Washington [US], January 5 (ANI): As tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to spiral downwards, President-elect Joe Biden aims to end the US’ trade war with European allies and work with them to deal with China’s trade practices, said a key official in the Biden administration.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told CNN on Sunday that the new administration recognise China as a serious strategic competitor to the US.
According to South China Morning Post citing CNN, Sullivan also said president-elect Biden would work out the economic differences between the US and its European allies to improve their relations and jointly counter China on multiple fronts, from trade and technology to the military and human rights.
“Our goal is to go out right away and sit down not just on the question of China, but to work out the economic differences that we have so that we can end the multifront trade war that the Trump administration started,” Sullivan said on CNN on Sunday.
Sullivan’s remarks came after China and the European Union wrapped up negotiations on a comprehensive investment agreement last week.
Sullivan said the US would not reverse tariffs with China but would consult partners in Europe and Asia to “bring leverage to bear on China to change its most problematic trade abuses”.
Referring to the US and “like-minded economies”, Sullivan said: “We are confident that we can develop a common agenda on issues where we share deep concerns about China. And it’s not just on trade. It’s on technology. It’s on human rights. It’s on military aggression.”He added, “That will put us in a stronger position to be able to deal with China effectively, in a clear-eyed way and in a way that will ultimately deliver the kind of results that have entirely escaped the Trump administration of the last four years.”Biden in December said that Washington needs to build a coalition of like-minded nations to confront Beijing.
“As we compete with China to hold China’s government accountable for its trade abuses, technology, human rights and other fronts, our position would be much stronger when we build coalitions of like-minded partners and allies that make common cause with us in defence of our shared interests and our shared values,” Biden said following his briefing with national security and foreign policy agency review team members.
Under the Donald Trump administration, ties between the two countries had deteriorated over issues such as human rights violations in Xinjiang, encroachment on the special status of Hong Kong, accusations of unfair trade practices by Beijing, lack of transparency concerning the pandemic and China’s military aggression in various parts of the world. (ANI)
LISBON, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Monday that global understanding, economic recovery and social support are the main goals for next years in the presidency of the European Union (EU) Council.
In terms of global understanding, the EU’s investment deal with China, which has been under negotiation for seven years, is “very important,” Costa said in an interview with Portuguese news agency Lusa.
On Dec. 30, 2020, China and the EU announced that they have completed investment agreement negotiations as scheduled.
According to the prime minister, the agreement between Brussels and Beijing “guarantees reciprocal security of market opening” and “investment relations which ensure and respect all security rules on both sides.”
“If Europe wants to be a global actor, as it has to be, its strategic autonomy depends on being able to speak with each of the other global actors. It must relate to the United States, China, Australia and New Zealand, India, Africa,” Costa said.
As for Africa, which will be crucial to the Portuguese presidency’s external agenda, the prime minister hoped that the EU-African Union summit, which was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, would be held “in the spring.”
“I think it would be important at a time when the African Union has signed a continental free trade agreement. This would have been a fantastic time for a meeting of the European Union and Africa,” said Costa.
The prime minister agreed it was fair to say that Europe has given “a rapid and assertive response” and “shown great ability to lead” in this crisis, which can be seen in the “joint purchase of vaccines” and the “giant step” of moving towards a joint issuance of debt to finance the recovery.
Health service, housing, public administration, major industrial projects and digitalization are the priorities for the recovery program supported by the European funds, Costa noted.
He also said the development of social Europe is “absolutely essential” for “giving confidence” to citizens.
“This is a critical issue because, as we have seen, the challenges posed by climate change and the digital transition require major investment in training and retraining,” he concluded, adding that solid social protection is needed to ensure nobody is left behind.
… Emmanuel Macron attends a EU-China video-conference along with … Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel, at the … , Dec.30 2020. Top European Union officials and Chinese President Xi … Emmanuel Macron attends a EU-China video-conference along …
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Committee on Interior on Monday passed a resolution, seeking the government to take up the issue of Indian chronicles duly revealed by Disinfolab EU with Interpol.
The meeting was led by its Chairman Senator Abdul Rehman Malik here at the Parliament House on Monday and was attended among others by senators Muhammad Javed Abbasi, Dr Shahzad Wasim, Mian M. Ateeq Shaikh, Rana Maqbool, and Sardar Shafique Tareen.
The meeting was also attended by the Federal Minister of Interior, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, special secretary Interior, additional secretary Interior, DIG Islamabad and Motorway Police, and senior officials from other departments. Rehman Malik welcomed Minister of Interior Sheikh Rashid in the meeting and congratulated him on assuming the charges. Sheikh Rashid thanked Rehman Malik and said that he sought his guidance for being a highly expert in interior affairs. Committee assured him of full support on national issues.
The resolution on issue of Indian chronicles, duly revealed by Disinfolab EU with Interpol as moved by Rehman Malik, was appreciated by all among others. He read the resolutions as “The committee strongly condemns the establishment of fake media houses/NGOs by India to spread incorrect, fake and baseless propaganda against Pakistan and using this disinformation worldwide also being used in FATF to blacklist Pakistan. The Indian moves and plans have been disclosed by EU Disinfolab, an independent watchdog, monitoring the international fake news worldwide.”
He states, “The committee feels that this act of India is a glaring violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan through hybrid, proxy war, international cybercrimes, and violation of UN Charter for using the soil of several countries, including the European Union against Pakistan. The committee demands that the Ministry of Interior and National Central Bureau should immediately move the matter with evidence to the Interpol for necessary legal action against India and report be submitted to the committee in three weeks.”
The committee has strongly condemned the killing of 13 coalminers identified as Hazara in Machh area of Balochistan and expressed heartfelt condolences with families of martyrs and the whole Hazara community. The committee demanded the government to investigate this barbaric act of terrorism and unearth the conspirators involved.
He appealed to both Shia and Sunnis not to fall into the traps of the enemy and stay united as the enemy trying to divide us by such activities.
Senate Standing Committee on Interior condemned and expressed great concerns and grief over the murder of 22 years old young Osama Nadeem Satti by Islamabad Police and expressed heartfelt condolences with the bereaved family. Police officials informed the committee that the incident was being investigated and that the committee would be briefed soon as the investigation is concluded.
The committee in its meeting considered and discussed in details various legislative bills that included ‘The Pakistan Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (Ordinance No. VI) introduced by Senator Muhammad Azam Khan Swati, The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 [Section 376, Act XLV of 1860]” introduced by Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi, “The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2020” introduced by Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi, “The Islamabad Capital Territory Trust (Amendment) Bill, 2020” introduced by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed, “The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2020” introduced by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed, “The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 [Section 297A, Act XLV of 1860]” introduced by Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi and “The Fatal Accidents (Amendment) Bill, 2020” introduced by Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi.
The Bill moved by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed were deferred due to his absence.
The Committee expressed annoyance over the absence of the law secretary and directed the law secretary to ensure his presence in the meeting during important legislation.
Senator Dr Shahzad Waseem, while presenting his views on the legislation on rape cases, said that such incidents will continue to happen till the strictest punishments are not introduced.
The committee adjourned further discussion till the next meeting after taking opinion from the Ministry of Law on all these draft laws.
The European Union warned on Monday that Iran’s move to enrich uranium to 20 percent would be a “considerable departure” from Tehran’s commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
EU spokesman Peter Stano said Brussels would wait until a briefing from the director of the UN’s IAEA nuclear watchdog later in the day before deciding what action to take.
Earlier, an Iranian government spokesman said the Shahid Alimohammadi enrichment complex in Fordow had begun the “process for producing” uranium enriched to 20 percent. That would be well above the 3.67 percent cap set in the deal, known as the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“If this announcement is going to be implemented… it would constitute a considerable departure from Iran’s nuclear commitments under the JCPOA,” Stano told reporters. This would have “serious nuclear non-proliferation implications”.
The EU’s drugs watchdog held off authorising Moderna’s coronavirus jab on Monday despite bringing forward a special meeting, as criticism mounts of the bloc’s slow vaccine roll-out.
The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it would resume talks on Wednesday on whether to give the green light to what would be the EU’s second vaccine.
Under pressure from EU nations to speed up, the regulator had earlier fast-tracked the meeting to decide on approval from January 12 to Wednesday, and then again to Monday.
Despite launching its vaccination campaign with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, on December 27, the EU’s progress has been much slower than in the United States, Britain or Israel.
“EMA’s committee for human medicines discussion on Covid-19 vaccine (by) Moderna has not concluded today. It will continue on Wednesday,” the EMA said on Twitter.
“No further communication will be issued today by EMA.”
The European Commission had earlier defended the bloc against criticisms of its slow roll-out, and said its plans would get the EU past “bumps on the road”.
“It’s obvious that such a complex endeavour is always going to bring with it difficulties,” spokesman Eric Mamer told journalists.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — developed in Germany — is the only one currently authorised for use in the European Union since its fast-track authorisation by the EMA on December 21.
The United States uses it alongside the Moderna vaccine, while Britain as of Monday also started using one by UK pharmaceuticals giant, AstraZeneca.
EU countries have been lagging far behind. France, for instance, has given a first jab to just over 500 people. Germany has started immunising 200,000.
The Netherlands, the last in the EU to start its vaccination programme, meanwhile said it was bringing forward the start of jabs — by two days to Wednesday.
The European Commission emphasised it had bought access to “almost two billion doses” of six potential vaccines — four times the population of the entire European Union.
US-based Moderna’s jab was found to be 94.1 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 compared to a placebo in a clinical trial of 30,400 people, performing slightly better in younger adults compared to the elderly.
The EMA said last week that the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which was approved Wednesday in Britain, is unlikely to get a green light in the EU in the next month.
The fact that the watchdog moved from London to Amsterdam after Brexit has itself fuelled commentary about how Britain had been able to move faster after leaving the EU.
Days after a “mutant” coronavirus strain ruined the Christmas plans of holidaymakers on both sides of the English Channel, Brexit red tape and confusion has raised hurdles for Britons attempting to return to their homes in several European countries.
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After a holiday season already dampened by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Brexit blues have kicked in early for Britons living in EU states that now regard them as “third-country nationals”.
Over the weekend, several Britons expressed their dismay on social media after they were barred from boarding flights bound for EU countries they live in. Others have complained of difficulties accessing social benefits to which they are entitled.
Most complaints involved flights to Spain, home to the largest number of registered Britons in Europe, though the Spanish authorities claimed that the issue had been resolved by mid-Sunday.
British in Europe, an advocacy group representing Britons in the EU, said similar issues had arisen in Italy, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. It spoke of “travel chaos for UK residents in the EU trying to return home”, and of violations of the Withdrawal Agreement guaranteeing the rights of British residents in the EU.
We have shared a statement about the travel chaos this weekend and will follow up with the FCDO, member states and the Commission:https://t.co/ko3tHjvm5h
“Britons around the EU have encountered difficulties, with people barred from flights or having their passports stamped, even though they possess valid UK passports, EU residence documentation and PCR tests,” the group wrote in a statement on Sunday.
The chaos comes amid stringent travel restrictions due to a coronavirus variant that has been blamed for faster contagion in the UK. It has also highlighted the bureaucratic complexities caused by Britain’s departure from the EU, compounding the frustrations of expatriates directly affected by the results of a referendum many were unable to take part in.
Lost in translation
“The combination of the post-Brexit transition expiring, the new coronavirus strain and the end of the public holidays has created a perfect storm,” said Matt Bristow, a spokesman for British in Germany, British in Europe’s German branch, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
Following the discovery of the coronavirus variant in the UK, many European nations have banned travel from the British isles except for their own nationals and UK citizens with residency rights.
On Sunday, Dutch border police reported that several British travellers had been refused entry after failing to provide an “urgent reason” to travel to the Netherlands. “They all had a negative PCR test, but had forgotten the basic rule, that they need to have an urgent reason to come, such as work or serious family issues,” a police spokesman told local broadcaster NOS.
But Britons who reside in EU countries have faced similar obstacles amid confusion over the paperwork required to prove their residence.
In one such case, Britons attempting to board Lufthansa flights bound for Germany were mistakenly told they must hold permanent residence to travel, according to the German branch of British in Europe.
“Why are @Lufthansa_DE still telling passengers that the #Bundespolizei have said they can only let those with permanent residence in [Germany] board flights? UK citizens covered by the Withdrawal Agreement are allowed entry even without 5 years’ residence,” the group wrote in a Twitter post on Monday.
Why are @Lufthansa_DE still telling passengers that the #Bundespolizei have said they can only let those with permanent residence in ?? board flights?
UK citizens covered by the Withdrawal Agreement are allowed entry even without 5 years’ residence.https://t.co/mW2bZVjanM
According to Bristow, the erroneous call stemmed from confusion among German officials and airline staff regarding which rules apply to British nationals after Brexit, coupled with certain German nuances being lost in translation.
He pointed to other difficulties experienced by some Britons in Germany since the start of January, including bureaucratic obstacles to accessing unemployment or childcare benefits.
Bristow also noted discrepancies between European Council guidelines and some national regulations, citing the case of a British national who was barred from making a stopover at Munich airport en route to his home in Austria. He added: “Borders that had long been invisible to Europeans are in fact still there for some, as Britons are now discovering.”
ID card backlog
Confusion over paperwork and terminology also caused the disruption in travel to Spain, where a new system to register foreign residents is suffering a backlog due to the high number of requests.
Madrid announced last year that British nationals resident in Spain would be given a photo ID to replace the current residency papers carried by EU nationals. Tens of thousands have applied for the card, but many are waiting to receive them due to demand on the system.
In the meantime, the British and Spanish governments have said that both the old Foreign National Identification (NIE) document and the new Foreign ID Card (TIE) are valid for travel.
Despite this, several Britons residing in Spain were prevented from boarding Iberia and British Airways flights to Barcelona and Madrid after the airlines claimed their papers were no longer valid.
Photographer Max Duncan, one of several travellers who was turned away at Heathrow Airport on Saturday, tweeted that British expats were “distressed as (they) can’t fly home”, having been told their residence certificates no longer sufficed.
Iberia acknowledged late on Sunday that a communication from Spain’s border police on January 1 had created “some confusion” and that it was later clarified.
Spain’s Foreign Ministry spoke of “an isolated communication problem with some airlines that affected a very small number of travellers”, assuring that air traffic between the UK and Spain was proceeding “with normality”.
Passport stamps
Some travellers who did make it through check-in were quick to flag another issue, noting that their passports were stamped upon entering the EU – in breach of the Withdrawal Agreement provisions.
In a written exchange with FRANCE 24, Kalba Meadows, a co-founder of France Rights, the French arm of British in Europe, said, “It does seem that the passports of UK nationals returning to France are being routinely stamped, at many [if not all] entry points.”
She added: “This may lead to issues further down the line as entering France with a passport stamp can mean that one has entered as a visitor not a resident, which sets the clock ticking for the maximum period of 90 out of every 180 days that a third-country national can stay in the Schengen area.”
Meadows said her association had raised the issue with the British embassy in Paris, noting that the difficulties experienced by many travellers had been compounded by skeleton staffing at UK embassies during the holiday season. France Rights has also posted detailed instructions for Britons in France, stressing that their passports should not be stamped if they are resident in France, have applied for residency, or can prove they lived in France before the Brexit transition ended on December 31.
Passport stamps have also been reported at Germany’s main airports, adding to the anxiety felt by British residents already fearful of the consequences of Brexit, said Bristow.
“People are anxious about running into problems later on, about losing certain benefits and rights,” he said. “They have all the right documents, but there’s a fear the message isn’t getting through to officials at all government levels.”
Clarissa Killwick, who co-runs the “Beyond Brexit – UK Citizens in Italy” facebook page, reported similar disquiet among Britons in Italy. She cited media reports of at least one British national, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, being barred from a Ryanair flight to Pisa because she could only produce a paper residency document instead of a photo card.
“The thing is, we are in entirely new territory as four-day-old third-country nationals, which is making everyone feel very jittery,” Killwick told FRANCE 24. “That, combined with the twists and turns of the pandemic, is sending people’s stress levels through the roof.”
The city’s Catholic Bishop, Juan-José Aguirre Muñoz, MCCI, said Monday, the situation was calm, but there had been looting, and many residents had fled into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Earlier reports spoke of artillery attack on the city by the suspected infamous 3R rebels (3R -Retour, Réclamation, Réhabilitation) and the Popular Front for the Rebirth of Central African Republic (FPRC) rebels. Bishop Muñoz, however, said a combination of mercenaries and rebels had overrun the city. The mercenaries are looking for natural resources and wealth.
“Yes, Bangassou has fallen into the hands of the rebels, many of whom are mercenaries and people from Niger. The morning (Sunday) was hectic. There was heavy artillery from 5 am with about thirty dead and wounded,” said Bishop Muñoz, the Bishop of Bangassou, a city in the southeastern Central African Republic, lying on the north bank of the Mbomou River.
Residents have fled to nearby DRC
The Bishop reports that, after trying to resist the rebel offensive, government soldiers fled Bangassou. “The military put up resistance for several hours” but were overwhelmed, said Bishop Muñoz.
As a result of the fighting, “part of the population of Bangassou has fled to Congo,” said the Bishop. Civilians have crossed the Mbomou River to seek refuge in the town of Ndu, just across the border. “Bangassou is almost deserted now. Sunday night went fairly well. There was no shooting,” confirmed Bishop Muñoz.
Touadera wins CAR’s presidential election
The siege on the city of Bangassou further complicates President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s electoral win announced Monday.
According to Reuters, Touadera won Central African Republic’s 27 December presidential election by securing more than 53% of votes in the first round, according to provisional results announced by the electoral commission on Monday.
“Faustin-Archange Touadera, having received the absolute majority of the vote in the first round with 53.9%, is declared winner,” Mathias Morouba, president of the electoral commission, told a news conference in the capital, Bangui.
CAR’s election was marred by a coordinated offensive carried out by rebel groups who tried to disrupt the vote after its highest court rejected former President Francois Bozize’s candidacy.
This book is the second in the Fiona Figg mysteries series.
Oliver is an award-winning, bestselling author of three mystery series: The Jessica James Mysteries, the middle grade Kassy O’Roarke, Pet Detective Mysteries, and historical cozies The Fiona Fig Mysteries. She garnered her Bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University in Washington and her Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
When she is not writing mysteries, she is a distinguished professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Her book, High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery, is a perfect mix of romance, intrigue, suspense, and humor.
Oliver is the author of 13 scholarly books, 10 anthologies, and over 100 articles, which include work on campus rape, reproductive technologies, women and the media, film noir, and Alfred Hitchcock.
Particularly impressive about her work is that it has been translated into seven languages, and she has published an op-ed on loving our pets in The New York Times. She has been spotlighted in ABC television news, the Canadian Broadcasting Network, and various radio programs.
She resides in Nashville with her husband, Benigno Trigo, and her furry family, Mischief and Mayhem.
‘High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery’ is book two in the Fiona Figg series. The first book ‘Betrayal at Ravenswick: A Fiona Figg Mystery’ was a huge success, what was it like for you to release the new book?
It’s so exciting. I can’t wait to see what readers think of Fiona’s latest adventures in Paris. I write three different mystery series, but I have to admit, Fiona Figg is the most fun to write. I love doing historical research. I learn a lot of interesting tidbits and sprinkle them throughout the novels. And, Fiona is one of my favorite characters to write. I also like the continuing characters. And the series gives me the opportunity to develop those characters, along with Fiona, and their relationships.
How has Fiona Figg, the protagonist in this series, grown in the second book?
Fiona has gone from being a file clerk in the War Office to becoming a professional spy. In High Treason, she’s still learning and gaining confidence. But she’s come a long way from Betrayal at Ravenswick, where her husband had just left her for another woman, and she didn’t know how she would survive without him. In the first book, she takes on the mission to forget about Andrew, her philandering husband.
In the second book, she jumps into the mission out of a sense of adventure and to prove herself. She’s very conscious of the restrictions on women’s movements and women’s roles in the early Twentieth Century. That’s why—against the orders of her boss—she resorts to male disguises. Even while she’s traveling through spaces off-limits to women, she is constantly trying to prove that a woman can do the job as good as a man.
Fiona’s proto-feminism motivates her sometimes reckless behavior, but it also gives rise to a lot of the humor in the novels. Fiona is a very funny character, whether she means to be or not.
While writing ‘High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery’ what was the biggest challenge, and the biggest success?
The biggest challenge was also the biggest success—at least I hope so. Namely, developing Fiona as a character in relation to the two other major recurring characters, Clifford Douglas and Fredrick Fredricks. I had to show how the characters change and grow in relation to each other without changing them, or their relationships, so much that they’re no longer believable.
Also, getting the historical details right is always a challenge. Given that High Treason is based on real historical characters, it was even more challenging. I wanted to imagine the inner lives of these real-life characters while also writing a rip-roaring good adventure. So balancing truth and fiction—and using fiction to get at the truth—was sometimes tricky.
Did you write this book while the pandemic was going on? What was that like for you?
Yes. I started the book about the same time the pandemic hit early last spring in New York, where I have a lot of friends. Before coming to Nashville to take a job at Vanderbilt University, I lived and worked on Long Island.
Like a lot of you, I lived in a constant state of high anxiety and fear, which has abated somewhat but hasn’t gone away. I agonized for my friends in New York. And then the pandemic spread across the country. To say it was distracting is an understatement.
You’d think since I was working from home in my day job as a philosophy professor, I could get a lot of writing done. But the opposite was the case. Like so many others, I spent way too much time “doom-surfing.”
On the other hand, the pandemic inspired me to connect with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t talked to in months or years. The fear of death will do that.
Fiona will be heading into 1918—the year of the Spanish Flu pandemic—very soon. And the experience of the pandemic has given me a lot of feelings and thoughts about illness and death to draw on when Fiona faces the plague of her day.
I know you just released this book, but I still have to ask – what’s next for you?
Thanks for asking. I also just released the third book in my kids’ mystery series, The Pet Detective Mysteries. So that’s fun. And, right now, I’m finishing the very first rough draft of the sixth in my contemporary suspense series, The Jessica James Mysteries. It’s called Cottonmouth and it takes Jessica back West, this time to Wyoming. I’m having a lot of fun with a new character, a federal marshal named Lexington Colt, who is part Rylan Givens and part V. I Warshawski.
To learn more about Kelly Oliver and her book High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery, check out her official website, as well as her Facebook page, and follow her on Twitter.
Perhaps the most interesting and telling fact about UFO sightings is that they have overwhelmingly occurred in the United States.
This might mean that either extraterrestrials are specifically observing the United States or that the United States is peculiarly rich in those cultural characteristics that stimulate eyewitness reports concerning alleged extraterrestrial encounters.
I believe there is much more evidence for the latter supposition.
In a scientific age where the world’s traditional religions are under constant intellectual and moral attack, it would not be surprising that people would, not despite this but because of this, continue their search for spiritual meaning and situatedness.
As Sigmund Freud once famously proclaimed, many people, perhaps a majority, are possessed of an “oceanic feeling” which naturally leads them to religious speculation and to seek cultural forms of mystical participation.
Since Freud’s time, the “oceanic feeling” has not disappeared apparently, even if the traditional ways in which they have been expressed have significantly weakened.
The peculiar strength of religious feeling in the United States has often been noted starting with the likes of Tocqueville through Karl Jaspers and continually debated by modern day sociologists. Many theories have been offered to try to explain this cultural phenomenon. The plural nature of the American religious market, the need for a cultural marker to signal cooperation and safety in a vast unsure continent, the perceived need for a kind of social conformism. Indeed, self-identifying atheists are still at a marked social and political disadvantage within the United States, although there are recent signs that this is rapidly changing.
So while the United States arguably still continues to be bathed in subjective lathes of “oceanic feeling” the traditional ground and structures that once channeled that feeling have either weakened or, even, disappeared.
Enter the Alien.
A belief in highly intelligent (read technically advanced) aliens is, in many ways, a perfect expression of a new American religion.
Firstly, in a society that, itself, is highly technical, scientific, expansionary (and at least mildly threatening), and puts a high cultural value on power, speed, and practical intelligence, Aliens seem to fit the bill of a refracted American presence somewhere beyond our vision, experience, and capabilities. Indeed, it is my view, that “ET” is a semi-unconscious projection of ourselves: space faring, colonialist, technical without a specific goal or creed other than ceaseless economic expansion.
As Emile Durkheim noted more than a century ago, a people’s religion is a parallax mirror of itself: its self-perception, ideals, fears, wants, and spiritual needs.
The Alien here is a thinly disguised American technocrat or member of a privileged elite. Powerful, inscrutable, amoral, secretive, vaguely menacing and, above all, omnipresent if not always immediately visible.
The fear and wonder of the Alien is the fear and wonder of a modern technical civilization that has seemed to escape any kind of moral control.
Indeed, the religion of the Alien is more like the religion of Alien ation in the Hegelian sense.
A total giving away of ourselves to something outside of us and thus beyond our control.
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