Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Ingvar Feodor Kamprad the 86 year old Swedish business magnate and founder of the retail company IKEA, has been profiled by Oliver Truc in an article published in Le Monde titled ‘Ingvar the king and his three son’. Truc states “The story of the Swedish furniture giant, founded in 1943 … definitely qualifies as a saga. It combines successes, setbacks and the carefully maintained mythology around the patriarch, who even though he is still active has taken a step back since he resigned as CEO in 1986. Today his role in the company is mostly advisory, but he still chairs the Kamprad family foundations. As he hands the reigns of the company down to the next generation – his three sons – questions arise on the issue of IKEA’s sustainability, and Kamprad’s legacy. … Getting things wrong, making mistakes is part of Kamprad’s nine commandments. In 70 years, his company has not been spared embarrassing revelations: child labor, secret foundations with billions of euros stashed in tax havens, destruction of primitive or protected forests, forced labor from political prisoners in East Germany, corruption in Russia, Ingvar Kamprad’s Nazi past in the 1940s and 1950s, spying on employees in France. The list is long – and not complete. Some of these mistakes are directly attributable to Kamprad himself, and he has always gotten off the hook by making light of his weaknesses. Kamprad has sometimes been IKEA’s worst enemy, but he was also its essence. Behind the scenes, IKEA’s executives must manage this paradox – using his image wisely, minimizing his presence, and only keeping his brilliance. No one disputes the old man’s business skills or his encyclopedic memory. Equally legendary is his stinginess and the fact that he sometimes acts like a simpleton. “I have enough money to get by, he said, but the fact is that it is not me who has the money, it’s the foundation.”

Inspired by Olivier Truc, Le Monde ow.ly/j4rWr Image source Hasse Karlsson ow.ly/j4rTw

Marine Le Pen the 42 year old French politician and president of the Front National (FN) party, the youngest daughter of the renowned Jean-Marie Le Pen founder of the FN, and likely 2012 French presidential candidate has come out on top of several polls indicating that she would beat the incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy if an election was to be held now. Le Pen has taken over her retired father’s role as the European face of bigotry and emblem of right wing extremism. Le Pen maximizes the simplicity of populist politics to garner support for her resurging party’s popularity within the electorate. Anti immigration and vilification of the Muslim community are central policy planks of her party’s platform, utilizing headline grabbing Nazi occupation rhetoric when describing Muslim cultural aspects.

Inspired by Russell Shorto http://ow.ly/5wLAT image source National Front http://ow.ly/5wLHI

Lars von Trier the 55 year old Danish film director and screenwriter, now not surprisingly has backed away from his claim to be a Nazi. Trier had been declared persona non grata by the Board of Directors at the Cannes Film Festival, for claiming in response to a question relating to his German roots that he was a Nazi. Trier stated at a news conference that he had sympathy for and an understanding of Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer, and that he was “OK. I’m a Nazi”. At a subsequent news conference he acknowledged his Nazi remark was just Danish humor but was stupid given the forum. Trier claims his comments were “very sarcastic and very rude, but that’s very Danish. I don’t sympathize with Hitler for one second”.

Inspired by Richard Lawson ow.ly/50AGz image source Rita Molnár ow.ly/50AXm