Interview

Interview

New dilemmas and new directions in South Africa after apartheid

8 November 2018 -

On October 3th 2016, Sachs, who collects honorary doctorates and other titles as if they were panini stickers, visited Ghent University for the third Mandela lecture organised by the Africa Platform of the Ghent University Association, and moderated by Prof. Eva Brems. This interview was conducted on that occasion.

Interview

Queen Mathilde: '2030 is tomorrow. Change needs to happen today'

4 April 2018 -

Belgium’s queen Mathilde is one of 17 global sdg-advocates. What motivates her to engage with these sustainable development goals? Where did it all start? And what does she hope to achieve? These are only a few questions that got answered during a long afternoon, in an exclusive interview MO* had with the queen.

Interview

Jhumpa Lahiri: ‘In a monolingual universe, you see the world through one eye only. You lack perspective.'

28 February 2018 -

As a child, Jhumpa Lahiri often felt like an alien, both in Rhode Island and in Calcutta, the two pivotal places in her young life. Although the Indian-American writer has moved on since then, she says that ‘almost no day passes without me thinking: wouldn’t it have been nice to have one place of origin?’ A conversation about iden ...

Interview

Gail Walker: ‘Cuba is not given the proper respect it deserves.’

26 September 2017 -

On the 17th of September during the solidarity festival Manifiesta in Belgium, Gail Walker discussed the influence of the Trump administration on the development of American-Cuban relations. Under Walker’s direction, IFCO a grassroots organisation works hard to lift the embargo that the United States enforces on Cuba. ...

Interview

Leslie Johnston: ‘Sustainability is not a matter of goodwill, but a business opportunity’

13 September 2017 -

With a budget of over 50 million euro per year, the C&A Foundation attempts to change the textile sector from within. According to executive director Leslie Johnston this attempt is coming through quite successfully, partially because of the innovative entrepreneurs. ‘Social entrepreneurship is essential if we are to transform the textile ...

Interview

Koen Vanmechelen: ‘We need to rebalance nature to save humanity’

29 August 2017 -

Koen Vanmechelen's chickens are world-famous. The artist himself is often identified with his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project, which has been running for thirty years now. Yet Vanmechelen’s oeuvre extends far beyond the chicken: it deals with concepts such as diversity, identity and the restoration of freedom and equilibrium.

Interview

Ukrainian fact-checkers Stop Fake: ‘Fake news is a weapon of war’

25 July 2017 -

Ever since fake news troubles the West, the Ukrainian fact-checkers of Stop Fake are welcome guests at journalism conferences and in the corridors of power in Western Europe. A critical talk about fake and real news, and what we can learn on the frontline of the information war.

Interview

Yasmin Nair: ‘Critique on identity politics should be about power’

17 June 2017 -

We need to criticize identity politics when it’s a tool to strengthen capitalism, but without ignoring how issues like racism, migration or gender play a role in how people are exploited. That’s what Yasmin Nair advocates for. Nair is a writer, academic and queer-activist living in Chicago. According to her the left needs to pay more attention to h ...

Interview

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine: ‘Visa-free travel puts us back on Europe’s map’

13 June 2017 -

MO* spoke with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympusch-Tsintsadze in Kiev, at a historic moment. After years of negotiation, the visa-free travel and the Association Agreement, which led to war with Russia and was hanging by a thread after the Dutch referendum, finally got through. ‘This is a civilizational shift.&rsqu ...

Interview

Isabel Allende: Fiction is true, fake news is censorship

31 March 2017 -

On the 24th of March Isabel Allende received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent. Gie Goris met the author in San Francisco and had a long interview with her on stories and lies, women and power, politics and migration. ‘The strength of women is not in power or in physical strength, but in resilience and compassion.’ ...

Interview

Muslim women in Sarajevo: ‘Our starting point is a prejudice against us, this makes us stronger’

6 March 2017 -

These veiled and unveiled Bosnian Muslim women are more consciously approaching their bodies than most other women. Often the headscarf is discussed as a political symbol, but rarely debates touch upon the personal motivation of the women and how the sense of community influences their choice. MO* organized a focus group with young Bosnian women fr ...

Interview

‘Africa needs more mutual trade in these times of economic nationalism’

24 February 2017 -

Mukhisa Kituyi, previous Kenyan minister of Trade and Industry, is secretary-general of UNCTAD, the UN-organization for Trade and Development, since 2013. MO* interviewed him about the importance of and the barriers for regional trade in Africa. ‘We need to counteract the worldwide trend that regards multinational agreements as suspicious and ...