The deafening silence from the international community on the incidents of last week displays a worrying underpinning weakness in its understanding of the Myanmar context.
Transparency and accountability are hardly Mr Modi’s forte. Modi’s record in decentralised governance also fails to impress. Voters have no idea who will be in his ministerial team, and what their views are likely to be.
Glib and glossy visions of women’s empowerment, designed to avoid actual power structures, are being avidly promoted by corporations and the development industry alike. A new book by Srilatha Batliwala reminds us of what lies at the heart of feminist empowerment work.
The events of the past three months threw a stark light on the way the AKP government and Gülenists used the justice system in the past for common political ends. The result has been a clear erosion of the rule of law. Turkey’s voters deserve better than that.
The fear of possible military coups have never left the collective imaginary of all forms of Turkish public, including the conservative constituency.
While there are certainly gendered imbalances in the actual structures of current sex markets, these imbalances are created, reinforced and strengthened not by sex work itself but by laws criminalizing sex work and by treating sex workers as second-class citizens without rights.
In line with the AKP government’s rudimentary understanding of “democracy” that considers it synonymous with elections, Erdoğan has reiterated countless times that the solution to all problems, including the allegations against his government, lay in that holy of holies: the Ballot Box.
Let us stand still and recognize what has happened in the Dutch repudiation of Geert Wilders and embrace of Moroccan-Dutch – in all its ambivalence – but not cheer it, yet.
