Utblick Recommends

For people interested in the intersection between violence and commerce, where geopolitics meets geoeconomics, the military aspects of maritime trade and logistics, there is no more exciting read than Laleh Khalili’s book Sinews Of War And Trade (published last year).

The book tells the story of how the Arabian Peninsula has become a key component of the global economic order, about the role of ports like Dubai’s Jebel Ali in the ways and patterns of global conflict and commerce.

Laleh Khalili manages to weave the book effortlessly between labor struggles of south asian workers in the gulf states, naval military history, the discovery of oil in the Peninsula and the role of US and British military interests in shaping the modern Saudi Arabia, all while keeping the book accessible and fun to read. – Rine Mansouri

Angels in America (2003) is one of the greatest American television series of all time. With an unparalleled cast, lead by Maryl Streep, who plays everything from an Orthodox Rabbi to a Mormon mother in denial, and Al Pachino as the corrupt Republican lawyer Roy Cohn, a beautiful story of belief, disease, tradition and tragedy unfolds. The series, based on a Tony Kushner play, explores, from many angles, the Reaganite time of the AIDS-epidemic in New York. I could go on about the fates of different characters, the eccentric and spectacularly absurd valium-infused hallucinations and fever dreams of Antarctica and prophezising angels, but that will be left to your viewing. All you really need to know is that the series is about aversion and ignorance.

When Roy Cohn, based on the Republican fixer with the same name, is diagnosed with AIDS, he refuses to believe this, because, although he has sex with men, he embodies everything a gay man in the 80’s is not. He says: “Homosexuals are not men, who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Does that sound like me?”

Similarly, when another of our characters finds out his partner has AIDS, he flees, in fear of disease, decay and death.

AIDS was ignored by most. Research was not prioritised and resources not allocated. It affected the most vulnerable and set them back. Far. COVID, although certainly more prioritised, is not so different. It has affected the Roy Cohns of the world, but the ones most affected, both economically and regarding infection and death rate, are the poor and the working class. Similarly, just like AIDS medicine, vaccines seem to be unavailable to poor countries. It will be for the future to tell if they have the same outcome. - Felix Sjögren