May 31, 2016 edition

From his youth, Mayakovsky was an activist for the Bolsheviks, the outlawed communist organization. He once helped female political prisoners escape from prison. He was arrested and sentenced by the tsarist government to 11 months imprisonment. But this is where Mayakovsky the poet was born. In his cell, he wrote poems-and from then on he never stopped. Over time, his poems, as well as his works of graphic art, theater and film, became increasingly fascinating and brilliant.
After Mayakovsky's death, the now victorious Communist Party erected a statue of him, six meters high, in Triumphal Square in Moscow. "Indifference to his cultural heritage amounts to a crime," Stalin said.

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More Sidelines articles in other editions

May 24, 2016 edition

'How profoundly you are cursed, O Granada!'
In Heinrich Heine's tragedy Almansor, Almansur bin Abdullah returns home to Granada from exile. He goes back to the castle of his childhood: The building is still intact on the 'old and beloved' land with its floors covered with carpets of varied hue; the marble pillars still stand strong. Almansor feels at home. But something makes him anxious. Life has changed. The Spanish Muslim kingdom, self-absorbed in its own brilliance, has fallen, conquered by the Catholic power under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.

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May 17, 2016 edition

Life is certainly not easy for Maryam-and religion is no help to her. The opposite, in fact. In the life of this character from Okky Madasari's novel, religion has three repressive elements that impose upon her life: parents oppressing their children, males prioritized over females and doctrine causing people to cluster and become enemies. And under all this pressure, goodness moves away.
Maryam tries to oppose this-more or less quietly.

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May 10, 2016 edition

There are more and more gods...
Mustofa Bisri's poems never arise from angry statements. His poetry can even be funny. Mostly, his verses are anxious-an interesting anxiety: the Muslim teacher from Rembang, a wise man viewing the flawed situation around him without feeling self-righteous. Whenever his poems are critical of society, he, too, feels the stab in part of his own life.

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May 3, 2016 edition

Pardon' cannot be separated from memory, but can memory be everlasting? Is it possible for us to speak about 'pardon' outside of history?
In Milan Kundera's novel The Joke, Ludvik seeks revenge for the pain his friend inflicted upon him in the past, when, just because of a joke, he was ostracized by the ruling Communist Party. He succeeds in his revenge, but this does not make him happy. It turns out there is another 'joke': people are deceived if they think that memory can be eternal, and deceived to think that mistakes of the past can be set right. In the end, Kundera writes, vengeance and forgiveness "will be taken over by forgetting." Once vengeance is gone, forgiveness is no longer important.

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April 26, 2016 edition

The poor sometimes resemble luckless gods: Their voices should be heeded but the world often listens to them via go-betweens.
Go-betweens usually feel they have the duty to represent them-and more often than not, they feel they have the right to do so. Public officials. Lawmakers. Political parties. Candidates for governor who are serious or pretend to be. Those busy with Twitter and Facebook. NGOs. Activists with a strong, or sometimes strong, sense of justice. Islamic teachers, priests and pastors. Or the media-including television stations owned by big business with their commentators who announce, "I was once poor."

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April 19, 2016 edition

Religion and science keep on clashing, even in the 21st century. So it was in another century, on April 12, 1633 when Galileo, an old man of almost 70, was held for two weeks by the Inquisition, the Church's tool for probing and investigating the conviction of one's faith.
The Vatican considered Galileo a heretic. He had to admit that he did believe in the Copernican theory of the earth and the sun, even though 17 years earlier he had promised to abandon it. That day, Galileo recanted: he would adhere to the theory that the earth circled the sun and not the reverse. He recanted and for this he was imprisoned. Eventually though, he did confess his sin, apologize and express his doubt of the Copernican system, and returned to the path determined by religion: "I hold the opinion...that the earth does not move and it is the sun that does."

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