Editors’ Note
Issue 11: Parties
DECEMBER 5, 2023
Political parties, parties to disputes, shipping parties, diplomatic factions, and fragile coalitions: This month’s issue brings you stories about parties in many senses of the word.
Why won’t your holiday gift arrive on time? Jatin Dua has the answer. Despite endless talk about globalization, he writes, the maritime routes that rule the contemporary economy are slow and stalled. In an essay composed on the decks of the container ships he rode across the Indian Ocean, traveling from Djibouti to Dubai to the Somalian port of Bosaso, Dua explores the idea of checkpoints and blockages. “Mobility at sea (and indeed elsewhere) requires constantly navigating chokepoints,” he writes. “Chokepoints are a reminder that while our world may seem more and more connected, it is also in some ways more stuck.”
Amy Zhang reports from the exile hub of Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she encounters Chinese people trying to make a life outside the mainland. Their reasons for leaving vary — they tell her they left to escape the intense work culture, the repressive political environment, the ageism and the eternal grind — but something seems to draw them all to this one place.
Legal scholar Rafi Reznik looks at the origin of the Jewish National Front, a far-right Israeli party with American roots. He describes how the governing coalition has led to a violence in Tel Aviv, where more gun permits have been issued to Israelis since October 7 than in the last twenty years combined. “Once the fog of war recedes, what will Israeli society see when it looks itself in the mirror?” Reznik asks.
Vita Dadoo reports on how foreign governments are increasingly turning to their diaspora populations as a key electoral constituency. Between migration and new technologies that allow votes across borders, parties in Mexico, India and Poland have turned to a new kind of diaspora politics.
In the northern German town of Unterlüss, Tania Roettger visits the testing ground of arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. “From here, sounds of shots and explosions ring through the town’s streets, gardens, and one-family houses almost daily,” she reports. Ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the frequency of the explosions has accelerated–part of Germany’s turn away from a culture of pacifism.
Finally, Dial contributing editor Ben Mauk and photographer Carleen Coulter bring us along on their journey across Troms og Finnmark, Europe’s northernmost county. There, they followed reindeer herders as they struggled to adjust to a landscape increasingly marked by wind farms, living amidst what Mauk describes as “the transformation of Europe’s last wilderness into a profitable engine of electricity.”
As this year, our first in existence, comes to a close, we want to raise a glass to our readers. Thank you for sharing our work, supporting our writers, and for coming along on this adventure.
– The Editors