Ukraine

CONTEMPORARY: Zeiten Ende is a complaint about the current lack of vision. But what about one of Harald Welzer's suggestions for improvement: 80 percent salary for professionals and 20 percent for social activities or volunteer work?

UKRAINE: Is it Russia that was the aggressor in Ukraine, while the West supported Ukraine's struggle for freedom? Or is it the West that was the aggressor, while Russia supported Ukraine's elected government?

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.

RUSSIA: Jan-E. Askerøi has visited Ukraine and seen what consequences a boycott of Russia has had on Ukrainian industry.

VIOLENCE: Is man fundamentally violent? History does not show exactly that. We have several examples of large societies in prehistory showing few traces of war and authoritarian rule. For example, the Stone Age can be essential for anyone who wants to say something about human evolution and nature.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: For Moscow, the Ukraine war is about defense, not conquest. But for the West, the war is about Russia's attempt to conquer Ukraine and about Ukraine's right to choose an alliance. Like the Western doctrine, the Russian one now allows for the first use of nuclear weapons.

USA: The European political-media elite portrays Trump as the new Hitler, but is nevertheless in a great hurry to subordinate itself to the USA economically, militarily and politically. Glenn Diesen analyzes the US situation now.

BORN: Although Rødt and SV claim that they support Palestine, with the new attitude to NATO they support the maintenance of Israel's 'security'.

POLITICAL ANALYSIS: Most have assumed that it was Russians who had shot the civilians found in the street in Butsja. But here in MODERN TIMES, peace researcher Ola Tunander criticizes this perception by documenting several facts that point in a different direction. For example: If Russian forces were responsible for the killings in Butsha, why didn't they try to cover them up? They have buried others.

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.)

NORWAY: In this essay, we take a closer look at the oil fund's financial capitalism. But capitalism is dirty – characterized by environmental destruction, exploitation, child labour, tax havens and, not least: cynical people who do everything to keep the wars going so that the weapons forges continue to produce their cunning deadly products. Oljefondet is today the largest European investor in companies operating on the occupied West Bank. The oil fund is also among the largest European financial institutions that invest in international arms manufacturers that sell arms to Israel.

EAST GERMANY: Wellmer's observation that the war in Ukraine has triggered a new distance or 'Entfremdung' between East and West Germany is apt. Criticism of Putin is experienced today by East Germans as an attack on their East German identity. The West is now wronging Russia in the same way that West Germany dominated the East after the fall of the Wall.

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.

ESSAY: What values ​​are the West actually supporting in Ukraine? In order to help Ukraine with national self-government, Norwegian funds were already channeled through the EBRD from 2011, despite knowledge of extensive corruption. The Western contribution in Ukraine is probably so much about a struggle for control over enormous natural resources. Norwegian politics thus supports international big capital – oligarchs and large agro-groups already control 28 percent of Ukraine's arable land.

PHILOSOPHY: In the book The Poetics of Reason, Stefán Snævarr goes against a too strict concept of rationality: To live rationally is not only to find the best means to realize one's goals, but also to make life meaningful and coherent. Parts of this work should enter all disciplines concerned with models, metaphors and narratives.