Publikacijos
The Tragedy of Syria: Three Lessons We Have to Draw
What is happening in Syria is already a humanitarian catastrophe: millions of refugees, the toll of dead reaching more than one hundred thousand people, and most cynical use of the weapons of mass destruction by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against civilians, everything being likely to go with impunity ending up in what al-Assad overtly considers a cosmetic attack from the USA. (Tęsti..)
How We Lost Armenia
What happened recently to Armenia was nothing more or less than a slap in the face of the EU. Russia proved once again a master of political intrigue making and geopolitical manipulations by making Armenia surrender in the game over strategic partnership for the future. It dealt a blow to the EU`s entire Eastern Partnership Program. (Tęsti...)
How memory prevails
The Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has developed the theory of the adiaphorization of consciousness. He says that during times of upheaval and at critical historical junctures or intense social change, people lose some of their sensitivity and refuse to apply an ethical perspective to other people. (Tęsti...)
I Can, Therefore I Must
As Zygmunt Bauman noted, classical politics has always been related to the conversion of private problems into public issues (at the same time, internalizing public issues and turning them into private or even existential problems). Today this political mechanism has clearly been taken apart. Thus, what we in our postmodern politics treat as public issues, most often are the private issues of public figures. (Tęsti...)
Vladimir Putin’s failure
In 1975, Andrei Sakharov delivering his Nobel Peace Prize Address in Oslo mentioned 118 political prisoners in the authoritarian Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev. The number may have been diminished due to rather limited data that Sakharov had at hand, yet it reflected the character of the violent and reactionary state which was trying hard to pass for a rival civilization and a model of democracy in the Cold War era. (Tęsti...)
The Legacy of George Orwell
On 25 June 2013, George Orwell (1903–1950) would turn 110. He appears to have been the real prophet of totalitarianism, and far and away the most insightful writer in the West who got the very essence of the tragedy of Eastern Europe. (Tęsti...)
The Magnitski List and the Soviet Union`s Posthumous Smirk
As I write these lines today, on 6 June 2013, a disgraceful trial begins in Moscow. The so-called Bolotnaya case is all about twelve Russian citizens accused of attacking the police at the Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. On 6 May 2012, 70 000 protesters were authorized to have a rally against election fraud in Russia’s presidential elections. What happened next was that the police started provoking people, beating them up, and then arresting those who resisted the violence against peaceful civilians. (Tęsti...)
Is This the End of the World?
As I contemplate How The Light Gets In 2013 which will be held 1–2 June 2013 in Hay-on-Wye, Great Britain, I cannot help but recall everything I have written about the end of the world. Yes, there is no slip of the pen here, as I am going to talk in the festival about the touch of evil, the devil in politics, and the end of the university. The question arises — how can we imagine modern life without such things as hope, faith, and education? Is it possible to live here and now without books? Mapping the way in which I think and feel now about those things allows a glimpse of the contemporary world. (Tęsti...)
The strange birth of liberal Lithuania
The American political theorist Mark Lilla once wrote a perceptive review essay on the New Right in France, which he entitled “The Strange Birth of Liberal France” (The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1994). This title, if slightly paraphrased, would be tailor-made to draw attention to the adventures of liberalism in Central Europe. (Tęsti...)
Ukraine in the EU: Asset or Liability?
Ukraine`s joining the EU would dramatically and irreversibly change the political landscape of Europe, end the division of Europe and close the saga of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. (Tęsti...)
Five Hundred Years after Machiavelli’s Prince: An Intellectual in Politics
Accepted and vilified, celebrated and rebuked by all, as François Villon would have had it, Machiavelli became a litmus test case for nearly every epoch in European history. Much remains to be done to reject numerous clichés and senseless accusations to fully understand and appreciate his legacy as a humanist, historian, political thinker, and a prophet of modern politics. (Tęsti...)
The Lithuanian Media, 1988-2013: From Remembering to Forgetting
A quarter of a century has passed since 1988 which marked the beginning of the end of the former Soviet Union. The national rebirth movement of Lithuania, Sajudis, came into existence blazing the trail for Lithuania and other Soviet republics to freedom and independence. Gaining the momentum, consolidating symbolic power and authority, and making people believe that the time has come to change history and world politics restoring justice – all these magnificent things would have been beyond the reach if the Lithuanian media had not changed the public domain almost overnight. (Tęsti...)
Civilization of the Young
The brain drain process is a painful challenge to Lithuania, as the country is losing the best of its young people, would-be scholars, artists, business people, probably – even public figures, policy makers and statesmen as well. (Tęsti...)
Old news from Lithuania, or politics of willful forgetting
Lithuania is bound to confront one more challenge that arises from its domestic political clashes and cleavages. The center populist Labor Party, and the no less populist but rightwing the Order and Justice Party, have decided to merge, thus forming what they perceive as the third major political party in Lithuania capable of sharing the power structure and competing with the conservative Homeland Union and leftwing Social Democratic Party. (Tęsti...)
Šėtoniškas Kinijos kokteilis
Šiandien Vakarams ir Europos Sąjungai nėra sunkesnio išmėginimo ir iššūkio už Kiniją. Kinija, kaip viena iš didžiųjų globalinių žaidėjų ir XXI amžiaus ateities scenarijaus autorių bei likimo lėmėjų, yra fait accompli – jau įvykęs faktas, prieš kurį esame pastatyti. Nesvarbu, patinka jis ar ne. Prognozuojama, kad 2018 metais Kinija pasivys ir pralenks JAV tapdama didžiausia pasaulio ekonomika. (Tęsti...)
The Magnitski list as a wake-up call
The Magnitski list becomes much more than merely a benign and disconnected political fantasy. After the United States Congress adopted this law, with its clear legal and political implications, Russia retaliated by prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian orphans – a mean, regrettable, and ugly move from Russia’s side with a total confusion of political and humanitarian agendas. Now it is a decisive time for the EU to take a stand. (Tęsti...)
Užmušk priešininką veidaknygėje, arba egomaniakai diktuoja naująsias madas
Visiems mums yra tekę pasvajoti apie galią girdėti svetimas mintis. Mes tokį gebėjimą vaikystėje paprastai siejame su galia, kurią galima panaudoti blogio demaskavimui išoriškai kuo nekalčiausiai atrodančiuose žmonėse. Iš tikrųjų, kaip ir svajonė apie nemirtingumą, fantazija apie žinojimą visko, ką mąsto ir jaučia kiti žmonės, atrodo gėris ir palaima tik vaikystėje. (Tęsti...)
To Catch a Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu is regarded as a symbol of France, and rightly so. It was deeply symbolic that he featured in Bernardo Bertolucci’s classical film 1900 along with Robert De Niro. Both of them were quite young in those days, both were to become a genuine embodiment of their generation, both fulfilled themselves as symbols of their respective countries – equally talented, charismatic, with a great scope of mastery ranging from comedy to drama. Both are endowed with a mystery of a smile – warm, playful, and unforgettable. Both are able to create a role using no text, simply with their eyes and body language. (Skaityti toliau...)
Mūsų antirusiška isterija naudinga tik Putino režimui
Neseniai mūsų internetinėje erdvėje nuskambėjo mintis apie tai, kad Eldaro Riazanovo filmo „Po pirties“ žiūrėjimas moraliniu ir politiniu požiūriu prilygsta gėlių padėjimui ant stalinisto kapo. Vargu, ar kas gali būti toliau tiesos už šį primityvų požiūrį, kuris nepadeda teksto autoriui susivokti istorijoje ir mene, o dar ir be jokio reikalo įžeidžia tuos, kurie nededa lygybės ženklo tarp aukštosios rusų kultūros ir buvusios Sovietų Sąjungos ar pasidygėjimą keliančios Vladimiro Putino politikos. (Tęsti...)
The Year of the EU, a Year of Anxiety
2012 seems to have been the year of the EU. This is the conclusion I drew after I started out by assuming this was a crisis of the Euro, which I realized was, and continues to be, a crisis of the entire economic and political project of the EU. (Tęsti...)
