CM24: Populism

Ziauddin Sardar dismembers post-truth angst; Richard Appignanesi mourns the loss of world; Barnaby Rogerson traces the history of the word demagogue; Bhavik Doshi is disturbed by the populist rhetoric of the Indian diaspora; Scott Jordan watches anxiety-drenched movies; Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton is unimpressed by 2017 Venice Biennale; and poems by Carole Smith.

Ashis Nandy tackles populism's double-bind; Sindre Bangstad presents three propositions on right-wing populism in Europe; Leyla Jagiella argues that Germany is no stranger to far-right sentiments; Sughra Ahmed visits the US Bible belt; Shanon Shah reads a new assessment of Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami; short stories by Hasan Manzar; poems by Omair Bhat; and our list of ten populist moments. Abdelwahab El-Affendi fears Europe is returning to the Dark Ages; Gordon Blaine Steffey dissects American populism; Raza Ali goes in search of 'the people' in Pakistan; Eric Walberg observes the emergence of populism in Cairo; Hassan Mahamdallie has a crash course in the art of futures studies; Alia Masood enjoys a debut novel; short stories by Muddasir Ramzan; and Merryl Wyn Davies collects some vox pops.

In this issue

Ten Populist Moments

There are many unexamined assumptions about populism that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Many journalists and academics discuss it as if it ...

A Brit in the Bible Belt by Sughra Ahmed

Posters depicting hordes of people queuing, snake-like - we would be forgiven for thinking that these were produced by deeply intolerant regimes ...

Awaam by Raza Ali

The July 2017 decision of Pakistan's Supreme Court to convict Nawaz Sharif for his part in the Panama Papers scandal should not come as a huge ...

Frauke Petry's Dream by Leyla Jagiella

The world that we talk about is always our world, it is always my world. That's the only world that we can perceive and that we know to at ...

Introduction: Fib and Fibbers by Ziauddin Sardar

'This is a true story.' Every episode of FX's black comedy and crime drama Fargo begins with this superimposed text. Gradually the ...

The Netherworld by Ashis Nandy

Until recently, populism hid a double-bind. For it carried with it two perfectly contradictory sets of associations. Both sets had direct ...