We need to criticize identity politics when it’s a tool to strengthen capitalism, but without ignoring how issues like racism, migration or gender play a role in how people are exploited. That’s what Yasmin Nair advocates for. Nair is a writer, academic and queer-activist living in Chicago. According to her the left needs to pay more attention to h ...

MO* spoke with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympusch-Tsintsadze in Kiev, at a historic moment. After years of negotiation, the visa-free travel and the Association Agreement, which led to war with Russia and was hanging by a thread after the Dutch referendum, finally got through. ‘This is a civilizational shift.&rsqu ...

On the 24th of March Isabel Allende received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent. Gie Goris met the author in San Francisco and had a long interview with her on stories and lies, women and power, politics and migration. ‘The strength of women is not in power or in physical strength, but in resilience and compassion.’ ...

6 years since the Syrian uprising, 1 year since the Brussels attacks, 60 years of European Union. On March 21, all these commemorations coincided in Bozar in Brussels. The Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Orchestra of Belgium led Syrians and Belgians towards a catharsis of the sorrow of these past years. Pieter Stockmans experie ...

We have all seen these images popping up in our social media feeds: Afghanistan in the 1970’s versus Afghanistan in the 2010’s. The first image shows girls in Kabul, who could just as well have lived in Paris or Berkeley in that period, with their long hair, short skirts, smiling faces and confident regards. The more recent image, then, ...

These veiled and unveiled Bosnian Muslim women are more consciously approaching their bodies than most other women. Often the headscarf is discussed as a political symbol, but rarely debates touch upon the personal motivation of the women and how the sense of community influences their choice. MO* organized a focus group with young Bosnian women fr ...

Mukhisa Kituyi, previous Kenyan minister of Trade and Industry, is secretary-general of UNCTAD, the UN-organization for Trade and Development, since 2013. MO* interviewed him about the importance of and the barriers for regional trade in Africa. ‘We need to counteract the worldwide trend that regards multinational agreements as suspicious and ...

Anis Amri, chief suspect behind the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, grew up in Kairouan. Jihadi Salafists proclaimed this ancient Tunisian city the capital of an Islamic state. The shooter who killed 38 hotel guests on a beach in Sousse in 2015 radicalized here as well. In the summer of 2015, Montasser AlDe’emeh and Pieter Stockmans w ...

The world was surprised by the travel ban that President Trump proclaimed for inhabitants or citizens of seven mostly Islamic countries. This is, however, only the first step of a much larger strategy, according to Reza Aslan, the famous Iranian-American author and TV-maker. He hopes that by 2018, the current protests will bring about a renewed Dem ...

With Trump’s inauguration days away, environmentalists are bracing for the worst. After eight years of Obama, with his emphasis on renewable sources, a lot has changed. Despite being surrounded by fossil fuel tycoons and climate change deniers, his successor will have arrived too late to save the oil industry. To understand why, we need look ...

With dwindling budgets for development and a growing uncertainty in Europe, donors are increasingly looking to the private sector as partners for development. With the right approach, the private sector can make a positive contribution, but it also brings specific risks.

Tanzania is receiving development assistance to further develop the agricultural sector through public-private cooperation. The projects are being promoted under the premise that fertile land is abundant but, in practice, this land is almost always occupied. This means that large-scale agricultural projects are driving people off their land. An exa ...