Social issues

No alternative to a negotiated solution!

by Wolfgang Herzberg*

(6 December 2022) As a descendant of Jewish-German survivors and a political writer of many years’ standing, whose family members perished in the genocide of the Nazi regime or were scattered all over the world. My parents, out of a deep sense of political responsibility, returned to Berlin after the Second World War, to help build an anti-fascist and peaceful Germany. Against the background of these existential family experiences, I ask myself the following fundamental questions about the war in Ukraine, which I would also like to address to the public and all those with political responsibility.
Conference in Solothurn, 15 and 16 October 2022 – Part 4

What Media in Whose Interest?

by Alan MacLeod,* Scottland

(6 December 2022) I’m an investigative journalist for Palestinian-American news outlet “MintPress News”. I have also been published or quoted in many of the most well-known English-language media outlets. Before that, I was an academic specializing in media and journalism studies.
Conference in Solothurn, 15 and 16 October 2022 – Part 3

This is how Swiss media call for even more war

by Christian Müller,* Switzerland

Dear guests

It is a pleasure for me to be able to speak to you at the invitation of the organisers responsible here. However, what I am to talk to you about is anything but a pleasure. It is a really sad story!

A long – critical! – letter to the editor on a military topic to the“Badener Tagblatt” in 1964, on the basis of which Werner Geissberger, the regional editor of the“Badener Tagblatt” at the time, asked me to write more often and also on other topics for the „BT”, became the start of my profession as a journalist.

Solothurn Conference of 15/16 October 2022 – Part 1

“What Media for Peace?”

Words of welcome at the opening of the conference

by Gabriel Galice*

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear friends,

I am pleased to open the proceedings of the conference “What Media for Peace?”.

This conference is an initiative of the Swiss Peace Movement, the Association Switzerland-Cuba, Alba Suiza and our Peace Research Institute GIPRI. We are all particularly indebted to the initiator and driving force behind this conference, Natalie Benelli: Thank you Natalie!
Solothurn Conference of 15/16 October 2022 – Part 2

The role of the media in armed conflicts

by Karin Leukefeld,* Germany/Syria

(17 November 2022) (cm) Not least the latest geopolitical situation shows in all clarity that the media have abandoned their original mandate of informing the interested population as independently and accurately as possible in favour of “information” that is one-sided in terms of power politics. Research on the ground of the events is often saved and replaced by reports of the dominant western news agencies AFP, AP, Reuters and DPA – or else they are abused additionally by means of so-called “parachute journalism” for one-sided information.

Please don’t drift off into visions!

Visible consequences of integration policy

by Carl Bossard*

(17 November 2022) “Was there something?”, many ask. A teacher shortage? An emergency situation? Those responsible for education act as if nothing had happened – and take refuge in visions. Some are amazed angrily.