Elsewhere on oD, Paul Rogers compares Putin’s speech with that of George W. Bush post 9/11; Iannis Carras ponders the implications of the exit poll for a less than moral or competent Europe; and civilResistance authors urge the international community to respond to a fraudulent referendum.

In Syria too, a sham election will only divide the country further; while a moving openSecurity piece features those who risk their lives to chronicle the unending death and devastation and fear that the international media have lost interest.

Other examples of divide and misrule come from apartheid’s legacy of torture, a misleading enemy image of Scotland, an occupied Taiwanese parliament, protest against violence in Brazil, racism across Europe, populism in Europe, the plight of the LGBTQ homeless and much worse in India, two hundred years of schooling; and pre-election Turkey, where a cornered Erdoğan reckons he can do without his country’s twitterati, opposition is weak, debate futile, yet events in Diyarbakir remind us Turkey’s divisions may be more hopeful than he wants us to think.

By way of antidote, openDemocracy and Politics in Spires (hosted by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge) publish the (free!) e-book Democratic Wealth on building an economy that serves the common good. This collection of essays from around the globe explores a renewed interest in the republican tradition: here, we offer the afterword.

Transformation also wants to reverse the power dynamics of philanthropy, and bring back the transformative potential of storytelling. 50.50 is at an urgent meeting of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, striving to put unpaid care on the post-2015 agenda.

They also ponder what twenty years of democratic South Africa has done for women; define a new term, citizenship deprivation; and take a close look at the murder of Loretta Saunders, who researched missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, to expose structural violence against women.

Meanwhile we ask whether we are machines; if FIFA will act on Qatar or Palestine; defend our authors and ourselves against the charge of being ‘scabs’, and mourn the passing of Tony Benn.


Don’t miss:

• Tony Benn at the Convention of Modern Liberty in 2009 

• Russia’s top blogger on the Crimea

• Thanks for being so cool about everything, “says Putin” in The Onion

• Edward Snowden: Here’s how we take back the internet

• OpenCityDocs Fest introducing Avi Mograbi’s Once I entered a garden with the filmmaker on March 31

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