Skip to main content

Κωπηλάτες (περιοδικό συζήτησης και προβληματισμού)


Visiting the centre of Athens in the run-up to Christmas can be a harrowing experience and my visit to my favourite bookshops confirmed this. At this time of the year browsing through their bookshelves is a very crowded affair but sometimes can reward you with the unexpected discovery of fascinating finds. This is exactly what happened to me when I came across the review Κωπηλάτες (περιοδικό συζήτησης και προβληματισμού). The 3d issue of the review boasts seven articles examining the relationship between the Greek society and its neighbours. As the introductory note by its editor, Petros Markaris, indicates, this issue is intended to challenge the ignorance and oblivion that provides nationalist entrepreneurs of all hues with the opportunity to cultivate chauvinism and a state of fear and xenophobia. Articles on Greece and its relationship with its neighbours by Alexis Iraklidis, two decades of disastrous Greek policy on the Macedonian issue by Sifis Fitsanakis and on the Balkans and the eyes of others by Lena Divani are just the cherry on the top of an exquisite excursus on the notion of the other in contemporary Greece. This is definitely one of the most daring and well planned intervention that makes Κωπηλάτες a most valuable forum of critical thought.

Μια επίσκεψη στο κέντρο της Αθήνας τις παραμονές των χριστουγέννων μπορεί να αποτελέσει δοκιμή και η επίσκεψή μου στα αγαπημένα μου βιβλιοπωλεία μάλλον επιβεβαίωσε κάτι τέτοιο. Η αναζήτηση βιβλίων στά ράφια τους τέτοιες μέρες μέσα στο πλήθος μπορεί να σε ανταμείψει με την απρόσμενη ανακάλυψη κάποιου σπάνιου ευρήματος. Αυτό ακριβώς μου συνέβη όταν βρέθηκα μπροστά στο τρίτο τεύχος της πολιτικής επιθεώρησης με τίτλο Κωπηλάτες (περιοδικό συζήτησης και προβληματισμού). Το συγκεκριμένο τεύχος περιέχει επτά άρθρα που εξετάζουν την σχέση της Ελληνικής κοινωνίας με τους γείτονές της. Όπως κάνει σαφές και το εισαγωγικό σημείωμα του διευθυντή του περιοδικού Πέτρου Μάρκαρη το τεύχος αυτό αποσκοπεί στην κριτική αντιμετώπιση της άγνοιας η οποία επιτρέπει στους κάθε είδους εθνοκάπηλους να καλλιεργούν τον σωβινισμό και την ξενοφοβία.

Άρθρα όπως αυτό του Αλέξη Ηρακλείδη για τον εθνοκεντρισμό στις Ελληνοτουρκικές σχέσεις, ή του Σήφη Φιτσανάκη για την καταστροφική διαχείρηση του Μακεδονικού επί δύο δεκαετίες ή της Λένας Διβάνη με τίτλο «Τα Βαλκάνια και τα μάτια των άλλων αποτελούν ένα μικρό δειγμα του τι επιφυλάσσεται στον αναγνώστη. Οι Κωπηλάτες είναι αναμφίβολα ένα ανεκτίμητο forum κριτικής σκέψης και προβληματισμού»).

Το τρίτο αλλά και τα προηγούμενα τευχη του περιοδικού μπορείτε να προμηθευτείτε στο βιβλιοπωλείο των εκδόσεων Γαβριηλίδη (Μαυρομιχάλη 18, Αθήνα, τηλ. 210-3636514).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spyros Sofos: Bulgaria’s Blackmail is Unfair

  INTERVIEW     13.09.23 19 ПРЕГЛЕДИ                                         At a time when Macedonia is under strong international pressure concerning the constitutional changes, and the region is waiting to see whether it will be coupled to the European locomotive, external views become a dire need for the country to position itself on the right coordinates during the geopolitical developments that will not leave us unaffected. After the interview with the German journalist and specialist on the Balkans Michael Martens, we present to you another conversation, this time with  Spyros Sofos,  whose research at the London School of Economics and Political Science has focused, among other things, on social insecurity, identity and collective action, as well as populism in Southeast Europe. He says that Bulgarian elites playing the nationalist card poses the risk of adding fuel to the fire in the region at a time when North Macedonia's access to the EU would render the contentious issu
Post a Comment
Read more

11 December 2009: Turkey's Constitutional Court bans the pro-Kurdish Demokratik Toplum Partisi

Following a lawsuit filed by Chief Public Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya on November 16, 2007, the Turkish Constitutional Court has decided yesterday to shut down the Demokratik Toplum Partisi (Democratic Society Party) due to the party’s alleged links with the  PKK. Following 9-hour deliberations on the fourth day of the case, Constitutional Court President Haşim Kılıç said that its members voted unanimously to close down the DTP as it became a focal point of acts against the indivisible integrity of the state . The result of this controversial decision is that, yet again, voices advocating human rights protection for Turkish Kurds are stifled, and the largest pro-Kurdish political force that had made considerable inroads in the Turkish political system by wining in nine provinces in the 2009 local elections is now seriously impaired. Thirty seven DTP members, including DTP Chairman Ahmet Türk and MP Aysel Tuğluk were banned from politics for five years. The rump parlia
Post a Comment
Read more

Whose Is This Song? (Chia e tazi pesen?) (2003)

My friend Mirjana has pointed out the existence of this very interesting documentary by Bulgarian director Adela Peeva. Listening to a song she knew since her childhood as Bulgarian being performed in Istanbul in Turkish, the director starts a small Balkan Odyssey through Turkey, Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia only to end up at the Bulgarian-Turkish border region in her native Bulgaria. A song that apparently encapsulated common aesthetics and, more importantly, a shared yet diverse culture, where borrowing and translation make it impossible to argue about cultural ownership and origins proved to carry in it all that divides the peoples of Southeastern Europe. Not only people tried to claim it as exclusive property of their own nation but they often angrily dismissed counterclaims as nothing more than theft. It reminded me Freud's remarks about the 'narcissism of minor differences', the accentuation of antagonism towards those who look, sound and feel so similar
Post a Comment
Read more