Marx and Engels’ renowned Communist Party Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) begins with some very impressive sentences: ‘A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.” This statement was made 172 years ...
By Yang Chen If someone had predicted that face masks and ventilators would become critically strategic supplies, and even an item in an arms race just last year, it would have seemed ridiculous. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made this a reality. However, at the same time, the hysteria around the face masks raises a few questions: Can wearing a ...
By Orçun Göktürk We have come to the end of the neoliberal historical period that started with Thatcher and Reagan. The helplessness of the West in responding to the pandemic reminds us of Mao Zedong’s famous declaration that American imperialism is a ‘paper tiger’. More recently, in 2002, the German Minister of Justice asserted that she was planning to divert ...
At the end of February, the world was discussing the restrictive measures that had to be taken against the Coronavirus pandemic. Now, just 3 months after, people are beginning to criticize these measures and demand the end of the restrictions. This situation reminded me of a tweet by George Friedman, the founder of Stratfor (A think tank associated with the ...
The Coronavirus pandemic has become a convenient way for governments in many countries to strengthen surveillance of their own citizens. About 30 countries around the world have strengthened such measures. As governments discuss the need to remove quarantine restrictions, the issue of controlling the number of people falling ill is becoming more and more acute. It’s impossible to continue lockdown ...
By Ali Riza Tasdelen Long before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, many had already come to the conclusion that a new world was being born, that the Atlantic Front was on the brink of collapse and that the world was orienting itself more and more toward China and the east, the new center of humanity, production and prosperity. American imperialism has ...
Global security paradigms have shifted dramatically as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. Politicians, social commentators and thinkers are actively discussing what has now become the greatest threat to humanity, suprassing even terrorism in terms of the global concern it has inspired. Humanity has survived wars and pandemics for ages, albeit sometimes at horrendous costs. However, no matter how bad ...
By Tülin Uygur Sweden’s extraordinary attitude in the process of fighting against the Coronavirus has been met with surprise all over the world. The so-called “Swedish experiment” has sparked some intense criticisms. The Swedish minority government, which has been isolated by its neighbors in the north, is now struggling with increasing criticism from the public, journalists and academics. Sweden is the ...
The Covid-19 pandemic has proven not only to be an earthquake cracking open political fault lines around the world, it has turned out to be nothing short of a revolution, the aftershocks of which will change the world in nearly every aspect. Given the severity of the changes within such a short period of time, it would be fair to ...
Many states are desperate in the face of the coronavirus pandemic: governments are panicking and the economy has already collapsed. This crisis is expected to deepen, all of which assures that humanity will likely be seeking a new path. Everyone seems to be asking: “What has the pandemic changed/ will change socially and politically?” a particularly pertinent question for those ...
The coronavirus pandemic has more-or-less monopolized cultural imagination in the West, sparking deep reevaluations of our founding myths and values. Even celebrity worship, one of the West’s most cherished institutions, has become a site of bitter resentment, from the public’s passionate disinterest in tone-deaf movie stars pandemic-inspired rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” to their rage over the preference the rich ...
Global leadership and hegemony changes hands just about every 100-150 years. When that change takes place, the backbone of the global system shifts as well. Important milestones such as the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 and the French Revolution are examples of such changes in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Great Britain emerged as the dominant ...