All in POLITICS
Franz Kafka was born on July 3rd, 1883. He was a German-speaking Jew from Prague who later lived a painful, miserable, and sad life. Franz Kafka possessed particular capability of explaining the most ordinary emotions in an exceptionally grotesque, unordinary, and human way. His writing style, his way of articulation, and the philosophical questions he tries to answer are unique.
There is a misconception that RT broadcasts lies that are very close to fantasies. My experience tells me that, on the contrary, RT is useful. It is useful if you are aware of the propaganda and of the tactics that its journalists use. Many of them are disdained in their profession because of their affiliation. However, they are very good at their job. They do everything to make you believe their narrative and to get you like a fish on a fisherman's hook.
China’s autocratic regime is abusing its technological capacities not only to suppress the freedom of its citizens, but also to launch cyber-attacks on foreign countries. It seems that China will ominously become a leader in the development of quantum technologies in the near future. Consequently, the security of blockchain technology, which is highly effective and widely used, could be endangered. This could cause significant problems for Western states that are heavily dependent on the security offered by blockchain technology.
While watching “the race” for vaccine registration, reading about the billions of euros the state has already invested into IT projects, and realizing that reality does not reflect these investments, one does not know whether to cry or laugh about the tragic amateurism that accompanies anything concerning IT in our state.
Time for diplomatic statements and empty journalistic phrases is gone. Europe is at war and the world we live in is changing before our eyes.
November 2021 has been turning out to be a difficult month for the United States. On 3 November, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (NYSRPA II) was argued before the United States Supreme Court, and with implications from the 6-member conservative majority on the court, there is a lot at stake in American Politics.
The Slovak Prime Minister, Eduard Heger had an interview on the national radio last week. The most interesting moment came when he said, out of nowhere, that his government might consider mandatory vaccination of some groups of the population, even though the government had refused this possibility many times before.
This is unthinkable for any civilized country. It is not normal for a prime minister to open such a serious topic without first consulting it with his coalition partners. However, let us forget about form and focus on content for a moment.
Mandatory vaccination is a rational idea that many developed western countries are coming up with. Does that mean we should introduce it too?
What is the difference between liberal democracy and a populist-extremist government with a firm hand such as Orban’s? The second weekend of October showed us that the difference lies in just a few tenths of a percent.
Kishore Mahbubani is a Singaporian intellectual, writer, civil servant and diplomat. He has written more than half of the dozen books and he served as a member of Singapore´s mission to the United Nations and was its president of the security council. In his book Has the West Lost it has pointed out a new strategy for western nations for the ages after the Western domination of the world’s - military and intellectual. Autor praises the Western philosophy for the destruction of feudalism, which has plagued the population of the World for centuries on every continent. determining the way of life of each individual before he was even born to his state on his deathbed. However, he points out that the age of Western domination is over and the West haven't even noticed.
A year ago the European project was heading for the first place in the echelons of the world of politics. The United Chaos of Donald Trump and the never-ending Brexit talks with the United Kingdom resulted in a power-vacuum of the standard superpowers, which the EU was happy to replace. However, the first dents in the European tent had started to appear. The bleak response to the Hong Kong security law and the Uighur deportations only raised the finger of European diplomats, with few condemning tweets and press releases. The poisoning of Alexey Navalny and his detention and sentence of 3.5 years is, as of today, only being met with a raised finger, press releases and threat of sanctions.
Europe has a problem. The sickness of political unwillingness to reform, even slightly, has put us on our deathbed. The indebtedness of large European economies, with the largest political leverage - France, Italy, Spain, has combined dangerously with a wide dislike for reforms. Europe needs to solve this on the local level and the European level, or it will perish. European unwillingness to change was demonstrated long before the Corona-crisis.
Viktoria Križanová
An interview by Viktoria Križanová with JUDr. Sylvia Tiryaki, PhD. who is a Slovak academic, analyst, and the co-founder of the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT Center)
Ever since its inception, Russia has been defined both by itself and by its (often short-lived) neighbors as an aggressively expansionist power. Like many other powers, this became the defining feature of Russia, a form of consistency across regimes. Whether it was the ancient Rurikids, expanding 18,000 miles a year under Ivan the Terrible, or the Romanovs expanding into the Ukraine and Alaska, Russian rule was synonymous with expansion.
History has shown that the Slovak-Hungarian relations are fragile and if the grievances are not approached carefully it can easily become confronting and even hostile. Growing up during the notorious Jan Slota era, I personally experienced how comments fuelling hate can easily be translated to every-day conversations, even between children.
Suffering a shocking defeat to the populist Republican Donald Trump left the Democrats of the USA in an uncertain position. Clinton, despite winning the popular vote and running on a strong feminist narrative that appealed to the liberal voters of the USA, lost. This narrative was especially important for the Democrats, as they had effectively sabotaged the campaign of Sanders, and thus needed to find a candidate which would fill the shoes of the Social Democrat.
“The voters know absolutely nothing. They have no idea what is going on. These people apprehend only the tiniest superficial bits.” According to the audio recordings, these are the words of Jaroslav Haščák, one of the wealthiest Slovaks, describing his perception of democracy in practice. But, are these comments so far away from reality?
It is on social media where the vast majority of political expression is carried out after all. Is this just because of the technology’s widespread popularity or are the digital commons the only place in which one can be public? Is the virtual in our eyes virtually the only option? So much of one’s identity is increasingly tied up into these social media platforms.
25 years ago, on April 6, 1994, the plane of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down, killing everyone on board. The day after, on April 7, an apocalyptic genocide started to unfold in this small Central African nation. Over the course of the next 100 days, somewhere between 800 000 to 1 000 000 people have died, in the country with a population of 7 million.
The victory of Zuzana Čaputová became the symbol of the fact that politicians can win their campaigns with a believable authenticity and without aggressively attacking their opponents. Let us all hope that this type of politics is the new trend.
A historian by profession, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, professor Snyder is also a permanent fellow at The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. We discussed, among other things: current political development in Slovakia; ideas from his latest books, the rise of authoritarianism, or power of oligarchy; a role of Europe and EU in fighting extremism; and a role of journalism in protecting truth.
