Unofficial poet laureate UA Fanthorpe is an unlikely icon, having left her prestigious career for a job as a receptionist. But she understood that recording the everyday - the often ignored - can help people to connect, to see the importance of everyone's story. She changed both society and my lif
Looking back on three terms of Michael Bloomberg we see a mayor who sought to fundamentally change New York’s character through a series of interventions in the City’s body and the bodies of its citizens.
Both anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish racisms have become part of daily ‘common sense’ constructions everywhere in time of global crisis, expressing insecurity and hostility against ‘the Other’, ‘the terrorist’, ‘the usurper’. The Palestine/Israel question has helped to encourage these conflations and
A power-grab by rebels would come with huge civilian casualties and also set a bad precedent in a country with long ethnic rivalries, lacking a professional military and with an armed civilian population.
It is a principle that those who perish or go missing in humanitarian disasters should be identified. This principle should also be applied to migration tragedies, though it is infrequently acted on by governments.
Inquests into military deaths away from the battlefield provide important opportunities for removing the carefully constructed veneer of PR that casts all soldiers as heroes.
An oft-quoted new survey seems to suggest that many Jews in Europe are not living with the peace of mind and sense of security that every ethnic and religious group ought to enjoy. This survey, however, has several limitations.
Is there a profound contradiction between subjective expression and effective political deliberation, such that the first type of participation should be described as superficial?
What kind of Europe would you like to live in? (Video, 1 min 10s)
The widespread abuse suffered by domestic workers calls for the urgent enforcement of proper labour laws, the ratification of ILO convention 189 and fundamental changes in attitudes towards women and children workers, including racism, class/caste and gender prejudice.
The fallout from these abuses of labor and freedom of speech casts a long shadow on Yale-NUS' hopes to become an international hub for liberal education.
