China is in a quandary. Uncowed Hong Kong protesters are forcing Beijing to confront its version of the question plaguing global politics: how much discontent can be stifled while still reaping the benefits of liberalized global economy? It is the one-party state version of a similar game being played in western democracies. Economic-political elites are everywhere attempting a delicate maneuver: maintain free flow of financial capital that is the source of their wealth and privilege, while diluting and diverting expressions of popular discord produced by the resulting gross inequalities of wealth. In each location the dynamics are distinct; everywhere the official responses refuse to face the root of the problem
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As Sudan’s military rulers and the pro-democracy coalition of Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) resume their fraught negotiations over the composition of a civilian government, real power is being transacted according to a different logic—the political marketplace. A political marketplace analysis of Sudan is an important tool for democracy activists in Sudan to understand the power base of the forces they are confronting. Otherwise the leaders of the FFC risk finding themselves with formal responsibility for a political apparatus, which runs according to a set of logics they simply cannot control.
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In a new op-ed published by the Guardian (July 11, 2019), our colleagues in the Accountability for Starvation project, Mohammad Kanfash and Ali al-Jasem (both of Damaan Humanitarian Organization) argue why accountability for starvation crimes cannot go unaddressed.
Amid a war that may have cost 500,000 lives, we must hold the Syrian government […]
Continue Reading →The struggle in Khartoum today is not just between military rule and democracy, but over whether Sudan should be ruled by those from the historic center of power on the Nile River or by the people of the vast and underprivileged peripheries.
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The tragedy of the Sudanese marginalized is that the man who is posing as their champion is the ruthless leader of a band of vagabonds, who has been supremely skillful in playing the transnational military marketplace. “Hemedti” is employee of the month as the representative of that inhuman logic of paramilitary mercenary politics.
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WPF is proud to announce the publication of its latest occasional paper, “A Role for Social Nutrition in Strengthening Accountability for Mass Starvation?” by Susanne Jaspars (WPF Occasional Paper #20), June 24, 2019. An excerpt: “Notions of social nutrition have emerged at various points in time, and have been used or defined in different ways, often following crisis or famine. The concept has been applied to Western populations and to those in the Global South, in both emergency and more stable contexts to address malnutrition within its wider social, political and economic context. It has, however, been marginal com- pared to a biomedical or medicalised approach to nutrition, which focuses on nutritional requirements and treatment. In the second decade of the 2000s, however, the need to revive or re-invent some form of social nutrition is important because of the resurgence…”
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