imperialism

This week's editor

Phoebe Braithwaite is openDemocracy’s submissions editor.

Digital Liberties

How to fight for digital human rights?

European integration

Six countries. Six different paths to EU integration.

No to TTIP

The secretive EU-US trade deal explained

To stand up for the powerless in Syria, the Left must embrace complexity

Shilpa Jindia 3 May 2017

The Syrian uprising has divided the international Left between those who support Assad and those who support the Syrian opposition, while muting the voices of Syrians whose realities force them to reject simple binaries.

Singling out Israel: a perspective from the left

William Eichler 3 June 2015

How did the struggle for Palestine gain such prominence on the left? The answer might tell us something about broader patterns of thought in left-wing politics today.

Charlie Hebdo and western denial

Duncan Thomas 15 January 2015

The recent attacks in Paris were the latest round in a conflict of violence, not of “values”. The primary perpetrators of this violence are western states, with Islamist terrorism representing an inevitable blowback.

Oil politics and the battle for Kobane

Mika Minio-Paluello 7 November 2014

Decades of energy colonialism in the Middle East come face to face with a democratic challenge in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan).

30 years on: Ethiopia and the business of hunger

Nick Dearden 24 October 2014

30 years after images of Ethiopian famine haunted British TV screens, they still shape how we see Africa - and ensure we fail to understand.

Scottish Green solidarity with the Kurdish people

Anni Pues 17 October 2014

We must support the people of Kobane in their fight against ISIS and Turkey's plans to install a buffer zone, both of which are plots to assassinate the democratic project in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan).

Western blind spot: the Kurds' forgotten war in Syria

Derek Wall 29 September 2014

A victory for the Kurds and their allies in Syria is a victory for all who want a future that is dictated neither by fundamentalists nor imperialists.

The Islamic State and the global Great Game

Asad Zaidi 25 September 2014

The unravelling of Iraqi society set the context for the emergence of the Islamic State-led insurgency in Iraq. But the role played by IS is a byproduct of the flows of capital and ideology in a much wider theatre of power.

Israel - the last of the settler colonies

Jonas Fossli Gjersø 10 September 2014

Examining the history of colonialism suggests that Israel today is more analogous to apartheid South Africa or French Algeria than to its settler state counterparts the United States or Australia.

Iraq crisis: divide-and-rule in defence of a neoliberal political economy

Ali Al-Jaberi 1 July 2014

The roots of the most recent crisis in Iraq can be traced to the US-led invasion of 2003 and western meddling in Syria. At stake, is the neoliberal blueprint of post-invasion Iraq, now defended in an effort coordinated between the Baghdad government and its western backers.

The proud neoliberalisation of Iraqi-Kurdistan

Schluwa Sama 21 May 2014

Kurdish nationalism in Iraqi-Kurdistan has been transformed from an ideology that strengthened resistance to the Iraqi Baathist dictatorship to a tool now being employed to help build shopping malls.