...book, replete with “facts” showing how Turkish immigrants are destroying the fabric of German society and “statistics” proving their intellectual inferiority, is just one striking example of a phenomenon that has swept across Western Europe: the spectacular resurgence of nativism. Sarrazin paints a picture of a Germany fighting to preserve a grand national heritage against a modern-day Ottoman invasion of barbarian infidels. He is not alone. Euro...
The pose is almost menacing. Two penetrating, steel-blue eyes gaze downward at the viewer, the mouth calm but clenched. Russian president Vladimir Putin, Time’s 2007 Person of the Year, projects a threatening image in the magazine’s cover shot. The same could be said about Russia’s current image in the West. Western observers have decried Moscow’s silencing of opposition leaders and state control of the press, as well as Russia’s use of its natu...
...reign affairs as the Middle East’s intermediary window to the West. Looking forward, not even the instability and violence in Libya has dampened Turkey’s spirit. Instead its recent courage in picking up the weakening reins of Western efforts in the Middle East has ultimately strengthened Turkey’s political clout in international diplomacy—especially as it flexes new muscles in politically unstable Libya. The North African state is caught in an on...
China’s recent activity in Africa goes beyond the mere muscle-flexing and oil-grabbing tendencies of an emerging global power. In the last five years, media reports of China’s growing presence in Africa have increasingly reinforced and intensified Western fears of an unrestrainable imperialist state. Articles brandishing headlines such as “China’s Economic Invasion of Africa” and “Africa: China’s New Backyard” depict Africa as the victim of Chin...
Western media coverage of the conflict in Kenya has been enormous, especially for a story coming out of Africa. The reportage has been a staple of the Economist and the New York Times since the beginning of the year, and even the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has run the AP’s dispatches from Nairobi. Yet for all its breadth, the coverage has been dangerously lacking in depth. The media’s principal crime has been to recycle plot lines from past Afric...
...et, a recent phenomenon has developed in which National Oil Companies (NOC) have started engaging in cross-border transactions. While traditional multinationals like British Petroleum, Chevron-Texaco, and Shell are subject to Western business practices—periodically releasing financial statements and subject to the scrutiny of domestic governments—their nationally owned counterparts are not. The transition of these NOCs into international conglome...
...the world to employ all necessary means to eliminate Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony. Objections to the film ranged from the unclear use of the revenue it generated to its crass oversimplification of the Ugandan conflict for Western consumption, and even to irresponsible advocacy. Invisible Children spends a mere 37 percent of its revenues in Africa. Aside from their overhead, their main identifiable product is propaganda. Joseph Kony is, of cou...
...s abstract religious identity over concrete practice, provides an especially useful lens through which to interpret the extreme right’s ideology. Seen from this angle, the extreme right coalesces around an ideal of Christian, Western civilization in the face of alien, corrosive influences. This specific genre of Christianity enables the extreme right to portray itself as opposed to immigration and as a coherent, ideologically independent movement...
...xplosions—it has deepened the rift between different branches of Islam, which may spur a new wave of domestic anti-terrorism policy in Pakistan. While we often associate terrorism with violent attacks by Islamic extremists on Western states, predominantly Muslim states in the Middle East are just as vulnerable—terrorists often consider different Islamic sects to be just as foreign and heretical as the religions of the Western world. Recently, Suf...
...atic maneuvers and drastic economic reforms. Georgia’s central government yearns for the benefits of a closer relationship with the West. At the same time, Russia shows far greater interest in Georgian affairs than any single western power. Moreover, the enthusiasm for Russia in Georgia’s breakaway provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, suggests that there is still considerable support for maintaining the deeply ingrained relationship with Russia...
Follow us at
Like us on
Recent Comments