eurovisie
a publication of the study association for european studies
TO TARRY LINGERING IN EXPECTATION
The Immortal Onslaught of Respectability Immortality from Time Immemorial The Longest Death | Novichok A Faustian Bargain
January 2021 / www.ses-uva.nl /eurovisie@ses-uva.nl
IN THIS EDITION... 3 - THE IMMORTAL ONSLAUGHT OF RESPECTABILITY LARA KRISTJANSSON 6 - IMMORTALITY FROM TIME IMMERMORIAL ARIANNE ZAJAC 9 - THE LONGEST DEATH ORLAITH ROE 12- NOVICHOK NICOLAE ODAGIU 16 - A FAUSTIAN BARGAIN GEORGE BANDY
eurovisie Volume 16 Issue 2 Jan 2021
Editorial Jyry Pasanen Dear reader, In this edition we take on the holy grail – immortality. Instead of doing the usual thing where I introduce our upcoming articles (you’ll just have to read them!), I want to do an unusual thing: I want to tell you about a book I read. The book is called Kara-Bugaz. Written by Konstantin Paustovski and published in 1932 in the Soviet Union, it tells the story of how a salt plant was built in the Turkmen Socialist Republic. Sounds boring right? It is anything but. The book is populated by scientists and engineers who express some rather strange ideas about the potential of technology. Essentially, they believe that nature is imperfect and that through science and engineering it can be perfected. Professor Šatski is one of these eccentric scientists. He has gone so mad, in fact, that he rambles on and on about the danger of fossil fuels. He thinks, like a lunatic, that solar- and wind power are far superior to coal and oil. For these radical views, Šatski has been forced to retire. Comrade Prokofjev has not embarrassed himself in this way. He is respectably employed, and only voices rational opinions. For instance, he believes that by harnessing the power of the sun, humanity can eventually overturn the law of entropy and avoid the seemingly unavoidable fate of all life: death. These ideas were so strange; I had to find out more. After some digging, I discovered Nikolai Fedorov (1828-1903) and the philosophy of Cosmism. Fedorov, like our pal Prokofjev, believed that it was the duty of the living to conquer death. Naturally, this also meant that we had to resurrect the dead — all the way down to Adam. Since this would radically increase our planet’s population, we would need more room. Which is why Fedorov also advocated for space travel: new planets were needed to house all the happily awakened.
Imprint Editorial office: Kloveniersburgwal 48, room E2.04/2.05, 1012 CX Amsterdam Editor-in-chief: Jyry Pasanen Editors: George Bandy, Arianne Zajac, Sterre Schrijver, Frederique de Ridder, Órlaith Roe, Nicolae Odagiu, Lara Kristjansdottir Design: Julius Sieburgh
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Fedorov had clout. Everyone, from Tolstoi to Trotski, from Malevich to Mayakovski, was influenced by him to one extent or the other. Fedorov inspired scientists, artists, politicians, and revolutionaries. There was one group, however, that took Fedorov’s ideas seriously – the Biocosmist-Immortalists. They were not simply ‘inspired’, they made Fedorovism (with minor, anarchist-leaning tweaks) into a political programme: against the “supposed rights of the bourgeois revolution of 1789”, they demanded only two things: immortality and space travel for all! It is with these words that I must leave you, dear reader. Perhaps you can help us finally reach our common goal with the information you gain through this edition of Eurovisie. Immortality and space travel for all!
The Immortal Onslaught of Respectability LARA KRISTJANSDOTTIR ‘average’ European citizen Tneedheseems to be in increasing of consultation in the arms
of charismatic and dominant populist party figures in reaction to our ever-evolving, unsettling world. These political actors present themselves as the voice of the people while aiming to restore traditional order as overwhelming progressive values and ideals have allegedly reached a tipping point in their spread through society. Their attempts are more than anything reflected in an obsession with what should perhaps classify as our private matter, our sexuality, body, gender and personal identity, which has gripped the political arena in today’s Europe. Whatever progress our society achieves in the never-ending battle towards liberating and redeeming our own sexuality is increasingly placed under judgemental scrutiny, opinionated, and questioned by those proclaiming these developments as abnormal and even threatening. Within the political dimension, right-wing populist parties establish more restrictive boundaries of sexuality and gender while declaring narrower definitions of normality versus abnormality within the social order. They consequently propagate ideas that rights, recognition, and acknowledgment would pose a threat to the social order, as well as to the persona and image of the nation. As if the unleashing, everlasting and uncontrollable development of sexuality will eventually blow up the world as we know it and lead the nation into degeneracy. The result is paranoia, as is seen in the proclamation of Poland’s Law and Justice Party’s proclamation of LGBT+ rights movements as a foreign import threatening the Polish nation. Sexual freedom and ‘gender ideology’ are moreover consi-
dered an attack on (traditional) families and children, menacing the sacred nucleus of civil society and cornerstone of social cohesion. As a matter of fact, the commitment of conservative parties to the ‘traditional family’ as a guiding principle, which objects gender mainstreaming projects and feminism, should in itself be seen as an attempt to counter the progression towards sexual liberty and freedom.
“Whatever progress our society achieves in the never-ending battle towards liberating and redeeming our own sexuality is increasingly placed under judgemental scrutiny,...” This anxiety in turn leads political parties to turn to measures of controlling and containing. For instance, by re-installing the ‘biological’ understanding of binary gender distinctions, reinforcing the idea of the heteronormative nuclear family as the sole model of social organization, cutting reproductive rights, as well as questioning the ‘true motives’ of sex education. Isn’t this all beginning to sound a bit like 19-century fears of sexual deviation and debauchery? But how and why is the dignity of the nation placed within these efforts to control our private, individual concerns? Why are fundamental human rights being labelled by governments and political parties as invasive influences threatening national identity?
intertwinement of the history of sexuality with that of nationalism. The renowned author and cultural historian, an émigré from Nazi Germany, is considered one of the most creative, imaginative and provocative of his era. He contributed greatly to the fields of fascism, racism, antisemitism, nationalism and sexuality, as well as to the endowment of Queer/ LGBT+ studies, for instance at the University of Amsterdam where he had taught as a guest professor. His personal acceptance of his own sexuality reflected itself in striking scholarly creativity and productivity, conceivably in his preoccupation with the all-important historical factor of respectability, which he noted historians had somehow taken for granted. “It had not been considered respectable to be a Jew in the past, and certainly homosexuality is on the edge of respectability (always ready to fall off) even today.” There is nothing like a historical overview to enhance your visualisation and understanding of society’s issues, in this case the taboo and denunciation of sexual liberty, and Mosse’s findings will hopefully continue to stimulate thought and discussion in the many years to come. His central observation entails that respectability, which existentially and politically defined the bourgeoisie as a class and served to maintain the status quo in their favour, and the ideology of nationalism developed simultaneously during the 19th century in Europe, as these were both responses to the age of motion and the masses. (cont.)
George Mosse’s essay Nationalism and Respectability significantly sheds light on the
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Not only that, but nationalism came to significantly succour the state and (bourgeois) society in controlling sexuality beyond those restraints already imposed by the church, by defining and underpinning standards of normality, and by taming sexual attitudes into respectability. The ‘onslaught of respectability’, of fixed morals and manners, developed during a lifespan of one generation in the late 18th century. This principle served as part of a larger effort to stabilize a society facing continuous industrialization and revolution, and implied that sexual activity and disorderly passion exemplified menace to the social order. The modern state itself has in fact always declared interest in the domestic lives of its subjects, and has consciously interfered with political intentions, an example for which is the encouragement of the patriarchy’s growth by the Renaissance state. The subordination of wife and child to the male head of their family remains parallel to (and a cause of) the subordination of subjects to their state’s sovereign.
“...we are still able to recognise a solidity and continuity of the state’s aims to restraint sexuality, establish, and maintain traditional norms and denounce sexual abnormality.” Behind the state’s continuous struggle to lay foundations of moderation and restraint to the free roaming of fantasy and desires, an ideal was required to declare normality and abnormality, and above all to contain sexuality. Luckily the development of an extraordinarily powerful ideological and political force was consolidating just in time to be of service to the state and the bourgeois-dominated society in its efforts.
Nationalism indeed became the most successful controller of sex, sexual attitudes, and behaviour, expressing ideals congenial to the bourgeois lifestyle, and serving as part of larger efforts to control and discipline the nervous age of industrialization and revolution. A fruitful, strong, and beautiful nation came to depend on ideals of restraint and control, chastity, and purity as the 19th-century obsession with order strictly opposed the uncontrollable passion of the individual; “The beautiful body as the personification of the beautiful nation was supposed to transcend its own sexuality.” Indeed, the role of beauty and of the (male) national stereotype was to prevent disorder. The crucial social order was menaced by a sexual abnormality which was considered to be able to disturb it as a whole, and private vice was at once to become a public concern. Sexual unconventionality and a person’s stepping beyond the boundaries of respectability was consequently not only considered a sickness dangerous to individual health but to the health of the entire nation-state.
...by those caught up by the vibrations of modernity.” Despite Mosse’s grammatical use of the past tense in his statement, we might not help noticing the resemblances it bears to today’s Europe. Particularly as conservative parties declare the importance of endorsing traditionalist (and respectable) understandings of the many aspects of our sexuality and identities, through the argument of evolving liberal values intimidating our stability, our social order and our nation. In spite of encountered backlashes, we must believe that whatever may be in store for us this coming year, or decade, will support our enduring efforts towards sexual liberty, freedom of restraint and judgement, and hopefully someday of the burdening standards of respectability.
Although our public understandings of sexuality have thankfully evolved since the 19th century, when the term represented little beyond than that of higher-class, heterosexual males, we are still able to recognise a solidity and continuity of the state’s aims to restraint sexuality, establish, and maintain traditional norms and denounce sexual abnormality. The ample help of nationalism in this process identifies the nation as an ideal which requires personal attitudes and behaviour to reflect its own vitality, while all of this simply serves efforts to cope with the uncertainties of the ‘nervous age’. “Nationalism and respectability jointly provided a reference point in an unsettling world, a piece of eternity which could be appropriated...
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Immortality from Time Immemorial Death in the Public Imagery ARIANNE ZAJAC t seems that today we are Isymbols surrounded by messages and of immortality, or at the
very least the idea of extending youth for as long as possible. We see it in the advertisement and promotion of beauty products, health foods, supplements, and the advocacy of lifestyle changes. We even hold on to deeper, cultural values that those who have died will still be present among us in some way, be it as spirits, a specific presence, or the idea that loved ones are waiting for us to join them somewhere. Ideas which have been passed down to us through generations, communities, and religions, to the point of which they have become culturally banal. While we may be seeing a new emergence of a fear of ageing and ultimately the acknowledgement of death that it brings, we may ask ourselves, is this the closest to immortality we will ever be? A question like this tends to bring out thoughts of the future. As science and technology develop in the centuries ahead, there is no doubt that the human race will manage to ‘play God’ and become immortal. However, maybe our brushes with death and immortality are not something simply to be imagined. There have been times in human history where life during death was inescapable. The Medieval period, more specifically the high middle ages, is one of these moments in history. The period was one of change, growth, and inconsistencies. There was widespread migration, the rise of new kingdoms and state power, as well as the spreading and consolidation of religions. In this period of transience, the boundaries between life and death were continually blurred. The power of the dead became characteristic of Medieval society and the majority of
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people felt that they had some direct experience of the supernatural realm, most commonly in the form of intimate confrontation with dead human beings.
“There have been times in human history where life during death was inescapable.” Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg provides one of the most extensive accounts of the undead, also known as revenants. In 1013, Thietmar began collating stories that describe the experiences people have had with revenants. For example, the first of these stories took place in the town of Walsleben, in which the town’s priest arrived at the church cemetery to perform a ceremony at dawn only to find ‘a great multitude’ of the dead. They were making offerings to a dead priest, who was standing at the sanctuary doors. In this documentation, the beings are described almost as benevolent but there is something bloodcurdling about their nature. There is a juxtaposition of piety and violence, as these beings perform religious ceremonies but are also harmful in their nature. Within every experience with a revenant, there is a realisation of mortality.
“Historically, immortality has had a difficult and contrasting place in society” Significantly, all contemporary beliefs surrounding the returned dead were so pervasive that they would have been considered nothing more than ‘common sense’. The core ideas surround-
ing the existence of the dead centred on the belief that the dead live on in the embodied form, in this world; that they formed social groups, and were active chiefly at night in places familiar to them in life. It was felt that those who would return were likely to have suffered a ‘bad’ death, one that was violent or sudden, and thus they were unable to lie peacefully in their graves. In other scenarios, descriptions of the returned dead were more horrific in nature. William of Newburgh chronicled the undead in England, during the twelfth century, these were typically putrid corpses that haunted specific areas and carried a ‘contagion’ which resulted in further deaths. One of the most famous revenants was Johannes Cuntius, who haunted the town of Pentsch, and indulged in malicious behaviour, such as strangling men in their sleep or bashing infants to death. It was these kinds of activities that people found so fearful and they even went as far as dismembering and decapitating bodies after death as to prevent them becoming reanimated. The undead were not simply a part of folklore, but a phenomenon that was thoroughly believed in and accepted as accurate. (cont.)
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It even appears that the undead were able to lead rich and fruitful lives. In the cases of the undead giving offerings during religious ceremonies, there is the implication that they had the capability to own possessions and material items. Material wealth was able to pass through from one life to another. While in Eyrbyggja’s Saga, there is mention of the dead engaging in feasts in the mountains. This has since become part of an established narrative that the dead form complex and busy communities, as demonstrated through a crowd’s conversation with Reyneke, another historically notable revenant, who explained that the life of the undead is not too dissimilar to that of the living, they eat, drink, marry, sow, and reap. Historically, immortality has had a difficult and contrasting place in society. The Medieval undead were eerie beings whose existence provoked fears of one’s own mortality. There were those that were there to terrorise, while others existed in their own societies neither accepted in this world nor that of the dead. Perhaps as society progresses, technology develops, we age and seek out immortality as our own we can look back to time periods in which life after death was completely accepted and understand the complexities surrounding the creed of immortality. In this light, perhaps immortality is not something we should be desiring or striving for as a society. As much as the process of death is painful for those who have yet to pass, it gives us purpose and direction in life; it pushes us to achieve our goals, maintain and build meaningful relationships with those around us, it makes us appreciate being alive.
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The Longest Death Sub Umbra Floreo ÓRLAITH ROE
As politicians and world leaders continue to fall short on their climate policies, the environment endures an undying death. One aspect of this vast problem has been romantically adored by poets for centuries, now those with power neglect it. What has happened to all our trees? is a scene in the NationTJanehere al Geographic documentary (2017), in which a swarm
of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park surround a banana bearing Jane Goodall circa 1960. They pace around, swinging from lush green trees, characterfully coercing the bananas from Dr Goodall. It is one of the first attempts from humans in gaining the trust of chimpanzees; it results in a lifelong friendship between Jane and the chimps of the Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Now, at almost 87, Goodall continues to champion the conservationist and environmentalist policies that made her known to the world over 60 years ago. The primatologist has long loved and connected to the animals that have surrounded her in her work. But as the years went by, Goodall developed a greater extremity in her campaigning and tone. Like many conservationists, she understood that in her line of work, a grave urgency in its messaging was required in order to translate to the masses the impending doom of planet Earth’s death. In the New Year, Goodall spoke to Jonathan Watts of The Guardian about the need for hope in the fight against climate change. She insisted there are things to be positive about. In order to achieve climate solutions, we must recognise the hopeful improvements along the way. “If you plant trees in a city,” she says, “it has enormous benefits – it cools the temperature, cleans the air, stabilises the soil
against flooding and improves psychological and physical health, to mention only a few.” To put it simply, trees in cities = good. Scientists with the USDA Forest Service estimate that the US went from 42.9% urban and community tree coverage to 42.2% between 2009-2014. This figure may seem insignificant, but it translates to the loss of roughly 36 million trees in the span of five years. If that trend continues it will bring about detrimental consequences for urbanised areas. While some major European cities fair quite well compared to others in their tree coverage, the decline of the tree population, from the island peripheries to the buzzing metropolitan centres and grander forested planes of the continent, has been grave. Their role in maintaining the basic requirements of clean air for urban spaces is simple and paramount. But the world’s attention to trees has dwindled, and their slow death is caught in a loop of recycled rejection and rapid decline. We once held an abundance of admiration for the world’s trees. Sweeping romanticism adorned their roots, their leaves, and their shelter. The mutual respect between man and tree was apparent, and the gratitude was ample. In 1803 William Wordsworth wrote of his beloved yew-tree: “This solitary Tree! -a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.”
Wordsworth wrote often about his adoration for nature and the land in which he traversed. From gentle love notes to longer sonnets, the sublime duty and awe encapsulated in his nature poems are a constant reminder of the poetic power of Earth and her subjects. I will glance again and again at “-a living thing”, being reminded of the opposite in today’s societal landscape.
“The mutual respect between man and tree was apparent, and the gratitude was ample.” Despite worsening global deforestation (the World Wildlife Fund puts the loss at around 18.7 million acres of forests per year), Europe has seen a reverse of international trends when it comes to forest cover. As Goodall says to Watts, more emphasis must be placed on the ongoing environmental restoration projects around the world; one needs to be aware of the possibility of positive change. “If you lose hope,” she says, “why bother?”. There has been encouraging tree coverage statistics emerging across the European Union in the past decade. The European Commission currently puts the forest and wooded land coverage across the EU at over 182 million hectares, which is about 42% of the EU’s total land area (with the largest forest areas being in Sweden, Finland, and Spain respectively). But where once society lauded and marvelled at this power and prowess of trees in the urban space, there is an increasingly lacklustre attitude toward trees in our cities. (cont.)
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While the European forest coverage statistics are improving, there are only a select few cities with an ambitious and committed urban tree scheme. Only one European city, Oslo at number three, makes MIT’s Senseable City Lab tree coverage list (with Tampa, Singapore, Sydney, and Vancouver rounding out the top five). In a decade of increased conservation and climate change awareness, and big airtime for environmental activists from Thunberg to Attenborough, there is still a limp and lagging enthusiasm from politicians in turning their cities leafy green. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced the city’s new “urban forests” plan back in 2019. From the Hôtel de Ville to the Opera Garnier, the city is quickly becoming one of the greenest in Europe. In contrast, a once lush Dublin city has seen many of its local politicians take greater interest in tree felling and clearing than re-planting and expanding the leafy centre. Until his death in 1967, poet Patrick Kavanagh would often stroll around Dublin’s city streets and walkways, in awe at the voluminous branches and the tall and ageing tree trunks dotted along the canal waters and pavements. He wrote of the Grand Canal’s stillness in nature with an abundance of appreciation: “Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother Commemorate me thus beautifully Where by a lock niagarously roars The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence Of mid-July.”
Greeny the city once was, but has since been neglected by the construction and development plans of various politicians. While there is burgeoning and positive strides in new conservation projects across Dublin in the past two years, the fervour of the city’s poets seems to have been lost on those in power.
“In a decade of increased conservation and climate change awareness, and big airtime for environmental activists from Thunberg to Attenborough, there is still a limp and lagging enthusiasm from politicians in turning their cities leafy green.” So, what has happened to all our trees? Many have died a premature death, and others suffer from the neglect and mishandling of our leaders. While many trees are flourishing in forested landscapes, our urban areas are in dire need of leafy covering and a fresh start. Like plants, animals, and humans, the living species of our planet have time called on their lifespan like all Earth’s subjects, but the guilt of not doing enough to nurture the tree populations across the world is immortal in its longevity; the possibility of their disappearance is as big as the hope we could save them. If the former comes to pass, the longest death of the tree will be outdone by our guilt in letting them perish.
“Will there really be a morning? Is there such a thing as day? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like water-lilies? Has it feathers like a bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor! Oh, some wise man from the skies! Please to tell a little pilgrim Where the place called morning lies!” - Emily Dickinson, Will there really be a morning?
Novichok GosNIIOKKhT’s Finest Nicolae Odagiu
“On a scale from one to ten, how would you grade the poisoning operation?” This was one of Alexei Navalny’s questions to Konstantin Kudryavtsev, one of the FSB agents allegedly involved in his assassination attempt.” n the 20th of August, NavalO ny was returning to Moscow on a flight from Tomsk, where he
had conducted another of his regular investigations with The Anti-Corruption Foundation, as well as meeting with volunteers of his political party and other members of “Smart Voting”. He became violently ill during the flight; the plane had to perform an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was hospitalized. Later, Navalny was urgently transported to Charité in Berlin. The doctors’ secrecy in Omsk and their long-awaited approval to transfer him to Berlin led to theories that Navalny was poisoned. Their declarations were inconsistent under the pressure of the special forces supervising him in Omsk. Later, these conspiracies were confirmed in Berlin, where doctors found traces of a Novichok agent, one of the deadliest chemical weapons. To the medics’ surprise, he survived and recovered relatively fast, making him an embodiment of The Boy who Lived. A later investigation by Bellingcat, an independent international collective of researchers, investigators and journalists that use open-source data and media in their investigations, confirmed that the FSB poisoned Navalny. Interestingly enough, this is not the first time when the Russian special forces fail during their operations. In 2018 Colonel Skripal, former Soviet/ Russian double agent for UK’s special forces was poisoned with a Novichok agent along with his daughter in Salisbury. They survived after a doctor, and a nurse spotted
them unconscious near a shopping center. In that case, it was also Bellingcat who confirmed that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok. This was the first time when the nerve agent came into the public eye, creating an international controversy as Putin declared earlier in 2017 that Russia had destroyed the last remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons. Furthermore, Russia was supposed to destroy all of its stockpiles by 2012 under an international agreement signed with the US, the Chemical Weapons Convention.
“...,he has continued his political campaign by harshly criticizing the authorities and the Kremlin’s dictatorial intentions, one of the latest being the amendment of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.” In an interview for The Insider, Vladimir Uglev, one of the creators of Novichok agents, believed that in the case of Navalny, the chemical was applied to his underwear. The Kremlin decided to neglect the examination results performed at Charité and chose not to investigate the case. Navalny, however, together with Bellingcat, exposed the entire operation, la pièce de résistance being the phone call between Kudryavtsev and Navalny, during which the FSB agent confirmed the entire operation and the fact that the poison was applied to Navalny’s blue trunks.
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Who is Navalny? Alexey Navalny is a prominent political activist considered to be the leading voice of the Russian opposition. He is widely known for his thorough investigations over the corruption schemes that stay at the basis of Putin’s oppressive regime. In 2018, he launched the project “Smart Voting”, aiming to deprive United Russia of winning elections by promoting the most potent political opponents on local and regional levels. The same year, Navalny announced his candidacy for the presidential elections; however, the electoral commission rejected his submission. In response, Navalny boycotted the elections, calling them a show-off, a fabrication of a democratic process. Since then, he has continued his political campaign by harshly criticizing the authorities and the Kremlin’s dictatorial intentions, one of the latest being the amendment of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Some of the controversial changes were the “supremacy of Russian law” over international law and the extension of presidential limits, that now would permit Putin to be constitutionally re-elected until 2036. These changes had to be implemented through a national referendum. According to the official results, almost 79% of voters supported the changes to the Constitution. However, during the voting process, hundreds of irregularities had been reported in electoral sections in the entire country. Despite this, the Central Electoral Commission stated that they did not receive any complaints worth investigating. FUNFACT: the booklet with the changed terminology in the Constitution appeared in bookshops long before the actual referendum. (cont.)
Russia Today On the 13th of January 2021, Navalny announced his homecoming later that week. He continuously mentioned that there was no other option for him, he had to return home. Before the take-off, in suspense of whatever was expecting them, Navalny posted a video on his Instagram, where he and his wife recreated an iconic scene from the 90s movie Brat 2, the moment when the protagonists Bodrov and Dasha fly back home: Мальчик, водочки нам принеси! Мы домой летим. On arrival, Navalny was greeted by a large crowd of supporters and the OMON, which arrested him almost immediately. He was transported to a police department, where a judge ordered a 30-day detention until a review of his parole conditions from the Yves Rocher case was carried out. In that case Navalny was given a 3.5probation sentence, which recently expired. The case was filed to the European Court of Human Rights, which condemned Russia for arresting Navalny for ten months, depriving the activist of his rights of liberty and expression, and urged Russia to pay him almost 23.000 euros, which it eventually paid. The case was reopened today as a pretext for ostracizing Navalny for the upcoming years. Was it even legal to organize the court session in a police station, that concluded with Navalny’s remand in Matrosskaya Tishina (Матросская тишина / Seaman’s Silence). Besides this, people noticed a symbolical detail in the online videos with the process. Hanging on the wall, behind the judge, there was a portrait Genrikh Yagoda, former director of the Soviet NKVD until 1937, the first years of the GULAG camps. In 37 Yagoda was arrested and shot one year later. In response to his trial, Navalny’s team posted a video concerning Putin’s ultimate corruption schemes and his Gelendzhik palace worth billions of rubles. Besides exposing exclusive information about Putin’s entire career and personal life, Navalny creates a psychological
portrait of who exactly is Putin, the people surrounding him, and why there is an urgent need for a change. He called people to go on streets to regain control over their country. Whatever the outcome, Ekaterina Shulman stated for TV Rain that Navalny’s homecoming would remain a memorable event in the Russian Federation’s history. It created disturbances in the political arena as well as in society.
“Navalny indeed had a great impact on Russian politics in the last decade of his activity.” What is next for Navalny? Many argue that after the 30-day remand, he will be sentenced for three years in prison for the Yves Roches case. There are also theories that he might be prosecuted in a second case regarding his latest investigations, accusing him of fraud and defamation of the Russian authorities. These decisions are strategical as it would limit Navalny’s access to the 2021 parliamentary elections in the State Duma and the presidential ones in 2024.
“...,Navalny creates a psychological portrait of who exactly is Putin, the people surrounding him, and why there is an urgent need for a change.” Navalny indeed had a great impact on Russian politics in the last decade of his activity. It can be viewed through the series of laws introduced each year that impose more and more restrictions regarding the freedom of expression. Besides this are also the ways in which the Kremlin further retaliates with the rhetoric of the cold war - endlessly blaming ‘foreign agents’ for infiltrating into the internal state
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affairs aiming to destabilize the regime.’ The main enemy of the regime is not Navalny, but the system itself. It has reached a point of no return, and it may be heading towards a dead-end. An entire generation has grown under Putin’s regime, a regime that has a tendency to tighten. The pressure continues to rise, but there will be a moment when it will collapse and Putin has stated this himself days before starting his first presidential term: “Всем кажется, что, если навести твёрдый порядок жёсткой рукой, то всем нам станет лучше, комфортнее и безопаснее. На самом деле эта комфортность очень быстро пройдёт, потому что эта жёсткая рука начнет нас очень быстро душить / It seems to all of us that if, I don’t deny that this my view at times, that if strict order is enforced by a strong hand then we will all start to live better, more comfortably and in greater security. In fact, this “comfort” passes very quickly because this strong hand starts very quickly to strangle us.”
A Faustian Bargain Dealing with the Devil GEORGE BANDY
A new opportunity to eradicate nuclear weaponry and yet the question of national security. The argument is protection, but at what price? The spectre of the Manhattan project remains 75 years on. What was a new dawn for humankind could be the darkest day for humanity. Have we followed Faust to the crossroads? here are many things today Tfragility that make us question the of our society and our
planet. Not only the disruption brought about by the pandemic, but also the ongoing threats to democracy and the rule of law, the delicacy of our social systems, and the harm to our climate and environment. In recent weeks there have been developments on another of these threats. On Friday 22 January 2021, the UN Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons (TPNW) came into force. This legally binding agreement requires parties not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. It has been 75 years since the first use of nuclear weaponry. From its creation, its significance in our history was not missed. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan project, said two years after the first test - “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humour, no overstatements can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.”
1945, describing the weapon that had been developed and the scientific achievement it represented. The statement followed 16 hours after the atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” had been dropped by the United States on Hiroshima.
“August 6th marks a sudden turning point in how humankind understood the extent of its powers over the Earth.” The idea of atomic power was not unfamiliar. American scientists were indulging themselves on ideas of powering entire cities with the immense energy released by splitting atoms. Nuclear energy was seen to be a fuel of the future. Across the pond, there was speculation that the Germans were working on a nuclear project of their own, which gave even more drive to the Allies to be the first to successfully achieve usable atomic power. Up to this point though, such energy was thought of for its passive uses. A futuristic way to power our factories, schools, cars and homes.
The atomic bomb had a sharp rise to fame in contemporary discussion. The secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project had left the majority of the population in the dark. This changed when President Truman released a White House statement to the American people on August 6th
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“- Why We Are Determined There Shall Be No Next War” President Truman ( Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference. August 9, 1945) Little Boy exploded on Hiroshima with a force two thousand times more powerful than the previous most powerful bomb used during WWII. Note that current nuclear weapons can be over three thousand times more powerful still. August 6th marks a sudden turning point in how humankind understood the extent of its powers over the Earth. (cont.)
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Editorial cartoons have often been used in their function as a barometer of public opinion at a given moment in time. Accompanying this piece are a set of editorial cartoons printed in The New York Times on Sunday 12th August 1945 that contain some of the first visual interpretations of the new era of atomic weaponry. “For a peaceful earth” touches on the potential of the bomb for good, as a tool for achieving peace, but zooming out each cartoon raises the same concerns. In each representation we have outgrown our Earth, we stand outside it, and look down upon it. The Earth is shown smaller, more fragile, and more prone to our own influence. Over the last 75 years, we have become more familiar with the idea of nuclear technology. Nuclear power now accounts for around 10% of global energy production, produced by over 440 reactors across the globe, the most prominent producers include France, for which nuclear energy accounts for 70% of its total energy usage. The production of nuclear weaponry has also become more familiar. As of early 2020, the number of nuclear weapons in current existence is approximately 13,500. This is considerably less than the 70,000+ present during the hight of the cold war, though still substantial. Whilst more familiar, it should in no way mean more normalised, and no less concerning. As promoted by President Truman 75 years ago, the argument is that nuclear arms are the only serious deterrent against current threats of war. Speaking in November 2020, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, said the TPNW treaty “disregarded the realities of global security. […] Giving up our deterrent without any guarantees that others will do the same is a dangerous option. […] A world where Russia, China, North Korea and others have nuclear weapons, but NATO does not, is not a safer world.”
“Nuclear power now accounts for around 10% of global energy production, produced by over 440 reactors across the globe, the most prominent producers include France, for which nuclear energy accounts for 70% of its total energy usage.” There are currently 52 states party to the agreement (out of 195 UN member countries). Notable absentees include the US, Russia, China, Germany, UK, and France. Regarding the EU Member States, only Austria, Ireland and Malta have signed. As the world’s nuclear powers are not (yet) a party, the impact of the treaty is more symbolic than anything else. The ultimate goal - a global ban on nuclear weaponry – is still far off. The ethics of their existence is an endless contention. The Manhattan project had built something that appears so irreconcilable with humanity, with being humane, that what classes as a “safer world” is brought under question. Much like in the tale of Faust, perhaps we have bargained with something too great.
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SES Calendar Committee Application Deadline 7th of February Did you miss the chance to apply for a committee back in September? You are still in luck! Two new committees will be formed shortly: the Hitchhike Committee and the Introduction Committee. It is a unique chance to be more involved within SES and be part of the amazing Active Members Weekend in a few months! You are welcome to read more about these committees and apply on our website. General Assembly II, 23rd of February On the 23rd of February, the second General Assembly of the year 2020/2021 will take place. Here, the Board will present the semi-annual report. Furthermore, the Board Selection Committee will be elected during the Assembly; more information on this topic will be published soon. In case you are interested in the aforementioned issues, mark the date in your agenda! SES Conference, 8th of April Lustrum Gala, 18th & 19th of June
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