Brexit or Bremain? Keep connected and inclusive, not angry and isolated There’s a rousing editorial arguing passionately in favour of the UK remaining in the EU in this week’s critical referendum on the issue. ‘We need’, it argues, ‘to remember our history. Britain was formed and shaped by Europe. And we are – in historical as well as cultural, geographical and trading terms – a European nation. In almost every generation of European history until the past 70 years, people from these islands have fought and died in European wars. But within the borders of the European Union, there has… More

EU referendum: the paradox of true sovereignty points to Remain My brother Tom’s feisty UK EU referendum thinkpiece just published by openDemocracy: Retaining European economic sovereignty, he argues, demands continuing to pool it – within the European Union. The paradox of true sovereignty points to Remain Tom Salter The EU provides a means to exercise more control of international capitalism no individual European nation has the power to exercise. It’s paradoxical but critical: sovereignty is dependent on an economy and order over which no nation is sovereign There is a fundamental mis-match between the increasingly globalised nature of the economy and… More

When Nelson Met Ali A great image from when Muhammed Ali and Nelson Mandela met in 2005, included in a recent BBC feature titled ‘Ali’s love affair with Africa’. Nelson, of course, had been something of a boxer in his day. And as he had said on a previous occasion, “Ali was not just my hero, but the hero of millions of young, black South Africans because he brought dignity to boxing.” And to a whole lot of other people too, he might have added. Ali  in Nigeria on his first African tour in 1964, where crowds welcomed him with… More

One-on-one with Donald Trump Ready to be terrified? Then watch this segment from a recent CNN interview with US Presidential hopeful, Mr Donald Trump. Deeply, truly, scary. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/03/donald_trump_s_cnn_interview_is_incoherent_racist_and_terrifying.html    

The ‘basic income’ proposal Switzerland is voting on this weekend will probably fall at the polls this time. But it’s an approach to regulating the work – life balance that we’re definitely going to be hearing more about in future – and not just in Switzerland either! Supporters of a basic income last month crowdfunded a giant poster asking: “What would you do if your income were taken care of?” Switzerland basic income: Landmark vote looms Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Geneva, 4 June 2016 Switzerland will become the first country in the world to hold a nationwide referendum on the… More

The Muslim nation that saved Jews Lime Basha’s family hid three Jewish brothers in their home during WWII (Norman Gershman)   This is an account of an extraordinary and – to me at least – unknown corner of modern history. It concrns the determined efforts of Albania’s most Muslim population to protect both the country’s own Jewish communities and that of neighbouring countries during the Holocaust. ‘To look after your guests, your neighbours, is a matter of national honour’, says Dashmir Balla, whose family hid three Jewish brothers in their home during World War II, explaining the background to this… More

Symbolic graves for victims of the war’s May 2009 final stages in and around Mullivaikal. Seven years on from the brutal ending to Sri Lanka’s civil war, here is some moving footage from one of comemmorations now finally allowed to take part in Mullivaikal and around the Tamil North (follow the Twitter link) 7 years on, these comemmorations still the reality for so many in #lka https://t.co/cnE3QqYB3z — Mark Salter (@marsal61) May 20, 2016

Soviet History Returns – to Eurovision 2016 Ukraine’s Eurovision 2016 entry: ‘1844’, a powerful song about Stalin’s deportations of Crimean Tartars that year in revenge for their perceived collaboration with the Nazis. It’s sung partly in the Tartar language by Jamala,,who is herself of Tartar origin. All in all, can’t imagine Moscow is too pleased about this one.

Illustration: Zohar Lazar Here’s a brilliant, chastening dissection of Trump’s tyranny-in-the-making from Andrew Sullivan, writing in the New York Magazine  It’s framed by a searing analysis of how US democracy got itself into a place where such a thing as a Trump election victory was even conceivable. Democracies end when they are too democratic.And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny. Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine, 2 May 2016 As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage… More

Here is my brother Tom’s alternately lyrical and learned tribute to the great Congolese singer Papa Wemba, who died after collapsing on stage in Abidjan earlier this week. Among Wemba’s many achievements, Tom Salter argues, was his embodiment of what is described as ‘a very Congolese cultural trajectory – the creation of ways of being modern that were not Western’. Photo credit above: Congo’s most famous musician Papa Wemba, performing at a concert in Kinshasa in 2004. Reuters/ David Lewis Papa Wemba: musical king of the Society of Ambianceurs and Elegant People Tom Salter, 27 April 2016, The Conversation Sadly, we have lost another great of… More