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By Leonidas Donskis
The great Russian humanist, dissident and human rights defender Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989), whose 90th anniversary we marked on May 21, 2011, and in whose name the supreme EP award in the sphere of the defense of human rights was initiated, when asked about what kind of universal ideology could be adopted by humanity in the future, described the universality of human rights and our commitment to defend them as the only set of values and ideas capable of bridging the gulfs and reconciling the opposites. Otherwise, according to the patron saint of Russian and East European liberal dissent, we would be trapped in ideological fights and culture wars for the years and decades to come. (Read more...) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
Ours is a time of fear. We cultivate a culture of fear which is becoming increasingly powerful and global. Our self-revealing age, with its fixation on cheap sensationalism, political scandals, TV reality shows, and other forms of self-exposure in exchange for public attention and fame, prizes moral panic and apocalyptic scenarios incomparably more than a balanced approach, light irony, or modesty. (Read more...) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
An interesting discussion took place in the Frankfurter Rundschau (September 26, 1992). When asked by his interviewer whether intellectuals will succeed in maintaining their social significance, the Spanish literary critic and author, Manuel Vazquez Montalban (who is famous especially for his detective novels), wittily replied that “the connection between CNN and Jane Fonda will be the only organic intellectual in the world.” (Read more...) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
The Lithuanian writer Ricardas Gavelis – an iconic though perhaps neglected author in his own country who was especially active in the 1990s once coined the term “the epoch of dilettantes” to describe the explosive proliferation of universities and colleges, both public and private, whose number sky-rocketed almost immediately after the country became independent. Without a shadow of a doubt, one could assume that this reflected a far wider tendency characteristic of the former Soviet “republics” in general. (Read more..) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
Having listened to the 2011 Freedom House report on freedom and democracy across the world, presented recently in the Human Rights Subcommittee meeting at the European Parliament, the only conclusion that was possible to make was that freedom and democracy are in decline. I realize that this is at odds with the general wave of enthusiasm evoked by the chain of revolutions and uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, yet the Freedom House speakers in the EP were able to offer only such an assessment of things. (Read more...) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
2011 is the year of Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004). The centenary of the greatest modern Polish poet allows us a glimpse of Eastern and Central Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. (Read more...) |
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By Leonidas Donskis
Belgium appears as a small replica of the European Union. A nearly perfect embodiment of modern fears, phobias, uncertainties, and ambivalence, Belgium can break all kinds of conventional wisdom as a house of cards. To engage in cliche dropping when trying to portray this small, albeit ambitious and critically important to the EU, country is a pointless undertaking. (Read more...) |
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| AGENDA |
2012.06.27
| 09:00 | - | ALDE group meeting |
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