Is the World Watching?
The politics behind in the crisis in Turkey, the insurrection in Brazil, and more
February 16, 2023
This week’s issue of Public Seminar is dedicated to upheavals and accountability in our global landscape. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui explores the politics of Indigeneity. Georgi Asatryan takes a close look at the India-Armenia arms deal. Anastasia Shteinert asks if “Putin’s chef” will make a play for the Kremlin. Theo Almeida shares the crucial differences between the January insurrections in Brazil and the United States. And Utku Balaban investigates how a well-resourced government failed to protect tens of thousands of people from the mass destruction of the earthquake in Turkey.
“The current crisis in Turkey is not a natural disaster, but a political one.” Utku Balaban unpacks how President Erdoğan’s government failed to plan for a catastrophe or mobilize its resources to save lives—despite collecting a so-called “earthquake fund” tax. “Over two dozen informants in my years-long research project in Gaziantep in the 2010s have verified that in their cities, no government agency reached out to the victims, even in city centers, to conduct, initiate, or at least coordinate rescue efforts in the critical hours and days after the earthquake.” (February 16, 2023)
From serving time for fraud to catering services in the Kremlin: Anastasia Shteinert examines the checkered past—and political future—of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of a mercenary army fighting alongside the Russian military. (February 14, 2023)
While the recent coup in Brazil had much in common with the January 6 insurrection in the United States, it posed an even greater threat to local democracy, Theo Almeida observes: “Unlike their U.S. counterparts, the Brazilian military and police responsible for protecting the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the Presidential Palace were accomplices in the riot.” (February 15, 2023)
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“Some people dismiss assertions of Indigenous identity as essentialist, assuming that being Indigenous is grounded in a belief in an underlying and unchanging ‘essence.’ But for Indigenous peoples, the question of Indigeneity is rooted in a distinct relationship to land, which has consequences for sovereignty.” In her discussion of artist Maria Thereza Alves’s Seeds of Change project, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui illustrates the urgency of denormalizing settler colonization. (February 13, 2023)
Why would a powerful nation enter into an arms deal with a minor power? Georgi Asatryan assesses the political science behind the developing India-Armenia alliance. (February 14, 2023)