Aufhebunga Bunga

Game writer & designer Jonas Kyratzes joins us to talk about the art of games, the culture of gaming, the gamification of society, and the identity politics of gamer culture. How far has Jonas’ own philosophy influenced his writing for games, such as “The Talos Principle”? We also talk politics in both Greece, focusing on Syriza failure. Plus, could Bunga co-host Philip Cunliffe’s book ‘Lenin Lives!’ ever be made into a game?

Readings:

• Games & Politics, Centre for Art & Media, Karlsruhe
• Jonas Kyratzes website

On Germany, the hegemon of Europe.

We are joined by leading German public intellectual Wolfgang Streeck to discuss the role of Germany at the end of the End of History. How is it and the EU faring under the assault of Covid-19? We cover Germany’s economic miracles - postwar and post-2008 -, Merkel’s tactical brilliance and strategic ignorance, and how France retains more of a sense of history.

Also: why democracy sometimes needs an AK47.

Readings:

• Critical Encounters, Wolfgang Streeck, Verso (2020)
• Letters from Europe, Wolfgang Streeck (in EN & ES) 

• We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany, David Broder, Jacobin
• The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into, Andrew Sullivan
• The End of Anti-Fascism, David Broder, Jacobin
• What Is Trump?, Dylan Riley, NLR

Internationalism used to be a defining characteristic of the Left. Globalism is a defining characteristic of neoliberal capitalism. Both seem to be characteristic of Islamist jihadism. How did Islamist reaction become globalised? How far does Islamist globalism connect to radical legacies of Third Worldism, internationalism and radical solidarity? Political anthropologist Darryl Li, author of The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity joins us to discuss the transnational history of jihad over the last 30 years. 

Reading:

The Universal Enemy - Book Forum, The Immanent Frame, Various Authors

On the country of the future.

Italy has stagnated for 30 years, becoming a neoliberal gerontocracy with crumbling infrastructure (sound familiar?). Worse, it's a country without a Left. How did the populist right come to triumph? What is the relationship between high emigration and hostility to immigration? And how were the seeds sown 30 years ago with the collapse of the First Republic, Europeanisation, and Berlusconi's rise? Is there now a possibility of 'Italexit'?

Readings:
First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy, David Broder, Verso

• We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany, David Broder, Jacobin
• The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into, Andrew Sullivan
• The End of Anti-Fascism, David Broder, Jacobin
• What Is Trump?, Dylan Riley, NLR

• Of moonshots and bus subsidies: How state aid became a Brexit deal-breaker, The Economist (attached in patreon)
• Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment holds a worldwide warning, Wolfgang Münchau, FT (attached in patreon)
• Why are we racialising Beethoven, Ralph Leonard, Unherd

• Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment, FT
• We Need a Radically Different Approach to the Pandemic and Our Economy as a Whole, Katherine Yik & Martin Kulldorff, Jacobin

• Conservatives’ grip on ‘red wall’ holding firm, Sebastian Payne, FT
• Lawmakers ‘Alarmed’ by Reports U.S. Envoy Told Brazil It Could Help Re-elect Trump, Ernesto Londoño, Manuela Andreoni and Letícia Casado, NYT
• “Imagine the damage a president could cause”: What would happen if Trump refused defeat?, Emily Tamkin, New Statesman

On British decline.

Much ink has been spilled over the Britain’s fate since the end of its empire. Could it be that decline has been overstated? And what will happen to Britain as it leaves the European Union? We discuss how the history of the Industrial Revolution and Cold War militarism still shapes British politics today, as David Edgerton joins us to talk about the his latest book, 'The Rise and Fall of the British Nation'.

Readings:

• A misremembered empire, David Edgerton, Tortoise
• Britain’s 20th-century industrial revolution, Colin Kidd, New Statesman (review of Edgerton's book)
• Britain's persistent racism cannot simply be explained by its imperial history, David Edgerton, The Guardian

Aleksandar Vučić's coalition won the recent (21 June) Serbian parliamentary elections amidst a mass boycott. We talk to Balkanist editor Lily Lynch about what Vučić represents - violent ultranationalist or technocratic centrist? We also take time to discuss geopolitical rivalries over Kosovo. 

Plus: cigar socialism, Yugoboomers and the enduring appeal of Balkan orientalism. According to Julian Assange, the future always comes to Serbia first - what does this mean? 

Intro clip: Vučić's very creepy virtual rally | Outro clip: The Big Z 

Readings:

• Abramović, Žižek and Milanović: Yugoslavia’s First and Last Global Public Intellectuals, Srdjan Garcevic, The Nutshell Times
• The Tito–Castro Split and the End of Cigar Socialism, Lily Lynch, Balkanist
• Vucic’s nationalist party wins landslide victory in Serbian poll, Valerie Hopkins, FT
• West is best: How ‘stabilitocracy’ undermines democracy building in the Balkans, Srda Pavlovic, LSE blog

• The Triumph of Black Lives Matter and Neoliberal Redemption, Cedric Johnson, NonSite
• ‘As soon as I saw the slaveowner’s statue being toppled in Bristol, I knew the real anti-racism protest was OVER’, Lisa McKenzie, RT
• The Triumph of American Idealism, Alex Hochuli, Damage
• Alex's additional notes on his blog

On Ireland's elections.

With Sinn Fein riding high in the polls, are we looking at an upset? Is this a populist upsurge in Ireland, finally, more than a decade after the start of the crisis? We discuss what Ireland's 'end of history' was like and how the 'Celtic Tiger' economy sustained it; and look at how the country was the EU's "model prisoner" of austerity. Are there new stirrings? And what are the prospects for unification?

Readings: 

• Mary Lou McDonald could take Sinn Féin into the political mainstream, Jason Walsh, The New European
• This Month’s Elections in Ireland Are a Historic Opportunity, Michael Taft, Jacobin
  
• The End of Irish History, Colin Coulter et al., Manchester UP (Edited book; pdf)

On how Labour lost.

Was it Brexit that did for Labour? In what sense? What now for the British Left - and for democracy?

Running order:

• (02:40) Opening chat
• (05:15) The electoral map, the generational divide
• (21:46) Class
• (33:52) The leadership and the media
• (48:10) Holding our prediction to account
• (53:30) Reaction of various Labour factions 
• (01:03:10) Future of left-populism

Readings:

• How class, turnout and the Brexit party shaped the general election result, Financial Times
• The Failure of the Left to Grasp Brexit, Michael Wilkinson, Verfassungs Blog
• Anti-politics & the last gasp of British Labourism, Tad Tietze, Left-Flank
• Hate to say it, but #BrexitWouldveWon, Alex Hochuli
• Don’t blame Corbyn or Brexit: Labour failed to rage against the hated political system, Adam Ramsay, openDemocracy

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