NEWS: A Continent like Belgium

Illustration via The Economist.

"Brussels, wrote Tony Judt, is “a metaphor for all that can go wrong in a modern city”. The late historian, writing in 1999, was referring to the civic neglect that has left much of the Belgian capital, home to most institutions of the European Union, an unsightly mess of concrete and roadworks with the worst traffic in Europe. But his words could just as well apply to the string of terrorist plots and attacks that has provided Brussels, and some other Belgian cities, with a scabrous reputation as an incubator of jihadi ideology and a paragon of law-enforcement incompetence.

Belgium has long been the butt of European jokes, thanks in large part to its dysfunctional politics. In 2010-11 squabbles over the rights of Flemish-speakers on the outskirts of Brussels held up the formation of a government for 589 days, a world record. But the terror threat has exposed the darker side of Belgium’s maladministration, in the form of uncoordinated security services and neglected areas like Molenbeek, a down-at-heel Muslim-majority commune in west Brussels. After the Paris attacks, French officials sniped at their Belgian counterparts on learning that several of the perpetrators had hatched their schemes in Brussels. Two had been questioned by Belgian police earlier this year. One of them, Salah Abdeslam, fled to Brussels after having driven three of the Paris suicide-bombers to their destination.

(...)

We are all Belgians now

Yet no European country with a large Muslim minority has solved the problem of integration. Britain and France take different approaches, but each has seen scores killed in “home-grown” terrorist attacks. In Sweden, towns like Gothenburg are partially segregated; this week the government executed a screeching U-turn on its asylum policy. Even Germany, which is embarking on its own experiment in integration after having welcomed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, has struggled to accept that it is a land of immigration rather than of Gastarbeiter (“guest-workers”). In each of these countries and others, anti-immigration parties are climbing in the polls; in some, they top them.

Twenty years ago the main terrorist threat in Europe came from regional separatists. Ten years ago it was spectacular attacks by al-Qaeda, or groups inspired by it. It is now evolving into something messier, directed against softer targets, organised across borders and linked to gangland crime and weapons-trafficking. (Olivier Roy, a French expert on extremism, speaks of “the Islamicisation of radicalism”.) This raises urgent questions for officials across Europe, not least over how far they are willing to share intelligence and data with their counterparts elsewhere, whether within the EU or in other formats. It is time to stop bashing Belgium. Much of Europe is in the same boat."

Read the article in The Economist. E.T.P. 4'

Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 27th of October Edition

EDITORIAL

This week it's been very political, mostly thanks to Russell Brand (go figure). You may or may not agree with his thoughts and his ways, but he has given us a lot of material to talk about, the real stuff, not celebrity bullshit, and drawing attention to what really needs our attention is already remarkable, is already making our procrastination time meaningful and inspiring.

That on one side. On the other side, we are absolutely delighted to be starting a new photography section curated by our favourite Brooklyn-based photographer, friend, and partner in crime, Andreína Restrepo. Welcome Andre! So, pay close attention at Photoautomat, and if you want you can follow Andre in twitter: @pianpianpian.

Have a nice reading and a super happy Sunday!


NEWS

Knitbombing revolution? Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton via the New Stateman.

You probably heard a lot about Russell Brand this past week. His interview with Jeremy Paxman in BBC's Newsline (E.T.P. 10'46'') about him editing an issue of the New Stateman magazine (E.T.P. 4'), became viral shortly after, firstly because most people still can't get pass Brand's appearance, fame, lightheartedness, (you name it), and fail to consider him a man with something to say. But more importantly because he is absolutely right in almost everything he is saying.

Honestly I started paying attention to him, when I read his article in The Guardian about Margaret Thatcher E.T.P. 4'). Shortly after that he was invited by an American so-called news show (E.T.P. 8'34'') to talk about his play "The Messiah Complex" and he demonstrated that he was the most lucid person in the studio. By far. It was painful to see and I think that those anchormen and women still don't get it.

"I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites." That is a fragment of his article in the latest New Stateman's issue. That along with the Newsline interview had a lot of people saying (in social media at least) that he might have started a revolution, and in that scenario, ironically enough, Brand might be becoming some sort of messiah.

For me the word "revolution" when is not describing the movement of an object in a circular or elliptical course around an axis, is a bit rusty and an amazing way of subtracting value to any proposal, but, hey that's just me. People is free to use words and adjectives however they want. So I ask you, what do you think about Brand's remarks, about this dying pre-existing and quite narrow paradigm and about the possibility of starting a revolution?

It would be awesome to hear from you. Please do leave a comment.

The Trojan horse is the symbol of the Partido de la Red, of course. Photo via Twitter.

In the same order of ideas, in a highly political, deeply serendipitous afternoon, I came across "El Partido de la Red" (The Net's Party), an Argentinean party created by Santiago Siri, a developer, coder, gamer, that believes that in one of the most bureaucratic countries of the world (I lived in Argentina for 5 years, I know what I'm taking about), change is possible through technology.

Weirdly enough I read about Siri and El Partido de la Red thanks to a tweet from BuzzFeed, that I didn't know where producing original content. You really, really, really have to love the Internet. This is a fragment of that article:

At the heart of his new program is a piece of software: DemocraciaOS, a mobile web application that offers, right now, easy access to the doings of the Argentine Congress, and an easy way to comment on them. It’s a small taste of the digital governance Net Party candidates promise. And Siri is operating on the counterintuitive theory that Argentina, with its ossified and corrupt politics, is actually particularly ready for the revolution. “The first thing you get told when you’re proposing online democracy in a place like this is those are things for Sweden or Iceland — countries that are very rich in resources, it would never happen here,” he said. “But innovation usually happens in the place where nobody is innovating.”

Read the full article in BuzzFeed (E.T.P. 3'30''). And please, again, any comment on this subject would be highly appreciated.

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Image: The Wind Portal via Dezeen.

Have a look at this lovely movie that Lebanese designer Najla El Zein has sent Dezeen showing her 5000 spinning paper windmills being installed in a doorway at the V&A museum in London, The Wind Portal, a walk-through installation that represents a transition space from an inside to an outside area. To watch the movie and read full article in Dezeen click here. E.T.P.: 7'

Photo via Fast Company.

After promising to never run banner ads in Serch Results, Google does just that. That's the article in Fast Company that tell us how Google has broken a major promise. The problem is, Google said it was never going to do this. In a 2005 blog post written by none other than Marissa Mayer, Google promised "there will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or Web search results pages,” and also said there wouldn't be "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads" on the site to distract users. And then there's the keyword: "Ever." Read full article here. E.T.P. 2'

PROCRASTINATION PIN OF THE WEEK

 

Check our Pinterest Procrastination Board for more images.

And check this news about the official procrastination animal.