The United States acts as if it owns the world. This might seem counter-intuitive. After all, more and more foreign entities are lapping up bargain properties in our “homeland.” And aside from U.S. military bases — a not inconsiderable amount of territory — the United States is not land-grabbing the way imperial Rome or London… Continue reading Who Owns the World?
Stefan Theil thinks that his fellow Europeans are brainwashed. He’s done a trans-Atlantic study of textbooks and discovered that schools teach little French and Germans all the wrong things about economics. “Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order,” Theil describes the messages transmitted to European students in “Europe’s Philosophy of Failure” in the… Continue reading Poor, Deluded Europeans
On the international community In 1999, after the NATO bombing, the international community deployed in Kosovo with a clear perception that the Kosovo Albanians were the victims and that the Serbs were the bad guys. If you were only looking what took place in Kosovo during the bombing, that headline made sense. But then the… Continue reading Interview with anonymous UN official
Attila Durak, photographer For almost 100 years, the system here has been trying to create a nation, one nation that represses, that says we are one Turkey. For the Ottoman Empire, religion was the base; ethnicity was not important. When Italy was formed, only eight percent of Italian people spoke Italian. From that base population,… Continue reading Interview with Attila Durak
Lirak Celaj, theater director On Albania and Kosovo During the period when we were in ex-Yugoslavia, there was always pressure on us to change our identity. We were told, “You are Shqpitars and they, in Albania, are Albanians.” I think we are same nation – the same nation in two countries. Some countries and some… Continue reading Interview with Lirak Celaj
On nation-building and nationalism After the Ottoman Empire was dismantled, there needed to be a nation-state to replace it. As often happens in Europe, this notion of nation-state led to bloodshed. People had coexisted for centuries without treating each other as ethnic aliens; that was how the Ottoman Empire had been run. But the nation-state… Continue reading Interview with Serdar M. Degirmencioglu,
Andrej Nosov, youth initiative, Serbia On joint projects between Belgrade and Pristina We’ve developed some new initiatives between Belgrade and Pristina, including an art gallery, Rizoma, which opened last year. For the last two years, we’ve been trying to use cultural workers to promote a different relationship between Pristina and Belgrade. For instance, we’ve supported… Continue reading Interview with Andrej Nosov
Valentine Mitiev, minorities expert When I was at university, I had to work at a factory every summer to earn money. I worked with many Turks there. Before 1998, we didn’t emphasize any difference between Turks and Bulgarians. You had to hike a lot to get to their villages in the Rhodope Mountains, where women… Continue reading Interview with Valentine Mitiev
Turkish activist On anti-Americanism When I was a schoolchild, almost everyone was in favor of America. Right-wingers especially were all pro-American. Today, it has almost completely changed. Now right-wingers are anti-American, particularly after the Iraq War. Almost every government and state source openly declares that the United States is after a divided Iraq; that this… Continue reading Interview with Ertegrul Kurksu
Here’s the secret to the last seven years of foreign policy disasters coming from Washington. President Bush has become an acolyte of Timothy Ferriss. Haven’t heard of Ferriss yet? He’s the motivational author who champions a four-hour work week. In order to slim down his schedule, Ferriss recommends a low-information diet. “I never watch the… Continue reading Ignorance Is Bliss