Word: westernizes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...agree with much of this. We have learned in the last 20 years that there are many ways of being modern, and that Western liberal democracy is but one of them. But that little collection of essays on the great equations reminds us that a society's characteristics today will not necessarily shape what it will look like tomorrow. History rarely runs in straight and predictable lines. At the end of the 19th century, Germany - or perhaps more accurately, Germanic central Europe - was a technological and scientific powerhouse, its universities nurturing geniuses like Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrödinger, whose...
...fashioned grassroots activism with Internet campaign techniques borrowed from the Obama playbook. They're also well placed to exploit the disillusionment with traditional politics that has seen voter turnouts in European and national elections plummet, and membership of big parties dwindle. As the global economy limps along and Western nations struggle to balance the needs of longtime citizens and newer immigrants, nobody should doubt that the far right is well positioned to attract yet more followers. (Read: "Europe's Voters Reward the Right...
...have planned or carried out a series of attacks over the past few years, the sense of alienation in the Muslim community is reflected not just in the terrorists' rage but also in moderate Muslims' readiness to believe conspiracy theories that pin blame for 9/11 and other attacks on Western governments. Dutch citizens, in turn, have become more suspicious of Muslim neighbors, resentful that Dutch hospitality has seemingly counted for nothing...
...Netherlands' historically relaxed immigration policies have already tightened up since the 2002 election of Jan Peter Balkenende's conservative coalition. The PVV leader proposes going further by halting all immigration from non-Western countries, banning the Koran and deporting any Muslim who breaks the law. His rhetoric recalls Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician gunned down in 2002, days before an election that would almost certainly have given him a parliamentary platform to air his hard-line views on immigration. Fortuyn's friend and compatriot Theo van Gogh was working on a film about Fortuyn's assassination when he himself...
Xenophobia Now Far-right parties in western Europe tend to steer away from signs and symbols that might recall the darkest period of the continent's history. But Hungary's Jobbik - its name derives from job, a word meaning "right" or "better" - garnered 14.8% of the votes in the country's European elections with a campaign themed around the Arpad stripes, the nationalist flag that was co-opted by Hungarian fascists in the 1930s and 1940s. The party's chairman, Gabor Vona, 30, also chaired the Magyar Garda - or Hungarian Guard - a private militia that appeared at Jobbik rallies...