Intelligence Squared

Fascism, Exile, and Redefining Home in the 21st Century, with Ece Temelkuran

February 13, 2026

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  • Ece Temelkuran argues that the term 'fascism' should be used emphatically for current political movements because avoiding it allows people to relax and wait for the movement to pass, whereas calling it fascism demands action. 
  • Temelkuran actively resists the label 'exile' due to moral concerns about the inequality it creates compared to refugees, political concerns about granting undeserved credit to host nations, and the emotional finality the term implies. 
  • The book *Nation of Strangers* is presented as the completion of a ten-year political sentence, moving from diagnosing how countries are lost (*How to Lose a Country*) to proposing action (*Together*) and finally addressing the core problem: humanity's shared moral, political, and physical homelessness. 

Segments

Podcast Sponsorship and Water Focus
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Intelligence Squared is partnering with WaterAid to highlight the deep link between the digital world and physical resources like water, emphasizing its role in innovation and global development.
  • Summary: The partnership with WaterAid aims to shine a spotlight on water as a foundational element connecting modern life, from data centers to food production. Helen Rumford and Vera Klutchen discuss how investing in water secures a sustainable and equitable future. This is the second episode in the Intelligence Squared series with WaterAid.
Planet Visionaries Podcast Promotion
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(00:01:15)
  • Key Takeaway: The Planet Visionaries podcast, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, features conversations with conservation leaders like Mark Ruffalo and Chris Tompkins.
  • Summary: Alex Honnell promotes the new season of Planet Visionaries, which explores bold ideas and solutions in conservation. Guests include climate champion Mark Ruffalo and biologist Christina Mittermeyer. The podcast is available wherever podcasts are found.
Introduction to Ece Temelkuran
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(00:01:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Ece Temelkuran joins the Intelligence Squared podcast to discuss her new book, Nation of Strangers, focusing on exile, migration, and belonging amid rising authoritarianism.
  • Summary: Host Maithili Rao introduces Temelkuran, an author forced into exile from Turkey due to her critical views of President Erdoğan. The discussion centers on rebuilding solidarity and resistance among the politically and emotionally displaced. Temelkuran’s previous works include How to Lose a Country and Together.
Temelkuran’s Current Location and Coffee Ritual
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(00:03:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Temelkuran currently resides in Berlin, which she calls the ‘world capital of strangers,’ and humorously notes the cultural difference in ordering Turkish coffee versus German precision.
  • Summary: Temelkuran has been living in Berlin for two and a half years, having previously lived in Hamburg and Zagreb. She jokes about the cultural negotiation required for ordering Turkish coffee, which involves subjective sweetness levels rather than standardized measurements.
Defining and Using ‘Fascism’
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(00:05:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Temulkuran insists on using the term ‘fascism’ because editors’ reluctance to use it in subtitles shifted from ‘dictatorship’ to ‘fascism’ over six years, reflecting the worsening political reality.
  • Summary: She argues that fascism did not end with WWII and that current movements share ideological similarities, though today’s iteration is a ‘farcical kind of fascism’ featuring nihilistic figures. Those who avoid the term do so because labeling it fascism necessitates action, unlike labeling it ‘right-wing populism,’ which allows for passive waiting.
Ambivalence Towards ‘Exile’
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(00:09:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Temulkuran fights the ’exiled writer’ label for moral reasons (discrepancy with refugees), political reasons (giving too much credit to Western safe havens), and emotional reasons (the permanent status it implies).
  • Summary: She views the term as morally disturbing because it elevates the exile above the refugee, who often lacks basic recognition. Politically, using the term grants Western societies undue praise as havens while they push refugees back to sea. Emotionally, being labeled an exile means one can never truly go home again, even if they return.
Form of ‘Nation of Strangers’
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(00:13:01)
  • Key Takeaway: The book is structured as intimate letters to strangers because the massive topic of homelessness—moral, political, and physical—required an intimate medium, functioning as a ‘whisper’ in a time of global shouting.
  • Summary: Temulkuran asserts that her personal survival mode necessitated connecting her experience to the survival mode of humanity across multiple levels of homelessness. The poetic form allows her to address the ‘polycrisis’ and encourage people to see the problem as it truly is.
Book as Political Sentence Completion
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(00:17:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Nation of Strangers completes a decade-long political narrative, culminating in the realization that humanity is losing its ultimate home—the planet—and must build a new one with words.
  • Summary: The sequence began with warning about losing democracy (How to Lose a Country), followed by a call to action (Together), and now addresses the core issue of losing our physical, moral, and political homes. Building a home with words is presented as the only possible way to survive the current era of moral and physical displacement.
Gaza as Moral Experiment
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(00:19:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Gaza is viewed not as a singular rupture but as a moral experiment to test how much the world can tolerate, showcasing the new morality where powerful actors can commit outrageous acts and expect laughter.
  • Summary: The vivid description of Gaza as a ‘fatal gangrene’ was a sentence Temulkuran wrote nearly 20 years ago, predicting the swallowing of humanity’s morality. The events serve as a showcase for the new world order, where human life is devalued, and political acts are performed with a veneer of normalcy, like Trump’s resort advertisement.
Internal Destruction vs. External Focus
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(00:23:14)
  • Key Takeaway: The current focus on external political violence neglects the profound internal, moral destruction caused by these events, which requires a moral transformation rather than just political fixes.
  • Summary: People have lost faith in themselves, each other, and politics, which is the ultimate despair, necessitating the mending of that faith. The word ‘home’ is more effective than ‘democracy’ in mobilizing people because it speaks directly to the human heart, unlike abstract political concepts.
Encounter with Tech Investors in the Alps
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(00:26:13)
  • Key Takeaway: The encounter with wealthy tech investors revealed a chilling level of nihilism, imagining a world without humans, which reinforced the need to turn toward the light to regain the will to see.
  • Summary: Temulkuran felt increasingly dark witnessing the nihilism of those imagining a world erased of people, describing it as beyond racism—the ultimate neoliberal morality where nothing matters. She concludes that AI threatens to steal humanity’s spiritual home: language, as machines begin to speak better than us.
Befriending AI and Self-Worth
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(00:30:11)
  • Key Takeaway: To shape AI, Temulkuran suggests a path of ’loving’ the creation, similar to Frankenstein’s resolution, especially since humans are already feeding it their darkest secrets via therapy use.
  • Summary: The most common problem reported by users seeking AI therapy is low self-worth, indicating that humans are failing to make each other feel worthy. This reliance on a machine for validation is described as tragic.
Relevance of Ancient Texts
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(00:36:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Homer’s Odyssey is central because it addresses the fundamental question of identity when ’there is no going back home,’ while Waiting for the Barbarians illuminates the core fear driving fascism.
  • Summary: Temulkuran’s hometown, Izmir, is embedded in Greek mythology, lending a ‘homely’ feeling to these ancient texts for her. She reads One Art by Elizabeth Bishop as a profound poem about the loss of home, rather than strictly a love poem.
Consolation in Leaving Home
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(00:42:47)
  • Key Takeaway: The theme of children running away in literature suggests that leaving home, while serious, can also be transformative and unexpectedly wonderful, leading Temulkuran to realize her book was about building a home for herself.
  • Summary: Temulkuran spent years in survival mode, keeping her heart ‘in the freezer,’ but writing Nation of Strangers was the act of building a home for herself through words. She recalls a Walter Benjamin quote suggesting that not running away from home at age 16 is the only thing one cannot remedy.
Current Reading Recommendation
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(00:44:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Temulkuran highly recommends Daniel Kehlmann’s novel The Director for its exploration of the individual struggle within oppressive regimes, specifically concerning an Austrian filmmaker working under the Nazi regime.
  • Summary: The book is described as ‘amazing’ and essential reading for understanding individual complicity. The conversation concludes with thanks and promotion for the book’s availability.