As the war on Gaza continues, we should analyze the attacks on Jews and their property in Europe differently from how we view the masses of people taking to the streets in protest against that war.
Erdoğan’s authoritarian and arrogant response to protests confirms his opponents’ fears that he is seeking to make himself a strongman ruler in the mould of Vladimir Putin, who also swapped being Prime Minister for President.
A call for political leadership.
There are abundant signs of the weakening of Palestinian and Israeli willingness to engage with one another. The temptation to resort only to violence must not be allowed to take hold on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. This conflict will only be resolved when each sees the other and is wil
Political actors must address the place of religion and ethnicity, as defining identity markers, in the post-Arab Spring countries. The Arab Spring, after all, may have signaled the beginning of the end of exclusionary models of nationalism, and all the other isms that eventually lead to genocidal
In 2013, openDemocracy published Pradeep Baisakh’s interview with Arvind Kejriwal, charting his transition from Gandhian social activist to politician. One year on, Baisakh writes an open letter to the leader of the Aam Admi party, urging him to once again take up Gandhian principles.
With rampant corruption and widening inequality, South Africa has become the epicentre of global protest. Social transformation is increasingly sought outside the party-political field. But the political resilience of the ANC is nowhere near played out.
Violence against women is always under-recorded, usually under-recognised and often spuriously justified by "culture" or "tradition". A new convention seeks a step change in Europe.
While it is true that the US has, for once, signed up to a UN Security Council statement which calls for an "immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire”, this might still be considered a tactical step to prevent more strongly worded resolutions against Israel being proposed in the Securit
If the twentieth century was, in the language of the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the “age of extremes”, then the twenty-first century may well be the age of democracy. And yet a profound sense of disconnect has emerged.
On religion, EU and UN 'dialogue' with civil society is distinguished by egregious bias; far from serving democracy, it serves conservative religious voices and abjectly fails to address the consequences of ideological intransigence.
