Above, actor Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch reads the final let­ter writ­ten by Alex­ei Naval­ny, the Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader who died in a Siber­ian prison on Feb­ru­ary 16th. The let­ter gets at a ques­tion many have asked, even from afar. Why, after being poi­soned with Novi­chok in 2020, did Naval­ny return to Rus­sia, know­ing he would face imme­di­ate and harsh impris­on­ment?

The let­ter, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 17, 2024, begins:

Exact­ly 3 years ago, I returned to Rus­sia after under­go­ing treat­ment for poi­son­ing at the air­port. I was arrest­ed and here I am three years in. For three years, I’ve been answer­ing the same ques­tion. Inmates ask it plain­ly and direct­ly. Prison admin­is­tra­tion staff [ask it] cau­tious­ly, with the recorders off. Why did you come back?

For a coun­try now used to cyn­i­cism and cor­rup­tion, the answer is dis­may­ing:

It’s actu­al­ly very sim­ple. I have my coun­try and my con­vic­tions and I don’t want to renounce either my coun­try or my con­vic­tions.… If your con­vic­tions are worth any­thing, you should be ready to stand up for them and, if nec­es­sary, make some sac­ri­fices. And if you’re not ready, then you have no con­vic­tions at all. You just think you do. But those are not con­vic­tions and
prin­ci­ples, just thoughts in your head.

Naval­ny ends the let­ter with a pre­dic­tion: “Putin’s state is unvi­able. One day we’ll look at its place and it will be gone. Vic­to­ry is inevitable but, for now, we must not give up…” Rest in peace Alex­ei Naval­ny.

At the start of each year, Ian Brem­mer, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of Eura­sia Group, cre­ates a list that ranks the great­est threats to our world. In 2024, Brem­mer puts his fin­ger on Ungoverned AI, a Par­ti­tioned Ukraine, a volatile Mid­dle East, and a sput­ter­ing Chi­nese econ­o­my. But the biggest threat? A divid­ed Unit­ed States where the right and left con­sid­er each oth­er an exis­ten­tial threat, where polit­i­cal can­di­dates threat­en their rivals, where pow­er does­n’t get tran­si­tioned peace­ful­ly, and where for­eign nations look to fur­ther sow the seeds of inter­nal divi­sion. You can read Brem­mer’s full report here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Ian Brem­mer, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of Eura­sia Group, has an intel­li­gent, fair, and humane way of explain­ing crises around the world. That includes the cur­rent cri­sis in the Mid­dle East. Above, he spends an hour dis­cussing the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict and its geo-polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal con­text. Speak­ing with Big­Think’s edi­tor-in-chief, Robert Chap­man-Smith, Brem­mer delves “into inter­nal pol­i­tics in Israel — includ­ing grow­ing dis­sent against the gov­ern­ment, how the con­flict in Gaza is being han­dled, the influ­ence of hard-right polit­i­cal par­ties, and the impact of these fac­tors on the rela­tion­ship between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans.” Below you can find time­stamps for the dif­fer­ent sub­jects cov­ered.

0:00 Pales­tini­ans for­got­ten
6:30 Israel’s domes­tic insta­bil­i­ty
13:17 Israel and Gulf states
19:28 Hamas’ strat­e­gy
27:06 Social media dis­in­for­ma­tion
37:20 Israel’s strat­e­gy and peace
44:40 U.S. sup­port for Israel
49:32 World War 3?
54:07 Two-state solu­tion

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Israeli-Pales­tin­ian Con­flict: His­tor­i­cal Primers That Help Explain the Cen­tu­ry-Long Con­flict

We give you two per­spec­tives on what’s hap­pen­ing in the Mid­dle East this week.

Above, for­eign affairs colum­nist Fareed Zakaria talks with Scott Gal­loway about the con­flict in Israel, pro­vid­ing his­tor­i­cal con­text and explor­ing what’s like­ly to come. And below Yuval Noah Harari (his­to­ri­an, philoso­pher and best-sell­ing author of Sapi­ens and Homo Deus) takes you inside the Israeli response to the mas­sacres, how Israel might respond, and whether the prospects for peace have essen­tial­ly van­ished for quite some time.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ian Brem­mer on The Israel-Hamas War, and What It Means for the World