A re-encounter with lost friends in Russia-Ukraine's disputed land

In this second excerpt from her new book, Susan Richards returns to Siberia four years later

The first of three excerpts from our Russia editor's new book on the post-Soviet years

The evidence that Russians' eye on the west - and its democratic model - is turning even colder

The sacking of the French-born foreign minister has opened a new phase in Georgia’s troubled post-rose-revolution history. In Tbilisi, Susan Richards assesses the challenge facing a defiant Salome Zurabishvili.

Military occupation, armed resistance, pervasive insecurity, the hunger for religious certainty, a compliant media and oil. The parallels between Russia’s war in Chechnya and America’s in Iraq are uncomfortably close. Will either ‘imperial’ power heed the warning they present?

A new world is also a new way of seeing. The World Social Forum, warmed by the electoral success of Brazil's new president and infused by the energies of its global citizenry, offered openDemocracy confirmation that shifts of power and perspective go together. For Susan Richards, it all came together at Porto Alegre. 

To the outside world, the bomb blast that hit the Mombasa Paradise Hotel on 28 November was the latest strike in al-Qaida’s “war” on Western targets. The local perspective is different. For the indigenous population of the Kenyan coastal region of Msumarini and the neighbouring villages of the Kilifi district, the bomb was just the latest calamity in the region’s downward spiral into poverty and banditry. Before the bombing, a recent Kenyan poll voted the Kilifi district as the third most likely in the country to erupt in violence.

The disastrous climax to the Chechen assault on a Moscow theatre inevitably recalls the tragedy of Manhattan. The phlegmatic reaction of ordinary Russians reveals not just a different emotional register, but a nationalist trigger-instinct that carries great dangers. Will this at least unite America and Russia? The managing editor of openDemocracy calls her Moscow friends, listens, argues – and warns.

openDemocracy’s public meeting on 7 March 2002 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London addressed the theme of ‘Women, Islam and Modernity’. Here is the audience discussion that ensued.

During openDemocracy’s public meeting on 7 March 2002 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London which addressed the theme of ‘Women, Islam and Modernity’, we asked the audience to suggest one positive thing that could be done to advance the dialogue between Muslim and non-Muslim women, or to register their comments. Read their accounts.

The impoverishment, corruption and violence of Russia’s first post-Soviet decade reinforced the fatalism in people’s hearts. In a recent visit to Moscow and Saratov, openDemocracy’s senior editor senses a shift. Political stability, modestly growing businesses, the respect of the West, and a leader who doesn’t shame people, are some ingredients of the mood. The inner change, palpable if not yet widely rooted, says: we can embrace the future and still be Russians.

The common, consoling wisdoms are already encrusting around 11 September and its aftermath. We need to return imaginatively to the surprise we felt that day, and learn its lessons.

The Euro is coming. Enlargement beckons. Institutions and people are on the move across the continent. Cultures and identities are in flux. From Athens to Helsinki, Europe must imagine its future into shape - or be trampled in the rush.