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generation z

Society
Elke Hartmann-Wolff

War In The Age Of Tik Tok, A Parental Guide To Your Child's Mental Health

Many children are struggling with what feels like a constant state of crisis. Parents are right to be concerned, but they should not try to shield kids. Instead, it's all about communication.

One afternoon in the Swabian Alps in Germany, Anna Jüttler is driving along with her sons Maris, 10, and Silvan, 8, in the back. They are chatting about school and what they’d like to eat tonight when the news comes on the car radio: Russian attacks continue on Ukraine. The German army is ill-equipped for battle.

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One week later, Jüttler thinks back to that car journey. She looked in the rear-view mirror and saw in her sons’ eyes that “nothing is the same”. Her younger son bombarded her with questions about why the German army didn’t have any “good rockets and planes”. His older brother joined in.

His friend had said there was going to be a Third World War. Was that true? Would there be a nuclear attack?

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Ideas
Gaspard Koenig

Just Stop Art? 'Just Stop Oil' And Rousseau's Flawed Nature-Culture Divide

In the last few weeks, the Just Stop Oil protests have been catapulted to global attention by soiling art masterpieces in the name of environmental protection. But their choice of target says just as much about their view of art as their view of oil.

-OpEd-

PARIS — In a matter of weeks, tomato sauce splashed across Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, mashed potatoes covered Monet’s Haystacks, and human hands were firmly stuck on Picasso’s Massacre in Korea.

The climate activists who performed those striking actions are part of a global collective. "Just Stop Oil" is the name of their branch in the UK; "Letzsche Generation" in Germany; "Fireproof" in Australia; or "Dernière rénovation" in France. They object to their governments’ climate inaction and, more generally, society’s inaction.

Despite all my efforts, as a progressive and eco-anxious citizen, I still couldn’t come to celebrate their protests. Of course, it was all symbolic because the paintings were glass-covered and well protected. And yet why do I still find all of this objectionable?

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Geopolitics
Murat Sevinç

Erdogan Doesn't Have The Power To Delay Turkey's Election

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a tough re-election battle in May made tougher by criticism linked to the devastating earthquake. Rumors are swirling that he might delay the election, even though it's simply not in his Constitutional powers.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — The last thing anyone wants to do at a time of grief like the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is to discuss the constitution. Yet in this case, we are left with no choice.

We do not yet know how many people lie under the wreckage. Before the quake, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who wants to extend his rule into a third decade, was facing a tough re-election battle in elections scheduled on May 14. Opinion polls published before the earthquake suggested he could lose because of the Turkish cost of living crisis.

Unnamed Turkey officials from Erdogan's party have said there are "serious difficulties" in holding the elections. The constitution of Turkey gives no such option for delaying elections unless we are at war and the Turkish parliament votes to do so. So it can't happen even in the event of a natural disaster — at least not without altering the constitution at least.

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Geopolitics
Bekir Ağırdır

How Turkey's Jumbled Opposition Bloc Can Take Erdogan Down

Turkey heads to the polls in May, with a newly formed opposition bloc hoping to dislodge President Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Despite some party infighting, many remain hopeful they can bring an end to Erdogan's 20 years in power. But first, clarity from within a complicated coalition is needed.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — Turkey was hit by a political earthquake recently, at the same time that we were mourning the victims of the actual earthquakes. It was a crisis triggered among the main opposition coalition, the so-called “ the table of six,” by the inner dynamics of the nationalist Good Party (IYI) that resulted in a renewed understanding among the rearranged table.

The six-party coalition has been set up to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “one-man rule” and is looking to dislodge him after 20 years in power in the country’s upcoming national elections scheduled on May 14.

I am not a fan of analyses based on a who-said-or-did-what perspective, nor those focusing on the actors themselves either. I won’t attempt to analyze the political actors unless the daily agenda forces me to. They are not my priority: the condition of our society and our political system are what matters to me.

We were all told to follow the tabloid version of the story, articles based on hot gossip and anonymous statements full of conspiracy theories about the disagreements of the table of six, and the question of who would run against Erdoğan.

The truth is that there were three crises in one. The first is what we call the political crisis, which is actually shortcomings in collaboration and taking control of the process. The second is the structural problems of the political parties. And the third is the gap between politics and the vital needs of the society.

From day one, there were shortcomings in the general functioning of the table of the six — in their ability to act together in critical situations and, more importantly, in their ability to take control of the process. There were clues for these in recent times, such as the different stances the opposition parties took for the issue of providing constitutional protection for the headscarf.

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Geopolitics
Kayhan-London

Sabotage, Desertions, Gamers? Why It's Getting Harder For Iran To Squash Protests

Faced with the resilience of the national protests, Iran's security forces are now facing unusual acts of sabotage on state installations, and clerical authorities have started to wonder which of their loyalist forces can be firmly relied on still to defend the regime.

Ten weeks into the nationwide anti-state uprising in Iran, the regime's security agencies face a crisis driven by four key factors: 1. Losses among the ranks through disobedience, desertion or negligence on the streets; 2. insufficient forces because of casualties from clashes; 3. rising number of acts of subversion and sabotage, especially targeting strategic installations; 4. cyber-attacks and security traps laid from abroad.

At the same time, the Iranian regime is facing an apparent change of tactics among protesters compared to previous rounds of unrest, which is particular to the new generations involved in this movement. Senior officials of the Revolutionary Guards corps — the body effectively coordinating the repression — say the protesters are mostly aged between 15 and 25 years.

It is a kind of Gen-Z brigade working with older and experienced protesters who led previous rounds of protests in 2009, and especially 2017 and 2019 when public unrest reemerged with particular vigor.

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Ideas
Bekir Ağırdır*

How Turkey Can Bring Its Brain Drain Back Home

Turkey heads to the polls next year as it faces its worst economic crisis in decades. Disillusioned by corruption, many young people have already left. However, Turkey's disaffected young expats are still very attached to their country, and could offer the best hope for a new future for the country.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — Turkey goes to the polls next June in crucial national elections. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is up against several serious challenges, as a dissatisfied electorate faces the worst economic crisis of his two-decade rule. The opposition is polling well, but the traditional media landscape is in the hands of the government and its supporters.

But against this backdrop, many, especially the young, are disillusioned with the country and its entire political system.

Young or old, people from every demographic, cultural group and class who worry about the future of Turkey are looking for something new. Relationships and dialogues between people from different political traditions and backgrounds are increasing. We all constantly feel the country's declining quality of life and worry about the prevalence of crime and lawlessness.

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Geopolitics
​Elahe Boghrat

Will Iran's Uprising Trigger An Islamic Reformation Across The Middle East?

The showdown between Iranian protesters and the clerical regime is another episode in a decades-long clash of theocracy and Western-style secular modernity. Its outcomes will reverberate across the entire Islamic world, so the West needs to pay attention.

-Analysis-

The Middle Ages returned to the Middle East in 1979, when Iran became an Islamic Republic. Like Europe in previous centuries, this regime, which succeeded a secular, Westernizing monarchy, turned religion into "a business”, as described by the 20th-century Iranian writer Ahmad Kasravi — who was himself murdered by a fanatic.

Islamists were present in the region before the ayatollahs took power in Tehran, but they had no government with which to impose their dogmas — excluding certain traditionalist countries such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

In Europe, modernity arose in reaction to the Catholic Church's oppression and crimes. But in the Middle East, the mosque became the response to an influx of Western modernity that made traditional, and mostly Muslim, societies face certain historical contradictions. Traditionalism and religion — and even superstitions and bigotry — were briefly hidden behind a thin, modernizing façade, the values of which were barely understood, let alone put to use for social progress.

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Turkey
Carolina Drüten

Why Gen Z Is A Real Threat To Erdogan's Grip On Power In Turkey

Erdogan has long sought to mould young Turks into a so-called 'pious generation' for his brand of Islamic political rule. Now it seems he has failed, as the younger generation longs for what that the president refuses to grant them. In next year’s elections, their votes may prove decisive.

ISTANBUL — The only Turkey that Zehra Denizoglu has ever known is the one governed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He became Prime Minister the year she was born, and shortly afterward was named “European of the Year”, having brought the inflation rate down to 9%. Now, 18 years later, it is more than five times that, and Erdogan has established a regime where he wields absolute power. Denizoglu is now an adult and has started studying at a university in Istanbul. Next year she will be one of around 6 million first-time voters in Turkey.

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In The News
Worldcrunch

Le Weekend ➡️ Rescuing Twitter Memes, Mondrian Record, Sniffing Wildfires

November 19-20

  • Privileged Kremlin Kids
  • Live from Lusail, Qatar’s city built from scratch
  • Happy 80th to the world’s most famous conductor
  • A baby elephant having some TV elephun
  • … and much more.
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Turkey
Philipp Mattheis

On China's Leash: Why Erdogan Stays Silent On Muslim Uyghurs

Turkey is home to the largest Uyghur diaspora in the world. The Muslim minority group, which is persecuted in China, sees the Turks as “cousins”. But as the country’s economy grows increasingly dependent on Beijing, Erdogan is holding his tongue about human rights abuses — and he is not alone.

ISTANBUL — Omer Faruk is a serious-looking man. He stands very straight and speaks clearly. The 32-year-old Uyghur has laid out photos in front of him – his mother in her wheelchair and baby pictures of two of his daughters.

For a few years now, Faruk has run his own bookshop for Uyghur literature in Istanbul. In 2016, along with his wife and two older children, he fled oppression and violence in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

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In The News

More Than An Icon: How Elizabeth II Carved A Permanent Place In Posterity

September 10-11

  • Ukraine war spilling into 2023
  • Turkey’s silence on Uyghurs
  • French soccer star laughs off climate change
  • … and much more.
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In The News
Anne-Sophie Goninet and Hannah Steinkopf-Frank

One Million Refugees, Kyiv Bracing, Paralympics Ban

👋 Kaixo!*

Welcome to Thursday, where a massive refugee crisis is arriving, with more than one million people having fled Ukraine as Russia’s assault continues. Also, the UN overwhelmingly votes to condemn Russia’s invasion, and Belarusian and Russian athletes are banned from the Beijing Winter Paralympics. Meanwhile, a piece by German daily Die Welt looks at how Turkey’s Generation Z, frustrated with the country’s politics, is turning its back on President Erdogan.

[*Basque]

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