Zum Meerzugang Sloweniens, Hintergrund und Karte: https://diepresse.com/home/ausland/5243574/Groesster-Teil-der-Adriabucht-von-Piran-gehoert-Slowenien
Deeskalation um die Krim seitens der EU: ja [2]. Dass aber Russland eine erneute Volksabstimmung auf der Krim zuliesse, scheint mir weit hergeholt. Es wäre klüger, zu akzeptieren, dass die Krim weiterhin russisch bleibt, da es keinen Plan gibt, dies auf akzeptable Weise zu ändern.
Wichtiger scheint mir, dass die EU beim Zugang der Ukraine zum Asowschen Meer den Fehler nicht wiederholt, den sie beim Meerzugang schon einmal gemacht hat: beim EU-Beitritt Kroatiens.
The noble task of a university professor is to enable students to become candid scientists. Some of them will then follow the road of research, which is but one part of science, being the motor of knowledge production. Others will opt for opportunities to apply such knowledge, or will teach what they learnt to students, or will do something far from the science they have been trained in.
That everybody has an equal say, and all interests are taken into account.
Of course I am happy that Operation Libero [2] was able to overcome the Swiss right populists repeatedly. The basic problem however is not solved. Some decades back. the left wind was leading because of clever campaigning. Then came some people around a right wing billionaire who copied the successful elements of the lefties’ campaign style, and they began to win elections and to set the political agenda. Nowadays, Operation Libero is obviously running more efficient campaigns. But the populists are learning from this example, as their recent and much less aggressive campaign clearly shows.
This way we reduce democracy to a competition between campaign teams: Who is able to hire the better one? As things stand now, I would not be to sure that liberals will win on the long run, let alone left wingers.
For some years already I feel that we have to reinvent democracy to save its core principles: That all persons have an equal say in order to make sure that all interest are taken into account proportionally when deciding. Neither the representative parliamentary model nor the so-called democracy have proven be to immune to populist attacks by rich people.
Already Hitler knew and demonstrated that democracy in its actually existing versions can be abolished using its proper instruments. I advocate to develop a democratic decision-making based on electing the local council at random out of the register of local residents, including children, old people, poor people, immigrants [3], and combining it with the ‚Rätedemokratie‘ (the democracy based on soviets) for all subsequent levels of representation. Thus, abuse and control of the bottom-up councils by a top-down party (as did the Bolsheviks with the Soviets) could be inhibited, and at the same time the different groups of the society would be represented in such councils according to their effective size, thus women would constitute a slight majority whereas the percentage of lawyers, functionaries, farmers, etc. would be reduced considerably — and fortunately.
References: [1] First published on Facebook [2] Flavia Kleiner: ‚Switzerland has been a lab for toxic rightwing politics. We took that on.‘ (With thank to Marcy Goldberg for the link.) [3] There are ancient and still valid arguments for election by lot, see David Bridle (2022): ‚Ways of being‘, chapter ‚Getting Random‘
March of fascists in the streets of Trieste, 3 November 2018 (Screenshot from Il Piccolo, Trieste edition)
Yesterday, 3 November 2018, about 2,000 fascists from all parts of Italy deployed in Trieste, the town where Mussolini 80 years ago proclaimed his racial laws. The authorities of Italy’s north-eastern most port city had proven unable (or gutless) to prohibit the clearly anti-democratic and xenophobe hate event, hiding behind the ‚right for free speech‘ while obviously having forgot or never understood or never heard of Karl Popper’s famous tolerance paradox.
The civil society of Trieste and the surrounding region protested with a simultaneous demonstration in which 5,000 persons participated. The pictures of the two marches, rigorously separated by the police, reveal two insights:
1) Fascists present themselves uniformed, dressed in similar way, waiving the same flags, either the national tricolour or the more than ugly tortoise flag of CasaPound, one of Italian’s fascist gangs, and marching in a military-like formation, carrying in front a kind of monstrance as if ti was a procession. The ones who protested against this assault walked through the streets as a large motley crew, multicoloured, manifold, obviously belonging to very diverse political backgrounds, if not just concerned citizens without specific political bonds.
2) However, the apparent colourfulness of the protest against fascism was in a good part due to the many flags and banners of dozens of various groups, campaigns, parties, trade unions, et cetera, each of which grasping the opportunity to be seen, even at the risk that a majority of the participants would not agree with many of their claims.
Manifestation against the fascist rally in Trieste on the same day (Screenshot from Il Piccolo, Trieste edition)
How to counter fascism: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
This leads me to a general thought of how to counter fascist arrogance. The diversity of the civil society is a message so strong that it should be underlined as determinedly as ever possible. For this reason, it would be helpful that all the groups from whatever political tendency for once renounce at emphasising their peculiarity and just melt with the crowd. I know of course that the theories on how fascism develops vary much, depending on whether somebody looks at it from a liberal or a socialist view, to name just two political bonds. But as it comes to confront a fascist deployment, the true issue at stake is to stand firmly together. Renouncing at dividing symbols could help other people to join in, even bourgeois or conservative people who are against fascism as well, based on their own reasoning. Political debate has it’s own places, marching against fascists is a different place.
There is still another thought that struck me looking at the pictures. Fascists marching uniformly and in military order attract people who feel weak, degraded, and therefore are prone to look up to a movement that pretends strength and rigour: Yes, they will solve my problem! Instead, confronted with the demonstration of a cheerful motley crew they are bewildered as they get no orientation but rather chaos, perceiving it as a threat to them personally, not as a chance for a change that could bring equity to them, too.
I am far advocating to uniform our campaign for freedom, equity, and solidarity. Many years ago, when I looked at photos taken in the nineteen-twenties of fascists and communists presenting themselves in groups to the public, I was shocked by the fact that they looked so similar that I had to read the captions below the pictures to get who was who. We may not fall back to that, but we should reflect on how to give a joint image that attracts also the ones who feel like underdogs. Renouncing at specific, thus dividing, political slogans, why not refer to the claims shared by a vast majority of citizens, from left to right: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and make clear that we understand this inclusively, as more freedom, more equity, and more solidarity for everyone.
We should even underline such message by paying more attention to a unifying (not uniforming) choreography of a march in which everybody may join, even the ones who for a moment fancy to march with the alleged fascist saviours. Let’s win their souls and strengthen their self-esteem!
Neo-Nazis in Eastern Germany (screenshot from The Guardian, see referenced article below)
‚We also have to understand that allowing nationalist slogans to gain currency in the media and politics, allowing large neo-Nazi events to take place unimpeded and failing to prosecute hate crimes all contribute to embolden neo-Nazis. I see parallels with an era we thought was confined to the history books, the dark age before Hitler.‘ [2]
