Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Alexei Navalny’s Final Letter: “Victory Is Inevitable. We Must Not Give Up”

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.

10 Biggest Threats to the World in 2024, Ranked by Ian Bremmer

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!

 

 

College Presidents Lampooned on Saturday Night Live’s Cold Open

Ouch!

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Political Scientist Ian Bremmer Breaks Down the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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

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Yuval Noah Harari and Fareed Zakaria Break Down What’s Happening in the Middle East

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

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

In the wake of Hamas’ grue­some attack on Israeli civil­ians, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Ian Brem­mer explains “the his­tor­i­cal con­text of the con­flict, how Israel might respond and what it means for Jews, Pales­tini­ans and the world at large.” The con­ver­sa­tion also cov­ers “how the US may fac­tor into the glob­al response and how to find reli­able infor­ma­tion amid the breath­less media cov­er­age and the fog of war.” Host­ed by TED’s head of cura­tion Helen Wal­ters, this con­ver­sa­tion was record­ed on Octo­ber 9, 2023.

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Neil Gaiman Speaks at the Alternative Graduation Held at a College Resisting Ron DeSantis’ Hostile Takeover

His pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has end­ed before it start­ed. But Ron DeSan­tis is the last to know it. And so he con­tin­ues pan­der­ing to Trump’s base. After ship­ping migrants to Martha’s Vine­yard, the Flori­da gov­er­nor now picks cost­ly fights with Dis­ney, his state’s sec­ond largest employ­er; bans books in Flori­da pub­lic schools; and exerts polit­i­cal pres­sure on the state’s pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

At the New Col­lege of Flori­da, DeSan­tis is using the cud­gel of gov­ern­ment to trans­form a tra­di­tion­al lib­er­al arts col­lege into a con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing insti­tu­tion. If you’re not fol­low­ing what’s hap­pen­ing at New Col­lege, read this pro­file in The New York­er. The arti­cle will help set the stage for the video above.

There, you will see author Neil Gaiman speak­ing at an alter­na­tive grad­u­a­tion arranged by New Col­lege stu­dents. Not want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in the offi­cial grad­u­a­tion archi­tect­ed by the school’s new con­ser­v­a­tive boss­es (the event fea­tured Scott Atlas, the radi­ol­o­gist who became Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial Covid “expert,” how inspir­ing!), the stu­dents arranged an alt grad­u­a­tion and invit­ed Gaiman to speak via video. Through a per­son­al sto­ry, The Sand­man author remind­ed the stu­dents of the lib­er­al arts val­ues that under­gird the school, and left stu­dents with some time­ly advice: “You must fight for what you believe to be right while nev­er los­ing your sense of humor or your sense of pro­por­tion.” Here’s to hop­ing that New Col­lege out­lasts the erst­while pres­i­den­tial con­tender.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth Is Life With­out A*Holes

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

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The Seattle Public Library Gives Students Free Digital Access to Books Getting Banned Across the United States

Accord­ing to a new report pub­lished by PEN Amer­i­ca, the “2022–23 school year has been marked to date by an esca­la­tion of book bans and cen­sor­ship in class­rooms and school libraries across the Unit­ed States.” PEN Amer­i­ca has tracked “1,477 instances of indi­vid­ual books banned, affect­ing 874 unique titles,” dur­ing the first half of this aca­d­e­m­ic year. That marks an increase of 28 per­cent com­pared to the pri­or six months, Jan­u­ary – June 2022.” The book ban­nings are tak­ing place in con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing states (main­ly, Texas, Flori­da, Mis­souri, Utah, and South Car­oli­na), and over­whelm­ing­ly, they’re tar­get­ing “sto­ries by and about peo­ple of col­or and LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Amer­i­can pub­lic libraries are push­ing back. As men­tioned last sum­mer, the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library launched Books Unbanned. This ini­tia­tive pro­vides Amer­i­can stu­dents, no mat­ter where they live in the U.S., free access to 500,000 dig­i­tal books, includ­ing books banned by stu­dents’ local libraries. And now the Seat­tle Pub­lic Library has joined the effort, rolling out its own ver­sion of Books Unbanned. “We believe in your right to read what you want, dis­cov­er your­self and form your own opin­ions,” writes the library. “Teens and young adults ages 13 to 26 liv­ing any­where in the U.S. can access our entire col­lec­tion of e‑books and audio­books.” To get start­ed, stu­dents can fill out the form at the bot­tom of this page (click here), and then explore these curat­ed lists of banned non-fic­tion books and banned fic­tion books.

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 

The Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library Gives Every Teenag­er in the U.S. Free Access to Books Get­ting Cen­sored by Amer­i­can Schools

The New York Pub­lic Library Pro­vides Free Online Access to Banned Books: Catch­er in the Rye, Stamped & More

The 850 Books a Texas Law­mak­er Wants to Ban Because They Could Make Stu­dents Feel Uncom­fort­able

 

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.