As fighting heats up between rival armed groups and Russia increases its involvement, a power vacuum threatens to tear the country apart. (@Mezran in Foreign Policy)
A little more than one year ago Fayez al-Serraj, Prime Minister of the UN brokered Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), arrived in Tripoli. Since then hopes of a speedy recognition process of this government by the other political actors and the stabilization of Libya have faltered. The international community officially sticks to its support of Serraj, as, for example, the declaration of the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy in April has shown. However, there have been indications of a policy shift towards Eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Nicola Pedde
Director of the Institute for Global Studies and the Editor of Geopolitics of the Middle East, a journal of the IGS and “La Sapienza” University in Rome

Karim Mezran
Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council and Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University

Moderation: Gudrun Harrer, Senior Editor, Der Standard; Lecturer on Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, University of Vienna and Diplomatic Academy of Vienna

Arab Changes in a Changing World

Soli Özel
Professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Richard von Weizsacker Fellow at Robert Bosch Academy  and a columnist at Habertürk daily newspaper

During the last decade and longer the orientation of the Turkish foreign policy has been redirected: the Middle East, especially the countries of the former Ottoman Empire, have become more important to Ankara, whereas the Turkish alienation from Europe seemed to grow, despite a nominal EU accession process. Before the outbreak of the so-called Arab spring, one of the cornerstones of Turkish Middle East policies was a promising partnership with Syria, nevertheless Ankara quickly embraced the Syrian uprising with the expectation of Assad’s ouster. This has dramatically failed. Today Turkey is struggling to ensure that it will have a say in the formation of a new order in the Middle East once the wars are over. However, what does President Erdogan really want; what are Turkish troops doing in Syria and in Iraq?

Moderation: Gudrun Harrer, Senior Editor, Der Standard; Lecturer on Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, University of Vienna and Diplomatic Academy of Vienna

Kenan Malik
writer, lecturer and broadcaster. A new, updated edition of his book From Fatwa to Jihad was published this year, which tells the story of ‘How the world changed from The Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo’. Previous books include The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics (2014), Multiculturalism and its Discontents (2012), Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate (2008), Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us about Human Nature (2000) and The Meaning of Race (1996). Kenan Malik is a columnist for the International New York Times, and has written for newspapers and magazines in Europe, America and Australia. He has made a number of radio and TV documentaries on scientific, moral and political issues. He blogs at Pandaemonium: www.kenanmalik.wordress.com

Moderator: Isolde Charim, philosopher, author

Hans Rauscher
Kommentator „Der Standard“

Flüchtlingskrise, Populismus, auf Halbwahrheiten aufgebaute Argumente, vorschnelle Urteile, Vorurteile – all das wird vom mehrfach ausgezeichneten Journalisten Hans Rauscher angepackt, zurechtgerichtet und geradegerückt. Diese Haltung vertritt er in seinem Buch und sagt das, was gesagt werden muss. Hans Rauscher hat von journalistischer Natur aus etwas gegen allzu schnelle Schlussfolgerungen, gegen Geplapper um der öffentlichen Aufmerksamkeit willen, gegen Tatsachenverdrehung, damit die eigene Weltanschauung nicht ins Schleudern kommt.
Er bürstet alle angeblichen Fakten kräftig gegen den Strich, bis ihr wahrer Gehalt sichtbar wird. Er widmet sich Themen, die die Gesellschaft bewegen und spalten: Was tun mit der absoluten Ablehnung weiterer muslimischer Zuwanderung im Zeichen von Erdogans Durchgriff auf die Austrotürken? Und: Warum man die Wähler von Rechtspopulisten verstehen kann, aber ihren „Lösungen“ nicht folgen darf. Worin liegt die wahre Belastung des Mittelstands?
Diesen und anderen Fragen geht der erfahrene Kolumnist auf den Grund und unterscheidet dabei strikt zwischen Fakten und Meinungen, ohne sich bei einem weltanschaulichen oder politischen Lager anzubiedern – mit wachem Blick, der Lust am Gespräch und einer gehörigen Portion Humor.

Moderation: Robert Misik, Autor

Hans Rauscher, Was gesagt werden muss, aber nicht gesagt werden darf; ecowin Verlag

FESTAKT
(Benefizveranstaltung)

70 JAHRE JÜDISCHER EXODUS KRIMMLER TAUERN
10 JAHRE ALPINE PEACE CROSSING

Ort: Großer Sendesaal des Radiokulturhauses in Wien
(Einlass: 9.30 Uhr, Beginn 10.00 Uhr)

Programm

THE IMPORTANCE OF BELONGING FOR A EUROPE LIVING IN DIFFERENCE

Curator: Antony Lerman
Published by: Pluto Press, London

Opening remarks:
Gertraud Borea d’Olmo, Bruno Kreisky Forum
Antony Lerman, Editor

Keynote:
Zia Haider Rahman
is a British novelist, born in Bangladesh and raised in the UK. His debut novel, In the Light of What We Know, was published in 2014 to international critical acclaim and was awarded the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain’s oldest literary prize. Rahman is an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America, Washington DC, and has been appointed a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and a Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Rahman is also a Senior Fellow at the Bruno Kreisky Forum, Vienna. He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs before practicing as a corporate lawyer and then as an international human rights lawyer. He has also worked as an anti-corruption activist for Transparency International. Rahman is co-founder of a tech enterprise, commonK, addressing the network science challenges of corporations, public institutions and civil society.

Discussion:
Isolde Charim, philosopher and publicist, Scientific Curator of the Bruno Kreisky Forum
Hanno Loewy, Director, Jewish Museum Hohenems
Viola Raheb, University of Vienna, Senior Fellow, Bruno Kreisky Forum

The notion of ‘belonging’ – which is both a fundamental human emotion and a political project, and all about ways of being different and managing difference – is a valuable prism through which we can consider the other key problems that threaten fatally to undermine much of what the EU has achieved since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. However, as most writing on belonging in recent years emphasizes, feelings of belonging or not belonging are very complex. For example, individuals may experience different and sometimes contradictory senses of belonging within themselves. EU bureaucrats may see national belonging as antithetical to a sense of European identity, but this may well be a myth. A sense of belonging in Europe may be engendered in many indirect ways, such as feeling safe and wanted within one’s faith community whose participation in public life is encouraged and promoted by local leaders and national authorities.
Moreover, there are multiple ways in which people feel that they belong. And some choose not to belong. The path of belonging is not linear. Belonging is dynamic, fluid, imagined, created and recreated. So the idea that there is one sense of ‘good’ belonging in Europe that should apply to all is simply unrealizable.

Publication
A diverse group of original thinkers, with sensitive and informed understanding of the problems Europe faces, was invited to contribute essays to the volume. What they will all have in common is either a primary concern with the subject matter of the book arising out of personal experience, analytical expertise or empirical research, or a background as an immigrant, the child of immigrants, or a more distant, but still existentially significant, connection with their immigrant backgrounds. These are writers who, to varying degrees, are dealing with the continuous, unfinished business of their own belongings, their own identities.
What will make these essays distinctive and unique, thereby yielding valuable insights into the troubles afflicting the European polity, is the way the writers will bring their own personal narrative of belonging to bear on the issues they are asked to address.

Publisher
Pluto Press is one of the world’s leading radical publishers, specialising in progressive, critical perspectives in politics and the social sciences. Based in London, it has been active for over 40 years and independent since 1979.

Contributors
Berkely Robert: The Missing Link: Building Solidarity among Black Europeans?
Borea d’Olmo Gertraud: Preface
Bozkurt Umut: The Paris 2015 attacks: multidimensional crises of the European project and the eclipse of the sense of belonging
Charim Isolde: When Do You Eat Lunch?
Demossier Marion: From the European Puzzle to a Puzzled Europe
Ebert Lars: Guilty Pleasure
Emek Seyda: The BIRD’S RELIGION
Fieschi Catherine: The reconstructed European
Guibernau Montserrat: The profound and ambivalent nature of belonging in the EU
Haider Rahman Zia: Europe’s Problem with Otherness
Klug Brian: A World of Difference
Lerman Antony: Introduction. A Journey, Not a Destination
Loewy Hanno: Jewish Museums – European Museums –Postdiasporic Diaspora
Pinto Diana: Growing Up Under Different Skies
Rabinovici Doron: The Undiscovered Continent
Raheb Viola: A never-ending story: my belonging journey
Rosenberg Goran: Home and Homelessness in Europe
Sternfeld Nora: Belonging to the Contact Zone
Yural-Davis Nira: The accidental European

BUCHPRÄSENTATION

Christian Kern: Ein politisches Porträt
Robert Misik

Der Autor Robert Misik im Gespräch mit Bundeskanzler Christian Kern
Moderation: Sibylle Haman

Im Anschluss:
Brot & Wein, bei schönem Wetter im Garten

In Kooperation mit Residenz Verlag und Renner-Institut.