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Drugs
At the end of the 1970s, the neo-liberal idea developed that if you work hard you can succeed, but if you fail it’s because you haven’t given yourself the means. In the 1980s, under the Thatcher/Reagan era, Western countries became deindustrialised and mass unemployment emerged. In the 1990s, the “cool Britannia” left-wingers such as Tony…
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Saving the language
Language is above all a means of communication. “People need other people to live. So that we can exchange and support each other, we communicate with each other. Communication in the broadest sense takes many forms: we exchange information, share feelings, show affection and sometimes create situations of conflict. We use communication to develop our…
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The moral compass
Since the Hamas massacres of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, the Israeli government has broken every moral rule and international norm. Its army has entered Gaza and bombed civilians. The Israeli government has accelerated settlement on the West Bank, invaded southern Lebanon and bombed Syria. Hezbollah and Iran responded by launching missiles against Israeli…
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The power of a King’s Speech
“King Charles III is a constitutional monarch, meaning that he is Head of State. Although his political and executive powers are limited, the Monarch plays a central role in the life of the nation and has a lot of important responsibilities”. (The Role of the Monarch: https://ndla.no/subject:1:9b93cd9e-a45c-428c-a8fb-b4955169efdf/topic:0b7ab7e5-14c7-4118-b81e-c7d27df3aa6d/resource:ad73b390-5142-49e7-ba86-ef25c74d2e28) But what are these responsibilities? What is this…
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Immigration
The images are frightening. We see caravans of migrants crossing Central America on their way to the United States. We see boats filled to the brim off the coast of Florida or in the Mediterranean. In border towns, we see hordes of young men on the streets, destitute, jumping the barriers of detention centres, living…
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Freedom and coexistence
The philosophers of the Enlightenment and the liberals of the French Revolution wanted three things above all: bread, freedom of conscience and the abolition of privileges. The right to a decent life should not be merchandised. Having a roof over your head and bread should not be monetized. Revolutionaries marched for bread. It was the…
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How can we win back trust?
Today, the far right in Europe and in the United States is only gaining ground. But is attacking immigrants, as the police are doing, a solution to the security problems we face? What can we do about the rise of jihadism in particular? Jihadism feeds on the exclusion advocated by the extreme right and applied…
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Humiliated by the Republic
During the industrial revolution, people were forcibly moved from the countryside to cities or industrial estates where there were factories or mines. Karl Marx turned these displaced people into a class, the proletariat. In the 1970s, they were dispossessed of their places of work by moving their sources of income abroad. Companies seeking to increase…
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Decivilisation
Decivilisation is the new buzzword. The French government use it to describe workers who take to the streets, young people in the suburbs or environmental activists. All of Europe’s right-wing parties use the same word to say that Europe is losing its civilisation and is being replaced by barbaric migrants. “By using the term “decivilisation”…
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Illegitimate authorities
The European Commission, religious leaders, consultancy firms (Accentur, Mac Kinsey, Ernst and Young, PWC), crowds, senates and social networks are all examples of illegitimate authorities in countries where the people are self-determining as a democracy. Big business like Coca-Cola or Total is powerful; what is illegitimate is the representative of the people who puts the…