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Ideas

The Unifying Power Of Art In A World Divided By Religion And Morality

Political battle lines are becoming increasingly entrenched, and opposing views are being pushed towards ever greater extremes. Language has become a battlefield. If morality pushes us apart, and religion does not help in the process, we may find a solution in our sense of humanity, writes German psychiatrist Manfred Lütz in Die Welt.

-Essay-

BERLIN — In the Middle Ages, people didn’t read texts about the meaning of life. Most of them couldn’t read at all, and they saw the meaning of life in the images in their churches. Academics have recently started speaking about the “iconic turn”, the return of images, and it is true that the Instagram generation prefers to communicate visually. Could pictures offer a way for our deeply divided society to come together once again?

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Both in terms of foreign and domestic policy, political views are becoming increasingly entrenched, and on both sides of the debate, opposing views are being pushed towards ever greater extremes. In the world of today, many people are cut off from any contact with those who think differently, living in echo chambers, surrounded by people who confirm their worldview. When those who disagree with their position condemn them from a moral perspective, this only serves to vitalize the group under attack.

The public pillorying that dominates social media can be a cause of great anxiety for individuals. But for those who feel they are part of a community, their fear often transforms into an aggressive form of self-defense. The topic itself isn’t as important as the sense of being attacked.

That is a possible psychological explanation for a strange phenomenon, whereby attacks on groups such as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and some of their individual members have strengthened the sense of community within these groups and brought together a surprising mix of people, from radical free marketeers to nationalists, conspiracy theorists, pro-lifers, COVID deniers, right-wing extremists, conservative Christians and racists.

They are united by a single experience, that of being excluded. Conversations within these groups are reminiscent of chats around a pub table: the more harshly someone criticizes “those in power”, “the lefties”, “right-wingers” or even, “the others”, the more likes they get.

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Geopolitics

Senegal Elections: Has France Finally Learned Its Lesson In Françafrique?

The surprise election of Bassirou Diomaye Faye appears to be a wakeup call for French President Emmanuel Macron.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Even before the official results were announced, French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday extended his congratulations to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the just elected incoming president of Senegal, adding that he is “looking forward to working with him.”

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Macron’s message is highly political and goes beyond the ritual congratulations to a foreign president. There is a double meaning: On one hand, he praises the democratic feat that Senegal has just achieved after several weeks of political chaos that had led to fears of serious violence. On the other hand, it shows that France has begun to learn the lessons of its repeated failures in Françafrique, French-speaking Africa.

The truth is, Faye's victory caught France off guard. The winner of the first round, with 57% of the vote, claims to be the candidate of the “rupture.” A break with the political elite that has dominated Senegal since its independence in 1960; but also, and this goes hand in hand with it, a break with the French influence that has shaped post-colonial Senegal.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Gaza's Fishermen Risk Israeli Navy Shelling To Feed Their Families

Fishermen in war-torn Gaza are risking their lives by entering the Mediterranean despite relentless Israeli naval bombing. They say they have no option to feed their children amid a looming famine in the strip.

RAFAH — In the early morning hours, fisherman Muhammad Bardawil arranges his fishing nets and places them on his tiny boat to begin his daily journey off Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. He knows that this trip could be his last; he could be killed by Israeli shells.

But Bardawil does not think about this risk. He is focused on rowing out 500 meters — the distance Israel allows Gaza fishermen —to cast out his nets, and on his hopes of catching fish to feed his starving children — and to sell any extra. Bardawil said he catches about 5 kilograms (11lbs.) of sardines (a favorite among Gaza residents), some shrimp and tuna. He sells 4 kg and saves 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) for his family.

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Bardawil has survived shelling by the Israeli navy multiple times; yet the Palestinian fisherman with a pale face persists. Under the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, Palestinians are allowed to fish up to 20 nautical miles off Gaza.

Yet the Nizar Ayyash, the head of the Palestinian Fishermen's Association, said Israel's restrictions and attacks on Palestinian fisherfolk have existed for 17 years and have become part of the Israel-Hamas war. Israel's navy has destroyed many fishing boats and prevented the repair of remaining boats, Ayyash said.

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In The News

Israel vs. UN Resolution, Hungary Graft Protests, Malaga’s Holy Procession

👋 Grüss Gott!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where Israel says the UN resolution is damaging ceasefire talks, protests erupt in Hungary after a leaked conversation hints at high-level corruption, and Holy Week celebrations are up in the Malaga ’hood. Meanwhile, as Poland considers lowering the voting age to 16, Worldcrunch’s Katarzyna Skiba takes a look at the lessons learned from other such attempts around the world.

[*Swabian, Germany]

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Geopolitics

Shia Cleric Or Revolutionary Guards? How Khamenei Succession Will Play Out Inside Iran

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 84, has been in power since 1989. What will happen when he dies? His death may lead to a hybrid military-Islamic regime, with members of the Revolutionary Guards imposing a more pragmatic yet equally corrupt regime. It is time for the opposition to find a unified leader they can rally behind and that can help mobilize Iranians in the transition.

-Analysis-

As Iran's aging leader Ali Khamenei moves inexorably to the end of his life, there is acute interest in who or what type of leadership will succeed him. Will Shia clerics elect a successor using the institutional procedures that put Khamenei himself into office (in June 1989), or will the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which already have a grip on numerous institutions and business sectors, grab power? Either way, ordinary Iranians and the reformist and opposition groups that would represent them, will have little say in this jostling between internal power-brokers.

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As I have written before, the Leader's death at a time of marked domestic and foreign hostility to the Islamic Republic will be a delicate moment, but the regime has shown it has all the gall and lack of scruples needed to weather history's squalls. Opponents should not imagine, as they understandably did in past decades, that the death of a key figure could bring this outfit crashing down.

As the regime takes stock of the dismally low voter turnout in the parliamentary elections of early March and tires of its useless efforts to win popular legitimacy, Khamenei's successors may turn to one of several options.

They may firstly decide to end decades of institutional and electoral theater meant to give credence to the regime's claim that it is a republic; secondly, reveal the 'trump card' of a nuclear bomb in a bid to force the West to deal with the regime more respectfully, as it does with Pakistan and North Korea; or thirdly, engineer an overhaul that will strip the clergy of powers in favor of Revolutionary Guards officers.

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This Happened

This Happened - March 27: Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino

Updated March 27, 2024 at 12:00 p.m.


American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor Quentin Tarantino was born on this day in 1963.

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Green

A DNA Bank To Save Jaguars Threatened By Mexico’s Mega Rail Project

A government mega-project could push the country’s big cats closer to extinction — an outcome that would have devastating ripple effects on the local ecosystem.

TLACOLULA DE MATAMOROS — Lamanai and Cachicamo play among the trees near a man-made pond. Roaring and bounding, they behave like any other 3-year-old jaguars. Besides the two of them, the only other sounds come from birds and bugs singing their songs in the forest they call home.

The place where these felines live has been the same almost since their birth: a wildlife simulator, which recreates their habitat and limits contact with humans, at the Jaguar Sanctuary, a center that works to protect and safeguard this endangered species. Since entering this space in 2021, Lamanai and Cachicamo have been monitored by experts. Currently, they are the only specimens in a gene-bank program designed to conserve the jaguar species.

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The program began in 2017 to track jaguar populations and their health, and it was expanded in 2023 with the creation of a backup population program to increase the number of these felines in Mexico. In 2018, there were about 4,800 specimens in the country, according to a census coordinated by the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Ecology. These programs are increasingly urgent due to new highways and other government projects, like Tren Maya, which bring human construction and infrastructure to the big cats’ habitat, reducing their hunting territory and genetic variability, experts say.

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Dottoré!

Hypocrisy At The Easter Table

Our Neapolitan psychiatrist gets told off for not treating (and eating) animals equally.

“Dottoré, I’ve had a fight with my wife. She told me that this year, she won’t cook lamb because it is too little and she thinks that the lamb’s mamma will cry.”

“I understand your wife. I don’t eat lamb either.”

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Geopolitics

A Vote At 16? Experiments With Lowering The Voting Age Around The World

As Poland considers lowering the voting age to 16, what can other countries' experiences with reducing the voting age teach us about political trends and ralling young constituents?

Poland's new Marshal of the Sejm — the speaker of the lower house — and Polska 2050 party leader, Szymon Hołownia has said he intends to lower the country's voting age from 18 to 16. Calling this measure urgent, he says that it is unfair that older Poles take up a disproportionate percentage of the Polish vote, and that adding more young voters will balance the scale.

“We, the elders, by voting today, are planning your lives for much longer than for ourselves, because we will leave this world sooner, and you will continue to bear the consequences of our decisions,” he said, according to Dziennik Gazeta Polska.

With an aging population akin to much of Europe’s demography, the proportion of older Poles is only expected to rise in the upcoming years. According to recent Eurostat forecasts, Poland's population is set to shrink 23% by 2100, the seventh largest decline in the EU, with the ratio of the elderly to the working-age population is set to rise from 30% to 60% over that period.

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Common adage is that young people are less likely to show up at the polls on election day. But in Poland, it is precisely young voters, and specifically young women, who are being credited with ousting the Law and Justice (PiS) party from power in the October 2023 parliamentary elections. Last fall, turnout among young people (ages 18 to 29) rose from 46.4% in 2019 to a whopping 68.8%.

Yet Hołownia has made clear that that lowering the voting age, which would require a change to the Constitution, will not be easy to implement. “I will need to find allies for this and I hope we will find them,” he said.

As Poland embarks on this quest, several countries have already already taken steps to lower the voting age, or have burgeoning movements to do so of their own.

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Geopolitics

Putin, The Religion Card: How Russia's Leader Uses Public Piety To Wield Power

Geopolitical analysts who view Russia as an unpredictable force tend to understand Moscow’s actions in purely worldly, political terms. German Professor of Theology Hubertus Lutterbach has uncovered a different message hidden in Putin’s religiosity — an implicit threat to his neighbors and the world.

Updated March 26, 2024 at 5 p.m.*

-Analysis-

BERLIN — The image last year of Vladimir Putin holding an Easter candle was seen around the world — as was the picture of him praying in front of an iconostasis, the screen decorated with icons that separates the space around the altar from the main body of an Orthodox church.

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Pictures of Putin meeting Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, were also widely published. They showed the two men embracing, in a traditional gesture of sharing the peace, and speaking together, as well as Putin presenting Kirill with a bouquet of flowers. In the photographs, the Russian President is wearing a blue suit and tie or a blue coat, while the Patriarch is dressed in his bishop’s vestments and crown.

Putin’s show of Christian piety and his close links to the Orthodox Church raise the question: What role does religion play in the Russian President’s view of himself as a ruler?

It has arisen in a different way in the wake of last Friday's deadly terror attack on a Moscow theater. Putin initially tried to blame it on Ukraine, and only acknowledged Monday that Islamic terrorists carried out the attack.

Putin’s religious basis for wielding power has been conveyed multiple times over the years. A 2018 picture that made the rounds of both print and digital media had not been analyzed from a religious and political angle. That was a glaring oversight, as the picture clearly expresses important aspects of how Putin sees his role as leader.

The picture shows the Russian President taking part in a so-called ice baptism, a ritual performed by Orthodox Christians on Jan. 19, to commemorate Jesus’s baptism.

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Economy

Nigeria, Journey Through The African Giant's Economic Growing Pains

The reforms introduced by Bola Tinubu, the new president of Africa's most populous country, will take time to have an effect on the daily lives of Nigerians. In the meantime, the population is suffering from inflation, corruption and insecurity. The disillusioned youth are impatient and dream of elsewhere.

LAGOS — Night has not yet fallen on the sprawling city of Lagos, and the heat is still stifling on the islands of the lagoon. A cocktail party is underway at the villa of Herbert Wigwe, the former CEO of Access Bank and one of Nigeria's richest men. A small group of expatriate executives from French companies arrive and freeze in awe; the villa is a 21st-century palace, in the spirit of those built by the Medici family in Renaissance Florence.

Here, all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure. The terrace is a veritable hanging garden, with ceilings 6 or 7 meters high. Wealth is everywhere, as it often is for those who have achieved material success in emerging countries. "I'd like you to look at this house as a museum," Wigwe says. He's not wrong: his collection of African art is magnificent.

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Everyone admires the paintings and sculptures, glass of champagne in hand, while the Franco-Nigerian Business Council meets in an adjoining room. Created by French President Emmanuel Macron and chaired by Wigwe, the committee brings together several of the country's billionaires, as well as the heads of French companies with a local presence.

"These are very important links in the Nigerian economy," explains French Foreign Trade Minister Delegate Olivier Becht, who toured the country in late November.

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In The News

Gaza Fighting Continues Despite UN Vote, Baltimore Bridge Collapses, Maple Syrup Shortage

👋 Lumela!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where fighting continues in Gaza despite the UN’s resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, the search for survivors is underway after a container ship crashed into a major bridge in Baltimore and reserves of a maple staple hit a 16-year low in Canada. Meanwhile, Russian independent media Vazhnyye Istorii retraces the timeline of last Friday’s theater attack in Moscow and the differing narratives that spread on the perpetrators’ identity.

[*Sesotho, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe]

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