Posts by: Alex DeWaal

In 1910, the same year that the World Peace Foundation was established, the British writer (and later Member of Parliament) Norman Angell published his book, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage.

Angell’s argument is widely mis-stated as a belief that war was impossible in a world […]

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Slavoj Žižek’s catchphrases are better known than his dialectics, and for good reason. His arguments on Ukraine, Israel, capitalism and world war are provocative but ultimately muddled. My review is sympathetic. I suggest that Žižek’s recent arguments, somewhat reconfigured, lead us to a counter-revolutionary synthesis, opening up the next agenda for emancipatory struggle.

Žižek published […]

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Between 1958 and 1961, the people of China suffered the greatest famine on record. Perhaps 36 million people perished. Astonishingly, this famine was concealed from the world and only became known more than 20 years later.

The Article 19 Report on famine and censorship, Starving in Silence, published in 1990, had one section on […]

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In 1984 Ethiopia was stricken by a terrible famine that killed as many as a million people. In 2024 Ethiopia may be stricken by a terrible famine that could kill as many as a million people.

This blog post draws some parallels between the two, ending with the transcript of part of hearing on the […]

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Demilitarize the Red Sea

On January 19, 2024 By

The Middle East is heading for a wider war. There’s a dangerous game of chicken with multiple actors. Each side refuses to listen to the moral story of the other.

The epicenter is Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza, which is reverberating across the region. The most immediate escalation is in the southern Red […]

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For the first time in history, starvation is at the center of international law. And judges at the International Court of Justice face a challenge for which they are perhaps under-prepared.

The core question is this: given that the judges have been presented with evidence that Israel has brought the population of Gaza

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