The Netherlands: Dutch-Turkish Novelist Depicts Her Journey to Secularism With No Inhibitions -- by Thomas Erdbrink

Perhaps naïvely, Lale Gul thought she could continue living with the same people on whom she had based her best-selling novel: her strict Turkish-Dutch migrant family.

But just weeks after the February publication of her book — the autobiographical tale of a young woman breaking with her conservative Muslim culture — “a war broke out” in the family’s tiny apartment in a migrant neighborhood in Amsterdam, said the author of “Ik Ga Leven,” or “I Will Live.”

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/europe/netherlands-dutch-turkish-novelist.html?fbclid=IwAR3LXO2edvmw2NOIB65n74qcAUxRXhK8jSlOt8gJPgDU0eNXXC_5LPReMno

The Liberal Delusion - by Marc Saxer

There’s this prevalent idea that we have to take a firm stand against right-wing populism. Yet all the anti-populist hashtags, public un-invites, and goodwill gigs of recent years have done nothing to halt its rise. 

Clearly, we need a more effective strategy, and the path to finding it begins by asking a simple question: whose values are actually being defended here?

For as long as it is part of cultural class warfare, the fight against the far right will never be won. The frontline runs between middle-class groupings, which is why – even in these times of extreme inequality – the debate focusses on questions of morals and identity, not wealth distribution.

For much of recorded human history, questions about who we are and where we are going have been the domain of priests and philosophers. Today, however, it is academics and creatives who are providing answers.

Read more: The Liberal Delusion • Social Europe

France-EU: Macron to show Eastern Europe how much he cares – by Philippe Wojazer

The French president will also use a trip through Central and Eastern Europe to show French voters that he hasn’t given up on a key electoral pledge: changing the European Union to make it more “protective” of its citizens — in order to better tackle populism and Euroskepticism.

The French president has long promised to spend part of the summer on a tour of European capitals to explain his proposals to improve the EU and defend his push for reforming the bloc’s controversial directive on posted workers, which he denounced as unfair during his election campaign.

However, Macron has a limited schedule with only three stops planned — Austria, Romania and Bulgaria — and a further two EU leaders are traveling to meet the French president.

In Vienna next Wednesday, Macron will meet Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern as well as Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. In Bucharest the next day, he will meet Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Mihai Tudose. Then, on August 25, he will meet President Rumen Radev and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov in Varna, Bulgaria.

A Macron aide insisted the trip “also has a symbolic dimension. [Macron] wants to show France’s intent to rekindle links with the former Eastern Europe after years of neglect” under the presidencies of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande.

Read more: Macron to show Eastern Europe how much he cares – POLITICO