In Aftershock, journalist John Feffer returns to Eastern Europe a quarter of a century after the fall of communism. There, he tracks down hundreds of people he had interviewed for his earlier book, Shock Waves, decades before as the Iron Curtain fell. From politicians and scholars to trade unionists and grassroots activists, Feffer now finds a common story of optimism dashed.
Feffer observes that years of free-market reforms have failed to deliver prosperity, while corruption and organized crime are rampant, and optimism has given way to bitterness and a newly invigorated nationalism. Yet, through in-depth interviews with the region’s many extraordinary activists, Feffer shows that despite these stiff odds, hope for the region’s future remains alive in many.
Please join the Open Society Foundations in exploring this timely and important book.
Speakers
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Alex Johnson
Moderator
Until February 2019, Alex T. Johnson was the senior policy advisor for Europe and Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations in Washington, D.C.
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John Feffer
Speaker
John Feffer, a 2012 Open Society Fellow, is an author and journalist, and is the director of Foreign Policy in Focus.
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Voices
John Feffer on the Liberal Project and Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams
Feffer discusses his book on Central and Eastern Europe’s multiple transformations and the fate of the liberal project.
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Q&A: Defending Europeans’ Right to Protest
Research in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans has confirmed what many people in the region know already: too many governments are using bureaucratic tricks—and brute force—to restrict the basic right to free speech.
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Citizens Push Back Against Polish Ruling Party’s Abuse of Power
Since winning last month’s elections, Poland’s conservative PiS party has been consolidating power and shutting down dissent. But a groundswell of grassroots opposition is building fast.