<nettime> european history after bataclan

[Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com>]

   was thinking about robots when daesh started butchering people at
   bataclan - cosmopolitan youth, aging rockers, executions going on for
   hours - you know more than me what i m talking about.

   clearly daesh attacked france and warned germany and everybody else -
   stay out of syria and irak or you'll go the way of belleville or
   sharmelsheikh. however their thanatophilia, just like then nazis', is
   gonna do'em, because even ideological rivals are willing to set their
   differences aside to bury these enemies of humankind that make the
   whole geopolitical system wildly unstable, which means that the us,
   france, russia, iran will find an agreemeent (they did yday in vienna,
   didn't they?) to finally squash them.

   i remember thinking when the talebans destroyed the giant buddhas of
   bamiyan in early 2001Â  - something unfathomably ugly will happen to
   all of us because we didnt do anything about it. after assyrian nimrod
   and hellenistic palmyra were destroyed. did we really think we could be
   safe from daesh? whoever destroys landmarks of world civilization has
   no compunction in blowing up and butchering people randomly.

   but let's leave the middleastern powderkeg aside for a moment and think
   about european history. this is a turning point for the worse. le pen
   is very likely to win the presidentials. merkel's and ordinary germans'
   and austrians' openness to migrants is about to end. i wonder whether
   Friday 13 will strengthen or weaken the franco-german entente. my hunch
   is that germany won't be dragged into war in the middle east, also
   because it has to worry about russia in ukraine. while irak in 2003
   pushed france and germany away from america, this is making france and
   the us become stronger allies (ditch insular cameron) while it further
   distances germany from the us (disagreements over ukraine and
   espionage). in other words, france is behaving like an atlantic power
   projecting force in the mediterranean, and germany like a continental
   power projecting influence in eastern europe.

   in general, the paris massacres will give a huge boost to nationalist
   and racist parties everywhere. the borders were already closing with
   this summer's inflows of refugees. i don't see how schengen will
   survive this. also it seems some of the murderers came from brussels,
   which makes the whole thing even more ominous. free circulation of
   people and basic liberties are seriously at risk.

   what's at stake is the future of europe as a multicultural,
   cosmopolitan society. neighborhoods where young people of sunni arab
   descent live will increasingly be seen as threats to the european way
   of life. a way out of this could be the birth of parties that appeal to
   mainstream muslims. best would be secular movements in the banlieues,
   but they were spurned in the 80s, 90s, and 2005.

   i dont think the traditional left (green, red, black) is ready for this
   new scenario. but women have already understood the gravity of the
   threat, so the pink left is really the only discourse that has
   relevance against the islamic state.

   to defeat daesh, let's keep raising money and sending medicines and
   weapons to kobane and rojava. but what should we do in our own cities,
   besides mourning and crying? what's the political strategy that can
   save europe's relatively novel mixed culture? i really don't know and
   i'm scared.

   best sunday ciaos to all nettimers

   lx

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