Relaunching openSecurity, reconciliation and conflict

openSecurity places two ">countervailing concepts in relation to each other, as Daniel MacArthur-Seal argued at its inception. Keeping a state secure is the ultimate justification for secrecy, while being open means not only being transparent, accountable, but also open to attack. How then to bring security into a democratic realm, given that ‘we have the greatest stake in the thing in which we have the smallest say’? In a world of global insecurities, how can we democratise our security options?

In the formative years of the war on terror openSecurity has looked for ways to ask questions of the closed circles of security policy, and to provide a space where divergent voices can debate topics ranging from state-centred definitions and military issues to non-state actors in conflict and the many other meanings of security. Now, the wars started by the US and UK in the name of ‘homeland security’ in the west or ‘human security’ for the rest, have had some perverse effects, spawning protracted insecurity in Iraq and Afghanistan and stirring up widespread ethnic tensions and Islamophobia. openSecurity’s two new editors, Brigitte Beauzamy and Jo Tyabji, will ask what has been gained, what compromised, through the militarization of our security that the war on terror entailed - what are the alternatives ?

In the last year, citizens have taken security into their own hands on an unprecedented scale. In the neighbourhood improvisations of revolutionary Egypt, or the non-violent defence of Cherán in Mexico, we see citizens finding new forms of self-protection. Alongside the pressing claims of climate change and economic sustainability, in 2012 our two incoming openSecurity editors will introduce the vocabulary of peacebuilding and reconciliation into the section, to help us explore further how this struggle for security can be accomplished.

We have sought the expertise of a newly appointed openSecurity Advisory Board, an ongoing forum of openDemocracy authors in the field, bringing together academics and practitioners. At an inaugural meeting in Oslo this January 9 and 10, hosted by our partner NOREF, we asked those present to identify key issues in the contemporary landscape of security. Read more...

Friday 3rd February

Tipping the scales within Hamas

Michael Bröning, 3 February 2012
As the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, undergoes an unprecedented internal power struggle, the time has come for western decision-makers to constructively engage moderate Islamists not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but also in the Palestinian territories

Ahmadinejad, an anti-imperialist - really?

Soheil Asefi, 3 February 2012
This question has provoked extensive debate not only among the Iranian left and democratic forces, but between these forces and the extremist neo-liberal forces in Iran. Disoriented progressives world-wide have failed to understand the nature of the Iranian regime.
Thursday 2nd February

Attacking Iran: lessons from the Iran-Iraq war

Annie Tracy Samuel, 2 February 2012
Military action against Iran, and even the continuing threat of attack, is likely to give the Islamic Republic a new lease on life.
Wednesday 1st February

The December 2011 Bonn Conference: a farewell to Afghanistan?

Carlo Ungaro, 1 February 2012
Several new elements are added, almost daily, to worsen the complexity of the situation, and rumours of an imminent military coup in Islamabad do little to clarify matters.

Capoeira and security: the view from upside-down

Zoë Marriage, 1 February 2012
Through an account of capoeira, the Brazilian dance-fight-game, we uncover two simultaneous stories of security: first, the gradual monopolisation of violence by the state; second, a somatic, lyrical representation of a history of violence, oppression and liberation.

The contest over peace and security in Africa

Alex de Waal, 1 February 2012
The dominant interventionist approach to peace and security in Africa by-passes the hard work of creating domestic political consensus and instead imposes models of government favoured by western powers. The emergent African methodology offers a chance to develop locally-rooted solutions too often sidelined.

Transitions: creating space to address injustice after conflict or political turmoil

Yvette Selim, 1 February 2012
Ultimately, an emphasis on the rule of law in peacebuilding interventions reflects a preoccupation with the effects, rather than the causes, of conflict. But calls for a more expansive notion of justice – which gives greater attention to distributive justice – may be gaining momentum.

The far horizons of peacebuilding – and the near

Dan Smith, 1 February 2012
Peacebuilding and development can no longer be thought of in terms of what was always an over-simplified polarisation between the powerful stability of the giver and the weak turbulence of the beneficiary. It was always wrong to see the world that way; now it’s impossible.
Wednesday 25th January

Hidden from view, debarred from debate - EU report on arms exports

Kaye Stearman, 25 January 2012
The report attempts to collate data on 2010 weapons sales by EU member countries. Western Europeans were the biggest arms exporters. The biggest customers were the repressive regimes of the Middle East and North Africa who collectively bought 8.3 billion Euros worth of arms.
Tuesday 24th January

Police — peacekeepers or law-enforcers?

Anita Dockley, 24 January 2012
Towards a rediscovery of policing’s social role

A conflicted moment for the Armenian consciousness

Christopher Sisserian, 24 January 2012
The reason the French genocide law has proved so popular amongst Armenians is that it represents the prospect of a final catharsis to a tragic history. In reality, however, it is yet another obstacle to reaching a conclusion.
Friday 20th January

Syria: the next Algeria?

Karen Kramer, 20 January 2012
The situation in Syria is becoming increasingly grim. As the standoff between the protesters and the regime turns more violent, the prospects for a democratic transition become more remote.
Thursday 19th January

Post-BICI Bahrain: between reform and stagnation

Elham Fakhro and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, 19 January 2012
As the first anniversary of the February 14 uprising approaches, the regime and the country at large find themselves at a crossroads in which there is dangerously little space for a strong middle ground.

Sanctioning Iranian oil

Reyhaneh Noshiravani, 19 January 2012
With increasing geopolitical instability in oil producing states and the barriers that stand in the way of reaching a multilateral policy, the threat of sanctions in Iran only serves to intensify uncertainty surrounding oil price forecasts for 2012

Uncertainty looms amid progress in talks with the Taliban

Arif Rafiq, 19 January 2012
The Afghan Taliban and the United States have begun talks, advancing prospects that coalition forces can withdraw from Afghanistan. But there are many potential pitfalls on the road to peace: a real risk of a political and military stalemate in Afghanistan, forcing the United States to leave the region under uncertain and possibly dangerous terms.

Thinking about war with Iran

Michael Doliner, 19 January 2012
The real Iranian threat is not its nuclear capacity but its independence. If Iran continues to stand as a model of defiance for increasingly poverty-stricken and restless populations of family fiefdoms in the Gulf, the current US-backed setups will either fall or be forced to democratise. These potentially catastrophic losses of empire go a long way to explaining the rising beat of war drums in the region.

Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s bluff and the west’s fears

Richard Rousseau, 19 January 2012
Iranian military action in the Strait of Hormuz is highly unlikely. It would not at all benefit most global and regional powers and would have disastrous consequences for Iran itself.

Counter-balancing Saudi Arabia: why the US should not abandon Bahrain’s reformists

Hasan Tariq Alhasan, 19 January 2012
Rather than calling upon the United States and other western powers to abandon the Bahraini leadership at this time, we should instead be calling upon them to increase their ever-so vital support of the kingdom’s reformists through a series of different aid and development packages.
Monday 16th January

Taliban leadership decries sectarian attacks

Christopher Anzalone, 16 January 2012
Recent bombings in Afghanistan have raised fears of mounting violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites. This cannot be in the Taliban's strategic interest, argues Christopher Anzalone.
Saturday 14th January

Islamism and secularism in Tunisia

Rory McCarthy, 14 January 2012
In Tunisia at least, radical Salafism is not just a challenge to secularists: it’s also a challenge to moderate Islamists like Ennahda.
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