The Civic Podcast

You can't feel regret if you would've made the same choice at the time.

What makes Brussels so unique? A place between heaven and hell.

We shouldn't think that war is a relic of the past, it is very much present all around the world and we're no better than any country or generation previous to ours for not engaging in it.

The mindset behind a conversation is completely different to the one behind a debate, and it is crucial to know how to approach each interaction.

More questions than answers around truth, fact and responsibility.

Why has isn't anyone speaking about COVID anymore? What new information do we have regarding the vaccines? Let's try and compile all the information we've received throughout the past two years and take our own conclusions on the state of the matter.

On February 24th 2022, Putin decided to invade Ukraine with military action. The European Union, the United States and NATO have to act immediately with strong economic sanctions and military action against that vicious attack on Ukrainian democracy. The question is, can the West step up to help our allies when they need us the most?

One of the vital concepts in a trial is the presumption of innocence; or in other words being considered innocent until proven guilty. Under this principle, the onus for proving guilt lies on the prosecution. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt, is in many ways quite similar. You don't exactly know the point someone is trying to make or even know enough yourself to make a reasoned judgment in which case you decide to assume the point is favourable or at the very least worth thinking about. In a society where we don't have the benefit of the doubt, it becomes very difficult for originality of ideas and real discourse to occur. So should we all be given the benefit of the doubt?

It is commonplace to agree unequivocally with ‘science' in modern life. But we forget that science, like all things in life can be wrong sometimes. Scientific credibility is christened by years of data and research. So we should be more critical of the new science, lest we forget it can be wrong sometimes, or misleading at any rate.

If you change the meaning of words, you change the rules, if you change the rules you win the game. The power of language should transcend ideological narratives which vary from generation to generation. So if we use the same words with different meanings are we just speaking a different language?

Due process is being lost through the meddling of politicians and mainstream media with criminal trials. There is more in common between the Derek Chauvin/George Floyd trial and the Rittenhouse trial than what you might think... What actually happened on the 25th August 2020 in Kenosha? Did the mainstream media tell you the whole truth?

What exactly are the differences between pro-nation and pro-EU narratives? These are questions that are worth asking when we try to understand the current socio-political turmoil the EU is under.

It should be the State that adapts to society, and not for society to adapt to the State.

Do young people now have it worse than the generations that came before them?

You don't need to go to university to be successful.

Some Hawaiian activists are claiming that the newly added surfing competition to the Olympics (also known as Wokalympics) is cultural appropriation and a manifestation of white colonialism.

With the contemporary idea that people can't be successful because of social or economic barriers, the olympics serve as a reminder that everyone can achieve greatness by overcoming them. From mental health to biological advantages, this edition has raised lots of questions that need answering.

The Mayor of Chicago Lori lightfoot says "she would do it again" when it comes to her decision of not allowing one-on-one interviews with white reporters.

Is England a racist country? What does taking the knee actually mean?Contrary to the opinion of many, England isn't a racist country. I try to go through what happened following the Euro 2020 final where three english players received numerous abusive and racist messages.

Is Cuba a dictatorship? Is democracy a means to an end? Is the new potential reform of the Official Secrets Act (UK) an attempt against freedom of expression and freedom of the press?Access all our content on www.thecivicspace.org

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I cover the main contributing factors that cause both the gender and ethnic wage gaps we hear so much about today. Through this I hope to dismantle the on-going narrative that specific groups of people are being paid less for the same job and same working hours just purely based on an active discrimination on behalf of the employers.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I try to brainstorm a bit on our definitions of poverty and inequality in the west and across the world. We keep hearing that there's an increase of poverty around the globe, but what exactly does this mean?The poverty line is something defined by the standards of living in each country. In Belgium for example someone earning 1112 euros net a month is considered poor, should we take this statistical definition or should we have a different perception about its meaning?I think we shouldn't be as concerned with inequality per se, as that involves comparing the standards of different groups of people. Our main concern should be how much the people at the bottom have or should have, as we should make sure that every human being has enough to cover their physiological needs so they can live their lives with dignity, concentrating on other important aspects of life like family, friends and career.I hope you all enjoy!P.S.: I did not take into account the new economic crisis following the COVID19 pandemic. So don't put too much emphasis on the numbers themselves, but on the perception of the terms "inequality" and "poverty".

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast. In this episode I criticise how politics has become the overarching theme of public discourse, dictating our every move, thought and word. We have to change the way we approach our lives and stop emphasising - at least to some extent - the importance of it. There's so much more to life than politics in itself, even though it is a big part of our day-to-day lives. We shouldn't disregard the other axioms like family, career, leisure, social life or any other branch we want to pursue throughout our lifetime. This may sound contradictory coming from me, and in a way it is, but I really do believe that the overwhelming majority of people just want to make politics boring again. I hope you all enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast! In this episode I am joined by Aye Kari Soe to speak about the current situation in Myanmar. We bring up the historical context of the country and why her family and numerous others had to flee years back. After the application of an ilusionary democracy, Myanmar seemed to be getting better throughout the past decade, until a military coup took place this past February 2021 after the outcome of a general election was judged fraudulent. Throughout this undemocratic regime, countless civilian lives have been taken daily by the illegitimate military government in power. I hope you all enjoy listening to her testimony and our conversation about the current global socio-political dynamics and phenomenons.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I try to speak about the underlining misunderstandings and misinterpretations there are when it comes to migration in a general manner. There is a reluctancy to even adress this issue for fear of being missunderstood or labeled in a certain way, just the more reason to bring up the conversation and stop bowing to the taboos.If this conversation doesn't happen in good faith in the social spheres, the people that will end up losing are refugees and people in need themselves. We should start adressing the important issues to solve the problems we are facing, together.I hope you all enjoy.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!This episode is a bit a reactionnary rant to my previous episodes and what I try to share throughout them. People generally are not willing to accept that they might be wrong, and show a certain stuborness when it comes to opening up to new ideas that completely dismantle their own. The only way your ideas, perception and views can sustain throughout time and space is if you expose them to the other ideas people might have, henceforth testing out their rigidity.I really do hope that bit by bit people will be engaging into dialogues with a more open mind, and that in the end, the best ideas will prevail in this chaotic world we live in if we all play by the same set of rules and agree on the underlining principles of free speech.I hope you all enjoy.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode, I try to cover all the underlining principles, ideas and revendications of feminism. After recording I realised I got nowhere near all the different aspects of the movement, and lots of things still need to be adressed, mostly in the historical context. That said, I hope that after this you can get a better grasp of the modern feminist movement and how it's divided in itself. The topic in its specificities opens the discussion for numerous other issues to tackle, which I will try to bring up in the near future and dig in a little bit more into each and every single one of them. Again, I ask everyone to open up their minds to other ideas and make their own research.I hope you all enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I make my case on why everyone should be a sceptic but at the same time explain the downfall of too much scepticism, or uncontrolled scepticism might be a better way to put it.Always ask yourself the relevant questions about everything you see, hear or feel.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I speak about something I call "Non-Identified Opinion" and how its perception has applied massive constraints on the free exchange of ideas between individuals.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I will be speaking about cancel culture and how that way of thinking is highly dangerous for our public discourse, both in private and public spaces.Hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I will be going a bit through what is equality and what is equity. In addition, the manifestation of the idea it represents today in our current socio-political understanding through quotas.Hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I will be speaking a bit about identity, social constructions and other terms linked to that.The problem with identitarianism, is when people think that the only thing that defines them are traits of which they had no say over. Different types of identitarianism can be healthy, but most of them have been proved to be nefarious towards society.I hope you enjoy.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I will be speaking about the recent outcome of the United States elections!Many things have happened during the last few days, Biden has been appointed called as the 46th President-elect of the United States of America with Kamala Harris as his Vice-President. Donald Trump has continued with his claims of voter fraud, which do have to be looked into, as any person with a minimum sense of democracy would agree. Now to which extent that potential voter fraud could be the actual determinant when it comes to Biden winning the elections is not entirely clear to me.There are also many things to take from these elections, specifically the massive change in the voter demographics regarding the minorities that have voted for Trump. Might it be that the identity politics angle is no longer convincing these groups? Lots of questions with not so many (clear) answers.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!Here is Part 2 of my conversation with Natalie Mlikota. The topic started shifting towards racial matters and policing, but the essence of the USA remained intact. I stand by my word that the specific movements in each country cannot be copied to another, something that has widely happened with the BLM movement for example.Precision: When we were speaking about black citizens' rights in the U.S and the U.K, and where it cannot be compared it was through examples like voting rights in the latter were never racially biased by legislation, contrary to what we could see in the US throughout the 20th century ; they were gender/status biased however. The UK was also leading in some way black rights, a bit too late but there is a significant difference with the US. This is not to say that the U.K doesn't have its fair share of conversations to have regarding colonialism, and I'm not an expert either to speak freely about the matter at this point. Furthermore, I don't discard the possibility of having said something that isn't true or maybe half true, most likely caused by a lack of intense knowledge in the wide topic that is colonialism (mea culpa). However I will stand by my point that we cannot keep saying that our institutions and societal structures (currently) are systemically racist as a consequence of our past sins, or at least, not so easily.I was also a bit reluctant to comment on everything or start a debate as I don't know the reality in the U.S as much, which I can also say for the U.K as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, it does seem important to hear these arguments from the other side of the pond and think about what has been said. Future episodes will include these matters with a little more fundament, so we can really lay out what the differences between the two continents are.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast!In this episode I invited a friend of mine currently residing in New York. She identifies as a queer - jewish woman and is of argentinian origin.I thought it might be relevant to get an external point of view when it comes to the issues the USA is facing, specifically in the middle of the elections. I didn't speak much about the matters at hand, as I don't have much information about the USA and the realities there, but I did put her knowledge and revendications to the test!We don't agree on most things, but we do agree on enough to find a common ground of understanding.I hope you enjoy this first part of the episode!P.S. : I do apologise if there are some audio issues at the beginning, the connection became more stable throughout the course of the conversation.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Civic Podcast.This might be the most difficult topic up to date, in the aftermath of the horrific attacks perpetrated by islamic radicals in France. The conversation around islam needs to be had, and what are the right and wrong ways of interpreting the holy texts of the Quran.I urge all muslim communities around the world to fight for what is right: freedom.Hope you enjoy.P.S.: A small correction regarding the numbers I about the ICM polls, 52% of British muslims disagree with the legalisation of homosexuality, not mentioning the moral aspect.

Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth episode of The Civic Podcast.Here I will be speaking a bit about the paradox of meritocracy, its advantages but also its dark side. We tend to believe that a system purely based on merit would be the fairest system, but that not always might be the case. A moral and ethical reflexion should take place on the public sphere in order to answer these difficult questions. As a society we need to rethink our value structures and what could constitute someone's success in life.I hope you enjoy.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Civic Podcast.In this episode I will try to explain a bit the problems that we face today when it comes to understanding the misery that totalitarian regimes brought to our society, specifically Communism and Fascism. Where we have to draw the line on the political spectrum is not entirely clear nowadays, and if this line isn't drawn we could start shifting gradually towards the extremes we've so desperately tried to avoid during the past decades. I try to give my point of view in what I see today in society and how to interpret that, specifically when it comes to both these ideologies.In addition I also give some details about "Episode 2 - Collectivism, Critical Race Theory, BLM and Privilege", where some things I explained might be misinterpreted in a negative manner. Then again, it is an extremely difficult topic possessing a vast amount of information to process and make sense of.I hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of The Civic Podcast.In this episode I will be speaking a bit about Collectivism, Critical Race Theory and Privelege. A lot of what is being spoken about today is interconnected in one way or another, therefore I try to bring a little context, facts and personal point of view to make sense of everything happening today. I might not be too precise with my ideas which can be misinterpreted and might not be 100% correct, I just hope that I'm opening your mind enough for you to go do your own research about these matters and take out your own conclusions.Hope you enjoy!

Hello everyone.This is my first podcast and through it I would like to give some insights about the kind of content that will be published on the channel. From a short presentation about myself to speak about society in its entirety and the problems we're facing today when it comes to discourse and public interaction.I didn't want to go into too much detail with some of the topics, so I just scraped through some things that will later on be developed, whether it's from my point of view or with guests to discuss the issues at hand.Furthermore, I would like to apologise if the quality isn't too great, I'm still trying to figure out how all the podcasting software works and the best microphone settings for a clear and clean voice.I hope that you will all enjoy this first episode and that you will stick around to hear the next ones to come!