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Immigration detention and state denial in Greece
In recent years, the Greek state has routinely deflected domestic and international criticism of the conditions in its immigration detention centres. It has achieved this by wielding several discursive...
View ArticleSyria and Egypt: genocidal violence, western response
Genocide is both taking on new forms in the era of democratic revolution and exposing the defective reactions of western states, says Martin Shaw.Syria's war is posing acute problems to western...
View ArticleSyria: do something
Western readers need to understand why some Syrians support, while others oppose, a military intervention in their country.I want here to present the question from different Syrian points of view....
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A defeat for Blair and his heirs
Blair's deceptions on Iraq were a central theme of last night's debate and even if Chilcot has been deliberately stalled, the House yesterday passed a damning judgement on both Blair and Cameron....
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Naughty boy receives coal (at our expense)
The government is giving away the rights to up to a billion tonnes of coal to a company owned by an ex-Conservative party fundraiser. Rather than filling his pockets, couldn't this revenue source be...
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An unholy mixture: surveillance, the law and a setback for journalism
We should not underestate the seriousness of the government's attacks on those seeking to expose its surveillance secrets. At stake is not only what the state is entitled to do to the public, but what...
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To eliminate WMD we need to disarm patriarchy
Civil society must stop the use of chemical weapons being used as a pretext for US-led bombing in Syria. A gendered understanding demonstrates that the only sustainable strategy is to pursue...
View ArticleThe digital freedom risk: too fragile an acknowledgement
At least at first, freedom dies without human beings being physically hurt. The author is convinced that the freedom risk is the most fragile among the global risks we have experienced so far. He calls...
View ArticleQuestions raised and risks posed by Syrian intervention
Part One of a two-part analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria. Read Part Two here. The Syria situation continues to burn unabated – a...
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‘Sometimes we dream of Europe’
Ukraine – an ‘unknown’ country that lies at the margins of Europe. A political football kicked back and forth between Russia and the EU. Yet beyond the politics lies a new, and magical literature; one...
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Wrocław is afraid: an experiment in the European Capital of Culture 2016
What happened when two teachers from one of the biggest and most populated cities in Poland, decided to put multicultural Wroclaw to the test; and how they encountered serious problems the minute they...
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Democracy has stopped Britain going to war - but can it save England's NHS?
We have just seen the importance of democracy in relation to matters of life and death overseas. We must restore it at home, too. So parliament has prevailed, the popular will has been heard, and the...
View ArticleSyria after Ghouta: the urge to act, and the need to act wisely
Regardless of how ‘surgical’ strikes are claimed to be, military action is a blunt instrument that, in this case, is on the table merely because of a poverty of alternatives.For the US Secretary of...
View ArticleQuestions raised and risks posed by Syrian intervention. Part Two
Part Two of an analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria, looking at prospects for meaningful change, and summing up on intervention. Read...
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Human Rights, “Human Beings,” and Israel
As a global political project, “human rights” has little resonance for most Israeli Jews. As Israel continues to fly in the face of hegemonic international norms, what can tip the balance? A response...
View ArticleA partial victory, but a victory
British MPs’ arguments and information were influenced by a strong public opinion against such a war, itself a product of a mass movement which didn’t stop a war ten years ago but has prevented a...
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Researching for humanity: the death of Arthur Helton & the survival of Gil...
In August 2003, a terror attack blasted apart the UN headquarters in Iraq. Inside, Gil Loescher and Arthur Helton were sitting down to interview Sergio Vieira de Mello for their joint openDemocracy...
View ArticleWelcoming the vote of the British Parliament while supporting the Syrian...
The best way to “punish” the Syrian regime is to enable the popular uprising to break it, not to bomb the country.In a rare instance of the executive in a Western imperial state taking “parliamentary...
View ArticleA Rare Moment of Wisdom at the Heart of British Democracy
Slowly British politics is coming to terms with reality and this is welcome, the Syria debate viewed from Scotland.Parliamentary debates about military intervention are often rightly solemn occasions....
View ArticleSyria: return to the Middle Ages
If the US decides to unilaterally attack Syria, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s recent observations on the subject will be fulfilled: "If any country attacks another when it wants, that is like...
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