AFRICA: Disruption opens up for the capitalists a new display of power and new income: People, society and nature are reduced to raw material. The author Achille Mbembe's horizon is always the widest possible – the cosmic, earth-historical and planetary. Africa, despite all harrowing problems, is being called forth as a vibrant world center that still has powers in reserve, a teeming wildlife and a wealth of cultures.
RESIDENTIAL BUILDING: Urban growth in Africa is faster than in any other continent. At the same time, one can find corridors of cities with the world's largest footprint of poverty, created by refugees and migrants on their way away from war and conflict, drought and floods.
AFRICA: The film series Tidløs reise, which is now staged in several of the country's cinematheques, shows films rooted in African culture and history – but also Africa's connection to Europe and China.
SOUTH AFRICA: About. 500 South African game reserves represent a spectacular marketplace. But after thirty years, Shamwari Private Game Reserve, for example, today has seven luxury lodges, an explorer camp, a learning centre, a rehabilitation station for young, abandoned or injured animals – and not least a police unit to combat poaching.
AFRICA: Russia has been very keen on the principle of non-interference and has allowed authoritarian regimes to pursue their own policies without making any political demands for their trade or aid. But they gave debt relief to a number of African countries at the same time as signing several military-technical agreements.
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?
ENVIRONMENT: "It's about changing people's mindset," says Volker Schlöndorff (83) to MODERN TIMES. The veteran German director himself describes his film about agronomist Tony Rinaudo's reconstruction of forests in Africa as propaganda.
EUROPE: Europe and EU co-operation have developed in step with society's crises and challenges. On that occasion, MODERN TIMES has asked a number of Norwegian opinion leaders questions about the future of Europe. The EU's Green Deal shows leadership on the environment and climate, in addition to digital services. We ask which areas the EU should prioritize, with appropriate political, legal or industrial initiatives and forms of cooperation.
IDEA HISTORY: African and African-European personalities were central in building what we today call Europe – from the dawn of time to the present day. Africans founded cities in Spain and Italy before ruling the Roman Empire. And Ethiopia also helped Europe advance in the 1400th century.
TRAVEL-ESSAY: In our time of catastrophic extinction of species, you may risk overlooking the catastrophic spread of some species. As we experienced on our journey with the four-wheeled home with the beetle Halyomorpha halys – or what about the king crab in Norway?
DIPLOMA: The Soviet Union and the Eastern European satellite states gained influence in the world through a so-called gift diplomacy that spawned strings of architectural beauties. By Hans Henrik Fafner
SAHEL IN ENGLISH: France has strangely managed to preserve the hegemony over its former colonies, including in the dissemination of knowledge. This book is a much needed exception, which provides the background for understanding the recent coup in Mali.
TO TRAVEL: Where are you going to travel when the pandemic ravages the destination? In the literature, of course. On the desolate islands of the books, you can stretch up the hammock without being infected by anything other than longing.
RACISM? Before, it was the Baroque who seduced Mbembe, now it's brutalism – used as an analytical breakthrough to understand Africa and its relationship to Europe.
DESTROYED NATURE: Profit hunting, illegal wildlife trafficking and a growing population taking over natural areas provide the basis for disasters. Covid-19 is not the revenge of nature; we have done this to ourselves.
