Yuri Gagarin (1934 – 1968), the first person to travel into outer orbital space, has been immortalised in the form of Cosmonaut’s Day. April 12 is celebrated in Russia, and some post-Soviet states, as a national holiday. Commemorating the 1961 flight by then-27 year old Gagarin into space aboard the Vostok 1, the United Nations declared April 12 to be the International Day of Human Spaceflight in 2011.

The Vostok’s triumphant spaceflight, and Gagarin personally, were hailed around the world. Gagarin’s visit to Manchester, England in 1961, is still remembered today. He toured Egypt in 1962, and met with then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6 capsule, became the first woman to fly into outer space.

Gagarin tragically died in 1968, in an air accident. While on a training flight with another cosmonaut, a Sukhoi fighter jet flew perilously close to Gagarin’s MiG, pushing the MiG into a ferocious tailspin. Gagarin’s plane crashed.

His status as a hero, rather than diminish, only increased. The black-and-white pictures of Gagarin, his constant smile whether mixing with crowds or standing atop the podium with Soviet presidium leaders, are forever etched in my memory.

Gagarin, and Soviet cosmonauts generally, represented what ordinary working class people could accomplish. Courage, intelligence, integrity, dedication to the homeland – these qualities were those to be emulated by succeeding generations.

Growing up in a socialist household, Gagarin became a hero of mine. However, I was in a tiny minority in that respect, growing up in Sydney.

Manliness

The 1980s were the days of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood – role models of hyper-masculine types. Barely articulate, speaking with their fists (and their guns), Schwarzenegger and Rambo were the heroes for a generation of boys. Relying on violence to solve problems, they epitomised the fixation with masculinity that saturates Hollywood American culture.

Following on from the stoic, quiet types of Gary Cooper, John Wayne and cowboy types, to be a manly hero was to remain reserved, yet express yourself through violence. It was no coincidence that these Hollywood heroes were closely associated with the American military – Rambo being a prime example. Finding supreme self-expression through gunfights and warfare was the ultimate purpose of masculine identity.

Not for us was reading, mathematics, dreaming of spaceflight, history, and music. We were not going to become longhaired, wimpy hippies who cry and talk about their feelings. Real men protect hearth and home, support the military, and leave all that gooey-softie emotional stuff for sissies.

Today we can witness the hypermasculine MAGA cult, deifying its leader portrayed as a modern-day Rambo, in swollen memes. If anything, Trump behaves like a spoilt brat, maturing into the malignant narcissist that he is today.

It can be difficult to step outside of the culture in which you are raised, to examine it objectively. We all know that culture, like gravity is there. It exerts an influence on every aspect of our social interactions. Coming up with alternative masculine heroes requires we extricate ourselves from the Americanised, hyper-individualistic, consumerist culture in which we find ourselves.

Mentioning the name of Yuri Gagarin usually elicited blank stares, followed by questions along the lines of ‘who?’, and ‘what’s so special about him?’ It is sad to see that Gagarin has become a marginalised figure in contemporary Anglophone societies. This is part of a wider trend – ignoring the sacrifices of the Soviet people for the betterment of humanity.

The Cold War was primarily about politics and economics, but the cultural sphere was undoubtedly an arena of competing ideas.

Earlier this year, January in fact, was the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Leningrad. Make no mistake; the genocidal intent of the Nazi forces was made clear from the start. Leningrad and its inhabitants were to be exterminated, its cultural achievements destroyed, and the remnants cast into slavery.

The superhuman collective sacrifices of the city’s inhabitants – who survived famine, disease, and aerial terror bombings – were historic in their impact. Inflicting a heavy defeat on the Nazi invaders, the siege marked the end of the previously invincible German army.

This particular anniversary was completely ignored in the West. Leningrad was the city that stubbornly fought to live.

The malignant fame of the Kardashians

It is fair to say that the Kardashians are the main way most Anglo background people have become familiar with Armenians. So-called ‘reality tv’, a cultural form pioneered by the Kardashian family, has promoted obsessive celebrity culture around the world. A societal poison, celebrity culture into devotees of individualistic consumerism. The cult of the entrepreneur has blinded us to collective achievements.

Toxic idol worship is scooping up ever-greater portions of our waking lives. We are ignored the issues that matter. What is wrong with enjoying the Kardashians? Is not celebrity culture just a bit of harmless fun?

Celebrity culture is selling us a fantasy – the celebrities are spokespersons for corporations. Whether they are engaged in business themselves, or a paid promoter, they are constructing a synthetic friendship with consumers to make us open our wallets. Once our wallets are empty, celebrity culture stops caring about mental health.

In Taguspark, Portugal, among all the urban artworks and statues spread throughout the location, there stands a monument to Yuri Gagarin and Vostok. His accomplishments will be remembered throughout the ages.

The reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize has taken a battering over years. Awarded to undeserving recipients, the nobility and dignity of the award has been debased. Giving a peace prize to politicians responsible for implementing wars overseas makes a mockery of the Nobel awards and international law.

Former US President Barack Obama, when given the prize in 2009, basically admitted he had not actually done anything to deserve it. The Nobel has been awarded to American war criminals, such as Henry Kissinger and Teddy Roosevelt, both responsible for the deaths of millions of non-Americans due to their reckless foreign policies.

The winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize is not an individual, but an organisation. A grassroots organisation in Japan, Nihon Hidankyo is a collective of atomic bombing survivors. The full name of the group is the Japan Confederation of A- and H- Bomb Sufferers Organisation. A long name, perhaps, but one which encapsulates the purpose of the group.

The Nobel committee cited the organisation’s tireless efforts to secure a world free of nuclear weapons. Founded in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo has promoted a message of peace, highlighting the destructive ferocity of nuclear weapons, and the ongoing health and safety impacts of atomic fallout. The group is made up of hibakusha – atomic bombing survivors. The US authorities opposed the formation of Nihon Hidankyo.

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Nobel committee, stated that the hibakushi experiences help future generations understand the enormity of nuclear bombings, and recommit all of us to the cause of a non-nuclear world.

We would do well, and learn from the example of the atomic bombing survivors, to carry forward the lessons they teach us. One of the issues with which we should be concerned is the proliferation of nuclear weapons since the end of World War 2. While we are all aware of the destructive arsenal of nuclear weapons possessed by the US, Russia, and other economic powers, Australia has played a crucial role in the rise of a third nuclear power after 1945 – Britain.

Montebello Islands

In 1952, only a few years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima And Nagasaki, British authorities detonated their first atomic explosion on the Montebello Islands, 130 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. Codenamed Operation Hurricane, Britain became the world’s third nuclear power. A number of British scientists had worked on the now-famous Manhattan project during the war, and the English government had established its own nuclear programme, codenamed Tube Alloys.

The end of the war saw the closure of the Manhattan Project, and London was exploring ways to establish itself as a major nuclear power. The 1952 tests were just the beginning of a long running range of atomic testing carried out by Britain on Australian soil.

In 1956, the year that Nihon Hidankyo was founded in Japan, Britain carried out a series of secret nuclear tests on the Montebello Islands, cementing its place in the nuclear club of nations. Unbeknown to the Australian public, but with the permission of the Australian authorities, the nuclear tests at Montebello were vastly more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Initially estimated to be 50 kilotons in power, the Montebello bombings were actually 98 kilotons, six times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The fallout from these explosions spread for hundreds of kilometres. Residents in coastal WA towns reported hearing and feeling the blasts, followed by the now-familiar image of the mushroom cloud.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued several reports into the levels of radioactivity in the islands and surrounding areas. However, beyond that, successive Australian governments, beginning with Menzies, have drawn a veil of secrecy over these tests for the last 70 years.

While Australian authorities engage in the delusional fantasy that AUKUS nuclear submarines will bring security, and Australian Trumpist imitator Peter Dutton peddles reheated lukewarm illusions in nuclear power, the danger of proliferation is ignored.

The secret that everyone knows

I cannot straightforwardly state that Israel is a nuclear power. US and Israeli officials drop hints that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, but quickly follow up with strenuous denials. The last fifty years, at least, have witnessed Israel building up its (alleged) nuclear technology. Not only the US, but France has assisted the Israeli authorities in constructing (allegedly) nuclear weapons for the Zionist state.

While no-one wants to categorically state whether Israel possesses nuclear weapons, Israeli government ministers have done an admirable job of incriminating themselves. In the early days of Israel’s assault on Gaza, at least one government minister openly suggested using a nuclear bomb on the Palestinians. It would be foolish in the extreme to suggest using a powerful weapon not in your arsenal.

Soon after the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, David Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders took a strong interest in developing military technology. Chaim Weizmann, himself a scientist, developed those branches of science which would feed directly into military interests. Both politicians laid the scientific foundations for what would become Israel’s defence industry, including the Negev Nuclear Research Centre.

Since the 1950s, French technicians have assisted Israel in acquiring nuclear (and conventional) military technology. The two colonial states have a mutually beneficial arrangement; both are hostile to the emergence of Arab nationalism – France in its former colony of Algeria, and Zionism opposes Palestinian and wider Arab nationalist states.

The lessons of Nihon Hidankyo prompt all of us to take a stand for denuclearisation. A revived peace movement, highlighting the links between nuclear weapons, aggressive military rearmament and an economy geared towards wealth aggrandisement, is more urgent than ever.

Let’s not forget that the US military is a bigger polluter than many nations combined.

Robert Koehler, writing in Common Dreams, states that victims who have transformed their suffering into agency can guide us on the path to peace. We can stop the advocates of global militarism from being the arbiters of our future.

There are articles which, upon publication, elicit the response “finally, someone said it.’ The reader is happy to find their innermost thoughts reflected on the printed page – well, the webpage in our times – by another person. This is the reaction I had when reading John Wight’s excellent essay regarding the meaning of October 7 (2023). It was not Israel’s 9/11, it was a prison breakout, a Palestinian Tet Offensive.

Let’s clarify a number of points first. The history of the Israel-Palestine conflict existed for decades prior to October 7. The Palestinians have been fighting the occupation of their nation at least since the 1930s, even during the period of British Mandatory Palestine.

Please, stop comparing October 7 to the Holocaust. The latter was an industrialised, systematic programme of racial extermination implemented by an economically powerful nation against an ethnic minority. October 7 was analogous to a slave uprising, a modern-day Nat Turner rebellion (August 1831). When the slaves rise up and escape from their conditions of degradation, the slave owners respond with terrifying and disproportionate violence against their subjects.

In fact, the actions of Hamas on October 7 can be compared with the resistance of the Polish Jewish partisans who fought to breakout of the German-blockaded Warsaw Ghetto. The Gaza Strip, since 2006-07, increasingly resembles an open-air prison, with access to food, water, medicine and electricity strictly controlled by the Israeli authorities. It is not just me stating that Gaza’s Palestinians are blockaded, it is also an observation made by the Norwegian Refugee Council; the latter can hardly be accused of being ‘shills for Hamas.’

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Israeli government’s version of what happened on October 7 is highly questionable, to say the least. No, Hamas militants did not decapitate babies, as the media supporters of Zionism initially broadcast. No, Hamas fighters did not embark on a sadistic orgy of mass rapes – a slanderously false claim wilfully repeated without corroboration by the US, Britain and Israel’s European friends.

Please stop alleging that Hamas, and by extension the Arab states, represent the new Nazis, frothing at the mouth with vicious antisemitic hatred. A longstanding and deliberate misrepresentation promoted by Zionism and its corporate partisans is the fiction that the collective Arabs are driven by an irrational hatred of Jewish people, and intend to expel Jews into the sea. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Palestinians, and the largely Lebanese militant organisation Hezbollah, have made it abundantly clear that their fight is against colonialism and racism – they have no quarrel with the Jewish faith. The late Hassan Nasrallah, longtime leader of Hezbollah, fought against Israeli colonial predations in Lebanon. The latter nation has been the victim of Israeli military violence throughout the turbulent twentieth century.

It is interesting to note, in relation to Lebanon, that Israel’s expansionist designs on that country involved exploiting the sectarian tensions built into the Lebanese political system. Similarly to the French colonial power before them, the Zionist state deliberately favoured the Maronite Christian minority, using them as a cudgel against the Arab nationalist-minded Shia and Sunni Muslim communities.

Zionism did nothing to rescue European Jews from the Holocaust

The statement above may initially seem incongruous; surely the Zionist state of Israel was founded by politicians absolutely dedicated to the fight against antisemitism? Surely, Zionism provides a refuge for Jews from the ravages of an antisemitic world? Upon closer examination of relevant history, we discover that Zionism and antisemitism are in symbiosis – they feed off and reinforce each other. In fact, Zionist leaders in Germany, during the 1930s, signed a financial arrangement with the Nazi government.

The Haavara (transfer) agreement, signed in 1933, allowed German Jews to transfer a portion of their assets to Mandatory Palestine, and agreed to buy German products. This measure undermined the anti-Nazi economic boycott of German goods being promoted by antiracist Jewish groups around the world.

David Ben Gurion rationalised this financial instrument, stating that while European Jews suffered discrimination and eventual killing in their home nations, this transfer was helping to build an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine.

Not only did Nazi leaders endorse this arrangement, they spoke glowingly about the underlying philosophy of Zionism. Heinrich Class, president of the antisemitic Pan German League and ardent Nazi, wrote that while he staunchly opposed world Jewry, he acknowledged that among the Jews, it is the Zionists that have a racial-nationalist conception, regarding Jews as a biological race incapable of assimilation into non-Jewish nations.

To be sure, the Haavara agreement was controversial, and attacked by various Zionist politicians. However, this transfer agreement to Palestine was amply supported by Adolf Eichmann, Nazi leader and a principal architect of the Holocaust. Traveling to Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s, he spoke approvingly of Zionism, and respected the settler colonies springing up in that part of the world.

Scientist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, speaking in 1937 of the growing Zionist settlements in Palestine, suggested that only the best of Jewish youth should be allowed to settle there. He opined that Tel Aviv should not become another low-rent ghetto, a clone of impoverished Eastern European shtetl.

Reflecting a eugenicist approach, he revealed Zionism to be an ideological affiliate with Nazism, motivated by a desire to construct an ethno-nationalist state based on the European-inspired concept of racial purity. It is no secret that far right antisemitic politicians and parties in Europe look to Israel as a template of an ethno-nationalist state they are trying to build in their own countries.

As Israel’s barbaric assault on Gaza and Lebanon continues, destroying medical and educational infrastructure, its actions rise to the level of genocidal. That makes a mockery of Zionism’s claim to act in defence of the victims of the Holocaust. Primo Levi (1919 – 1987), Italian Jewish chemist and concentration camp survivor, warned against the weaponisation of the Holocaust by the Israeli authorities. The uplifting story about surviving the Holocaust and finding safe haven in Israel sounds all well and good, but that narrative excludes any mention of the ongoing war on the Palestinians.

The view that the creation of Israel is a kind of moral compensation for the Holocaust makes us feel good inside, but it is patently false. This view undermines our ability to speak out against the injustices inflicted on the Palestinians.

The Society for Creative Anachronisms is a university student organisation dedicated to recreating and experiencing medieval life, sword fights and all. Well, let’s be more accurate in our explanation. Yes, it is a serious multinational living history organisation. Their mission involves reliving medieval European history in all its complexity. The SCA engages in equestrian, archery competitions, fencing, recreating medieval arts. The student wing was a different story.

As a student organisation at the University of Sydney back in the late 1980s, the SCA branch recreated those parts of medieval European history as deemed important by them – hence the dressing up as knights and having sword fights.

This lighthearted excursion into campus life is intended to illustrate a serious point. Can universities continue without face-to-face lectures? Australian universities are heading in that direction. Geoff Davies, scientist and writer, reports that the upcoming renovated and enlarged Adelaide University will stop face-to-face lectures from 2026.

That university, made from an amalgamation of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, will only be the first in an expanding effort to cease direct student attendance on campuses, and move everything online.

Binoy Kampmark, writing in his article “The Campus Life Killers: Ending Face-to-Face Lectures”, explains that the goal of university management is the Adelaide Attainment Model. This involves not only ending lectures on campus, but also cutting courses, especially in the humanities. University life, such as it is, will be reduced to a simple financial transaction.

In defence of campus life

A portfolio of experiences is accumulated through campus life. Meeting friends, making new ones, navigating the social complexities of romantic life, socialising beyond one’s own narrow circle, interacting with students from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds – you cannot put a monetary value on these experiences.

Zoom meetings (or Microsoft Teams, if you prefer) are all well and good. They are no substitute for face-to-face learning. You have questions to ask the lecturer or tutor. You interact with other students and relate shared experiences. The acquisition of knowledge is never an isolated, anti-social experience. Yes, we all know the stereotype of the lone genius, the new Einstein labouring away in solitude, and coming up with a new theory.

Before we use the ‘but Einstein was a lone genius’ located outside the university, first, go through the education system and acquire the necessary social skills for learning in a collective environment. Only then can we understand why Einstein became Einstein – and even then, the much-reviled scientific establishment worked to confirm Einstein’s theories. The allegedly sclerotic, bureaucratic university system tested and verified Einstein’s ideas.

Verification by universities is not achieved by positioning yourself as the new Einstein or Galileo. Be a lone genius if you want to, but do not allow the myth of the lone genius to distort the history of scientific discoveries.

Digital provision of education

Artificial intelligence produces artificial cleverness. The papers submitted by university students are already being created by generative AI, in a form of commercialised cheating. If more than half of the essays and projects submitted by students involve the use of AI, that devalues the worth of a university education, and produces synthetic intelligence. Universities will soon become diploma mills, with education available for a price.

Let’s remember the first part of the acronym AI – artificial, meaning synthetic, not the real product.

Let’s also not pretend that it is only the social sciences that are impacted and white-anted by AI. Scientific papers can now be generated using AI. A new machine learning AI scientist system, Sakana AI Labs announced that its system can brainstorm ideas, select from competing hypotheses, code new algorithms, and generate a research paper based on the results.

This is the end result of producing synthetic simulacra. Algorithms which mimic human writing are taking over education. We are serving the AI machine, not the other way around.

Cultivate an educational praxis, which channels inimitable human creativity into productive pursuits. Relying on AI will only increase the synthetic element in our lives, at the expense of human interaction.

Student encampments

It is not all bad news; the campus is far from dead and buried. Why do I say that? The students have found their own way to revive life on campus. No, not by drinking, or gambling, or partying – but by protesting. The Israeli assault on Gaza, ongoing since October last year, prompted student groups to set up encampments on multiple university campuses.

What was the purpose of that? To highlight the complicity of university institutions in the Israeli war machine’s criminal actions. Universities make investment decisions, and involvement in military activities is not uncommon. Universities, converted into gigantic hedge funds due to decades of neoliberalism, are heavily complicit in armaments industries which directly supply the Israeli military.

Divesting funds from universities in the armaments industry is an important socioeconomic and political issue. It demonstrates that the student groups marching for Palestine are concerned not just with their own individual lives, but are applying their education to the real world. Israeli forces in Gaza have deliberately targeted universities and schools, depriving Palestinian students of an education.

What happens to the current generation of Palestinian children who are unable to attend school, let alone university? Israel’s military campaign has demolished the educational ecosystem in Gaza. The United Nations has called Israel’s targeting of universities and schools in Gaza scholasticide – the systematic obliteration of education in Palestine.

Surely the university students must speak out about the destruction of corresponding educational establishments in Palestine? The campus is the perfect place to express outrage, and mobilise the faculty against such crimes.

Universities are more than just places to seek out profits; privatising education does not lead to improved academic outcomes. Yes, I use online resources for educating myself. No, that is not a substitute for real life university experiences. The campus is the central and collective location for learning.