Happily, I am not old enough to know how conflicts used to be addressed, but these days, without a doubt, response is driven by media action. I remember driving across snowy Saskatchewan (in Canada…) listening to live coverage of the 1991 invasion of Iraq over AM radio (indeed, you may need to google that), and …
Continue reading ‘Media-driven Conflict Management: Time for a new partnership?’ »
I rarely comment publically on Myanmar (who knows, I may want to take a job there someday) but the events of the last few weeks have brought me to the point where I’m willing to burn some bridges because it’s the right thing to do. Because with all of the horrific stuff going on in …
Continue reading ‘My Breaking Point: Burning Bridges for Rakhine’ »
They say overall extreme poverty has declined since 2000, with a lot of credit given to the advent of the MDGs, serving its purpose as a coordinating framework for the plethora of existing development commitments already made by developed countries, particularly those belonging to the OECD, in the 1990s. We should give credit where credit …
Continue reading ‘Greater Global Inequality. Here’s One Reason Why’ »
Post-conflict governing is never easy. But there is a sense of hope, until there isn’t. Dear ‘Government’, Long after the war ended, I came back. I was excited – to see change and hope and a vision for the future. The changes I have witnessed, however, are very disillusioning… I see your flags and I …
Six years ago, almost to the day, I was reviewing the draft of a programme evaluation report that my organization had commissioned. The writing wasn’t excellent but it was passable. The content, however, and the accusations lobbed at the organization were mind-blowing. ‘Organization X is directly contributing to growing conflict in Poso (in Central Sulawesi …
Continue reading ‘The Challenges of Post-Conflict ‘Residue’’ »
I have been grappling with the issue of the ‘laws of war’ for nearly two decades, when I first began my studies and wrote a paper on the ‘Democratization of the Laws of War,’ and somewhat unwittingly anticipated the chaos of international conflict. At the time I was a young grad student with very little …
If ever there was a topic that denoted the very clear line between theory and practice, it would be the refugee ‘crisis’ currenting ‘plaguing’ Europe. First of all, let us all be clear on what a crisis really is. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a time of intense difficulty or danger.” This usually necessitates …
Continue reading ‘The Refugee ‘Crisis’ – What Happened to ‘Never Again’?’ »
It was amateur hour last week. In this world of fear, mistrust and division, we have a responsibility to avoid sowing seeds of further division and mistrust, of warping issues and pigeon-holing societies because we lack the capacity to understand nuance and the fact that issues such as religion and culture play different roles in …
We have been reading headlines on the number of refugees and displaced people (33 million worldwide) for months now, and many updates and commentaries on the process and progress of the World Humanitarian Summit, tasked with idenitfying, through global consultation, how to ‘fix’ an overwhelmed humanitarian and emergency response system. Beyond the fact that it …
Continue reading ‘Addressing Global Crises with ‘Blinders’ On’ »
In case you missed it, another peace deal was agreed for Central African Republic recently. Not to be cynical, but you can be forgiven if you mistakenly thought reference was being made to the peace deal last year… or the year before that. It’s practically an annual event in the country these days. Which tells …
