Gudrun Harrer in conversation with Dlawer Ala’Aldeen, Munqith Dagher & Myriam Benraad

IRAQ AND THE IRAN WAR – BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Iraq has been caught by the Iran crisis at a particularly fragile moment, as it was starting a difficult government formation process following the October 2025 legislative elections. The caretaker government under Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is now struggling to contain deep factional rivalries among political forces, some aligned with and others opposed to the regime in Tehran. The Iraqincomponent of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,” the Hashd al-Shaabi, had largely managed to remain on the sidelines of the Gaza war. However, it now risks being drawn into the escalating confrontation between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. More than two decades after the US-led regime change, Iraq had appeared to be on a path towardnconsolidation – at least in terms of security – with a young population increasingly seeking to move beyond entrenched sectarian divisions. In Western discourse, memories of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and its flawed justifications are once again resurfacing. Iraq is also of considerable relevance to Europe which continues to host a large number of refugees.

Dlawer Ala’Aldeen, Founding President of the Middle East Research Institute, a policy-research institute, based in Arbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. He is a former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Kurdistan Regional Government (2009–2012) and former professor of Medicine at the University of Nottingham in the UK. His current focus is on policy research in the fields of good governance, rule of law, national security, governance reform and promotion of human rights. (online)

Munqith Dagher, CEO and founder of the Independent Institute of Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS) research group (Al-Mustakella) in Iraq and a Gallup International board member. He conducted Iraq’s first-ever public opinion poll in 2003. He was a professor of public administration and strategic management in Baghdad, Basra, and at the National Defense University.

Myriam Benraad, Political scientist specialised in the Middle East. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for International Research (CERI, Paris, France), a research fellow at the Centre for Peace and Development Studies (CPDS, Limerick, Ireland) and an associate fellow at the Institute for Research and Studies on the Arab and Muslim Worlds (CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France). In 2025, she joined Forward College and teaches International Political Economy at Forward’s Paris campus.

Gudrun Harrer, Lecturer in Modern History and Politics of the Near and Middle East at the University of Vienna and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna; former Senior Editor at Der Standard (until 2025). 

Anmeldung bis 30.4.2026: thomas.schrei@kphvie.ac.at 

In Kooperation mit der Kirchlichen Pädagogischen Hochschule Wien/Niederösterreich, der Bildungsdirektion Wien, der Innovationsstiftung für Bildung und der MEGA Bildungsstiftung

DIALOGE AM STEPHANSPLATZ – DR. HORST BIEDERMANN

DIE SECHSJÄHRIGE VOLKSSCHULE – VISION UND WIRKLICHKEIT
Keynote mit anschließender Diskussion

Die Bildungspolitik der Ära Bruno Kreiskys legte den Grundstein für maßgebliche Reformen in Österreich und viele erfolgreiche Bildungsbiografien in diesem Land. Seither sind die Herausforderungen international und in Österreich nicht kleiner geworden: Globalisierung und Digitalisierung, Mobilität, Migration, Diversität, Anfechtungen der Demokratie und Menschenrechte sind nur einige der Themen.
Mit den oben genannten Partnern gestaltet das Bruno Kreisky Forum in den „Dialogen am Stephansplatz“ die Reihe „Zukunftsfähige Bildungsvisionen zwischen Anspruch und Realität“. Hier wollen wir mit Ihnen zur Zukunft der Bildung, der Menschenbilder, Wissensmärkte und Strukturen diskutieren und neue Ansätze erörtern.

Die Keynote hält Prof Dr. Horst Biedermann, Rektor der Pädagigischen Hochschule St. Gallen/Schweiz.

Im Anschluss findet eine Podiumsdiskussion mit

HRⁱⁿ Elisabeth Fuchs, MEd, Direktorin der Bildungsdirektion Wien
und
Priv.-Doz. MMag.a DDr.in Ulrike Greiner, Rektorin der Kirchlich Pädagogischen Hochschule Wien/Niederäösterreich
statt.

Rudolf Scholten, Cornelius Obonya, Richard Pils

HELLMUT BUTTERWECKS „MÖGLICHKEITEN“
Was wäre gewesen, wenn Hitler den Krieg gewonnen hätte?

Der heute 98 jährige Journalist und Zeitzeuge Hellmut Butterweck hat sich in seinem publizistischen Werk intensiv mit dem nationalsozialistischen Ungeist und seinem Weiterwirken in der Zweiten Republik beschäftigt.
Aus der Schule hinausgeworfen, 1944 zur Arbeit in der deutschen Kriegsindustrie zwangsrekrutiert und der Sabotage verdächtigt, entzog sich Butterweck dem Dienst in der deutschen Wehrmacht. Ab 1948 schreibt er für zahlreiche Medien Kritiken, Glossen, Satiren, Reportagen und Essays zu unterschiedlichen Themen sowie zeitgeschichtliche Beiträge und Stellungnahmen gegen antidemokratische, antisemitische und neonazistische Tendenzen. Viele Jahre war Butterweck in der Wochenzeitung „Die Furche“ für Zeitgeschichte, Literatur und Theaterkritik verantwortlich und verfasste darüber hinaus Theaterstücke, Hörspiele und Romane

Für seine Arbeit erhielt er den Wiener Kunstfonds-Preis, den Theodor-Körner-Preis, den Preis der Stadt Wien für Publizistik und 2025 den Theodor-Kramer-Preis.

Um das NS-Erbe geht es auch in Hellmut Butterwecks soeben erschienen Buch “Möglichkeiten”. Das Szenario des Romans: Hitler hat dank der „Wunderwaffe“ den Krieg gewonnen, doch nach den Feiern zu seinem 100. Geburtstag bricht das Nazireich zusammen. Es verabschiedet sich auf ähnliche Weise wie wenige Monate später in der realen Geschichte die DDR: Die Menschen haben die Nase voll, gehen auf die Straße und bringen auf unblutige Weise den Staat zu Fall.

Dass Hitler längst tot ist, ist ein Staatsgeheimnis, er wird laufend durch Doppelgänger ersetzt: alte Narren, die sich für ihn halten und die der „große Klein“ im Wiener Narrenturm vorrätig hält. Nun fliegt alles auf und Reichsmarschall Kraut kann nur noch die Demokratie ausrufen.

Diese hinreißend erzählte, burleske Handlung findet ihren zarten Gegenpol in der Liebesgeschichte des SS-Mannes Horst mit der Jüdin Esther. Sie lässt sein eingelerntes NS-Geschichtsbild krachend in sich zusammenbrechen.
Hellmut Butterwecks Roman ist ein wildes Spiel mit „MÖGLICHKEITEN“, die der Welt erspart geblieben sind.

Über den Autor Hellmut Butterweck:
Rudolf Scholten, Präsident des Bruno Kreisky Forums

Einführung:
Richard Pils, Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz

Lesung:
Cornelius Obonya, Kammerschauspieler

Hellmut Butterweck
Möglichkeiten
ISBN 978-3-99126-421-7
Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra, 2026

Ulrike Lunacek in conversation with Thant Myint-U

HOW PEACE WAS MADE IN THE 1960’S – LESSONS LEARNED?

There are good and bad news when it comes to peace making. Bad news first: In today’s world, we see more conflicts and wars than ever. The environment and conditions for trust, reality based media, respect for international law and the quality of political leaders seem to be worse than ever. The good news, however, are: Peacemaking has always been difficult, already in the 1960s, nevertheless several UN peacemaking, mandate enforcement and peacekeeping missions were successful. Later on Track Two diplomacy emerged as an effective concept, protest and civil rights movements had an impact on peace negotiations. Today’s conflicts are pressing and have, due to disinformation, technology and weapons of mass destruction but most importantly unqualified and populist political leadership the potential to lead us to the brink of self-extermination.

What can we learn from the 1960s when the United Nations became an organization vetted with hope, competence and good leadership, with capacity and vision for a better and more peaceful world?

Historian Thant Myint-U, the grandson of the third UN Secretary General U Thant, will present and discuss his latest book Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations, and the Untold History of the 1960s and what this never-before-told story reveals about global politics and the prospects for future peace.

Based in part on recently declassified papers, the book tells the story of a schoolteacher in a remote Burmese town who, within a little more than a decade, finds himself at the very center of global politics, as the UN’s Secretary-General, mediating the Cuban Missile Crisis between Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro, and then going on to confront one war after another through the turbulent 1960s, from Vietnam to the Congo and the Middle East. The story is the missing piece in the puzzle of how our world came to be and shines a fresh light on our real options today.

Moderator Ulrike Lunacek together with Thant Myint-U will discuss what real options we have or might have today. How to imagine a world where trust in functioning international organizations and multilateral rules-based United Nations can again become vibrant, including in the implementation of the necessary changes that have been postponed for too long.

Thant Myint-U is an award-winning writer, historian, conservationist, and a former international public servant. He has served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations as well many years with the UN in New York as chief of policy planning. For over a decade, he helped lead reform efforts in Burma (Myanmar), including as a peace mediator. He is the founding chair of Yangon Heritage Trust. The author of five books, he is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK.

Ulrike Lunacek, currently Special Envoy for Austria’s candidature for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, has had a long career in Austrian and European politics: between 1995 and 2020 she was Member of the AT parliament, Member as well as Vicepresident of the European Parliament, and in 2020 she briefly formed part of the ÖVP/Green government as Secretary of State for Arts and Culture. An active member of development/North-South as well as feminist and LGBTIQ activities/NGOs before and after her time in party politics, she has written and edited four books and lives in Vienna as moderator, speaker and author.

Thant Myint-U:
Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s
Atlantic Books, Limited, 2025, 19,50 €