I remember the Berlin Wall from German radio – west and east – reporting its being built to keep citizens of the German Democratic Republic away from West German fleshpots. Like with the ‘Turkish Wall’ (Sayarer 2021) and like edifices around Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves on the Moroccan coast, the point of building walls...

Assuming its audience to be in the know about the significance of the date, the Danish TV series under this title seems to vindicate Lord Palmerston‘s bon mot (referred to in my earlier blog on ‘Territorialism Follies’) that the issue was beyond comprehension. Danish viewers in any case must have understood the message. Others at least learn about a nationalistic...

    Referring to Afghanistan, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell (2021) argued for comprehending the situation on the ground. Incomprehension is a feature also of our dealings with new member states. Rest assured, this is no defence of ’Orbàn & co’. However, instead of casting them all-too-often as targets of our enlightened messages, we...

No, this is not about renewing my all-too-brief acquaintance with Philadelphia at the occasion of some event at the university in the mid-2000s. Of course, I could not fail to visit Independence Hall, the site commemorating the famous Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution at what then was the Pennsylvania State House, now a...

  In postwar Vienna we used to listed to a satirical broadcast by the US occupying forces, waiting to hear: ‘When Harun al-Rashid roamed the streets in private…’, followed by something that had transpired during the week. Asking bystanders about the why and how, the caliph always received the same reply: ‘Stranger, you should know...