Politics & Society

By the end of the year, France will pull more than 2,000 troops from the Sahel, but its military involvement in the region will persist. Blindly referring to ideological root causes of violence, however, leaves local conflicts out of the equation, while ignoring religious factors altogether is equally problematic.

The private space races of billionaires like Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are staged as humanity‘s ticket to progress, transformation, and even immortality in outer space. The colonial rhetoric that continues to accompany this new industry, however, is a reminder that their plans are neither altruistic visions nor merely harmless pet projects of the super-rich.