Anne Applebaum (Continuación)

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

“All political careers end in failure”, a British politician once said: Sooner or later everybody gets voted out, overthrown or forgotten. Even knowing that, four months ago nobody would have put Angela Merkel on a list of world leaders most likely to be knifed in the back. Back in September, the German chancellor was elected to a record-breaking fourth term. The formula she had relied on for years — project the image of a safe, frumpy housewife; take decisions slowly and carefully, if at all — defeated all rivals once again.

But although her Christian Democratic Party won more votes than any other, the result was still its worst ever.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Anti-Semitism is back. Not just as a nasty little fringe sentiment, and not just in the Breitbart comment sections. Not just in social media either, although anyone who posts or tweets and has a Jewish-sounding surname (and even many who don’t) has had to get used to the fact that social media is a perfect conduit for language that would once have been too filthy to use.

The best antidote is not to care; that is what the “block” button on Twitter is for. But when the sentiments begin to creep into mainstream institutions in European countries, then some deeper analysis is required.…  Seguir leyendo »

The gate at the Auschwitz concentration camp. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

The Streisand effect is one of the curious byproducts of the Internet age. Named for the singer — who tried to suppress a photograph of her Malibu mansion, only to have the picture seen far more widely as a result — it occurs when an attempt to hide, remove or censor something from public view backfires badly.

The Streisand effect is now in full swing in Poland, where a simultaneously incompetent and malevolent government has passed a law — rapidly, in the middle of the night — intended among other things to criminalize the term “Polish death camps” and other expressions implying that the Polish nation was responsible for Auschwitz and other camps built by German Nazis.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

He isn’t the country’s most important politician. In the Czech Republic, as in many European countries, the prime minister is far more powerful than the president. Nevertheless, the Czech president represents his country abroad, speaks on its behalf and generally helps set the tone and tenor of public debate, much like the American president does in the United States. And without question, the reelection of Milos Zeman — who is vulgar and sexist (not to mention aggressively pro-Russian, pro-Chinese, anti-European and anti-NATO) and has been accused of public drunkenness — will set the tone and tenor of public life in the Czech Republic.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica

On the journey up the Sierra Nevada to the San Lorenzo ridge, a very few abandoned military posts — forlorn bits of concrete, now green and crumbling — can be glimpsed along the side of the rutted jungle road. But there are no soldiers visible here, in one of the world’s most important bird sanctuaries. The only “uniforms” on display early in the morning are those of the birdwatchers, dressed in green and beige, wearing sensible shoes, carrying notebooks and binoculars.

There is no evidence of war or violence at the La Victoria coffee farm, either. Spreading out through one of the valleys below the ridge, the farm operates spectacularly archaic machinery, brought to Colombia at the end of the 19th century by an Englishman.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesDemocracia

In columns or commentary, one sometimes needs to simplify in order to save space. But here’s my New Year’s resolution: In the coming 12 months, I will try to avoid the expressions “far right” and “populist” whenever possible. They are catch-all adjectives, useful in describing a general phenomenon. But they are also euphemisms, and they disguise what’s at stake.

The terms “right” and “left,” not to mention “far right” and “far left,” have long been due for a rethink. They date from the French Revolution of 1789, when the nobility sat on the right side of the National Assembly, and the revolutionaries sat on the left.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters in Warsaw. (Gzell/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)

EuropaUnión Europea

It’s never been easy for Americans — or for many Europeans — to understand the European Union, so let me offer an analogy: Think of the United States in the years after the revolution but before the ratification of the Constitution, when the Articles of Confederation allowed Congress to make laws but provided no executive branch or court system to carry them out. That’s the situation of the E.U. today.

Its members jointly agree on the rules of the group. They write and ratify treaties expressing their agreement to the rules of the group. As sovereign states, they then pledge to respect the rules of the group.…  Seguir leyendo »

A woman attends a commemoration ceremony dedicated to the the people killed during the 2014 Ukrainian mass protests. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Europa,

Last Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the demonstration that turned into a revolution in Ukraine. To mark the occasion, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited the Maidan, the central square where much of the drama played out back in late 2013 and early 2014. Together with the prime minister and the speaker of parliament, he and his wife laid flowers beside the monument to dozens of people who were murdered by police sharpshooters at the climax of the revolution, just before Poroshenko’s predecessor fled the country. Since then, many thousands more have died in fighting in the east.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Like every country in Europe — as well as the United States — Poland has long had a far-right, neo-fascist fringe. It also had a tiny eco-warrior fringe, an Esperanto-speaking fringe and quite a few other grouplets. But during the two and a half decades that followed the end of communism in Poland, Polish neo-fascists were never numerous enough to be taken seriously. Even when they began, a few years ago, to march on Nov. 11, Poland’s Independence Day — a day when official ceremonies already include national flags, patriotic songs and even people dressed in World War I uniforms — no one thought much about a few hundred soccer hooligans on the sidelines.…  Seguir leyendo »

Trump y la Internacional Populista

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Comparten ideas e ideología, amigos y patrocinadores. Cruzan fronteras para participar en mítines ajenos. Tienen buenos contactos en Rusia —utilizan con frecuencia su desinformación— y también amigos en otros Estados autoritarios. Desprecian a Occidente y tratan de socavar sus instituciones. Se creen una vanguardia tan revolucionaria como la que en su día representó la Internacional Comunista, o el Komintern, que con el respaldo soviético unió a partidos comunistas de Europa y del mundo.

Evidentemente, ahora ya no tienen apoyo soviético y no son comunistas. Pero esta laxa agrupación de partidos y políticos —el Partido de la Libertad de Austria, el Partido por la Libertad de Holanda, el UKIP británico, el Fidesz húngaro, Ley y Justicia de Polonia o Donald Trump— se ha convertido en un movimiento “antiglobalización” mundial.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomía,

En la localidad de Bramley, Hampshire, una típica finca rural inglesa se está sometiendo a una renovación importante. Desde la carretera puede verse una gran grúa junto a los extensos prados y los árboles vetustos de un elegante parque. Hace semanas unos lugareños me señalaron Beaurepaire Park y me dijeron el nombre de su nuevo vecino: Yuri Luzhkov, el antiguo alcalde de Moscú.

Fascinada al saber que Luzhkov y su esposa, Elena Baturina, la única mujer multimillonaria de Rusia, habían decidido experimentar la vida campestre inglesa, busqué la casa en el registro catastral británico. Pero aunque el precio de compra estaba allí —5,5 millones de libras esterlinas (7,1 millones de euros)— no encontré nombres rusos.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Seventy years ago next week -- at 4:45 a.m. Sept. 1, 1939, to be precise -- the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began to shell the Polish military base near Gdansk. For Germans, for Poles, and for the British and French, who immediately declared war on Germany, that was the beginning of World War II. The Soviet Union, having signed a secret agreement with Nazi Germany, did not declare war but was itself preparing to invade Poland and the Baltic states. Which it did, two weeks later, on Sept. 17.

None of these basic facts is in dispute. And two generations have passed since the war ended.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

It's a fact: Nothing happens in August. A curtain of heat descends across the Northern Hemisphere. Shops close. Congress goes home. Washington fills up with interns, Paris swarms with tourists. Even the Russians are out in the woods, picking mushrooms.

Yes, nothing happens in August -- except, as we all know, when something really terrible happens in August. World War I began in August, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait began in August, al-Qaeda was preparing to bring down the World Trade Center in August. Nor is this an accident: If you want to surprise any American administration, do something nasty while the president is on vacation.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

If you want an antidote to the photographs of police officers beating demonstrators and girls dying on the streets of the Iranian capital, take a drive through the streets of the Moroccan capital. You might see demonstrators, but not under attack: On the day I visited, a group of people politely waving signs stood outside the parliament. You might see girls, but they will not be sniper targets, and they will not all look like their Iranian counterparts: Though there is clearly a fashion for long, flowing headscarves and blue jeans, many women would not look out of place in New York or Paris.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaConvención y Tratados

We've been waiting and waiting, but the widely predicted European backlash -- against capitalism, against free markets, against the right -- has not come. There are no demands for Marxist revolution, no calls for nationalization of industry, not even a European campaign for what the Obama administration calls "stimulus" -- a policy more colloquially known as "massive government spending."

On the contrary: In last weekend's European parliamentary elections, capitalism triumphed, at least in its mushy European form. Admittedly, these European polls are a peculiar species of election. Far fewer people vote in them than vote in national elections, and those who do cast ballots are far vaguer about what their deputies, once elected to the European legislature, actually do.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Drip, drip, drip: The neverending stream of revelations has been compared by one British member of Parliament to "torture" -- waterboarding? -- and rightly so. One day, it emerges that a senior MP has charged British taxpayers £2,000 (about $3,200 as of yesterday) for the cleaning of the moat on his 13th-century estate. A few days later, another MP is revealed to have charged 1,645 pounds for a floating duck house. Almost every day for the past two weeks, in fact, the British press has published accounts of the ginger crinkle cookies, stainless steel dog bowls, swimming pool heaters, spousal iPhones and the trouser press (119 pounds) that British legislators charged to the British government.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

We've been waiting a long time for political upheaval to follow in the wake of technological change, and on April 7, it seemed to have arrived. From Moldova, of all places, came news of the Twitter Revolution: In one of the poorest backwaters in Europe -- a place that frequently features in global surveys as the world's unhappiest country -- a group of fresh-faced young people reportedly used Twitter tweets, text messages and Facebook postings to organize a demonstration in favor of democracy and against rigged elections. New technology confronted old autocracy in an almost made-for-the-front-pages storyline: On one side, the Moldovan communist president, Vladimir Voronin, a man who is not only a former Soviet secret police boss but -- amazing coincidence!…  Seguir leyendo »

Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni

InternacionalOrden Mundial

It is no fun to be the one who rains on the parade, and, if nothing else, President Obama's trip to Europe has been quite a parade. Or maybe "sold-out concert tour" is the better metaphor. There was a jolly town hall meeting in Strasbourg, France; a wonderful encounter between Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni, spectacular street scenes in Prague. The world's statesmen fell over themselves to be photographed with the American president. During one photo session, the Italian prime minister, Sylvio Berlusconi, howled so loudly for Obama's attention, that the queen of England was visibly unamused. ("Why does he have to shout?"…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

"We pretty much know what they're going to say." -- Hillary Clinton, on the Chinese reaction to discussions of human rights, religious freedom and Tibet

Amnesty International is "extremely disappointed," and rightly so; Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director fears that America's human rights discussions in China will become "a dead-end 'dialogue of the deaf,' " and she has a point. As for the founders of the new Chinese "Charter 08" dissident movement -- the biggest political protest group in years -- we don't know what they thought, because they were all under house arrest during Clinton's visit to Beijing.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

President Obama wants to send 30,000 American soldiers; the Germans have promised more money; the Poles have just taken charge of a province; even the Dutch are thinking of keeping some troops on the ground. Which is all very well, as long as they all realize that the long-term solution to Afghanistan's security doesn't lie in soldiers sent by Washington or Berlin but in the ones who can already be found on a square of dusty desert a half-hour drive from Kabul.

That is the home of the Kabul Military Training Center, and it doesn't look like much from the outside.…  Seguir leyendo »