Every so often, a particular Facebook meme is recycled and recirculated about an important sociopolitical issue that it is worth discussing. To be certain, I ignore the vast majority of Facebook memes. They can be created by anybody calling themselves a digital creator and with a mobile device. Do they all deserve equal attention, let alone a response?

The best way to respond to all of that is denying it attention. Starved of oxygen, memes will normally wither on the vine. However, one meme (actually a series of memes) harping on a particular theme is worth reviewing.

What am I talking about? The recurring meme of women in Iran from the 1960s and 70s wearing westernised dress, bikinis at the beach, and generally sporting the clothing and fashions they liked. The point of such posts is to highlight the contrast between women under the Shah, when they could wear whatever they liked, and today, after the 1979 revolution.

The post-1979 Tehran government forces women to wear the headscarf, or hijab, in public. We are invited to lament; look how bad things are for Iranian women today, as opposed to back then.

You may find examples of such vintage photos here. They are very interesting as historical artefacts. They demonstrate what clothing was predominant in the 1960s in Iran. Please do not use these pictures in a cynical manner to portray the Shah’s time as a golden age of women’s freedom, in contrast to the current Islamic theocratic fashion totalitarianism.

The Murdoch media, which comprises a huge chunk of the dominant corporate media, has a particular hobby horse of enjoining its readers to ‘look how bad things are for women in Muslim societies’. They take a grain of truth, wrap it up in distortions, half-truths and stereotypes. Sadly, millions of readers absorb these contents, which have the same impact on the mind as ultra-processed fast food on our physical health.

Women in Iran have bravely resisted the forcible imposition of the hijab. They have demonstrated tremendous courage in defying the social conservatism of the authorities. No, the wearing of the hijab should not be compulsory, but a matter of personal choice. None of the monotheistic, Abrahamic cousins (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) should be the sole organising principle of an entire society.

Here is something else about Iran that we would do well to understand; currently, 70 percent of graduates in science, mathematics, engineering and technology in Iran are women. Under the western-supported Shah of Iran, female literacy stood at 42%. Today, thanks to the efforts of the revolutionary authorities, that figure stands at 98%.

Does the crime of femicide (female homicide) occur in Iran? Sadly, yes it does. The intentional murder rate of women in Iran stands at 0.59 per 100 000 women. A terrible figure, and each death is an individual tragedy, to be certain. Let us consider the femicide rate in the United States, which is at 2.1 per 100 000 women, and the figure for black and indigenous women murdered is even higher.

Let’s stop with the statistics, because they can get overwhelming, and return to images. I am going to share an image (not created by me), which will highlight a crucial dimension ignored by the Murdoch media; international solidarity.

The following is a photograph, taken in 1972, of Somali women in Mogadishu, protesting for the release of African American scholar and activist, Angela Davis:

In this photo, you will see numerous Somali women wearing the headscarf. Somalia was a politically unified nation in 1972, when this picture was taken. Somalia is a Muslim majority nation – and these women in the capital city, Mogadishu, were protesting for the release of black American activist Angela Davis.

But wait a minute, is not Davis a Marxist and feminist, strongly opposed to all forms of religious obscurantism and gender discrimination? What are these women, the majority of whom are Muslim, doing protesting for the freedom of a black Marxist located thousands of miles away? Would not Davis be shouting and screaming for the abolition of the hijab, to liberate these poor, unfortunate oppressed Somali women?

Somali women, back in the 1970s, understood black solidarity and racism. They understood the nature of US imperialism, and the legacy of European colonialism in Africa. They protested not only for the release of Davis, but also in support of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

They knew about the struggle for civil rights in the United States, Rosa Parks and Medger Evers. They understood that black Americans fought for the US military in both world wars, only to be rejected and cast aside by their racially segregated society when they returned home.

So please, stop emotionally manipulating the ‘concern’ about Muslim women as a cynical exercise in inciting public opinion for a regime change war in Iran?

Angela Davis did receive international support for her cause, even from old white men. There was one old, white German speaking head of state who lent his support for Davis; Erich Honecker, the last head of the now-dissolved German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany.

Here they are:

When sharing memes on social media, let’s be aware that what we are doing is making thoughtful connections. The imperialist empire already has its megaphone, shouting its propaganda into our households everyday. How about we use our social media presence not for recycling the empire’s mindset, but for building links of solidarity between communities.

Let’s stop being mouthpieces for the Murdoch media conglomerate. When we examine Iran, or any Muslim majority nation, let’s do so with an open mind, and not the Daily Telegraph-fuelled ‘look how they treat their women’ obnoxious ignorance, backed up by copious amounts of alcohol consumption.

Let’s start with the late Byelorussian-born Jewish American scholar Solomon Grayzel (1896 – 1980). He wrote numerous books, but one in particular made an impact in our household, A History of the Jews (1968). A sweeping examination of the Jewish people and their triumphs and tribulations, we had a well-thumbed copy of that particular paperback in our lounge room bookcase.

Presenting the foundation of the Zionist state of Israel in 1948 as the triumphant pinnacle of Jewish history over their antisemitic persecutors, he covered all the important and decisive twists and turns of their tortuous history from Babylonian captivity until modern times. He made one important observation that has stayed with me, regarding the relationship between the Jewish people and the United States.

Grayzel observed that without Jewish immigration, and immigrants in general, the US educational and university system would atrophy and die. Without the pipeline of immigration from Europe, the United States would wither and die on the vine – at least, their educational, scientific and publishing establishments. He was not wrong.

I was very young when I first read his book, and could not formulate my own thoughts on the subject. If Israel is a triumphal conclusion of the Jewish people’s struggle against genocidal antisemitism, why did the establishment of that state require the genocidal expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians?

I wish I had advice at the time on how to respond to Grayzel’s assertions. No, not because I was on an egotistical trip to prove my credentials and surpass Grayzel’s status as a historian. I am definitely not an expert in Jewish history. However, I did want to understand the underlying motivations of Grayzel’s framework, if only to be better prepared next time round.

A tiny firecracker about a big bang

Gerald Schroeder (1938 – ) is an Orthodox Jewish physicist, author and lecturer. Born in the United States, he moved to Israel in 1971 where he resides and works until today, in 1990, he published the first of what turned out to be multiple books trying to reconcile modern science with Orthodox Jewish religious doctrines, Genesis and the Big Bang.

Schroeder was not the first to try to reconcile the Big Bang theory with the biblical account of creation in Genesis. Pope Pius XII, in the 1950s, tried to suggest that the Big Bang (which was not actually an explosion) was scientific confirmation of the creation ex nihilo mythology in the Bible. Georges Lemaitre himself, Belgian priest, cosmologist and the founder of the Big Bang, strongly repudiated such an interpretation.

Schroeder valiantly tries to suggest, for instance, that the days mentioned in Genesis do not refer to our common understanding of 24-hour time periods, but denote time dilation, a concept known to physicists. This is a phase of Big Bang chronology during the microseconds in the initial frame of reference.

Schroeder is stretching the linguistic boundaries. A day may refer to millions of years, geological time eras, or the quark-gluon plasma in the immediate vicinity of the Big Bang.

That is all very creative, but does not amount to much. Indeed, Schroeder is attempting to demonstrate to his readers that he possesses vast scientific knowledge. He certainly does, but that does nothing to prove his case.

Indeed, Schroeder’s expertise is not in question, it is his philosophical approach that is dubious. He wants us to return to the pre-1850s state of science, when the overwhelming majority of scientists were devoted creationists, and upheld the literal inerrancy of the Bible. Louis Agassiz, for instance, was a fervently religious person. He was also the preeminent scientist in the fields of anthropology and biology.

Agassiz, a scientific authority in the United States regarding the Earth’s natural history, strenuously opposed biological evolution, mocked Darwin’s books, and upheld that the plan of creation divided humanity into superior and inferior races.

I wish I had advice from someone who could guide me through all the complexities of this topic, without being overwhelmed.

Elie Wiesel, the international intellectual limited by his nationalism

Elie Wiesel (1928 – 2016) was a Romanian born American intellectual and speaker. He survived the horror of the concentration camps in World War 2, and wrote numerous books about his experiences. He gained a kind of moral authority as a Holocaust survivor, and was promoted as a leading light in dark times.

Speaking out about human rights, and defending the victims of genocide, his internationalist vision had one enormous blind spot. He ignored the plight of the Palestinians, vociferously defending the Israeli government from all criticisms. His ultranationalist perspective lead him to see every criticism of the Israeli government’s practices as motivated by antisemitism.

The hidden hand of Judeophobia was the demon he perceived in every attack on the Israeli political establishment.

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he went on to support every US intervention overseas, such the American war on Iraq (in 1991, and 2003). He is not the first Nobel recipient to advocate for war. But he was outstanding in turning the Holocaust into a secular religion, a sacrament that was beyond human rationality or understanding.

True, the horrors of the Holocaust are confronting and challenge our ability to explore the inhumanity. Wiesel did his utmost to turn the Holocaust not into an object for understanding, but into an ideological prop for the criminal policies of the apartheid Israeli government.

Wiesel had his opinions, and that is fine. Turning his books into required reading in educational curricula, promoting his documentaries and interviews on television as the perspective of a morally upstanding intellectual – these do not insulate him from critical scrutiny.

His views were not those of just another scholar. Interviewed and promoted by Oprah, Wiesel gained an international audience and similarly highflying reputation. He helped to turn the Holocaust into a kind of exceptional theology. The genocide of European Jews was the ultimate mystery, according to Wiesel.

Questioning the irrational bases of religions, and theology, should be part of every adult’s intellectual maturity. The Holocaust may be the ultimate mystery, but the motivations of Wiesel are not. His Zionist nationalism ensured that he excluded the Palestinians from his ostensible internationalist vision.

It is true that the sins of the father should not be visited upon the children. That saying acquired new relevance in recent days, and it is time to revisit this particular aphorism.

The newly elected far right president of Chile, Jose Antonio Kast, faces renewed criticism because of the fact that his father, a German immigrant, was a Nazi party member and officer. So what you may say; surely Kast does not need to face generational judgements because of the sins of his father?

That much is true, but this popular wisdom should not undermine our ability to ask the difficult questions. Providing sanctuary for refugees is a noble goal. It is one of the standards by which we evaluate the humaneness of a given society.

It is in this connection that we should explore the following juxtaposition; after World War 2, Cuba showed solidarity to black African nations fighting for their independence from colonialism. At the same time, the United States, Britain and other Anglophone nations provided sanctuary to ex-Nazis and their Eastern European collaborators fleeing justice.

Molly coddling ex-Nazis is not a practice specific to Latin American nations. The US, Canada and other Anglophone nations have a longstanding history of opening their borders to Nazis, white immigrants considered acceptable refugees. I have explored this topic at some length previously.

The subject of visiting the crimes of the parent on the children is something I have been wrestling with for decades. In 1993, former US President Bill Clinton nominated General John Shalikashvili (pronounced Sha-Lee-kash-vee-Lee) to be the chairman of the US Joinr Chiefs of Staff. That basically means the head honcho of the entire US armed forces.

It is always great to see the child of immigrants make it big in the US. What is interesting about this particular episode is that the general’s father, Dimitry Shalikashvili, was a member of the Georgian Legion, an ultranationalist Georgian unit under the operational command of the Nazi Waffen-SS. He fought in this unit as an officer, finding sanctuary in the United States at the conclusion of the world war.

There is no suggestion that Shalikashvili junior was a Nazi or member of the Ku Klux Klan. However, we must ask the obvious question; how did an officer in the Waffen-SS, an organisation proscribed by the Nuremberg trials as a criminal group, find refuge in the United States?

I have previously recounted how the US, Canada and other western nations turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe, but provided sanctuary for ex-Nazis after the end of the war. Rather than recycle the details of that long-ignored undercurrent of Cold War history, let’s focus on two important historical anniversaries which will help us understand the contrasting behaviours of the US and Cuba.

This year, November to be exact, marked the 50th anniversary of the Cuban intervention in Angola. The latter, a newly independent nation after the withdrawal of Portuguese troops, faced a relentless and covert war of terrorism waged by Angolan proxies of apartheid South Africa. If there was a racist regime in the world, it was the racially stratified society of apartheid South Africa.

Beginning in the 1970s, the South African (and American) backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) waged a terrorist campaign to sabotage the newly won independence of that nation. It seemed like Angola would fall, and so the authorities asked for Cuban help.

Thousands of Cuban soldiers, fighting alongside their Angolan counterparts, drove the South African army out of Angola, and also from Namibia, another nation targeted by apartheid South Africa. This is an example of Cuba’s internationalism, helping to hasten the eventual demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The military defeat of the South African forces in Angola was a setback from which Pretoria never fully recovered.

Operation Carlota, as the Cuban mission was called, is fondly remembered until today as an example of interethnic solidarity.

Keep that in mind, as we explore another milestone. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the passing of Spain’s former military dictator, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Hitler and Mussolini were both dead in 1945. Franco, whose regime came to power after a three year civil war, received substantial funding and military assistance from the Axis powers.

Franco stayed in power over the decades. Spain under his command sent 40 000 troops to fight alongside German forces in the Soviet Union; the so-called Blue Division. How did he remain in power for over 30 years?

There are many answers to that question, but one major reason is the support and international backing provided by the United States. The Cold War was on, and the US required allies in Western Europe. After the conclusion of WW2, there was a concerted effort in the US and Western Europe to rehabilitate Franco’s reputation.

He was regarded as a stable ruler, one who promoted a conservative national Catholicism. Indeed, the Nobel Prize winning novelist anti-Soviet Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, led the charge to rehabilitate Franco’s reputation not as a pawn of the Axis powers, but as a staunch Catholic who ‘saved Spain from communism.’ How exactly he rescued Spain by killing thousands of his fellow Spaniards is never explained by Solzhenitsyn.

That is true as far as it goes, but it is only half the story. Franco’s regime advocated a vicious antisemitism, kept Republican prisoners in concentration camps, and his record of actively siding with Hitler was underplayed.

German U-boats refilled their tanks and replenished their stocks in Spanish ports. Texaco, the American oil company, provided information about the movements of Allied commercial shipping to Franco’s government. Rather than ‘keeping Spain out of the war’ as Franco’s apologists would have us believe, Nationalist Spain participated in the Nazi war effort. Leon Degrelle, a Belgian wartime Nazi collaborator, Waffen-SS officer and fugitive, found sanctuary in Franco’s Spain after 1945.

The purpose of juxtaposing these episodes is to cast a spotlight on little-known areas of modern history. We reveal our characters when we become known by the friends we keep.

What would you say about a person who keeps interviewing for a job opening that is never available? Over the decades, the Iranian version of a dauphin, Reza Pahlavi, has been doing just that. Offering his services to the regime change fanatics in the Washington Beltway (and Whitehall), he pops up whenever tensions escalate between Tehran and Washington.

That is the assessment of Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah and marionette for the US, of Anthony Anchetta in his informative article for Current Affairs magazine. He details the role of Washington’s willing puppets, usually migrants from countries targeted by the US and Britain for regime change.

I wrote about Venezuelan celebrity dissident Maria Corina Machado here, and her role as a puppet-in-waiting for the United States attack on her nation. Celebrity dissidents are a curious bunch; parroting the talking points of Washington and London, they place the interests of the Anglo-American financial oligarchy above those of their respective nations.

To be clear, the Pahlavis, the ex-Royal dynasty that ruled over Iran for decades, were placed in power through foreign interference. Indeed, Rena’s father and grandfather were selected as compliant agents by foreign powers. Britain in the case of granddaddy Reza Shah Pahlavi (who ruled from 1925 to 1941), the United States in the case of his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah (ruling from 1941 to 1979).

The father, his authority reinforced in 1953 after an American and British backed coup d’état, relied on a secret police service – Savak – which earned a reputation for brutality. Interrogations were carried out using torture, rape and electric shocks. The Iranian monarchy was a solid ally of the US and Israel during the Shah’s tenure, and Iranian oil flowed easily into the hands of Anglo-American oil companies.

The 1979 revolution toppled the pro-American Pahlavi dynasty, and since then Tehran has been politically disobedient towards Washington and London. Reza Pahlavi has made a career out of denouncing the Tehran mullahs, hiding his regime change agenda behind a mask of secularism.

The Iranian opposition in exile, such as it is, is a fractious, squabbling, bickering collection of political groups. Their only unifying feature is hostility to the government of Tehran. The main preoccupation of the diaspora Iranian opposition is threatening each other with violence should any group deviate ever so slightly from the MAGA regime change policy.

Pahlavi himself visited Israel in 2023, under the watchful guidance of the then Israel intelligence minister Gila Gamliel. Pahlavi is continuing in the pro-Israeli footsteps of his father. That is interesting, because in early 2024, when an Islamic State offshoot carried out coordinated attacks inside Iran, Pahlavi was on hand to basically rationalise those bombings.

Exculpating the responsibility of an ISIS-affiliated group is an eye-opening exercise, given Washington’s unceasing rhetoric regarding the threat of terrorism.

Numerous articles have been written regarding the defeat of Iranian influence in Syria, following the toppling of the former Ba’athist government in that nation. Others much more knowledgeable than me have tackled this difficult topic. I cannot claim to provide superior knowledge or intelligence on such matters.

I can state however, that the new authorities in Damascus, the militants of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), were deliberately cultivated and groomed for the task of regime change by London. Transforming the HTS organisation from terrorists to politicians is no mean feat, considering that HTS has its origins as an Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliate.

The HTS uprising against the former Syrian regime was successful; it is the modern-day Syrian equivalent of the Sudeten German uprising in the late 1930s in former Czechoslovakia. Both uprisings, organised and supported by a foreign power, relied on political forces that advocated a form of ideological extremism; takfiri jihadist fanaticism in Syria, fanatical pan-German racism in the Sudeten case.

Remember the evil dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, who has remained in power all these decades in the former Soviet republic of Belarus? He was on our television screens for quite some time in 2020, because he was going to be the next villainous ogre to be ousted in a Western backed regime change operation. Was there a Belarusian equivalent of Reza Pahlavi or Maria Corina Machado? A Belarusian politician singing the tune that Washington wants to hear?

You bet there was – entering the stage as the smiling face of the liberal opposition was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, portrayed as a modern day Joan of Arc by the mouthpiece of American capitalism, the New York Times. Showered with money, political backing and fawning media coverage, she was the toast of London, Washington, Paris and other imperial capitals. She was going to overthrow the evil Lukashenko, removing a pro-Russian ally, and steer Belarus on a pro-Western course.

Unlike Hollywood movies, where every scene is scripted, choreographed and rehearsed, reality does not always go to plan. Her government in exile is collapsing, five years on from the heady days of 2020. Plagued by financial scandals, corruption, personality clashes, and even allegations of taking money from the Belarusian equivalent of the KGB, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s career as a regime change leader lies in tatters.

No longer the feted darling of the West, even former allies have abandoned her. Her United Transitional Cabinet could not even unite its constituent bickering factions, let alone masses of Belarusian voters. There is no schadenfreude at this lamentable, pathetic situation. We have to maintain a clear-eyed focus on the failings of yet another EU-US supported astroturf project.

Such a fiasco should compel us to re-examine our practice of using celebrity dissidents as proxies of Anglophone power. They do not have their countries’ best interests in mind, but rather view their lucrative careers as satraps within the Anglo-American fold as the ultimate priority.

Amidst all the online chatter regarding the impact of AI, I can only contribute one point which initially may seem strange. The main claim of ChatGPT, and generative AI, is its remarkable speed. At the click of a button, any question you may have is answered nearly instantaneously by AI. Writing a paper? No problem; ChatGPT will generate a flawless essay in a matter of seconds.

My experience has been the exact opposite – ChatGPT slows down the writing/blogging process. Yes, you read that correctly. ChatGPT is an impediment to the writing/blogging process.

Let’s begin with a bit of background, so we can all understand what I am arguing. I grew up in the age before the internet, during a time when artificial intelligence was the stuff of science fiction. The latter can be quite useful, portraying a society (or dystopia) should existing scientific trends continue.

However, when science fiction becomes a recipe for obsessive technofixes, this is when we become trapped in our own delusions. The tech billionaires want us to fixate on technofixes, technological innovations that will allegedly solve our societal problems.

Technology is wonderful, contributing to all sorts of improvements in our lives. Longer and healthier lives, unraveling the mysteries of outer space, bringing species back from the brink of extinction – these are awesome accomplishments.

We must overcome the focus on the technofixes-plus-markets scenario promoted by the tech giants.

Ok, let’s get back to my school days. I distinctly remember the English teacher from senior high school, Ms Williams, putting me on the spot.

The subject of nuclear weapons and the possibility of thermonuclear war came up in class. I think we were discussing George Orwell’s 1984. We were sitting in a rectangular fashion, all of us facing the centre. The topic of whether or not Nazi Germany was developing an atomic weapon came up. Were they pursuing a nuclear programme? Were they close to building a bomb, or decades away? Did the US do the right thing by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The teacher looked at me and said, ‘Rupen, you seem to know a lot about this subject, World War 2 and so on, what do you think? Was Germany building a nuclear weapon?’

I answered the question to the best of my abilities. After class ended, I was thinking about that episode. The teacher asked for my evaluation about an important topic. She saw me, all of 16 years old, as a subject matter expert. She asked in front of the whole class. I relied on books – and documentaries – to answer her question.

I had to separate science fiction from reality. What does that mean?

Nazi Wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) have been the subject of intense fascination since the end of World War 2. All the documentation, prototypes and military equipment of the Nazi war machine (at least, that which was not destroyed) was seized and studied by the Allied authorities. That included the Nazi nuclear program.

While the Nazi party had hundreds of military projects and proposed technological projects (involving thousands of civilian contractors), they were decades away from constructing a nuclear bomb. This is not to dismiss the German scientists as incompetents; far from it. As the Nazis were losing territory and resources, the capability of achieving a controlled nuclear chain reaction diminished.

There has been all sorts of speculation about the Wunderwaffen – prototypes of gigantic super tanks to anti-gravity flying saucers and UFOs. Occultism and Western fascination with esoteric spiritualism has melded with Nazi Germany, the latter associated with supernatural and mystical forces. Let us remember that the Nazi authorities did their best to promote occultism and pseudo-archaeology in their official policies.

What was a demonstrably successful super-duper weapon was the V-2 rocket, an early version of a cruise missile. Dubbed the vengeance weapon, this guided ballistic missile brought terror to the hearts of the Allies. Flying undetected and unable to be brought down by anti-aircraft systems, these rockets were technically the first human-made vehicles to reach outer space, just surpassing the Karman line of the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

They caused casualties in Britain, but the heaviest toll the V-2 rockets took was on the thousands of forced labourers, concentration camp inmates compelled to build them. Yes, the scientists and engineers designed them, but it was the thousands of concentration camp workers who died building them.

The V-2 scored spectacular successes, but did not change the course of the war.

ChatGPT is similar to the V-2 missile; a spectacular piece of technology that is initially impressive, but has a hidden human-environmental cost, a technofix that will not ultimately change the current course of our capitalist society.

There are increasing reports, and awareness of, the enormous ecological costs of the data centres which process our AI requests. Data centres are the unrecognised engines (or forced labourers) of the digital age. They consume vast amounts of electricity and require huge quantities of water to cool them down. That water cannot be replaced. Each ChatGPT essay requires a staggering amount of water to sustain the processing power of the data centre.

If AI can perform a statistical analysis of complex data sets, thus saving you time, that is great. If ChatGPT produces a greater return on investment (ROI) for your business, that is fantastic.

If you write an essay using ChatGPT, and submit that as part of a university course, think about what you have actually learned. If the tutor or instructor uses ChatGPT to evaluate your essay, does that mean they have actually understood what your paper?

If our educational experience is mediated by AI-driven exchanges, what happens to the meaning of a university education?

Open ChatGPT, and think of the topic you want to ask it. Type in your question and press Return. It will give you a wonderful answer. Is it correct? Is it hallucinating references or citations, which it is known to do?

You still need to edit and rewrite what it has produced. You still need to verify the content as correct. You still need to ensure that the essay says what you want to say. You could allocate all that time and energy towards creating your own work. So, close ChatGPT and write your own essay.

During my time in high school, I was told by my teachers that I was a brilliant student. No, I never got straight As in every subject, but I was good academically. This is where I discovered a side consequence of adolescent life – teenage jealousy. It worked on both sides of the equation – students who were considered less academically achieving were jealous of my ‘success’, and the top students were envious of a strong competitor.

One supposed ‘friend’, a gifted student, was a toxic influence always dismissing my accomplishments. I soon learned to be aware of envy. I thought about that topic for a long time. It is particularly relevant in relation to Soviet Armenian aviation designer and expert Artem Mikoyan (1905 – 1970’ You see, Mikoyan – and his lifelong friend and colleague Mikhail Gurevich (1893 – 1976) were the designers of the internationally renowned Migoyan supersonic fighting jets.

The MiG, as it has become popularly known, was and is the envy of the collective West. Mikoyan and his associates created an aircraft so technologically sophisticated, even the imperialist powers were impressed – and terrified. How was it possible that a Soviet Armenian aviation expert could come up with such a superior design? The jealousy of the West manifested itself in many ways. One of the indicators that the imperial powers were envious – they tried numerous times to steal a MiG to study its design.

The MiG is one of the most successful air fighter jets in the world. Copied and exported to multiple nations, the MiG has become the shorthand reference for Soviet and Russian fighter aircraft. Until today, nations such as India, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq – still the MiG design.

The Soviet-originated Russian aerospace corporation is called the Mikoyan – out of respect to its founders. It is the successor to the Soviet-era Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau. Aeronautical engineers, such as Mikoyan, worked for state-run engineering bureaus in Soviet times. Production was tightly controlled and monitored by the Moscow authorities.

We are taught in the West that government-run industries are inefficient, woefully bureaucratic and stifle innovation. Only the private sector can generate the kind of continuous improvement required to be successful – is not that so?

How did Mikoyan become so globally successful? This question was foremost on the minds of Washington and London policymakers. A number of capitalist nations, such as Israel, came up with a solution – entice military pilots to defect from Eastern bloc nations, and from Soviet-aligned countries, thus stealing a MiG and scoring a propaganda coup in the process.

Cold War defectors, particularly aviators, were hailed as heroes in the Anglophone nations. Here was proof that the pull of individual freedom, entrepreneurship and McDonalds was so strong, courageous individuals in the Communist East would risk life and limb to be free. I also watched Sean Connery in that movie (The Hunt for Red October, I think) cooperate with CIA agent Jack Ryan for the supreme goal of defecting and reaching the West.

That story is fictional, although the part about cooperating with the CIA contains an element of truth. Acquiring information about the MiG aircraft was a top priority for the Israeli government in the 1950s and 60s. Numerous Arab states had obtained MiG aircraft to beef up their air defences. The Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, went into overdrive to bribe, blackmail and entice Arab military aviators to defect.

In 1966, Israel secured a propaganda victory, convincing Iraqi military pilot Captain Munir Redfa to defect, bringing his MiG-21 fighter plane with him. Now Israel and its western allies had a feared MiG in their hands, to be closely studied. The heroic exploits of Captain Redfa made for good television. A Soviet-aligned Iraq lost one of its highly trained pilots to Israel.

Munir Redfa, an Assyrian Christian, was lured by bribes, threats and prospective rewards of a high paying job, should he agree to defect. Mossad had tried in the 1950s to coax Egyptian pilots to defect, without any success. Iraq, at times a Soviet ally, and then changing sides after military coups, proved to have an unstable political climate, that is until the rise of a CIA friendly Iraqi officer called Saddam Hussein.

There were instances of Iraqi pilots refusing to defect, and they ended up assassinated under mysterious circumstances. Captain Redfa, approached by female Mossad agents, proved to be compliant. He traveled to Europe and Israel, meeting with high-level Israeli military commanders, organising the flight path he would take.

Redfa flew his MiG to Israel in August 1966. It is easy to be an ideological hero when your path is smoothed out by a foreign intelligence agency. The sordid details of his Mossad-facilitated defection were conveniently omitted from his media-friendly story of individual courage.

Mikoyan passed away in December 1970. This month is the 55th anniversary of his death. The person is long gone, but his design and handiwork live on in the hearts and minds of aircraft engineers and enthusiasts around the world.

Schadenfreude is a German word which has no direct translation into the English language. It means the joy felt at another person’s misfortune. Do not feel guilty about it; it stems from our deep seated instincts. We all experience it when, for instance, an obnoxious loudmouthed braggart sportsperson who is humbled after being defeated by an underrated opponent.

In 1990, when heavyweight boxing contender James ‘Buster’ Douglas achieved an upset victory over the previously invincible and seemingly indestructible Mike Tyson, there was schadenfreude. The arrogant work colleague who constantly interrupts you, lording their ideas over yours, finally stumbles badly in a meeting and gets corrected – there is schadenfreude.

In 2018, when egomaniacal mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor was resoundingly beaten to a pulp by his opponent Khabib Nurmagomedov, there was an overwhelming feeling of schadenfreude.

We also have to be aware of when and where schadenfreude is appropriate and when it is not. 25 years ago, I experienced schadenfreude when David Irving lost his libel case. He sued Penguin Publishers and American academic Deborah Lipstadt for libel. He lost. That was a fantastic victory. Today, when I see David Irving’s condition, there is no schadenfreude.

David Irving has spent his writing career as a Holocaust denier and Nazi apologist. His books minimise and whitewash the guilt of the Nazi regime. His speeches, delivered to gatherings of neo-Nazis and far rightists in Britain and Germany, have sought to rehabilitate the doctrines of Nazism and the ultranationalist Right. In his most famous book, Hitler’s War, he strives to maintain the innocence of the Fuhrer, claiming Hitler had no knowledge of the Holocaust; if the latter took place at all.

In 1963, he published The Destruction of Dresden, focusing on the Allied aerial carpet bombing of that city. The book covered the terrible destruction of the city’s infrastructure and historical assets. However, Irving exaggerated the death toll, and portrayed the Allies as sadistic killers; a portrayal popular among German postwar ultranationalist circles and those attempting to lessen the guilt of the Nazi regime.

In 1968, he published a controversial book The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17. The incident he covered refers to a melancholy story of a British navy Arctic convoy destroyed by enemy forces. Without going into all the details here, it was the first large combined Anglo-American naval operation in the Arctic. Its destruction by German forces has been extensively investigated. 153 merchant seamen were killed.

Irving exploited this tragedy, writing a book that put the boot into senior escort commander Jack Broome. The latter sued Irving for libel and won the case – Irving was ordered to pay 40 000 pounds in damages.

He has craved recognition as a legitimate historian. In the 1990s, he made multiple ‘challenges’ to historians, stating he would willingly hand over thousands of pounds to any historian who could produce a single piece of paper ordering the Holocaust with Hitler’s signature. He knew that no such piece of paper existed, but his stunt was intended to garner more publicity for himself as a legitimate academic simply asking the establishment uncomfortable questions.

In 1993, Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of history, published a book about Holocaust denial, its causes, agenda and main players. In it, she described Irving as a Holocaust denier, antisemite and pro-Nazi. That was like waving a red rag to a bull. Irving, in 1996, launched libel proceedings against Lipstadt and Penguin Publishers.

The case went to trial in 2000 – Irving lost. The judge ruled that Irving indeed was a Holocaust denier, antisemite and a Nazi apologist. I wrote about that case and the issues raised by it in a previous article.

Combating Holocaust denial may seem like a purely academic exercise, but there are political implications in leaving it unchallenged. The Nazi regime, and its murderous collaborators in Eastern Europe, have their defenders and apologists today. Irving’s efforts, while maintaining a veneer of scholarly respectability, contributed to the rewriting of modern history, rehabilitating the doctrines of the ultranationalist regimes.

25 years after that trial, Irving is today a shell of a man. In deteriorating health since 2023, he requires round-the-clock supervision and care. A once proud, egoistic man is now completely dependent on others, experiencing physical and cognitive decline. There are no tears for Irving, I still condemn and deplore his ideology. But now is not the time for schadenfreude. His health is frail, his mind weakened – he cannot defend himself anymore.

There is no schadenfreude at his pitiable condition. I was raised never to gloat or feel joy at another person’s health decline. On the contrary, it is sad; no, I am not going to start a GoFundMe campaign for Irving’s medical bills. It is sad to see an otherwise active writer unable to fend for himself anymore (Yes, Irving is male and in his late 80s). As much as I pride myself on having debated and combated Holocaust denial and its associated ultranationalist effort at obfuscation, I cannot feel any glee at his condition.

No, there is no pity for the man who described Auschwitz and Treblinka as ‘tourist attractions’, but I cannot be happy about his current misfortune either.

Today, in France and Spain, there are ultranationalist parties and writers who are actively defending and rehabilitating the fascist regimes of Francisco Franco in Spain, and the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy government in wartime France. Let’s focus our energies on combating these particular manifestations of historical revisionism and the rehabilitation of far right doctrines. Leave David Irving where he is.