Introduction to the 'Hacked World Order'

Cyber security and its appending concepts - among others cyber weapons and cyber space - is no more a new idea, but the ways in which to approach the conundrum it creates is still work in process.

The Hacked World Order by Adam Segal initiates a discussion about the various aspects involving the cyber security nowadays, which browses both the technical aspects and the diplomatic implications of the new realities. And, as usual in the case with the researches with a generalistic outreach, it doesn't offer enough insights into the specificities of any of the topics but at least outlines the main topics that can be eventually researched throughout later.

The cyber world of tomorrow may be guarded by a large coalition which involves both private and state actors, from the companies in Silicon Valley to the newly created state institutions in charge with such issues. The collaboration mechanisms and technical ways of control aren't settled yet and not necessarily in favor of the free trade of information (see the case of state-filtered Internet in China and most recently the complete blackout for a couple of days during the mass protests in Iran). But both state and private actors are both perpetrators and victims of cyber attacks and a smooth mechanism aimed at protecting the state and its individual citizens in terms of privacy and freedoms is unrealistic.

A cyber world based on trust is possible only in a global political system based on trust. Edward Snowden revelations regarding how the USA through the NSA is practically have the capacity of keeping under tight control everyone, regardless of the importance from the security point of view (although the real time capacity of processing those humongous amount data is highly problematic if not impossible) broke the fragile trust between old time allies. Coalitions of likeminded countries are possible, but trust doesn't operate as long there is the temptation of cheap and relatively risk-free information gathering. The new army of electronic spies has other rules and moves faster than, for instance protection system aimed to guarantee the human rights.

The Hacked World Order offers a couple of directions and concepts to follow further - for example how the cyber issues are integrated into the everyday flow of foreign relations and international treaties. Not all chapters are equal and some are just reproducing well-known cases such as the Stuxnet virus. The information used is solid although there are rarely clear conclusion regarding an issue or another. Maybe this is how the cyber world operates at the intellectual level.

Note: I've listened to the audio version of this book.

Rating: 4 stars

'The Elite Charade of Changing the World'

The modern elites seem to be broken. The fundament of those elites and their reproduction principles seem to be widely rejected. But this rejection means also directing votes towards anti-elites, populist candidates, such Donald Trump of America, who in fact altough a counter-elite is nevertheless also part of the upper - money-fuelled - class. 

Anand Giridharadas' Winners Take All. The Elite Charade of Chaging the World is focused on the American case - with its high concentration of wealth and prestige among the elites - but it can easily serve as a guide for any other developed country. 

The situation, according to Giridharadas: the gap between the upper and lower layers of the society only gets bigger; winners know the problem but want to preserve their status quo; instead of trying to change the system, the member of the elites are trying to rather redistribute their wealth through charities instead of putting more efforts into redesigning the system completely. 

Is it a sign of a failure of participatory democracy? Or rather there is a need to reinvigorate citizenship? Or to improve the level of trust into public intellectuals whose ideas seem to be often subsidized by the same members of the establishment they are supposed to criticize?

The book is very interesting for the detailed landscape offered and the overview of various aspects related to the lack of balance of the system of distribution of wealth and power nowadays. It questions this system by simply displaying its failures. But when thoughts are changed into commodities - part of the ways in which the system reproduces itself at the intellectual elites level - it is hard to hope in a due change.

This book is a warning of how far things are in terms of resistance to genuine change. The fact that the priviledged few are throwing up some crumbles of money to the many unpriviledged is sometimes a simple PR spin that doesn't bring social justice, it rather confirms an inequality status. In the American case, donations for charity involve tax exemptions therefore paying for generous causes is done for a very specific non-charitable reason. 

It is a good start if you want to understand the map of intentions and interests among elites nowadays. How the change may actually occur is a topic for another book, maybe.

Who are 'The Arabists'?

I went familiar with the writings of Robert D. Kaplan through his Balkan travelogue Balkan Ghosts - part of it I translated for a feuilleton published by a newspaper I was working on, in a time when the Balkans were on interest, although deeply misunderstood - which I've largely found relativistic, sensationalist and written in a very simplistic way. It rather has the style of blog posts, at a time when there were no blogs around, written fast, to cater an audience hunger for colourful descriptions and easy explanations of century-long conflicts. Those were the times...

Kaplan is a favorite of many South-Eastern European leaders who happily invited for an insightful chat, especially when they hope to have their name mentioned in his next travelogue, wrote also about South-Eastern Asia and went embedded with US troops in Iraq. He has the knowledge and the right connections for obtaining direct reliable information but don't expect his writings to be academically insightful. You might get the shape of things, but the content must be filled with something different if looking for a solid picture.

About The Arabists, which traces the roots of the Foreign Services elites in the Middle East, I had no idea it exists, until browsing a collection of books about this part of the world. The book was written at the end of the 1980s and republished. What is fantastic about this book is the big number of references and interviews regarding various diplomatic appointees in various positions in the Middle East. Not few of them were children of methodist protestant missionaries sent by their churches to converts Arab populations to Christianism in the 18th-19th century. In some places, like in what used to be called the 'big Syria', which included Lebanon of today, those missionaries clashed with the French representatives represented by the Catholic Church. Children of those missionaries were eventually born in the Middle East, spoke Arabic, returned in the State and were included in the white Protestant elites. They entered the Foreign Service but eventually their interest decreased and went to explore other 'exotic' part of the world, like Africa.

The Protestant religious activism shaped at a great extent the political activism and Arab nationalism, including through the university network created, such as the American Universities - in Lebanon and Cairo, that still remain important institutions of high education in this part of the world. Americans themselves prefer to study there for a full immersion into the elitist version of the local societies and for improving the language. The intellectual life was developed under the Protestant spell. For instance, the first Arabic printing press in Syria was brought by American missionaries to Beirut from Malta in 1834. 

But who really are those 'Arabists'. According to Robert D. Kaplan since the early 1950s onwards, there were two definitions that will exist side by side. One, for the use of the Foreign Service and the Protestant missionaries, referred to 'someone who spoke Arabic well and had substantial living experience in the Arab world'. The other one, public and according to the author embraced by the 'Jewish public' was: 'Someone who loved Arabs, often because he hated Jews'. The latter acception prevailed sometimes in the US diplomatic approaches to the Middle East peace process, including through the policies of the American embassy in Tel Aviv - very knowledgeable in Arab affairs, speaking the language, but not Hebrew (which is spoken in only one country, anyway). I might add that the current pathos of the US administration towards Israel is often based also on a religious basis, the neo-evangelical missionarism which is equally toxic and anti-Semitic in its origin.

However, that 'love' for the Arabic speaking realm has some limits, many of them. It did not have the state-building outreach of the Brits - who, like Lawrence of Arabia or Gertrude Bell were genuinely believing that they can change the course of events and the geopolitical configuration of the region. Many were just too desillusioned with their Western bubble and were looking for an exotic connection to the outside world. They pretended not only to 'understand the Arabs' but they assumed that their disgust toward the unreliable political elites and corruption would in fact help the local societies to change. More often those diplomats chose to change their location when apparently things were not following their designs.

Following the end of the Cold War, when the local - especially Republican - American elites lost their grasp of the realities as the binary US/Russia (which generously got involved in the elite building in many places in the Middle East, Syria being one of them) conflict ceased to exist. The life of the Arabists fell the victim of the 'rampant shallowness and careerism and the sterilization of embassy life. The Foreign Service, after all, mirrors the society from which it draws it recruits, and these recruits are consumed with status and advancement and less concerned with the subject of their expertise that their predecessors were'. 

Robert D. Kaplan avoids making any conclusion. But it is enough to read only for one day the flows of news regarding America's adventures in the Middle East to see how low the standards sunk. It can't get any lower. 

'Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum'

Identity is a nightmare. Either you belong to the majority, therefore in a position of power, or to a minority/migration community, identity is self-explanatory. You have to permanently confirm who you are and request others to subscribe to the group narrative. Request by force, if necessary, as often happened in national states in the last decades. 

Germany is a special case within the European context, given the post-war pressure towards 'behaving' in a more inclusive way and the identity split in two states. Did it matter in the end, when it comes to the national identity? Adding the term 'Heimat' - that German country defined by the 19th century philosophy which means more than a geographical determination - to a ministry - 'Ministerium des Innen für Bau und Heimat' - plus the sometimes physical aggressive outburst of the far-right in some parts of the country - Sachsen is a notorius example, but unfortunately not the only one - requests a different answer.

What does it mean to live in the Heimat? Authors with foreign-sounding names, some with a different skin colour, many born in Germany and with a German passport are sharing their so-called 'multicultural' experiences in Germany - and one in Austria - in a remarkable volume edited by Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah.

At certain extents there are the experiences of everyone having lived here, with a non-German name, a slight accent, which looks different, doesn't have blonde hair and blue eyes. How many times I had to answer the obsessive 'Where are you from', from people I've met only for a couple of seconds. How my Indian friend, on a train to Leipzig, was stared at by a family whose child asked her mother: 'She can't be German, isn't it?' and answered 'Of course not'.

Indeed, this Heimat is a nightmare. The essays are collected under individual labels: Work, Sex, Identity etc. Although at least since 2001 there are institutional structures created which confirm that Germany is a 'Einwanderungsland' - country of immigration - the institutional racism (in schools,  police, other state structures including Finanzamt or Burgeramt) is growing. How fast the 'integration policies' went and at what extent they failed it is another discussion, but reading those essays makes a 'tour de force' displaying how deep is discrimination and racism thinking into the everyday life and local mentalities.

The answer is not to 'go back from where did you come from' as me and many others 'migrants' in Germany are often told. The answer to be persistent and courageous enough to not let such voices become the majority.

How Independent can a Diplomat Be?

'Who are those diplomats, with their mannerism and void language to ask for money and status, when all they do is to provide vague information, late while asking constantly for non-reaction in the name of undefined diplomatic interests?' I've been faced way too often with this attitude of decision makers during my short but eventful diplomatic career. 

More than once I hated their disregard/arrogant attitude towards anyone outside their 'unaccountable elite', their lack - to be read refuse sometimes - of response to requests coming outside their establishment. I never wanted to be a diplomat myself and was always happy for cutting short a professional intermezzo that was nothing than an impressive line added to my CV.

However, my interest in things regarding international diplomacy remains and I keep reading accounts about diplomatic issues, with the interest of someone that succeeded to be inside, even for a short - but intensive - amount of time. I am particularly interested in independent, eventually critical perspectives though which are realistically outlining the constraints and challenges of diplomacy.

A former diplomat, with experience in both the bilateral and the multilateral field on behalf of the Foreign Service, Carne Ross offers in Independent Diplomat. Disparches from an Unaccountable Elite a realistic - cynical even - overview of what does it mean the diplomatic service.  Founder of the Independent Group, a diplomatic advisory group, the first such nonprofit, Ross spent 15 years in the British Diplomatic Corps. He noticed the disfunctionalities and myopies of the political and diplomatic elites in dramatic situations such as the wars in former Yugoslavia or the case for WMD in Iraq. 

Through personal examples and experiences, he explains how exactly the 'diplomatic mind' operates and why it is so limited in fact when it comes to grasping complex realities - 'we', the countrymen might not have any interested in getting involved in that; it is no time to waste reading about complex geopolitical realities; often diplomats are reporting about realities they acknowledge via the local media; they may just not speak the local language and don't go out of their cubicle. The realities are described in a caricatural simplistic way and tragically, some may take decisions based on such evaluations.

It is nothing to do about it, but at least this book helps to better understand the mechanisms of denial.

However, when it comes to the chances of an 'independent diplomat' to operate outside the system I am sure that more than offering advice and consulting is not possible. The system will exist as long as states will exist. It is important though to keep reminding how diplomacy really works sometimes and offer an alternative to the extremely simplified version of the reality it offers.

On Languages and Academic Expertise

Languages are not my direct field of study, but I am regularly facing decisions that involve a choice of a language or another. The linguistic diversity was part of my everyday life as a child and reached complex levels of development later in the day, once faced with life and professional contexts.

My area of expertise has to do with Central and Eastern Europe and for my PhD I had to refresh and improve my knowledge of Hungarian, a language that I used to speak as a child, but that was relatively neglected once I left the linguistic realm where this language was spoken. Although I had the chance to do interviews and field work in another language than the Hungarian, being able to go directly to the sources and being familiar with a certain mindset helped me tremendously to grasp the chore ideas for my research.

For various professional reasons, once I was extremely interested in a specific geographical area, I realize how important it is to have direct access to sources of the everyday life, such as media but also to be able to communicate with people directly in their mother tongue. 

Time is limited and life priorities might be completely other than to spend your time learning a new language every couple of months or so. However, if you want to succeed in your professional assignments, linguistic knowledge is key.

Once upon a time I had for a short time the experience of the diplomatic service. Unfortunatelly, not all of the diplomats I met were able to set a conversation in the language of the country they were assigned to. Those were the worse and the most inefficient parts of the diplomatic corps. Except the information exchanged over a plate with canapés they were unable to understand too much from the complexity of the countries they were working to. They depended on mediated information, on translators and most of their time was spent in offices, reading second hand information.

For the academic research, such a lack of linguistic knowledge creates serious credibility gaps. Big academic centers such as Georgetown University for instance, require as part of the academic preparadness spending a significant amount of time learning a new language, or even more. As many as you need in order to properly understand your topics. 

True is also that the complex academic and political life require permanent adaptations and switches of topics. During the Cold War, the knowledge of Russian was mandatory for most of the political scientists and diplomats dipatched on the red part of the Iron Curtain. The Balkan Wars and the Balkans in general turned into the mainstream topic of actuality, therefore many of the academics were faced with the challenge of learning the local languages in the area. Since 11/9, learning Arabic in order to understand the Middle East is mandatory, as most of the funding is generally directed for researches pertaining to this area. Chinese or Persian are also top linguistic priorities.

During an active academic lifetime, an academic might need nowadays to change more than once his or her area of study. However, if he or she wants really to be considered a reliable academic, taking such a challenge is very important. The capacity of having a direct access to sources, both human and of academic and scientific nature, is a guarantee of credibility. Learning a new language nowadays is so easy, by using various online tools and apps. You can do it at the convenience of your home and with minimal investment. But, if you really want to be considered yourself an expert, you have to do it. It is a guarantee of credibility and respect towards your domain and the people that although they have lesser visibility, might have a much better graps of the reality because they speak the language.

A language means more than the knowlege of a couple of words or grammar structure, but it confers direct access to a mindset and a way  of thinking. No translation could provide this.

Book Review: Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, by Laura Secor

What man can do to man for the sake of ideologies, religion or just because he have been given the power to do so it's inimaginable. I've read about the Gulag experiences, about what happened during the Shoah, about the Chinese Revolution or the Latin American dictatorships. Also, extensively about the fate of individuals sent to Evin prison in Iran, especially during the so-called 'Green Revolution' (I would avoid to use the word 'revolution' without brackets as, actually, nothing really changed after those events). Hobbes' 'Homo homini lupus' sounds like a very elegant description of what fellow man can inflict to another creature.

Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran by Laura Secor is a dramatic bloody account of the post-revolutionary intellectual history of Iran. Very often, the stories about intellectual influences - both local and foreign - are interrupted by accounts of terrible beatings and torture. 

The author gathered the information during around ten years of visits in Iran, extensive study of various local sources and contacts with local intellectuals both in the country and abroad. It is not sure if she speaks Farsi as well. Secor is familiar with post-Yugoslavia which was a complex political and ethnic structure, but I don't think it applies to the complexities and intricacies of the Iranian political and religious system.

A great merit of this book is that it traced admirably the sources of knowledge that made the intellectual history of Iran, as well as the genesis of the ideas and the translations of various Western/European contexts into the local ideological web. This is one of the most facinating part of the history of mentalities, because during the 'longue durée' of the adaptation the original ideas can be completely redefined and acquire a completely new sense. In the cases approached in the book, for instance, Heidegger - a chore atheist - was adapted to some local versions of Islam - particulary the concepts of 'truth' and being', while Popper was very popular among those looking to adapt the 'open society concepts' to a mix of Islam and Marxist (Popper was originally a marxist but his major works were a permanent dispute with this ideology). Hannah Arendt considerations about the French Revolution and the role of terror in the revolutionary practice was used as a compedium of understanding the post-revolutionary Iran. The fact that theological seminaries curricula include extensive study of Plato and Aristotle might offer an interesting topic of research for a further mapping of various interpretations in different centers of religious knowledge, in Qom and in other places. 

Intellectual histories and changes of mind among people that played political roles at certain moments are as well interesting. The perceptions are part of specific contexts. For instance Mir Hossein Mousavi considered a 'reformist' used to be a couple of decades ago a strong supporter of exporting the Islamic revolution abroad.

But the intellectual reception and interpretations are taking place in a landscape bordered by extensive violence and secrecy. 

Proeminent intellectuals continue to be the direct victims of various changes and conflicts of power among the layers of the establishment. Critical voices are made redundant after forced to sign and pronounce public denunciations of their works and of their colleagues. The idea of dissent and intellectual uniqueness, so vital to creating ideas are compromised. I witnessed myself such processes and extensively encountered such terrible stories during my communist childhood and post-communist coming of age. It's terrible for the credibility of intellectuals as such, and it only serves long term the pervert aims of the ideologues. They win on the long term because the intellectuals lost their credibility, by the simple fact that they were put to prison and forced to confess. It's part of the horrible destiny of the dictatorships and especially in a country with such a huge intellectual potential as Iran it definitely diminishes the chances of in-depth, long-term democratic change.

Although the author doesn't discuss extensively the repercursions of the mixture between religious interpretations and political pressure as such, there are a lot of ideas to think about such aspects too, especially from the point of view of the dangers of theocracies. What happened in Iran - and can easily happen everywhere where religious leaders were given the right to decide in political and social matters - is that the everyday relationships and interactions are defined and punished based on a religious code. 'Under the Islamic Republic draconian moral code, nearly every Iranian was guilty of something that could carry a prison  sentence: extramarital sex, drinking, even shaking hands with members of the opposite sex. What had begun as a religious imperative had become little more than a system of universal blackmail. The right information could afford an interrogator a good deal of leverage over a political prisoner'. Therefore, not only the trust in the intellectuals is eroded, but also the normal trust between humans is for ever compromised. 

Change is hard to endeavour and cannot be long-term without the contributions of those people who loved so much the country but were forced to go out. But once those people will be in, most probably they will live the drama of being rejected or the facts that were associated with various episodes of their lives will compromise an eventual political destiny in a new context. 

Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran is a good start for understanding intellectual journeys as well as some terrible personal histories of both intellectuals and everyday Iranians (after many years when I've read about it from accounts of some of the people mentioned in the book, the stories about stoning continue to haunt me deeply). It has the merit of creating a different level of discussion that doesn't focus on political and international frictions but goes into the deep roots of the post-revolutionary Iran. It is a welcomed spin that requires though more and more discussion and reflection. 

Rating: 4 stars  

On Academic Arrogance (again)

It is such an awesome thing that nowadays, academics are using in an increase number social media. In just a couple of words, they can share their latest researches, connect with researchers and aspiring academics interested in their line of work and eventually start substantial collaborations in real life.

But clearly, social media in the academic field has, as in the case of many other circumstances, a two-edge: if used wisely it can be a very useful tool advancing knowledge - regardless the domain, but it can also be a self-reproducing tool of stereotypes, intolerance and non-sense.

A couple of hours ago, someone tweeted on a topic I am not academically qualified - although it pertains to my area of study, which is about ethnic minorities and intellectual representations in Central and Eastern Europe, but that happens to know as a fact of life. It was about the Yiddish culture and language. The respective tweet was complaining that as the number of Yiddish native speakers is diminishing, the language itself is entering a threatening stage. The quoted article was referring though to a very intellectual version of Yiddish, promoted by YIVO, which mostly relies to the intellectual works done in this language, like the works of Shalom Aleihem or other known Yiddishists.

However, I have a good news and a bad news. Although the literary, intellectual production in the Yiddish language decreases, the language is not dying at all. Rather the opposite. There are thousands of children born in the US, Europe - Belgium and France mostly - and Israel whose first language it Yiddish. Part of very strict religious groups - like for instance the Satmer - they are using the language in a very active way, in their specific variants - Hungarian, Lithuanian etc.. They do not write literature - yet, but think about those children who once growing up will probably decide to not be religious anymore but they keep the language and might want to write first in their mother tongue. 

I bet - and I hope I am wrong - the academics involved in the discussion about the dying status of Yiddish are not familiar -in a direct, non-academic way - to those realities, never actually spoke with someone belonging to this group and if there are not some academic references about the topic, they will never actually figure out such people really exist.

I am often faced with such discrepancies between the realities of the academic worlds and life. The arrogance and self-referential attitude which ignores anything coming from 'non-expert' - probably a bunch of 5 people spending their time reading everything on the topic but with a very narrow interest in checking the facts - as such an approach is depreciativelly qualified as 'journalistic' creates the premises of false projections. When you are talking about a language in danger, the measures that might come to mind, if not connected to a reality on the ground, will not help in any respect.

Personally, I will not cease to balance the intensive academic research and reading with direct contact with the 'subjects' I am about to study. For the preparation of my PhD I've spent an impressive amount of time talking with people, learning and speaking their languages, understanding their education system and their mindset, instead of relying exclusively on academic approaches. It helped me to understand the conundrum of the mentality, the eventual evolutions as well as the patterns. Such an attitude keeps me busy enough to avoid both in real life and through social media self-sufficient academics. 

Let's Have a lit' bit of Middle East Fun

The academic summer vacations are around the corner and it is about time to have a little bit of relaxing time. Yes, I know I am vane and a serious academic never ever relax as there are always 15,000 pages to be read out of which one may write a concise 1,200 words article. Life is way too serious for an academic but still, if you are a hedonist - as this humble writer - you might need a bit of funny take of things because everything is becoming dramatically serious.

Where else can you find inspiration, especially nowadays, if not in the Middle East, that area 'between Egypt, Iran, Yemen, Turkey and the British Museum'? Karl ReMarks collected some thoughts and tweets about the region, added some images too - it does good to the overall impression and published a book with the impressive title: 'And then god created the Middle East and Said ''Let there be breaking news'''.

I remember how the Balkans were so popular a couple of years ago because there were so many conflicts and minorities and names impossible to pronounce. Once peace settled no one really cares about them. The Middle East never disappoints and it seems to always provide that necessary dose of excitement the West is so much keen about, as long as it is far far away from its borders. No worries, said the writer, 'regions of the world were competing to host the apocalypse and the Middle East won'. 

It's so much irony and sarcasm in those couple of pages - the book is unfortunatelly too short. Like this line: 'For an Arab to be fluent in English: write a PhD. For a Westerner to be fluent in Arabic: order lunch'. But if you know exactly the situation this joke might have a good percentage of truth and it is not necessarily good. Keep the information for later though and get the best of fun while keeping reading the rest. And get ready for some additional notes after reading that other line: 'While Khalil Gibran is famous in the West for its writing, in Lebanon he is famous for getting an American visa on his first attempt'.

You see, the world looks different if you see it from the left or from the right and there is so much drama unfolding that needs your academic attention - for writing tens of article no one will really read them further but anyway, you need to offer yourself a reason to be academically alive.  Such books bring a little bit of fun into life, in-between some scary news about wars and the increase of oil prices. 

It's worth to keep yourself entertained for half an hour or so. The apocalypse can wait a little bit and if it is still about to happen, why not welcome it with a big smile on your face.

Who Are the MeK?

In the current discussion regarding the situation in Iran, which is becoming more heated than based on logical, political and strategical arguments - on any sides, the name of the MeK - Mujahedin-e Khalq (in English, the People's Holy Warriors) appears more often that it might be. A controversial movement, with barely any support within Iran, based on a bizarre mixture of Marxism and Islam, with clear cultish orientation, MeK invested an enormous amount of money in being taken from the list of terrorist organisations (during Obama administration) and nowadays, found its voice amplified through Pres. Trump's lawyer, Rudolf Giuliani, or the staunch supporter of bombing Iran, at any price, John Bolton. 

If people like Giuliani and Bolton are far from being naive and their participation to events in support of MeK is handsomely rewarded, there is a certain naive approach among people that all their life lived in democracies regarding who really are the 'freedom fighters'. It happened often during the Cold War, when people escaping communist states presented themselves as 'alternatives' to different dictatorships, told some moving half-truth stories about their persecutions and the role in building up a possible opposition, took the money and lived well ever after. In the case of MeK, less known is the cultish aspects of the ideological commitment. 

A couple of years ago, the prestigious RAND Corporation prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense a report about MeK in Iraq, which covers not only specific details regarding the then presence of MeK in this country -which they supported during the decade war against Iran - but also information about the elements of the cult. A welcomed reading for those who want to understand this group and have a well-informed opinion about this part of the world.
PS: Some of the MeK members were trained in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

Against Labels

Don't Label Me by Irshad Manji is not an academic book in the very strict, elitist sense of the world. Rather a collection of thoughts and ideas about diversity, race, gender and their enemies, told as a dialogue between the author and her dog - a choice that it doesn't necessarily resonate with my academic/writing style - it analyses through examples and personal experiences the impact of stereotypes and ready-made ideas. 

Based on cultural, gender and personal history experiences, we are rather tempted to operate with labels than with open identifications. We don't have time, we don't trust our judgement and the challenges of new situations. Therefore, it is much better to apply the label used for a community to the entire sum of the individuals it is made of. It is also safe, as human nature is rather tempted towards the familiar than to the unusual and original - be it in ideas, feelings or personalities.

Irshad Manji is not stranger to controversy. Pledging for a reform of Islam, without placing herself on an atheist position, she is a person of faith that rejects dogmatism. In an approach that involves knowledge and empathy, the author demonstrates that labels - that are 'never innocent' - can be avoided following a careful deconstruction. A life where the use of labels is minimal is a life where individuals are free to be read and express themselves because once someone is instantly assigned a specific box of features, they 'involuntarily' turn into an 'avatar of other people's projections'. 'When one let labels stand in for people, we end up manipulating people. Our shared humanity, along with our distinctive individuality loses out'. 

When it comes to multiculturalism, the risk is to prefer to use the label(s) in order to designate the diversity, labels that, in fact, ignore the specificities and individual character threats. Therefore, the terms turns to be just another label which operates against the supposed openness it is aimed to represent. 'A society that revels in multiculturalism resembles a room full of folks buzzinh around with identity cards stuck to their foreheads. The first thing you see is their labels'. 

Thus, if one wants to really start a social change in terms of identity and openness towards the other, one should start with difficult dialogues about the concepts easily used without a proper critical feedback. Listening shall be a faculty used in order to understand and analyse not to win over arguments. At the end of the process, changing the mind is a state of mind and it cannot be done without a proper openness about it. 

Although the book is not stuffed with theories and critical approaches, it is guided by critical thinking, a character feature that is unfortunatelly absent sometimes from the academic discussions, as often limited to pledging pro or against a theory, based on dogmatic perspectives. 

Rating: 3.5 

About The Epigenetics Revolution

Reading a scientific book out of your academic comfort zone might be a half-way challenge, but deciding to write about it is a complex and not always successful endeavour. For a number of very specific personal reasons, I am very interesting in epigenetics and the challenges that this branch of science brought to the field of genetics and biology. Clear observations and analysis are bringing a dramatic change of scientific perspective to this domain.

Why out of two identical twins, only one developed schizofrenia? At what extent the food shortages experienced by a mother during pregnancy are influencing the weight and eventual eating disorder of the teen or adult? How is trauma integrated into the genetic code?

Some of those questions are extensively answered in The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey. Although it approaches a very complicated topic, not so easy to 'translate' into a mundane, popular language, the author maintains a certain balance in terms of vocabulary and affordability. It doesn't mean that you can understand the book and its topics without a minimal to advanced knowledge about modern biology, genetics and DNA structure. For those not necessarily familiar with the topic and the terminology, I recommend to read especially Chapter 12, which is relatively easy to approach by someone with a basic scientific background.

Most of the results exposed in the book are based on extensive research and experiments using rats, but also studies on various genetical diseases or evolution of a specific pattern from mother to child. At a very great extent: 'Events that take place in the first three months of development, a stage when the foetus is very small, can affect an individual for the rest of their life'. However, the epigenetics demonstrated that cells can change metabolically and specific internal or external - for instance, smoking, stress, pollution - can distort the genetic narrative. Some areas are resistant to reprogramming, but trigger events have the potential of reproducing DNA patterns that were actually passive, in stand-by. Sometimes, a trauma underwent by the child is enough to cause 'an ateration in gene expression in the brain, which is generated or maintained (or both) by epigenetic mechamisms. These epigenetically mediated abnormalities in gene expression predispose adults to increase risk of mental illness'. It is not a cause-effect trigger however and the multiple environmental, social and family influences can avoid the actualization of the mental illness.

I've pesonally found the book very interested from both the scientific and human point of view and most probably will use the knowledge I've built by reading this book for further reading in this fascinating topic.

Rating: 4 stars

How Democracies Die. And How We can Resuscitate Them.

The end of the Cold War was such an enthusiastic time for the field of the political science. Obviously, between the good and the ugly, the democracies had won and even the old ugly foe, USSR, was rebranded Russia and pushed towards multi-party system and free elections. For at least a decade later, most of the political scientists, following the enthusiasm shared by Fukuyama in the End of History was expecting a blooming of democratic systems all over the world.

NATO and EU expanded, Saddam and Gaddafi were toppled and even some Middle Eastern traditional dictatorships were giving some joyous signs of getting acquainted with democratic change. It was rather a religious belief in a redemption than a realistic evaluation based on clear facts and figures. The standards used to evaluate democratic systems were the results of the Cold War patterns of thinking and although at a certain extent - free elections, free media and multi-party system - were corresponding to the average projection of the democratic ideal, the concepts were way too generous to correspond to the constantly evolving dynamics of the various political systems all over the world. 

In less than a decade, all over the world, including within the apparent big winner of the Cold War confrontation - USA - the democracies as we knew it are under attack. In How Democracies Dies, Steven Levinsky and Daniel Ziblatt are introspectively researching the causes of the death and how eventually democracies can be kept alive.

There is a plethora of books published lately on the topic of the strange democratic reflux taking place lately. Far right parties and populist politicians are taken seriously by the voters all over the world - again. America is apparently going through the biggest political farce right now. Political allies united by the common respect of democratic values are turning opposite sides of the political spectrum - I am thinking about two noticeable examples that it happens to know a bit much better than the others, Turkey and Hungary.

The populists are climbing high on the peaks of political power in a relatively similar way: attacking their political opponents, the media and the justice which is trying to make them accountable for corruption, tax evasion and other law breaking facts. In the end, they, the populist have won and from the position of their office they continue to keep those institutions under attack. Some of those institutions might suffer, especially the media. Hopefully, in the US the journalists are not -yet - sent to prison and their jobs are not becoming obsolete following obscure economic arrangements of politicians, but the fact that the average American is make believe that the media is its enemy is an obvious failure for the watchdog. The terms of the attacks against political opponents are as bad in terms of human relations as any kind of totalitarian discourse. The communist dictatorships used frequently a retoric which used a vituperating art of neutralizing the enemies, including by taking away any human qualities. And if someone follows with the highest attention the usual terms Trump uses against his opponents - including within his own party, as it was the case of Sen. McCain - he suits very well this category. 

The two Harvard university professors who wrote the book are using an extensive comparative approach - mostly with Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Russia, Nicaragua and Peru - and historical insights into the American political - especially presidential - history. History is an useful tool to catch up with the present, by revealing patterns and possible trends. However, my biggest critic of this book is that it does not acknowledges on one side the lack of adaptation of the political science analysis itself to those new challenges - hence the fixation on the past, the more or less recent history - and on the other side, it ignores the influence of social media and technology on political analysis. In fact, both aspects are part of an old school of thought which is still predominant in the political science circles and that doesn't offer a measure good enough for a further understanding and building up new possible models and concepts.

Also missing from the book is a throughout evaluation of the state-of-arts of the political elites nowadays. Such an analysis might require a special volume - or two - but the current disfunctionalities in the American bipartisan system are dued at a great extent to the unpreparadness of the elites and often their inadequacies. 

I completely agree with one of the assumptions of the book that when democracy is in danger you need more democracy, but how you can build concretely those democratic networks and institutions, formal and informal channels able to face and fight the threats the democratic systems are nowadays under attack for, is a question largely remaining unanswered in How Democracies Die. 

When Being Multi-Lingual Doesn't Help

They say being multi-lingual is a precious gift and with a couple of important languages in my knowledge pocket, I am the last one to deny it. I grew up in a very diverse environment from the linguistic point of view and I continued this heritage through my life, work and relationships. I am only grateful for it, however, in very strict work-related circumstances, too many languages might be an impediment for proper communication and, at the end of the day, for efficiency and productivity in a company.

Lately, I had the following experience: Three people, with complete different backgrounds and educations, as well as age, trying to communicate in languages that are not their mother tongue's. We are supposed to work together for the next months, setting up a technical project in a language that none of us were native speakers. The perfect Babel.

Actually, the main issues facing such a multi-lingual environment is: right communication, time waste/management and a high risk of failure or misundersating the aims and even the very basis of the project(s). Therefore, a common basis is necessary in order to advance towards meeting the goals. For instance, someone might not know perfectly the details and nuances of a language - including the grammar - but he or she has a good knowledge of the technical terms used for his everyday work. Being able to communicate straight away requests and answers is the first step towards achieving the goals. Of course, one of the best solutions is to use a translator - at least until a certain language upgrade takes place, but this solution takes also time and might cost additional money that small companies are not always able to afford it willingly.

A situation with a high risk of blocking a project is when - as in the case of the situation I was faced myself - the team members assume superficially that the projects will advance with or without a proper communication. Often, communication is under-rated, being considered rather a luxury of glossy companies or used only in case of reputation management or branding. However, a regular communication - including thourgh morning meetings with project updates - is aimed at avoiding perpetuating mistakes due to misunderstanding of aims and possible solutions. 

My experience in the field of communication warns me always of the risks and I am more likely inclined to avoid a very diverse yet precarious multi-lingual environment. Take, for instance, a very specific situation: you have an emergency, when one member of the team failed to deliver the expected result. The situation is happening in the field of real estate. He misunderstood that he had to respect specific regulations in the field of construction. He went on with the work, people tried to finish within deadlines, investments were done in materials and extra payments done for the people. Midway, you have a control from the authorities in charge with the safety and security of the construction works and they request to demolish everything, or might even request an additional fine for disrespect of the local laws. Explaining the failures takes some extra time as well, as the team coordinators do not know what it is all about and need time to get familiar with the issue. In order to respect the final deadlines you need extentions of deadlines and eventually new approvals from authorities. 

The final verdict: unprofessional handing of relatively simple professional communication issues. 

My recommendation in such cases would be to try to create an homogenous team, with an advanced knowledge of the local rules and procedures. Hiring for short term a communication trainer or eventually paying on behalf of the company a basic language class will also help at a great extent. Although in both cases it involves additional costs, it is short-term and compared with the risks in cases such a common base does not exist, it is worth the investment. 

About Academic Shame

One of my best friends during my university years was a very ambitious young girl whose parents were barely reading and writing and who was ambitious enough to get a superb scholarship at Georgetown University. Her hardwork was an inspiration for me, and many others that were during those times more interested to test life, love and relationships instead of dedicating the best light hours to intensive study and exam preparations. At a certain extent, we knew that sooner or later we will find our place - because we were coming from middle-class families with a clear intellectual status in the society - therefore we did not have too prove that much. Meanwhile, my friend was catching up reading the books that we had included in our weekly reading plan or learning the languages our relatives started to practice with us at a very early age. We not even need to work too hard to pay our college debts because even if our parents were not always so well-off, there will be always some successful relative that probably will help with a loan one day, when the knife was getting closer to the skin.

It was good for America that a friend like mine, with a poor immigrant background, worked so hard to get into one of the most elitist universities, preparing future American diplomats. For me, it was an example that although nightmarish sometimes, the American dream is still working. And I am still convinced that hard work and dedication pays off, although nowadays it is getting harden and harder to cope with the post-university trauma of huge debts and the lack of social and professional integration. Why do you need so much hard work and financial pressure when once you graduated, you can hardly find a good academic or professional position, as most of the best jobs are offered based on a personal CV that counts less your academic achievements instead of your good family connections. With the right high-class connections you can have any job you want, regardless your grades and the circle is shrinking more and more each day.

The recent scandal involving bribes and favoritism in top league American universities as Yale, UCLA, USC and Standford is only one of the many examples in this respect. Although it involves mostly big money paid for admissions of athletes who couldn't play in various sport academic teams, it touches violently also to the ways in which people with a certain visibility consider that their children deserve a better place into the society. The fact that a protagonist from a movie called 'Desperate Housewives' wants her offspring to be part of the American intellectual elites and pays heavily for this - possibly with some of her years as well - tells a lot about what are we talking about. 

The fact that parents with an intellectual background want their children to be part of the same elites is not commendable in itself, but it does not request a more equal status than someone else. Let's compete and show your skills, but the departure point shall be the same. There is no genetical guarantee of brain further development or conservation from an intellectual generation to the other. 

The fact that politicians and well-offs offer themselves huge donations to universities although their deep system of belief is completely against the chore system of the said universities and societies in the middle of which those operate - remember the Muammar Gaddafi's links to LSE? - is a proof that the elites' system in our brave new world is getting through a deep crisis. No 'desperate' money will help this situation, until the entire crisis is evaluated in all its details. 

A clear and immediate answer - which has to do not only with America and its system, but has to do with the ways in which education operates and contributes to the overall reproduction of elites - would probably help avoiding a further wave of non-values and mediocrity in a system aimed to promote the difference between values and non-values.

The Need for Localisation

One of the most challenging part of writing and researching diversity - especially national and ethnic - is the need to be specific. The more vague, general and, theoretically, inclusive you are, the biggest the danger to be accused of misunderstanding and misleading the adequate definition of the topic you approach. 

My thoughts were pushed by a recent - with some academic notes - discussion I had on food. There could be specific criteria to declare a food tasty - education and cultural background being one of them - but when it comes to placing a food geographically, you can easily start a war. I am slowly slowly gathering more and more such testimonies - hopefully part of a book I hope to finish one day - one of the most famous - also because it has to do with an area which always burns - is the hummus war between Lebanon and Israel. As a final user, I might say that I love the hummus made by both Lebanese and Israeli cooks - although personally not a hummus lover because the food I grew up with was slightly different in taste and ingredients (call it bland, sometimes), but what exactly made a hummus to be made in Lebanon, respectively made in Israel is a matter of political choice, sometimes. 

Closer to home, the famous food appropriations of foods among the Balkan countries are less burning - right now - but in a small Serbian village might bring a lot of tensions if you label a food wrongly, as Croatian or Turkish. 

What you can really do in order to avoid such unpleasant political background to your plate - food to be enjoyed in a special ambiance and this is hopefully no big dispute about it - is to get into as many details as possible when describing a food. The details have to do with the special place where the meal was eaten and the very special details of the recipe. Some ingredients and ways to prepare might differ from a village to another and could be slightly altered from a family to another. Offering as many personal and individual details add a lot of zest to the recipe and the food story in general, as it opens up the ways to tell individual, subjective stories. 

The food love might lead to anthropological memories and could help recreate a world where table manners and customes as well as menus are part of individual narratives and histories. On the long term it can also create more enjoyable discussion about food besides setting up the world of fire for...a tasty bowl of hummus.