PALESTINE/ISRAEL:What is it like to be the UN's special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories? After the launch of the Italian book J'accuse, we spoke to Francesca Albanese – about Israel's war against Gaza, genocide, anti-Semitism and impunity, based on her specialization in international law. She talks about political, legal, psychological and epistemic violence resulting from how Israel, with the consent of the West, has oppressed the Palestinians for decades. (And what about the Oslo agreement, see the sub-section.)
ISRAEL/PALESTINE:As Atef Abu Saif writes in his new book, the Palestinians are more afraid of disappearing than of dying. He is one of the most important contemporary Arab writers, and was for a long time Minister of Culture in the Palestinian Authority.
MILITARISM: The Ukraine war risks becoming the prelude to an inevitable decline for the West. The Nordic countries are now among the largest suppliers of weapons to Ukraine. This book is a quantitative visualization of the decline of the West and of growing distrust of institutions among large sections of the population in Western societies. The West can no longer aspire to moral leadership in the world.
FRED: Three hundred years after Immanuel Kant was born, the Prussian philosopher's arguments for a rational, clear-sighted pacifism are more relevant than ever. Europe has recently become a place where the opposition between good and evil is routinely invoked to justify irresponsible brutality, and where the drums of war sound ever louder. Kant is known as the author of one of the most famous anti-war essays in the history of philosophy: The Eternal Peace. Kant's cosmopolitanism is based on man's original, common possession of the earth and implies a recognition of a 'right' to visit all places without being treated with hostility.
PHOTO ART: Is it through its diversity that the world emerges? The game of life takes place behind some masks, which some wear, others take off. The works in the Tangen collection were made by Nordic artists throughout the 1900th century, with a main emphasis from 1930 to 1960. And who is Tangen, besides being an asset manager? One should not forget that he wrote a thesis on Rolf Nesch (at the Courtauld Institute in London).
GERMANY: How 'war-ready' should a country be? With a number of top positions in international politics, crisis management and security, security expert Carlo Masala is regarded as an undeniable authority in the field.
ŽIŽEK: Mad World is basically 'Pandemic-3: The Aftermath'. Slavoj Žižek wrote many chronicles, commentaries and film reviews during the covid-19 pandemic. This is his third collection of texts.
ESSAY: Russia's war and the scare campaign that it will be extended to other countries turns out to be just a cover for a policy that, in the long term, intends to tie Sweden more strongly to the US's military geostrategy – primarily through NATO. We take a closer look at one of the people primarily responsible for this development – Defense Minister Pål Jonson.
THE REALITY: We perceive reality very differently. Let me therefore suggest three areas where reality is real, strong and direct for all of us. But also what a new translated book by Pier Paolo Pasolini says about the film's contact with reality.
FRED: Linn Stalsberg identifies in his new book that accepting war as a human normal state is one of the great danger signals today. We have become accustomed to the idea that war is a necessity, and that war can be morally required on top of that. At the same time, religion is often used cynically as a tool to promote a warlike development – this extends from Pope Urban to Putin and Netanyahu to Hamas.
PEACE WORK: There is something vaguely medieval in the narrative of the media, politicians and gun fetishists today. That is why it is refreshing to read the chapter "NATO – out of date" in the book Fredskultur. Or how about Costa Rica: "We have no enemies and we don't need an army!"
KENNEDY: He said in his speech in 1963: "Where ignorance too often abounds and truth too seldom prevails, the most important subject we have is: world peace." Was it possible, as he said, "to create conditions so that weapons can finally be abolished"? According to Kennedy, the struggle for disarmament had been a matter for US governments since the 1920s. This has not been the case for very many of his successors.
RECONSTRUCTION: What are the prerequisites for rebuilding better in a way that strengthens Ukraine's ownership of its own development? Is democracy both the means and the end? What can the international community contribute? We have asked six players.
FOR: The left-wing parties have put aside international work, the press is a microphone stand for NATO, the peace movement has become toothless – and Norwegians are a nation of cold warriors. Therefore a new party is needed!