revolution

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATION: We hear from Pål Steigan about his political background, upbringing and thinking. Also about the establishment of the newspaper Klassekampen, and his time in the AKP (ML) and Rødt parties. He is contrarian and censored in Norway when it comes to many issues. We have chosen to let him speak with his own arguments, where we meet him in Italy at the Franciscan monastery he has furnished as a writing room and seminar venue.

REBELLION: Through this essay we are taken on an exciting journey through revolutions all over the world. The book refers, for example, to the 2010 uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

IRAQ: In Iraq, young people trust neither the politicians nor the parties. MODERN TIMES has met the director and producer of the film Baghdad on Fire, which deals with the mobilization of the youth fighting for change in the bad governance of the country's leaders. Karrar Al-Azzawi says the following about the US invasion in 2003: "They brought 'democracy', but we got only chaos and corruption – with politicians who only wanted to steal. The religious leaders were also involved in this."

REFORM AND REVOLUTION: Now, in the era of electoral federation efforts, it is perhaps a worthwhile endeavor to try to think through the concepts of reform and revolution.

DISSIDENT: More and more scientists and artists are arrested, sent to prison or placed in psychiatric clinics as insane, if they have deviated from the "party line". Evensmo takes up Solzhenitsyn here after spending a couple of years reading everything he has written – well over 2000 pages.

CAPTURE: Who has the right to move "freely" on the digital highways, and who is waved to the side by the police or the state intelligence service because their data profile appears on the radar?

Obituary: Uncompromisingly, she spoke out against power. Now she is gone, 89 years old. Author, physician and feminist Nawal El-Saadawi wrote for MODERN TIMES from June 2009.

SICILY: The South Italian family is still a powerful institution. It slides seamlessly into the mafia's power structure, with its familismo amoral. The family is the law – not the social institutions.

ISLAM: In a time when fear of Islam is spreading, Seyran Ates writes that Islam needs a sexual revolution to gain respect from the world community.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: Is it possible to get something positive out of a recognition that civilization and the globe are about to go down?

REVOLUTION? Initially, the outcry was, says John Holloway, with ideological stance in Zapatism.

DOTCOM: The first internet revolution is a wild chapter with a strange mix of comedy and disaster. An inside perspective and the wisdom of the future help us to ask again if everything could have gone differently.

IRAN: Solidly argued status of Iranian state 40 years after the fall of the Shah.

#METOO: Good and Mad encourages women to show their minds so that together we can create revolution and rule the patriarchy.

We live in the midst of a world historical drama where revolutionary hope must be kept equal. Only in this way can we build civilization for everyone, claims philosopher Alain Badiou.

ORIENTATION OCTOBER 1968: Hans Skjervheim's new book The Liberal Dilemma and other essays deserve a certain amount of circulation for close political reasons. Some will welcome it with insults, accompany it with a chorus of voices, and bury it with a parable or a political sketch. Others will declare it well-known, label it outdated, passé and thus confirm its criticism. Some will think that it is precisely for this reason a very useful book, Øyvind Østerud writes, among other things, in his review.