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Urgent: expose the Brexit dark money

openDemocracy has worked for two years exposing the dark money driving Brexit. We have many more leads to chase down. Please give what you can today – it makes a difference.

This week’s front page editor

Mike Edwards

Michael Edwards is editor of Transformation.

Grenfell

Grenfell Tower

Fire in neo-liberal London
ANGELA MCROBBIE
Words of fire
LYNDSEY STONEBRIDGE
“Developers can get away with murder” – an interview with Kensington’s Emma Dent Coad
NATHAN AKEHURST
One law for the poor at Grenfell Tower
STEVE TOMBS AND DAVID WHYTE
Housing activists stand up to dodgy landlords and council bullies
REBECCA OMONIRA-OYEKANMI AND IZZY KOKSAL
Burnt Alive, Grenfell Tower is watching us
ANTHONY BARNETT
A fire in the world’s laundromat
ADAM RAMSAY

NAWA latest

NAWA

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Net neutrality

Net Neutrality gives equal access to the whole web. It is now at risk.

More

Semper Fidel

Isabel Hilton 24 September 2001
The reaction of people in Cuba was heartfelt and human. For Fidel and the TV schedulers, the line was less straightforward.

For Alan Beaven

Michael Edwards 24 September 2001
Alan Beaven was a passenger on UA Flight 93. A friend pays tribute to a man who died the way he lived.

Grasping ruins

Todd Gitlin 24 September 2001
The fourth in Todd Gitlin’s series of reflections hears the echoes of Auden and feels the aftershocks of hatred around Manhattan.

US, EU, Russia: a new order?

Charles Grant 24 September 2001
In the aftermath of 11 September, the world has focused on America’s diplomatic and military response. Before, other security issues – missile defence, the Balkans and the future of NATO – dominated the headlines. How will this agenda appear when it re-emerges from the smoke of battle?

What happened, and what may follow

Charles Tilly 20 September 2001
We don’t yet know what happened on 11 September, or what it will lead to. A respected sociologist braves a series of clear predictions.

Understand the whispers

Rajeev Bhargava 18 September 2001
The experience of those who suffer injustice and see it erased before it is spoken of must be heard for a larger process of reconciliation to begin. Rajeev Bhargava, in New Delhi, reflects.

Bizarre new world

Pervez Hoodbhoy 17 September 2001
Muslim leaders have condemned the attacks. But from Palestine to Islamabad, many people sing a different tune. As this Pakistani physicist says, there is no known “terrorist gene”. What will it take for the US and Muslim societies to engage anew, as pluralists not combatants?

A time to rethink

Samir Kassir 17 September 2001
With the current temptation to give in to the idea of a “clash of civilisations”, a complete ideological re-think becomes ever more urgent.

How are we?

Candida Clark 17 September 2001
Imagination is a precious weapon against the tyranny of terrorism. It reveals our connectedness to reality, and to one another. It’s a way of being free.

The right to rights

Brendan O’Leary 17 September 2001
No-one has claimed responsibility for the atrocities of 11 September. In itself, this reveals a great deal. One way forward is to insist on normality.

Militant liberalism

Achilles Skordas 17 September 2001
Islamic fundamentalism isn't the real problem. The trouble arises from the existential clash of liberal and authoritarian political cultures. So now is the time for a militant liberal culture.

The American Jihad

Paul Gilroy 17 September 2001
The disturbing reaction to the attacks of 11 September by would-be warmongers betrays an urge to seize and politicise them in ways that resonate with untruth, says Paul Gilroy.

Taking it slowly

Todd Gitlin 16 September 2001
Everyday heroism prompts us to re-think our notions of “heartland.” This is our Americas Editor’s third piece from New York in the aftermath. Now it’s clear: there’s more than one America.

Terror and globalisation: Islam outside the state

Roger Scruton 14 September 2001
The only way to grasp the nature of the challenge represented by Osama bin Laden and its followers is via a true understanding of globalisation. But that will take the champions of this idea into uncomfortable territory, says Roger Scruton.

Bloody Tuesday

John Torpey 14 September 2001
At this stage in globalising history “America” has come to be seen by many as a stand-in for the “cosmopolitanism” that was once associated with Jews. “America” represents some kind of soulless, materialistic, rootless way of life that they detest.

Real and imagined enemies

Arvind Rajagopal 14 September 2001
The superpower shakes, and the openness of its domestic society with it. As another New Yorker explains, tension around foreigners and immigrants was immediate and all-too-popular. But there are deeper questions: are innocence and omnipotence compatible?

The suicide of fundamentalism

Maruf Khwaja 13 September 2001
The speed, reach and supports of today’s Islamic terrorism owe much to globalisation. But there is a silent majority building in the Islamic world, and among the young people of its diaspora. Can they take the fanaticism out of fundamentalism?

Shifting the rubble

Max Robbins 13 September 2001
A day after the US attacks, Max Robbins decided to volunteer in the clear-up effort. This is his personal account.

Violence and justice in a global age

David Held 13 September 2001
A foremost theorist of globalisation takes his measure of the new century’s first defining moment. He calls for the criminalisation of terrorism, instead of recourse to further arbitrary violence.

Understanding the message

Mary Kaldor 13 September 2001
The only possible approaches are political; to counter the sowing of fear and hatred with a strategy of winning hearts and minds.

Making policy on the hoof

Frank Vibert 13 September 2001
Instant reactions to the attacks on the US are misjudged, and policies based on them will be misguided. At this moment the US and its allies need patience and a clear eye.

Moral seriousness

Todd Gitlin 13 September 2001
Our North Americas editor continues his reports from New York.

What is Post-fascism?

Gaspar Miklos Tamas 13 September 2001
One of Hungary’s leading anti-communist dissidents accuses Europe and the world of abandoning Enlightenment principles. He is now an unillusioned critic of a racialised global liberalism.

I have coined the term post-fascism to describe a cluster of policies, practices, routines and ideologies which can be observed everywhere in the contemporary world. Without ever resorting to a coup d’etat, these practices are threatening our communities.

A day to define a century

Timothy Garton Ash 12 September 2001
The attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 raise profound questions of American power, human rights, and international law. How Washington responds will define the world's next decade and beyond, says Timothy Garton Ash.

All is changed

Steven Lukes 12 September 2001
On day two of the post-disaster era, the lines of opinion are being drawn up across America. It’s impossible to say which way the mood will swing. But, says Steven Lukes, it is certain that the American way of life is now forever changed.

Justice and democracy will prevail

Teofilo Ruiz 12 September 2001
We’re all interconnected now, and this tragedy will harm even those the terrorists profess to represent. But democracy is resilient: nations, peoples and networks must speak out and insist on their basic rights and freedoms.

The Nauru Solution

Peter Mares 12 September 2001
The attempt of Afghan asylum-seekers to reach Australia on a Norwegian ship graphically illustrated the global nature of the issues of asylum, refuge, and immigration. How has the latest crisis impacted on the politics and consciousness of the quintessential immigrant nation?

Is this our fate?

Todd Gitlin 11 September 2001
openDemocracy’s North America editor witnessed the events in New York. This is his first response.

Public legitimacy: ICANN at the crossroads

Stefaan G. Verhulst 5 September 2001
The debate about governing the internet is intensifying. Does the new medium need new forms of representation, or simply an application of “real world” norms? If the former, how can the public interest be best secured? The net’s governing body, ICANN, is meeting this weekend to thrash out the issues. A representative of the Markle Foundation sets out the principles he, and other independent experts, believe should guide it.

Think tanks in the global marketplace of ideas

Francesco Grillo 5 September 2001
Think tanks can survive the pressures of competition, and maximise their resources of independence and flexibility, argues the director of the Italian organisation Vision. But they must adapt to a change of scale, and start thinking globally – without maps.