Stories Archive | Page 72 of 78

Analyses

Ramin Jahanbegloo, one of Irans preeminent intellectual figures, attends the conference ‘Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Asia’ held under the auspices of former Czech president Vaclav Havel on September 11, 2009, in Prague. Other guests of this conference are Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, former President of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk, Rabiya Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress, Robert Menard of France, former Secretary-General of Reporters Without Bord and others philosophers and disidents.AFP PHOTO MICHAL CIZEK (Photo by MICHAL CIZEK / AFP)

Philosophy
Migration and Identities in the Globalized World
Zygmunt Bauman 13 May 2013

Claiming that reason and our normative concepts change together with the human practices and the challenges that the human condition and social reality are positing, Zygmunt Bauman maintains that politics today has to accommodate the fact of multiculturalism brought about by globalization. Given the changing patterns of global migration, diasporas and communities nowadays extend over many sovereign territories and bring to the political agenda the issue of ‘art of living with a difference’. The challenge we are facing is to balance the yearning for individual freedom of self-creation with its in-built inconclusiveness, uncertainty, hesitation and contradictions under the liquid-modern conditions with the equally strong desire of security that only communities can offer. The answer to this challenge is the creation of a truly global public space, in which we can renegotiate our multiple identities and restructure networks on the basis of global interdependencies and interactions.
Philosophy
Translating Truth
Maeve Cooke, University College Dublin 9 April 2013

The article considers the role of translation in encounters between religious citizens and secular citizens. It follows Habermas in holding that translations re-articulate religious contents in a way that facilitates learning. Since he underplays the complexities of translation, it takes some steps beyond Habermas towards developing a more adequate account. Its main thesis is that the required account of translation must keep sight of the question of truth. Focusing on inspirational stories of exemplary figures and acts, it contends that a successful translation makes truth appear anew; further, that it is the central role of truth in translation that enables the prospect of learning from the inspirational messages of religion. By highlighting truth as the point of continuity between intercultural learning and learning from religion, it provides support for the thesis that encounters between religious and secular citizens are a subset of intercultural encounters and, as such, contexts of possible mutual learning.
Political Theory
Egypt, A Chronicle from Port Said
Giuseppe Acconcia 18 March 2013

Shortly after the celebrations of the Egyptian popular uprisings’ second anniversary, the announcement of the verdict of the death penalty for 21 thugs and Green Eagles, supporters of the al-Masry football club, led to harsh reactions in Port Said. They were charged for armed murders, robbery, intimidation and of having planned the 2012 massacre of the al-Ahly supporters. Tens of people were killed, clashes broke out between relatives of the people sentenced and the police and the Port Said prison was besieged. However, among the people sentenced there were no police officers. Henceforth the Egyptian Courts have been very indulgent with policemen, including the six officials from the Interior Ministry, accused of having ordered to shut out demonstrators during the 2011 upheaval.
Political Theory
UN latest report on Syria urges war crimes be referred to International Criminal Court
Ilaria Romano 22 February 2013

It will be necessary to wait until March to know the names of those accountable for the atrocities committed in Syria over the past two years, but information already published by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for Syria is very clear. War crimes, torture, individual and mass murder, the involvement of minors in the conflict, should all result in the Security Council deferring Damascus to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Gender
When Women Fear to Tread: Sexual Violence and the Egyptian Revolution
Roger Friedland and Janet Afary 19 February 2013

The body politic is at risk in Egypt. On the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution — Jan. 25 — in a demonstration in Tahrir Square, a woman protester was violently set upon by a mob of men who grabbed at her private parts, pulling and pushing her from person to person until she was finally and with great difficulty rescued by teams of anti-harassment male activists. The roiling crowd circling around its prey was captured on video. She was not the only victim that night: Eighteen other incidents were also reported. And this was not the first time women protesters — and reporters — have been attacked by crowds of men in such demonstrations, their clothing ripped off, men’s fingers reaching inside their underwear.
Political Theory
Presidential election 2013, reformists cornered in Tehran
Giuseppe Acconcia 12 February 2013

Iran, 14 June’s next Presidential elections are upon us. And, in Tehran there is a confrontation between conservatives close to the Supreme Leader and hardliners backed by the outgoing President-in-office, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The space is too small for other fronts. Iranian reformists remain excluded from political life with two of their leaders, Moussavi and Karroubi, key players of the anti-regime protests in 2009, still blocked under house arrest. Yet, this time above all tensions could be caused by the severe monetary crisis that is hitting the country and causing an increase in prices without precedent. However, on the eve of the elections Iranian authorities are still counting on anti-American propaganda and repressive actions against the reformist press.
Political Theory
Laurent Gbagbo and the right to ‘difference’
Nicoletta Fagiolo 30 January 2013

Since November 2011 Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Côte d’Ivoire, has been detained at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, accused of being an “indirect co-author” of serious crimes against humanity during the post-election crisis in his country. But many people ask why and doubt the legitimacy of these charges. For many it is his political opponent of the 2010 presidential elections, Alassane Ouattara, that should be in his place detained at the Hague, along with Guillaume Soro, the current President of the National Assembly, who headed the 2002 rebellion that divided the country in two.
Media and Communication
Between Diplomacy and Compromise: Promoting Media Freedom in Qatar
Ernesto Pagano interviews Jan Keulen, Director of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom 25 January 2013

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom is an organization founded in 2008 with the political and financial support – a 4 million dollar annual budget – of Mozah bint el Misnid, the Emir of Qatar’s powerful wife. Its objective: to assist journalists whose lives are in danger and promote media freedom from the heart of the Persian Gulf. For two years Jan Keulen is at its head. Dutch, class of 1950 and a life spent as a Middle East correspondent for Volkskrant daily newspaper. This is certainly not a simple task because prior to fighting for journalistic and media freedom in the world, Qatar, Al Jazeera’s homeland, finds itself fighting against its own same contradictions: a forty year old press law, a marked attitude of self-censorship by local media and a closure towards freedom of expression by the country’s more conservative fringes. Unsurprisingly, the Doha Centre’s former director, Robert Ménard, founder of Reporters without Borders was accused by the Qatari press of having invited “the Devil in person”, Flemming Rose, director of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that published the infamous satirical cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in 2005, to Doha. Ménard denied this incident in his book Mirages et Cheikhs en Blanc. According to the French journalist this was just a pretext to be rid of an uncomfortable presence for some elements of the country’s ruling class. In 2009, in fact, little more than a year after the Doha Centre’s inauguration, Ménard handed in his resignations
Media and Communication
Al Jazeera America: no soft power, just business!
Azzurra Meringolo interviews Stan Collender, Al Jazeera America spokesperson 25 January 2013

Time Warner Cable pulled the plug on Nobel Prize winner Al Gore’s Current TV just hours after news of the cable channel’s sale to Al-Jazeera became official. After the Arab, English and Balkan channels, Al-Jazeera, which is also preparing to launch a Turkish-language channel, took a major leap into the US cable market on 2 January 2012, acquiring Current TV and announcing plans for a US based news network to be called Al-Jazeera America. Terms were undisclosed, but analysts told the deal could be worth an estimated 500 million dollars. The new channel will be headquartered in New York, but in addition to this existing bureau, others will be opened in Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
Political Theory
Israel’s Elections and the Rise of the Annexationist Right. Time for Europe to present a common peace proposal
Andrea Dessì 23 January 2013

On Tuesday 22 January 2013 Israelis have gone to the polls to elect a new parliament (Knesset) and government. No one is expecting big surprises and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current Prime Minister from the right-wing Likud party, is widely believed to retain his post. He is expected to form a governing coalition with a grouping of nationalist, religious and orthodox parties much in the same fashion as he did following the 2009 vote. The election campaign, inaugurated on the heels of a bloody eight day escalation of violence against Hamas in mid-November 2012, has not been witness to significant excitements, and other than Israel’s continued shift to the right, little new can be extrapolated from the run up to the vote.