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Articles by Bue Rübner Hansen
The new German chauvinism
First published at LeftEast. One wants to break free of the past: rightly, because nothing at all can live in its shadow, and because there will be no end to the terror as long as guilt and violence are repaid with guilt and violence; wrongly, because the past that one would like to evade is still very much alive. — Theodor W.
The New German Chauvinism (Part 2)
Bue Rübner Hansen | Lefteast - TRANSCEND Media Service The first part of this essay explored the historical background for Germany’s fiercely enforced solidarity with Israel. In the decades after the war, support for Israel was cultivated by West German elites as a geopolitical investment and project of Westernization.
The New German Chauvinism- Part I
One wants to break free of the past: rightly, because nothing at all can live in its shadow, and because there will be no end to the terror as long as guilt and violence are repaid with guilt and violence; wrongly, because the past that one would like to evade is still very much alive. -Theodor W.
The New German Chauvinism (Part 1)
Bue Rübner Hansen | Lefteast - TRANSCEND Media Service One wants to break free of the past: rightly, because nothing at all can live in its shadow, and because there will be no end to the terror as long as guilt and violence are repaid with guilt and violence; wrongly, because the past that one would like to evade is still very much alive. -Theodor W.
The Kaleidoscope of Catastrophe - On the Clarities and Blind Spots of Andreas Malm
Recently, I announced my intention to write a long essay about Malm to a circle of degrowth communists. One, a researcher and activist of US pipeline struggles, was exasperated at Malm’s apparently contradictory embrace of a strategy of pushing the capitalist state to do the right thing in Corona, Climate and Chronic Emergency (2020) and his stringent support of sabotage in How to Blow up a Pipeline (2021).
Viewpoint Magazine
Andreas Malm develops a method designed to abolish ambivalence: herein lies the clarity of his work. His approach may best be described as kaleidoscopic: it orders the heterogeneous shards of history through the mirrors of his theory of history, while a singular eyepiece provides focus, and the basis for a unified political perspective. But this method only avoids ambivalence in theory. When it comes to practice, ambivalences reappear – but in the blindspot of theory.
The universal truth of Black Lives Matter - a view from Europe
Black Lives Matter demonstrations across European capitals have been huge over the last week. Predictably, pundits and politicians wonder why protests against police brutality and murder in the United States would attract such masses in Berlin and Vienna, London and Copenhagen. Why do so many people in Europe care so much about the fate of Black people across the Atlantic?
Pandemic Insolvency: Why This Economic Crisis Will Be Different
Many states — now including the UK and US — are beginning to act in ways that contradict not just the neoliberal script, but the crisis management strategies of the global financial crisis. This text explores why. By Bue Rübner Hansen, @buerubner Avinguda Meridiana, normally one of Barcelona’s busiest gateways This is an updated version of a text first published by Novara Media. Updated elements are highlighted in bold. Things are moving incredibly fast.
Pandemic Insolvency: Why This Economic Crisis Will Be Different
Many states – now including the UK and US – are beginning to act in ways that contradict not just the neoliberal script, but the crisis management strategies of the global financial crisis. Bue Rübner Hansen asks why. Things are moving incredibly fast. A week ago, Denmark’s Social Democratic government announced it would cover 75% of the wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off.
Social-Democratic Denmark Shows How to Respond to Coronavirus
While Britain remains stubbornly open for business (and contagion), Denmark is preparing to deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus recession. This Sunday, the Danish government struck a historical deal with trade unions and employers’ associations to stop mass layoffs during the quarantine. During the next three months, the state will cover 75 percent of the wages of workers threatened by job loss, up to $3,300.
Dashed expectations, a world to transform
Reflections on the experience and rejection of solidarity in the British elections. On this day of deep disappointment, I hope people will remember these words, written yesterday by Richard Seymour: “For those campaigning, there has been a palpable and transformative feeling of comradeship. Among the many causes for mood swings in this election, I am repeatedly struck, felled, brought to tears by unexpected solidarities and sacrifices.
Catalonia, Alone? Lessons From the Contradictions of the Independence Movement
Last week, much of Catalonia rose up in mass protests against the custodial sentencing of nine political and civic leaders over their role in the 2017 referendum. Much has already been written about the events last week, such as the increasingly authoritarian turn of the Spanish state, the ambivalent position of the Spanish left, and the institutional blockage of any negotiated solution.
Tsunami of dissent floods streets of Catalonia
On most days, Barcelona is noisy, it’s air toxic. But this Friday, most of the city was quiet and breathable, traffic arteries blocked, cruise ships rerouted and flights canceled. Briefly, and partially, Barcelona felt like a climate compatible city of the future, even if it’s engines had been shut down for other reasons altogether. The noise and smell, normally everywhere, had been focalized by mass demonstrations, riot police and swerving helicopters, and as night fell, burning barricades.
Flare up like a forest fire
A Portuguese translation of this text is forthcoming with Lavra Palavra. The climate and ecosystems all have tipping points. For instance, it is estimated that 20 percent tree loss in the Amazon will change rainfall conditions, and push the forest into irreversible decline. And as temperatures rise, the thawing permafrost will enter a positive feedback loop in which melting releases the greenhouse gas methane, heating the atmosphere and accelerating the disappearance of the permafrost.
Batshit Jobs” - No-one Should Have to Destroy the Planet to Make a Living
By Bue Rübner Hansen, originally published by Open Democracy July 8, 2019 For too long, we have related to climate change mainly as consumers and voters. We have been responsibilised as meat eaters and airplane travellers, we have been urged to vote for the party with the most green agenda, but we have never been addressed as workers. This fits well with the general idea that consumers and voters have power and responsibility, while workers… well, they just have to get on with their work.
It’s time to talk about batshit jobs.
It’s time to talk about batshit jobs. Press enter or click to view image in full size Fracking on public land, Burlington PA, by Ralph Wilson. Obviously most of us need to earn a living. Some of us end up doing the batshit work of destroying the planet. A few years back, David Graeber coined the term ”bullshit jobs” to speak of pointless, meaningless and socially harmful jobs. These jobs are often boring and unrewarding, and generally could be abolished without a profound social transformation.
It’s time to speak about batshit jobs.
Fracking on public land, Burlington PA, by Ralph Wilson. Obviously most of us need to earn a living. Some of us end up doing the batshit work of destroying the planet. A few years back, David Graeber coined the term ”bullshit jobs” to speak of pointless, meaningless and socially harmful jobs. These jobs are often boring and unrewarding, and generally could be abolished without a profound social transformation. While stupid, bullshit jobs they are certainly not insane. Batshit jobs are.
Winter in Catalonia
Don Quijote en la playa de Barcino, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau Narrative Confusions In Catalonia morbid symptoms abound. The population lives through bitter division. The Catalan leadership is in prison or exile. The left is divided. In the self-declared Catalan republic, all political parties participate in elections forced on them by the Spanish government.
The Fallacy of Post-Truth
Brexit and Trump’s victory hit the liberal media like a thunderbolt of stupidity. How could voters defy the warnings of so many pundits, wonks, and fact-checkers? Almost unanimously, they answered: We live in an age characterized by post-factual politics. Pushed by major media organizations like Forbes and the New York Times, “post-truth” recently became Oxford Dictionaries’ new word of the year.
Donald’s Myths
Since Donald Trump’s victory in November, liberals have felt a profound sense of loss. After decades of defining the relevant facts and truths for others, they find themselves in a world that seems to have given up on factuality itself. As an exasperated Huffington Post contributor explained: The greatest problem of our future is not political; it is not economic; it is not even rational. It’s the battle of fact versus fiction.
Anti-radicalisation, social movements, and imagining alternatives
Bue Rübner Hansen, @BueRubner, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Aarhus, researching the emergence of ideas of the good life in common, as well as questions of class composition, migration and economic crisis. He is an editor of Viewpoint Magazine, and a participant in the refugee city group of Barcelona en Comú. Joan Pedro-Carañana is Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus.
Welcoming refugees despite the state
Bue Rübner Hansen explains Barcelona's project of bringing refugees into the city. Duration: 2:00. Cameron Thibos: Could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your research? My name is Bue Rübner Hansen. I originally come from Denmark and have a research project there at the University of Aarhus. I am mainly based in Barcelona at the moment. I’m researching the emergence of new ideas of the good life in common, in Spanish social movements, but also the new municipalist experiments here in Spain.
Surplus Population, Social Reproduction, and the Problem of Class Formation
The black lumpen proletariat, unlike Marx’s working class, had absolutely no stake in industrial America. They existed at the bottom level of society in America, outside the capitalist system that was the basis for the oppression of black people. They were the millions of black domestics and porters, nurses’ aides and maintenance men, laundresses and cooks, sharecroppers, unpropertied ghetto dwellers, welfare mothers, and street hustlers.
6 Reasons to Care about the Spanish Municipal Elections
Sunday 24 May is municipal election day in Spain. Here @BueRubner explains why people outside Spain should turn their attention to Spain. In the latest polls the grassroots-based electoral platforms Barcelona en Comú and Ahora Madrid are head to head with their conservative opponents, and in each city the party with most votes will get the mayoral. Before the end of this year Spain faces a historical parliamentary election, where the radical Podemos party could win.
Seven Lessons from Greece
For years, radical forces in Europe have only been able to resist austerity policies, rarely engaging in offensive strategic thought and action, and always from outside government. But on February 6, when thousands demonstrated in favor of the new Greek government, in front of an unpoliced and open parliament, it was clear that something significant had changed.
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