Geopolitically charged

At the city library the other day, I picked up the latest issue of Monocle, which featured a fascinating long-read on Beirut’s art scene and how it continues to flourish despite everything happening in the region. Thinking back on Ally’s and my trip in 2019, which ChatGPT described as one of my most “geopolitically charged”, the article echoed much of what I felt when visiting Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum of Contemporary Art (which is still open as I write this) and other such places.

After an online seminar on conspiracy theories with my colleagues in Halmstad, I headed out into the rain and up to Delsjön for an ice-cold swim. Meanwhile, in Stockholm, the Swedish parliament has been debating the new law for financing nuclear construction, which is simply tragicomic, like some absurd play where the actors completely fail to see the bigger (global) picture and remain trapped in the same tired and incorrect assumptions (as if the four Korean APR-1400 reactors at Barakah had never been built etcetera). In the end, it all boils down to a basic choice: do we cling to the casino-style volatility of the current neoliberal electricity market, or do we step up and provide cheap, public baseload power for climate leadership and the wholesale electrification of society?