Georgia erupted in jubilation in early February as EU lawmakers approved visa-free access for Georgian citizens, a prize Tbilisi has long sought. The former Soviet republic hopes that the short-stay visa waiver becomes a major step toward eventual full membership in the European Union.
Amid a perception that illiberalism is gaining traction in the region, the news gave embattled advocates of liberal values reason to cheer.
“Congratulations! This is a truly historic day!” tweeted Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili after the European Parliament voted to drop visa requirements for short-term visits to the Schengen Zone, the common travel space covering most of the European continent.
A screen was set up in Georgia’s parliament to watch live as the European Parliament voted on the visa waiver bill. After the legislation passed, Georgian legislators celebrated with champagne and EU-and-Georgia-themed cake.
Georgian leaders took turns to thank the European Parliament for supporting the legislation, which faced a headwind from skeptics who argued that liberalization would expose the EU to potential terrorism and illegal labor migration from Georgia. “The European Union has opened its doors to Georgian citizens just as it is facing major immigration challenges,” said Vice Speaker of Parliament Tamar Chugoshvili, of the ruling Georgian Dream party, in televised comments.
As the news breaks around us and around Trump, this may be threatening to lead the president to a narcissistic rage reaction, mixed with something Trump has never dealt with before: fear.
Few rational people are seriously thinking Flynn would have done this on his own. The talk on TV and in the news is that Trump had to have been in on the phone call with the Russian ambassador. As unstable as the president anything could happen from a rage reaction to a deep depression if his reality testing is intact and he sees impeachment as a real possibility.
With all of this going on this important letter to the editor of the New York Times may get lost.
To the Editor:
Charles M. Blow (column, nytimes.com, Feb. 9) describes Donald Trump’s constant need “to grind the opposition underfoot.” As mental health professionals, we share Mr. Blow’s concern.
Silence from the country’s mental health organizations has been due to a self-imposed dictum about evaluating public figures (the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater Rule). But this silence has resulted in a failure to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time. We fear that too much is at stake to be silent any longer.
Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).
In a powerful leader, these attacks are likely to increase, as his personal myth of greatness appears to be confirmed. We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.
James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York University:
“I’ve worked with some of the most dangerous people our society produces, directing mental health programmes in prisons,” he said. “I’ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognise dangerousness from a mile away. You don’t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.”
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Morocco’s High Religious Committee has retracted its Islamic ruling stating that apostasy is punishable by death and has decided to permit Muslims to change their religion.
The High Religious Committee in charge of issuing Fatwas (Islamic rulings) released a book in 2012 where it articulated its position on apostasy and argued that a Muslim who changes his or her religion should be punished with death, drawing on a widespread jurisprudence tradition.
Recently, however, the same entity issued a document titled “The Way of the Scholars,” in which it backtracked on its position of killing apostates. Instead, it redefined apostasy not as a religious issue but as a political stand more closely aligned with “high treason.”
The view that the apostate should not be killed in Islam is not a new one and can be found in the teachings of Sufyan al-Thawri in the first century AH. The scholar reviewed historical situations where the prophet Mohammed acted on the ruling, as opposed to the times he did not order the killing of the apostates. He concluded that killings occurred for political purposes and were not decisions based on religion. The apostates could, theoretically, disclose the secrets of the then fragile Islamic nation.
The reasons behind Morocco’s High Religious Committee’s change in position are not different from those advocated by Sufyan al-Thawri. Their newly released statement says:
“The most accurate understanding, and the most consistent with the Islamic legislation and the practical way of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is that the killing of the apostate is meant for the traitor of the group, the one disclosing secrets, […] the equivalent of treason in international law.”
The High Religious Committee presented the Prophet’s statement that “whoever changes his religion, kill him” in the light of his explanation “the one who leaves his religion and abandons his people.” The statement further explains that, at the time of continuous wars against the Islamic revolution in Arabia, apostates represented the threat of disclosing the secrets of new Ummah to its many enemies.
The document went to explain that during the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, Prophet Mohammed himself observed the provisions stating that whomever became a Muslim and renounced it must be allowed to return to Quraich, the Muslim nations’ most powerful enemy at the time. When a Bedouin decided to leave Islam after the Treaty, therefore, the prophet simply let him go.
Using Islam’s primary source of legislation, the High Religious Committee stated that the Quran talks in many instances about apostasy and its punishment in the hereafter, without mentioning any punishment in this life as in Chapter 2 verse 217 that says: “And whoever of you reverts from his religion [to disbelief] and dies while he is a disbeliever – for those, their deeds have become worthless in this world and the Hereafter, and those are the companions of the Fire, they will abide therein eternally.”
The document also explained that the famous Wars of Apostasy launched by Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, the Muslims world’s first Caliph, were in line with his effort to keep the newly established state together and fight all sorts of internal divisions. This was a decision based on political reasoning rather than by religious motivations.
Während des I. Weltkriegs, im Jahre 1916, beugten sich mehrere soignierte Herrn über die Landkarte einer Gegend, die zu Österreich gehörte und sich Südtirol nannte. Die Sachverständigen arbeiteten in den Räumen der ehrwürdigen Società Dante Alighieri.
Ihr Leiter war der Senator Ettore Tolomei, der Herausgeber der Zeitschrift Archivio per l'Alto Adige. Alto Adige oder Überetsch lautete die italienische Bezeichnung für Südtirol, die er erfunden hatte.
Die würdigen Herrn hatten die Aufgabe, für zehntausend südtiroler Orts- und Flurnamen italienische Äquivalente zu finden, für den Fall nämlich, dass Italiens Truppen Österreich-Ungarn bezwingen und Südtirol erobern würden.
So geschah es. Die Provinz südlich des Brenner-Passes wurde 1919 italienisch, und zu den robusten tiroler Namen gesellten sich elegante italienische. Aus Brixen wurde Bressanone, und aus Franzensfeste Fortezza. Sterzing hiess nun Vipiteno, und Kaltern Caldaro. Wo die tiroler Namen wie Bachkiesel mit Halsweh klangen, tat sich melodischer Wohlklang auf.
Das Gleiche in der Sprache der Vereinten Nationen:
In the northern part of Italy, up in the Alps, is the region of South Tyrol. It is a strategic region as it controls the mountain passes onto Vienna and Germany. It belonged to the Austrian Empire, but when Austria lost the First World War Italy annexed it. It had been a German-speaking area for over a thousand years, but the Italians next imposed their language on the area. In the middle of the capital Bozen or Bolzano they erected a triumphal arch with the Latin text on it: „We have brought culture to the barbarians“. And from one day to another they changed the place names. As a matter of fact they changed all names, they even changed family names and names on tombstones in cemeteries. They did so because they did know the power of names. In figure 1 [not shown here, ed.] you will see names like Sterzing, Wiesen, Deutschhaus (or Lichtenberg, Schlanders and Laas). These names have connotations of German dishes like Bratwurst, or Schinken or roasted chestnut. The figure is taken from an Italian map made of this Austrian area before the First World War.
In figure 2 [not shown here, ed.] you will see exactly the same area, but instead of Sterzing, Wiesen and Deutschhaus (Lichtenberg, Schlanders and Laas) the map bears the names Vipiteno, Prato and La Commenda (or Montechiaro, Silandro and Lasa) for the same localities. And these names bring memories of Italian dishes like pasta and prosciutto con melone. But, more important, these names on the map make the area look like an Italian area. That is the power of names. Naming things conveys power to the one who bestows the names! A comparison of figures 1 and 2 will show that it is indeed the same area. Imagine that from one day to another your hometown and the street on which you live would be re-baptized and receive a name in a foreign language! In 1945 South Tyrol was again assigned to Italy by the Allied forces, on the condition that it would respect the German culture and language of the area. Well, place names are part of the language and of culture, but up till now no German place names have entered any official Italian maps of South Tyrol. There is only one commercial publisher, the Italian Touring Club, which publishes atlases and maps with bilingual names for the area. It does so either because it wants to reflect the local situation that has bilingual road signs now, or because it also publishes the maps for a German-speaking clientele.
The use of names on maps is nearly as important as the use of boundaries. Naming things conveys power to the one who bestows the name. Reversely, if one is in control over something one can name it: one’s children or one’s house. Italian names show they have been bestowed by Italians, they show Italian sovereign rights. So if names are in Italian, it is an Italian region. Vice versa, if it is part of Italy, it should have Italian names. That is the reasoning, at least. It is the reasoning of nationalism, a very important force, last century, in Western Europe. As topographic mapping is considered to be some sort of sovereign right, just like taking censuses, and as topographic mapping is usually performed by the state’s civil servants, there is a tendency for minority language toponyms to be represented on the map in some transformed way, adapted to the state languages or to the raison d’etat, that is to reasons of state.
From the cultural viewpoint it should be a nation’s prerogative to preserve the cultural heritage of its population, its minority language population included. Toponyms are parts of this cultural heritage and should therefore be preserved in their minority language versions. The national authorities should also act as a go-between and allow foreign cultural communities to take cognisance of its minority language communities, toponyms included. By paying taxes the members of minority language communities share in the costs of national topographic surveys and the production of topographic maps. They should have the right therefore to see their home area represented on these maps as they know it, and not disguised in an unfamiliar onomastical cloak.
Based on this European experience a package of measures has been established that should ensure the restoration of minority toponyms: it consists of the following steps
a) Delimitation of minority language area boundaries b) Introduction of bilingual transitional periods on the map: so after a majority names edition a bilingual edition is published which precedes a monolingual minority language edition c) Official restoration of minority language name versions d) Exclusive minority language rendering e) Accompanied by the rendering of marginal information also in minority language
In Europe we have developed the feeling that recognition of their language and culture is an important contribution to the strengthening of the identity of minority language communities. The official use of their toponyms in the minority language is part of that recognition. The rendering of toponyms on maps might seem an insignificant aspect of this official recognition, but it should be stressed that these names often are the first and only representation by which the minority language community can manifest itself to outsiders. The acknowledgement of minority language toponyms on the map can be considered as an official recognition and acceptance of the minority language community.
A national state is nowadays considered responsible for the cultural heritage of all minority language communities, and minority language names also belong to this cultural heritage.
Als in Italien unlängst ein Referendum über Verfassungsreform anstand, versuchte die Regierung Renzi, sich die Stimmen der Südtiroler Volkspartei und der rechtsextremen Südtiroler Freiheit zu sichern, indem sie die Abschaffung unwichtiger italienischer Flur- und Ortsnamen versprach. Nur die alten tiroler Namen sollten noch gelten.
Dagegen erhob sich ein Sturm der italophonen Tiroler und anderer Italiener mit Hilfe einiger deutschsprachigen Unterstützer:
Eine Gruppe italienischer und deutschsprachiger Akademiker wandte sich mit einem Appell an den Präsidenten Sergio Mattarella und die Provinz Bozen, dass die italienischen Namen als Teil der Zweisprachigkeit Südtirol bewahrt werden sollten, deren Beseitigung "ohne jede ernsthafte geschichtliche Begründung" drohe.
Tatsächlich stimmte Südtirol/Welschtirol (Alto Adige/Trentino) mit 54 Prozent für die im Referendum vorgeschlagene Reform. Genauer gesagt, stimmte nur Südtirol mit "Ja". Doch das half nicht: Renzi verlor die Volksabstimmung spektakulär, und damit bleiben Ettore Tolomeis Namensschöpfungen weiterhin erhalten, und die Italiener müssen sich nicht den Kopf zerbrechen, wie man Ortsnamen wie "Schlern" wohl ausspricht. Und in der Bar am Brenner gibt es immer noch Espresso statt Einspänner.
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Eine ungeschriebene Regel in den USA lautet, dass Präsidentschafts-Kandidaten (m/w), um aussichtsreich zu sein, Milliardäre sein sollten. Oder wenigstens vielfache Millionäre. Dass hin und wieder ein relativer Ärmling wie Barack Obama eine Wahl gewinnt, bestätigt nur die Regel, die von Donald Trump erneut zementiert wurde.
Amerika hat es gut. Milliardäre opfern ihre kostbare Zeit im Dienste des Vaterlandes, arbeiten vier oder acht Jahre lang für ein lächerliches Gehalt, das Trump kurzerhand dem Staat schenkte. Wenn das kein Patriotismus ist, von dem wir in Deutschland nur träumen können! Da wärmt doch die Vermutung das Herz, dass Trump am Tag, an dem er das Weisse Haus verlässt, viel reicher sein wird als an dem Tag, als er es betrat. Lohn des Gerechten.
Deutschland? Ein Land, in dem nicht Milliardäre, sondern relative Hungerleider Politik machen. Leute, die vielleicht eine Villa im Grünen abzahlen oder für das Oxford-Studium ihrer Kinder sparen. Man sieht Deutschland an, dass jahrzehntelang Kleingeister Politik gemacht haben. Das muss sich ändern: wir brauchen wie Amerika grosszügige Politiker, vor allem Männer, denen eine Milliarde mehr oder weniger nicht den Schlaf raubt. Wir brauchen erfolggewohnte Manager, um dieses verschnarchte Land und seine unter Kleinkariertheit stöhnende Wirtschaft aufzurütteln.
Der Job des Bundeskanzlers einer Mittelmacht wie Deutschland verdient die Opferbereitschaft wichtiger Persönlichkeiten, die wenigstens schon ihre erste Milliarde vorweisen können. Wir brauchen einen Mann, der Deutschland (wieder) gross macht und seine Wirtschaft von den Fesseln der Hungerleider-Jahrzehnte befreit.
Es gibt so unglaublich viel zu tun, und nur ein Milliardär hat die Statur und den Kenntnisreichtum, den die Aufgabe erfordert. Wir brauchen einen nationalen Wettbewerb:
Deutschland sucht den Milliardär!
Um nur ein paar der dringendsten anstehenden Aufgaben zu zitieren:
Wirtschaftsfeindliche Behörden wie Umwelt-Bundesamt, Kartellbehörde, Geldwäschekontrolle müssen geschlossen werden.
Alle sozialen, sicherheitspolitischen und steuerlichen Regeln und Vorschriften sollten von einer dem Kanzler unterstehenden Kommission auf ihre Wirtschaftsschädlichkeit untersucht und gegebenenfalls abgeschafft werden.
Betriebliche Mitbestimmung sollte es nur auf freiwilliger Basis geben.
Flüchtlinge und Migranten sollten vom ersten Tag an arbeiten dürfen. Der Arbeitgeber sollte nach einem Jahr entscheiden, ob sie bleiben dürfen. Migranten, die nach einem Jahr noch keinen Job haben, sollten repatriiert werden.
Der Mindestlohn wird abgeschafft; unbefristete Arbeitsverträge soll es nur noch ausnahmsweise geben. Schrittweise Rückkehr zur 40-Stunden-Woche ist anzustreben.
Man sieht, Deutschland muss sich einen Ruck geben, um die Wirtschaft zu entfesseln und endlich den Wohlstand für Alle zu erreichen, den die Kleingeister jahrzehntelang blockiert haben.
