State of Power

Many poor countries sign trade agreements with the desperate hope of attracting investment from their wealthy counterparts. However, these agreements, or treaties, tend to have some very problematic clauses, which often lead to trouble down the road. Investors have used these treaties to sue countries for any actions, such as changes in policy, that they perceive to be a threat to their projected profits. And they don’t sue in the national courts either, but in a special parallel system that...

For a while now, the mantra “trade not aid” has dictated how the overdeveloped countries of the Global North engage with their less wealthy counterparts. The logic being that trade is more dignified than aid, and leads to longer lasting change. However, to anyone who has been paying attention, the way global trade is set up may actually be one of the reasons these countries remain poor. The playing field is far from level, and there are multiple mechanisms that work in concert to ensure...

For a while now, the mantra “trade not aid” has dictated how the overdeveloped countries of the Global North engage with their less wealthy counterparts. The logic being that trade is more dignified than aid, and leads to longer lasting change. However, to anyone who has been paying attention, the way global trade is set up may actually be one of the reasons these countries remain poor. The playing field is far from level, and there are multiple mechanisms that work in concert to ensure...

On Monday, 1 February, Myanmar’s military ended the country's decade-long experiment with democracy by launching a coup against the most popular political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Now Myanmar’s people are on the streets, demanding the release of their leaders and the restoration of the 2020 election results. Many are also calling for the country’s 2008 constitution to be annulled and rewritten, as it explicitly acknowledges the...

On 24 February 2022, to considerable shock, Russia launched a large scale invasion of Ukraine. This was a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that has been ongoing, particularly since 2014. In this podcast we want to find out what Ukrainians involved in its social movements are thinking about the conflict. Where do they think the war is going? What are their thoughts about the apparent rifts in the global left response? What should solidarity look like? The State of Power...

Governments around the world have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand their powers. Populations have been divided on the basis of race and class into those deserving of protection and those perceived as risky and to be controlled. Migrants, refugees, precarious workers, and racialized groups have faced vulnerability and repression. Many Western liberals, nevertheless, seem to wish for governments to be tougher in enforcing measures. In this fascinating discussion, Eda Seyhan lays out...

When the word security is mentioned, images of men in uniform, perhaps carrying guns and in armoured cars, come to mind. How did we end up in a place where security is understood in the narrow terms of policing, and inevitably leads to racism? Why does this kind of security fail to make a large part of the population feel safer? And can we imagine a society where my security is not the opposite of your security? In this thought-provoking conversation, Arun Kundnani speaks with Olúfẹ́mi O....

We are in a climate crisis. About this there seems to be broad consensus. But, there is more and more divergence around what must be done to stop it. As COP26 came around, we’ve seen more and more supposed solutions to the Climate crisis gaining attention. But a closer look reveals that many of the ideas proffered as ways out of the climate emergency are merely duds, fancy ways to give the impression of progress while business continues as usual. Just as we cannot expect mosquitoes to...

For the last two years, Lebanon has been witnessing an acute multi-dimensional crisis that has left more than half the population living below the poverty line. Many families are struggling to survive. Some say that the massive economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the August 2020 Beirut explosions and instability have all combined to create conditions even worse than they were during the 1975-1990 civil war. In October 2019, Lebanon also saw a mass uprising, rejecting corruption and...

The Tonga people of Zimbabwe and Zambia, who call themselves the river people, speak of the pain of being separated from their relatives, who all of a sudden were made foreigners, stuck on the opposite side of a dam, in another country. All this, so that a massive dam, the largest man-made lake in Africa, could be built. The Kariba dam, which has one of the biggest hydropower stations in Africa, came at a great price. Fast-forward just one generation later, in a case of history repeating...

Twenty years on, America has chaotically pulled out of the war in Afghanistan with nothing much to show for it, and the war on terror appears to have achieved very little, except to cause more terror and to bring America’s violence to more parts of the world. In this fascinating conversation, Arun Kundnani interviews Deepa Kumar, who traces the longer historical roots of the War on Terror and how it racialised and targeted Arab and Muslim communities well before 9/11. Deepa Kumar is...

About a decade ago, Tunisia was the birthplace of the so-called Arab spring, when Tunisians toppled the decades long dictator Ben Ali, heralding momentous changes across North Africa and beyond. To some extent, the Tunisian experience seems to be an exception in the region, because the country did not descend into the chaos and violence that have affected its neighboring countries since. However, many argue that the popular aspirations of the Tunisian people have been subverted and their...

About a decade ago, parts of the Arab world experienced great upheaval. The events that took place, and which continue to unfold to the present day, are not easily explained. In fact, to this day, and in light of subsequent uprisings, there is an ongoing attempt to fully understand what it is exactly that happened during what has been called the Arab Spring. Can these events be called revolutions? What is a revolution, and how does one determine whether it is successful or not? To tackle...

The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated the already existing deep structural problems of corporate and increasingly globalized food systems. A radical, human rights-based and agroecological transformation of food systems is more urgent than ever. As the United Nations gears itself to hold the 2021 version of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), activists and analysts are sounding the alarm that this year’s event is not building on the legacy of past World Food Summits, which resulted in the...

If you listen to the news and read the papers, it would be easy to be convinced that the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future energy system is “already underway”. Advocates say that renewable energy is already cost-competitive - with costs of generation falling below that of fossil fuels. According to them, the transition is all but "inevitable". Yes, we may still be using fossil fuels, but only as a temporary measure as we all move to cleaner energy. We are probably past peak use...

From a human rights perspective, the global vaccine distribution problem would for example aim to get the COVID vaccine to communities and peoples in the Global South quickly, safely, at low or no cost without political-, class- or gender-discrimination. It would lead toward a solution that combines a WTO waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-related products and processes, maybe a General Assembly declaration that health is a global public good, a multilateral global humanitarian...

The unprecedented movement to #defundthepolice has brought a critical debate about the role of a powerful coercive state agency into the mainstream of political discussion. It has raised the question about how the police functions everywhere and whose interests they serve. But the police are not the only coercive arm of the state. What about the military, homeland security, prisons, the intelligence agencies? Isn’t it time to put those agencies also under the spotlight and examine whose...

Despite the political and institutional changes that occurred with Africa's decolonisation process in the second half of the 20th century, many colonial constructs remain to this very day. One of the most obvious and egregious symbols of these continuities is no doubt the CFA franc. The acronym of this currency created in 1945 by the French provisional government originally stood for franc of the French colonies in Africa. It still circulates in eight countries in West Africa and six...

The present reeks of the past. The world we live in is not the result of some natural law. It was created by people, like you and I, humans who walked, breathed, ate and drank. The contemporary world is a result of people making decisions, decisions that would give them more power, access to more wealth, and grant them the influence to safeguard their wealth and power. If they could make it, you and I can unmake it. This is the third and final episode of our three part series, in which...

17 April is the “International Day of Peasant Struggles”. One may be inclined to think that such a day has very little significance for places like Europe and other parts of the developed world, but one would be mistaken. Struggles over farmland are a very real reality in Europe, although the nature of these struggles differ across the continent, with main differences being between Eastern and Western Europe. There are threats of land grabbing by large transnational companies and...