of political representation and their lack of capacity
for defending common goods. They express a demand for more and better
democracy.

Global welfare and security are under threat. The
national and international order that emerged from the end of World War
II and the fall of the Berlin Wall has not been able to manage the great
advances in technology and productive systems for the benefit of all
humanity. On the contrary, we are witnessing the emergence of regressive
and destructive processes resulting from the economic and financial
crisis, increased social inequalities, climate change and nuclear
proliferation. These phenomena have already affected negatively the
lives of billions of human beings, and their continuance and mutual
reinforcement menace the peace of the world and threaten the survival of
human civilization. (The whole Manifesto can be read and signed here).

Monday, February 3, 2014

Nowthat nationalists in Scotland, Catalonia and other places try to create new states (or to segregate their states from the process towards a federal Europe, like the British right or the Austrian far right), it is timely to remember what an icon of social democracy, the late historian Tony Judt, had to say about the nation state in general, and the state of Israel in particular:
"At the dawn of the twentieth century, in the twilight of the
continental empires, Europe’s subject peoples dreamed of forming
“nation-states,” territorial homelands where Poles, Czechs, Serbs,
Armenians, and others might live free, masters of their own fate. When
the Habsburg and Romanov empires collapsed after World War I, their
leaders seized the opportunity. A flurry of new states emerged; and the
first thing they did was set about