Pick of the Web
Kashmir: a roadmap to peace?
The election of a new government in Indian-controlled Jammu & Kashmir in September 2002 has opened the way to an initiative by India’s prime minister to restart discussions with Pakistan over the future of the disputed territory. In the light of historic India-Pakistan tension, twelve years of murderous violence, and the complex shades of Kashmir’s politics, is there at last real hope of a resolution of this dangerous conflict?
The migration time-bomb: American lessons for Europe
Will mass immigration prove a similar threat to the integrity of European society and culture as it does to America’s? For the author of “Alien Nation”, the book which helped to catalyse the modern anti-immigration argument in the US, the current ‘great wave’ from third to first world is undesirable, economically unnecessary, and driven by a misplaced sense of guilt over past racism and colonialism.
Mehmet and Edeltraud too: prospects for a multicultural Germany
The German Bundestag’s first parliamentary representative of Turkish descent is currently in Washington, comparing how minority groups organise themselves politically in the United States and Germany. Recently named ‘Multicultural Man of the Year’ by a German radio station, he turns a sometimes appalled gaze on his homeland, and asks how far Germany has to go to fulfil a truly multicultural vision.
Rummy's intelligence review
US credibility, Hu’s globetrotting, Rwanda’s new era?
Afula: wounded heart of Israel
An indiscriminate assault on a small town in the country’s heartland prompts this Israeli writer to melancholy yet affectionate reflection.
Translating the word of God: the King James Bible
Committees seldom produce genius, still less aspects of the divine, argues this young writer. But the translating of the King James Bible in 1604 did just that.
The African state and global governance
The scale of Africa’s political and social crises, exacerbated by the HIV/Aids pandemic and reinforced by failures of governance, make it a global dependent.
Beating Bush - the neo-neo-Democrats
Another lightning raid on American political debate from Dominic Hilton. Fresh from skewering the neo-cons, the Democrats are in his sights. What do they want? Why won’t they get it? And where does this leave…democrats?
World or homeland? US National Security Strategy in the 21st century
A year after 9/11, the Bush administration articulated a new security doctrine that committed the country to worldwide military intervention in pursuit of democracy. This strange fruit of Wilsonian idealism and neo-conservative ambition is triply misconceived: it will guarantee damaging over-extension of resources, fuel bitter resentment of the United States, and abandon homeland security to the chimera of global control. It is not empire that the US needs, but modesty.
United States security for a new world: a reply to Charles Pena
The US’s national security document of 2002 is a partial answer to the global challenges of terrorism and weapons proliferation. Charles Pena’s critique, by contrast, recommends a disengagement from the world that would entail even greater danger for the homeland. The real US need is to articulate a strategic doctrine that puts military pre-emption in the service of wise politics, alliance-building, and – eventually – a new understanding of international law.
A Palestinian diary
The Israelis declare an ‘easing of conditions’ on movement of the Palestinian population. On the ground, at the sharp end of occupation, it feels very different.
Two separate roadmaps: an Israeli view
The flaws of the earlier Israel-Palestine peace process – ambiguity, phasing, lack of trust – consigned it to failure. The chances of its successor, the current ‘roadmap’, would benefit from a realistic appraisal that provides room for each side to move away from violence, restore peaceful relations – and, with international help, find that their paths converge.
Mirror reflections: fundamentalism and the market economy
The market economy and fundamentalist religion each aspire to colonise minds, dominate the public realm, and suppress free debate. Terrorism is only the extreme end of the much wider disaffection that results. The multiple insights of cybernetics and systems thinking are urgently needed to refresh minds, revivify politics, and offer practical ways out of the tunnel of dogma which marketolatry imposes on the world.
The Iraqi calculus
The devastating human cost of the Iraq war is only now becoming clear. Its impact on a shattered society is one source of growing hostility to the American military presence. The dangers of escalating violence to post-war reconstruction and state-building in Iraq are increasing. But no change of US policy is in sight.
Before the Rooster Crows
Peter Kimani’s first novel, “Before the Rooster Crows”, is a harrowing tale of a young man’s odyssey from a small Kenyan village to the big city – on a mission to find his childhood sweetheart. The search unfurls the complicated city life where prostitution, murder, racism and the deep wounds of colonialism still fester. openDemocracy presents an exclusive extract.
The Estonian Gene Bank Project - an overt business plan
The Estonian Genome Project Foundation tried to build on the experience of Iceland’s innovative, contested genetic research project (analysed by Skúli Sigurdsson in openDemocracy). Did the small Baltic state learn from Iceland’s mistakes? A research fellow and close observer of the Estonian initiative tells the fascinating, melancholy story – which challenges the corporate interests involved to respond.
Identity & Television: Europe on Screen
The EU’s Television without Frontiers Directive sought to encourage the free movement of programming within the internal European market, and to challenge the screen dominance of the US. But at its heart are questionable assumptions about the desirability of a single, shared European culture, which continue to divide the member states, says this Media professor.
Passover near Palestine: some scenes from a diary
Can an ethic of protest itself become a creative element in helping to resolve political conflict? What happens in the attempt to move beyond ‘no’ to an exploratory embrace of the unfamiliar? A peace activist travels to Israeli cities, Palestinian villages, and Jewish settlements to meet, listen to and argue with people living on the frontline. The result is an engaged, vivid, honest portrayal of the human realities of two societies locked in corrosive dispute.
Migration fantasies: how not to debate immigration and asylum
The urgency and topicality of debates about migration should not create space for a language loaded by prejudice and presumption that fuels a far right agenda. Yet this is precisely the approach of Anthony Browne in the People Flow discussion. An analysis of his panic-laden, historically-myopic argument is a necessary prelude to creating a rational basis for responsible exchange.
Zimbabwe: people get ready
Political repression and economic meltdown are pushing Zimbabwe’s people to breaking-point. They have come to understand that freedom from Mugabe’s evil regime is in their own hands.
This week's editor
Europe from the bottom up
European debate
Democratic Wealth
Nuclear non-proliferation
Women and the Arab Spring
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
Mali - the plot thickens
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Remote control war
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Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
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Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
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