Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
How the left should respond to the steady march of nationalism
The new wave of nationalism is a reminder of the contingent, if not cyclical, nature of history. The liberal left cannot retreat to the comforts of moral outrage. “Their world is collapsing. Ours is being built,” remarked Florian Philippot, the chief strategist of France’s Front National, after Donald Trump’s victory. Trump’s...
Europe’s states of disorder
Those optimistically talking about a “soft Brexit” are missing the bigger picture. Europe has entered one of its periodic states of protracted disorder. It is too early to gauge the full impact of the Austrian election and the Italian constitutional referendum. The increased majority for the Green-backed candidate in Austria shows a...
History’s losers: intimate stories from survivors of the Soviet empire
Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich is an empathetic treatment of collective memory – and grief. Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015, is not so much an oral history as a lament. The work is multi-vocal, like a chorus, pierced in places by the solo of an anguished voice. Readers are...
Leader: The age of Putinism
There is no leader who exerts a more malign influence on world affairs than Vladimir Putin. There is no leader who exerts a more malign influence on world affairs than Vladimir Putin. In Syria, Russia’s military intervention has significantly strengthened the tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad. Under the guise of fighting Islamist...
How Nadiya Savchenko became Ukraine’s Joan of Arc
She was her country’s first female combat pilot, and stood trial in Moscow after being captured in eastern Ukraine. Now, she’s taking on political corruption. The Podil district of Kyiv is a regenerated industrial area, full of old warehouses that have been transformed into art galleries. There are crumbling baroque buildings on many...
With Donald Trump, foreign policy is in uncharted territory – and there’s little the UK can do
We are dependent on the “leader of the free world”, so our government, like many others, will have to hold its nose over President Trump. No doubt sales of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America will be going through the roof. Much energy will now go into the post-mortem of the US presidential election and the analysis of the social...
Where is the anti-war left’s fury over Syria?
A real anti-war movement would oppose all military aggression, be it American, Russian or Syrian. The word “Orwellian” is one of the most overused in the English language. Yet occasionally it is justified. At the Stop the War Coalition’s recent conference in London, there were chants of “No more war” as visitors tried to drown out a...
Is Boris Johnson ready to make a stand against Russia in Syria?
The foreign secretary has been accused of “Russophobic hysteria” by Moscow. No matter what job he has, Boris Johnson, it seems, cannot stop being Boris Johnson. It took only his frontbench debut in the Commons, on 11 October, to cause outrage. This time it was Russia he offended when he suggested it should be investigated for war...
Welcome to Stalin World – the theme park made of old Soviet statues
Grutas Park, in Lithuania, is one of the world’s strangest tourist attractions. But it also forces us to ask: how should we commemorate genicide? The moment we arrive at the theme park and are greeted by an old Soviet train carriage, I know things are going to be strange. I’m near Druskininkai, a spa town in southern Lithuania close...
How will the MH17 report impact Russia’s relations with the West?
There is now little doubt that Moscow is responsible for handing over the missile to its separatist proxies in eastern Ukraine. I was stood among the tents and makeshift huts in Independence Square on 17 July 2014 in central Kiev when I heard that flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kula Lumpur had been shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298...
