The caricature and the role of satire in information warfare
VISUALLY: Graphic satire has become a weapon. The first 'caricature war' arose between Protestants and Catholics. Caricature is about – also in Ukraine and Russia – increasing morale in one's own ranks by ridiculing the enemy with all possible means and stereotypes – and praising one's own side.
This long farewell to the parents
PENSIONERS: More of us are getting older, and there are fewer people to take care of them. In Norway, there are now over one million old-age pensioners. And what happens when the caring roles are reversed?
What tricks does the Catholic Right have to resort to in order to define itself…
THE WEST: European culture is "characterized by a melancholy feeling due to its alienation or inferiority to a source that evokes a nostalgic feeling". Really?
Advantages and disadvantages of plastic
ECOLOGY: On the one hand, plastic replaces more polluting building materials. On the other hand, we have enormous amounts of plastic waste. We have produced 7 billion tonnes of plastic as of today.
When it's really on fire out in the world
EU: Europe has never become an adult and responsible player in a multipolar world. And a common foreign and security policy has never gone beyond the sketch plane. Will it happen now?
Green electricity from Africa
NAMIBIA: Dependence on Russian gas, Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine and provoked supply crises have put energy at the center of European politics. But in Namibia, the plan is now to focus on 'green' electricity where seawater is desalinated and produces hydrogen through electrolysis.
The end of the story – and the beginning
FREEDOM: 'University' was a code word for prison, completing the exam meant serving a prison sentence. Albania's transformation was thorny. On the altar of freedom, factories went bankrupt, jobs disappeared, thousands fled to Italy on overcrowded ships.
A logical consequence of the Cold War?
RUSSIA: Mary Elise Sarotte demonstrates thorough knowledge of the Cold War – and today's horrific continuation of it.
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad
AFRICA: In Norway, interest in the Sahel is growing: With the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, both the strength and the number of rebel groups in the Sahel increased. After the start of the global war on terror in 2001, more and more countries have taken an interest in this large area. But aren't the Islamists fighting here primarily against the West?
A threshold practice for queers
FEMINISM: In the attempt to align identity politics with the teachings of the Catholic Church, the Italian writer and feminist Michele Murgia envisions an opportunity for renewal – for the church. Here, The Holy Spirit opens for something different and non-gendered, for queerness.
For those who want to understand this crisis
UKRAINE: MODERN TIMES' regular commentator, John Y. Jones, gives us here in this essay (via Jacques Baud) an overview of the balance of power, the progression of the Ukraine war, the propaganda threat, the Russians' intentions and Western reactions, the Nazi accusations and lies campaigns.
He was blown up – no one was held responsible
MAFIA: This is a collection of anecdotal testimonies about a self-destructive social machinery with the mafia as its cornerstone. It deals with the mafia in Sicily, but also the war in Vietnam, Palestinian rights, environmental protection, class society, legal abortion and women's liberation.
Political biology
DESIRE: About the intersex subject and revolutionary impatience. A resistance made possible by the 'potentia gaudendi', the reserve of unrestrained 'pleasure potency' which constitutes the basic assumption of the philosophy of desire from Reich to Deleuze and Guattari. 'Polemical non-fiction'? Paul B. Preciado takes up Engels' confrontation with the norms of "the family, the state and private property".
ChatGPT – an impersonal paradigm shift?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Is it only now that individualism, the cultivation of individuals, with new technology such as ChatGPT, is about to change?
Muslim elites, exercise of power and terror
AFRICA: What can a book say about Boko Haram or the porous border between today's Cameroon and today's Chad? Or about the pre-colonial kingdom of Kanem-Bornu?
Camille, Hannah, Lisa, Pauline and Flora
WOMEN: Art done by men is simply given more attention: in collections, in exhibition programs, in art literature, in the art market. But what about the large number of female artists over the past 500 years?
The adaptive autocrats
AUTHORITARIAN: What happened after the height of freedom ideals, the fall of the Iron Curtain and Bill Clinton's fusion of liberal politics with market forces? Today, the Chinese's mastery of original Western technology and surveillance seems limitless.
The Chinese dream: "Our time has come."
USA / CHINA: Is the current systemic divide between the US and China insurmountable? According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken: "Our relationship with China will be competitive when it should, cooperative when it can, and hostile when it has to." On the other hand, China is now led by a man who, according to book author Kevin Rudd, has considerable intellectual resources . Under his leadership, China has grown into a superpower.
When two people have ended up sharing the fear of each other
ISRAEL: Ami Ayalon has been at the forefront of Israel's military actions. As naval commander and as head of the country's internal security service he had a creeping sense that the country he so passionately defended was maneuvering into a strategic impasse.
Why do we resort to bombs and guns?
WAR: Christopher Blattman's long-term project has been to explore the reasons why conflict between groups and nations erupts into war.
Politically correct decolonization ideology?
MODERNIZATION: The Nigerian professor Olùfèmi Táíwò looks at power relations between the formerly colonized and colonialists. All states strive to adapt modern institutions to their own history, cultural context and ideological climate. But can the demand to decolonize the language become absurd?
To reclaim democracy
DEMOCRACY: MODERN TIMES has chosen two angles on the same book. What about community-led initiatives as a contribution to the European Green Deal?
Fascinating fascism and seductive drivers
NEO-FASCISM: Do many still have fascist longings today, or can one always blame seductive leaders? A closer dive into the 100-year-old Italian fascism and its descendants says something about the dangers we are now likely to face.
NATO – an alliance for the 21st century?
Military industry: NATO's new strategy document is a continuation of the neoconservative line after Anders Fogh Rasmussen's politicization of a group-run NATO 2009–2014. The new document reveals an ideological chasm between the old and the new NATO.
Which African intellectuals…
Intellectuals: Inspired both by Bakhtin and Foucault, Stephen Chan presents Achille Mbembe's analyzes of the African state in an understandable way. But let's mention what the book leaves out.