http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/crossing_cultures <p><em>Is multiculturalism a blessing or a curse? Must democracy be secular or can religion play a role? Does the “West” still exist and, if so, what does it stand for? Has China successfully fused capitalism with authoritarianism? Will Islam change the West or will the West change Islam?</em></p> <p>“I'm not a donkey, and I don’t have a field,” scoffed Max Weber when some academic non-entity criticized him for writing outside his discipline. Yet, with the rapid growth and increasing diversification of human knowledge, the forces of intellectual specialization have all but won. Nowadays, newspaper readers and editors alike bemoan what seems to be a consequence of this narrowness: the death of the free-ranging intellectual.</p> en 2012-02-10T06:00:35+01:00 webmaster@project-syndicate.org Ian Buruma 1994-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 4 hourly http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma59/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma59/English>BURUMA: American Funk</a> Many American fearmongers would have us believe that the US is now in a dangerous state of funk – a loss of self-belief that signals the end of its world leadership. But they are wrong to claim that the decline of US military dominance will lead to the collapse of world order. Ian Buruma 2012-02-07T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma58/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma58/English>BURUMA: North Korea’s Tears</a> Images of North Koreans howling with grief over Kim Jong-il's death suggest mass hysteria. Can a whole country go mad, or is life in a totalitarian dictatorship such a daily misery that its people end up crying for their oppressors? Ian Buruma 2012-01-04T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma57/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma57/English>BURUMA: Is the European Dream Over?</a> On the surface, Europe’s current crisis, which some people predict will tear apart the EU, is financial. But the deeper crisis is political: there is no “European people” to express the solidarity needed to see the EU through hard times. Ian Buruma 2011-12-08T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma56/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma56/English>BURUMA: The Lynching of Libya</a> The problem with revenge is that it provokes further revenge, setting in motion of cycle of violence and counter-violence – the culture of vendetta. That is why the summarily violent death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is a dangerous omen for Libya. Ian Buruma 2011-11-07T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma55/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma55/English>BURUMA: Obama’s Israel Problem</a> Standing up to Israel’s uncompromising policies, and its new fanatical friends, will not be easy for Barack Obama in an election year. But to do so is to uphold the liberal tradition in which many Jews continue to believe. Ian Buruma 2011-10-07T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma54/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma54/English>BURUMA: Ladies First, Women Last</a> The two things that get people most excited in cultural conflicts are religion and sex, specifically the way that men treat women. Both the US response to 9/11 and the recent criminal case brought against Dominique Strauss-Kahn seem to prove the point – except that neither involved a cultural conflict. Ian Buruma 2011-09-07T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma53/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma53/English>BURUMA: Breivik’s Call to Arms</a> Anti-Muslim populists have denounced Anders Breivik's murderous rampage in Norway last month, but their words have been sufficiently hysterical to incite a mentally unbalanced person. Indeed, Breivik’s interpretation of their survivalist rhetoric is, in an odd way, more rational than the idea that an existential war can be fought with words alone. Ian Buruma 2011-08-04T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma52/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma52/English>BURUMA: Europe without Turkey</a> Most European citizens (for example, more than 60% in France and Germany) believe that Turkey should not become part of the EU, and to insist on it would smack of precisely the kind of undemocratic paternalism that has turned many Europeans against the EU already. But, on this question, the majority is not right. Ian Buruma 2011-07-08T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma51/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma51/English>BURUMA: The Crimes of Ratko Mladić</a> There is no doubt that Ratko Mladić is guilty of serious war crimes. But trying him for genocide, even though it will be hard to prove that he ever intended to exterminate Bosnian Muslims as a group, just because they were Muslims, will further muddy the term’s already vague definition. Ian Buruma 2011-05-30T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma50/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma50/English>BURUMA: All the Queen’s Children</a> Monarchy has an infantilizing effect – witness how otherwise sensible adults are reduced to nervously grinning sycophants when they are granted the privilege of touching an extended royal hand. But at a time of rising cultural pluralism in European countries, monarchs might have an important role to play. Ian Buruma 2011-05-02T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma49/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma49/English>BURUMA: Japan’s Political Tremors</a> If Japan’s relatively inexperienced government is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the aftermath of the earthquake, Japanese might wish to retreat to the old ways of murky paternalism. But official opacity and obfuscation are the problem, not the solution. Ian Buruma 2011-04-07T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma48/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma48/English>BURUMA: Obama Gets It Right</a> People in the Middle East and North Africa have been led by the West, or by Western-backed dictators, for long enough. They must find their own way to freedom – something that US President Barack Obama seems to understand. Ian Buruma 2011-03-08T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma47/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma47/English>BURUMA: Where are the Islamists?</a> Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood would win a general election in Egypt – or perhaps not. But Egyptians should be allowed to make that choice, in part because denying it to them would almost certainly make things worse, possibly leading to precisely the kind of religious extremism that many people rightly fear. Ian Buruma 2011-02-04T00:00:00+01:00