The message of Karl Gerhard is still valid – after 65 years
by Tommy Hansson

Contra quotes a 65 year old revue song, The Infamous Horse from Troy, by Swedish artist Karl Gerhard. Karl Gerhard’s show was initially banned after demands from the German Embassy in Stockholm. And today we see a similar policy based on islamist demands for banning free speech. The parallells are obvious. Extreme islamists get compliancy from the West in the case of the Danish Muhammad cartoons [Contra publishes two of the cartoons, one borrowed not from Jyllands-Posten but from the Egyptian newspaper Al Fager!]. The conclusion is “violent threats pays”.

The Clash of Civilizations
by C G Holm

Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington wrote the article “Clash of Civilizations” in 1993. His point of view was that the conflicts of the world, after the end of the Cold War, were returning to the old pattern of clashes not between national states but between civilizations. The article has been discussed for more than a decade.

In the footsteps of Jesus
by Tommy Hansson

Contras publisher Tommy Hansson visited Israel last November. In the magazine he shows in words and pictures his visit to Galilee.

Lobbyist power in Washington
by Allan C. Brownfeld

It is claimed that media is a third – non-elected – branch of government. There is a point in this, but there is still one important non-elected branch of men and women serving as an appendix to the government: the lobbyists.

Finland’s armed struggle for freedom
by Tommy Hansson

Finland’s 20th century history is full of dramatic events, including four wars. A start for the events of the dramatic 20th century was the assasination of the Russian Governor General Nikolai Bobrikov, June 16 1904. A year later the weapon smuggling steamer “John Grafton” was blown up in the upper part of the Gulf of Bothnia close to Jakobstad (Pietarssari), also an event of great symbolic importance for the Finnish struggle for freedom. Later the Finns had the War of Freedom in 1918, the Winter War 1939-40, the Continuation War 1941-44 and the Lapland War in 1945. Today Finland is an affluent Western democracy, thanks to the sacrifices made by heroes in the four wars.

Revolt against the Left
by Lukas Runsäter

Lukas Runsäter studied a book, South Park Conservatives – The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias by Brian C. Anderson (Regnery, Washington, D.C., 2005), and found a conservative trickle in the American liberal media and cultural elite.