ANSELM ELDERGILL draws attention to a legal case on Tuesday in which a human rights group is challenging the government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons used against Palestinians
Latest editorial
You get the Vikings you deserve
A new study on Viking genes won’t change our myths about them, because biology isn’t the answer and never has been, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
Eske Willerslev (seated), lead scientist on the Viking research paper, dressed up a Viking captive
The obfuscation of Nazism’s capitalist roots has seen imperialism redeploy fascism again and again — from the killing fields of Guatemala to the war in Ukraine, writes PAWEL WARGAN
From Workers’ Memorial Day to May Day rallies, TOM MORRISON examines the real challenges facing the labour movement as Reform UK’s glossy literature exploits legitimate grievances in traditional left strongholds
Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two-year-old girl currently being held in the US, after being separated from her family by immigration officials, reports SUSAN GREY
In the first of two articles, DANIEL POWELL investigates the causal aspects of the Russo-Ukrainian war as Britain commemorates 80 years since VE Day
THE recent rise of far-right ideologies and white supremacists in Europe has been associated with their appropriation of Viking iconography — and the appeal of the Viking myth to white supremacists is easy to see.
The ubiquity of the image of the violent sea-warrior resonates with half-formed ideas that we all carry as somehow associated with white skin and blond hair, the “Scandinavian looks” that can act as a helpful euphemism to bolster investment in “whiteness” now that Aryanism has fallen out of fashion.
Association with Vikings can be rightly identified as a historically meaningless fairytale for racists. Scientific, archaeological and historical work continues to shed light on who “the Vikings” really were. Between 800 and 1000AD, a number of seafaring cultures in northern Europe were particularly dominant. Rather than being identified as a single group, the term refers to a number of different populations that were prominent in colonisation and warfare.
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