Growing up in Switzerland, a nation that proudly upholds neutrality and civic nationalism, one cannot help but ask: whose nation has it been? Switzerland, often lauded as a model modern democracy, embodies a profound paradox. It stands as one of Europe’s oldest and only remaining pure forms of direct democracy, yet half its population, women, were denied federal suffrage until 1971.[1] That was sixty-five years after Finland, fifty-three after Germany, Austria, and Russia, an

In 1941, the media magnate Henry Luce declared in Life magazine that the twentieth century had become “America's first century as a dominant power in the world.”[1] Luce's proclamation was a statement of fact; the United States, in his view, had both the right and the obligation to shape the world in its image. Yet what Luce omitted was that this dominance had never been purely idealistic. From the naval expansionism of the 1890s through the containment strategies of the Cold

On 4th May 1988, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government enacted a law named the Local Government Act, better known as Section 28.[1] This law had the following as its stated purpose: “local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales shall not intentionally promote homosexuality, or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality, or promote the teaching in any school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”[2] Section 28 l

“Not everything is political,” says Jean, “Well of course it is,” responds Viv, her girlfriend. This scene summarizes why Blue Jean (2022), directed by Georgia Oakly, is my favorite film and suits this edition’s theme perfectly. They are sitting on the couch, eating instant ramen, in 1988 Newcastle, watching “Blind Date,” your typical heteronormative and infantilizing dating cable show. Against the backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain and the enforcement of Section 28, which sought