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.

Years ago, washed-up ex-actor and simpleton fundamentalist Kirk Cameron poked fun at evolutionary biology by using the phrase ‘crocoduck’. What did he mean by that? If evolution was true, according to our intrepid interlocutor, you would find ridiculous and bizarre combinations of half-half animals, such as a cross between a crocodile and a duck.

Well, he should also be aware of the old saying – be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

Welcome to the sea robin, a fish with legs like a crab, the body of a fish, and fin-wings like a bird. The legs of the sea robin, while used for locomotion, are also used for digging and tasting. That’s right, there are papillae, minute taste-receptors, on its shovel-shaped legs, enabling it to taste for prey hiding in the ocean floor.

You may view a video of the sea robin here.

Scuttling along the sea bed, the sea robin’s features serve to illustrate the development of evolutionary traits, and the genetic markers from which they originate. The sensory legs of the sea robin – modified versions of their pectoral fins – raises broader questions regarding the role of genetic factors in shaping phenotypic adaptations.

Alternating between swimming and walking, the crab-like legs are sensitive to chemical stimulants, detecting mussels and small shellfish buried in the sea floor, without any visual identification. The sea robin has eyes like a frog.

Leopard sea robins, a particular species of sea robin, use their legs for locomotion only. The northern sea robin uses its legs for digging and tasting, as well as walking.

Researchers investigating the genetic origins of the evolutionary adaptation of walking first sequenced the genome of the sea robin. Using gene-editing techniques, known as CRISPR, they modified the gene tbx3a, responsible for the development of leg-like limbs. A particular variation of this gene is responsible for the emergence of limbs in vertebrates.

Fish that can walk, or at least combine walking with swimming, are not unusual in the marine world.

The skate, another species of fish, scurries along the sea floor, using the genes and neurons vertebrates use to walk. The skate is closely related to sharks and rays – and displays walking behaviour, strongly suggesting that bipedal locomotion was already emerging before the first vertebrates ever walked on land.

Carl Zimmer, science writer for the New York Times, wrote in 2016 that scientists are finding fish that walk the way land vertebrates do. No, they do not sprint like us, or land-dwelling mammals, but they use their leg-like fins to walk and climb. Cryptotora thamicola, a waterfall-climbing cave fish, not only climbs, but possesses an intact pelvis, similar to tetrapods. A troglobitic species, it walks salamander-like, it climbs cave rocks while being splashed by a waterfall.

It was first discovered in 1985, living and climbing deep inside caves in northern Thailand.

Why is walking such a fascinating evolutionary adaptation?

Discovering how other vertebrate species began walking opens a window into our own evolutionary pathway.

The first fully bipedal hominins began to emerge millions of years ago. Standing upright, and walking on two feet for locomotion, is the decisive step in the emergence of modern humans. To be sure, other hominins adopted an upright posture, temporarily. The transition from moving on four limbs to bipedal movement was not a smooth, linear progression. Nevertheless, without bipedal locomotion, we cannot talk of genuinely modern Homo sapiens.

Bidepal locomotion freed up the hands – for counting, nonverbal communication, signalling, and working. While walking upright has enabled hominins see long distances, there is no obvious physical advantage to being bipedal. Four legged animals can certainly run faster than humans.

It was the early australopithecines, millions of years ago, that took the first tentative steps on the road of bipedalism. Numerous hominin species, coexisting with each other in the branching, messy delta of evolutionary history, adopted a mixture of walking on four limbs and being bipedal.

For instance, an early hominin ancestor, Australopithecus sediba, walked on two feet, but tended to hyperpronate – place excessive weight on the inside of the feet.

Liberating the hand from the pressures of locomotion was the most important consequential result of bipedal movement. It is not just myself saying this. The late Jacob Bronowski (1908 – 1974), Polish-born British scientist, observed that the interaction of the now-free hand and brain made possible the emergence of symbolic thinking, work, and scientific understanding.

In the nineteenth century, Frederick Engels wrote a brief pamphlet called ‘The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.’ His language reflected the paleontological knowledge of his time. He observed that adopting bipedal locomotion, thus freeing up the hand for labouring activities, was the crucial step in the emergence of modern humans.

Engels’ pamphlet presented a simple picture, to be sure. Future scientists will fill in the blanks, and flesh out a more complex scenario. However, changing our environment through labouring activities – and indeed being impacted by our environment in turn – set the stage for the emergence of consciousness.

No, the journey from bipedalism to consciousness is not a short walk (no pun intended). However, the above provides us with a basic framework to approach a large topic. In the meantime, let’s celebrate the humble sea robin, whose steps may be small, but significant in understanding how vertebrates transitioned from aquatic to land environments.

Oh, and for Kirk Cameron’s benefit; no, of course ducks and crocodiles are not related, but then these hybrids come close to being the creature he mocked. So the crocoduck came back to bite him.

In the 1970s and 80s, the word ‘greenie’ was an appellation reserved for conservationists and environmentalists.

You know the type – portrayed in the conservative circles as a kind of leftie weirdos. Those fedora-wearing, hippie-dippie, muesli- eating vegans with their soy lattes, choosing to drop out of society, more concerned about endangered species rather than ‘Aussie workers’. That purported lifestyle, ridiculed until today in hard right media quarters, is a cultural barrier many Australian workers have to any kind of ecosocialist perspective.

The false dichotomy between ‘jobs vs environment’ is being exposed for the fraudulent distraction that it is. However, my purpose is not to revisit that debate, but to focus on the issue of living in harmony with the environment. So being a ‘greenie’, motivated by concern for ecological welfare, is a kind of weirdo-lifestyle pursuit?…..I see.

That is interesting, because in the 70s and 80s, we had the portrait of Grizzly Adams, the lone frontier man who lives in the woods, in harmony with nature, only consuming enough for himself to live sustainably.

The Grizzly Adams character was meant to be a lesson in living in peace with the natural world, not against it. The frontiersman embodied the free spirit of the self-motivated individual, living free and respectful of nature.

That is not the first example of the allegedly self-starting pioneer living in tune with nature’s beat. Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), author of Walden and proponent of individual self-reliance, lived in an environmental paradise, cultivating the food and sustenance needed from the natural resources around him. Going off-grid (a term we use today), he detached himself from the harmful influence of big government (so the story goes) and lived as a free individual.

Thoreau’s vision was that of an individualist laissez-faire capitalist, transitioning from a purely labouring person to that of a budding sovereign citizen. No, he did not describe himself as such, but we may see the beginnings of an ultra-libertarian perspective in Thoreau’s relationship with the environment.

Never matter that runaway slaves, whose individual desire for self-improvement went acknowledged, founded their own self-reliant community in Concord, Massachusetts before Thoreau even dreamt of his scheme, speaks volumes about how we in the settler-colonial Anglophone world regard the environment. Pioneering frontiersmen are applauded for their indomitable self-reliant spirit; the victims of colonial settler societies, and their drive to be free, are forgotten.

When Tory politicians in Australia – those in the misnamed Liberal-National coalition – want to pretend to be farmers, they wear an Akubra (not forgetting the leather shoes). A bit similar in poseur fashion to the greenie hippie-dippies wearing their outsized fedoras.

Yes, you may find fedora-wearing, self-absorbed types who think they are sensational because they have chosen to go vegan. At least, they are speaking about the environment, and the harmful impact of industrialised agriculture on nutrition as an important topic.

Now, a case study…..

The Wye river, flowing through Herefordshire in the UK, is the inspiration for poetic descriptions of the bucolic English countryside. William Wordsworth wrote of his joy at seeing the vast unspoiled landscape of Heredfordshire. Who would not want to live in harmony with this lush, pristine environment?

I wonder what he would say today.

Over the last 25-30 years, the River Wye has been systematically polluted by a growing poultry industry. Tonnes of harmful phosphates and surplus nitrates, deriving from the excess chicken manure at the intensified poultry processing units, is washed into the Wye river by the rains. The millions of chickens produce way too much manure to be absorbed entirely by the soil.

The Wye river has turned into a vast algal bloom, and brown slime predominates in the river. Marine life has had to migrate to less polluted parts of the river, or else be overwhelmed by the algae. Native vegetation and flowers, once reliant on a clean river system, are disappearing. No matter how sturdy or resilient the Grizzly Adams pioneering spirit may be, rugged individualism is not enough to respond to corporate-generated agricultural pollution.

It is well-nigh impossible to live the Thoreau-esque lifestyle, free and in harmony with nature, when that natural environment is being systematically exploited and destroyed. What is required, as the much-maligned greenie groups are demanding, is change and regulations targeting the exploitive poultry farming industry.

Yes, I can hear the howls of outrage from the Tory-corporate media; more regulation means socialism, bowing to the dictates of overarching government. The word bureaucracy has acquired negative connotations – sclerotic, geriatric, Soviet-style resistance to change. Except that bureaucracies, such as environmental protection agencies, have been at the forefront of social change, monitoring the environmental vandalism of large corporations.

Responding to climate change induced problems will require stronger regulations of predatory and destructive corporate practices. Holding companies accountable for the fossil fuels they use, the pollution they create, and the species they drive to extinction will require the kind of regulatory bodies that Musk, Trump and the modern day conquistadors spend time attacking.

Regulatory action has been remarkably successful in reversing the ecological damage caused by rapacious industries.

The Endangered Species Act, which reached its fiftieth anniversary last year, has catalogued and preserved multiple species from certain extinction. Cleaning up the acid rain has been achieved by regulatory legislation monitoring and reducing the harmful atmospheric acidification. We would still have a worsening hole in the ozone layer were it not for environmental protection efforts.

If you wish to live the Thoreau, ruggedly individualist lifestyle in the forest, please be my guest. Just remember that a clean, hospitable environment is possible only when the community bands together to protect it.

Kenan Malik, columnist for The Guardian newspaper, invites us to examine the changing nature of Britishness, and the things in which the Anglophone nations take pride – or feel a sense of shame. The concept of Britishness, based on an identification with Britain’s imperial past, has declined over recent years.

Malik elaborates on a study of social attitudes towards identity in Britain today. Commissioned by the National Centre for Social Research, their report can be read in full here. The findings are interesting in and of themselves, but one particular trend has raised the hackles of the Tory Right. The survey found that pride in Britishness has declined sharply since 2013.

Pride in the British empire has declined, you say? That to me is a commendable achievement. As more of the crimes of the British empire have come to light, a debate has occurred around notions of what it means to be British. For too long, we have allowed the conservatives to define what is worth commemorating in British history.

Over the decades, the conservative movement has attacked what it calls the wokeness campaign. Billionaire libertarian tech-bro Elon Musk, in a colourful turn of phrase, calls it the ‘woke mind virus’. Ah, a clever riposte, devoid of any meaning. What is being confronted is not British history per se, but an imperial mindset cultivated by a decades-long empire-nostalgia narrative.

When statues of slave traders are torn down, it enables us to see English history more clearly.

Cultural imperialism is an enduringly fascinating subject. It makes people consider the empire from the imperialist point of view. It makes us identify the project of empire building as either benign, or uplifting for the colonised peoples, or a bit of both. The obsessive flag-waving, pageantry, film-making and cultural output conceals the sword upon which empires rely, to paraphrase Lord Salisbury’s words.

An imperial mentality among the general public helps acclimatise that public to the atrocities and crimes committed by that empire. Offensive and predatory actions are presented as purely defensive in origin, thus creating a lopsided sympathy for the foot-soldiers of empire.

Now, a philosophical turn….the late great Edward Said, writing in his magisterial book Orientalism, portray themselves as positive, or at least modernising enterprises. It is worth considering his following words:

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest [civilizing mission]

I am quite certain we have all heard the objection that while the British empire may have been periodically violent, it did run the colonies efficiently. The British built railways, road, electric telegraph networks and taught English. This objection is a kind of mental balm applied to soothe the wounds on our collective conscience.

I wonder what benefits English colonisation brought to the indigenous people of Tasmania. The Black War (1824-31) involved the full scale destruction of the indigenous Tasmanians. While the numbers of people killed may have been on a smaller scale than the fatalities in other regions of Australia, the cultural and historical losses of the indigenous are incalculable.

It is only in recent years that this particular war of extermination is coming to light, casting the role of the British empire is a different way intended by its supporters. In the early years of Tasmanian colonisation, the numbers of settlers was quite small. With transportation from Britain increasingly used by the London authorities as a means of social control, the convict population in Tasmania steadily increased.

Conflict with the indigenous was at first infrequent. As the numbers of white colonists increased, (men outnumbered women six to one), the Tasmanian colonial authorities launched expeditions to kidnap indigenous women for the purpose of procreation. That was the proximate cause of increased conflict.

The colonists faced staunch resistance from the indigenous, but the firepower of the English (including convict and settler auxiliary forces) proved to be overwhelming in the end.

These ferocious frontier wars are largely ignored in the retelling stories of the British Empire as a glorious civilising project. Even when indigenous resistance is acknowledged, the actions of the English army are portrayed as purely defensive in nature (check out the 1964 film Zulu as an artefact of this kind of misrepresentation).

Let’s also stop circulating the myth, perpetuated by the English authorities, that the Palawa people (as indigenous Tasmanians are known) went extinct with the death of Truganini in 1876. The passing of the last ‘full-blooded’ Palawa woman, so the story goes, marked the extinction of that particular nation. Indigenous Tasmanians have been demanding a truth-telling commission to quash that slanderously false claim.

The purpose of this article is not simply to recite a catalogue of British atrocities and compel readers to feel a sense of shame. It is to confront the deliberate misreading of imperialist history as a source of pride. If we want to take pride in English history, then there is no shortage of episodes – the peasant uprising in 1381 against the feudal nobility and English monarchy; the Chartist movement; the solidarity of the English working class with the American anti-slavery movement.

The British empire is dead, but its imperial mindset lives on in the Anglophone nations. The United States is only the latest practitioner of the longstanding technique of cultural imperialism.

The Red Sea is the location of an ongoing yet underreported conflict. The Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, lazily named by the corporate media as the Houthis, began attacking American and British maritime traffic. Why? It is a response to the American-supported Israeli assault on Gaza and the Palestinians. The Yemenis have a long tradition of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The Ansar Allah group, by interrupting Red Sea shipping, intend to stop international trade reaching Israel and its allies in the region. Since October last year, the Ansar Allah group has fired hundreds of drones and missiles at targets in the Red Sea. The Yemeni militant group is waging a war of attrition against pro-American forces in its own country, hoping to detach itself economically and politically from the clutches of the United States.

The US responded with tactics eerily reminiscent of those adopted by the now extinct British empire – gunboat diplomacy. The US Navy deployed the aircraft carrier, the hulking USS Dwight D Eisenhower, to the Red Sea area. In the old days of the British empire, whenever the natives would get restless or rebellious, London would send British gunboats to the restive colonies.

The mere sight of massive British gunboats, so London authorities reasoned, would be so intimidating that the rebellious foreigners, quivering in fear, would quickly give up and submit to British rule. Well, that tactic did not work – the natives still fought for their independence. Apparently the authorities in Washington ignored the lessons of history.

With the Ansar Allah Yemenis attacking cargo shipping, surely they need to be taught a lesson in American power? We have all watched the Top Gun movies, where the aircraft carrier is the sanctuary. A safe and powerful presence in a dangerous world, surely the mere sight of the imposing USS Eisenhower would dissuade the rebellious Yemenis from continuing their destructive campaign?

Operation Prosperity Guardian is the official name of the US-led military campaign to stop Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. Inaugurated in December 2023, the US and its coalition partners (a handful of token contributions made by American allied nations) would surely easily defeat these ragtag Yemeni rebels.

What Washington, London and Ottawa forgot to mention is that the Ansar Allah group can strike back – successfully. The US Navy spokespeople have admitted that the Red Sea confrontation has involved the heaviest, sustained and ferocious battles experienced since World War Two.

The Telegraph, a British newspaper which unfailingly encourages US wars overseas, admitted that the Houthis have defeated the US Navy. Not only have the massive, hulking aircraft carriers of the US Navy failed to deter Houthi attacks, the Red Sea is the scene of numerous exchanges of drones and missile fire.

The Ansar Allah has not only maintained its attacks, but its campaign has become even more diverse and sophisticated. Small arms fire, hijackings, and ballistic missiles are tactics practiced by the Yemeni rebel group. American sailors, returning from their Red Sea deployment, describe being traumatised by the experience – actually being fired upon by your enemies.

In July this year, the USS Eisenhower returned home from its Red Sea, after months of unrelenting attacks and strikes by the Ansar Allah forces. The NY Times tried to put a brave face on what was a failed mission.

Maritime trade through the Red Sea has declined by 90 percent since the start of Operation Prosperity Guardian. What was supposed to be a cakewalk for the US Navy has turned into an un-winable quagmire. Speaking of which, this past August was the third anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, another conflict that was supposed to be a walk in the park, but turned into a humiliating defeat for the United States.

Jonathan Hoffman, writing in the New Arab magazine, states that after nine months, the Houthis remain undeterred in their course of action. While Washington likes to present its maritime campaign as purely retaliatory and necessary in confronting ‘evil’ Houthis, the latter have consistently stated their motivations.

What motivates the Ansar Allah group in the Red Sea is Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, and Washington’s unstinting support for that war. The Gaza war, and its horrendous toll of Palestinian lives, is the original catalyst for the maritime campaign by the Houthis. The major trading powers, such as the US, Britain, France and others, have continued their voluminous trade with Israel, enabling its war machine to continue unimpeded.

Let’s not forget that every one of the US Navy’s missiles that is fired costs millions of dollars to replace. The US military has a bloated, gargantuan budget. The Pentagon has already allocated billions for missile production. That is not considering the multi year 2 trillion-dollar plan to upgrade and modernise nuclear weapons. All this while America’s aging infrastructure is deteriorating and buckling in heatwave conditions.

The US aircraft carrier had its time in World War Two. Today, it is a relic, an antiquated structure from a bygone era of gunboat diplomacy. Its purported intimidatory value is now as defunct as the British empire. It is time to re-examine the swollen military budget, and reallocate money to spending on public and social needs.

In today’s social media saturated culture, it is easy to find comeback stories. Inspirational narratives of people, from all walks of life, who overcame crushing defeats to go on to glory and accomplishments are meant to motivate us. In this age of the cult of self-motivation, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and making something of yourself, is a mantra we can all abide by.

From the cranky uncle who loudly proclaims that young people today don’t know the value of hard work, to the self-appointed experts that populate talkback radio in Sydney, the self-made man is all around us – if we are to believe these stories. Hey, did not Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) American philosopher, environmentalist and self-help advocate, counsel his audience to build a self-sustaining community of individuals in Walden?

Yes, he did, and he built a paradise for himself and his cothinkers at Concord, Massachusetts. Nothing wrong with that, and reading Walden is all well and good. Except for one inconvenient fact; African Americans, formerly enslaved, were building their own Walden-type community long before Thoreau. Having the self-motivation to escape the violence of enslavement has not entered the Anglophone public consciousness in the same way as Thoreau’s social experiment.

Be that as it may, let’s get on with meeting the inspirational comeback character in our story – Uncle Otto. His full name was Otto Skorzeny, an Austrian-born German military officer. Achieving the rank of Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen SS, he made a name for himself as a daring, innovative commander, rescuing Mussolini from partisan captivity in 1943, removing Hungarian leader Admiral Miklos Horthy in 1944 when the latter’s pro-Axis sympathies wobbled, and was rewarded with high decorations from Hitler himself.

The Waffen SS, the military branch of the general SS, committed the most heinous atrocities in German-occupied territories, and were direct perpetrators of the Holocaust. A niche occupation and skill set, to be sure, but they did find gainful employment after the end of the Third Reich, as we shall see.

Before the war, Skorzeny had joined the Austrian equivalent of the Nazi party, and agitated for the installation of a pro-Nazi government in that nation. Growing to 6-foot 4 inches tall, a fencing enthusiast with a large scar on his face, he became a dashing, debonair achiever, and favourite commando of Hitler’s. The Waffen SS left burned out villages, piles of corpses, murdered POWs, and ethically cleansed territories in their wake.

Skorzeny’s rescue of Mussolini demonstrated his courage – he and his team used hang gliders to attack the Gran Sasso mountaintop where Mussolini was being held captive. Awarded the Iron Cross military decoration for his paratrooper mission, it seemed that Skorzeny’s career could only hit new and exciting heights.

However, his flourishing career as a licensed killer was coming to an end. Alas, Nazi Germany faced a crushing military defeat and combined Allied occupation. What was to become of our multinational murderer? Never fear, because our Uncle Otto found a new benefactor, who helped him repurpose his skill set for new outlets.

Captured by American forces, he was put on trial for war crimes in a military tribunal, and acquitted. In 1947, Uncle Otto escaped captivity, along with his fellow former SS officers – by dressing in American uniforms. It should have been within the intelligence capabilities of the American army to predict this tactic, after all, during the Battle of the Bulge, Skorzeny and his team penetrated enemy lines to wreak havoc, by disguising themselves as American soldiers.

Skorzeny’s commando tactics gained widespread popularity after the war, and were subsequently widely imitated by the imperialist powers.

Be that as it may, Skorzeny and his fellow ex-SS officers made their way to Franco’s Spain. General Franco, an Axis-allied commander, remained in power long after the end of the war. Spain became a sanctuary for Skorzeny, who reinvented himself as a businessman, with an eccentric habit of keeping Nazi memorabilia around.

It was a new world in the post-1945 Cold War. The new state of Israel, victorious over the displaced Palestinians, had a new worry. Egypt, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, posed a revolutionary and Arab nationalist challenge to the Zionist state. Allegedly, German rocket engineers were employed by Cairo to pass on their skills. Tel Aviv was concerned about the long range striking capabilities of Cairo.

Enter the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, with a plan. Assassinate the German scientists. And guess who they employed as their professional hit man? None other than Otto Skorzeny, former Waffen SS officer. Several German rocket engineers were quietly killed by the new Mossad employee.

In return, Mossad claimed that Skorzeny’s criminal record, and his wanted status as a fugitive on the run by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal centre, was expunged.

Skorzeny got involved in numerous extreme right wing causes, helping to rehabilitate the reputations of Nazi collaborators and war criminals. His Mossad activities only came to light long after his death. Dying of lung cancer in Madrid in 1975, his funeral featured numerous ex-Nazis, giving the Roman salute and singing WW2-era German songs.

Ex-Nazi rocket scientists found long term employment in the United States after the end of WW2. For instance, Kurt Debus, former SS officer and rocket engineer, escaped from the chaos of war torn Europe, and found refuge in America, where he headed NASA’s Launch Operations Centre (later renamed the Kennedy Space Centre). A white immigrant had a good opportunity to restart their career in the racially segregated United States.

No, of course I am not seriously suggesting taking the example of a former Nazi officer as a basis for inspiration. I am suggesting that behind every story of a self-made person is an entire network of social and political relationships that provide an interconnecting basis for individual achievement.

When the United States (and Britain) rejected providing sanctuary for fleeing European Jewish refugees during the war, but went out of their way to covertly ensure sanctuary for Nazi collaborators and ex-SS personnel, such behaviour opens a window into the character of imperial powers.

In the popular 1983 gangster epic Scarface, one of the first things our antihero Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) does when he hits the big time, is purchase a wild tiger. A pet in his mansion, the purchase indicates that Montana is now rich enough to indulge his fantasies, all part of the ‘American dream’. The small time street hoodlum is now a major drug kingpin.

That scene acquired contemporary relevance when learning of a particular ecological problem bequeathed to the citizens and government of Columbia by real life narcotrafficker, the late Pablo Escobar. Shot dead by Colombian police in 1993, his impact on the ecology is still being felt today.

In what way? By hippos which he imported while an ultrawealthy drug lord. Let’s have a look at what scientists have called an ecological time-bomb.

Founder and leader of the violent Medellin narcotics trafficking cartel, Escobar waged a war of terror against the Colombian government authorities, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, and innocent people who got in the way. The cartel and the ultrarightist death squads – autodefensas – who acquired a cut of the cartel’s profits in exchange for eliminating political and law enforcement opponents.

Cocaine hippos

Escobar became an extraordinarily wealthy man as a result of his entrepreneurial spirit and self-motivation – a gangster capitalist. He built a luxurious hacienda, outside of a town called Doradal. Escobar built artificial lakes, airports, horse stables and – imported hippos. Yes, he imported four hippos, which are of course native to sub-Saharan Africa.

The hippo, while classified as a herbivore, will occasionally eat meat. Escobar built a menagerie on his estate, and employed people to look after them. Interestingly, he never imported lions, tigers or carnivores generally, stating that meat-eating animals were expensive and difficult to sustain. Hippos are semi aquatic mammals; but nevertheless they adapted to their new environment in Colombia. While spending much of their time in the water, hippos are not actually good swimmers.

Escobar opened his extensive collection of animals to the public, along with donating a portion of his profits to charitable works. He wanted to improve his image with the public. Being responsible for car bombings and blowing up airplanes does not endear you to the people.

In 1993, with Escobar dead and his hacienda in the hands of the authorities, the latter found homes for all the exotic animals in Escobar’s menagerie. Except the hippos – they were too difficult to move. So the Colombian government left them there, where eventually they would die. After all, his hacienda was located some 250 kilometres away from the capital Bogotá.

What could possibly go wrong?

The problem is that hippos breed. No, not as fast as rabbits, but they can breed at a steady pace.

The hippos multiplied. An adult female hippo can produce a calf every 18 months, and over a life span of 40 or 50 years, she can successfully birth a calf 25 times. The river Magdalena became their main transportation freeway. Well, now the hippos number about 170, eating their way through tonnes of vegetation, and – apologies in advance – defecating tonnes of dung that can reach toxic levels in still ponds and lakes.

In their native sub-Saharan Africa, droughts regularly dry up the rivers, thus limiting the range and breeding of the hippos. Not so in Colombia, where they can travel over hundreds of miles all year round.

Hippos are not exactly cute and cuddly creatures; they are known to attack humans who encroach on their territory in Africa. While deadly encounters with people in Colombia have been rare, there have been numerous incidents involving wayward hippos. Car crashes, hippos pushing into schools and urban environments – their food requirements are substantive, and farmers face the hungry hippo menace to their crops.

There have been calls to simply cull the hippos, but that creates its own problems. Shooting them dead may seem like a simple solution, but hippos are classified a vulnerable species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Sterilisation is a better way to control their numbers. But that is not as simple as it sounds.

First, finding the animals is not easy. All the extra rainfall in recent years, due to a warming climate, means more grassland – an oversupply of food for hungry hippos. Second, each hippo weighs 3 tonnes, so it is not as easy as taking your pet cat or dog to the local vet. Third, sedating the hippo is dangerous. It takes a difficult darting process to ensure the animal is unconscious.

Chemical castration, while used successfully on many other species, is impractical in the case of hippos. It takes multiple doses, administered over months by darting, to even have a chance of being effective.

Fourth, the procedure is invasive, because the testicles are located inside the hippo’s body. The surgeon not only has to sedate the hippo, but cut through thick layers of fat to remove mango-sized gonads.

A Colombian team of scientists is steadily tracking and sterilising feral hippos – a thankless and laborious task.

It is easy for Hollywood to glamourise gangsters and narcotraffickers as a kind of gold-hearted antiheroes. The ‘good’ professional gangster, such as ones played by Robert De Niro, take steps to avoid violence against civilians, while only using violence against ‘bad’ criminals who are only getting what they deserve. The ‘bad’ gangster, sadistic and cruel, makes a useful foil to the ‘good’ Al Pacino/Robert De Niro gangster, who typifies the single-minded pursuit of wealth, with violence a morally ugly but necessary tactic in their chosen profession.

Escobar is dead and gone, but the consequences of his predatory actions are still being felt today. The public has to deal with, and pay for, cleaning up the harmful effects of Escobar’s malfeasance. There are corporate criminals today, whose enterprises involve a toxic culture, and whose actions must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Growing up as an Australian of Armenian origin (Armenians from Egypt), I became aware of the concept of genocide, and its impact on social identity, from an early age, I was the only Armenian at school, so explaining what it was to be Armenian to Anglo-majority kids was quite frustrating – especially when they couldn’t even pronounce my name.

Be that as it may, I dealt with issues of diaspora, identity and exile for as long as I can remember. No, I couldn’t articulate those topics as a child. However, the importance of genocide commemorative activities, the weight of history, and their role in forming ethnic identity has been a constant theme in my life.

That is why I am going to elaborate on a topic which may seem distant from me, but is actually close to my experience.

Ukrainian nationalism, Poland and the Volhynia massacre

First, a declaration; I have no interest in promoting or demoting Ukrainian, or Polish or any type of hyper-nationalism. It is of no interest to me to advance any nationalist agenda, or propagate the views of Kyiv, Warsaw or the Kremlin.

This does not make me indifferent to hypernationalism, especially when the latter has destructive impacts on interethnic cooperation.

Poland is a staunch supporter of Kyiv in its current conflict with Moscow. Poland has taken in thousands of Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russian invasion. On the international front, Warsaw vociferously defends the position of Kyiv in defiance of Moscow and its allies. For instance, Warsaw has denounced the role of Tehran, viewing the latter’s close political and military ties with Moscow as enabling and prolonging the suffering of Ukrainians.

However, Poland has an ongoing dispute with Kyiv, one that derails Ukraine’s plans to join the European Union.

The Polish government insists that Kyiv must accept responsibility for the massacres of Poles in 1943 in the Volhynia region. The latter is a historic region of central-eastern Europe, occupied by Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and other ethnicities. In 1943, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its associated Ukrainian Insurgent Army massacred thousands of Poles, intent on creating an ethnically pure post-Communist Ukrainian state. Collaborating with German forces, the antisemitism of the Ukrainian nationalists found common ground with the Nazi occupiers.

In Zelensky’s Ukraine, these collaborators are venerated as heroes. Warsaw has demanded that the Volhynia killings be officially recognised as genocide by the Kyiv authorities. In exchange, Warsaw promises to drop its objections to Ukraine joining the European Union.

In post-World War 2 Australia, anticommunist refugees from Eastern Europe found refuge – as well as in Canada, Britain and the United States. They imported not only their respective languages and cuisine, but also their ultranationalist reading of modern history. Long distance hypernationalism found a home in Australia, with each community struggling to find acceptance in the wider Anglophone society.

Social cohesion

I am not a ‘voice’ for Poland against Ukraine, or Ukraine against Russia – I have no interest in recycling any kind of hypernationalist division. But I do have a number of questions pertaining to the implementation of multiculturalism, or to use an expression currently in vogue – social cohesion.

How does hypernationalism contribute to social cohesion? It does not. In fact, the hyperventilating nationalism of right wing communities sabotages the very social cohesion they claim to adhere to. Regurgitating migrant-based nationalist resentments has a corrosive effect on building a multicultural, socially cohesive society.

Solidarity with Palestine is not antisemitic

In junior high school, I had a ‘friend’ – a person who would be called toxic in today’s terminology – who constantly verbally bullied me in class. Knowing that I was a supporter of the Palestinians, he would constantly raise the topic of the Entebbe raid. The 1976 Israeli operation to free hijacked hostages was an obvious success for Tel Aviv, and while it was in the past from the vantage point of the 1980s, it was in the recent past.

His behaviour was intended to intimidate and demoralise me, and raising Entebbe was one of his ploys. The other, knowing that my background is Egyptian (Armenians from Egypt) was to loudly praise the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israeli forces defeated the Egyptian and Syrian armies. He was, as I realised later, a malignant narcissist, and mocking my ethnic heritage was his way of inciting others against me.

He disappeared from my life a long time ago, but there is a lingering misconception which still pervades the mainstream media. Palestinian nationalism, and the protests in support of a Palestinian state, are not antisemitic. Please stop circulating the tired old cliche that anti-Zionism, and criticism of Israeli state policies, is automatically antisemitic.

The false equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is designed to delegitimise the Palestinian cause, and smear Palestine supporters as deranged fanatics driven by irrational hatred. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Monuments to Estonian Nazi collaborators in Toronto, Canada

We should be worried about antisemitism, but not from the Palestinians. Jewish organisations in Toronto, Canada, demanded (and succeeded) in forcing the removal of Estonian Waffen SS personnel from a monument at an Estonian-Canadian children’s summer camp. Hailing the veterans of the Estonian SS as freedom fighters, the authorities were worried by the false heroising of SS personnel as ‘freedom fighters’ rather than antisemitic and racist killers.

What kind of example do we set when we teach children (and adolescents) that the violently antisemitic Waffen SS and their Baltic collaborators were high-minded and noble fighters for freedom? When we minimise the crimes and predatory ideologies of wartime Nazi collaborators, we are not only whitewashing history, but also helping to rehabilitate the doctrines of the ultranationalist Right.

Of course the far right of yesteryear has changed; like all political ideologies, the ultranationalist mindset mutates and adapts to changing circumstances. Islamophobia is the preferred version of bigotry for the imperial powers, and we have all witnessed what decades of normalising Islamophobia produces. Let’s not ignore the role of mainstream political parties in encouraging and recycling Islamophobic talking points.

The most urgent task is to break down the divides between ethnic groups that hamper multiethnic cooperation.

Another Olympics – Paris 2024 – has finished. This particular Olympics has been extensively marked by social media conflagrations – whether it be the inclusion of breakdancing and the poor performance of Australian b-girl Raygun, or the manufactured controversy over the gender of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Both these episodes demonstrate the dangers of social media hysteria. However, I wanted to focus on a lesser publicised yet important issue – the Olympics, and sport generally, cannot be separated from geopolitics.

Politics cannot spoil the Olympics, as Louise Guillot suggested in this article in Politico magazine. Why not? Because the Olympics and political considerations have always been inseparable. Guillot, writing prior to the Olympics, wished that this nasty thing called geopolitics and its attendant squabbles did not interfere with the lofty, noble pursuit of peacefully competitive sports between nations.

Unfortunately for Guillot, geopolitical conflicts always impinge on the sporting field. Indeed, the very foundation of the Olympics as we understand them, could not help but be impacted by competing geopolitical agendas.

Baron Pierre De Coubertin, the ‘founding father’ of the modern Olympics, was given over to fantasising about the diversion of warmaking energies by conflicting states into the peaceful arena of public sporting competition. Warring nations would at least temporarily suspend their hostilities, and compete on an equal footing in the sporting fields.

Whether he was idealistic or naive I do not know. What is for certain is the De Coubertin consciously co-opted the Ancient Greek Olympics, and revived them as a pan-European project, seeking a pan-Hellenic legitimacy to the burgeoning ideological currents of European colonial nationalisms.

European powers, undertaking their own colonial adventures in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world, required a globalising cultural project as well. No empire can survive on sheer force alone. Sporting competitions, while venerating the individualistic ethos of physical achievement, can also bring colonial nations together through a veneer of peaceful respectability.

British, German and French philhellenic supporters desired to build an imagined community. No, Europe is not imaginary, but its continuity with Ancient Greek traditions of philosophy, science, mathematics and sport is a synthetic history. Greek nationalism, fighting for an independent state in the nineteenth century, not only sought to break away from the Islamic Ottoman Turkish empire, but also to participate in this emergent club of powerful European states.

The modern Olympics were a demonstration of muscular European Christianity, drawing from the example of the Greeks and Romans of ancient times. Modern European nations appropriated the legacy of Ancient Greece. Reviving the Olympics was a practical way to construct an imagined continuity with the eastern Mediterranean, and the propaganda value of such games did not go unnoticed.

Sporting nationalism manifests itself in various ways, not just through competing methods for tallying medals. The Paris 2024 Olympics, depending on how you count the medals, was the most successful one for Australia. Counting according to gold medals, Australia was fourth with 18 gold – 53 medals in total. The US and China were equal on 40 gold medals each, but the US collected 126 medals in total, compared to 91 for China.

Episodes from Olympic history provide a window into the present. Understanding the past is an endlessly fascinating pursuit, and it helps us to comprehend the hidden world of powerplays and subterfuge which impacts public life until today.

What am I talking about? The 1960 Rome Olympics. Why is that important? The Smithsonian magazine, earlier this month, published an extensive feature by Erik Ofgang, which illuminates a hitherto unseen aspect of the interplay between geopolitics and sport. Both superpowers of the Cold War were obsessed with accumulating gold medals – fair enough. However, the United States went further, and ventured into ethically questionable conduct.

In an article entitled “At the 1960 Olympics, American Athletes Recruited by the CIA Tried to Convince Their Soviet Peers to Defect”, the article matter-of-factly explains how the Olympics is a perfect opportunity for espionage and intelligence gathering. Convincing high profile Soviet athletes to defect was a prominent propaganda tactic, designed to demonstrate the ‘superiority’ of American capitalism and the alleged American commitment to individual liberty.

Let’s have a listen to the words of historian Barbara Keys from Durham University and an expert on international relations. She states that the Olympics provide a “terrific opportunity” for espionage. She continued; “You get lots of high-level people, high-level leaders, diplomats, businessmen, celebrities convening all in one place. It’s kind of a spy candy shop.”

There are no ethical qualms here, just a straightforward rationale; what’s wrong with turning the Olympics into a soft power battleground? One athlete from the 1960 Soviet team who was targeted by the athletes-turned-spies was triple jumper and sprinter Igor Ter-Ovanesyan. Ukrainian born, (Armenian father), he met athletes from the American team. They tried to convince him to defect – citing American supermarkets, cars, playboy magazine and movies as assets to be enjoyed by Soviet defectors. Ter-Ovanesyan said no.

A former CIA case officer and now academic, Doug Patteson, stated that it is naive to think that spying activities do not occur at the Olympics. The latter is not just a platform for international goodwill, but an opportunity to score geopolitics points. It seems that politics of a surreptitious and sinister kind is perfectly acceptable at the Olympics.

In fact, in the lead up to the 1960 Olympics, the CIA recruited a person for the job of encouraging defections from the Soviet teams – Mykola Lebed. Who was he? A Ukrainian ultranationalist and Nazi collaborator, he was guilty of gruesome torture and war crimes during World War 2, responsible for the killings of Jews, Russians and Poles. Deemed a useful intelligence asset in the opening years of the Cold War, he found sanctuary and employment in the United States.

Back in 1947, US army counterintelligence described Lebed as a well-known sadist. However, pathological sadism is no barrier for gainful employment by the CIA.

Given all this focus on intelligence gathering by the various colonial nations which participate in the Olympics, a question does occur. Why was intelligence gathering spectacularly unsuccessful in Munich 1972, when 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and murdered by the Black September terrorist group? Did not espionage agencies gather intelligence on the preparations for this specific attack on the Olympics?

Let’s conclude by returning to Paris 2024. A particular athlete – a wrestler to be exact – won his fifth gold medal at the Olympics. He’d won his previous four gold medals since beginning Olympic competition since making his debut in Greco-Roman wrestling at Athens 2004. In every Olympics since then, he won gold. His name is Mijain Lopez, an Afro-Caribbean competitor from Cuba.

His achievement is unparalleled, yet never received saturation publicity that accompanied the accomplishments of Phelps, or Thorpe, or Bolt. Staying loyal to Cuba, he has remained through all the trials and tribulations of that island nation against the punitive American blockade.

Resisting the shallow temptations of American mass consumerism, he decided that it is more important to be true to oneself and the background that made such achievements possible, in contrast to dissident celebrity athlete superstar Nadia Comaneci. May I venture a suggestion? Perhaps he did not want to migrate to a nation that practices the cult of violence overseas, rejoicing in the hyper-individualist pursuit of gratification that requires the suffering of others.