Iran Protests

Abbas Goya An old piece re a complex social confrontation  --- The appalling mass sexual assaults in Cologne—followed by similar incidents in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Kalmar, and Stockholm—have become a critical turning point in European politics. Their political outcome threatens to empower either the extreme right and racists or, alternatively, the socialist left. What has become unmistakably clear is that centrist, “middle-of-the-road” politics offers no viable solution. The Establishment The fact that many of the perpetrators were refugees or immigrants initially produced a false polarization:  asylum rights versus women’s rights . Public reactions ranged from hysteria to outright denial. Suddenly, the German establishment—previously celebrated for welcoming over a million refugees—along with the pro-refugee movement and large sections of the Left, including feminists, found themselves paralyzed by a manufactured dilemma: should they defend women’s rights or refugee rights? Ope...