Jan Lundius - Author - Inter Press Service (2024)

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi: Preserving the Cultural Heritage

With God on Our Side: Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin

Bronisław Malinowski (1884 – 1942) did for several years conduct socio-anthropological research in the Trobriand Islands. Returning to England after World War I, he wrote several ground breaking books, among them Magic, Science, and Religion in which he assumed that people's feelings and motives are crucial for understanding the way their society functions. Malinowski considered society to be intimately interlinked with individuality – i.e. an individual’s ideas and behaviour are created and formulated within the social circles s/he lives and vice versa. Consequently, an individual’s personality might influence an entire society, depending on the leading role s/he is granted.

How Much Damage Can Be Done by a Few? The Tragedy in Gaza, Part 2

Hungarian-Swedish microbiologist George Klein, who in 1944 escaped from a train destined to Auschwitz, once wrote that his father jokingly used to say that he had caused World War I. While working as a medical doctor in Bosnia he had cured a young boy called Gavrilo Princip from a deadly disease. As an adult Gavrilo shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, presumptive heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, whose death became the immediate cause of World War I. Can a single person, knowingly or unknowingly, change the course of history? We talk about “Putin’s war” and “Trump’s USA”. Are individuals so important? Lev Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace that it was absurd to attribute historical events to acts of individuals. The French revolution could quite easily have produced another person like Napoleon. He insisted that the French emperor knew as little of what was happening in the battle of Borodino as the meanest soldier serving under him.

Origins of the Gaza Catastrophe – Part 1

During the first half of the 20th century, antisemitism was endemic in Europe and eventually burst out in full force when Nazi-Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945 systematically (and well-documented) murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe. In an environment mined by hostile public opinion, the Zionist Nahum Sokolow popularized the Hebrew term Hasbara. The word has no real equivalent in English, but might be translated as “explaining”, indicating a strategy seeking to explain actions, regardless whether or not they are justified. As a skilled diplomat, Sokolow based his widely publicized opinions on in-depth research of actual events, though he presented his findings in a manner that favoured his cause.

Smartphones: Children’s Blessing or Curse?

Habits can change extremely fast, particularly within so-called “developed” nations, where children, even more than grownups are affected by life changing events. Gone are the times when kids could move around freely and invent games and adventures together with their friends. Far away from the scrutinizing control of parents and authorities they learned to interact with other kids, taking risks and solving problems. It could be tough and often quite merciless times, but educative, beneficent, and fun as well.

Let the Dead Speak: Forgotten Workers

Immigration policies are among the most hotly debated topics in Europe. Xenophobia, combined with curbing immigration, have become the main reason to why ever-increasing large crowds of voters are supporting populist parties.

International Diplomat Erik Solheim on Politics, Climate Change, Much-Needed UN Reform and Trump

Erik Solheim, a senior internationally renowned politician and diplomat, has long been an advocate for combining development assistance with private investment and better taxation systems in recipient countries.

No Turning a Blind Eye to Protection of Dominican Republic’s Natural Resources, Says Environment Minister

In 2020, general elections were held in the Dominican Republic. This took place while the COVID pandemic was becoming an increasingly serious threat, causing severe social and economic disruption. The elections were two months late as a result of the initial chaos COVID caused. The governing Dominican Liberation Party’s 16-year rule ended after the Modern Revolutionary Party’s candidate, Luis Abinader, received a majority of the votes. Elections are now scheduled for May 19 this year and IPStook the opportunity to ask Miguel Ceara Hatton, the country’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, how he perceived the past four years' efforts to mitigate a global crisis that now threatens us all, namely climate change and environmental degradation.

Written in Memory of Alexei Navalny and Osip Mandelstam

The devastation of Ukraine and Gaza might seem to be beyond belief. Let us thus turn to fairy tales to find descriptions of the stony indifference of warlords.

No God but Greed: Slavery and Indifference

At Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen there is a great painting made in 1797 by the Danish Golden Age painter Jens Juel. It depicts one of Denmark’s richest merchants at the time – Niels Ryberg, his newlywed son Johan Christian, and the son’s bride, Engelke. Johan Christian makes a gesture as though to show off the family estate. There is a strong feeling of harmony between the people and the countryside in which they are placed. The picture reflects the new interest in nature that emerged all over Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It also demonstrates how Denmark’s new, rich bourgeois wished to carry themselves in the style of the aristocracy, a social class which dominance they were infringing. Ryberg and his son appear just as distinguished as the aristocrats that used to be portrayed by Jens Juel.

Is Anti-Woke a Grass-Root Movement?

“Woke” was for a century, especially among black people in the US, an inspirational concept. However, almost overnight it turned into a pejorative. Like using the term “politically correct” as an insult, calling someone “woke” came to imply that the referred person’s views are excessively ridiculous, or even despicable. Being “anti-woke” has become an indication that you do not belong to an assumed group of “do-gooders”, who at the expense of right-minded “ordinary” citizens assert the demands of interest groups, which declare themselves to be discriminated against due to their ethnicity/race, gender, sexual preference, and/or physical or psychological disabilities.

The Spectre of Migration: A conversation with Hammoud Gallego

Karl Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party begins with the now worn-out phrase: “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre”. Nowadays the word “communism” could easily be substituted by “migration”. All over Europe, politicians claim that Europe is being destroyed by migrants. In country after country, ghosts of yesterday are awakened. Parliaments include xenophobic politicians who might be considered as inheritors of demagogs who once dragged Europeans into hate and bloodbaths.

Watching the Arctic Melt, Meteorologist’s Experience on Icebreaker Oden

Conflicting emotions greet the outcomes of COP28. After 28 years of climate conferences, an agreement has, for the first time, proclaimed that fossil fuels are the biggest culprit behind the warming of our planet and stated that it would encourage all nations to “accelerating action in this critical decade so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science." The agreement calls for, among other things, a tripling of renewable energy by 2030, but also an increased pace in the work to develop technical solutions for the separation and storage of carbon dioxide, an extremely expensive and, so far, limited effort.

Art and Climate Change

A dark cloud is hovering above human existence. It is a fairly illusory cloud haunting our minds and wellbeing, but also an actual, menacing, mostly invisible cloud that covers the Earth’s entire atmosphere. Saturated by greenhouse gases, this global threat increases with every year, threatening all life on Earth, causing increased flooding, extreme heat, draught, wild fires, rising sea levels, food and water scarcity, as well as diseases and mounting economic loss. This misery, caused by human greed, thoughtlessness, and self-aggrandizement, trigger human migration and armed conflicts.

A Climate Scientist’s View of COP 28

This year’s UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December. The so-called COP summits are organised every year and constitute a means for the global community to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Women and War

In 1968, the tobacco company Philip Morris introduced a new cigarette brand called Virginia Slims. Under the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby” it was exclusively marketed to women. The advertising campaign exploited the civil rights movements of the 1960s, indicating that those cigarettes were enjoyed by strong, independent, and liberated women. A blatant lie – why would “independent” women choose to poison themselves with a commodity which each year causes more than 480,000 deaths in the US alone – nearly one in five deaths? Another question arising from this deceitful ad is: “How far have women come on their way to independence and liberation?”

Where is India Heading?

Some time ago I watched the Indian blockbuster RRR (Rise, Roar, Revolt). It received universal praise for direction, screenwriting, cast performances, soundtrack (which won an Oscar) and thrilling action sequences. RRR is filled with gore; bodies beaten, pierced and torn apart. An overblown combination of Quentin Tarantino and Bollywood, far away from Satyajit Ray’s emotionally moving films, as well as Bollywood’s romantic comedies and mythological dramas. RRR never pauses for breath. The two male protagonists are supermen, not exposing many recognizable human traits, even if they might occasionally sing and talk about love. Hard to understand, since the few women of the story are cut-out clichés.

What Happens in the Arctic Does Not Stay in the Arctic

While climate change is relentlessly progressing, threatening life on earth, world leaders continue to meet while planning for a future where this immense menace to human existence remains a minor item on the agenda.

Private and Public Spheres: Sweden and Mugabe

The war in Ukraine continues unabated; young men are sacrificed on battlefields, towns laid waste by aerial attacks, the threat of nuclear disasters is looming. People within an often formerly friendly inclined Europe are now wondering if Vladimir Putin has gone insane. The war in Ukraine is generally called “Putin’s war” and in April 2021 Putin signed a legislation providing him the right to run for two more consecutive terms, thus he could stay in power till 2036.

A “New” Saudi Arabia? Changes on the Screen and in Reality

The World changes, though prejudices and misconceptions remain. In 1996, political scientist Samuel Huntington published The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, in which he predicted that people’s cultural and religious identities would become the primary source of conflict in a Post–Cold War World. Huntington’s allegations have been contradicted by a number of critics, among them American Palestinian professor Edward Said, who lamented their extreme cultural determinism, which omitted the dynamic interdependency and interaction of cultures. Said’s own Orientalism depicted a generalised “Western view” of Arab cultures as “static and undeveloped”, while European culture was considered to be “developed, rational, flexible, and superior.” Literature and movies have depicted Arabs as exotic men riding camels and horses through the desert, and their women as dangerously seductive objects of male desire. Eventually, the exotic men turned in to being terrorists, and/or depraved oil-rich magnates, while Muslim women were presented as veiled, enigmatic, and oppressed.

The Western Threat to Russia

Putin’s regime recently suspended Russia’s participation in a nuclear arms agreement with Washington. After the decision Putin declared that the move was a retaliation for the US’s, France’s and Britain’s “targeting” of Russia with nuclear weapons. He was forced to take action to “preserve our country, ensure security and strategic stability”: