Hello!
How good is a road trip? Rhetorical. They’re great! We got back from one on Sunday night with our friends and I wish I was still out there. We went to Wiradjuri and Wailwan country, visiting Mudgee and the Warrumbungles, specifically. It was my first time in the NSW outback and I saw several species of birds I’ve never seen before, so all in all a perfect holiday. Also, the Warrumbungles are spectacular and I highly recommend going, although I was slightly disappointed we went during a full moon and missed out on seeing the Milky Way. The national park is classified as a ‘dark sky’ park where the light pollution can be very low. Observatories dot the landscape.
Anyway, we’re back now and Christmas trees seem to have sprouted all over retail outlets and Where In The World Did 2020 Go? Penultimate month, what what?
Europe
Poland
You may have seen the overhead shots of protests in Poland this week. They are reported as being the biggest anti-government protests in the country’s history.
In late October, the Polish constitutional court tightened its grip on women’s reproductive rights by further restricting abortion allowances to foetuses with irreversible birth defects. Claiming abortions to be “incompatible with the constitution”, the law has sparked outrage across the country, with protests gaining momentum over the past two weeks. The protests, which have ignored the ‘gathering of more than 5 persons’ ban in place to control COVID-19, have had some impact, on Wednesday the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) announced it was delaying the ban — perhaps more in reaction to their own supporters voicing opposition. Keep an eye on what conclusion they reach, though I doubt it will please Human Rights groups.
Poland, along with its political ally Hungary, has fallen to far-right parties that have been accused of eroding democracy by bringing media, judges, academics, NGOs and rights groups under government control. What populist Orbán in Hungary, and the PiS have done, according to experts, is taken advantage of conservative and nationalistic sentiments in rural areas most hit by unemployment and neoliberal policy within the EU. In September it was reported that the two countries have joined forces and set up a “rule-of-law institute” to push back on EU policy it deems Western Europe-centric (read: anti-national interests of Poland and Hungary, whatever they are and however they can spin them to suit their political agenda). Read more here.
The swing to the right has also been facilitated by a brain drain in both countries during the Global Financial Crisis (working-age people moved away to find work), impacting the voting habits of not only older conservatives but young constituents, too. Criticism of richer, more liberal economies has stoked sexism and homophobia, while the fear of losing jobs to immigrants has been transformed by politicians into antisemitism and islamophobia. Start with a foundation of Catholicism, and these prejudices can thrive.
Historically, both countries are very homogenous in ethnic make up, which creates a nice breeding ground for xenophobia. Both countries also have an inclination towards the nationalistic: Poland, because the Polish people were without a nation for centuries, and Hungary because their language and culture are unrelated and unique among Slavic Eastern Europe.
Ideals of democracy and nationalism aside, the factors that create internal EU conflict of interests and good old Brexit come down to real or perceived inequity and debt among EU members. While the EU experiment (if it can be called that anymore) retains an ideology that could still elevate regions in the global south out of poverty (unified African states like the East African Federation, for example), the mechanics of how money is spent across nations remains a work in progress. Meanwhile, there will continue to be those who don’t see that they’re getting a big enough piece of the pie.
North America
United States of America
Absolutely nothing happening here this week.
lol
As I write (6pm Thursday) the votes are still being counted… *inserts favourite meme so far*:
I’m not going to write any more on the election, instead we’re going to talk flags.
Buried under election news, there have been two stories explicitly about or obliquely related to flags of the United States.
The first is straightforward. The state of Mississippi has officially changed their flag so it no longer features the pro-slavery insignia of the confederate flag in the canton (upper-left corner). Now it features the state flower, the magnolia, front and centre and the words “In God We Trust”.
The winning design is the result of a collaboration between designers and that story can be read here.
As Australians (& Kiwis) know — or, at least, people like me who joined the god damn Change Australia’s Flag Facebook group — changing a flag can be a long and laborious journey, full of in-fighting and no consensus. So it intrigues me what would happen to the US flag if and when the it gains another state?
US territory, Puerto Rico, voted in the sixth referendum on the issue in favour of joining the US as a state this week. While it’s not binding, the island territory is hopeful that this time around Congress might consider a 51st state seriously.
The problem for vexillologists, of course, is how the flag would change if 51 stars needed to sit in the canton. Luckily for bureaucrats who will later have to outsource designers for the job, the internet has already discussed the issue ad nauseum.
Here’s a Reddit thread of how extra stars could be arranged.
And here are some serious and some tongue in cheek designs:
And some other things of interest from the week:
The Uluru Statement from the Heart has been translated into more than 60 languages
How the geology of the US during the Cretaceous affects election outcomes today
What did Proto-Indo-European (the great great great etc grandparent of languages from English, French, German to Farsi and Hindi) sound like? (From this amazing catalogue of languages):
Latest single from Brazilian heartthrob singer-songwriter SILVA, with a straightforward but hard to execute video:
Thanks again for reading. If you liked this week’s newsletter, please give me a thumbs up and recommend it to your peers.
Finally, I was featured in Kill Your Darlings again on Friday sharing my favourite media from the month of October (I’m the last contributor on the list). To read all about that, click here.