Articles

Into its 25th year as an online cultural magazine, Eurozine can boast of a longevity unusual for an independent journalistic project of its kind. But 25 years testifies not just to longevity. Eurozine can also claim consistency.

Travelling to Jordan soon after the beginning of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, Belgium-based artist Samah Hijawi witnesses Palestinian people’s fear, anger, guilt and confusion. Reflections on proximity and positionality at a moment of intense crisis.

On top of housing, work and schooling, Ukrainian refugees with HIV face an additional, urgent difficulty: how to access the antiretroviral medicines they need to suppress the virus. In Poland, they face a particular stigma, causing many HIV positive refugees to conceal their health status.

In the 90s, many thought the internet consisted of merely porn and tidbits. Were they wrong? At a time when online publishing was deeply contested, a group of editors came together and took a leap of faith. Eurozine’s story on this Standard Time episode.

Growing numbers of Russians are fleeing the stifling atmosphere that has settled across the country’s political and cultural realms. Nowhere is this more tangible than in the world of popular music – once a shared cultural space between the two nations, now just another battleground in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Rather than debating whether today’s far right is fascist, we need to think about fascization. Focusing on language and desire enables us to understand the process of becoming fascist, even within ourselves, and thus to resist it.

Two years have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Those defending against continued aggression, displaced from their homes and previous lives, deal with daily, compounded loss. Artists, reflecting on the trauma, tackle the questions that aim to make sense of life when everything is affected by death.

The EU and individual European countries are not bystanders to the ‘Israel-Palestine conflict’ but enmeshed in it both historically and today. Using charges of antisemitism to preempt criticism of Israel doesn’t just erode the concept morally and politically, but also excuses Europe of its responsibility for the Palestinians’ oppression.

Alexei Navalny dared to challenge Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial regime. His decision to return to Moscow, where he faced certain arrest, was an expression of the moral perfectionism pursued by Russia’s literary intelligentsia.

As the face of European idea in Russia, Navalny incorporated everything that the forces of revanchism in the country oppose. But anti-Europeanism is no more organic to Russian politics than its opposite. Sooner or later, the pendulum will swing back the other way.

Recurring flooding and fires are putting Greece’s entire ecosystem at risk. In 2023 regions crucial to the country’s food supply were particularly affected. After a decade of severe recession, another national crisis appears to be only a matter of time.

Refugees coming to Europe face a de-humanizing process wrought with violence, both physical and structural. Protectionist rhetoric is being used to justify aggressive border regimes. And, in Gaza, already displaced civilians are being targeted while unable to leave Rafah –Israel’s escalation of bombardment, a breach of international human rights law.

From sparkly consensual group hugs to dating apps to incels: the Valentine’s Day episode of Standard Time addresses how love changes people, and how people change love.

Despite Lithuania’s Europeanism, its policies on LGBTQ rights are sometimes closer to Russia’s. At the end of 2023, the Lithuanian parliament voted against amending the country’s notorious ‘gay propaganda’ law, in defiance of the European Court of Human Rights.

From migration to foreign policy, Europe has undergone an identitarian shift. Both far-right politicians and pro-European voices are framing external influences as civilizational threats, reviving the link between Europe and whiteness.

Disability has always been part of the human condition; inclusion and accessibility are not favours to extend, but measures that would benefit everybody. Europe’s regulations are quite good, but practice often lags behind. On this episode of Standard Time, we discuss access, accommodation and attitudes.