The Rise of Chinese Humanitarianism

The decision over whether China would be an integrated member of the international community had been made for them. All future Chinese humanitarian efforts would now be judged, not by previous Chinese behaviour, nor by decades’ old conflicts, but rather by the present-day compassion that other nations had shown them.

Curing Ebola with Thomas Pogge

For all the harm that has been caused, and for all the harm that it is still likely to be caused in the near future, the current Ebola pandemic in Western Africa is merely a symptom of a much larger structural injustice concerning the global manufacture of pharmaceuticals – For this, Thomas Pogge has a solution.

The Inequality Fallacy Behind the G20 Protests

The G20 is far from being an ideal organization. And its protesters have plenty to be concerned about. But the fear that globalization is increasing global economic inequality, and thereby harming the global poor, should not be one of these concerns.

Fear of Offense: Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

This fear of religious offense indicates an insecurity on behalf of Pakistan’s religious establishment. And it is here that the laws begin to make some intrinsic sense. Blasphemy in Pakistan has been conflated to the sort of deeply existential, and agency-removing threat, as that of shouting ‘fire’ in a theatre. A belief that if blasphemy were to be allowed to continue unchecked, then it would precipitate the collapse of Pakistani society – this is what religious immaturity looks like.

Friends Without Benefits: The US-Turkish Alliance

At a time when humanitarian intervention was developing into a normative standard above and beyond a legal principle, highlighted by the “illegal but legitimate” intervention in Kosovo, Turkey was afforded a privileged position of international immunity. While behaving in a manner that ordinarily ought to have defined itself as an outlier nation and a candidate for international military intervention, Turkey not only managed to avoid such attention, but also to remain as an ally in both name and substance to most of the international community. This appears to be a contradiction in nature that Turkey has failed to grow out of.

The Academic Starvation of North Korean Scholars

Due to the nature of the subject matter, North Korean academia is plagued by an ongoing deficit of substantive and indicative detail. However, operating within an academic environment starved of information does not justify a regression into speculation in order to fill the knowledge gaps. Nor does it justify the public comments of academics who are devoid of specific insight on current events, yet nonetheless believe that through vacant and superficial statements, they can catch onto the coat tails of tabloid speculation and increase their own public profile. North Korean scholars need to embrace the fact that not all new events within North Korea require their voice – that their silence does not tacitly de-validate their existence.

Political Sleepwalking

Rather than supplying Tony Abbott and the Coalition with a first-hand cautionary tale, it seems that the failure of their predecessors merely left the current government with a false sense of accomplishment: a permeating sense of hubris masking a vacuous political environment. Two more years of the status quo will leave the Coalition exactly where the Labor Party found itself at the last election – void of political capital, with a public that refuses to be re-engaged, and heading toward a heavy electoral defeat.

The Rise of Kurdistan

Explained by Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff in his seminal analysis of nationalism ‘Blood and Belonging’, “statelessness is a state of mind, and it is akin to homelessness”. Statelessness for Kurdistan has meant an existence denied of self-identity, and a life devoid of security. It is ahistorical to imagine that Kurdish national belonging can in any way be satisfied without a corresponding, and internationally, recognised state. Despite the coming the events, what is guaranteed is that Kurdish nationalism will not diminish, and sooner or later will need to be fulfilled by statehood – the rise of Islamic State, and the associated confluence of events seems to be just the moment for that fulfilment.

Recognising the real enemy in Gaza

Although the Israeli military offensive in Gaza has been enormously destructive, and has inflicted intolerably high levels of human suffering, Israel has also gone to considerable effort to avoid civilian casualties through a series of multifaceted early-warning mechanisms for the residents of Gaza - much of which have become a source of derision and satire in the international media. Though, if we are comfortable in criticising Israel for causing civilian deaths, then it is only reasonable and intellectually honest to credit Israel where and when they seek to avoid causing civilian deaths.

Another Balkans Unfolding in Africa?

Our emotional attachment to other human beings diminishes as our concentric circles of identity and belonging also diminish. As such, the Central African Republic is just too far removed from our moral horizons to evoke meaningful sympathy. As natural as this might seem, it is a stance that delineates moral concern in no less an arbitrary manner than the Seleka or Anti-balaka. It legitimises chance of birth as a barrier to moral obligation, it narrows sympathy to commonality and circumstance, it destroys all hope of a truly cosmopolitan human ethic – it means that, insofar as they occur in the Central African Republic, mass atrocities and immeasurable human suffering are easy to ignore.

Embracing the Arrogance of Kevin Rudd

If this sort of successful personality does not flourish in politics, if these individuals that drive the private sector are not to be found driving our country - then it is our failing, not theirs. It is to our detriment that we cannot climb above the trivial and the petty, that we cannot discern the message from the medium. Kevin Rudd was a rare political mind, the like of which is no longer noticeably present in the Australian parliament. If all we can remember him for is his personality, then we are creating a barrier for future political talent, pushing young professionals into alternative career paths where they can be judged on results, rather than likability. By vilifying the arrogance of Kevin Rudd, we are tacitly devaluing the qualities of courage, determination and independent thought – we are setting a dangerous standard for Australian politics.

We must stop defending Islam

Our politicians must stop acting liking over-protective parents, jumping blindly to the defence of Islam – and by doing so, inflicting more harm than good. When a parent instinctively defends a child, it’s a psychological response to a feeling that the child is incapable of self-defending or too young for personal growth. And as such, our response to Islamic terrorism is all too often an insult to the faith itself – a faith that needs to, and is more than capable of, defending itself.

A Mormon U.S. President?

The sheer improbability of Mormon doctrine is almost too hard to fathom. It is a religion, upon a religion, upon a religion. Whatever probability you assign to the truth of the Christian faith you must, by its very nature, assign a reduced probability to the veracity of Mormonism.

Morally Void: Our Failure to Act in Syria

You cannot be a creditable pacifist if you are cannot recognise that sometimes conflict is the only available moral option. We must not require that nations in similar positions to Syria wait, until every ounce of our humanity is degraded by atrocities before we find it necessary to intervene.

The Smartest Person in the Room

When caucus convenes, Kevin Rudd will be the smartest man in the room. Let us hope that the Australian Labor Party respects the public enough to elevate their most talented individual to their highest position.

A False Start for Maldivian Democracy

The Maldives should remind us that the old stench of an authoritarian dominated society cannot be washed permanently clean by a democratic tide. What we see is national consciousness beginning to sympathise with the autocrat they fought so hard to dethrone. A mass expression of Stockholm Syndrome.