Dr Nise da Silveira, born on 15 February 1905 in Maceió; died on 30 October 1999 in Rio de Janeiro, was one of Brazil’s most important scientists*, psychiatrist, alchemist of the psyche and Marxist, who resolutely defined new paths through the fields of medicine, philosophy and art. Her work was characterised by her rejection of the invasive methods of psychiatry that were common at the time. She was the only female graduate alongside 157 men. Nise da Silveira completed her specialist training as a psychiatrist at the Antonio Austregésilo Neurological Clinic and in the same year won a national competition for a post in psychopathology and mental health care at Praia Vermelha Hospital.
When she was employed at the Pedro II Psychiatric Centre in Engenho de Dentro, Nise da Silveira rejected the practices of lobotomy, insulin shock or cardiazole shock therapy and was then transferred to the occupational therapy department. There she enabled her patients to develop personally and artistically. In particular, she led art therapy sessions, through which, according to her understanding, subconscious states of the psyche became accessible. Nise da Silveira, the “psiquiatra rebelde”, revolutionised the history of psychiatry beyond the borders of her country and was a forerunner in the worldwide movements of psychiatric forms in Brazil, England, Italy and Germany between the 1960s and 1980s. She advocated the humanisation of treatment methods for chronically mentally ill patients and created the “Museu de Imagens do Inconsciente”, which was also her study and research centre. After her death, her private archive was included in UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” programme as a heritage of humanity, a digital collection of historical documents of exceptional value to human history.
Image/source: Arquivo Nise da Silveira, https://revistacult.uol.com.br
The quote comes from the Babylonian Talmud, which does not contain the Jewish religious laws themselves, but rabbinical interpretations of their application in practice. The quote expresses a strict reciprocity between people. It is a meta-halakhic – a universalist – principle that emphasizes the simultaneous universality and particularity of each and every human being. In this respect, it‘s claim comes close to the idea of human rights.
The quote comes from Césaire’s published speech “On Colonialism”. He criticizes the self-image of enlightened Europe. He shows that human rights do not apply to everyone in a colonized world. Many people only became aware of human rights violations by Europeans through National Socialism, when they took place within Europe. Césaire’s criticism of colonialism is important, but he fails to recognize the specific nature of racialized anti-Semitism when he turns Jews into white Europeans. To this day, Césaire is an important reference in discussions about the relationship between colonialism and the Shoah. Some see Césaire’s ideas as a way of understanding the relationship between colonialism and the Shoah. Others see him as a pioneer in relativizing the Shoah.
During the Nazi regime, hundreds of thousands of people fell victim to human experimentation by doctors, as well as to inhumane medical treatment and the murder of the sick. The Nazis sought out their victims in psychiatric wards, concentration camps and prisoner-of-war camps. After the Nuremberg trials against the main war criminals, twelve follow-up trials were held between 1946 and 1949. In the doctors’ trial of 1946-1947, the American military court indicted 23 doctors, administrative staff and a lawyer on charges including Crimes against humanity. Seven of them were sentenced to death. The most famous war criminal, Joseph Mengele, camp doctor in Auschwitz 1943-1945, was never caught and died in a swimming accident in Brazil in 1979. For decades, victims of human concentration camp experiments on both sides of the Iron Curtain fought for compensation and recognition. Colonial injustices can also be identified here, as the Nazis saw their colonial project in Eastern Europe (Zimmerer 2003). After the war, Eastern European survivors were excluded from all benefits for a long time. “This only changed when international attention was drawn to the persecution of the group of Polish women who became known as the Ravensbrueck Lapins. Their case contributed significantly to the gradual softening of the radical exclusion of Eastern European victims of Nazi persecution” (Baumann 2009).
Medical research played a key role in colonialism. According to the former director of the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine (University of Heidelberg), Africa could never have been colonized in this way without the progress made in the fight against malaria and other diseases 
Although slavery was abolished in 1848, working conditions had not improved much. Together with Queen Agnes and Queen Mathilda, Queen Mary organized the so-called Fireburn protests in 1878. These were the largest workers’ protests in Danish history
The quote comes from Arendt’s essay ‘The Rights of Man: What Are They?’ (fall of 1949), reprinted in her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism”. With reference to so-called Displaced Persons (DPs), stateless people, who cannot invoke their citizenship and associated rights, Arendt points out that human rights cannot protect the disenfranchised, namely those who most urgently need the protection of human rights. Human rights must therefore be rethought based on those who are denied even human rights. Arendt’s considerations relate above all to the disenfranchised and stateless as a result of National Socialist persecution and her own experience as such.
England appropriated the island of Barbados in 1625, continuing to control it until 1962. Over the course of the previous century, its inhabitants had either been kidnapped and enslaved or driven out by the Portuguese. Working on the plantations, English and Irish serfs, enslaved Africans and American indigenous peoples were settled, exploited, tortured and murdered in the cultivation of sugar cane. They defended themselves, often together, through flight, arson, murder and revolt. In the Caribbean, as in other parts of the Americas, resilient formerly enslaved people formed what were called Maroon communities (Linebaugh & Rediker 2008).
For Buffet, war is about the distribution of economic resources. Since the 19th century, workers’ movements in many parts of the world have been fighting for their social and economic rights, for example, the 8 hour work day which was established in Germany in 1918. However, from the 1980s onwards, social rights have been cut back across the world, to the benefit of the rich. US President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK were crucial protagonists here. Thatcher smashed the unions, describing striking miners in 1984 as the ‘enemy within’. Sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer also talked about a ‘class struggle from above’ in the case of Germany. Yet this struggle was confronted with many forms of resistance. In 1987, more than 300,000 black miners organised a strike in apartheid controlled South Africa, which was violently suppressed.
