate Biden immediately, saying he would wait until all legal challenges had been settled. "We want to be prudent," López Obrador said on Saturday.

Observers see stylistic similarities between the two leaders, despite the fact AMLO was elected on a leftwing populist platform. He questioned the US media on Monday for "censoring" Trump's recent press conference by cutting coverage over false claims being made.

Slovenia's prime minister, Janez Janša, went further, calling the election for Trump on Wednesday morning. Janša, who has a Trumpian relationship with his Twitter feed, wrote that it was "pretty clear" Trump had won four more years in office. "More delays and facts denying from #MSM, bigger the final triumph for #POTUS," he wrote.

Since then, he has said Slovenia will continue to be partners with the US, though he also tweeted a number of times that the timing of Monday's announcement on a potential coronavirus vaccine breakthrough was suspicious and perhaps had been deliberately withheld until after the election.

In Estonia, where the far-right EKRE party was brought into a coalition government last year, remarks on Trump by the party leader and interior minister, Mart Helme, led to a full-blown political crisis. Helme, who described Biden and his son Hunter as "corrupt characters", said he believed Trump would be declared the winner in the end. "It will happen as a result of an immense struggle, maybe even bloodshed but justice will win in the end," he said.

President Kersti Kaljulaid said over the weekend that she was "sad and embarrassed" by the remarks and suggested the attack on Estonia's main ally was a national security threat. On Monday, Helme resigned.

Not everyone in the European far right is eager to die on the hill of Trump's evidence-free claims of electoral fraud, however, particularly in those countries where most voters tend to be sceptical of the brash US president.

In France, where according to one pre-election poll only 14% of voters wanted Trump to win, the far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen seemed keen not to rock any boats before next year's presidential elections.

Although she hailed Trump's victory in 2016, and suggested after last week's vote that he was "on the side of history", she has conspicuously declined to follow several of her party officials in relaying false claims from the Trump campaign of mass electoral fraud, prompting speculation that she fears risking her domestic credibility by associating herself too strongly with the Trump cause.

In the Netherlands, Thierry Baudet, leader of the far-right Forum for Democracy, and his rival, Geert Wilders of the anti-Islam Party for Freedom, both of whom backed Trump in the election, have made little noise in the aftermath.

In Italy, the League leader, Matteo Salvini, who wore a "Trump 2020" face mask before the elections, has been silent since the Biden win, though he did restate the claims of voter fraud late last week. Giorgia Meloni, his coalition partner and Brothers of Italy leader, said Biden had "Covid to thank" for his victory.

Mudde said Trump, with his "America First" rhetoric, was always a tricky figure for large parts of the European far right, especially in countries that have strong anti-American sentiment.

"Bolsonaro is much more like Trump than Le Pen or Salvini. The latter are ideological far-right politicians, steeped in a far-right subculture; Bolsonaro is a conservative-turned-far-right, unconnected to party or subculture, and therefore ideologically thin and flexible," he said.

Some observers believe Bolsonaro will be forced to moderate his politics by Trump's loss. Many expect him to retire his Trump-admiring foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, who has hailed the US president as the "saviour" of the west.

"The foreign minister is of no use in a post-Trumpian world," said Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations specialist. "He was a one-issue foreign minister: to admire and adulate Donald Trump and propagate Trumpist ideas."

In Europe, opponents of populism hope the change in the White House will have a similar knock-on effect. "President Trump was good for the Orbán government, President Biden will be good for Hungary," Gergely Karácsony, the opposition mayor of Budapest, wrote on Facebook.
Additional reporting by Angela Giuffrida in Rome and David Agren in Mexico City

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump's ideological kindred spirits - rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere - are instead taking a sharp breath.

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John Major was PM 1990-1997 and leader of a conservative govt. Here he gives a pretty damning speech on what will happen next ...

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John Major was PM 1990-1997 and leader of a conservative govt. Here he gives a pretty damning speech on what will happen next ...

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THE STATE WE'RE IN
It is a privilege to be invited to deliver this lecture and my only regret is that it is remote - with no live audience ..... nor the delights of a Middle Temple dinner.

Given the date, my subject is appropriate. On this day in 1923, Hitler failed to seize power in Germany; in 1938, it marked Kristallnacht and the Nazi assault on Jews; and, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

Each of these events impacted on the wider world - and that wider world will now impact on "The State We're In".

The future of that State requires plain speaking if we are to be honest with our nation.

And, of course, with ourselves. The great powers of our age are the United States, China, and the European Union.

The world they straddle is fractious. The values of liberal society are stalled, if not in retreat. America and China are in a Trade War and an embryonic Cold War. Europe and America are far apart on many issues, but both deplore China's authoritarian direction under President Xi.

Lesser powers like Russia - the Great Disrupter - and Turkey continue to subvert and to meddle.

Free trade and globalisation are now widely questioned.

Migration and radical Islam are an ever present problem.

Populism continues to promote prejudice and racial intolerance.

And, in many nation states, autocracy has grown - and democracy has fallen back.

Our world seems ill at ease, at a moment when harmony and collective decision making seem more and more essential for our security and well-being.

The post-War settlement is out of date.

The United Nations is hamstrung by the rules of its own Security Council.

The World Trade Organisation is paralysed, with no functioning resolution dispute procedure.

The World Health Organisation is under-funded, under-powered and under attack.

Despite all this, no nation seems prepared to lead the case for reform.

The financial crash of 2007 weakened many countries and the lives of billions of people; and, in the year of Covid, trillions of dollars have been diverted from growth as the virus has increased hardship on every Continent.

This is the wider context in which the United Kingdom must prepare for our future, whilst facing the added challenges of Covid-19 - and Brexit.

Our country has many virtues but, if we are to be successful in this challenging environment, we need to be cruelly honest with ourselves about what needs to be done to ensure our political and economic wellbeing.

If we're complacent, we betray our own interests. If we see ourselves through rose-tinted spectacles, then we will deceive ourselves.

Complacency and nostalgia are the route to national decline. So I favour reality and optimism - but with the warning that false optimism is deceit by another name.

We are no longer a great power. We will never be so again. In a world of nearly 8 billion people, well under 1% are British.

We are a top second-rank power but, over the next half century - however well we perform - our small size and population makes it likely we will be passed by the growth of other, far larger, countries.

In recent decades, we have consoled ourselves that we "punch above our weight" in international affairs. I think that was true: but that was then, and this is now.

Our hefty international influence rested on our history and reputation, buttressed by our membership of the European Union and our close alliance with the United States.

Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to them both.
COVID
At home, we must face Covid.

Covid has already left many families bereaved and bereft. It has changed lives and work patterns, cost billions, increased national debt and annual deficits.

It has destroyed public tolerance of austerity, and made tax rises inevitable - although not, if we are sensible, until the economy is more healthy.

The virus also presents a formidable obstacle to one of the Government's better instincts. Their intention is to level up the regions and help individuals "left behind". The pernicious effect of Covid will be to level down.

The problem is not so much the gap between rich and poor, but that the poor may become so indebted and destitute they are unable to maintain themselves - or their families.

The classic response to tide people over - until the private sector returns to full capacity - is for social subsidy out of taxation.

But billions upon billions have already been spent, and friction between the extent of need and the capacity to help is inevitable.

And there are many in need of help - businesses forced to shut down, the unemployed, the self-employed, the care sector, health, the arts, sport: the demands on the Exchequer are beyond anything we have known in peacetime.

The Government deserves credit for what has been spent so far, to set against criticism for unmet needs.

But I do find it surprising that - in the midst of the Covid crisis - the Government appears to be fostering disputes with the Judiciary, where all Governments should tread carefully; the Civil Service, upon whose help the Government depends; and the BBC, still the most respected broadcaster on the planet.

These are unmerited distractions from the issues the country needs them to focus on.
BREXIT
The core change in the New Britain being forged is - Brexit. It has been hidden behind Covid for a few months. It has not gone away. You have to be wilfully in denial not to see the damage already done, and not to be concerned at what it might mean.

Brexit divided England and Wales from Scotland and Northern Ireland. It divided political parties and families; the young and their elders; business and trade unions; and friend from friend. As its full impact becomes apparent in the New Year, old wounds may re-open.

There is no consensus on Brexit, and never has been. It was a bitterly divisive policy, and uncorked a populism that may be difficult to quell.

The Referendum debate was unlike any I have known before. Emotion overcame reality. And, in the search for hearts and minds and votes, fiction defeated fact and fostered a belief in a past that never was - whilst boosting enthusiasm for a future that may never be.

If that mode of politics takes root, it will kill all respect in our system of government.

In the Referendum, Britons voted to leave the European Union. I have never hidden my view, nor have I changed it. To my mind - and I am no starry-eyed European - Brexit is the worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime.

I have seen the EU from the inside and know its frustrations. But have no doubt we were better off in than we will be out.

The decision to leave will damage our future in many ways, and the reassurances we are given are unconvincing.

Brexit was sold to our electors on false premises.

Promises made will not - indeed, cannot - be kept. To leave the EU - to separate ourselves from our neighbours - was sold as "regaining sovereignty", but it is, and will prove to be, a long and painful ball and chain on our national wellbeing.

After the Referendum, Brexiteers did not even bother to argue the merits of their case - why should they? - it was "the will of the people".

And once "the will of the people" was asserted as a repeated mantra - and the Brexit leaders claimed to speak for all "the people" - any opposition to Brexit became illegitimate, and any contrary view was howled down.

Free speech for those who supported remaining in the EU came at a price. They were pilloried as "Remoaners": sticking to long-held principles and policies, and warning of clear dangers ahead was depicted as "sour grapes by sore losers".

Even Judges were denounced as "Enemies of the People" for ruling on a Point of Law. Opponents of Brexit were cowed, and free speech was curtailed. It was shameful. No democracy should find itself in such a position.

Overseas, the outcome of the Referendum delighted our enemies and dismayed our friends. As our nation voted against its history and its self-interest, a bemused world looked on, wondering why we had chosen to become poorer and less influential.

Brexit was sold to the nation as a win-win situation. It is not. We were promised we would stay in the Single Market. We have not. We were told trade with the EU would be frictionless. It will not be.

We were promised we would save billions in payments to the European Union: a bus was driven around the country telling us so. Not so: Brexit is costing billions - not saving them.

We were told that our "liberated country" could cut back on bureaucracy and regulations. We now know they will increase - and dramatically.

We were promised we would strike lucrative trade deals with America, India, China and others in quick time. Japan apart - we have not.

More recently - and for the first time in our long history - Ministers have proposed legislation giving them powers to break the law. This is a slippery slope down which no democratic Government should ever travel.

And, it was claimed, Brexit wouldn't increase support for Scottish independence or a united Ireland. It has.

It defies logic that intelligent men and women making such extravagant promises did not know they were undeliverable - and yet they continued to make them.

It was politics. It was campaigning. It was for a cause.

It was also unforgiveable.

If that is how we are going to conduct our public affairs, then not only will our politics truly fall into a bad place, but our word as a nation will no longer be trusted.
POST-BREXIT TRADE
Trade has always been the life-blood of our prosperity.

We were promised a comprehensive trade deal with the EU. We were told this would be "the easiest deal in history" because "we hold all the cards". Apparently not.

As the politics changed, the promises were ditched.

We can now look forward to a flimsy, barebones deal - or no deal at all. This is a wretched betrayal of what our electors were led to believe.

It now seems that on 1 January next year, Brexit may be even more brutal than anyone expected.

Brexit is no friend of free trade with Europe. It may set up new tariff barriers. And it certainly will:

set up non-tariff barriers;

damage supply chains;

add to regulations;

demand new customs and security declarations;

require Rules of Origin to prove where spare parts came from; - require tens of thousands of customs agents to process new bureaucracy; - create huge stockpiling dilemmas; and

require new massive storehouses to hold supplies.

These costs and complexities are the certain legacy of Brexit. This is as a result of our negotiating failure - and it is a failure.

Because of our bombast, our blustering, our threats and our inflexibility - our trade will be less profitable, our Treasury poorer, our jobs fewer, and our future less prosperous.

This is not hindsight wisdom: this outcome was not only foreseeable, it was foreseen. Unfortunately, in a brilliant mis-direction, all warnings were scorned as "Project Fear" and ignored. And, to add tragedy to farce, it was the people who were misled who will now lose out.

The Government has not been frank about our negotiations with Europe.

They say we are merely asking for a Canada deal, but that's not so. We are asking for a deal without tariffs or quotas and for more on haulage, on energy, on aviation - and we are a bigger trading rival than Canada and nearer to the EU.

The Canada comparison is - to put it kindly - disingenuous. And to refer to an Australian deal is absurd.

There is no Australia deal. It is a fantasy: a euphemism for no deal at all - and the Government should say so.

Its reputation will suffer if it is not honest with the British people about this.

It is time to stop putting Ministers on the media who speak to a pre-prepared script and parrot misleading or pointless slogans.

There are hopes of trade deals with America, China and India. They would be welcome but, once again, the promises are overdone.

One day, I am sure, we will get the much-heralded trade deal with America, originally promised for last Spring, then Summer - now, who knows?

When it does come, it will benefit America far more than us. It may be symbolically important, but it won't be an economic game-changer.

The promised trade deal with China is highly unlikely in any near timescale. Our ice-cold diplomatic relations with Russia rule out a trade deal with her, too.

And, if we wish to have a trade deal with India, the Government must realise that we cannot seek it on a Monday, and restrict immigration from India on Tuesday - it is a poor optic and a worse negotiating strategy.

The macro arguments against Brexit: the economic and social damage, our weaker position in the world, and the loss of trade advantages, may seem remote. They won't prove to be.
WIDER IMPACT OF BREXIT
And lesser issues will impact directly:

the loss of freedom of movement in Europe;

higher food prices;

more expensive holidays;

the withdrawal of EU driving licences;

the cost of health insurance without the free cover of the European Health Card;

the loss of the Pet Passport Scheme and the expensive - and time consuming - effort to get approval for pets to travel;

higher roaming charges for mobile phones;

slower entry and more delays at European airports; and

the loss of the automatic right to work, live or study in the EU.

Small irritations, some may say, but - collectively - a significant loss of freedom that will be an unwelcome surprise to many as Europe itself begins to "take back control".

When the present phase of Brexit is over, it is important we negotiate a more comprehensive relationship with the EU than is likely to emerge from the present negotiations.

We should seek bilateral agreements in areas of trade and policy which have not been agreed in these rushed negotiations.

We should work with the EU to address global problems.

And we should recognise that the nations of the EU are bound with ourselves in ties of common interest, history and future destiny.

To ignore this would be a dereliction of our national interests.
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE
One deeply troubling effect of Brexit is the risk of breaking up the UK by increased support for Scotland to leave the Union, and Northern Ireland to unite with the South.

Neither will do so immediately, but the combination of Brexit - and the unpopularity of our present Westminster Government in Scotland - has increased the likelihood of a breach.

I remain a convinced Unionist. Every part of the UK is richer - and of more weight in the world - if they stay together.

The most likely to leave is Scotland. If she does, it will not only weaken Scotland, but also undermine the rump of the UK.

It will be a step into the unknown for us both.

The problem is politics.

The raison d'être of the SNP is an independent Scotland while - for many Conservatives - Unionism is at the heart of their philosophy. It is a challenge to see whether that chasm can be bridged.

To keep the Union together will require consensus, consideration and consultation. The Government must engage, coax, encourage, and examine every possible route to find an arrangement that will obtain a majority for union.

It will be difficult - and is made even more so by the posturing of English and Scottish nationalists.

In law, the Scots require the approval of the Westminster Government before they can legally hold a new independence referendum.

But refusing one might help the separatist case, by adding to the list of grievances the Scottish National Party exploit with such skill.

The choice for the UK Government is either to agree the referendum can take place - or to refuse to permit it. Both options come with great risk. But the lessons of Brexit may offer a way ahead.

The Westminster Government could agree for an Independence Referendum to take place, on the basis of two referenda. The first to vote upon the principle of negotiations, and the second upon the outcome of them.

The purpose of the second referendum would be that Scottish electors would know what they were voting for, and be able to compare it to what they now have. This did not happen with Brexit: had it done so, there may have been no Brexit.

Many Scottish voices - and especially business - may support the logic of this: it may focus minds away from a short-term reflex opposition to a perceived English Government, and back to the mutual and long-term virtues of the Union.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Brexiteers affected not to notice that Northern Ireland's support for the European Union pulled the Six Counties more into the orbit of the Republic of Ireland.

This was exacerbated when the Prime Minister's renegotiation of Theresa May's Withdrawal Deal left Northern Ireland more integrated with the Republic than the rest of the United Kingdom.

It was sold as a triumph, but it was a surrender.

These developments accompanied a third reality: the Nationalist population in Northern Ireland is growing faster than the Unionists, and is close to a majority.

The conjunction of these events is to increase the future possibility of a border poll - already sought by Sinn Fein - to vote upon a united Ireland.

I doubt that such a poll would be won at present. Not all Nationalists will vote for unity. The Republic would find it hard to absorb the weak economic structure of the North.

The time for a poll is not yet come. But it will. And if - when it does - the Northern Irish vote for unification, then those who ignored the warnings that Brexit posed will have to answer for the dismantling of a further part of the United Kingdom.

And, here in Middle Temple, one issue cannot be ignored. The Rule of Law.

Earlier I referred - in passing - to the provisions in the Internal Markets Bill that empower a Minister to disregard aspects of the Treaty the Prime Minister agreed earlier this year.

This action is unprecedented in all our history - and for good reason. It has damaged our reputation around the world.

Lawyers everywhere are incredulous that the UK - often seen as the very cradle of the Rule of Law - could give themselves the power to break the law.

Moreover, at a moment when we need to maximise our commercial activities, this Bill has had a corrosive impact on the reputation of English and Welsh jurisdiction.

This may have a practical cost.

International dispute resolution can be conducted anywhere overseas and the Bill could erode the present pre-eminent position of the UK and, perhaps, especially London.

Was this considered when the Bill was drafted? Was there consultation with the legal profession? If not, why not? And if there was consultation - why was it ignored?

Similar concerns apply to the clause that seeks to exclude Judicial Review in delegated legislation.

I cannot believe it is compatible with the Rule of Law to protect executive Acts from judicial scrutiny: put simply, Ministers must be subject to legal restraints. They cannot be above the law.

And all individuals must have access to the law. Our delivery of justice must be seen to be fair and impartial - access to the law must not depend upon the size of your bank account.

Magna Carta promised:

"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice".

And yet, an individual - if denied legal aid - may not have the resources to right an injustice. That can deny justice: it cannot be right.

Nor can it be right to denigrate our Judiciary. They are not the "Enemies of the People": they are the guarantors of our liberties under the law.

It is the responsibility of Parliament to uphold these liberties if they are threatened by any source: not to do so would be to curtail an essential freedom.

I have set out some concerns about the present state of our country. But I wouldn't wish to be misunderstood.
SUMMATION
Throughout my life I have travelled widely and - in the last 20 years - almost incessantly.

In all my travels I have found nowhere I would wish to live, other than here in the UK.

That said, I believe we have a duty to make life better for this - and future generations - to whom we will be passing a difficult legacy.

In hard times, there is often an inflection point that changes minds, and compels policy that otherwise could not be easily implemented.

The combination of hazards before us may be such a moment.

To make it so, policy should be set to pave the way to a fairer, better, safer, and - in time - more prosperous future.

We will all have to bear burdens for such aspirations to become a reality, but that is both our privilege and our responsibility.

The very core of well-being is an expanding economy, efficient health provision and quality education.

The Government's "levelling up" strategy is essential. So is - sooner rather than later - a credible system of social care for the elderly.

For future employment, we will have to focus increasingly on vocational education, and give such skills the respect they deserve.

It is essential we remain a United Kingdom - and reinforce the values that have built our reputation. If we cannot again be a great power, we can be a great example.

If we cannot compel, we can influence.

We can build up our soft power to sustain our profile.

We can use our diplomacy to raise issues that need multi-nation action.

We can be "Global Britain" in more ways than trade. But, to be so, we must reject the narrow nationalism that some have imported into our politics.

We must put aside the notion of "British exceptionalism": it is a fantasy baked into the minds of those who do not know how the world has changed.

But - we can be exceptional.

All this - and more - can be achieved.

We like to think of ourselves as the land of hope and glory. "Hope" is essential - most especially during the darkest of times.

But I am ambivalent about the "glory".

I will settle for a land that is united and prosperous; which rises above challenges - as it has done so often in the past; whose word is trusted both near and far; and whose people are seen to be decent, fair and compassionate to all.

In every corner of our United Kingdom that remains the instinctive heartbeat. And it is one which I hope will always prevail.

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Sir John Major's Speech - Middle Temple's Treasurer's Lecture: The State We're In - Sir John Major KG CH

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THE STATE WE'RE IN It is a privilege to be invited to deliver this lecture and my only regret is that it is remote - with no live audience ..... nor the delights of a Middle Temple dinner. Given the date, my subject is appropriate.

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Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

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This week (16th November) we are going to discuss how much social media is a part of our lives. How, as teachers, can we make the most of what is available and control how much our students are affected by online influences.

This topic was suggested  by several students after having watched the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma". If you have access to Netflix, please watch this as preparation. If you do not have access, please find some other source on the topic (in English) so that you can add to the discussion.
Feel free to post anything you find particularly interesting here in this column. Have a fab weekend.

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Social Media and its effects on our lives

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Social Media and its effects on our lives

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This video encourages critical thinking towards charities and development aid.

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Africans Radiator Song To Norway. Support Radi-Aid!

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Intercultural Competence and (Social) Media 

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Intercultural Competence and (Social) Media 

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While the retail sector is still open and church services are still held, museums and other cultural institutions had to close due to the Corona pandemic. It would be interesting to look at the value of arts & culture in a time of crisis: What is art worth to us? And how do different societes deal with this topic?

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T's 2020 summer art issue coincides with a breakdown of the status quo, both in the art world and the real one. Not for nothing, we've titled it "True Believers."

A visitor wearing a face mask looks at the French sculptor Auguste Rodin's iconic sculpture "The Thinker" at the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) museum in Berlin, after the museum reopened its doors in May 2020. Credit... John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

For the last two summers, T has published an online art issue in which we celebrate artistic freedom in the face of overwhelming odds. Traditionally, these odds have revolved around an international supply chain largely fueled by greed: The small but powerful ecosystem that we refer to as "the art world" has always exploited artists to protect its profit margins.

It goes without saying that this year, the stakes are different. This has been a summer of a global pandemic, of rent strikes and protests against state-sanctioned murder and inequality, of autocratic threats of violence from elected officials. All of us have been made to witness and reckon with the failure of our established systems of power.

In the coming months, museums and galleries will try to find ways of safely keeping their doors open to the public, but as this process begins, I can't help but think of the footage of European soccer teams playing in empty arenas to a backing track of audience applause: It looks familiar, but something is off. The old way of life isn't so distant, but it no longer suits our current reality. Up until March, when the pandemic shut down much of the world, I had a certain monthly ritual that I valued a great deal but never thought much about because I took for granted that I would always be able to do it: On some weekday afternoon, when I would look across the street from my desk in the Times building to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and feel particularly hopeless about my ability to finish whatever work I had to finish that day, I'd take an hour or so to walk around the galleries in Chelsea, or hop on the E train to the Museum of Modern Art to see how fast I could get through a show amid the throng of tourists. Doing this would reset my mood like a clock. It was so easy to be reminded how lucky I was to live in a place where great art was constantly available to me, and to have a profession in which my job was mainly to look at it. A lot worse has been lost in the past few months than this ritual, but I wasn't aware how much I missed it until I wrote down its memory. Even having a desk in an office now feels foreign to me.

But as the foundations of our very existence have gone awry, the basic premise of T's art issue still stands. Which is to say: Artists have kept working, even through the days when it feels like the world might end, or days when it feels as if it already has. I can't say this is as much a surprise as it is an affirmation of the notion that art is essential, if you'll allow me the use of a word that has taken on a greater meaning as of late. We've called this issue " True Believers," our initial reasoning being that a number of the pieces we're publishing this week are about artists who have undertaken nearly impossible tasks and persisted, through sheer willpower - from resurrecting the dead (in the case of the French sculptor Marguerite Humeau) to trying to map out nothing less than space and time themselves (in the way of the land artist Charles Ross, who has spent nearly 50 years constructing a naked-eye observatory in the New Mexico desert).

But in retrospect, "True Believers" feels less to me like a theme than a modus operandi: All art is an act of faith - a faith that life itself, with all its tragedies and flaws, can be improved by creating something new and putting it out into the world. I'm not sure we'll ever go back to what life was just a few months ago, but I do have faith that artists will remain a crucial part of whatever new one we come up with.

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T's 2020 summer art issue coincides with a breakdown of the status quo, both in the art world and the real one. Not for nothing, we've titled it "True Believers." For the last two summers, T has published an online art issue in which we celebrate artistic freedom in the face of overwhelming odds.

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If we want to talk about the presidential election, it might also be interesting to look at the views and beliefs of Trump voters and (trying to) understand how Christian conservatism plays a (huge) part in this. The NY Times has published an interesting article on this matter.

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Many reflected on how much they had gained in the last four years under the Trump administration.

President Trump as he attends the Church Service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., in October. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

When President Trump won the White House four years ago in a surprise victory, conservative Christians could not believe their good fortune.

At every turn of his presidency, he gave them everything they wanted: Two hundred federal judges appointed for life. An embassy in Jerusalem. Anti-abortion policies. Two Supreme Court Justices, and then in the final hours, a third. He was their bulwark, their defender, at a time when the country as they knew it, and their place in it, was changing. And he brought their movement to a pinnacle of political maturity.

Now the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. marks a new chapter for conservative Christian power, which reached a peak under Mr. Trump. As Republican evangelicals around the country processed the week's events, they reflected on how much they had gained in the last four years and on their fears over what could happen under a Biden administration. They also wondered when and how they would regain power.

In Sheldon, Iowa, where about eight out of ten voters supported Mr. Trump, Leah Schoonhoven journaled her concerns about a Biden presidency over three single-spaced pages. She worried that the election results were corrupted, and that Mr. Biden would reverse Mr. Trump's priorities, from building the border wall to elevating conservative evangelical ideals on religious freedom.

"He doesn't stand for Christianity at all; maybe he will prove me wrong," she said of Mr. Biden, who is Catholic. "It scares me. He's not going to do everything that Trump did."

"I don't think our world will ever get back, when you have a country that is this divided," she said.

Donna Rigney, a pastor whose church meets in the lodge of an R.V. park in Salt Springs, Fla., had supported the president since 2016, when she received what she saw as a direct message from God supporting his candidacy.

After this election, she sent an email to the people in her prayer circles urging them not to give up. "We have to drag Donald Trump over the finish line with prayers of faith, worship, fasting and staying in the place of loving and forgiving our enemies," she wrote.

But she said Friday that if this did turn out to be the end of the Trump era, she was grateful for what he had done for the country, and comforted that he would suffer fewer attacks. "He will be fine, he has God's hand on him," she said. "He'll be better off not being the president and not being attacked daily. But I really feel this will be terrible for the nation."

Mr. Trump's presidency repeatedly revealed the deep divide between white conservative Christians and other people of faith, or of no faith at all. Mr. Biden's narrow margin of victory in several battleground states revealed that the cultural clash between these groups is far from over. About eight in ten white evangelical voters supported Mr. Trump in the 2020 election, according to AP VoteCast, just as they did in 2016. Mr. Biden's coalition included many Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and religiously unaffiliated Americans.

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President Trump and Judge Amy Coney Barrett at The Whit House after he announced Ms. Barrett as his pick to be the next Supreme Court Associate Justice, in September. Credit... Al Drago for The New York Times

Mr. Trump did win a larger share of support from Latino voters overall, though, compared with four years ago. And for Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a Sacramento pastor who prayed at Mr. Trump's 2017 inauguration, the lesson from the 2020 election was that Latinos had become what he called "the quintessential swing vote."

Mr. Rodriguez saw one legacy of the Trump era redefining American evangelicals' former approach to the question of politicians' character. Their loyalty to Mr. Trump, which had required overlooking language and behavior they found abhorrent, proved that personal character isn't everything to them, given how many tangible goals were achieved.

"The policies are absolutely remarkable," he said.

Voting for a person like Donald Trump would have been unimaginable to evangelicals 40 years ago, when they emerged as a powerful faction behind the victory of Ronald Reagan, said R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Today, "they feel the wind facing them," he said, "with a clear sense that the culture is becoming reordered in a hostile and increasingly secular manner. Evangelicals are voting with the same values, but with a different set of priorities."

Mr. Mohler did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2016. But this year, he spoke publicly about his plans to vote for the president despite his continuing reservations, calling the alternative to a Trump victory "increasingly unthinkable."

Like the president, a number of evangelical leaders refused to accept an outcome in which Mr. Trump had lost. Moments after most major news networks calculated that Mr. Biden had won the race, Franklin Graham, the evangelist, cautioned that the results were not "official."

And Mr. Graham warned that under a Biden administration, Christian businesses would be soon be targeted for things like not selling a cake for a gay wedding, as he said happened during Mr. Obama's presidency.

"America is in such moral decline," he said. "We are becoming a much more violent country. I am afraid for our country."

In Texas, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, reserved billboards across the city to advertise his upcoming sermon on how Christians should respond to a Biden presidency.

"There are going to be millions of Christians who are disappointed in these results," he said.

Senior Pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress addresses attendees before Vice President Mike Pence made comments at First Baptist Church Dallas in June. The pastor reserved billboards across the city to advertise his upcoming sermon on how Christians should respond to a Biden presidency. Credit... Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

"A Joe Biden win cannot erase all the positive accomplishments than can be attributed to President Trump," he said. "I don't think there is any way to calculate all the good things he has accomplished."

Some social conservative political groups were already pivoting to other political fights, such as protecting Republican control of the Senate, which could be decided by two runoff elections in Georgia in January. Continued Republican control of the Senate could buffer their accomplishments under Mr. Trump, and make it harder for Democrats to do things like fund Planned Parenthood or increase the size of the Supreme Court, several organizers said.

"To plan for the Biden administration, we've got to have a backstop; otherwise it is the Armageddon we feared in the beginning," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. "That's why Georgia is so vital. The other side knows that, too."

On Saturday, as the Biden campaign declared victory, the Faith and Freedom Coalition began knocking on doors across the state, and prepared to distribute one million voter guides to 4,000 churches.

Social conservatives also celebrated the election to the House of at least 15 new women who oppose abortion rights, more than doubling their numbers in the previous Congress. About half of the 15 flipped seats that had been in Democratic hands.

And social conservatives had another reason to stay positive: Even though Mr. Trump had lost, they believed that the conservative control of the judiciary that he enabled would have a lasting impact.

"When Amy Coney Barrett writes the majority decision protecting Christian foster care and adoption agencies, I'm going to celebrate," Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, said. "We put some points on the board."

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Christian Conservatives Respond to Trump's Loss and Look Ahead

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Many reflected on how much they had gained in the last four years under the Trump administration. When President Trump won the White House four years ago in a surprise victory, conservative Christians could not believe their good fortune. At every turn of his presidency, he gave them everything they wanted: Two hundred federal judges appointed for life.

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First of all I would like to say that I find all the topics you discussed with the group last semester very interesting.
In addition I think structural racism in Germany would be interesting (maybe in comparison to other countries)

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(How) does language shape our identity? Are we just the sum of our language(s)? And does it imply that culture/identities shape language as well?
One aspect in the video linked below is that some people like to identify themselves through language, for example having an accent that reveals the heritage. That links to the (political) discussion the use of home language as a human right of the immigrant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr68goQ1d0s

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The TED-Talk linked below raises awareness for intersectionality and discrimination due to race, sex , gender etc. It is not the latest talk but however, it is quite impressive and in view of the latest developments more topical than ever. The speaker Crenshaw is an expert in the field of intersectionality as she coined and established the term in 1989 which is widely used nowadays.

A very new campaign by the ADS (Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes) dealing with different kinds of discrimination shows how these issues have become more and more important for state authorities and the "mainstream" society in Germany. Here are some of the short "advert"-clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyoscGZQcM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrCZzblVPWA

I suggest this topic because it provides a lot of facets and hence a broad variety of discussion material regardless of the country (US, UK, Germany etc.)

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The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED

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I would like to suggest that we talk not only about the self-enriching aspects of traveling but perhaps about what might be problematic as well; by that I mean how tourism might reinforce postcolonial relationships. To this end, we could discuss Meghan Muldoon's TEDx Talk on "Postcolonial encounters in slum tourism" in which she - among other things - poses the question: “How can we use something like tourism to begin breaking down some of those colonial barriers that separate and divide us?”.
We could further talk about and reflect upon our own experiences abroad and how we may or may not have (unknowingly) participated in or reproduced such hierarchical systems. (e.g.: How do we feel about taking selfies/photos with natives while traveling?)
If we wanted to dig in a little deeper, we could take a look at Michael Hall & Hazel Tucker's "Tourism and Postcolonialism" (2004). It's available to read online via disco.
On a lighter note, the guardian's article might offer aspects worth discussing too: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/people-beautiful-colonial-tourism-travel

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Postcolonial encounters in slum tourism | Meghan Muldoon | TEDxUW

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Whoever wins this year's election, America remains a country bitterly and evenly divided. It has been more than three decades since the last presidential landslide. Despite polls suggesting that Donald Trump was poised to suffer a sweeping rejection by the voters, there was no repudiation of the president. Rather, just a fraction of the popular vote separates Joe Biden and Mr Trump.

Our view was that Mr Trump deserved to lose and in a big way. His mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, which cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, was cause enough. But there were numerous reasons for Mr Trump's ejection from the White House, given he ran the worst administration in modern US history.

It is small comfort that Americans understood the threat that Mr Trump represented and turned out in record numbers to vote against him. Yet, as this election depressingly revealed, there was an almost equal and opposite reaction from Mr Trump's base. The president's appeal, it seems, has only widened and deepened since he took office. Mr Trump received so many more votes than he did in 2016 that his tally is only surpassed by Mr Biden this year, and Barack Obama in 2008.

Should he depart, and there are few signs he will do so without a fight, Mr Trump's legacy will be the politics of anger and hate. It is a tragedy for America that a poisonous division is becoming the norm rather than the exception. The concern in the US is that cultural divisions have gone past the point of no return. The priority for Americans must be to work out a way to stop the political rift from yawning so wide that the two hostile, sometimes armed, camps are incapable of talking to each other.

The national conversation will not be easy to start, especially given the venomous way in which President Trump conducts politics. If there was any idea that the country could pick up after the election where it left off in 2016, it vanished the moment Mr Trump declared a victory he obviously had not yet won. His claim that his legal team would attempt to block states from counting all the votes that have already been cast, ballots which are widely viewed as certain to skew Democratic, was as outrageous as it was expected.

Republicans have embraced their inner Trump, which is why democracy itself was on the ballot in 2020. Under Republican control, the US Congress, for the first two years of Trump's presidency, did not check Mr Trump's assault on the norms of democratic governance as much as enable it. The Grand Old Party has increasingly turned to policies designed to constrain the majority electorate. Faced with unfavourable demographic change, Republicans have cemented minority rule across American political institutions. The question that Mr Trump now poses is whether Republicans would go as far in their pursuit of power to undo a presidential election.

The president may be counting on Republicans to subvert longstanding election norms or hope that the supreme court, to which he appointed three justices, will make the final call. If permitted, the ensuing constitutional crisis would dwarf Trumpism's outrages. It would also play out against a background of heightened political mobilisation, which would bring with it the threat of civic strife.

There is a real worry that the two main US parties appear locked in a dangerous and ferocious power struggle for control of the government. Mr Trump's divisive politics have seen elections become a source of volatility in the world's leading democracy. The margin of control of the Senate is so narrow that it would be foolish to predict who may end up in charge. Democrats retain their hold on the House of Representatives, but with a looser grip than before. This is a zero-sum game, where one party's loss is another's gain. Government in America, and its people, will be the losers.

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The Guardian view on the US elections: a nation dangerously divided | Editorial

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Whoever wins this year's election, America remains a country bitterly and evenly divided. It has been more than three decades since the last presidential landslide. Despite polls suggesting that Donald Trump was poised to suffer a sweeping rejection by the voters, there was no repudiation of the president.

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Maya Phillips in The New York Times: "Egalitarian in theory, the practice is more often used to exclude performers of color. But even well-intentioned efforts at increasing diversity create complications. It’s a high-minded-sounding concept that producers and creators use to free themselves of any social responsibility they may feel toward representing a diverse set of performers (...) And though this trend so often favors white actors — if you have a few hours, or days, to kill, Google “whitewashing controversy” — it certainly isn’t limited to them. People of color are often tagged in to represent an identity different from their own, as though Chinese is synonymous with Korean or Mexican is synonymous with Indian."

Examples for discussions/outcries about  colorblind casting:
#notmyariel
#NotMyHermione
#Hamilton

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Egalitarian in theory, the practice is more often used to exclude performers of color. But even well-intentioned efforts at increasing diversity create complications.

"Hamilton" has been celebrated as a bold exemplar of diversity. But it's not enough to simply slot actors of color into historically white roles. Credit... Disney+

Late June brought news that the animated shows "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," "Big Mouth" and "Central Park" would recast characters of color who have been played by white actors.

A week later "Hamilton" dominated the cultural chatter on Independence Day weekend when Disney+ premiered the film version of the Broadway phenomenon.

In both situations performers inhabited characters of racial backgrounds that were different from their own, often referred to as "colorblind casting." But one provoked the usual apologies and promises to do better while the other was celebrated anew as being a bold exemplar of diversity - though it ultimately presents a set of more complex concerns.

Still, the difference between the two lies in their approaches to the all-encompassing nature of whiteness in American industries and narratives. Whereas the world of voice-acting for animation is just another dominated by white workers, casting a person of color as a typically white character is an act of subversion, a normalization of something other than the white standard. The Black and brown founding fathers of "Hamilton" make the story of America something that can finally be owned by people of color, as opposed to the reality, which so often refutes the relevancy of their lives and contributions.

Though egalitarian in theory, colorblind casting in practice is more often used to exclude performers of color. It's a high-minded-sounding concept that producers and creators use to free themselves of any social responsibility they may feel toward representing a diverse set of performers.

The history of the practice in live-action takes is more egregious, and has been well-documented: Mickey Rooney's notorious Asian landlord in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"; Alec Guinness's Arab prince in "Lawrence of Arabia"; Laurence Olivier in blackface as Othello. In the past decade alone, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson, among others, played characters onscreen who were of Asian descent in the source material.

And though this trend so often favors white actors - if you have a few hours, or days, to kill, Google "whitewashing controversy" - it certainly isn't limited to them. People of color are often tagged in to represent an identity different from their own, as though Chinese is synonymous with Korean or Mexican is synonymous with Indian.

It seems needless to say, and yet, here it is: Any casting of a performer in the role of a race other than their own assumes that the artist step into the lived experience of a person whose culture isn't theirs, and so every choice made in that performance will inevitably be an approximation. It is an act of minstrelsy.

Kristen Bell, who voiced the biracial Molly Tillerman in the Apple TV+ show "Central Park"; Jenny Slate, who voiced the biracial Missy Foreman-Greenwald in "Big Mouth"; and Mike Henry, the voice of the Black "Family Guy" and "The Cleveland Show" character Cleveland Brown, each announced their decisions to gracefully bow out in the name of proper representation. Hank Azaria, who for years voiced the Indian "Simpsons" character Apu, stepped away from the role earlier this year - last month the show announced that it will no longer use any white actors to play characters of color.

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Mike Henry, who played Cleveland on "Family Guy," was one of several white actors who recently announced that they would stop voicing animated characters of color. Credit... Fox, via Associated Press

Despite this recent trend, actors and creators have defended such choices with purportedly merit-based arguments. Earlier this year, in fact, Loren Bouchard, one of the creators of "Central Park," explained Bell's casting by saying "Kristen needed to be Molly; we couldn't not make her Molly."

More often than not, when the defense rings out in the chord of "they were the best person for the job," that "best person" is white. That is no coincidence.

Another popular defense that pops up, most often in internet discourse, involves canon: The story, the holy text, must be preserved as written. Even if this defense didn't presuppose that anything canon should not be open to challenge or reinterpretation, it would still fail to recognize that in many stories the character's whiteness is incidental to the narrative. So why not use that opportunity to re-create the character as someone who doesn't fall into the majority?

The fact that Ariel is white has nothing to do with her story about wanting to be with her love and walk on land. The casting of a Black actress to play Hermione Granger in the play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" provoked howls from many fans, but the character's whiteness never had any bearing on her brilliance. In fact, stories that do not take their characters' whiteness as a given may find fresh relevance and invite new audiences into their sphere, because for so many people of color, they don't get to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

For me, it was "The Wiz," starring Diana Ross as a Black Dorothy; I loved it so much more than the original "Wizard of Oz." And in 1997, it was Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "Cinderella" film, which was completely colorblind. The singer-actress Brandy was a Black Cinderella, with a white stepmother (Bernadette Peters) and a Black stepsister, as well as a white one. The prince was of Filipino descent, with parents who were Black and white (Whoopi Goldberg and Victor Garber). And Whitney Houston was a glamorous fairy godmother.

The whole movie was a visual feast, with bright costumes and playful dance numbers, and it never explained the puzzling genealogies of its characters. It simply allowed the audience to soak in the story and characters as they were.

A 1997 film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Cinderella" starred Brandy as the title character and Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother. Credit... Disney

But however well-intentioned, there are complications that come with works that aim to use colorblind casting to highlight people of color who wouldn't otherwise be represented. Creators may cast blind, thinking their job done, failing to consider that a Black man cast as a criminal or a Latina woman cast as a saucy seductress - even when cast without any regard to their race - can still be problematic. One kind of blindness can lead to another.

And then there's also the "Hamilton" problem. The show may place diverse bodies on the stage, but productions that would subvert a narrative traditionally owned by white characters must not just tag in actors of color but reconsider the fundamental way the new casting changes the story. In "Hamilton," the revision of American history is dazzling and important, but it also neglects and negates the parts of the original story that don't fit so nicely into this narrow model. The characters' relationship to slavery, for example, is scarcely mentioned, because it would be incongruous with the triumphant recasting of our country's first leaders. (The "Hamilton" star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda responded to this criticism this week, calling it "valid.")

The trouble of a colorblind production might not be the casting itself, but the fact that the casting may still erase the reimagined characters' identities. ( If Willy Loman is Black, wouldn't he have a more complex understanding of the American dream?) Careless colorblind casting - in animated roles, in live-action roles on TV, movies or the stage - assumes that identities amount to nothing and that all experiences are transferable, which is far from the reality.

In a 1996 speech, the playwright August Wilson spoke out against colorblind casting overall, saying:

To mount an all-Black production of a "Death of a Salesman" or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own investigations from the cultural ground on which we stand as Black Americans. It is an assault on our presence, and our difficult but honorable history in America; and it is an insult to our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society and the world at large.

Wilson called not for colorblind casting, but for institutions that invite art by and for people of color, to tell their own stories and not simply ones adapted for them. He doesn't call for blindness, but visibility: people of color seen on stages and behind the curtains. This applies to all art forms - people of color should be on movie screens, on the TV and in recording booths giving voice to stories about them.

It's hard not to see his point. Even times when it's employed with good intentions, colorblind casting often fails in the execution. It's a larger problem of the narrative of our nation, which frequently refuses people of color their own stories, reflexively opting for a white purview or offering stories written for white characters but with people of color haphazardly slotted in. We're forever fighting our America's racial default.

Blindness is no excuse. In a moment when we're reassessing everything surrounding representation, perhaps it's time for all of us to finally open our eyes.

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'Hamilton,' 'The Simpsons' and the Problem With Colorblind Casting

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Egalitarian in theory, the practice is more often used to exclude performers of color. But even well-intentioned efforts at increasing diversity create complications. Late June brought news that the animated shows "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," "Big Mouth" and "Central Park" would recast characters of color who have been played by white actors.

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As the end of the transition phase draws closer (as of today: 31.12.2020), it would be interesting to keep a close look at developments, domestic outrages in the UK (such as the fast passport gates) and discuss the (no-)deal-scenario at the end of the year. Maybe also keep the Scottish independence movement in mind?

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The Social Dilemma is a Netflix documentary that touches upon the impact that social media has on our lives. While being a tad too scripted at times, it shows why we all percive (online) reality individually and gives insight into the technological aspects.
It is interesting to see why social media could be partially responsible for creating a dichotomy in the US when looking at the election, fake news and conspiracy theories.

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Who Am I? - Finding Yourself through Traveling

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Who Am I? - Finding Yourself through Traveling

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"When you leave your friends, your family, the media, and everyone who tells you who you have to be, that's really when you're free to kind of figure out who you want to be."

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I'm home: How 10 years of travel helped me find belonging. | Phil Cha | TEDxUW

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Hello all,

I’d like to propose two possible perspectives on identity which we could discuss in the seminar.
First the concept of transculturality which is heavily linked to the contemporary German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch. He presents the concept in his essay “transculturality – the puzzling form of cultures today” published 1999 by distinguishing it from the concepts of the traditional concept of single cultures, interculturality, and multiculturality.
Leading questions for this session could be:
1. What is transculturality? How does it differ from interculturality and multiculturality?
2. Is the concept convincing? Does it deliver a more adequate approach of seeing/interpreting the world in comparison to other concepts?
3. How can one use transculturality in the EFL classroom?

The second perspective on identity I’d like to propose is on the one hand heavily build on my own interest and on the other maybe unsuitable within the framework of the seminar. Thus, I’m not sure if it can be included in the seminar. The perspective I’m aiming at is the Buddhist concept of no-self. With its millennia-old tradition and reception history, the concept can of course only be discussed very briefly. Nevertheless, it can serve as a starting point for discussions not about certain identity markers like race, class, or gender but about the construction of identity itself. One possible textual base could be: https://iai.tv/articles/why-there-is-no-self-a-buddhist-perspective-for-the-west-auid-1044

Looking forward to your responses 😊

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The movie "Desert Flower" has brought attention to the issue of Female Genitale Mutilation (FGM) which is still a very common ritual in many African countries. But it is also an increasing problem in Europe. There is also an increasing number of women and girls suffering from FGM in Germany (https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/genitalverstuemmelung-deutschland-101.html) and the German government is also asking teachers for their help (https://www.bmz.de/en/issues/frauenrechte/arbeitsfelder_und_instrumente/gewalt_gegen_frauen/genitalverstuemmelung/index.html).

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Just found this on a friend's facebook page. :)

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Just found this on a friend's facebook page. :)

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this is the Bild headline I mentioned in class. from 2005

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this is the Bild headline I mentioned in class. from 2005

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Germany should embrace a new enlightened patriotism to head off the insidious rise of the far right, Luuk Molthoff

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Germany should embrace a new enlightened patriotism to head off the insidious rise of the far right, Luuk Molthoff

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Article from THE INDEPENDENT

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As a Dutchman, I've always had huge respect for how the post-war Germans dealt with their dark past, how they overwhelmingly steered clear of fevered flag-waving, and how they enthusiastically embraced their European identity.

Now though, faced with the challenge of far-right ethnic nationalism, the time may have come for Berlin's political elites to embrace a new, liberal era of German patriotism.

The rise of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has shaken the German political landscape. In a country that generally still frowns upon public displays of national pride, the AfD is employing a decidedly (ethnic) nationalist rhetoric and is explicitly targeting voters who want to move past feelings of guilt and who want to openly celebrate their nationality.

The response on the part of Germany 's political establishment has so far been inadequate.

Some commentators, such as and Yascha Mounk , have called for the cultivation of an "enlightened" and "inclusive" form of patriotism as an antidote to the far-right. Yet many German elites still shy away from discussions about national identity and pride, fearful of emboldening the AfD and others. This, I believe, is a mistake.

In a recent study conducted in cooperation with the Open Society European Policy Institute, we used a public opinion survey and interviews with political leaders to investigate Germans' attitudes to identity, pride and patriotism.

Contrary to our expectation, we found that Germans do not feel ambiguous about their national identity (at all). An overwhelming majority of respondents (74 per cent) said they strongly identified with their German nationality. On average, our respondents identified more with fellow Germans than they did with people who live in the same town, who share the same religious beliefs, or practice the same profession.

Respondents' national identity also appeared (slightly) stronger than their European identity - though many respondents felt both strongly German and European.

Interestingly, most Germans not only strongly identify with their nationality, they also appear to take (a latent) pride it. We asked our respondents which aspects of their national identity they were most proud of, if at all. Strikingly, only 12 per cent of respondents said they didn't associate any feeling of pride with their nationality.

The overwhelming majority of respondents felt proud of at least one aspect of their German identity. We found that Germans are particularly proud of Germany's Grundgesetz (the Basic Law), its welfare state, and its cultural heritage. Though left-leaning voters tend to be more inclined to distance themselves from any feelings of national pride than right-leaning voters, our results indicate that feelings of national pride are by no means the sole domain of the right.

Despite the enduring taboo on patriotic sentiment, then, Germans maintain a strong national identity and find, at the very least, a basic pride in that identity. What would it mean if that taboo were challenged, and Germans felt able to celebrate their nationality more openly? Would this give rise to a more nationalistic, closed, and illiberal Germany? The answer: it doesn't have to.

Our study shows that the latent pride we found among German citizens does not necessarily correlate with nationalistic and illiberal attitudes. Respondents who said they weren't proud of Germany were not necessarily more open and liberal than those who said they were.

Ultimately, whether or not feelings of pride form a danger to Germany's open society depends on their nature. For instance, we found that pride in Germany's Grundgesetz , its welfare state, and its Wilkommenskultur is associated with above-average support for liberal democratic principles, whereas pride in Germany's technological and economic achievements is associated with a (slightly) more "closed" attitude.

This suggests that a more nuanced understanding of German patriotism is needed, and that overt pride can be both a challenge and a resource for a healthy democracy.

It is precisely for this reason that Germany's political leaders should set aside their reservations, take charge of the discussion, and not let the AfD define what it means to be German and what citizens can and cannot be proud of.

They should channel the already existent feelings of pride into an inclusive and enlightened patriotism, one that is distinct from dumb nationalism, one that recognises the horrors of the past, but that celebrates Germany's post-war achievements as those of a (by and large) successful open and tolerant democracy.

I have always had great sympathy for the German aversion towards patriotic sentiment, but it may now be time to turn that aversion into qualified but enthusiastic affection.
Luuk Molthof is a senior research fellow at d|part, a non-partisan think tank based in Berlin.

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Opinion: This is why Germany needs a new, enlightened patriotism

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As a Dutchman, I've always had huge respect for how the post-war Germans dealt with their dark past, how they overwhelmingly steered clear of fevered flag-waving, and how they enthusiastically embraced their European identity. Now though, faced with the challenge of far-right ethnic nationalism, the time may have come for Berlin's political elites to embrace a new, liberal era of German patriotism.

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So weird. I was looking for more material for this topic and came across this video on youtube. Set in Münster.

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Easy German: Learn German From the Streets!

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Are you proud to be German? | Easy German 233

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BE DEUTSCH! [Achtung! Germans on the rise!] | NEO MAGAZIN ROYALE mit Jan Böhmermann - ZDFneo

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Patriotism and National Pride, George Carlin

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Patriotism and National Pride, George Carlin

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First five minutes about patriotism, second half about religion.

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George Carlin: A view words on patriotism and national pride.

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Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari

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Theories of Nationalism and National Identity

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Theories of Nationalism and National Identity

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Theories of Nationalism and National Identity: An Introduction