In today’s roundup, the United States is presented primarily through the lens of security and public health. Turkish materials address the long-term consequences of the September 11 attacks, report a major cyclospora outbreak in the United States, and highlight Washington–Vietnam cooperation in healthcare. The other publications mention the United States only indirectly and focus on commercial, domestic political, or unrelated topics. The result is a fragmented picture without a single international response to a specific event. The review is based on materials from Brookings (South Africa) and Facebook publications (Turkey).
Al-Qaeda and 9/11: The American View of the Threat
The Brookings Institution article examines the place the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occupied in Al-Qaeda’s strategy and propaganda, as well as the consequences of the attacks for the United States. It is an American analytical text, not a response from South Africa: it does not present the views of South African politicians, experts, civil society organizations, or the local press.
The author regards 9/11 as Al-Qaeda’s primary symbolic capital. For the group, the anniversary of the attacks was not merely a date for statements and propaganda messages, but also a possible occasion for new large-scale operations capable of once again attracting the attention of the entire world. The organization sought to demonstrate that it was capable of harming the United States and its allies by exploiting the psychological impact of mass terrorism.
The text mentions terrorist plots thwarted in 2006 and 2009. The first involved alleged attacks on transatlantic flights, while the second targeted the New York subway. These episodes are cited as evidence that the threat did not disappear after the initial destruction of Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Afghanistan. In addition, according to the information presented in the article, Osama bin Laden discussed the possibility of an attack timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11 before his death.
The American perspective is particularly evident in the assessment of the attacks’ consequences. The author links the significance of 9/11 not only to the number of deaths and the social shock, but also to its far-reaching financial and geopolitical consequences. These included direct economic damage, a sharp expansion of domestic security spending, and the lengthy U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this context, the attacks are viewed as an example of how a relatively inexpensive terrorist operation can provoke an extraordinarily costly response from the world’s leading power.
This is precisely the meaning conveyed by describing 9/11 as one of the most “cost-effective global turning points”: the terrorists’ expenses were incomparable with Washington’s subsequent budgetary expenditures, human losses, military campaigns, and restructuring of the international security system. For the United States, it became a vivid demonstration of an asymmetric threat in which a small network of militants could influence global politics and the economy for decades to come.
South Africa is effectively absent from the Brookings article. It does not examine risks to the country, its counterterrorism policy, or the South African government’s position on the American wars and the global campaign against terrorism. Nor does the article compare the threat posed by Al-Qaeda with South Africa’s historical experience, including the legacy of apartheid, regional conflicts, migration, social inequality, or domestic crime.
At the same time, international security issues may have indirect significance for South Africa. The country has major transport hubs, a developed financial sector, and close trade, tourism, and air links with the outside world. Disruptions to global transport routes, increased risks to civil aviation, and disruptions to international trade could also affect the South African economy. However, the text itself does not draw these conclusions, so it would be inaccurate to present it as an independent “South African response.”
Ultimately, this is an American analysis of why 9/11 remained for Al-Qaeda at once an ideological reference point, a propaganda symbol, and a model of the desired impact on its adversary. Its main subject is the vulnerability of the United States to terrorist attacks and the cost of its response, not how this threat is perceived in South Africa or on the African continent.
The European Crisis and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism Through the Eyes of a Turkish Author
A column by Turkish intellectual Süleyman Seyfi Öğün, published via the Facebook link provided, focuses not on Turkey, the PKK, or the “new London equation” mentioned in the headline, but on Europe’s political crisis. The starting point for his discussion was the German elections and the success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at the local level in Saxony-Anhalt.
The author urges readers not to turn a single regional result into a definitive diagnosis of Germany as a whole. In his view, the elections in Berlin will be a more revealing test for the AfD and the German political landscape. However, Öğün believes that the broader trend is already visible across Europe: traditional centrist parties are losing support while right-wing populist movements are gaining strength.
He places in this category France’s National Rally, the Dutch right, Britain’s Reform UK, Italy’s Brothers of Italy, Spain’s Vox, and the AfD. The author explains their growth not as Europe’s sudden return to historical Nazism or fascism, but as the result of a deep crisis in the political and socioeconomic model that emerged after the end of the Cold War.
Öğün warns against mechanically labeling contemporary right-wing parties as neo-Nazi or neo-fascist. In his assessment, they differ from historical fascist movements: they lack the previous level of organizational discipline, a single absolute leadership hierarchy, and a coherent ideological structure. He therefore proposes referring to them primarily as “right-wing populist parties.”
As an example, he cites Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The author acknowledges the severity of her conservative and anti-immigration rhetoric but considers her practical policies pragmatic. In his interpretation, Meloni is not trying to destroy Italy’s state system in the way Donald Trump, in his view, is acting in the United States.
A central place in Öğün’s argument is occupied by criticism of the neoliberal era. He links the success of the right to the fact that the economic policies of recent decades primarily served elite interests, while center-left and social-democratic forces ceased to act as consistent defenders of the welfare state. Instead of resisting the dismantling of the former social model, the author argues, they “cooperated” with that process.
He is particularly harsh in his assessment of the British experience. In his interpretation, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did not offer an alternative to Thatcherism but effectively competed with Margaret Thatcher in dismantling the social mechanisms created in postwar Europe. In the author’s view, this policy severed traditional parties’ ties with broad sections of society and created space for right-wing populism.
The Turkish perspective on the situation is reflected in skepticism toward Europe’s self-image. Europe was long portrayed as the bearer of a more humane model of capitalism—the “European Dream”—in contrast to American individualism and harsh market forces. But, Öğün argues, this image is increasingly diverging from reality. After 2010, European economies experienced severe shocks, while the previous benefits of trade and industrial cooperation with China began to disappear.
In this logic, right-wing populism is not the root cause of Europe’s instability but a symptom of the failure of the former centrist consensus. Voters disillusioned by declining living standards, rising inequality, weakened social protection, and the inability of traditional parties to offer a convincing way out of the crisis are turning to forces that promise to restore control, security, and national sovereignty.
The article also contains a politicized assessment of Europe’s relations with Russia. The author argues that left-wing, green, social-democratic, and Christian-democratic parties, confronted with economic difficulties, “found an enemy” in Russia. In his view, European elites are attempting to overcome the crisis by militarizing the economy and strengthening their alliance with the United Kingdom, but this course was chosen hastily and without sufficient consideration of the consequences.
From this perspective, it is precisely the mistakes of the forces that most frequently warn of the far-right threat that are creating conditions for the further strengthening of the AfD, National Rally, Reform UK, Brothers of Italy, and other similar parties. The rise of right-wing populism is presented as the result not of fascist nostalgia, but of the loss of trust in a political class that failed to protect Europe’s social model.
Öğün’s text is not a detailed report on the German elections: it contains almost no verifiable electoral figures, party platforms, or reactions from German politicians. It is a political commentary in which the European crisis is viewed through criticism of neoliberalism, centrist elites, and the EU’s claims to moral leadership.
Turkey is not a direct subject of discussion in the column. However, the framing itself is characteristic of Turkey’s conservative intellectual debate: Europe is presented not as a model of stable democracy and social justice, but as a region experiencing the weakening of its former model, a crisis of trust, and the rise of political forces that have emerged from this breakdown.
