"How to Lose a Country, in 7 Steps -- A Conversation with Ece Temelkuran"

" “I am one of the early birds…” Ece Temelkuran told me, “I saw democracy collapse in Turkey and tried to warn the United States, European Countries and Britain about this.  

I’ve been telling people that what you think is normal, or a passing phase, is part of a bigger phenomenon that affects us all.  Somehow though, European democracies feel they’re exceptional – and too mature to be affected by neofascist currents.”

Ece has seen this all before.  In her incredible 2019 book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, she notes, “We have learned over time that coups in Turkey end the same way regardless of who initiated them. 

It’s like the rueful quote from the former England footballer turned TV pundit Gary Lineker, that football is a simple game played for 120 minutes, and at the end the Germans win on penalties. In Turkey, coups are played out over forty-eight-hour curfews, and the leftists are locked up at the end. Then afterwards, of course, another generation of progressives is rooted out, leaving the country’s soul even more barren than it was before.”

Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist and political commentator, whose journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Frankfurter Allgemeine and Der Spiegel. She has been twice recognised as Turkey’s most-read political columnist, and twice rated as one of the ten most influential people in social media (with three million twitter followers). In this exclusive interview, we discuss the dangers of populism, authoritarianism and fascism, and why we need to act now.

Q: What are populism and nationalism?

[Ece Temelkuran]:  Today, there is less time to understand the differences between nationalism, populism and authoritarianism.  In Britain, democracy is literally crumbling at the hands of a strange guy with funny hair!  People simply aren’t recognising the dangers that lay ahead, so there’s not enough time to get into definitions

One truth is that you cannot really know what populism is until you experience it.  Populism is the act of politicising and mobilising ignorance to the point of political and moral insanity.  Nationalism as we know, comes from the phenomena of nation-states – and it’s quite ironic therefore that we are now talking more and more about the failure of nation states and the failure of supranational and international institutions as well… and meanwhile neo-nationalism is on the rise." "

Read more from source here.

"'Where do I go?' EU citizens face legal limbo after decades in Britain"

     [Anna Amato from Italy. Photo: REUTERS/TOBY MELVILLE]

"BRISTOL, England (Reuters) - Anna Amato was just two when she moved to Britain from Italy with her parents 55 years ago.

She has lived in Britain ever since, attending school and university, working in a variety of jobs, and paying taxes. She has always lived in the city of Bristol in the west of England, marrying a British husband and raising two British children.

Like thousands of European Union nationals who have made Britain their home after living in the country for decades, Amato always assumed she had earned the legal right to settle permanently.

But the government didn't agree. The interior ministry rejected her request for permanent residency last year, saying she did not have enough evidence to document her status.

She was devastated.

"You are in your country, it is a democracy, all of a sudden you are told after this time no one knows what is going to happen to you," Amato, 57, told Reuters. "Where do I go? It is really, really scary."

Amato is one of a growing number of EU nationals denied the right to live indefinitely in Britain ahead of the country's departure from the bloc, currently scheduled for October 31.

For decades, Britain's membership of the EU has guaranteed the bloc's citizens the right to live and work in the country. But as Britain prepares to sever ties with Brussels after 46 years, EU citizens must apply for a new legal lifeline to remain, known as settled status.

Under the government's plans, EU citizens who can prove they have lived continuously in Britain for five years will be granted settled status, giving them the same rights to work, study and benefits they currently hold.

But Reuters has spoken to six EU nationals, including a top French chef, who have been refused settled status, even though they should automatically qualify through continuous residency.

Many EU nationals are concerned they could lose the right to free healthcare or employment. Others are worried about how they will prove they have the right to return if they travel abroad.

The fate of EU migrants has been thrown further into confusion by the government's announcement this month that their automatic right to live and work in Britain will end abruptly - and sooner than expected - in the event of a no-deal Brexit."

Read more from source at REUTERS here.

Spanish government freezes EU-funded solar research centre

"In the desert of Tabernas, near where the famous spaghetti western films were shot, is the largest research centre for concentrated solar energy in Europe. 

And it’s dying through the usual blend of bad politics... As early as November 2017, the PSA chiefs resigned and cuts in research staff were announced. 

But how did we get to this point? 

Here’s what has happened: the research groups, partially funded from Brussels, had to deal with the freezing of funds due to [Spanish] government-driven spending restrictions. 

That’s right: they receive funds from the European Commission that they cannot use, even though their use would not affect in any way the Spanish national budget."

The Spanish government is against the solar plant (the traditional oil-based energy producers don't like competition from the solar people - at least until they've bought them out).

Translated by the excellent Business Over Tapas, which calls itself 'a weekly non-commercial newsletter about Spain...without fluff nor filler.'

“Catalonia is a European problem demanding a European solution” – Yanis Varoufakis

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"On Wednesday, at a press conference in Barcelona, [DiEM25] co-founder Yanis Varoufakis presented his proposal for a European response to the current crisis in Catalonia, and for similar crises in the EU.

Here’s Yanis’ full statement:

The EU’s response to the crisis in Catalonia has been hypocritical (it has intervened in the ‘internal affairs’ of Greece, Ireland, Italy etc.) and logically incoherent (by hiding behind the claim that it is a union of states, it motivates Catalan statehood). 

Moreover, the EU has been responsible for stoking the discontent that led to the current crisis in Catalonia – through austerity and large bankers’ bailouts. The time has come to Europeanise the solution to a problem that is European in both its nature and causes."

See source for a link to download the proposal here.

(4 min. video:) "How did Portugal recover from the financial crisis?" -- Lessons for Spain and Europe.

"Why Europe Needs a New Deal, Not a Breakup"

[Illustration by Curt Merlo.]

"The EU is facing a crisis of legitimacy—but retreating to the nation-state will only benefit the far right.

By Yanis Varoufakis and James K. Galbraith

The American New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt’s first two terms combined the goals of financial stabilization, reconstruction, conservation, and employment—jobs for the jobless; public works; power systems and new industries, especially in the South; soil conservation and reforestation to battle the Dust Bowl; and a potent mix of regulations and insurance to assert public power over high finance.

Europe today needs all of these. Its overgrown banks, haunted by the specter of insolvency, are pushing households into foreclosures and evictions across the continent, and at an accelerating scale in the most depressed countries. 

States are bankrupt and will only become more so as the European Central Bank begins to tighten under pressure from German savers crushed by negative interest rates. 

Like America 80 years ago, Europe has a vast periphery. In its South, there is a semi-permanent Great Depression, whereas in the East there is great need for new and renewed industries, transport networks, housing, and social investments. Above all, Europeans need jobs.

Unlike the United States in the 1930s, Europe is also facing the menace of disintegration, as the absence of a democratic federal system has spawned a crisis of legitimacy. 

Paralysis in the face of deindustrialization and chronic unemployment is breeding a toxic politics throughout Europe, with a postmodern form of fascism threatening some countries and a sense of hopelessness elsewhere. 

Europe has not yet suffered ecological calamities comparable to those in the past few weeks in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico; but they are coming, in the form of droughts, rising sea levels, and (most immediately) unstoppable waves of refugees from conflict and climate change in the Middle East and Africa.

The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) has therefore proposed a European New Deal (END), inspired by FDR but designed for European conditions. 

Chief among these is the sad fact that the European Union is a weak and limited thing—a confederacy, more or less. The crisis has made it virtually impossible even to discuss the creation of a US-style federation in Europe, with full powers to budget and mobilize for the emergencies at hand. 

European polities are so alienated by the authoritarian incompetence of the current leadership—exemplified by the crushing of the Greek government in 2015 and the heavy-handed approach of the European Commission to Brexit—that an increase in central powers (“more Europe,” as they say) would almost certainly meet heavy resistance. 

So it is necessary to work within existing charters and treaties to bring about stabilization by means of a European New Deal before hope is restored and the creation of new, democratic, federal, pan-European institutions—even a proper European Constitution—can be discussed sensibly and with cool heads.

To this END, we have proposed the following programs for all European countries, independent of whether they are in the European Union or the eurozone..."

Read more from source at The Nation here.

Barcelona Mayor restates role of the city in settling refugees

[Colau with her counterparts from Madrid, Zaragoza and Valencia at the Vatican.  Photo: EFE.]

 "The mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Colau, yesterday [restated] the role that cities can play in the reception of refugees in contrast with the “disastrous handling” so far of the states and the international community in the face of the crisis. 

Colau made these claims at the Vatican during her speech at the international summit ‘Europe: refugees are our brothers and sisters' where she was participating with seventy European mayors including those of Madrid, Manuela Carmena; Valencia, Joan Ribó; Zaragoza, Pedro Santisteve, and Malaga, Francisco de la Torre.

The summit opened yesterday but today Colau and other municipal leaders will be received by Pope Francis, who has also been critical of the management of the refugee crisis. Colau appreciated the role taken by the Pope in the issue and denied the existence of any contradictions in being a representative of a lay and non-confessional institution agreeing with the words of the Pope. 

For Colau, the meeting is focused “on human rights and democracy,” and asked the other municipal representatives to join forces to combat “the growth of neo-fascism” on the European continent as is represented by the presidential candidate in France, Marine Le Pen.

Warning that the European Union is at a crossroads where it must decide to aid refugees or support the far right, she called for safer means of access to prevent deaths when refugees are forced to flee their countries. Colau demanded more resources and authority for the cities to welcome refugees, grant work permits and allow them to pay taxes “like other citizens.”

“At stake is our civilisation and heritage. The EU was born to say no more to the horrors generated by wars, violence and dehumanisation,” the mayoress concluded."

Source: Catalonia Today.