----------------------------------------------------------------
1. ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: OUR CHILDREN LED US ONTO THE STREETS
----------------------------------------------------------------
To many outside observers of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko's landslide victory in the March presidential elections seemed irreconcilable with his image as a violent autocrat. From there it was a short step to conclude that Belarusians are satisfied with the security provided by Lukashenko's controlled economy. Eurozine's article of the month shows how mistaken this interpretation is. Olga Timokhina (pseudonym) -- an "ordinary" resident of Minsk -- describes how anyone in Belarus who voices dissent, from taxi drivers to university professors, must reckon with persecution by the government:

"Those who say that 'fear is better than the savage grin of capitalism' have simply forgotten what fear is. What's more, our post-Stalin generation has never even known the kind of fear that has been prevalent in Belarus in recent years. In the 1970s and 1980s, people in the USSR were afraid, but they could also laugh. There was no universal clingy horror. At least people knew the rules of the game, unwillingly obeying and skilfully circumventing them. The horror of life here and now is that the rules are changing before our very eyes and are updated after the event. For example, charges are brought against the authors of online cartoon films about the president, and then the corresponding law is passed. Laws about 'discrediting' and 'slander' that can be used to ban anything, and that everyone can be accused of infringing, hang over our heads, flapping ominously like the wings of the crows that for some reason have taken a liking to our 'clean' and 'prospering' city in recent years."

The "Denim Revolution" may have been a disappointment to those hoping for a repeat of Ukraine's Orange Revolution; but a more long-term, less media-friendly process has been set in motion, writes Timokhina, one led by people who grew up after the collapse of the USSR:

"And something else. I have spent my entire life here, and I know Belarusian history. It is clear as day to me that the Belarusians (I mean all inhabitants of Belarus, irrespective of their ethnic origins, including Russians, Jews, Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians, Tatars) have now lost their patience. They have blown a fuse. I admit that, as recently as a week ago, I would never have thought that in a country where for many years all major changes came exclusively from above, this kind of initiative from below, and such a large one at that, was possible. Don't compare us to the Ukrainians. Compare us to what we were like a year, a month, a week ago."

Olga Timokhina
"Our children led us onto the streets"
Notes of an ordinary person

This article is available in English and Swedish at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-05-timokhina-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-05-timokhina-ru.html

----------------------------------------------------------------
2. NEW PARTNER: MERKUR
----------------------------------------------------------------
As a politically liberal and ironic intellectual institution, Merkur, the latest addition to the Eurozine network, employs the Enlightenment values of criticism, scepticism, and sarcasm against obtuseness and utopianism. It addresses a knowledgeable, open-minded, curious audience uninterested in merely having its opinions reaffirmed. Now in its 60th year of publication, the Berlin-based journal presents a variety of topics each month in which the political and the cultural-aesthetic, to name two of the central themes, are not pitted against but rather paired excitingly with one another.

See more about Merkur including the current issue, which will be featured in the Eurozine Review next week on Tuesday:

>>www.eurozine.com/journals/merkur.html

----------------------------------------------------------------
3. CECILIA PARSBERG IN THE EUROZINE GALLERY
----------------------------------------------------------------
Since 2003, graffiti artists worldwide have been leaving their marks on the Palestinian side of the demarcation wall being built between Palestinian and Israeli territory. Swedish artist Cecilia Parsberg's photographs record what she calls "an international multitude, a writing-carpet". "I am primarily interested in the phenomena of people coming from other countries to paint on the wall, and that they paint on one side of it," she says. "The core of this type of network is the connection between the place and activity, the clash of different aesthetic expressions, that there is no typical graffiti-aesthetic." Are Parsberg's photographs evidence of a larger movement of aesthetic resistance to the changing value systems of globalization in art and society?

View the portraits in the Eurozine Gallery:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-30-gallery_parsberg-en.html

----------------------------------------------------------------
4. NEW ARTICLES
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ismail Kadare
DON QUIXOTE IN THE BALKANS
Ismail Kadare on why Don Quixote belongs to Balkan folklore, how Cervantes first came to be translated into Albanian, and why today's politicians should be banned from using the knight errant's name as a term of abuse.
31.05.2006

This article is available in English and Albanian:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-31-kadare-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-31-kadare-sq.html

Ece Temelkuran
FROM A LAND OF WONDERS TO A STATE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
For Kurds in Turkey and in Iraq, US investment in Kurdistan is both a blessing and a burden, writes Ece Temelkuran.
29.05.2006

This article is available in German, Turkish, and English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-29-temelkuran-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-29-temelkuran-de.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-29-temelkuran-tr.html

Andrej Dynko
SACRIFICIAL THERAPY. LETTER FROM A PRISON IN MINSK
Letter from a prison in Minsk
During his time in prison, publicist Andrej Dynko wrote a letter, trying to figure out -- for himself as much as for the outside world -- the impact of recent events in Belarus.
29.05.2006

This article is now available in Latvian as well as in English and Belarusian:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-29-dynko-lv.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-04-03-dynko-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-04-03-dynko-be.html

Vytautas Kavolis
MODERNIZATION, GLOBALITY, AND NATIONALISM AS CULTURAL ENDEAVOURS
An essay by the late Lithuanian-American sociologist arguing that the idea of the nation retains its validity alongside processes of modernization and globalization.
26.05.2006

This article is now available in Lithuanian and English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-26-kavolis-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-26-kavolis-lt.html

Göran Rosenberg
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND ITS LIMITS
The principle of absolute freedom of expression is always qualified by tacit agreements within societies on what can and cannot be said.
24.05.2006

This article is now available in Slovenian as well as in Swedish and English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-24-rosenberg-sl.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-03-03-rosenberg-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-03-03-rosenberg-sv.html

Aleida Assmann
HANDWRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE TO MENTAL EXERCISE BY EMAIL
Until halfway through the last century, scientists' handwritten correspondence prepared the ground for the publication of a scientific work. This stage in the process has shifted to the international conference, the organization of which is now conducted by email. What will this mean for archivists of the future?
24.05.2006

This article is now available in French as well as in German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-24-assmann-fr.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-01-16-assmann-de.html

Achille Mbembe
AFRICA: JOINING HERE WITH ELSEWHERE
Africa's history is one of movement. It is connected with an "Afropolitanism" that has transcended rigid African nationalism through curiosity for the foreign and openness to hybridity.
23.05.2006

This article is available in German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-23-mbembe-de.html

Christopher Alan Bayly
THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN WORLD
Europe's dominance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, argues historian Christopher Alan Bayly, was based not only on industrialization and the development of nation-states with imperial scopes, but also, more importantly, on a combination of economic and political factors that did not coincide anywhere else at the time.
23.05.2006

This article is available in German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-23-bayly-de.html

Éva Kovács
THE MÉMOIRE CROISÉE OF THE SHOAH
How the crossovers between the politics of history and personal and social memories of the Shoah differ between eastern and western Europe.
22.05.2006

This article is available in English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-22-kovacs-en.html

Ramin Jahanbegloo
BEYOND THE CLASH OF INTOLERANCES
"We must encourage opposing forces to adhere to values of moderation, tolerance, and non-violence", says the Tehran academic and philosopher currently under arrest in Iran.
19.05.2006

This article is available in English and Italian:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-19-jahanbegloo-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-19-jahanbegloo-it.html

Jacques Rupnik
ANATOMY OF A CRISIS. THE REFERENDUM AND THE DILEMMAS OF THE ENLARGED EUROPEAN UNION
The derailing of the European constitution brought to light differences that could lead to the weakening of the EU, if not its disintegration. An analysis of the underlying factors and possible consequences of the crisis of the European project.
18.05.2006

This article is available in French and German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-18-rupnik-de.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-18-rupnik-fr.html

Peter Lagerquist
REEL CASBAH
The Dubai International Annual Film Festival is part of a campaign to brand Dubai as the Middle Eastern cosmopole of the future. Welcome to the city of other people's dreams, says Peter Lagerquist.
17.05.2006

This article is available in English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-17-lagerquist-en.html

Krystian Woznicki
IN DIGITAL DEATH VALLEY. NET/LANGUAGE - B@BEL, AYMARA.ORG, AND THE INTERNET AS LANGUAGE GRAVEYARD
Campaigns for online multilingualism fail to see the Internet as an environment for the development of critical net-languages and so pre-empt the death of small languages.
16.05.2006

This article is available in German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-16-woznicki-de.html

Hasan Bülent Kahraman
TURKEY AND EUROPE: NEIGHBOURS FROM AFAR
After a surge of popularity for concepts such as fluidity, migration, and fragmentation, polarity has returned to the stage of international politics, bringing with it renewed interest in neighbourhood. Associating neighbourhood with friendship, Hasan Bülent Kahraman looks at Maurice Blanchot's theory of the "infinite distance" inherent in friendship. Turkey can and should, he argues, use this distance as a parameter in order to establish a productive relationship with the EU and the West.
12.05.2006

This article is available in English and Turkish:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-12-kahraman-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-12-kahraman-tr.html

Eurozine News Item
FREE RAMIN JAHANBEGLOO
The leading Iranian academic Ramin Jahanbegloo is being held in prison in Iran on spying charges. Esprit has launched a petition for his release.
12.05.2006

This article is available in English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-12-newsitem-en.html

Nerijus Prekevicius
ONE PRESIDENT, THREE CHALLENGERS. ASSESSING BELARUSIAN ELECTION POLITICS
Why the opposition failed to match Lukashenko's mass support, "despite" their respective policies.
11.05.2006

This article is available in English and Belarusian:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-11-prekevicius-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-11-prekevicius-be.html

Chris J. Bickerton
HOW CAN WE REMEMBER WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW? FRANCE'S HISTORY WARS
France's non-commemoration last year of the bicentennial of Napoleon's great victory at Austerlitz was a sign of national uncertainty about the role of history and its relationship to the state.
10.05.2006

This article is available in English and German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-10-bickerton-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-10-bickerton-de.html

Stig Saeterbakken
MY HEART BELONGS TO EUROPE. THEREFORE IT IS BROKEN
An author whose influence spans Europe and America asks whether literature helps maintain individual and collective identity, or whether it inspires us to discredit it. When the Cyclops demands our name, how should we answer?
09.05.2006

This article is now available in Danish as well as in English and Hungarian:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-09-saeterbakken-da.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-02-02-saeterbakken-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-02-02-saeterbakken-hu.html

Emil Brix
EUROPE REVISITED. NEIGHBOURLY CONFLICT AND THE RETURN OF HISTORY
Europe has experienced not the end of history, but the end of the postwar pact not to talk about history. But the "return of history" has also brought the return of cultural differences.
08.05.2006

This article is available in English:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-08-brix-en.html

Sandra Lehmann
THE VAGUE COUNTRY (JERON AL-HOMOS). HERE THE SUN IS SOMETIMES DARK FROM ALL THE LIGHT
The extreme location of Jeron al-Homos, situated between an Israeli army checkpoint and the "fence" around Bethlehem, lays bare the function of borders and the mechanisms of power.
04.05.2006

This article is available in German:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-04-lehmann-de.html

Ayhan Kaya
THE BEUR UPRISING. POVERTY AND MUSLIM ATHEISTS IN FRANCE
It is not cultural difference and Islamism that took young Muslims to France's streets last year so much as a reaction to two centuries of colonialism and racism.
03.05.2006

This article is available in English and Turkish:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-03-kaya-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-03-kaya-tr.html