Opinions

Traditionally the preserve of religion and state, ritual is being used as a means to connect with others and reshape the future. By Lucy Purdy 31 August 2016 for openDemocracy Thousands of people holding lanterns stretch in procession along the…

Johan Galtung* This editorial 444–the number calls for attention–is dedicated to a global overview, the world “right now”, so unstable with imbalances everywhere that what we are living is fluxes and jumps. Let us start with two major relations: nature-human,…

Robert J. Burrowes I sometimes wonder whether one of the ways in which ‘Amercian exceptionalism’ manifests is that many US scholars and others are unable to consider the contributions of those who are not from the USA. For example, I…

The floodwaters are receding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the scale of the damage is revealing itself. It has been described as a 1,000-year flood, leaving at least 13 people dead and close to 60,000 homes ruined. According to Weather…

The earthquake Tuesday night in Amatrice, Central Italy, has brought back ugly memories. The scars of l’Aquila, where a similarly heavy earthquake took place in 2009, killing 308 people and leaving 67.000 without homes, have still not healed. The population…

Human Wrongs Watch By Baher Kamal* ROME, 24 August 2016 (IPS) – “Every evening, millions of people all over the world will settle into their armchairs to watch some TV after a hard day at work. Many will have a…

Technological developments are rendering many jobs obsolete. Can implementing a universal basic income provide a way of managing the social and economic implications of such a radical transformation? By DARIAN MEACHAM for openDemocracy In early 2013, a colleague and I…

Hinkley Point C nuclear power station has been on the cards for more than 15 years to be built in Somerset, England by French state run EDF with the addition of Chinese capital. The cost has been spiralling up and…

The Syrian refugee crisis including those internally displaced, those in neighbouring countries and the few who have made it to other shores is the biggest civilian tragedy since WWII. And yet there is a paralysis in ordinary people who would…

My dark secret as an activist and someone committed to a revolution of the violent, global system in which we live is that I get obsessed by the Olympic Games.  My activist friends can’t quite really understand it, denouncing them…