Occupy: you can’t evict an idea

Ruth Rosen 12 December 2011
The Occupy movement has changed the national conversation in America, and challenged the rightward tilt of the political landscape with its clear message that wealth inequality is incompatible with democracy, says Ruth Rosen

What’s good for the goose and gander is at some point for the Occupiers

C. S. Herrman 12 December 2011
When legitimate protesters are showered with contempt by those whose job it is to serve the community, humanity is insulted, but democracy especially. This is an important tipping point.

The Occupy movement and the women of Greenham Common

Rebecca Johnson 12 December 2011

Feminist experience and input into the theory and practice of nonviolence has much to offer a new generation of grassroots Occupy activists. Rebecca Johnson reflects on the lessons of the successful Greenham Common protest

Photostory: Russian civil society re-emerges

Editors of OpenDemocracy Russia 12 December 2011

On Saturday, almost a week after the Duma elections, Moscow and other Russian cities and regions witnessed the biggest display of popular discontent seen in recent memory. oDR presents a photoreport from the rallies.

Bahrain: a response to the President’s Office

Corinna Mullin and Azadeh Shahshahani 11 December 2011
A defence of the authors’ original claims about how the roots of conflict in Bahrain must be addressed.

Mexico's parallel worlds

James Ron 11 December 2011
It is strange how you have to go abroad to see the ability of wildly divergent realities to persist, side-by-side, as if nothing were more natural.

Four anecdotes and some news: or, The paths of resistance

Nguyen Huu Dong 11 December 2011

On the fiftieth anniversary of the American intervention in Vietnam, one lesson might be that knowledge is never passed on, only acquired, that history is not a reality which must be discovered but must be thought about and then reconstructed.

Who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ?

Gita Sahgal 9 December 2011
Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong. Gita Sahgal tells the less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document

Illuminating the UK’s lethal detention and deportation conditions

Tom Sanderson 9 December 2011
Public interest groups challenge immigration authorities' hazardous policy and practice.

The Arab revolutions and “sitting on the fence” on Palestine

Muath Al Wari 9 December 2011
The last twelve months have largely been about Arabs trying to put an end to the denial brought about by a coalition of internal, and more importantly, external forces to Arab agency. Palestine is the constant, tangible, and often lethal manifestation of this narrative.

How far have Human Rights advanced when poverty is so widespread?

Vijay Nagaraj 9 December 2011
If the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable, then societies everywhere have cause to be ashamed. In a changing and dramatically unequal world, the global human rights system must prove its worth, says Vijay Nagaraj

Tunisia: Occupy Bardo

Kacem Jlidi 8 December 2011
Despite Tunisia's successful election in October, there has emerged a remarkable ideological split in the ranks. In Bardo, protesters are pressuring members of the National Constituent Assembly to pass eleven measures to further the goals of the revolution.

The Singing Detective, losing one’s skin with irony, clues and no solutions, a perfect symbol of the British disease

Anthony Barnett 8 December 2011
Ahead of a one day conference in London, Anthony Barnett recalls how he felt about Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective' when he wrote about it back in 1987.

How can we create change in the UK? An 'impossible' idea and three reactions

Andreas Whittam Smith 8 December 2011
Could a group of like-minded citizens running for election as independents, change the UK? Andreas Whittam Smith posits an idea and three OurKingdom co-editors, Guy Aitchison, Niki Seth Smith and Anthony Barnett, respond.

A world in crisis: echo, need, hope

Paul Rogers 8 December 2011

A fresh awareness of system-failure and resource-constraint draws on the experience and ideas of the 1970s. But this time the vision of radical change is real possibility as well as urgent necessity.

(This article was first published on 1 December 2011)

The journalist as terrorist: an Ethiopian story

Abiye Teklemariam Megenta 7 December 2011
The Ethiopian government led by prime minister Meles Zenawi uses charges of terrorism to silence and intimidate its domestic critics. The political technique is now being extended by accusing independent journalists of conspiracy. One of his targets, Abiye Teklemariam Megenta, responds.

Audio: Anthony Barnett discusses the rise of social movements in 2011

Aaron Peters 7 December 2011
Audio: Founder of openDemocracy, Anthony Barnett, discusses the Occupy movement and its antecedents on Resonance FM show Novara hosted by Aaron Peters.

Why the ‘Arab Spring’ hasn’t reached Sudan

Elfadil Ibrahim 6 December 2011
What is it about the nation in Libya and Egypt’s own backyards, which in the face of poorer and worsening conditions, continues to be characterised by a culture of complacency?

UK arms sales to Libya - stop, start, stop and start again

Kaye Stearman 6 December 2011

The UK's Campaign Against Arms Trade wants to see an immediate stop on arms sales to repressive regimes, the closure of UKTI DSO and an end to all taxpayer support for the arms industry.

This week's guest editors

openGlobalRights editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

A Turkish Spring?

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Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Secret Courts: 8 nightmare scenarios now possible in Britain
Jo Shaw

Iran myths

Iranian presidential candidate and chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalill

Myths, falsehoods and misrepresentations about Iran
Peter Oborne and David Morrison

Palestinian borders

Palestine, peoples and borders in the new Middle East map
Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Nobel Women's Initiative

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Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

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The media in Europe

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Mali: the plot thickens

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Remote control war

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oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

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