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The Ummah is not fulfilled without the campus cheer team. Beyond [being] a sport, the Um-Miauu fosters an immaculate spirit rendering cheer sessions the highlight of my Menton quotidian.” < Back ‘The Highlight of my Menton Quotidian’: Reflections from the Campus Cheer Team By Lilou d'Inca April 30, 2022 Picture the cliché, Netflix-series archetype of the cheerleader: she is shaking a pair of pom-poms with an artificial smile incessantly stamped on her lips; her pretty face conceals nothing but a frivolous, flighty personality; and the “sport” she practices is little more than a light-hearted introduction to the “real” games in sports tournaments. If you have not yet witnessed our unmissable Christmas show and BDE performance, the Sciences Po Menton cheerleaders are as far as possible from such a typecast. Yes, our cheerleaders are indeed incredibly smiley and ebullient — in the gym, on the stage, and even in their daily lives — but not because they are shallow; rather, because they are proud to boast the skills, lively character, and decidedly united spirit of their team. And, no, their bonds have not just been forged (or ruptured) by the permanent scars they share — from a stunting practice that dramatically ended with stitches for 1A Angeliki Vytogianni to the countless nose bleeds and bruises resulting from a few failed pyramids and backflips. The so-called “Um-Miauu” has also reinforced itself over the past eight months thanks to the unyielding dedication of its captains, 2As Frida Hellen and Nikola Avramović, whose vibrant, bubbly personalities have fostered the team’s intrinsic dedication and energy. Avramović affirmed, “the [most apt] word to describe the cheer team this year is motivation. I know it’s quite common to say, but we really have a team which is consistently up for anything and everything. Very often, I have found myself super energized after training, no matter how shattered I could have been before it, simply because of the energy our cheerleaders bring.” Hellen agreed that the team is “an energetic and resilient group [that] shows support for each other and pushes through the many challenges we have faced together this year as a team.” Such enthusiasm is not only shown by the captains, but by all cheerleaders. 1A Lise Thorsén said, “The Ummah is not fulfilled without the campus cheer team. Beyond [being] a sport, the Um-Miauu fosters an immaculate spirit rendering cheer sessions the highlight of my Menton quotidian.” Cheerleading is indeed an integral part of its athletes’ routine since training is organized twice a week in the College Vento gymnasium and by the sea at Bastion — yes, even on the most piercingly windy nights. With such frequent sessions, a significant obstacle for the team has become, according to Avramović, “ensuring that everyone could make time in their busy schedules to attend practice. Many elements of cheer require the group to function as one, which is both marvelous for a motivated team, but also a huge drawback if even one member of the team is missing.” Hellen added that, “practicing and teaching each other stunting skills and dance routines for minicrit” requires all athletes to be present at practice, hence why “the biggest challenge has been to find a way to make the time demand feasible with everyone’s crowded schedule, as well as the lack adequate training facilities in such a small town.” Speaking of facilities, Hellen and Avramović had to display utmost perseverance and creativity to complement the team’s drive and maintain the team’s professional appearance. “After Minicrit [was] canceled for two years, Nikola and I started almost from scratch with no equipment and little experience,” said Hellen. “We faced material and consequently institutional challenges, to say the least,” added Avramović. Due to poor financing and the overlap between the Sciences Po optional sports courses, the captains relied on their Um-miauu’s original initiatives to subsidize the purchase of pom-poms. As 1A Felipe Boitard — the team’s darling gossip boy — explained, “the cheer team turned to the students on campus and organized a fundraising auction, where members of the cheerleading team would auction out a date experience with them. Dates varied from making pizza with Viola to going on a scooter adventure to Italy with Greta. The night was filled with high-intensity auction battles between friends and potential love interests to get a date with a cheerleader! With the help of all the students who showed up in support of the lovely cheerleaders, the team made much more than was expected and was thus able to buy the supply for the pom-poms. As much as it did not get the official support of the campus, cheerleading is what brings life to the campus with their energy and enthusiasm, succeeding in gaining the support of the students on campus and funding their road to Minicrit!” Cheerleading will play a central role in the upcoming intercampus competition in Nancy alongside other sports including football, volleyball, thèque, and more. The Menton cheerleading team is thrilled to perform the fruit of its effort and resilience in an eight-minute upbeat, acrobatic choreography. In Hellen’s words, “the [personal evolution] of each member with regards to their dancing, gymnastics, and stunting skills, as well as the solidarity and hype among the athletes, continues to blow my mind, and I am beyond excited to show everyone the product of our hard work at the end of May.” Avramović said, “However cliché it sounds, it was thanks to the cheer team’s enthusiasm that we felt confident to fight for what the team needed. I am certain this has left our team much more tightly bound than ever, and really drives us to carry the Menton spirit at minicrit!” As per Thorsén’s words, Menton cheer is “not only a perfect creative outlet outside academia, but it has also most definitely equipped me with motivation and cheerfulness —” values which she looks forward to displaying in Nancy. Thus, allow yourself to be transported by the cheer team’s entrancing dance battles and hypnotizing canon movements. But, above all, remember to appreciate the unified and enriching fusion of cultures, personalities, and backgrounds that will emerge from our dances, from the unique and friendly community that is Sciences Po Menton cheerleading team!

Lenka is a trans woman, an activist, a parent, a podcaster with two shows called V Tranzu and TLK–Talkshow with Lenka Králová, a person with an incredible sense of fashion, an artist, former IT developer and a new member of the Czech Pirate Party. < Back Interview with Lenka Králová for the International Trans Day of Visibility Ema Nevřelová March 31, 2026 Trans Visibility in Czechia: Lenka is a trans woman, an activist, a parent, a podcaster with two shows called V Tranzu and TLK–Talkshow with Lenka Králová, a person with an incredible sense of fashion, an artist, former IT developer and a new member of the Czech Pirate Party. I used a lot of labels trying to introduce you but I wonder what do labels mean to you? Lenka: Well, the label I like the most is that I am a human. Labelling me a trans woman is okay because that is what I do [trans rights activism], but, in my opinion, most trans people do not want to be labelled. They want to be treated like everyone else. I think it is important to understand where the labels have their place and where they do not because if you are out in the society and being trans is the first thing people associate with you; that’s not how it should be. It is not being trans that defines me. I am human, I do lots of things other than being trans and it is not the main part of my identity. Even though it is the partI am the most visible and known for [in the Czech Republic]. I know that after you transitioned you changed your surname from your father’s surname to your mother’s maiden name. If you don’t mind me asking, was there a reason behind that? Lenka: Yes, there was. I simply did not like my father’s surname. It wasn’t very nice and I got bullied for it when I was at school. I like my mother’s maiden name way more and it also happens to be the surname of the mom of my child. It is just a coincidence, although we [Lenka and her ex-wife] checked and we don’t have any common relatives in the genealogy. Talking about the personal stuff, I think we should probably mention that I have known your parents very well for years and I remember you as a baby. Ema: Yes, that is true [laugh]. This article will be published on March 31 in celebration of the Trans Day of Visibility. Do you plan to celebrate and if yes what are your plans? Lenka: Well, I have a transgender day of visibility 365 days a year because I am the most visible trans woman in this country [Czech Republic] right now. So, for me it is not that special because this is what I do [trans visibility and trans rights] and this is what I concentrate on. Is it hard to always be perceived through your identity? Lenka: I got used to it. On one hand, it is not ideal because then you are less of a human to people; and transgender is the first word that comes to their mind. On the other hand, it gives you publicity and access to the media for free. Things that politicians would love to have; you simply get for free [laugh]. Continuing on the theme of visibility; what makes you feel seen or understood? Lenka: In general I feel seen and understood. It’s not a moment. I often get a question “What is it like to be a trans woman in Czechia these days?”I usually say that is very hard to answer because it depends and varies case by case; it depends on what social bubble you live in; what you look like and so on. I am very lucky that I just get hate and bullying on social media but that’s about it. I don’t meet the people in person and I never actually faced any sort of hate face to face, so I know this only from social media. Ema: I think that is great. I think some LGBTQ+ people struggle to be understood in some of their personal contexts. So being surrounded by people who see you and understand you not necessarily for being a trans activist but for being a human as you said earlier is very important. Lenka: I think the most important thing people should do is choose the people around them. I know it is sometimes hard; because when you are fifteen you cannot really choose your parents and you cannot really choose your school, but if you can, you should do it because that is basically all that matters. Ema: I think that is a very nice message. I am now going to move to politics as you are a new member of a Czech political party called the Pirate Party and you have dedicated a significant portion of your time to activism around trans rights. Politics and Activism: You have largely become known through your activism surrounding the rights of Czech trans people to legally change their gender without having to go through forced sterilization. As of July 2025, Czech trans people are no longer required to go through forced sterilization or undergo hormonal treatment to legally change their gender. Do you feel like you were part of the success? Lenka: Well, yes and no. I put a lot of effort into it. I was a board member of an organization called Trans*parent , which advocates for trans rights, and me and my colleague, Viktor Heumann [founder of Trans*parent], met a lot of Czech politicians to whom we explained the issue. However, in the end it was the constitutional court that decided to change the rules. You receive a lot of hate on social media, death threats and other hateful comments are unfortunately part of almost every one of your posts. On top of that, you are very active in your advocacy for trans rights. Is there something you do to take care of your mental health to be able to sustain your activism? Lenka: [laugh] Well, the easiest way is to just close your eyes and imagine what the life of the hater looks like and what my life looks like and usually that is enough. Ema: Fair enough. [laugh] Lenka: I know I shouldn’t say that but it helps. But do you ever struggle with mental health? Or do you feel like because you have been an activist for over 6 years it does not affect you as much? Lenka: I do struggle with mental health but in totally different areas. This doesn’t affect my mental health even though it is very visible for people. I am kind of disconnected from that and as I said I never face the hate in real life. But yeah, I have trouble with love and with my relationships. [laugh] So, the thing that actually gives me the most trouble is what I hide from the public. Ema: Well, I think a lot of queer people can relate to having a messy love life. Do you find it important to keep some things private in general? Lenka: Of course! Because I am an influencer, actually I think I am more of an influencer than an activist these days. A lot of people think that I just show my entire life to the public on social media but that is far from the truth. For instance, I have a kid, a son who is thirteen years old and I spend a lot of time with him, but since I became publicly known I decided not to show him on social media. A huge portion of time that I spend with him is not shown to the public, so I just show what I want to show. In some of your interviews you said that your kid is your biggest cheerleader. Is that still going on? Lenka: Well, he became a teenager. We still have a great relationship but he’s less of a cheerleader [laugh] but not much changed, except he has more of his own life right now. I saw you recently posted that you joined the Czech Pirate Party, which posits itself as “center-left”. It is one of the few parties in the parliament that is outspoken about queer and trans rights. I wonder what prompted that? Lenka: When I became a trans woman and I started doing activism and meeting politicians, I realized that you have two options if you are not happy with what is going on in our country. You can either show your unhappiness on social media or you can go and do something about it. So, I decided to join the Pirate Party. I am new and I have no function yet; I am a political baby right now. There is nothing to talk about yet. I just felt that it was the right thing to do. I was hesitating for a long time because I was afraid it would not be helpful for my activism, since the most important thing that I was fighting for, which was the abolition of the forced sterilization law, had already happened. I figured I will probably be more useful on the other side. I believe that advocating for equality of trans people in Czechia and actually achieving it, will be easier to do through being able to pass laws as well as being part of the drafting process. Do you feel like so far it clashed with your activism? Lenka: Not yet. but that is also because I do not do that much activism right now. Because as I said, the law that allowed trans people to change their gender in their ID without forced sterilization or hormonal therapy was passed and there is not much more to do. So, as I said right now I am more of an influencer and podcaster. In your Instagram post you also said that you joined the party because you want to become a representative in the Senate in the 2028 elections. Do you think it is feasible for a trans woman to become a politician in the current Czech far-right political climate? Lenka: I think it is feasible, otherwise I would not go for it. Right now it is more about feelings. However, a good indicator is the listeners of my podcasts, who are from different age groups. Surprisingly, I even have some conservatives listening. I believe it is because I do not usually use very radical language. Sometimes I do but still I think there is potential. And of course the visibility helps a lot. One of the reasons I also chose the Senate is because it is more about personalities and less about parties. In short, I think it is feasible! There recently was a controversy where the Pirate party paid a very well-known Czech influencer Sugar Denny to promote the party before the parliamentary elections because her demographic matches the demographic of the Pirate Party. As a new member of the Pirate Party and as an influencer yourself, what do you think of politicians using influencers to promote their parties? Lenka: I mean it is logical because that is just how it works. Social media has changed the political landscape and for certain the demographic groups involved. Traditional media simply does not work. It is logical but of course it is risky because well yeah… The influencers can do stuff that you later on disagree with.* *Sugar Denny released a video where she talked about Zionism and the Pirate Party has since publicly distanced itself from her. Are you a fan of Sugar Denny? Lenka: I never actually watched her content but I, as Lenka, had a relationship of three years with a woman twenty years younger than me, so I was living and sharing a household with a Gen Z woman and we had Sugar Denny’s podcasts instead of a fireplace. [laughs] So I passively heard a lot of her content. I do not think I am her target group but as I met her a couple of times and she is a very nice person and I like her a lot. “V Tranzu” and importance of highlighting trans and other marginalized peoples stories: You started your podcast V Tranzu about six or seven months after you transitioned. What motivated you to do that? Was it the media monopolizing the portrayals of trans people and was that part of your efforts to humanize them? Lenka: There was nothing deep in the original intention. It was the COVID times and I just had a group of friends, people around the Trans*parent organization that I talked about already. There was a guy also from Gen Z [laugh] and he had an idea that we could do a podcast just for fun. Back then I was also working at a company that had their own podcast studio; we started there without thinking too deeply about the intention or having any particular plans. Later on, the guy withdrew from the project and he asked me to delete the videos he was in. So, that was like the first half a year of V Tranzu is forever gone. Then,I started doing it on my own and that was when I had the idea that I could do interviews with other trans people,ecause when we started doing the podcast, we thought that there are maybe three or four trans people in the whole country that are willing to show their faces on camera. The original plan for the podcast was that we will be doing interviews with experts, lawyers, doctors, but not with trans people. Then I made an interview with an actress who was in the Show Jana Krause * so I thought, okay, if you show your face in Show Jana Krause you do not have trouble speaking in front of the camera. Then I realized that there are actually many trans people who do not mind showing their face on camera if it is with a good intention. * Show Jana Krause is a late night show that is equivalent to the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. The most important thing is that I always start by talking about their life in the first half of the interview, so it is not about their bodies. This is what the Czech media were presenting for decades whenever there was an article about trans people in the media, it was always about surgeries, hormones and stuff like that. Being trans was everything that defined you back then. In my podcasts I just talk about their lives; about what they do for a living, what their hobbies are and so on. Only then, in the second part of the interview, we start talking about their journey and about the transition as such. Before I came out there were maybe two or three visible trans people in the country and I just brought one hundred more in front of the camera. It just shows the diversity and how unique each story is. Is there a story of one of your guests that really stayed with you? Lenka: There were some very special interviews. The most special and personal one was definitely the interview with my ex-wife, from whom I separated following my coming out. My wife did not take my coming out very well and while we had to collaborate as co-parents, we weren’t otherwise on very good terms. Though somehow time healed it and now we are friends. We were together for fifteen years and she is the mom of my kid. I once asked her if she would like to do an interview about what she went through because it [transition] is also difficult for the partners and she said yes. For me, this is the most special interview of them all because it is the most personal one and the one I was the most scared of. There is one more that stands out. I actually did a few interviews in English and one of them was with a girl from a post-Soviet country , which she was scared to name. If she wouldn’t have left, she would have gone to jail for three years for being trans. She was intensely bullied at school and she told me a story of how she once looked out of a window at her school and there was a group of around thirty guys waiting and shouting at her to come out. They were ready to beat her up. She mobilized her friends and they made a circle around her to protect her and brought her to a taxi and she never went to the school again. She ended up in a refugee camp at Zastávka u Brna [a village in the Czech Republic] where she received a temporary passport. She started crying immediately after receiving it because she was finally free and she was praising Czechia as being a heaven on Earth. I know things are not ideal here, especially compared to some Western countries or Scandinavian countries but for some people it is really a heaven on Earth. It was a very emotional story and I understood how lucky I am to live in a democracy and how crucial it is to protect it. Ema: Thank you for sharing the stories and thank you for amplifying trans stories in general! In your video ‘Why am I trans?’ you said something: that you don’t know why you are trans but that you just are and it is society that is problematic, which really touched me as a queer person. So, I wonder if there is something you would like to say to the cis people? Lenka: Well, I say it all the time. Trans people are just people like everyone else. We have an extra struggle that we have to face but that is about it. I really like to compare it to left-handedness because there was a lot of stigma around it in the past and it was also pathologized. However, when you realize that all you need to do is to learn how to write differently and use different tools from time to time, it is all you need to be part of society. The problem is that our gender, our bodies and our genitals are being sexualized. If your left-hand would be the most sexual part of your body then left-handed people would probably have the same struggle as trans people have right now. What I am trying to do right now is to de-sexualize the topic. Czechia is now the last country in Europe where if you want to undergo transition, you have to find a sexologist. What I like to say is that a week has roughly about ten thousand minutes and you can just think about how many of them you actually use for sexual activity and how important it is in your life. Being trans is about life. It is about living in your gender 24/7 and sex is just a tiny part of that, just like for everyone else. Though for decades it was presented as something sexual, presenting us as some sort of sexual deviants, and that therefore we need to have our genitals surgically changed. I just want to show cis people that transitioning is about social life; I did this to live as a woman 24/7. In the same video you said that a lot of cis people feel like being trans is something hard, that trans people take a long time to come to terms with. I want to sort of flip the question and instead of asking about the hardships of transition, I wonder what brings you joy in your everyday life? Lenka: Other than smoking weed? Ema: Doesn’t that bring joy to everyone though? Lenka: [laugh] I like meeting friends and people who I have fun with and I have a kid who brings me a lot of joy. I like walking in nature, going to the theater, and watching movies. Simple stuff really, nothing deep. Ema: Thank you for this interview! Photo Source: Lenka Králová

Sports Recap — February 2023 < Back February Sports Recap By Hugo Lagergren February 28, 2023 Football Manchester City has been charged with 115 breaches of financial regulations by the Premier League. The charges mark the end of a four-year investigation conducted by Premier League officials into the club’s financial dealings from 2008 to 2020. The breaches can be split into three categories. The main issue raised by the Premier League relates to the financial irregularities of Man City’s business dealings. Secondly, the Premier League requires clubs to be transparent and honest about their financial activities, which they say has not been the case with City. And lastly, the Premier League has accused City of not cooperating fully with the investigation. Two years ago, similar charges were brought forth by the Union of European Football Associations against Man City. However, after being reviewed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the charges were thrown out. According to the Times’ chief sports writer, Martyn Ziegler, City will not be able to appeal the charges this time. The Premier League has not issued sanctions at the time of writing. Possible sanctions include fines, possible points deduction or exclusion from the League. Brazilian footballer Vinicius Jr. said that not enough is being done to combat racism in Spanish football and Spain more generally. Vinicius tweeted, “Let’s start to punish those people, or we’ll go back to how it was before,” following an incident that saw Brazilian basketball player Yago Dos Santos being subjected to racist abuse during a EuroCup game. Borussia Dortmund player Sébastien Haller scored his first league goal since his return three weeks ago from chemotherapy. Haller was diagnosed with testicular cancer in August of last year. Since then, Haller has continued to raise awareness in the football community for the fight against cancer. The date of his goal coincidentally fell on International World Cancer Day – an occasion which Dortmund marked by slightly altering their center circle to represent a tumor. L’Olympique de Marseille managed to knock out bitter rivals Paris St-Germain (PSG) in the last 16 of the Coupe de France. PSG’s poor form in the previous few matches has seen them drop points several times. This has put pressure on the manager, Christophe Galtier, to deliver silverware in an increasingly tricky season for the Parisian side. Rugby After a narrow victory against Italy, Six Nations favorites France continued their shaky start to the tournament by losing to a well-oiled Irish team, who looked organized and structured compared to their French opponent, which struggled to escape their own 22 at times. On the other hand, the number one ranked Irish team has moved to the top of the table with comfortable victories over France and Wales. Scotland has continued their impressive run of form, with victories over England and Wales, to move to second in the Six Nations behind Ireland. A big test for Gatland’s men will be in two weeks when Scotland travels to the Stade de France to face a wounded French side. Handball Denmark beat France in an exhilarating final to claim a historic third successive International Handball Federation World Handball Championship. After the Danish victory, operators of the Oresund Bridge, which connects Sweden and Denmark, lit the bridge in red and white to honor Denmark’s achievement. For co-host Sweden, the tournament ended in disappointment as they lost 39-36 to Spain in the bronze medal game. Basketball Lebron James became the National Basketball Association’s all-time top points scorer with 38,387 points as the Lakers fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He surpasses Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s point total — a record he has held since 1984. American Football The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 to win their second Super Bowl in the last four years. For the second time, Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback for the Chiefs, was awarded the National Football League Most Valuable Player Award. Olympics Earlier this month, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) issued a statement saying that it would allow Russian and Belorussian athletes to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, on the condition that no anthems or flags from the two countries are displayed. This has sparked outrage from politicians and fans alike. President Zelenskyy commented that the decision from the IOC highlighted that “terror is somewhat acceptable”.

The success of the Moroccan team at the 2022 FIFA World Cup has disrupted the traditional balance of football. It has shown how the unassuming underdogs can, with the right combination of teamwork, persistence, and a steadfast, strong-willed, bald-headed coach — Walid Regragui, nicknamed “avocado head”— attain new heights. < Back Morocco's World Cup Success Sends the World a Powerful Statement By Colin Lim January 31, 2023 “Avec nos lions!” triumphantly proclaimed the destination displays of the Casablanca buses. Although the Atlas Lions had lost the World Cup semifinals to France a week earlier, the feeling of triumph was palpable under the balmy December sun. As traffic flowed along the wide boulevards of Morocco’s financial hub, adorned with red and green flags, the national team was eagerly welcomed home 80 kilometers away in Rabat. Riding in an open-top bus, conspicuously emblazoned with the national rallying cry, “Dima Maghrib,” the players were greeted by thousands of jubilant fans who recognized and appreciated the magnitude of their accomplishment. The fact that Morocco’s national football team had even made it to this point was an impressive feat. Their unprecedented success rallied Morocco, the Moroccan diaspora, and Muslim communities of disparate origins worldwide behind a single team. As the first Arab or African country to advance to the semifinals, Morocco managed, at long last, to break the glass ceiling that had been so inviolably reserved for European and South American teams, the traditional strongholds of professional football. The players, whose feline moniker dates back to an extinct species that used to roam the mountains of North Africa, carry an array of passports, as the 26-person lineup includes only 12 players born on Moroccan soil and others born in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada. As the Moroccan team advanced through the World Cup, defeating Belgium, Canada, Spain, and Portugal, they captivated their audience and the world with several iconic images. Photographs that went viral displayed players’ jubilee — even embracing and kissing their mothers, à la Achraf Hakimi. Several photos of Moroccan players and staff united in prayer on the field, all facing the qibla and publicly affirming their faith, gained momentum among Muslim communities globally. The visibility of their devotion in the face of anti-Muslim sentiment in their European birth countries offered a source of inspiration and empowerment. The success of the Moroccan team at the 2022 FIFA World Cup has disrupted the traditional balance of football. It has shown how the unassuming underdogs can, with the right combination of teamwork, persistence and a steadfast, strong-willed, bald-headed coach — Walid Regragui, nicknamed “avocado head”— attain new heights. The Atlas Lions will showcase their improvements at the next World Cup in North America, potentially contributing even more to the diversification of successful football teams.

< Back Climate Crisis in the Horn of Africa: The Flood of the Century. By Elian Jorand December 31, 2023 The Horn of Africa is gripped by an unprecedented humanitarian crisis as torrential rains linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon wreak havoc in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, leaving a trail of destruction and despair in their wake. The flood, labelled by some as the "flood of the century," is the aftermath of a prolonged drought that plagued the region for over three years, transforming the parched and cracked earth into an unforgiving ocean of mud. The climatic double ‘setback’ of the El Niño phenomenon and the Indian Ocean Dipole anomaly has unleashed powerful rains during the ‘ deyr ’ raining season, submerging vast areas. Reports from the three affected countries paint a bleak picture, with at least 260 lives lost and over 1 million people displaced. The logistical challenges faced by rescue and relief operations are monumental, as vital roads are cut off daily, impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid and slowing down the rescue efforts. The Chébéli River in Somalia has swallowed entire cities, transforming Beled Uen into a desolated city beneath the floodwaters. Rescue operations navigate through submerged rooftops and minarets to assist the 330,000 displaced residents now seeking refuge in improvised camps. The disaster unfolded against the backdrop of Somalia emerging from a historic drought just six months ago that had pushed the country to the brink of famine and displaced 1,170,842 people since January 2021. Somali Disaster Management Agency director, Mohamud Moalim Abdullahi, reported at least fifty lives lost in Somalia alone and 687,235 individuals forced to evacuate their homes. Roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools have suffered extensive damage, isolating thousands of people in villages and heightening the risk of diseases such as cholera and malaria. Kenya is also dealing with the overflow of the Tana River in eastern Kenya, flooding vast areas and forcing hundreds of thousands of farmers and herders to abandon their livelihoods. President William Ruto declares the situation an " extreme emergency " as the nation contends with roads vital for aid delivery being severed by rising waters. Despite efforts by Somali authorities and humanitarian partners to reach around 820,000 affected people with assistance, needs are rapidly rising as the flooding expands across the country. Mahamud Moallim emphasises the current priority of rescuing stranded families and providing immediate humanitarian relief. The devastation is described as "heartbreaking" by Nimo Hassan, Director of the Somali NGO Consortium, who underscores the urgent need for sustainable solutions and disaster preparedness for future climatic events. As the Horn of Africa contends with this unfolding crisis, millions of Somalis continue to battle hunger and malnutrition. An estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five will face acute malnutrition between August 2023 and July 2024. Humanitarians warn that current and emerging needs cannot be met without additional resources. A $2.6 billion plan to support 7.6 million people this year is so far only 42 percent funded, underscoring the urgent need for increased international assistance. This unfolding crisis comes as El Niño is expected to persist until at least April 2024, necessitating prompt and robust action from the international community to avert further catastrophe in the region. The Horn of Africa stands at a critical juncture, grappling not only with the immediate devastation caused by unprecedented floods but also the ongoing repercussions of drought and a myriad of humanitarian challenges. The global community must respond urgently to mitigate the suffering of those affected and prevent a deepening catastrophe in this vulnerable region.

Dans le contexte du conflit de Gaza entre Israël et le Hamas, le Yémen, déjà en proie à ses propres troubles internes, se trouve de plus en plus impliqué dans des complexités régionales, principalement orchestrées par le mouvement houthis montant. < Back L'implication du Yémen dans la guerre de Gaza : l'essor des houthis et la dynamique régionale By Elian Jorand April 30, 2024 Dans le contexte du conflit de Gaza entre Israël et le Hamas, le Yémen, déjà en proie à ses propres troubles internes, se trouve de plus en plus impliqué dans des complexités régionales, principalement orchestrées par le mouvement houthis montant. Alors que le pays navigue sur ce terrain dangereux, la grave crise humanitaire qui sévit dans le pays est un rappel saisissant du coût humain des conflits et des manœuvres géopolitiques. Le Yémen, souvent qualifié de pays le plus pauvre du monde arabe, lutte depuis longtemps contre la pauvreté systémique et la souffrance généralisée. Avec environ trois quarts de sa population plongée dans la pauvreté et la maladie faisant rage, dont une épidémie de choléra suspectée dépassant deux cent mille cas en 2020, le pays est au bord de l'effondrement. La pandémie de COVID-19 n'a fait qu'exacerber la crise, les analystes de la santé suggérant que les cas signalés sous-représentent largement l'ampleur réelle de l'impact du virus. Le blocus imposé par les forces de la coalition dirigée par l’Arabie Saoudite a infligé d'indicibles souffrances à la population yéménite, obstruant le flux de fournitures vitales et faisant grimper les prix des biens essentiels. Bien que le cessez-le-feu de 2022 ait offert un bref répit, les craintes d'une résurgence des coûts élevés sont grandes après son expiration. Le bilan de la guerre, aggravé par des causes indirectes telles que le manque de nourriture, d'eau et de services de santé, a entraîné la mort d'environ 370 000 personnes, selon le Programme des Nations unies pour le développement. Dans ce contexte de désespoir, les forces houthies et de la coalition sont accusées de commettre des crimes de guerre flagrants, notamment des attaques contre des cibles civiles en violation directe du droit international. La destruction d'un hôpital dirigé par Médecins Sans Frontières en 2015 témoigne de la nature indiscriminée de la violence qui sévit au pays. Malgré ces nombreux défis, des lueurs d'espoir ont émergé à l'horizon. Les négociations de paix soutenues par l'ONU, bien que difficiles, ont progressé de manière incrémentielle, notamment avec l' Accord de Stockholm de 2018 qui a évité une bataille catastrophique dans la ville portuaire de Hodeïda. Cependant, la mise en œuvre des dispositions de l'accord a été lente, entravée par les frictions persistantes entre les acteurs régionaux, dont l'Iran, l'Arabie saoudite et les Émirats arabes unis. Des développements récents ont insufflé un optimisme prudent dans les efforts de paix, avec des relations améliorées entre l'Arabie saoudite et l'Iran et des discussions en cours entre Riyad et les houthis offrant une lueur d'espoir. La coordination d'un cessez-le-feu national en avril 2022, facilitée par le nouveau conseil gouvernemental du Yémen, a marqué une étape significative vers la désescalade. Toutefois , l'échec à renouveler le cessez-le-feu a soulevé des questions sur les perspectives de paix durable, d'autant plus que des acteurs clés, tels que le conseil gouvernemental et le Conseil de transition du Sud (STC), restent exclus des négociations. Malheureusement, le récent conflit à Gaza a anéanti les espoirs de paix, avec l'implication des houthis, soutenus par l'Iran, exacerbant la situation précaire. Leurs actions irrationnelles ciblant le commerce maritime civil ont suscité de fortes réponses de la communauté internationale, y compris des raids aériens conjoints des États-Unis et de la Grande-Bretagne. Ces frappes, touchant 36 cibles houthies dans 13 endroits au Yémen, ont été menées en réponse aux attaques continues des houthis contre le commerce maritime international et commercial en mer Rouge. Les frappes de précision visaient à perturber et à dégrader les capacités utilisées par les houthis pour menacer le commerce mondial et la vie des marins innocents, ciblant les installations de stockage d'armes profondément enfouies, les systèmes de missiles, les lanceurs, les systèmes de défense aérienne et les radars. Les houthis, quant à eux, ont justifié leurs attaques contre le commerce maritime en mer Rouge en tant que soutien aux Palestiniens de Gaza au milieu de la campagne dévastatrice d'Israël, déclenchant des frappes de représailles et exacerbant la violence régionale impliquant des groupes soutenus par l'Iran. La situation a atteint un état critique, avec peu d'optimisme à l'horizon. Alors que le Yémen se débat avec son implication dans les conflits régionaux, l'urgence de trouver une solution durable à sa propre crise n'a jamais été aussi pressante. Ce n'est qu'avec des efforts internationaux concertés, soutenus par un dialogue diplomatique et une aide humanitaire robuste, que le Yémen pourrait espérer sortir de l'ombre de la guerre et tracer un chemin vers un avenir défini par la paix, la stabilité et la prospérité pour sa population longtemps éprouvée.

Following the Oct. 8  offensive by the Israeli military in Gaza, over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including a large percentage of women and children. However, the cost of war has gone beyond the considerable death toll; there have been catastrophic environmental damages, leaving us to question whether this conflict warrants the legal label of ‘ecocide.’ < Back Gazan ‘Ecocide’ Accelerates Amidst Israel-Hamas War By Lucy Lönnqvist and Alexandra Iliopoulou for Sciences Defense January 31, 2024 Following the Oct. 8 offensive by the Israeli military in Gaza, over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including a large percentage of women and children. However, the cost of war has gone beyond the considerable death toll; there have been catastrophic environmental damages, leaving us to question whether this conflict warrants the legal label of ‘ecocide.’ The Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide (IEP) defines ecocide to be ‘unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.’ The term ‘ecocide’ has attracted much media attention since Oct. 7 and prolonged geopolitical tensions to this day; however, it can be said that today’s attack on Gaza is not the introduction of ecocide in the region, but the extension of a pre-existing one. Warfare has continued off and on in the Gaza strip since the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and continued with the Six-Day War, subsequent Intifadas, the Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014, right up to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and Israeli retaliation. Taken cumulatively, the destruction of biodiversity and mass extinction of species caused by the release of bombings and white phosphorous choking the atmosphere with toxic fumes overtime has been labeled an ‘ environmental apartheid’ ; dispossessing Palestinians of their land, water and natural resources inflicted by the ecological damage of warfare. It is clear that the visible ecocide in the Gaza strip today was not only precipitated by the heightened 2023 attacks, but rooted in Israel’s historical colonial practices in the occupied Palestinian territory. In order for Israel to establish its colonial settlements, it began by bulldozing mass areas of Palestinian land, uprooting thousands of trees to build infrastructure on previously prized nature reserves. This tactic is used to deprive Palestinians not only of territory but any hope for economic opportunity, with approximately 80,000 to 100,000 Palestinian families relying on olive farming as their primary source of income. According to the Palestine Trade Center, or PalTrade, the olive sector is worth between $160 million and $191 million in a good year. The consequences of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian native land are therefore twofold: eradicating Palestinians from their territory through the expansion of illegal settlements, subsequently invoking severe habitat fragmentation, land degradation and soil erosion. In Aug. 2012, the United Nations predicted that Gaza would not be livable by 2020, demonstrating how Israel’s imposition of colonial settlements degrade the environmental health and habitability of the land, in addition to the repercussions of active warfare. Since the Israeli military response of Oct. 8, damages have spanned from mass destruction of infrastructure, the homes of half a million people being damaged or destroyed, to the internal displacement of almost 2 million people. Moreover, the environmental destruction, including water pollution and the consequences as a result of the deployment of white phosphorus, pose additional challenges for victims of the war. Israel’s limited allowance of water, fuel, and electricity into Gaza as a warfare tactic has led to sewage and water treatment facility disruption. As a result, “more than 130,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage” have entered the Mediterranean Sea daily, bringing acute environmental implications. The bombing of water treatment facilities has resulted in decreased availability of fresh drinking water for Gazans and strained aquifers, leading to Gazans having to drink large amounts of salty water. Experts predict that it will take years to successfully clear pollution from the soil, water, and air. The lack of water available is predicted to accelerate the spread of disease, noting the accumulation of corpses, causing unnecessary deaths from treatable diseases . The Israeli military has also utilized white phosphorus , an incendiary weapon, in its offensive, which, when considering that it is being used in some of the most densely populated areas of the world, acts as a violation of international law. While white phosphorus itself is restricted in warfare by international law, it is strictly prohibited in civilian areas, which Israel has used it in in both Lebanon and Gaza. Despite the various health implications of coming in direct contact with white phosphorus, when entering water sources, it can severely impact the potability of the drinking water that Gazans have access to. Moreover, the animals that ingest this water, primarily fish, also become toxic to consume. The agricultural ramifications of white phosphorus contamination pose a threat to livestock and severely alter the fertility of farmland, which can pollute soil for decades . These damages have largely been excused by Israel’s claims of self defense and pursuit to eliminate Hamas, a terrorist organization whose attacks on Oct. 7 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,200 people . However, a recent development in the international response to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza is South Africa’s submission , calling for proceedings to begin against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The report details Israeli public officials’ expressed genocidal intent in their motivations for attack, and emphasizes the excessive civilian casualties that have occurred in the war. Additionally to the denunciation of civilian deaths, calls from the public to categorize Israel's military offensive as ecocide have also surfaced. The impacts of climate change have indicated the Middle East as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world, and the environmental damages occurring in Gaza can end up having adverse effects on the entire region (Israel included). Critics have raised attention to the longer term impacts that the bombing in Gaza will have, such as accelerating the effects of climate change and polluting the Mediterranean. A recent piece from The Guardian stated that the initial reports of carbon emissions in the 60 day period following the war amount to the equivalent of burning over 150,000 tons of coal, a greater carbon footprint than the annual emissions of 20 climate vulnerable nations. The emissions, which are attributed to emissions from combat and directly assisting combat, such as fueling aircraft, also largely originate from American cargo deliveries of military equipment to Israel. In turn, this highlights the sensitive position of all parties involved, as the impacts of their actions will emphasize their role in the region in the long-term. How, then, can these stakeholders be held accountable? There is a proposal submitted into the International Criminal Court to add ecocide as a crime, waiting to be endorsed by two thirds of the signatories of the Rome Statute. As it stands, ecocide is not considered an international crime despite being a transgression of national law in several countries including France, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus and Vietnam. This is largely due to the fact that representatives have a hard time constituting environmental destruction as a ‘crime against humanity.’ However, given the rise of rights-based climate litigation characterizing recent international case law before the ICJ, hope for criminalizing environmental warfare is well within reach. The geopolitical climate in Gaza is drawing attention to the long-term damage towards wildlife, ecosystems, and industry, raising questions as to whether the charge of ecocide should be included in international courts. For some, South Africa’s submission against Israel before the ICJ will not only bring justice to the civilian casualties and victims of wartime atrocities, but inspire nation states to endorse the ICC ecocide proposal, outlawing future damage to our natural world and our lives on it.

How the repatriation of 17,000 ancient objects can restore collective memory in a war torn country. < Back From Hobby Lobby to Iraq: The Historic Repatriation of Ancient Objects Restores Collective Memory By Lara-Nour Walton October 30, 2021 You may think that the connection between the craft store chain, Hobby Lobby, and the ancient Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Tablet could be tenuous at best. But you would be mistaken. In 2017, the Evangelical Christian owner of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, opened the Museum of the Bible, a project that seeks to document the history of the Holy Book. Up until recently, many of the institution’s collections featured ancient Near Eastern art with questionable provenance. In 2010, Hobby Lobby combatted smuggling allegations after sneaking clay cuneiform slabs and seals (falsely labeled as Turkish tiles) into the United States. Green was warned prior to the purchase of these artifacts that they were most likely unlawfully looted from Iraqi historical sites. However, this warning went unheeded and Hobby Lobby became subject to a civil complaint. In 2019, one of the museum’s highest profile acquisitions, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scroll, was found to be a forgery. And now, the company is yet again under national scrutiny as it atones for its art-collecting sins in a major repatriation campaign. Amid power vacuums during both the Gulf War and American invasion, Iraqi museums, unexcavated caves, and monuments were looted. These thefts fueled the antiquities black market and resulted in the displacement of thousands of ancient objects. To return these objects to their motherland is, according to UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay, a triumph “over those who mutilate heritage and then traffic it to finance violence and terrorism.” But, the return of these ancient artifacts means so much more. It represents the restoration of Iraqi history and the rehabilitation of our collective memories. Since August of this year, some 17,000 looted artifacts hailing from both Museum of the Bible and Cornell University collections have been returned to Iraq. Among the restituted objects is the storied Gilgamesh Tablet whose tumultuous journey back to Iraqi soil is emblematic of the unpredictable nature of antiquities trafficking. The clay fragment that recounts an ancient Sumerian tale of a bull-slaying demigod was stolen from the Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War. UNESCO reported that it was then allegedly bought by a Jordanian antiques dealer, who passed it onto a coin dealer in London. Later, it served as the centerpiece of a Museum of the Bible exhibit in Washington, D.C. before being seized by homeland security agents. Today it resides in the Baghdad Museum. For many, the return of these ancient objects is not merely about “rightful” ownership. Rather, it signifies a reunion between Iraqis, whose heritage has been subject to immense erasure over the last three decades, and their cultural pasts. U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Fareed Yasseen, described the repatriation as “a culmination of years of effort to heal Iraq’s cultural heritage wounds.” But many of these wounds cannot be mended. Several archaeologists discourage research into potentially looted objects because it deprives countries of origin from the opportunity to study the pieces themselves. However, the artifacts returned by Cornell University have been thoroughly studied without the consultation of Iraq. “We missed this great opportunity to study our tablets, our heritage,” lamented Hassan Nadhem, the Iraqi minister of culture, tourism and antiquities. “This is a kind of bitterness in our mouth.” Other wounds that emerged as a result of political instability and American neo-imperialism are manifested in the robust terrorist organizations that operate within Iraq. The destruction of Nineveh, the shameless rampaging of the Mosul Museum, and the dynamiting of centuries old Muslim and Christian shrines in recent years by the Islamic State are the most tragic cases of all. The art that was destroyed at the hands of extremists is irretrievable. Not even the repatriation of 17,000 Iraqi artifacts can restore the history that has been lost as a result of iconoclasm. The Gilgamesh tablet was returned on September 23, 2021. The repatriation was dubbed “a major victory” by UNESCO. But Hobby Lobby and Cornell’s return of these artifacts should not be viewed as a favor to Iraq or as some unforeseen joyous homecoming – it was simply a matter of national responsibility. The United States played an instrumental role in the destruction and pillaging of Iraq. During the 2003 invasion, U.S. soldiers were documented looting museums alongside disillusioned Iraqis. The de-baathification policies and America’s systematic dissolution of the Iraqi military directly led to the formation of the terrorist organizations that continue to chip away at Iraq’s already-dwindling cultural heritage. However, when news of repatriation campaigns hit media outlets, or when black clad men defacing lamassus appear on American television screens, it seems so far, as if the U.S. had nothing to do with the displacement of Iraqi objects or the subsequent defacement of ancient artifacts. But this is to be expected. Scholar Hamid Dabashi once said: “imperial cultures thrive on their intentional amnesia.” His words ring true as the U.S. feigns blamelessness, incredulity, or even sympathy when acknowledging the conflict in Iraq — a conflict that rages on as an immediate result of American disregard for the histories of other nations. Thus, it is art, the fight for its repatriation and its mere existence, that helps create the framework for collective memory. It is art that is the ultimate antidote to an empire’s amnesia.

“If you want to eliminate values from past societies, you have to eliminate the artists.”, reflects Prince Norodom Sirivudh of Cambodia, in the 2014 documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”, recounting the systematic erasure of music from Cambodian society under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. < Back “When They Tell You to Sing, You Just Sing.”: The Khmer Rouge’s Musical Manipulation of Cambodian Society Loowit Morrison November 10, 2025 “If you want to eliminate values from past societies, you have to eliminate the artists.”, reflects Prince Norodom Sirivudh of Cambodia, in the 2014 documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”, recounting the systematic erasure of music from Cambodian society under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. “[A]rtists are influential. Artists are close to the people,” says Sirivudh. Music is inherently political, used for centuries as a mechanism of control and mobilization. Throughout history, music has shaped public opinion and regime legitimacy by both producing and limiting access to music. From 1955 until 1975, Cambodia’s music experienced what is known as its “Golden Era.” Thanks to increasing global communication, the rise of clubs, bars and nightclubs, and the United States’ Armed Forces’ radio , Cambodian music became infused with Western, Latin and Afro-Cuban pop influences, creating a distinct style of modern music. Traditional Cambodian styles were electrified; garage and surf rock took root in Cambodia’s art scene. Stars such as Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea and Pan Ron gained massive popularity. Cambodia’s musical backbone was not only thriving — it was vital to the nation’s social life. A mere 17 years after gaining independence from France, Cambodia entered into a period of civil war. In 1970, an American-backed coup ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s regime as part of their larger war against communism. Sihanouk fled to Beijing, becoming a figurehead for the rising Khmer Rouge, a group of communist insurgents. The years that followed were marked by tensions between communist guerrilla fighters and Lon Nol’s anti-communist government. 1973 saw massive devastation at the hands of U.S. bombardment. The civil war came to an end in April 1975, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge toppled Lon Nol’s government and seized the capital, Phnom Penh. 1975 was declared “Year Zero” by Pol Pot’s regime and the country was renamed “Democratic Kampuchea”. The regime, stretching from 1975–1979, was marked by a radical strategy of agrarian communism and strict isolation. Civil and property rights, religious practice and Western influence were completely eradicated, and urban citizens were forced into the countryside to labor in agricultural projects. Any intellectuals, artists or elites were sent to work or killed. Cambodian society was effectively “decapitated.” As part of the eradication of artists, musicians were among the first targets of the Khmer Rouge. All music, other than propaganda of the Khmer Rouge, was banned in an effort to eliminate “old” identities linked to Western culture. At the time, Cambodian musical culture was deeply influenced by the French colonial period, beginning in the 19th century. French colonizers brought Western instruments and genres to Cambodia, infusing Cambodian music with Western designs. The Khmer Rouge, in opposition to anything Western, sought to destroy this Westernized musical identity and create a “new,” yet staunchly traditional, Khmer identity. Although the majority of existing music and musicians were destroyed by Pol Pot’s regime, part of the strategy to mobilize the new Khmer identity was through music. The Khmer Rouge’s re-education program rearranged traditional hymns and melodies, such as basak and mohori , to serve their ideologies and push forth the new agrarian society. Despite the fact that most musicians were targeted in the regime’s early days, others were recruited by the Khmer Rouge to serve as regime musicians. Touch Chhatta recounts that the only “reason I survived was because I knew how to play music.” Chhatta was enlisted by the Khmer Rouge to serve in a band that played at meetings, at which music was played with only traditional instruments, including the khim , tro , and takhe . Chhatta describes that at the beginning of the regime, he purposefully memorized the propaganda music, maximizing his utility to the regime and thus his chances of survival. Children were also recruited by the Khmer Rouge as musicians. “We were like a blank piece of paper. When they tell you to sing, you just sing,” describes Chhom Charvin, who was a child singer under the regime. Easily persuaded and indoctrinated, children were the perfect candidates for the Khmer Rouge’s new musical strategy. “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll” presents footage of the Khmer Rouge’s child singers in a performance, reenacting farmers, chanting “the day is hot and dry / smoke is coming from the earth / but we can take it / we are resilient / we serve Angkar until results are produced.” Undying loyalty to serving the new, agricultural and communist state is conveyed curtly through lyrics, fashioning a new emblem for the nation of the laboring and nationalistic child. Music was also used as a mobilizing tool. Thida Buth, who was a child during the regime, remembers that in the work camps, the national anthem would blare over the speakers each morning, at 4am. The first lyrics are “the bright red blood spilled in the lands of kampuchea / our motherland / the blood of our good workers and farmers / of our revolutionary soldiers / of both men and women / we will make our Motherland / the most prosperous, magnificent, wonderful!”. Every day in the Democratic Kampuchea began with music -– propaganda music. Music which was manufactured specifically to promote the idea of a new nation. The musical construction of Democratic Kampuchea contains a dual nature: one of radical return to tradition yet a complete transformation of society. The Khmer Rouge attempted to erase the existing musical culture in Cambodia while simultaneously promoting a musical culture that was ‘traditional’, thus blurring the line between “new” and “old”. This phenomenon highlights the contradictory nature of the Khmer Rouge regime, which attempted to use old, traditional Khmer music to promote a new, revolutionized identity, which in and of itself reflected a traditional past. Whether restoring an “old” or creating a “new” identity, it is clear that music was a critical tool employed by the Khmer Rouge to carry out their transformation of society. Despite the supposed “eradication” of music in Democratic Kampuchea, it was frequently mobilized by the Khmer Rouge to legitimize their regime and build the foundation of a new national identity. Music, as any form of art, is fundamental to the skeleton of society. Music transmits values, histories and identities; its mobilization by elites in society has the power to structurally, radically reshape what a country is, how it functions and what it stands for. Despite the weaponization of music by Pol Pot’s regime, when the Khmer Rouge fell on January 7, 1979, music was what revived Cambodian society. Sieng Vanthy, a Cambodian singer, was one of the first to return to the capital city of Phnom Penh, which had been emptied at the start of the regime. With much of the nation hesitant to return to the city, Vanthy describes that she sang “Oh, Phnom Penh” on the radio, in an attempt to reassure the displaced that it was safe to return. “Oh, Phnom Penh” seeps with yearning, nostalgia and memories of a place once called home. The first lyrics state, “Oh, Phnom Penh / For three years / I never stopped missing you / We were separated / and my heart was broken.”, and later, the song says, “the Cambodian soul lives on / Oh, Phnom Penh / I meet you again.” While music may have been a tool of manipulation in the Khmer Rouge regime, it was also a unifying factor. Music is what brought Cambodians back together to collectively rebuild their nation physically and culturally. In spite of their efforts, the Khmer Rouge was not able to abolish the musical roots that run through Cambodia. Music continues to flourish, decades after the country was musically sanitized. Dengue Fever, a band formed in the U.S. in 2001, brought Cambodian music back to the global forefront. Lauren Yee’s 2016 play, “Cambodian Rock Band,” recounts the story of a Cambodian American woman and her father, a survivor of the genocide, exploring a history of music and memory. The revival of music in Cambodia is a testament to the nation’s ability to overcome a difficult past and to their cultural resilience. Photo Source: Emile Gsell, Picryl

The chilliing news about Ukraine, struck me – I felt that I wanted to discuss the situation with others from our campus, and inform those who were less up to date with the events leading up to the invasion. Half an hour after I woke up, the group chat was born. < Back How Students Are Keeping Up With Ukraine By Markus Vaher March 30, 2022 A Student Perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian War Estonian second year student, Markus Vaher, created a group chat following the Ukrainian invasion, in which students share information and updates. In five responses, he sums up his experience. 1. Why did you create the Ukraine group chat? What is the purpose? The day that the war broke out was very cloudy and depressing here in Menton. I remember waking up in the early morning, way before my alarm. The war had started a mere two hours earlier, but my parents and close friends had already texted me. Just a few minutes later, I found myself plunging into the news, making coffee and breakfast on the side. What I was seeing really struck me differently. I felt that I wanted to discuss the situation with others from our campus, and perhaps inform those who were less up to date with the events that have taken place in Ukraine in the last decade. Half an hour after I waken up, the group chat was born. 2. How have you been following the invasion so closely? Are there any apps or sources you would recommend? Following a live war from a distance is always quite exhausting, it is very emotionally draining. It takes up a lot of your time, and distracts you from whatever else you might be doing. But if it matters to you, then you will keep following the events. My sources vary quite a bit. In a large part, especially for information about battles and bombings, I follow Ukrainian Telegram channels like the Kyiv Independent, Политика страны, Украина сейчас, and Киев сейчас. For information about Russian and Belarussian internal opposition, NEXTA Live and Осторожно новости are quite good. A lot of information also comes through Estonian media and the Estonian Council of Foreign Relations, of which I am a member. And Twitter, of course, but as a source it is not very reliable. 3. As an Estonian, how do you feel about the safety and security of your country and family? How does being Estonian impact your perception of the invasion? 24 February, the day that the war started, was also Estonia’s 104th independence day. The speeches and celebrations that day took on a very different, darker tone. Our people remember history. We remember the battles, the killings, the deportations and carpet-bombings of World War II. We remember - my parents from first-hand experience - the silent terror of the [Russian] occupation [of Estonia]. So, of course, the symbolic meaning of this conflict is very deep for us. We remember how our people, language, and culture were being erased, and we are now seeing a revived attempt at that. I have never stepped foot in Ukraine, but we have a lot of common historical experiences with the Ukrainian people. Today, I do not see a direct threat to the safety of my friends and family. Our country is a highly committed member of NATO and the EU, our society is heavily opposed to any form of Russian domination and influence. Compared to an attack on Ukraine, an attack on Estonia would be even more costly for Putin’s regime. We have already proved this with the level of military support we are offering to Ukraine: proportionally to population size, Estonia has provided the largest amount of military aid of any country, and in absolute terms, we are in third place after the United States and the United Kingdom. 4. What do you think has motivated Putin? Do you think he has an upper hand? For a long time I was skeptical about the narrative that Putin just wants to rebuild a Russian empire in the former territory of the Soviet Union, perhaps because I expected him to be more rational. Since the war started, however, I have begun to give more credit to this view of him as an imperialist. After all - attacking Ukraine was a very high risk, but low reward endeavour. And he still went for it. I do not think he has an upper hand, however. As of my writing this article [March 28, 2022], the war on the ground has come to a stalemate, whilst Putin is losing on the information and economic fronts. He has won very little so far, and even if he can drag the conflict out, there is little for him to gain. On a more personal level, he seems to have lost a large part of the legacy he sought to make for himself. Even the judo belt was taken away. There is an important historical comparison. When Poland was attacked by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, it took the invading forces 36 days to occupy the country. It seems highly likely that Ukraine will pass that mark, albeit at a great cost to human lives. Yet it is nowhere close to losing the war. The question is whether Ukrainians can win back their land. 5. What have been the biggest outcomes and challenges of the war thus far? Do you see these persisting? How do you feel about the international response? The biggest positive outcome is that Ukrainian society has been reoriented toward the West. If Ukrainians and Russians might have gotten along well a decade ago, the animosity between them, between normal, everyday people, has grown very large. And so Ukrainian unity and commitment to Western values have never been as large as today. After all, Ukrainians are the only people who have died fighting under the European flag. The biggest negative outcome is, obviously, the cost in human lives and livelihoods. This war has already resulted in more than a thousand civilian deaths, including the confirmed bombings of three hospitals and nine schools. There are up to four million people that have left the country, just as many have been displaced within. It is very hard to tell today how the health and well-being of these people can be ensured, or how they could safely return to their homes in a relatively short time-frame. A lot has been done, but nonetheless the international response should be stronger, especially regarding a lot of low-risk measures, such as humanitarian aid, military intelligence sharing, limiting Russian disinformation, and working on ending the European dependence on Russian fossil fuels. The slow response in many of these areas is perhaps behind technical challenges that the public is not aware of. But in other cases it might be a lack of political will or real commitment. The proposal of a NATO-backed no-fly zone, however, is a technical question. Too often, it is seen as a symbolic or diplomatic question rather than a purely military one, but at the end of the day, it is the military calculus that matters. As of now, it is unlikely it will ever be established.

Une rue commerçante bondée, un cri de détresse surgit. Pourtant, personne ne réagit. Cette situation hypothétique avec des comportements à première vue impensables est une réalité bien plus répandue que l'on ne le croit. < Back Le silence de la foule : comprendre l'effet spectateur Elsa Uzan September 26, 2025 Une rue commerçante bondée, un cri de détresse surgit. Pourtant, personne ne réagit. Cette situation hypothétique avec des comportements à première vue impensables est une réalité bien plus répandue que l'on ne le croit. Cela est causé par l'effet spectateur, un effet psychologique qui pousse les spectateurs d'une situation nécessitant une aide extérieure à ne pas agir. Ce phénomène est provoqué par le nombre important de témoins, de spectateurs de la scène. L'effet est théorisé par deux psychologues sociaux américains, John Darley et Bibb Latané, à la fin des années 1960, en utilisant le cas de Kitty Genovese pour proposer leur concept. Catherine dite « Kitty » Genovese est une jeune femme de 28 ans employée dans un restaurant new-yorkais. Le 13 mars 1964 , alors qu’elle rentre à son domicile situé dans le Queens après son service, elle réalise que quelqu'un la suit. Elle se dirige alors vers une borne d’urgence pour alerter les autorités. L’inconnu la rattrape et la poignarde de deux coups de couteau. Kitty hurle de douleur, un voisin crie par la fenêtre et l'agresseur prend la fuite. La jeune femme agonise pendant d’interminables minutes, réveillant plusieurs habitants du quartier. Personne ne lui vient en aide: elle arrive tant bien que mal à se déplacer dans un hall d’immeuble. L'agresseur revient pour la liquider: de neuf coups de couteaux, il lacère sa poitrine et son estomac. Il la viole et lui dérobe tous ses effets personnels. Les secours arrivent finalement trop tard : Kitty Genovese a déjà succombé à ses blessures. Ce qui est frappant et symptomatique dans cette affaire, c'est l’indifférence totale dans laquelle Kitty Genovese est décédée. La police fait état de 38 témoins directs ou indirects, de la détresse et l’agonie de la jeune femme. Témoins qui n’ont bien évidemment à aucun moment porté secours à la jeune femme. Certains affirment à l’instar de Catherine Pelonero , journaliste que “C'est un nombre aléatoire. Des gens ont sûrement vu des choses et ont refusé de le dire. Le chiffre de trente-huit est sûrement plus élevé en réalité.” En effet, ce chiffre a été déterminé de manière entièrement arbitraire et sous-estimerait le nombre avéré de témoins. Cette affaire a permis, outre la conceptualisation de l’effet spectateur en 1968, l’accélération de la mise en place du 911 à la fin de la décennie—un numéro unique qui permet d’alerter les secours et les autorités. Les psychologues sociaux vont ainsi essayer de déterminer ce qui cause cette inaction totale des témoins dans une situation nécessitant pourtant une intervention immédiate. John Darley et Bibb Latané distinguent trois processus différents qui expliquent cette absence d’aide. Le premier est l’influence sociale : dans des situations ambiguës, le spectateur va tout d’abord observer les réactions des autres témoins afin de décider s’il a bien compris celle-ci. Cela résulte en une inaction—au moins pendant un certain temps—qui peut se poursuivre en cas de multiplication de ce comportement. Le second processus à l'œuvre est celui de l’appréhension de l’évaluation : le spectateur va, à l’échelle individuelle, prendre le risque de se tromper devant les autres témoins. Ce risque s’accompagne d’une crainte importante du jugement que les autres portent sur notre propre comportement. Cela entraîne ainsi une inaction du spectateur, l’appréhension du regard des autres prenant le pas sur la volonté de prendre un risque et donc d’aider la personne victime de la situation. Enfin Darley et Latané mettent en avant un troisième élément, celui de la diffusion de la responsabilité : dans une situation où il n’y a qu’un seul témoin, l'individu se sent en quelque sorte obligé d’agir étant donné qu’il est le seul à pouvoir le faire. Toutefois lorsque le nombre de témoins augmente, une dilution de la responsabilité se met en place: le spectateur se demande ainsi pourquoi devrait-il être le ou la seul(e) à agir ? On assiste à une forte répartition de la responsabilité dès que le spectateur est conscient de la présence d’autres témoins: l’inaction devient ainsi l’option privilégiée. L’effet spectateur est un phénomène qui a été constaté de nombreuses fois depuis sa théorisation en 1968. Le meurtre d’Iryna Zarutska fin août 2025, une jeune réfugiée ukrainienne à Charlotte, une ville de la côte Est des États Unis en est un exemple. Dans le métro la jeune femme s’installe en face d’un siège occupé par un homme. Ce dernier se lève brusquement, poignarde Iryna et sort de la rame. Elle perd connaissance et s'écroule sur elle-même. La jeune femme décède alors en l’espace de quelques minutes. Les autres passagers semblent indifférents au sort de la jeune fille: il faudra attendre plus d’une minute pour que quelqu’un aille la voir. Malgré l'identification il y a près de 50 ans du phénomène, il demeure bien présent dans nos sociétés. Une question demeure: est-il possible de lutter de quelque manière que ce soit contre cet effet ? Peut-il tout du moins être atténué ? Il existe plusieurs situations où l’effet spectateur ne rentre pas en jeu. Tout d’abord, les spectateurs peuvent agir lorsqu’ils se sentent concernés par les conséquences de la situation ou l’action elle-même. Cela a pu être mis en évidence avec l’expérience de l’escabeau: une chercheuse se blessait en tombant d’un escabeau. Une seule exception demeure avec ce test: les élèves infirmières intervenaient de manière constante, qu'elles soient seules ou en groupe. Leur formation leur permettait donc d’intervenir sans subir les processus habituellement à l'œuvre avec l’effet spectateur. Le phénomène peut également être atténué lorsque les individus sont amis, l’appréhension de l’évaluation est moins forte et permet aux témoins d’intervenir, non pas à une échelle individuelle mais en tant que groupe. L’effet spectateur est donc un problème social contre lequel il faut lutter en citoyens informés. La sensibilisation est le premier pas à faire pour atténuer les effets nocifs du phénomène. Elle passe tout d'abord par un effort personnel de documentation sur des articles de recherche (notamment celui de Bibb et de Latané). Des actions concrètes peuvent être également envisagées comme des cours de premier secours, ou des campagnes de sensibilisation. S' informer ne se réduit pas à une pratique passive mais aussi à une pratique active de la vie quotidienne. Faire le premier pas vers la victime devient dans ce sens un réflexe: cela permet non seulement d’apporter une aide immédiate, mais aussi de réduire voire d’éliminer le phénomène. Photo Source: Pedro Fait de La Photo, Flickr

This holiday season make sure to prepare these sweet, sweet treats with a bucket-load of love for those you appreciate, which of course, means first and foremost, yourself! < Back Sweet, Sweet Love: Desserts to Prepare During this Holiday Season By Angela Saab Saade December 31, 2022 Fellow Sciences Pistes, in the spirit of festivities, love and joy, allow me to share with you a cherished moment dear to my heart that I experienced just this month. As I was procrastinating revising for my final exams by aimlessly scrolling through social media, my lovely roommate knocked on my door and replenished my taste buds with the delicious scent of apple crumble, escorted into my room with a side of vanilla ice cream. Kindly take the time to place yourselves in my shoes to be properly immersed in the experience. The degree of warmth and love I felt in that particular moment is one I cannot describe in words. Though, I could assume that “heavenly” was the closest description of my experience devouring my plate of apple crumble. Although you may unfortunately not have incredibly sweet and supportive roommates as I thankfully do, I hope to indirectly shower you with warmth and love by equipping you with the recipe of the apple crumble that made this entire heart-warming story amid a cold and rainy night possible. Given that I was not the one to bake or come up with the recipe of the hour, the apple crumble recipe provided to you today will be taken from multiple online sources and tailored to replicate exactly the plate prepared by my roommate, which involved some of her creativity and choice of recipe modifications. Further, to make up for this circumstantial exception, which is alien to the regular character of my articles — usually based on my personal knowledge and experiences — I will also bestow upon you the recipe for my own Bomb Dessert. This holiday season, make sure to prepare these sweet, sweet treats with a bucket-load of love for those you appreciate, which of course, means, first and foremost, yourself! Apple Crumble Heaven This recipe includes the filling, the crumble and the topping. Begin by preheating your oven at one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius. For the filling: Chop seven medium-sized apples into small cubes and toss them in a bowl. Add two tablespoons of white sugar, one tablespoon of all-purpose flour and half a tablespoon of ground cinnamon. Mix everything well. Butter a baking pan and add the mixture. Flatten it using your hands or a spoon to create a smooth base for your crumble. For the crumble: Sift two cups of flour into a bowl. Add a cup of brown or white sugar, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Add half a cup (or one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty-five grams) of melted unsalted butter onto your dry ingredients and mix them all using your hands to make sure you break any big pieces and reach a “moist bread crumbs-like” consistency. Pour your crumb mix over your apples in the pan. For the topping: Sprinkle a cup of rolled oats and your choice of nuts onto the crumble. Lastly, place your pan in the oven for thirty to forty minutes. To know when to take the pan out, insert a small knife into your apple crumble. You should look for soft apples and a golden top as your queues. Serve with vanilla ice cream and bon appetit! Bomb Dessert With no more than forty-five seconds of preparation and forty-five seconds in the microwave, this Bomb Dessert will satisfy any sweet craving. It involves two base ingredients: marshmallows and chocolate. The recommended toppings are whipped cream and ice cream. You could also add anything from walnuts and almonds to oatmeal, and, for an ultimate bomb experience, Oreos, M & M’s, and — my personal favorite — peanut butter and chocolate chips. You do you. Place a handful of marshmallows into a bowl. Top them with pieces of chocolate, choosing the chocolate-marshmallow ratio that satisfies your taste. Place the bowl in the microwave, set the timer for forty-five seconds, et voilà! Take the bowl out and add whatever toppings you like. You can thank me later.

You can love them; you can hate them; you can claim that you’re above them and so much better than others for not enjoying them. But, in reality, we all have things to learn from Reality TV. The way we choose to portray our “realities” to the world, and more specifically to the West, tells a lot about the extent to which countries stand with our values. < Back The Real Eastern Question: Reality TV and Soap Operas Melissa Çevikel November 30, 2024 As a reality show fan, I often find myself questioning why I, and many others, who seemingly had nothing to do with these, were so invested in white Americans searching for love on low-production online television platforms. But, after my recent discovery of “Love is Blind Habibi,” I was able to look at reality television from a completely new perspective. “Love is Blind Habibi” is a self-proclaimed “social experiment” reality show where a total of twenty participants (ten men and ten women) communicate with each other inside “pods”—rooms with walls separating the two participants from each other—until they eventually decide to take the next step and get married. The participants have ten days in the pods to choose the person they wish to marry, and around three weeks until their marriage ceremony to split between a “honeymoon retreat” and their actual lives. Up to this point, there is nothing differentiating Love is Blind Habibi from any of its other adaptations around the world,such as Sweden, UK, Brazil and Japan. However, beyond the technical aspects of the work, there are things as simple as the mannerisms of the participants and the hosts that make the viewer feel captivated. The show presents participants—or actors—from all around the Arab world that live seemingly similar lives but each possess very different characteristics. For example, there is the character of Simo, who is a retail business owner, and can only marry a Moroccan woman, later dumps his match because he believes she can’t handle him. There is also Chafic, an entrepreneur who proudly stated in an interview, “I've been single because I was too focused on looks, but looks fade and personality stays ” yet realized that his second option from the pods was an Instagram model he once hit up. He then introduced the viewer to a stereotypical model of Middle Eastern men that is funny yet familiar to ordinary people in their day-to-day lives. While Love is Blind Habibi possesses the element of relatability that no other Love is Blind had arguably captured before, with mothers and aunties giving advice being a key point in the show progression, it also made me wonder (as someone who grew up at the prime of Turkish reality shows) if all Middle Eastern show adaptations were as successful at getting the same feeling across, or if most just felt forced and phony? One of the first very unsuccessful—and henceforth generally unknown—attempts of adaptations that came to mind was Turkey’s recent take this summer on “Love Island,” named (and directly translated to) “Aşk Adası.” At first glance, Aşk Adası may seem like just a very low-budget reality show filmed at a villa which is being framed as a luxury island gateway retreat. But upon closer inspection, the viewers can come to realize that the show is much more than that. If one can get past how bad the production truly is, the first thing any experienced Middle Eastern reality media enjoyer will notice is how oddly everyone is dressed in comparison to the location where the show is filmed, where the actors are dressed in clothes that would not be found in a piece of Turkish media especially under the censorship of RTÜK, which will be discussed later. Compared to Aşk Adası, Love is Blind Habibi has nothing to prove to the world. It lays out before the viewers eyes the naked reality of toxic masculinity, conservatism and family ties in the Middle East. Aşk Adası, on the other hand, seems like a very forced portrayal of Turks as— surely in the eyes of the producer—modern and European. Every ten minutes or so, the viewer is faced with a very forced “sexual tension” scene, which is most likely as difficult to watch for the viewer as it is to act, as the actors look very uncomfortable throughout the entire show. However, forceful over-sexualization and objectification of women in the show are not new to Western media, and the Turkish media has not shied away from this either. While these aspects are also the main catchpoints of popular U.S shows such as “Too Hot to Handle” and “Perfect Match,” the fact that they’re higher production and that they’re owning up to this reality distracts viewers from its flaws. Though Turkey’s attempt to move away from its conservative connotation is noticeable, doing this through oversexualization of women disregards the long history of women’s rights movements in the country, especially when looked in the context of the country's recent struggles on the topic. Not to mention these attempts will not prove to be successful as long as there remains a very strict inspecting body for Turkish media (RTÜK). An example of a good Turkish reality show, however, would be “Kısmetse Olur” (2015) which translates to “If it’s Fate, it will Happen.” While I’m not sure if it was because of itsmid-2010s production or the randomness of its cast selection—which ranged from American men posing as machos to women claiming to be “ivent” (a new translation of the word “event” that emerged during the peak of the profession) organizers— there was something that made this show feel excessively Turkish. It was the only reality show which, in my opinion, is qualified to label itself as a “social experiment.” It revealed to the viewers the worlds of early 2010s bachelors and bachelorettes, how they spent their days, and how relatable their simple lives were. In 2022, the show made a comeback with a modern-day adaptation titled “If it’s Fate, it will Happen: The Power of Love” (Kısmetse Olur: Aşkın Gücü), with a first season that didn’t disappoint either. The 2015 version was a reign of personal trainers and event organizers as well as aspiring fashion designers, while the 2022 version showed a range of influencers, singers and entrepreneurs (unemployed). It perfectly portrayed the new generation of bachelor Turks we saw around ourselves and maybe even personally knew, despite being painfully obviously scripted. 2017 marked a very saddening legal decision for reality show enjoyers when marriage programmes were banned in Turkey. This was a rare moment when media censorship, in fact, breeded innovation, and the world got introduced to a very colorful selection of newly produced soap operas. If the West had reality shows and nudity, the East now had one thousand-episode-long plotlines and adaptations where no LGBTQ+ got to see the light of day. Erkenci Kuş, Sen Çal Kapımı and Aşk-ı Memnu are just a few of original soap operas produced around this time. And though cliches were one of the strongest points of these works, there were also many adaptations from Western media such as Grey’s Anatomy (Doktorlar), the O.C (Medcezir), Gossip Girl (Küçük Sırlar) and Desperate Housewives (Umutsuz Ev Kadınları). These received more international attention than they did locally, but were still enjoyed by the Turkish viewers. More recently, screen adaptations of prominent Turkish literature themes from the late 19th and early 20th century novels, such as Westernization versus traditionalism, became a big hit for screenwriters. One of the most viewed Turkish TV series currently, titled “Kızılcık Şerbeti” follows the life of a young woman, Doğa, from a “modern and Western” family who, after becoming pregnant, has to get married to the father of the child, Fatih, coming from a religious and conservative background. The series follows funny and unfortunate events Doğa has to face living in a new environment and her culture shock. Despite how simple and uneventful it sounds, this is arguably the most progressive piece of media recently created in Turkey and it still seems unbelievable that it is able to air despite its scandalous and caricature-like portrayal of such topics in the country. Though these might be helpful in encouraging everyone to take a step back and realize how silly such differences are, many pieces of media aiming to achieve what Kızılcık Şerbeti has done were criticized for promoting abuse culture. Unfortunately, abuse and violence are staple plotlines in soap operas, and despite popular belief that they aid in raising awareness, they counterproductively normalize cycles of marital abuse often lived out in Turkish households. You can love them; you can hate them; you can claim that you’re above them and so much better than others for not enjoying them. But, in reality, we all have things to learn from Reality TV. The way we choose to portray our “realities” to the world, and more specifically to the West, tells a lot about the extent to which countries stand with our values. Love is Blind Habibi showed that one does not have to appeal to Eurocentric values to be enjoyed by viewers outside of Arab states. Turkish adaptations of Western soap operas, on the other hand, showed where they chose to draw the line with Westernization.

Aujourd’hui encore, l’art, parce qu’il est un instrument de contestation pacifique qui revêt une efficacité prouvée, est un objet soumis à une menace de musèlement que la population algérienne n’a de cesse de défier. < Back L’Expansion de l’Art Engagé en Algérie By Raja Madani April 29, 2022 “C’est pourquoi il faut que les artistes, les écrivains et les savants, qui ont en dépôt certains des acquis les plus rares de l’histoire humaine, apprennent à se servir contre l’État de la liberté que leur assure l’État” - Pierre Bourdieu À l’occasion de la Semaine des Arts ayant récemment eue lieu à Sciences Po, cet article s’intéresse à l’utilisation de l’art comme moyen d’engagement politique, en prenant pour angle d’étude la place prépondérante occupée par l’art engagé en Algérie, dans la quête de liberté et dans la manifestation des espoirs. Trois ans maintenant. En un vendredi ensoleillé de la fin du mois de février 2019, la jeunesse algérienne avait gagné les rues des villes principales du pays pour protester contre l’éternelle reproduction d’un système politique qui l’étouffe. Ce moment de symbiose qui a progressivement réuni les multiples spécificités de la population a donné lieu , par sa répétition chaque mardi et vendredi, à celle que l’on qualifie aujourd’hui de « révolution du sourire », ou autrement dit: de Hirak. La population algérienne, encore très marquée par la violence extrême qui l’a touchée au plus près lors de l’épisode de la décennie noire des années 90, a dû s’armer d’outils lui permettant de faire circuler en puissance ses revendications, tout en plaçant la paix en véritable maître mot du mouvement. L’art est alors apparu comme le moyen de combiner ces objectifs. L’art et la dénonciation, des éléments qui s’auto-génèrent Paroles extraites du chant de supporters, devenu chant de manifestants algériens, lui-même inspiré de la chanson de lutte des ouvrières des rizières de la Vallée du Pô Bella ciao : « La Casa Del Mouradia » , Ouled El Bahja. نقولوا جازت، حشاوهانلا بالعشرية » « Le premier {mandat}, on dira qu’il est passé. Ils nous ont eu avec la décennie {noire} فالثانية الحكاية بانت "La Casa Del Mouradia » Au deuxième, l’histoire est devenue claire, La Casa d’El Mouradia {= commune à Alger} فالثالثة البلاد شيانت مالمصالح الشخصية Au troisième, le pays s’est amaigri. À cause des intérêts personnels « فالرابعة البوبية ماتت، ومازالت القضية Au quatrième, la poupée est morte… Mais l’affaire suit son cours ». Via le mouvement de protestation du Hirak sont nés au sein de la société algérienne des artistes qui ont su puiser dans leur inspiration de quoi servir la cause de la dénonciation. Le mouvement s’est présenté pour chaque algérienne et chaque algérien comme une véritable occasion de développer une fibre artistique jusque-là peu encouragée. C’est par exemple le cas de Liasmine Fodil, habitante de la ville de Tizi Ouzou, qui a vu dans le mouvement du Hirak l’occasion de se reconvertir en photographe, afin d’être d’une utilité à la communauté des insurgés. Elle expliquait il y a quelques mois son choix au média Web Arts Résistances par un devoir d’information et de mémoire envers les futures générations : « Je sentais que c’était urgent de dire que ça se passait partout et pas seulement dans la capitale. {…} Dans quelques années nos photos seront des archives, elles montreront comment des citoyens anonymes se sont mobilisés » . Parmi les talents méconnus révélés par le Hirak, on retrouve également Mohamed Kechacha, chanteur de chaâbi: un genre musical algérois. Ce dernier s’est fait connaître par son vidéo-clip intitulé 1000 milliards , en référence aux rentes pétrolières du pays. Enfin, et surtout, la foule en elle-même a constitué un corps d’artistes à l’unicité foisonnante. Par la création de chants et de slogans, de pancartes, de danses, ou encore de peintures : de semaine en semaine, l’expression artistique a su se développer au fur et à mesure que le mouvement évoluait. En parallèle à ce foisonnement de nouvelles voix artistiques du Hirak, des artistes algériens affirmés de plus longue date ont su faire de leur art un instrument en faveur de la lutte pour la liberté et la démocratie en Algérie. C’est ainsi qu’en 2019, dans son célèbre titre intitulé « Liberté », le rappeur Soolking chantait le ras-le-bol des algériens envers le caractère sans issue de leur système politique. Il a fait de son morceau une véritable ode à la liberté, à laquelle il aspire pour l’Algérie. Mais impossible d’évoquer la combinaison du mouvement de contestation du Hirak avec l’art sans avoir une pensée particulière pour les caricaturistes. Sous le ton de l’humour, ces derniers ne manquent jamais d’exposer leur point de vue et de partager avec les Algériens des dessins de presse toujours plus engagés. De cette manière, des dessinateurs de presse comme Le Hic, Nime, Dilem ou encore Slim, en n’ayant de cesse de mêler art, humour, et conscience politique, se sont érigés en véritables symboles d’une autodérision voilant à peine un sens profond. Un phénomène enraciné Bien qu’il ait connu un essoufflement particulièrement important avec l’épisode sanglant de la décennie noire, il serait erroné de croire que l’art engagé était inexistant avant sa montée en puissance au moment du Hirak. On a en effet tendance à oublier que ce dernier a joué un rôle considérable dans la construction et la consolidation de l’identité nationale algérienne dans la période 1952-1970. Face à ce constat, l’historienne Anissa Bouayed, dans son ouvrage L’art et l’Algérie insurgée. Les traces de l’épreuve : 1954-1962, s’est donné pour mission de traiter la Guerre d’Algérie à partir des productions artistiques de peintres internationaux et algériens. De Issiakhem, à Khadda tout en passant par Fares, l’autrice de ce livre d’art particulièrement novateur tend à expliquer que «l’’œuvre est sans doute au-delà de toute catégorie englobante. Elle rend compte dans un condensé fulgurant, des positions critiques majeures contre la guerre, et des aspirations à la liberté, à la fois en dénonçant la torture dans plusieurs tableaux et en représentant les manifestations algériennes » . Une menace de censure qui demeure Le 16 décembre 2019, l’artiste bédéiste Nime a été condamné à un an d’emprisonnement pour ses dessins politiques. Le 10 août 2020, c’est le journaliste et activiste Khaled Drareni qui a été condamné à trois années de prison ferme pour des activités liées à son métier. Plus récemment, le 4 janvier 2021, le jeune artiste Walid Kechida a été à son tour condamné à trois ans de prison ferme. Pas plus tard que dans son rapport annuel 2021-2022, l’organisation de défense des droits de l’Homme Amnesty International dénonçait l’arrestation et la détention de « centaines de militants politiques et de la société civile, ainsi que des journalistes, simplement parce qu’ils avaient exprimé leur opinion ou fait leur travail » . La liberté d’expression se voit alors particulièrement menacée en Algérie ces dernières années et les artistes n’en sont pas moins épargnés. Aujourd’hui encore, l’art, parce qu’il est un instrument de contestation pacifique qui revêt une efficacité prouvée, est un objet soumis à une menace de musèlement que la population algérienne n’a de cesse de défier.

The Menton Times is the independent student newspaper of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Menton campus. We Watch, We Feel, We Scroll: Susan Sontag’s ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’ and the War in Iran Images emerge from Iran with unsettling regularity: mothers mourning their children, bodies of Iranian martyrs killed by the IRGC during the crackdown in black bags, and quasi-apocalyptic scenes of explosions in Tehran. And then, just as quickly, they disappear from collective attention. Not because the suffering ends, but because the audience moves on. This Week @ The Menton Times The Question of Palestine as a Feminist Issue Les périls de la culture compétitive dans l’éducation The Invisible Wars: Yemen, Sudan, and the Selective Outrage of the World التعليم في تونس: بين المساواة المنشودة والواقع الجندري في الصفوف الدراسية Menton's Senior Citizens Won't Bite: Go Talk to Them! Le True crime: quand l’horreur devient divertissement Eulogy to Joy The Celebration of Oppression The Reinvention of Coachella Since the beginning of the year, 2026 has been dubbed “the new 2016” across various social media platforms. Young people online seem to be yearning for a resurgence of how life was ten years ago. The rose-tinted social media filter has been revived and 2016 pop music is having its moment, with Zara Larsson’s hit “Lush Life” reentering the Billboard’s Top 100 for the first time in years. But while Coachella 2026 may have looked like Coachella 2016, it was fundamentally very different. التعليم في تونس: بين المساواة المنشودة والواقع الجندري في الصفوف الدراسية American Patriotism at the Milan Olympics in the Age of Trump Every Olympic Games opens with a patriotic parade featuring all the athletes, each team entering the stadium waving their national flag. At the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, the United States of America athlete delegation was greeted with cheers and applause. However, when the cameras cut to Vice President JD Vance in the stands, the audience’s sounds of support quickly morphed into prolonged boos and jeers. L’abolitionnisme pénal : repenser le contrôle social au-delà de la punition Dans toutes les sociétés, des règles existent pour faire tenir les individus ensemble. La question centrale est celle de leur respect : comment faire pour que ces normes soient effectivement suivies ? Historiquement, la réponse a souvent été la punition. Le système pénal moderne, à travers ses institutions – police, justice, prison – incarne cette logique : dissuader, sanctionner, réprimer les comportements jugés déviants. La prison, en particulier, s’est imposée depuis le XIXe siècle comme la peine de référence, au point de sembler aujourd’hui indissociable de l’idée même de justice. The Iranian Judicial System: Institutionalizing Fear and Repression Feature: Amnesty International Menton As mass protests continue to spread in Iran, understanding how the system of arbitrary detention is maintained is crucial in order to determine how it can be addressed. Arbitrary detention encompasses not only illegal detentions but also deprivations of liberty that, even when lawful, are disproportionate, unreasonable, or lack due process. One of the many goals that the Islamic Republic of Iran, like other states that resort to it, hopes to achieve through arbitrary detention is to silence dissenting voices. And it therefore cannot be ignored. Être élève à SciencesPo quand son pays est en guerre Interview with Lenka Králová for the International Trans Day of Visibility Feature: Menton Loves Lenka is a trans woman, an activist, a parent, a podcaster with two shows called V Tranzu and TLK–Talkshow with Lenka Králová, a person with an incredible sense of fashion, an artist, former IT developer and a new member of the Czech Pirate Party. The Invisible Wars: Yemen, Sudan, and the Selective Outrage of the World The Question of Palestine as a Feminist Issue Feature: Feminist Union War is war. No matter when it starts, where it is or who ends up carrying its weight. I’m usually the first to argue that suffering should never be compared, but in the cases of Sudan and Yemen, comparison becomes almost unavoidable. Not to decide who suffers more nor to rank tragedies, but to confront the world’s selective outrage and the chilling apathetic silence that allows some wars to disappear from collective memory. Palestine is often discussed as a geopolitical conflict. Yet it is fundamentally a feminist issue. Palestinian women face violence due to the genocide Israel is committing , seen through reproductive violence and healthcare deprivation. This leads Palestinian women to be disproportionately affected by different forms of violence fundamentally shaped by the occupation. The Celebration of Oppression To be Algerian-French means learning about your history through the voice of the colonizer. And it is more often than not immensely glorified. “When They Tell You to Sing, You Just Sing.”: The Khmer Rouge’s Musical Manipulation of Cambodian Society “If you want to eliminate values from past societies, you have to eliminate the artists.”, reflects Prince Norodom Sirivudh of Cambodia, in the 2014 documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”, recounting the systematic erasure of music from Cambodian society under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Points sur l’Actualité du Moyen-Orient « Le Moyen-Orient. Moyen par rapport à quoi ? Orient de quoi ? Le nom de la région est fondé sur une vision eurocentrée du monde, et cette région a été façonnée par un regard européen ». Tels sont les premiers mots figurant dans le manifeste de la géostratégie publié par Tim Marshall, spécialiste britannique des relations internationales. Prisonnier de la géographie, comme le suggère le titre de son œuvre, le Moyen-Orient l’est aussi de ses frontières tracées au gré des intérêts européens, qui l’ont enfermé dans une spirale de haines et de tensions sans fin. Les périls de la culture compétitive dans l’éducation Theres No Place Like Home I have always felt that way because “home”, to me, has always been a patchwork. There’s the place you were born, the one you grew up in, the countries tied to your heritage, and now a campus far away from everything you ever knew. Each one of them feels like “home,” but then again none of them quite do. They overlap and argue with each other—they coexist like siblings fighting over the bigger room. Vlogging Live From Kabul: The Insights and Absurdities of YouTube Conflict Tourism In the past few years, an increasing number of intrepid content creators are documenting their journeys to places of conflict. They acquire rare visas, hire local tour guides, and point iPhone cameras through the streets as they seek to capture the ‘real’ version of these countries—places whose very essence is often reduced to fearful headlines and apocalyptic imagery. This phenomenon, known as conflict tourism, ranges from visiting historically troubled areas to entering zones of active conflict, and has taken on an entirely new significance in the age of vlogging. Cocteau’s Azur: Exploring Queerness in Menton At first glance, Menton appears to be a quaint and peaceful town on the French Riviera—a place of leisure, history, and, of course, lemons. But is Menton truly as fruity as it seems? Singing through Grief – Collective Memory through Music Music has a strange sort of power; it can outlive the moments it was originally made for. You’ll Never Walk Alone has transcended Liverpool. Celtic fans sing it in Scotland, as well as Dortmund fans in Germany. It’s been sung in times of crisis—after terrorist attacks, during the pandemic and other acts of remembrance. But it will forever belong to Hillsborough first. It is sacred in the way a national anthem can become sacred, or a funeral hymn. You’ll Never Walk Alone began as a ballad of hope and then a cry for justice.

Situated in a quaint bay amongst sun-kissed houses, Sciences Po Menton is truly a peculiar place to spend two of the most impactful years of our lives. Many of us come here, leaving behind the safety of a familiar environment, to confront both the pleasure and pain of newfound liberty. < Back Reflections on Mentonese Life With Former Student, Professor Ismail Hamoumi By Emilia Kohlmeyer April 29, 2022 Another year at Sciences Po Menton is ending. 2As are passing onto their next journey and 1As are taking on the responsibility of preserving the Mentonese student culture. The legacy of Soundproof, the campus party house, is being transferred to a new enthusiastic quadruplet, and many events, such as the collective chant-writing session, represent a modicum of traditions which are transmitted over generations of Sciences Pistes. Reflecting upon the months since I moved to Menton, I grasped the profound impact our small French Riviera town had on me. I would have never pictured the extent to which this student community would be able to shape us when I first arrived. Situated in a quaint bay amongst sun-kissed houses, Sciences Po Menton is truly a peculiar place to spend two of the most impactful years of our lives. Many of us come here, leaving behind the safety of a familiar environment, to confront both the pleasure and pain of newfound liberty. I was fortunate enough to discuss this strange Mentonese journey into adulthood with one of our very own alumni. Former-student-turned-1A-sociology-professor, Ismail Hamoumi has completed the full circle of the Menton experience and was kind enough to sit down with me to offer his reflections on the student life of his day. The Menton experience could be described as both incredibly intense and influential — a microcosm of around 300 students from all over the world, sharing the same buildings, streets, and social spaces. This has an enormous impact on social relations. Privacy is much more limited, as perfectly exemplified by a 2A warning me not to gossip on Rue Longue in my first week here. Indeed, not much of anything remains private in Menton, as it is routine to run into a minimum of three other students each time you leave your home. Hamoumi emphasized the profound effect this leaves on our process of identity construction. Leaving home as inquisitive and malleable adolescents provides us with the liberty to experiment with new identities – ones that could potentially deviate from our familiar culture. Everything new we experience challenges our perception of self. This is compounded by our numerous daily social interactions with a highly international community. Students leave Menton with a more stable sense of self, remarked Hamoumi. Our identities are only reinforced by the diversity of people and thoughts that can be found on our Menton campus. But not everything has remained consistent. Menton has also witnessed some changes in the six years since Professor Hamoumi graduated. The student body has increased by a third. Many more associations now contribute to the blooming social scene and, to my suprise , even the vivacious nightlife, a pillar of the Menton culture, is a fairly new phenomenon previously limited to Le Retro. In Professor Hamoumi’s era, social life was mostly confined to the outdoors, a few larger apartments, or nights in Monaco on which a memorable part of the night invariably included 3 a.m. bus rides along serpentine roads, causing some alcohol and dizziness induced “incidents.” Conversely, many of the festivities of the last year took place in apartments. An iconic party spot in contemporary Menton is Soundproof — the student residence where wild nights sometimes start, but always end. Professor Hamoumi cited a similar apartment from his time in Menton. But it is yet to be confirmed whether it was in the same building as Soundproof, or if they were just on the same street. However, there remain a few notable constants besides the integral role of the ummah and a lingering separation between the English and French track. It seems that the Mercedes Benz of the owner of the New Asian Store is a product of the sponsorship of generations of Sciences Pistes’ late-night alcohol purchases. The culinary scene of Menton has also not been subject to much change, including the traditional takeout pizza from Volcano or dinners at Marrakech and Al Vecchio Forno. An honorable mention should also be awarded to our very own Michael Jackson, whose effervescent presence is an integral part of Mentonese life and spirit. It is clear that much in Menton seems to remain and accompany hundreds of Sciences Pistes well after their departure. As a rising 2A, it is clearer to me now how much responsibility weighs on us to preserve the community we have created and the traditions that mark our student life. Every generation of students has contributed a little piece of the ummah and once we leave a piece of our life will remain, kept alive by new eager students experiencing their own growth into adulthood and profoundly shaping their own identity.

With 2As increasingly melancholic about their imminent departures, a spirit of contemplation takes hold of the students of the Menton campus. < Back Klimt’s Death and Life: a Perspective on Beginnings and Endings By Lara Harmankaya April 30, 2024 Another academic year nears its end. The approach of the end is marked by the longer hours of daytime and the re-emergence of a softness in the air. With 2As increasingly melancholic about their imminent departures, a spirit of contemplation takes hold of the students of the Menton campus. The fleeting nature of our time here suddenly becomes conspicuous to us; we arrive, build friendships and connections, and leave after two very short years. We leave our mark but ultimately get swept up in the thousands of mosaics that mold the rich history of this institution. The eagerly-anticipated arrival of spring thus becomes a bittersweet reminder of the need to move on and undergo a process of detachment yet again. Quite literally, as this reveals to us, the trajectory of the students of Sciences Po follows a seasonal progression of time – each season symbolic of a beginning and a conclusion. In such a time of reflection, the pertinence of Gustav Klimt’s artwork and the unique outlook it has on ephemerality becomes evident yet again. In his 1911 oil on canvas painting, Death and Life , Klimt reminds us that life continues, even in the face of ‘death.’ In the Sciences Po context I described above, Death can be interpreted as endings in general. It expresses transience and the constraints imposed on us by the cruelty of time. Displayed in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, the almost six-foot-tall Death and Life is a melange of meaning, stages and colors. It appears fluid to the eye, quite like the transitional phases of life it represents through its curvaceous nude figures. The baby, the surrounding young and old women, and the pair of lovers beneath symbolize the many age groups of the human race and are all cocooned in a blanket composed of bright colors. Patchwork designs, floral patterns, circles and geometric shapes all blend together and create images that melt into one another. This contrasts vividly with the solitary, navy figure of Death. He is reminiscent of the night; his robe is embellished with bright crosses erected on a graveyard and star-like speckles of white that illuminate the cool darkness of what appears to allude to the night sky. On the other hand, the embracing figures he is eagerly observing discernibly illustrate the warmness of day, summer and spring. This is a painting with a title as uncomplicated and clear as its metaphors. Its sharp juxtapositions – between soft and hard, nature and abstraction, dark and light, and somber and vibrant – connote an idea that is easily understood by all those who have grasped the concept of mortality. However, looking at it yet again, it evokes an additional element internal to the human condition that no simple life-death distinction can convey with true accuracy. To understand this, we must dive deeper into the historical era in which it was produced. In the early 20th century, a growing fascination with the subconscious permeated the Viennese intellectual sphere following the rising popularity of Freud’s ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’ The figures, with the exception of one, all strikingly have their eyes closed. The way they clutch one another, therefore, evokes not only intimacy but also a dream-like state that denotes the subconscious. Against the backdrop of World War I and the increasingly prominent academic interest in looking inward, this painting can be analyzed as a reflection of a collective unconscious that wished to escape material reality. Moreover, it was also part and parcel of the broader Secession Movement in Vienna, which marked a radical shift in producing and appreciating art. With an uncertain sociopolitical environment and under the guiding creativity of Klimt, Austrian artists began challenging conventionally accepted approaches to art and incorporated more innovative techniques – among which, of course, were Klimt’s bold colors, sensual imagery and irregular mosaic designs. Observing this painting without understanding the context that spurred its genesis can thereby lead to losing out on the very nuance that makes it exceptional. As with all art, Death and Life was not brought into existence in a vacuum but was very much the product of an age of progress and rising modernity. Yet, the principal meaning of it is tied to the fact that life and death are continuous, cyclical and ceaseless. The painting itself is thus a juxtaposition, signifying the age-old intrinsic dilemma of human nature amidst a time of irrevocable change. Thus, it can be suggested that what Klimt may have desired with this painting was to denote the transcendence of the human experience. Even as many attempted to break with the conventions of the past, one thing remained eternal – the universality of beginnings and endings. Awarded the first prize in the 1911 International Art Exhibition in Rome, Death and Life is said to have been described by Klimt as his “most important figurative work.” Examining the significance of the skeleton personifying Death could help us see why. According to art historians, it is reminiscent of the motif of the ‘dance of death’ / ‘danse macabre,’ which first appeared in the Middle Ages. Serving as an emblem that death comes to all regardless of rank and social status, the historic relevance of the subtly smirking skeleton in the painting itself is a reminder of the sense of succession found in human nature and art history. Examining the history of Klimt’s artwork can also be insightful in discerning the figurative importance of his stylistic choices in this painting. Known for the abundant use of gold in many of his pieces, including in Judith and the Head of Holofernes , this painting – having encountered multiple amendments that removed its traces of gold – can be seen as the outcome of a more mature Klimt who died three years after its conclusion. In 1915, the background was painted over with hues of gray, green and blue, almost as if to mimic a sea of consciousness. This grants the painting a sentiment of reality; rather than washing out the amorphous blocks with gold and lavish, they are given center-stage. Life itself is not glitteringly golden but is grounded in the earth and ambiguous. The overall tone of the painting, despite being conscious of the inevitability of Death and conclusion, is not a grim one. It is hopeful – the entangled figures on the right are able to ignore the disturbing gaze of Death and continue their streaming slumber in peace. They are part of the larger cycle of life, and knowing that life will continue even after their time does not disturb their tranquility. Perhaps that should be the lesson to extract from this painting. There exists the looming threat of termination just a few steps away, but for the time being, we can enjoy the moments we have and keep holding onto each other. Image - Flickr, Frans Vandewalle, Creative Commons

The rise to popularity of media set outside of the US created a gap for new works which happened to be produced by British and Irish creators and their coming of age stories. While having real world implications such as a shift in university preferences, this also allowed for a generation to realize that the dream of an American teenagehood was as unrealistic as it was unattainable. In their transition to adulthood, many can now better appreciate the coming of age experiences their—or neighboring—countries have to offer, and learn about a larger scope of history and culture. < Back Is Coming of Age Based on Geography? Melissa Çevikel December 31, 2024 I recently realized, after reading Tennis Lessons by British author Susannah Dickey, that I was very familiar with a lifestyle in a distant geography which I have never experienced. The narrator waiting for GCSE scores, attending an all girls Catholic school and celebrating at a pub after a long day of classes seems so dear and attainable despite never being experienced by me or by anyone I know. But what has changed from when the ultimate dream of any non-American teenager was to attend an American small town high school, be asked out for prom and homecoming and drive at the age of 15? Recently, media centering the “British Coming of Age” has become increasingly popular, with shows such as Skins resurfacing during early 2020s. The Irish coming of age has been dominating the media. Writers such as Sally Rooney and shows like Derry Girls gaining popularity have not only made the experience of being a teenager in Ireland more glamorized, but have also shone light on the Troubles, helping them become better understood and portrayed. What pieces of media have contributed to this shift in popularity, and what has helped them become the new young adult dream? I have a theory that the cycle of awe and amazement towards teenage experiences in different countries—for those living outside of the US, UK and Central European countries—happens in three stages, targeting specific age groups. This theory in no way applies to the current generations of pre-teens since televised media targeting this audience is no longer consumed as much as it was during the early 2010s. I would argue that this fascination first begins in one's pre-teen years, where the child is exposed to TV shows and movies mostly broadcasted on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, featuring vibrant high school lives and diverse friend groups. Shows and movies such as High School Musical , Victorious and I-carly offered a slightly off-feeling transition to adolescence from childhood but also painted an image of a desirable and exciting high school experience which could only be achieved in the US. Decorated lockers, gym classes where everyone wore headbands and seemingly unhygienic and inconvenient lunch trays were not only high school experiences that foreign middle schoolers yearned to experience, but also glimpses of a foreign American life. During the adolescence of those born in early to mid 2000s , while Netflix was gaining popularity, TV shows such as Riverdale , 13 Reasons Why and the Vampire Diaries started to become household favorites. These series portrayed a side of the American high school experience that the aforementioned pieces of media did not, adding an element of mysticism and darkness to the small town American life. While more often than not having supernatural elements, they also spread a more realistic idea beyond the mysticism—that high school life was full of skipping classes, messy school fights and making out with insanely attractive people at house parties with red cups. Author John Green’s books were arguably the segway into this era even before they got turned into movies. The Fault in our Stars , Paper Towns , Looking for Alaska and Turtles All the Way Down were on almost every pre-teen girl's bookshelf and, for most, was the first introduction to mental illnesses and individuality complexes. Finally, in their later teen years, the same teenagers were exposed to American media such as Ladybird , Perks of Being a Wallflower and Edge of Seventeen . These were much less comedic compared to previous works targeting the audience and had much heavier philosophical and psychological undertones. These were not unexpected, since great literary American coming of age works such as The Catcher and the Rye and the Dead Poets Society had similar elements and predated them. They similarly tackled issues of coming of age but in an almost completely different world. I would argue that the release of Euphoria was what changed the narrative for American coming of age media, and the reason for that was how European and British-inspired the show was. Skins , the 2007 British TV show about Sixth Form students in Bristol was the pioneer for seemingly messy, disturbing and gory teenage media. Skins explored themes of drug abuse, sexual assault, teen pregnancy, homophobia and mental illness much more realistically and seriously than any U.S TV show with the same audience ever had. This was all done in a witty and psychedelic manner, without romanticizing the experience and rather showing the disgusting sides of all that was happening. None of the characters were particularly likable, but that didn’t stop many teenagers from glamorizing mentally ill and problematic characters such as Effy Stonem and Cassie, both of whom suffered from mental illnesses. Though presenting such characters to an impressionable audience was not the most pedagogical move, it was undeniably a much more realistic representation of the people one would meet during their high school years in a small town. Though Skins predated almost all of its American rivals, it was not until early 2020s that it started gaining popularity globally. This completely contrasted with the picture American TV shows had painted of the careless high school years with no consequences; it pushed producers to search for messier plot-lines which similarly handled heavy topics. Euphoria , motivated as such, tried to become the American Skins , with a larger emphasis on drug abuse. It was able to encapsulate a more realistic view of American life, similar to On My Block and Moonlight , but also missed the element of realism while portraying a high school experience completely. It was more successful than Skins in creating characters to whom one could relate but was unable to place them into the context of high school life. Before Skins , there was a strong stereotype of elite and poshness surrounding the coming of age experience in Britain held up by American movies like Wild Child , which presented private boarding schools with luxury uniforms and mandatory cricket lessons. On the other hand, Skins was the most extreme of the shows that were portraying the coming of age experience in Britain. It was nothing like what had been shown by the American media to be the said experience, and instead it offered the raw and angst lives of everyday teens. In the late 2010s, the media surrounding Ireland was much more popular than those surrounding Britain. Derry Girls for instance, was a 2018 sitcom that explored the lives of teenagers living in London-Derry, a city in Northern Ireland, during the 1990s amid the Troubles. The show was much less “messy” and did not hold the same emotional weight that Skins had, but nonetheless had a huge political element to it, which was what gave the show its depth. In addition, late 2010s were a time for 80s and 90s nostalgia in the media, with many American shows and movies such as Lady Bird , Call me by Your Name , Pen15 and I am Not Okay With This being set in that era. This nostalgia went beyond the US, and allowed for the creation of revolutionary shows for their respective countries such as Love101 in Turkey and Slova Patsana in Russia, which I could not avoid mentioning while on the topic of coming of age media. They changed the narrative of what TV shows could and could not discuss and explored the countries’ mostly untold pasts. Sally Rooney was a very influential author when it came to supporting the shift of popularity towards the British and Irish coming of age. With all her books set in Ireland, Sally Rooney almost created a new genre of novels—the scenery of which has now become all too familiar to her readers, such as Temple Bar and Trinity College. Her books dive deep into the lives of Irish young adults while discovering themes already conquered by authors such as John Green from a completely different and more mature perspective. This seemingly new genre filled the gap that arose during the transition from young adult books of authors such as John Green and general Wattpad novels, to “mature” literature which I cannot exactly put a finger on. Rooney offers a relatively light-hearted look on love lives and daily struggles of university students in their 20s, without lacking depth. It just so happened that these books were set in Ireland and not the U.S, which strengthened the romanticization of Ireland and Britain as a coming-of-age capital. Interestingly, Trinity College Dublin saw a 10% increase in their applications following the release of Normal People, further demonstrating how powerful this newly discovered coming of age media. Though not much of European media has had a global impact as influential as Skins or Normal People , the Norwegian show Skam had a popularity reign worth mentioning. Despite there being seven remakes , the original Skam was set in Norway and followed the lives of a high school friend group and dealt with themes such as teen pregnancy, drug abuse and Islamophobia. It had fights, club scenes and breakdowns, all of which largely resembled Skins . It had unique elements that Skins had missed to incorporate, such as sensitivity towards the themes that had been discussed and the deterrence of them. In my opinion, there are three stages of televised media consumption in adolescence, and those set in Britain and Ireland can be categorized under the fourth stage. While media produced for pre-teen and early teen years is largely based on the glamorization of the American high school experience, the third stage shifts the tides. This stage is the stage with the largest variety of media consumption options, being the stage of transition from teenage years to adulthood. While there are certain pieces still set in the US, it is much more global. As mentioned earlier, the rise to popularity of media set outside of the US created a gap for new works which happened to be produced by British and Irish creators and their coming of age stories. While having real world implications such as a shift in university preferences, this also allowed for a generation to realize that the dream of an American teenage-hood was as unrealistic as it was unattainable. In their transition to adulthood, many can now better appreciate the coming of age experiences their—or neighboring—countries have to offer, and learn about a larger scope of history and culture.

La construction du "peuple" à travers le spectre d'un ennemi anachronique, en s'appuyant sur la menace de la dictature pour instiller la peur, a démontré son efficacité. < Back Argentina 1985 By Amalia Heide January 31, 2024 Le film Argentina 1985 apparaît comme le dernier ajout à une vaste série cinématographique abordant le thème complexe de la dictature civico-militaire en Argentine de 1976 à 1983. La réception massive de ces films par le public et l'absence de critiques révisionnistes entourant ces productions laissent présager un consensus général concernant les violations des droits humains par les militaires pendant cette sombre période de l'histoire argentine. Cependant, ce consensus social apparent n'est pas nécessairement synonyme d'absence de conflit concernant la mémoire de la dernière dictature argentine. En effet, il existe une reconnaissance largement partagée des disparitions et des tortures envers d’activistes de gauche effectuée par les militaires argentins, leur rôle dans l'enlèvement de bébés issus de familles de gauche et confiés à des familles soutenant les actions militaires, ainsi qu'une reconnaissance collective de l'impératif de localiser et de rétablir l'identité véritable de ces bébés (comme le font l'organisation des Madres y Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo ). Cependant, cette acceptation des faits n'implique pas un consensus sur leurs interprétations. Une tension sous-jacente entre des interprétations historiques peut être instrumentalisée, voire exacerbée, par les politiciens. C'est cette instrumentalisation que nous cherchons à analyser. Nous adopterons une structure chronologique et thématique. Pour ce numéro, nous examinerons comment le régime kirchnériste (2003-2015 / 2019-2023) a marqué un tournant dans l'instrumentalisation de la mémoire de la dictature. Dans le prochain numéro, nous examinerons comment le parti politique de centre-droit "Juntos por el cambio" (au pouvoir entre 2015 et 2019) et à présent Javier Milei l’ont instrumentalisé à leur tour de manière assez originale. Après la crise économique significative en Argentine en 2001, la société civile a complètement perdu confiance en la politique et les politiciens du pays. Cependant, le candidat présidentiel Nestor Kirchner a compris que pour regagner légitimité et confiance, il pouvait aspirer à jouer le rôle d'avocat pour la reconnaissance des victimes de la dernière dictature. Cela impliquait de répondre à des demandes de longue date que les gouvernements précédents avaient échoué à satisfaire. En assumant ce rôle, le mouvement politique kirchnériste en Argentine a utilisé stratégiquement la mémoire de la dictature pour construire son identité politique unique. Alors que l'activisme en faveur des droits humains contre la dictature avait des racines depuis le début de la démocratie en 1983, le discours kirchnériste a embrassé, coopté et monopolisé ce récit au sein de son militantisme. Néstor Kirchner, à son arrivée à la présidence en 2003, s'est identifié comme faisant partie d'une "génération diezmada (génération décimée) punie par des absences douloureuses" . Il a déclaré : "J'ai rejoint les luttes politiques en croyant à des valeurs et à des convictions que je n'ai pas l'intention de laisser à la porte de la Casa Rosada (siège du gouvernement)". Néstor Kirchner a renforcé cette approche sur la scène internationale en se présentant comme le "fils des mères et des grands-mères de la Plaza de Mayo" dans un discours prononcé la même année devant l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies. Ce discours politique a été suivi par des actes symboliques officiels de reconnaissance et de commémoration des victimes du terrorisme d'État. Le 24 mars 2004, à l'occasion du 28e anniversaire du coup d'État militaire, la présidente Kirchner a demandé au chef de l'armée du collège militaire de la nation d'enlever les portraits des anciens dictateurs Jorge Rafael Videla et Reynaldo Bignone, qui étaient toujours accrochés dans l'établissement. Plus tard dans la journée, Mme Kirchner a présidé une cérémonie publique annonçant la transformation de l'École de mécanique navale (ESMA), le plus grand centre de détention clandestin du pays, en "site de la mémoire et des droits humains" . Aujourd'hui, ce site est devenu un site du patrimoine de l'UNESCO. Ces mesures officielles marquent un tournant dans les relations entre l'État et une partie importante du mouvement des droits humains. Cette dernière a rejoint les rangs du kirchnerisme, reconnaissant Néstor et Cristina Kirchner comme les principaux porteurs politiques légitimes de la mémoire de la dictature. Ainsi, Hebe de Bonafini, cofondatrice et principale dirigeante des Mères de la Place de Mai, a intégré l'appareil du parti kirchneriste dans les années 2000 et l'a revendiqué à de multiples reprises : "Notre ennemi n'est plus à la Casa Rosada" . En conséquence, la relation entre le mouvement des droits humains et l'État est passée de la confrontation à l'intégration, différents segments de ces secteurs devenant partie intégrante de l'appareil d'État. Le cas d'Horacio César Pietragalla Corti illustre ce processus d'intégration. Enlevé à sa mère dans un centre de détention pendant la dictature, il a été réuni avec sa famille biologique en 2003 par les Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Embrassant le kirchnerisme, il a ensuite été président des archives de la mémoire nationale, puis député, et occupe actuellement le poste de secrétaire aux droits humains de la nation argentine. Ainsi, une fusion entre les sphères politique, publique et militante s'est progressivement opérée. En mars 2018, dans une interview au journal La Nación, Estela de Carlotto, une autre dirigeante historique des Grands-mères de la Place de Mai, résume ce processus politique. Le journaliste lui a demandé si les gouvernements kirchneristes s'étaient "approprié la cause des droits humains" . Elle a répondu : "Non, nous nous sommes approprié des Kirchner" . De ce fait, comme nous le constatons, ces organisations et défenseurs individuels de la reconnaissance des victimes du terrorisme d'État n'ont pas été de simples récepteurs passifs de l'identité kirchneriste, mais ont contribué à la construction et à la consolidation d'une mémoire officielle par le biais de l'appareil du parti et de l'État de la mémoire de la dictature. Ce récit officiel kirchneriste a non seulement incorporé la mémoire de la répression politique sous la dernière dictature, mais l'a également remodelée dans le contexte politique contemporain. En créant un sentiment de continuité entre les luttes passées et présentes, ce récit a encouragé la dichotomie entre "nous" et "eux" pour gagner des partisans à leur cause politique. L'exposition "Le néolibéralisme, plus jamais ça" , présentée en avril 2022 par le déjà mentionné Horacio César Pietragalla Corti , illustre l'instrumentalisation de la mémoire de la dernière dictature militaire (1978-1983). Elle est utilisée pour définir "l'autre", en associant tous les opposants politiques à "l'ennemi" de cette période sombre de l'histoire argentine. L'exposition a été installée dans l'ex-ESMA, le centre commémoratif en souvenir des victimes du terrorisme d'État pendant la dictature. Ce lieu n'est pas une simple coïncidence. Elle démontre une tentative explicite de lier les politiques de la dictature à celles des gouvernements ultérieurs, notamment en critiquant les mesures de libéralisation économique mises en œuvre sous la présidence de Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). Cette exposition présente le "néolibéralisme" comme une continuation du modèle économique de la dictature, créant une antithèse entre cette idéologie économique et la démocratie. Pour rendre cette allusion très claire, le titre de l'exposition emprunte le slogan "Nunca más" (plus jamais ça), une expression très connue en Argentine. Elle a d'abord été employée par les mères et les grands-mères des membres disparus de leur famille sous la dernière dictature et s'est profondément ancrée dans la conscience collective. L'utilisation de cette expression vise à délégitimer le principal adversaire politique de Kirchner à l'époque, qualifié d' "antidémocratique" . L'exposition publique a intégré des discours politiques, comme celui prononcé par Cristina Fernández de Kirchner le 17 octobre 2019, dix jours avant les élections présidentielles qui allaient la couronner vice-présidente du pays jusqu'en 2023 : "Le néolibéralisme plus jamais dans notre pays. C'est la troisième expérience néolibérale subie par le peuple argentin. La première, lointaine, avec le coup d'État du 24 mars 1976, où un projet néolibéral a été installé dans le pays pour la première fois (...) Puis est venue la deuxième expérience, celle des années 1990 (...) Et maintenant cette dernière et troisième expérience néolibérale, nous devons le dire, et je pense que tous les Argentins doivent repenser et se demander pourquoi ces choses nous arrivent (...)". Ce discours adopte une approche clairement populiste. Cristina simplifie un passé traumatisant pour la population argentine, en le formulant en termes économiques, et se positionne comme la défenseuse du "peuple" contre les élites capitalistes et antidémocratiques. La construction du "peuple" à travers le spectre d'un ennemi anachronique, en s'appuyant sur la menace de la dictature pour instiller la peur, a démontré son efficacité.

For Iran it was an illegal assassination of a national hero; For the United States a justified pre-emptive attack on a terrorist. For the millions of civilians who reside within the Gulf region, it meant fear of what could be a death sentence by two powerful states in their unending quest for hegemony. < Back Iran and the United States: Fighting for Hegemony at the Cost of Civilian Lives By Emilia Kohlmeyer January 30, 2022 For Iran it was an illegal assassination of a national hero; For the United States a justified pre-emptive attack on a terrorist. For the millions of civilians who reside within the Gulf region, it meant fear of what could be a death sentence by two powerful states in their unending quest for hegemony. For the international community, it is a painful reminder of its continuous failure to uphold international law. January 3 marked the two-year anniversary of the US-led assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and on a diplomatic mission in Baghdad when he was killed by a US drone strike on the 3rd January 2020. This triggered counter strikes by Iranian forces on US bases in Iraq, injuring thousands of military staff. In Iran, thousands of mourners have marched in protest to what their government deems as “military adventurism”or reckless military strategies by the United States within the region. This is accompanied by Iraqi demands for the final withdrawal of US forces from their territory. The States legally justified the strike as anticipatory self-defense, however it was immediately disputed that the danger Soleimani represented was “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.” They failed to provide concrete evidence of an imminent threat, in effect failing to justify the principle of self-defense. The United Nations special rapporteur for investigating extrajudicial and summary executions, Agnes Callamard, concluded, “Even at the most basic level, the U.S. did not demonstrate that striking Suleimani was ‘necessary.’” Furthermore, Iraq did not consent to the strike; therefore it concretely violated its sovereignty. Two years later, Iran’s continuous calls for action to the United Nations and Interpol sanctions on those responsible remain unanswered. International law should exist to provide a set of rules by which everyone is required to abide, despite one’s power or influence. It sets the basis for equality amongst states and their people, which is the foundation of conflict-resolution between multiple parties. When there is no consequence to the violation of said law for states which are considerably more powerful, international law fails to address its entire purpose:equal accountability. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani therefore set a dangerous precedent, highlighting that if powerful states such as the U.S. desire to bend the law according to their interests, they face no consequences. Why should other states therefore abide by the law at all? It could neither be considered fair nor necessary. This neglect of an accepted set of rules can endanger millions of civilian lives. In this particular instance, with the increasingly downright insulting rhetoric of both Iran and the States towards each other, armed conflict did not seem unlikely. Maybe Iraq would once again become the playground of the powerful – after all, strikes from both sides took place there. The ones who bear the burden of transgression from either side are innocent civilians, who are not even citizens of the perpetrating countries. They would share the same fate as Syrians, whose home is subject to a pissing contest between powerful states. The dangerous consequences of this fight for regional hegemony indicate that the current global mechanisms which are in place to protect civilians have failed to fulfill their duty. The pick-and-choose of which nation receives sanctions for its actions continues to allow a disproportionate exercise of power — often by countries that do not even lay within the region they seek to control. The guise of spreading human rights and global peace by such states can no longer serve as justification for foreign intervention. The international community cannot continue to accept it as such. Therefore, it is of increasing importance to hold officials of our own countries — and the organizations in which they participate – accountable. For too long this region has been a playground for the powerful at the expense of innocent lives. Two years have passed, and I am back in Qatar sitting in conversation with friends who have seen their homes fall victim to this power play. With the turbulence of COVID-19, many people abroad have forgotten how January 2020 felt. But we still live between 11,000 U.S. troops on the Al-Udeid base mere kilometers from our homes and our neighbor Iran, separated by a flight less than an hour. We joke about the time there was almost a war, but entrenched in our subconscious is the knowledge that any diplomatic misstep can claim our next home.