In Britain, the brutal murder of a soldier in south London provoked media hysteria that openDemocracy set out to counter. Anthony Barnett warned that the act of terror would strengthen the surveillance state, while Paul Rogers urged us to recognise the links between the killing and Britain's recor
In our debate on ‘drifting apart’, we’ve been asking, Where to for Europe and Britain? An important voice speaks in the form of Alexander Alvaro, the Vice President of the European Union. Splendid isolation will do us no good, he says.
As we said good-bye to the best of 2012, Dan Hancox began our 2013 coverage and a new column - Revel, Riot, and Rebellion – with a spirited ‘good riddance’ to 2012 in Britain.
We started the week with a devastating analysis of Belgium’s ‘burqa ban’. Jelle Flo and Jogchum Vrielink expose this action – which followed France’s example late last year – as unconstitutional. Its arguments are based on legality, safety and women’s rights, but simply do not stand up to scrutiny
The conflict in Syria which began with a peaceful civil movement in Dara’a: Haytham Manna asks if it is possible to build on that when facing the threat of foreign intervention. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen considers the Gulf States’ relationship to the conflict, and Rita sends a message to openSecur
The week opened with our readers catching up with openSecurity’s conference on Syria’s Peace which took place the previous week; with Vron Ware and Ian Sinclair on the tenth anniversary of the biggest anti-war demonstrations ever to have resonated around the world; and with the news that openDemoc
More than three weeks into the Egyptian political crisis, it has become clear that Egyptian democracy is even more volatile than previously thought. On openDemocracy, Heather McRobie reports from the streets of Cairo, Sara Labib offers a devastatingly thorough analysis of the new draft constitutio
Fragility was one of the themes of this week’s openDemocracy – from how President Milos Zeman’s ‘tired and emotional’ state may influence Czech-Russian relations, to the vulnerability of neglected wooden churches in Russia. The tentative positive movements towards gender equality, and the fragilit
Where will a new Europe come from? From the bottom up, says Etienne Balibar! The worst crisis ever faced by the European construct is, for the French philosopher, exactly the right moment to reinvent what doesn't work.
Has a red line been crossed in Syria? Bob Rigg urges caution and takes us through the history of chemical weapons in the Middle East, Mary Kaldor looks at what arming the rebels would do and laments the lack of a serious discussion about the plight of the Syrian people, Shelley Deane examines the
What started as a protest to protect a green space with a few trees in Istanbul met a brutal police response and grew to become much more. Celam Burak Tansel and Gulay Turkmen-Dervisoglu explain the situation, John McSweeney tells us this isonly the beginning, Dimitar Bechev adds perspective on wh
With just one week left until the US picks its President, openDemocracy continues its series of global viewpoints on the election, How it Looks From Here.
