Eye on the world

Catch up with our international debates from the Battle of Ideas festival 2023 - from Modi's India to France in flames, the bad boys of the EU to Israel at war.

Jan 08, 2024

With elections taking place from the UK to South Africa, 2024 is looking like a busy year for world politics. At the Battle of Ideas festival last year, we looked ahead to some of the tensions brewing within the European Union, elections in the US and India, unrest in France and the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Scroll down to down to watch and listen to our debates, filmed by Worldwrite citizen TV channel. And hit the green button below to subscribe to our Substack to keep up to date with more content from the Battle of Ideas festival.

STILL IN THE RACE: UNDERSTANDING TRUMPISM

Trump is perhaps the most widely vilified political leader of modern times – yet he retains a huge measure of support. So seemingly assured of securing the Republican nomination that he can forgo the candidates’ televised debates, he also transformed his arrest for interfering with the 2020 election into a world-shaking media opportunity, with his mugshot reverberating across the globe. But what underpins his appeal?

For some, it is precisely the relentless demonisation of Trump that generates the appeal – whatever Trumpists think of some of his policies or personal conduct, they identify with his vilification by the same liberal, coastal elites who denounce them as ‘deplorables’. Others insist that Trump invents and exploits animosities against immigrants and evokes a ‘paranoid’ vein in American politics. Or perhaps Trump simply appeals to voters fed up the stale consensus that has dominated American politics – or maybe he just livens things up.

What explains Trumps’ enduring appeal, and how should liberals, conservatives and populists alike respond?

Mary Dejevsky: former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington; special correspondent in China; writer and broadcaster
Matthew Feeney: writer; head of technology and innovation, Centre for Policy Studies; former director, Cato Institute’s Project on Emerging Technologies
Michael Goldfarb: journalist and historian, creator, FRDH Podcast; documentary maker, Evangelical or Political Christianity?; author, The Martyrdom of Ahmad Shawkat
Dr Cheryl Hudson: lecturer in US political history, University of Liverpool; author, Citizenship in Chicago: race, culture and the remaking of American identity
Chair Jacob Reynolds: head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas

UNDERSTANDING MODI’S INDIA

In August, India made world news by being the first nation to land near the Moon’s south pole. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it as a historic moment for humanity and ‘the dawn of the new India’. Meanwhile, India’s digital transformation of its financial system is reported by payments systems company ACI Worldwide to be operating on a larger scale than even in the US and China. Earlier this year, UN population estimates suggested India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, with over 1.4 billion people.

As America’s rivalry with China heats up, the Western world has warmed to India. A month before the Moon landing, President Joe Biden had rolled out the red carpet for Modi’s state visit to America. The US wants a more meaningful, closer and stronger relationship with India. The German government is discussing a possible submarine deal. French President Emmanuel Macron invited Modi to celebrate Bastille Day, calling India a strategic partner and friend. But there have also been tensions over India’s neutral stance over the war in Ukraine. Are these signs of India’s arrival on the international top table? Can India rise to this challenge?

India has a huge population, but the vast majority are still poor – the country is ranked 139th in the world for nominal GDP per capita – and faces massive inequalities. While India receives much adulation from the Western elites, its undermining of the freedom of the press and its clampdown on the judiciary have been heavily criticised. The Economist Intelligence Unit‘s Democracy Index showed India falling from 27th position in 2014 to 46th in 2022. But the White House is calling India a ‘vibrant democracy’. Which is it: a faltering democracy or a vibrant one?

India is also facing much internal disquiet within its population. Most recently, ethnic tensions have flared up between the majority Hindus and the Muslim minority just 20 miles outside of New Delhi. Ethnic strife between Hindus and Christians also continues especially in the North-east state of Manipur.

With this backdrop of domestic instability, can Modi and his BJP party retain control in the 2024 elections? What will India’s future role be on the world stage – both politically and economically?

Lord Meghnad Desai: crossbench peer; chair, Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust; emeritus professor of Economics, LSE
Dr Zareer Masani: historian, author, journalist, broadcaster
Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert: director, Don't Divide Us; author, What Should Schools Teach? Disciplines, subjects and the pursuit of truth
Chair Para Mullan: former operations director, EY-Seren; fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

I PREDICT A RIOT: FRANCE IN FLAMES

Over recent years, France has seemed to be constantly in flames. Thousands taking to the streets, mass arrests, vehicles set ablaze, buildings ransacked. In June 2023, an unarmed teenager, Nahel Merzouk, was shot by police following a car chase in Nanterre. The riots afterwards were perhaps the most violent yet, and reflect how many from France’s migrant communities, often in segregated and deprived banlieue housing estates, feel totally disconnected from and discriminated against by the French authorities.

Taking to the streets has not been confined to the marginalised. Earlier this year, the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, used Article 49.3 of the French constitution to force through President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension-reform plan without a vote in parliament. As a result, millions were up in arms. Public militancy was so intense that a planned visit by King Charles was postponed.

And who can forget the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), dressed in their unmistakable hi-viz jackets, blockading highways and petrol stations, occupying roundabouts and toll booths, and marching through town centres. These protests in 2018 were initially sparked by a hike in fuel tax, but escalated to embody a wider resentment towards the status quo that became associated with international grassroots resistance to technocratic rule, far and wide.

This contemporary France seems far removed from the romanticised ideal of a liberal, secular republic based on a revolutionary land of liberty, equality and fraternity for all. Institutionalised rioting, racial segregation, deep-seated religious tensions – from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to the state’s burqa ban, heavy-handed, paramilitary style policing is now the order of the day. Following the Hamas attacks on Israel, a blanket ban was imposed on pro-Palestinian protests. What on earth has happened?

When Macron was first elected president in 2017, he talked hopefully of a better, fairer future and promised to overcome the left-right divide, to rule by consensus. Now, as Nabila Ramdani, a French journalist of Algerian descent and author of Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic argues, Macron rules by decree over an increasingly divided society.

Ramdani, herself born and raised in a neglected Paris suburb, will discuss these shifts along with a panel of respondents.

Dr Marie Kawthar Daouda: lecturer in French language and literature, Oriel College, University of Oxford; author, L’Anti-Salomé; fellow of Ralston College, Savannah
Dr Charles Devellennes: senior lecturer, University of Kent; author: The Macron Régime: the ideology of the new right in France
Nabila Ramdani: journalist and broadcaster; author of Fixing France: how to repair a broken republic
Dr Ralph Schoellhammer: commentator and podcaster; lecturer, Webster University Vienna and MCC Brussels
Chair Fraser Myers: deputy editor, spiked; host, the spiked podcast

BAD BOYS OF THE EU? DEMONISING POLAND AND HUNGARY

One notable aspect of European Union politics in recent years has been internal tensions when member states’ national priorities clash with EU rules and priorities. Specifically, Hungary and Poland have faced stringent sanctions and have had billions of euros of EU funding withheld under Article 7 of the EU Treaty, for an alleged failure to uphold the EU’s foundational values. What have both countries done to warrant such actions and being targeted as the ‘bad boys’ of the EU?

For Poland, following the 2015 general election, the Law and Justice party (PiS) won control of both the presidency and the parliament. Since then, the government’s wide-ranging reforms of its judicial system are accused by the European Commission of undermining judicial independence. These laws certainly raise questions about Poland’s ability to apply EU law, from the protection of investments to the mutual recognition of decisions in areas as diverse as child custody disputes or the execution of European Arrest Warrants. But do these reforms mean ‘the country’s judiciary is now under the political control of the ruling majority’, as is alleged?

Judicial independence is also a key aspect of the EU’s dispute with Hungary, though issues relating to inadequate anti-corruption measures and media plurality have also been cited. Most recently, the EU has taken Hungary to the Court of Justice of the European Union for enacting child-protection legislation that forbids the promotion of homosexuality and gender reassignment to those under the age of 18.

Hungary and Poland argue they are defending their democratic right to organise their affairs and protect their traditions and customs as they see fit. For example, as far as the Hungarian government and many others are concerned, the education and upbringing of Hungarian children is not the business of the EU and Hungary has every right to protect its children from inappropriate sexualisation. Despite claims to the contrary, Poland still seems to be a functioning democracy, with the results of October’s elections suggesting that PiS has lost power to a coalition led by a former prime minister and president of the EU Council, Donald Tusk.

To its critics, the EU is acting as an imperious technocracy, seeking to impose woke values on nations with different priorities and principles. However, others suggest that Hungary and Poland are using the rhetoric of national sovereignty to justify ‘democratic backsliding’, not just an affront to the EU club’s rules, but a threat to democratic norms domestically.

Is the EU right to intervene in defence of common values or is this simply imposing the values of Brussels technocrats on everyone? Are Poland and Hungary justified in asserting national sovereignty or is this just a smokescreen? What does this ongoing battle tell us about the future direction of Europe and democracy?

Steven Barrett: barrister, Radcliffe Chambers; writer on law, Spectator
Balázs Hidvéghi: Member of the European Parliament (member, LIBE and Foreign Affairs committees); former director of communications, Fidesz; former member, Hungarian Parliament
Agnieszka Kolek: head of cultural engagement, MCC Brussels; artist; curator; founder, Passion for Freedom London Art Festival; former deputy director, Ujazdowski Castle, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
Anna Loutfi: equality and human rights barrister; consultant, The Bad Law Project
Chair Tony Gilland: chief of staff, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas

ISRAEL AT WAR

The first weekend of October was the darkest in Israel’s history. A murderous Hamas attack on southern Israel killed at least 1,200 and wounded about 3,000. At least 200 were captured and taken to Gaza. How is it possible to begin to make sense of such a terrible event? Is this the return of pogroms of Jews? Clearly Israel is having to contend with a force that can truly be described as evil.

One issue is why and how Hamas felt so emboldened to launch this murderous assault. There seems to be a broad consensus that the success of Hamas’s brutal assault represented a devastating failure for Israel’s famed intelligence services and military. Some are wondering if this year’s bitter conflict over judicial reform in Israel proved to be a distraction from the deadly external threat. The country has been sharply divided, and military reservists in elite units, including intelligence, were encouraged by the protest movement to refuse to serve.

Perhaps a proper review of what happened will have to wait. Israel has enough to deal with and faces many other imminent challenges. There is the possibility of it becoming embroiled in a ground war in Gaza, which could bring with it a heavy human cost for both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel faces judgement internationally on the scale of its response and the dangers posed to civilians in Gaza. The violent conflict could also spread to the West Bank and even within Israel itself. It is no exaggeration to say that Israel is facing the greatest challenge in its 75-year history.

How should Israel deal with the horrors it is enduring? What are the roots of these challenges and how can Israel best deal with them? Why was Israel so vulnerable in the first place? Will the unity of a country now under attack render recent divisions irrelevant? How can Israel deal with the strains of a war that may have to be fought on multiple fronts?

Daniel Ben-Ami: journalist; creator, Radicalism of Fools; author, Ferraris for All: in defence of economic progress and Cowardly Capitalism
Professor Anat Scolnicov: professor of Public Law, University of Winchester
Dr Jake Wallis Simons: editor, Jewish Chronicle; author, Israelophobia
Lord David Wolfson: king’s counsel; member of the House of Lords; former justice minister
Chair Simon McKeon: archivist and writer

Academy of Ideas