Πολιτική

Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything-and everyone-has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

No one can predict today how Turkey will evolve; which spirit will mark the country's future. Who could have predicted the turn it has taken in recent years after having been a rising star in the early 2000s, a candidate for the European club, "the" model to follow, especially for Muslim countries seeking justice and prosperity? The failure of its candidacy, in which Europe has its share, has been the prelude to its progressive de-Westernisation accompanied by bellicosity on all fronts, at home and abroad.
Western countries are trying to manage this "Turkish crisis" between incomprehension and blind detachment, between appeasement and complicity, between containment and apprehension of seeing this large country decompose in its turn.
In this concise and well-documented essay, the author provides analytical tools to understand the split of a society, between state, nation, religion, imperial myth and the West. The analysis is complemented by interviews with the sociologist Nilüfer Göle and the historian Étienne Copeaux, both of whom have witnessed Turkey's never-ending transformation.

'Fascinating and richly documented . . . Few books manage to be so informative and so entertaining.' - Sunday Times

Santiniketan-Sriniketan in India, Dartington Hall in England, Atarashiki Mura in Japan, the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France, the Bruderhof in Germany and Trabuco College in America: six experimental communities established in the aftermath of the First World War, each aiming to change the world.

Anna Neima's The Utopians is an absorbing and vivid account of these collectives and their charismatic leaders and reveals them to be full of eccentric characters, outlandish lifestyles and unchecked idealism.

Dismissed and even mocked in their time, yet, a century later, their influence still resonates in progressive education, environmentalism, medical research and mindfulness training. Without such inspirational experiments in how to live, post-war society would have been a poorer place.

'Thanks to Neima's rigorous research, each chapter offers something new.' - Spectator

'Neima ranges with impressive confidence across the world'. - Literary Review

Dutch journalist Judit Neurink arrived in Iraq in 2008 to set up a training center for journalists. She reported as a correspondent on the development in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the rise and fall of the Islamic terror group ISIS and the kidnapping and murder of thousands of Yazidis. She witnessed the division of Iraq on the basis of ethnicity and religion and heard the ever louder call for a strong leader. For her, it all led to a strong connection to the country. More so, when with the protests by young Iraqis against the corruption, lawlessness and violence, aroused new hope. At the same time, a vengeful ISIS reappeared as a threat – as the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had no effect. Neurink came to help in rebuilding Iraq, but more and more had to report on tensions and violence. She could not remain immune from the suffering, and that eventually led to her leaving. In “Violence Recycled” she looks back at a tumultuous decade, and shows the reader the cultural diversity, deeply rooted conflicts and highs and lows of a country that she came to love, but for which a peaceful future seems an almost impossible dream. Judit Neurink (1957) is a journalist and writer. She writes for Dutch, Belgian and international media and published “The War of ISIS, Slaves Wives and Brides” and the novel “The Jewish Bride”.