‘Let us make a clean sweep of the past’ has been the watchword of every totalitarian ruler who aims to eradicate all traces of history. By deciding to transform the former Byzantine structure of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque, the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president has sent a clear signal to the world: Islam is on the march, nothing will stop it. To justify the Islamization of Hagia Sophia, Erdogan attacks those who do not...

Tibet has tended to disappear from the media for some time now. The Covid-19 pandemic has relegated the plight of the Tibetans to the background and has turned our attention to China, and to Wuhan in particular, which has become as famous as Beijing or Shanghai. One would have thought that the Chinese President Xi Jinping would remain busy solving the terrible crisis created by this virus, which has now spread around the world. But, while the...

News reports and images of protests and rebellions from all over the world frequent the print media these days.  From Santiago to Beirut, Algiers to Hong Kong, a wave of popular protests is shaking the world. In all the latitudes, people have gone into revolt against their rulers.  The contexts are obviously very different. Authoritarian regimes as well as neoliberal democracies are targeted. In Algiers and Cairo, the revolt is aimed against a...

The ‘Foreign’ page of every Indian newspaper is replete with images and reports of protests and revolts these days. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy is facing its deepest crisis since the 1930s. On the external front, it is on the defensive, facing a strange combination of democracy and dictatorship on the one hand and the jihadists on the other. It is undermined by a paralysis of institutions that makes it ungovernable...

All over Europe, after the disappearance of the ISIS in October 2017, there is a significant decline in jihadist attacks. Many countries, including France, have lowered their level of vigilance because there is no longer the presence of an agency that plans large-scale fatalities. But this is not the end of jihad. It is a regression, but also a kind of mutation. From almost a quasi-industrial enterprise, like the attacks of November 2015...

Fourteen years in prison. That was the punishment for Irish women who resorted to abortion till May 25, 2018. A day later, it is a new Ireland. This is the kind of referendum that reconciles one with referendums. The Irish vote on Friday, May 25 to legalise abortion resulted in a tidal wave in favour of a repeal of the constitutional amendment banning voluntary termination of pregnancy in the republic. In a counter-example of the referendum on...