STR/AFP/Getty Images

It would be hard to overstate how much the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo on October 8 has meant to China’s community of dissidents, bloggers, and activists. Not only has it lifted their spirits tremendously; many also view it as a possible turning point in the long struggle to bring democracy and human rights to their country. Their ebullience seems unaffected by the hostile reaction of the Chinese government, which has called the Nobel Committee’s decision “obscene” and an “insult to China.” Chinese authorities have spread the message in China’s state-run media that Liu Xiaobo is a criminal serving time in prison, but without quoting even a small sample of the words or ideas that have caused him to be there; and they have escalated their harassment of Liu’s friends and colleagues.

On Liu Xiaobo and the Nobel Peace Prize: An Open Letter

Lyric Opera of Chicago

This month at the Lyric Opera of Chicago there is a production of Verdi’s Macbeth to knock your socks off. Barbara Gaines, the director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier, has done spectacular productions of Shakespeare’s plays, but this is her first opera work, and she has thought deeply and creatively about the text, both verbal and musical. Take the scene where the murdered Banquo’s ghost shows up at the castle banquet. Macbeth, out of guilt, sees the ghost, but no one else does. How do you stage that?

Todd Sheridan

The static art of architecture and the kinetic art of motion pictures might seem antithetical mediums, but films can be enormously helpful in explaining buildings to laymen and professionals alike. Certain architectural works—the photo-resistant designs of Alvar Aalto come to mind—are difficult if not impossible to understand in still imagery, and are made fully comprehensible only through films that move around and inside them. The first Architecture and Design Film Festival, being held in New York today through Sunday, offers a rare opportunity to see in close succession more than forty examples of the genre.

Brazil is a country given to extremes. It’s a nation that combines rapid technological development with the continuity of popular traditions, urban growth and modernization with long-established rural culture. Such contrasts also come through in politics. On the one hand, the country is known for its huge voting population of 135 million and its secure and very fast electronic vote-counting system. On the other hand, the candidates get more bizarre by the year. This year’s novelty act was Tiririca, the stage name of Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva—a singer, composer, comedian, and clown. Tiririca recently joined the somewhat obscure Partido da República [PR] and was promptly elected federal deputy with the largest number of votes ever recorded in the state of São Paulo.

Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos

Amos Oz: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragic struggle between two victims of Europe—the Arabs were the victims of imperialism, colonialism, repression, and humiliation. The Jews were the victims of discrimination, persecution, and finally of a genocide without parallel in history. On the face of it, two victims, especially two victims of the same oppressor, should become brothers. But the truth, both when it comes to individuals and when it comes to countries, is that some of the worst fights break out between two victims of the same oppressor.

Sari Nusseibeh: In a way, Israel has fallen victim to its own power, forcing it to be alone at this juncture in being able to identify and to seek solutions for its predicament. Most likely, it will seek half-way measures, necessarily therefore with “half-way” Palestinian representation or leadership, with the hope that somehow, sometime in the more distant future, this “containment” of the problem will somehow make it, or help it disappear. On the Palestinian side, on the other hand, it is the power of their own rhetoric to which Palestinians have traditionally fallen victim.

Kommersant.ru

Poor Yuri Luzhkov. He can’t keep his mouth shut. Just when it seemed that the fall-out from his abrupt dismissal in late September as Moscow’s mayor had begun to dissipate, Luzhkov gave an interview on CNN in which he once more attacked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the man who fired him: “Unfortunately, we’ve seen a whole set of circumstances happening in the country on Medvedev’s watch—calamities, terrorist acts, bad harvest and so on. These kinds of things don’t contribute to the tangible results of his work as the President.”

Of course, Luzhkov has a right to be bitter. After 18 years in office he was fired, according to the official version, because of “loss of confidence by the president of Russia.” (In the Russian Federation, provincial governors, including the mayor of Moscow, are appointed directly by and answer to the Russian president.) Luzhkov’s dismissal was apparently provoked by his outspoken criticism of the Kremlin; but as Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats pointed out, “There was not a word of explanation, either from the president’s side or the side of Prime Minister Putin, as to what he did to lose confidence.”

On October 8, Liu Xiaobo became the first Chinese to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and one of only three winners ever to receive it while in prison. The Oslo committee had already received a warning from Beijing not to give Liu the prize because he was a “criminal,” serving eleven years for “subversion of state power.” After Oslo made its announcement, Beijing labeled the award an “obscenity.” By Beijing’s standards it certainly is.

Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

What is it about the works of Richard Wagner that consistently inspire some of the most bizarre productions in all of opera? No doubt it is because Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848–1874) poses the nearly impossible challenge of making this monumental four-part music drama accord with ever-shifting notions of the mythic, which change as much as any other fashions. Therefore it should not be surprising that the first installment of the Metropolitan Opera’s latest Ring cycle—which began this fall with Das Rheingold, the tetralogy’s one-act Vorabend (preliminary evening)—adds yet another contorted realization to the long list of stunt-like Wagner productions over the past half century.

Mike King

Here is a map of Afghanistan. Versions of it adorn conference rooms in military bases, ministry buildings and NGO headquarters. The first question it raises is: “Why does Afghanistan exist?” The country contains about a dozen ethnic groups, whose distribution is shown here in simplified form. There is no coast to attract people and trade. One should also bear in mind Afghanistan’s tribal divisions, particularly within the Pashtun ethnic group, which is split into numerous clans and smaller descent groups. These are too complex for a cartographer to suggest.

David Rowley

Quiet diplomacy, as it’s called, has served for years as the principle guiding US relations with China: the theory is that it is far better to engage the Chinese government quietly, behind the scenes, rather than through more robust public confrontation. This approach, recommended by most influential experts on China, has been followed in political and economic dealings, and even when the human rights of American citizens are at stake. But how effective is quiet diplomacy in practice? Two cases have made this question urgent.