Pick of the Web
Things Kofi Annan can do now
The UN, centre stage in the prelude to the Iraq war, has been sidelined since its outbreak. But the organisation does not need to take its marching orders from sovereign governments. Its Secretary General, Kofi Annan, can seize the diplomatic initiative with five immediate, practical steps.
Bad omens
The era of pre-emptive war contains dark portents for democratic governance
Being born in Jerusalem
A resident of Jerusalem explores the status of non-Jewish residents of the ancient city, where Kafkaesque regulations reveal a hidden agenda; ethnic cleansing through bureaucracy.
Turning serious
The convulsive atmosphere of liberated Iraq already presents a crucial test of American claims about the war’s purpose. Was it about weapons, cruelty, freedom - or oil? US policy in the post-war settlement will provide definitive evidence.
The Syrian factor
The regime of Bashar al-Assad, now under intense pressure from the US in the wake of Saddam’s fall, appears to be one of the losers of the Iraq war. But modern Syrian history offers a warning to America that combative rhetoric of the ‘rogue state’ variety may be less effective in encouraging progress than the quieter diplomacy of its British ally.
Different truths: Iraq and the world's media
All eyes have been on the war in Iraq. But seeing the conflict through the prism of national media systems reveals stark truths about how differently global events are represented and understood. This is the launch of openDemocracy’s ‘world media monitor’. From Armenia to Brazil to Croatia, journalists, academics and media activists share their views on how TV and newspapers have played their part.
India's new anti-Americanism
American militant foreign policy and the images of Iraqi civilian dead have tipped even India’s prosperous citizens into ferocious denunciation. Tani Bhargava takes the temperature of a significant shift in the political atmosphere.
To the mountain
Iraq, the Republic of Fear under Saddam, is now ruled by a Coalition of Fear. The distinguished writer John Berger said on the eve of war that lies prepare the way for missiles. Now he sees revealed in the desperate chaos of Baghdad the blindness of a force whose pitiless weaponry and limitless ambition offer no insight into the truths of its conquest.
“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” George W. Bush
Baghdad has fallen. The city has been taken by the troops who were bringing it freedom.
China's web war
Iraq is the latest battlefield in China’s war of websites. Minutes and seconds – and freedom from political censorship – are the weapons of commercial websites who these days attract staggering numbers of users as well as advertising dollars.
Peking, 20 March 2003, 1o:35: The news ticker of sohu.com.cn publishes China’s first war news: “Baghdad has been bombed by US forces. The second Gulf war has started.” A minute later, hundreds of thousands of Sohu users receive an SMS with the same message.
Tightrope walks and chessboards: an interview with Gilles Kepel
Joan Smith: I want to start with good news. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian academic and human rights campaigner who has already spent fourteen months in prison, convicted in two separate trials on charges of corruption and defaming the country, has just been released from prison with his sentence overturned and his name cleared.
Gilles, you know Professor Ibrahim, and indeed began your return to the Middle East after 9/11 with a visit to Egypt. Why was that?
Gilles Kepel: My very first book was on Islamic movements in Egypt. The Society of the Muslim Brothers, created in 1928, was the cradle of the Islamist movement in its present form. After the trauma of 11 September, a certain spiritual need arose in me to ‘go back to the roots’, in two senses: first, to the country where it all began (even if the Muslim Brothers today cannot be held accountable for 9/11); and second, to the roots of my own investigations into this universe – because of course, 9/11 challenged everyone’s views about those phenomena and about the relationship between the Muslim world and the west.
A new, new world order?
Globolog maps the discussion of ‘progressive globalisation’ around the spring meeting of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington, and asks whether the challenge of building a decent society in Iraq could best be led by another country with deep experience of recovering from pitiless dictatorship.
Christopher Columbus has words from the other side of death for Captain John Whyte...
...who rebaptised Saddam International Airport as his troops rolled into it. The peremptory renaming of the main airport in Iraq’s capital city by its occupier from across the ocean stirs a centuries-old adventurer from his restless tomb.
Life after Saddam
The toxic shadow of the dictator has fallen across all twenty-five years of this young Iraqi exile’s life. From sinister visits to his nursery school to everyday chit chat, fear and paranoia infused his family’s life; now return and freedom beckon, but can the occupying forces deliver the democracy they have promised?
Saad Eddin Ibrahim: through the Arab looking glass
A democratic scholar-activist in Egypt is now free after a three-year ordeal of trial and imprisonment on hollow charges. But the individual story of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a naturalised American citizen, is less one of law and human rights than of an Egyptian state caught between authoritarian rule and strategic and financial dependence on the United States.
Aftermath: Afghan lessons, Iraqi futures
The American occupation of Baghdad’s centre was won at a terrible cost in civilian casualties. The experience of Afghanistan, seventeen months after ‘regime change’ there, shows that even vastly superior US firepower is not enough to secure a stable peace. Will Iraq be different?
Europe, Hungary is coming!
As Hungarians vote on whether to join the EU, we dive into their imaginations. What does enlargement mean at ground level? From a German factory in the north-east to the bustle of Budapest’s entrepreneurs, from hopes and fears to past terrors, Hungarian voices and stories jostle. In the corners of Europe, its futures can be glimpsed.
Stories from the fringe: hair in a West Indian style and fashion
With the scent of soup and Blue Magic, memories of hairstyles, tears and Saturday afternoons at Doris’ salon come flooding back. A veteran of black hair fashion remembers.
Masters of the universe?
What are the boundaries of corporate power and responsibility in the 21st century? In this key note roundtable discussion, leading activists, analysts and practitioners talk to Iain Ferguson and Caspar Henderson of openDemocracy.
Internally displaced persons in Iraq: a potential crisis?
The aftermath of war in Iraq is likely to intensify the problem of internal displacement that has already affected thousands of Kurds in the north and Shi’a and Marsh Arabs in the south. Two relatively untested agencies – the UN Office for Project Services and the International Organisation for Migration – will be responsible for aiding the huge flows of displaced people expected. Can they cope? International experts have grave doubts.
'Why this debate matters to me'
Participants in openDemocracy’s roundtable on corporate power and responsibility introduce themselves.
This week's editor
Europe from the bottom up
European debate
Democratic Wealth
Nuclear non-proliferation
Women and the Arab Spring
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
Mali - the plot thickens
.jpg)
Remote control war
Stay Informed
Sign-up for a free weekly email
Sign-up for a free weekly email
Advertising notice
openDemocracy on Twitter
Cities in Conflict
Window on the Middle East
openDemocracy on Facebook
Our Authors
Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
openDemocracy Ltd, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL. Tel: +44 (0) 207 193 0676
