Rudyard Kipling - veertien achttien

Op de podcast Veertien Achttien (feed) zat ik deze week echt uit te kijken. Ik wist dat de nieuwe aflevering over een van mijn geliefde schrijvers zou gaan: Rudyard Kipling.

Ik wist helemaal niet dat Kipling een zoon in de oorlog verloren had. Het heeft hem zo aangegrepen dat hij er een prachtig gedicht over schreef: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied." En rondom dat gedicht bouwt Tom Tacken deze biografie. De leugen van Kipling is wellicht dat hij zijn relaties gebruikt heeft om zoon John in het leger te krijgen. Daar was hij aanvankelijk voor afgekeurd.

John is ook een van die soldaten die nog heel lang vermist blijft, totdat de dood officieel wordt aangenomen. Het moet het leed van Kipling alleen maar verlengd hebben. Tacken heeft er deze week weer een prachtig verhaal van gesmeed. Het is of hij wat literaire inspiratie van meester Kipling heeft gekregen, want ik vond de uitwerking, die toch al elke week op uitzonderlijk peil staat, deze keer buitengewoon. Haast lyrisch. Met ironie, natuurlijk, dat wel.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Ferdinand I van Bulgarije,
Veertien Achttien in transit,
Pegoud, Grimm - Veertien Achttien,
Emmeline Pankhurst,
Lord Kitchener.

A history of the Israeli-Arab conflict - Rear Vision

The program Rear Vision of Australia's ABC which is also available as podcast, had three guests to speak on The Middle East conflict and the two-state solution. Giora Eiland; former head of the Israeli National Security Council and General in the Israel General Staff. Jeremy Pressman; Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, at the University of Connecticut in America. And Rashid Khalidi; Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University in America.

I especially liked the contribution of Rashid Khalidi, who we have recently heard also in several other excellent podcast appearances - see below. When discussing the Balfour Declaration Khalidi points out that although the provision was made that the Jews were to respect the rights of others, the Arabs are not mentioned here. This is to be a continuing problem in the history, the Arabs struggle with being a non-entity and one must in ones mind add to this that especially among Israelis, many consider the Palestinians, still, as a non-entity. And so, the rather refreshing light on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict Khalidi gives is that of the Arab population and a disenfranchised community, without sliding into the rhetoric of accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing or equaling Zionism with Imperialism.

Also Eiland's and Pressman's contributions are quite good, so that this is one of the very few podcasts that will give you a basic insight in the history of the conflict going as far back as 1917. The only thing I found missing in the program was how this two-state solution as an option has been losing ground recently. While it is still largely held as the one and only viable option for a cold peace, only Eiland mentions one of the fundamental problems with it: the most Israel is politically capable of offering is less than any Palestinian Authority can accept. Add to this the deep mistrust between the peoples that have risen over the last decade and the eternal problems of the Palestinians to forge a basis for a viable state, not only economically, but also politically. The two-state solution seems, more than ever, apart from being politically out of reach, practically not sustainable.

More Rear Vision:
Fish depletion,
Follow up on Iran and Versailles,
Versailles 1919,
Iran 1953,
Coffee.

More Rashid Khalidi:
Sowing crisis - Us and the Middle-East,
Empire.

The Iran power struggle - LSE podcast

The LSE Public Lectures and Events at the London School of Economics, in short the LSE podcast, is great series of guest lectures at the LSE, which are almost invariably worth listening in on. Subjects that are of great interest are being discussed by world specialists and responded to by an educated audience.

Whether Hooman Majd, an Iranian journalist who lives in the US, is such a great specialist is something he actually shed doubt on in his own lecture The Ayatollah Begs to Differ - the path to an Islamic Democracy. Although he has written a book under the same title and he frequently visits Iran, he states there are no Iran experts and he certainly doesn't regard himself as one. The audience also turns out to have second thoughts. When Majd wants to argue that Iran is not a dictatorship, critical questions about that statement are met with cheers in the hall.

Nevertheless, this lecture is very interesting. It emphasizes once more, as we have heard in other podcasts, that Iran is in no way a monolithic state. It is not so culturally, ethnically, religiously and even politically. As others have done Majd paints a picture of two factions vying for power, the fundamentalists with Ahmedinijad in their side and the moderates with Moussavi. There might even be more flavors in the spectrum, but even in this picture, Majd tells how free, open and carefully democratic Iranian society is. And in this version of Iran, the road to further liberalization is open. And as to the nuclear program, Majd sees that as a scientific and energy project.

I have added the episode to the composite podcast feed Anne is a Man - Iran.

More LSE Events:
Justice,
In Search of Islam’s Civilization,
Religion and the Market - John Gray on LSE,
John Gray's cultural pessimism,
Omniculturalism.

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change

Also this year I will participate in Blog Action Day, which is held every year on October 15th. Bloggers from all over the world and from all walks of life will pay attention to one and the same subject. The subject in 2009 will be Climate Change



Last year on October 15th I re-posted all podcast reviews that were related to that year's subject (poverty). This amounted to a manageable series. If I were to repost all podcast reviews on Climate Change, I'd hand you too much. I think I will summarize in stead of repost and, wherever possible, present all those podcasts in a composite feed (thanks to Huffduffer).

If you have any suggestions, let me know through the comments.

More Blog Action Day:
2008: Poverty,
2007: Environment.

What can you do with philosophy?

On Philosophy Bites Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds spoke with writer John Armstrong about the question 'What can you do with philosophy?'. For a philosophy podcast that reaches a wide public this is almost an obligatory question. One would almost expect the defining podcast for Philosophy Bites.

As the dialog set out, I was reminded of a radio program I heard many years ago with a mathematician who was addressing the similar question, what practical use does mathematics have. And surely this mathematician set out to tackle the problem of choosing the right partner in life with chance theory, stochastics and deliver the exact answer. Fine, but yet I feel that somehow the mathematician, or the philosopher for that matter, is in a way degrading himself by forcefully applying to the profane and should have some arrogance in not wishing to be practical.

Yet, in the end, John Armstrong seemed to have established more than the reported mathematician as I found myself discussing this episode with others who had heard it and noticed we all began applying the trains of thought and refining questions Armstrong had suggested. And so, especially in hindsight, this was indeed a very good issue of the podcast.

More Philosophy Bites:
Morality without God,
Pascal's Pensées,
Fourth Revolution,
Michael Sandel on what cannot be sold,
Aristotle's Ethics.

Ab Osterhaus - Voor 1 Nacht

KRO's voor 1 nacht sluit aan bij de actualiteit en had viroloog Ab Osterhaus bij Marc Stakenburg in de uitzending. Osterhaus mag daarin een poging ondernemen om de dreiging van de Mexicaanse griep en andere virus-infecties in perspectief te zetten. Daarmee is dit niet de eerste podcast waarin Osterhaus te beluisteren viel. Eerder was hij al te gast bij Martin Simek.

Osterhaus verschijnt kennelijk niet in de media op persoonlijke titel, maar als een man met een missie en die missie is de zaak der bestrijding van virusinfecties te dienen. Daarbij denken we vandaag vooral aan de Mexicaanse griep, maar Osterhaus maakt duidelijk dat die griep vooralsnog nog redelijk meevalt en dat de Nederlandse overheid aardig voorbereid is. Veel problematischer is de situatie met HIV en potentieel veel dreigender was de vogelgriep. Een mondiale ramp als in 1919 met de Spaanse griep, waarbij 50 miljoen mensen, 1% van de wereldbevolking omkwam, is bij de huidige pandemie niet te verwachten, maar ook met de huidige stand der wetenschap evenmin uit te sluiten, niet vandaag en niet met het virus van volgend jaar.

Wat tussen de regels duidelijk wordt is dat Osterhaus nogal eens wordt verweten dat hij te vaak en te nadrukkelijk alarm slaat. Een aantijging dat hij wellicht financieel belang heeft (aandelen in de farmaceutische industrie), blijft onbesproken. Hij is er vrij koel onder en ik kan me dat wel voorstellen; hij heeft een missie en de ergernis laat alleen maar zien dat hij in staat is om de aandacht te trekken. Wie zou het risico durven nemen dat hij toch gelijk heeft, lijkt hij te denken. Je zou in hem een venter van verzekeringspolissen kunnen zien, als je alleen het interview bij Stakenburg hoort. Bij Simek ligt al meer de nadruk op de algemene problematiek en dus op een arme mensendoder als HIV. Dan klinkt hij veel meer integer. In beide gevallen blijft hij een man met een missie.

Meer KRO's voor 1 nacht:
Freek de Jonge,
Bennie Jolink,
Henk Spaan,
Maarten Ducrot,
Candy Dulfer.