Russians can sense that Project Putin has reached its twilight. The prime minister would be well served by retiring before he is forced to. In an exclusive interview for openDemocracy, Mumin Shakirov speaks with former deputy prime minister and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
The idea of multiculturalism has been subjected to greater criticism in recent years, especially on the grounds that it is divisive and undercuts other solidarities of society, class or nation. But a fuller understanding of the context in which the arguments for multiculturalism arose and evolved
The extraordinary arc of Barack Obama’s popular appeal tells a deeper story of America: of how the relationship between liberalism and religion was forged, then frayed and broken, and how the president’s rhetoric offered the mirage of healing. Theo Hobson asks what, if anything, can be recovered f
A government campaign against Islamic education and political movements in Tajikistan, prompted by an armed conflict with ’mujaheds’ in the Rasht valley, risks creating the very militancy it aims to prevent, write Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw.
What else could possibly be written about Tolstoy? Before reading Rosamund Bartlett’s new biography, Susan Richards did wonder. But the fall of Soviet power has revealed material which allows us to appreciate how vividly his legacy has lived on and how relevant it remains today
Researching the Russian nationalistic right is a game of high stakes. Last year, I found out the hard way, writes Andreas Umland.
A reductive and tendentious portrayal of Islam and its followers is spreading across Europe and America. It is all too reminiscent of the chilling world imagined by George Orwell, says Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
A delicate papal visit to Britain was in the end a diplomatic success. All the more reason to examine the ideas it advanced, says Michael Walsh.
In 2014 Russia will host the Winter Olympics in Sochi, once upon a time the capital of independent Circassia. The city has 20,000 Muslims, but no mosque. Sufian Zhemukhov considers the historical reasons for official antagonism to building a mosque and its implications for the Winter Olympics.
The advance of populist anti-Islamic forces in the liberal bastions of northern Europe - Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden - appears to reflect a betrayal of these societies’ renowned social tolerance. But there is a more subtle logic at work, says Cas Mudde.
Government attempts to modernise Russia are doomed because the Russian mindset remains stuck in an unchanging peasant mentality, laments film-director Andrei Konchalovsky. No change will be possible without reloading our spiritual software, but do we want to change?
An Indian court’s ruling on the Hindu-Muslim dispute over the sacred site of Ayodhya sheds light on the relationship between two forms of rationality in India, says Deep K Datta-Ray.
