Conflict is an innate aspect of human nature and thus inevitable. Man can never realistically avoid every single point of discord. Different perspectives, disagreements, divergent values, competing goals, and overlapping claims will always exist. Individuals, and the states they construct, in the quest to achieve their goals, will thus indubitably come to loggerheads. To ignore this fact is to lead policymakers, and the people who they are supposed to protect, down a dangerous path.

Germany has an official agenda of supporting democracy and peace. However, the German arms industry sells weapons to dictators or conflict-suffering regions, sometimes to the detriment of even the country’s own interests. Compared to other NATO-states, Germany is generally reluctant to engage in wars. The most recent example is last […]

The Berlin Wall and ThePianist (2002), a biographical war drama film were  my primary sources of information about Germany since 2003, derived  from my bachelors study in International Relations- war and genocide being my points of reference. This time my trip to the Transformation Thinkers Conference in Berlin, organized by the Bertelsmann […]

Who’s afraid of fearless art? by Manouchehr Shamsrizi FRSA Any postmodern arts scene has the éclat in its DNA, but in Berlin we can (readily?) see the impact of a re-politicisation and re-moralisation in the arts. This is happening at the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, organized by KW Institute for Contemporary […]

Welcome to Meine Kleine Farm (My little farm), where you actually get to meet the meat you’re going to eat. Seriously, say hello to the cute piggy face on your sausage label — because one could not exist without the other. That’s the point of the new German online initiative, […]