What is parental alienation? Based on junk science, this dangerous concept is destroying many families even as domestic abuse is allowed to flourish by courts. A grave injustice around a peculiar form of violence that affects thousands of mothers and children, worldwide.
Category Archives: Senza categoria
Circles of impunity: why sexual violence by humanitarians and peacekeepers keeps happening
Why does sexual exploitation and abuse continue to happen in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations worldwide? What must be done to break the circle of impunity?
What Climate ‘Code Red’ Means for Africa
There is much talk on the #ClimateCrisis. And the impacts of #globalwarming take on existentialist proportions for the most poor and vulnerable on the planet. Especially so for peoples in #Africa as their continent is warming slightly faster and their sea levels rising slightly more than elsewhere, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What will happen there?
Health in the crosshairs of the Tigray conflict
Mukesh Kapila – 31 August 2021 As Ethiopia’s civil war approaches its first deadly anniversary in November, there is, as yet, little prospect for peace. The underlying causes of the immediate conflict are bitterly contested and the essential conditions for solutions remain elusive. Geopolitical factors mean that the African Union and United Nations are paralysed,Continue reading “Health in the crosshairs of the Tigray conflict”
Following the Tigray conflict, the rocky road to peace in Ethiopia
Experience shows there are no shortcuts, quick-fixes, avoiding tackling underlying causes and ignoring the bringing of justice and healing to end a war & sustain #peace. Also, while all wars eventually end, how long and viciously a war is fought has a direct bearing on the quality of peace that follows.
When #genocide acts are part of the warmaking, forging peace is substantially more difficult.
What are these and other lessons from war and peace around Africa and the world?
Will #Ethiopia #Tigray learn? And others engaged in endless conflicts in so many places.
What is killing humanitarian aid workers?
Today’s soldiers are smart. They launch missiles and drones from a safe distance behind computer screens. And when they are obliged to venture out, they are forewarned by intelligence and well protected by their armour.
In contrast, more and more civilian aid workers, protected by little more than their sense of righteousness, serve at chaotic frontlines, and are pressured to bear witness and provide succour…come what may. Unsurprisingly, some of them are bound to be harmed.
But it is not just being in the wrong place that puts humanitarian workers at risk.There is increasing mistrust of the humanitarian enterprise either because its practitioners are not so scrupulous nowadays or their efforts can be easily abused for other ends. Besides, in a world of impunity where bad behaviour is a norm and there is rarely any accountability for hurting aid worker, it is simple to target humanitarian access as part of warmaking tactics.
Could it be that it is not random bombs and bullets but the erosion and abuse of humanitarian principles (including by careless humanitarians themselves) that is killing more of them?
What happens when the world doesn’t move freely?
When the world is not able to travel, distances of the heart grow faster than bodily distances. And we understand less and less about places not visited. Terrible atrocities can then flourish so easily behind closed borders. Worst of all, as our worldview shrinks, we stop caring and growing ourselves. The sooner the world re-opens, the better for both our sanity and our common humanity.
“Genocide! Save Me?”
Is genocide unfolding in Tigray? Against the Rohingya? Against Uyghurs? Does using the G word still have the moral authority to summon help? Have genocides ever been prevented? Before invoking ‘genocide’, what exactly is it? Is the Genocide Convention still stuck in the 1940s, while dictators and despots find ever more clever ways to get around the definition? Reflections here from my own personal journeys through genocide – some even as they were underway.
Will Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce be good for philanthropy?
11 May 2021 – Mukesh Kapila Growing up in the famine-affected Indian state of Bihar in the 1960s, I recall my mother’s eulogy of gratitude to America for sending us food aid. But my childish mind translated the accompanying sense of national humiliation into a dislike of the foreign donor who I knew only from schoolContinue reading “Will Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce be good for philanthropy?”
What is the point of speaking up?
When confronted by egregious human rights abuses, or war crimes and crimes against humanity including genocide, does speaking up make any difference? Especially if words are not followed by action? There are at least four reasons why it is still crucial to speak out, and how doing so can be effective. Also what matters is the pedestal of the speaker. The higher that is, the greater their responsibility to speak out. Of course,the rhetoric-reality gap is often vast and it is easy to get cynical. But silence or ambivalence kill and destroy much more. So, speak up clearly and loudly to wake up even the dead.
