In 1915, Rosa Luxemburg was imprisoned for opposing the First World War. In one of her letters from her prison cell, she wrote that: “it is either socialism or barbarism.” Unfortunately, it appears that the world has chosen barbarism.

Being opposed to war has always been dangerous. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at the American University in Washington

So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

John F. Kennedy, COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 10, 1963, Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963 | JFK Library

Five months later – in November 1963 – he was not only mortal but dead; his commitment to peace cost him his life. His brother, Robert Kennedy, opposed the Vietnam War and gave a remarkable speech at the University of Kansas in 1968:

The commander of the American forces at Ben Tre said we had to destroy that city in order to save it. So 38,000 people were wiped out or made refugees. We here in the United States – not just the United States government, not just the commanders of and forces in South Vietnam, the United States government and every human being that’s in this room – we are part of that decision and I don’t think that we need do that any longer and I think we should change our policy.

I don’t want to be part of a government, I don’t want to be part of the United States, I don’t want to be part of the American people, and have them write of us as they wrote of Rome: “They made a desert and they called it peace.”

I think that we should go to the negotiating table, and I think we should take the steps to go to the negotiating table.

Robert Kennedy, REMARKS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, MARCH 18, 1968, Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968 | JFK Library

Three months later, he too had been shot, less than two months after Martin Luther King Jr. had been gunned down. No motive was ever found for any of the assassinations.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King I Have a Dream Speech – American Rhetoric (archive.org)

Tragically, the consequences of war are always the same: a lot of innocent people are either killed or horribly maimed. We need to stop this madness. Please read and share the truly heart wrenching report below.

As humanitarian trauma surgeons we have both seen incredible suffering. Collectively, we were present at Ground Zero on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on the first day of these disasters. We have worked in the deprivation of southern Zimbabwe and the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Together we have worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on three continents in our combined 57 years of volunteering. This long experience taught us that there was no greater pain as a humanitarian surgeon than being unable to provide needed care to a patient.

But that was before coming to Gaza. Now we know the pain of being unable to treat a child who will slowly die, but also alone, because she is the only surviving member of an entire extended family. We have not had the heart to tell these children how their families died: burned until they resembled blistered hotdogs more than human beings, shredded to pieces such that they can only be buried in mass graves, or simply entombed in their former apartment buildings to die slowly of asphyxia and sepsis.

Feroze Sidhwa und Mark Perlmutter, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/surgeons-cruelty-israel-gaza

Wenn man mutig bleibt, hat man nichts zu befürchten

Otto von Bismarck

Eine kürzlich auf blick.ch veröffentlichte Umfrage zeigt, dass sich Jugendliche zwar Sorgen über den Klimawandel machen, aber kaum bereit sind, ihre Lebensgewohnheiten zu ändern. Ein wichtiger Grund dafür ist, dass sie bezüglich der Ursachen des Klimawandels genauso unwissend sind, wie ihre Grosseltern.

Das ist sehr schade, denn die Situation ist inzwischen dramatisch. Die obige Abbildung aus der Finanical Times zeigt die Entwicklung der Meerestemperaturen seit 1981. Bemerkenswert sind die Temperaturen in diesem und im letzten Jahr.

Schnelle Veränderungen sind immer schwierig für das Bildungswesen. Lehrpersonen müssen plötzlich Themen unterrichten, die sie selbst nie studiert haben, und nicht alle Bildungsinstitutionen sind gleich schnell oder mutig. Das führt leider dazu, dass viele junge Menschen für die Welt von gestern ausgebildet werden.

Dank des sehr erfolgreichen Films von Christofer Nolan wissen viele von uns, dass der junge Robert J. Oppenheimer nach Göttingen gereist ist. Nicht weil er die Stadt hübsch fand, sondern weil er nur dort die Theorie der Quantenmechanik lernen konnte. Heute befinden wir uns in einer ähnlichen Situation: Das Wissen, das für eine erfolgreiche Karriere erforderlich ist, wird nicht an jeder Hochschule oder in jedem Studiengang angeboten.

Der nächste Infotag findet am 16. März 2024 statt. Auch für Maturandinnen und Maturanden geeignet.

Wenn Du ein Schiff bauen willst, dann trommle nicht Männer zusammen, um Holz zu beschaffen, Aufgaben zu vergeben und die Arbeit einzuteilen. Sondern lehre sie die Sehnsucht nach dem weiten, endlosen Meer.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I still cannot get over the fact that the current genocide in Gaza is being carried out and supported by democratically elected governments. These governments are also destroying our planet.

How can we explain the existence of evil democracies? Logically, there are two possibilities: either they are not real democracies, or their people are evil. In the first case, we need more democracy. In the latter case, we need less of it. Either way, every person with a soul and an ounce of human dignity needs to act.

Since German-speaking media have largely decided to ignore the slaughter in Gaza, I have collected some video clips from English-speaking sources. I want to emphasize that these are mainly mainstream media sources, such as CNN, MSNBC, Channel 4, and Al Jazeera. I hope it will make some people open their eyes.

When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Matthew 2:16

In Herod’s defense, he did what he could to “limit civilian casualties” and only killed boys under two years of age. Western governments would have approved.

No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents.

Edward Said

The whole purpose of racism and religion is to define who deserves to live. The others are expendables who can be killed at will. This happened during the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Colonial Wars, the two World Wars, during the Vietnam War, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and is currently happening in Sudan, Ukraine, and in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. Wars and violence have always been a part of human history. There are no indications that this is going to change in future.

Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper. They did not apply in Iraq. They do not apply in Gaza. We will pulverize your neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. We will wantonly murder your women, children, elderly and sick. We will set up blockades to engineer starvation and the spread of infectious diseases. You, the “lesser breeds” of the earth, do not matter. To us you are vermin to be extinguished. We have everything. If you try and take any of it away from us, we will kill you. And we will never be held accountable.

Chris Hedges, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-horror-the-horror

Western Democracies are all complicit in this massacre.

Let loose the dogs of war.

Joe Biden, https://accuracy.org/release/bidens-escalating-iraq-war-lies/

Wie entwickelt sich der Sektor der erneuerbaren Energien weltweit? Was sind die grössten Herausforderungen und Chancen? Am 3. April 2024 ist Celine Mahieux Gast an der OST in Rapperswil und vermittelt den Gästen Einblicke aus erster Hand.

Celine Mahieux ist seit 2022 Shells Vizepräsidentin für Energietechnik und seit Januar 2024 zusätzlich Shells Vizepräsidentin für Innovationsexzellenz. Das Power Technology Team von Shell konzentriert sich auf die Bereiche erneuerbare Energien, Integration von Energiespeichern, E-Mobilität und industrielle Dekarbonisierung durch Elektrifizierung.

Mit 25 Jahren Erfahrung im Technologiemanagement widmet Celine Mahieux ihre Karriere der Entwicklung sauberer, für alle zugänglicher Energie. Sie ist Autorin eines Buches zum Thema, hat mehr als 30 Veröffentlichungen und 10 Patente verfasst und war in verschiedenen Organisationsgremien tätig.

Datum: 3. April 2024
Zeit: 17:15 Uhr
Ort: OST – Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, Campus Rapperswil-Jona

Celine Mahieux wird ihr Referat auf Englisch halten.

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