In Solidarity - by openDemocracy

Community organisers around the world have long argued that to change a country, canvas a community. But is that really true?  In this episode, we catch up with someone who literally wrote the book on the subject. Our guest George Goehl started organising in a soup kitchen in Southern Indiana 30 years ago in the Clinton era and continues to do so in the time of Trump.  Listen in to under...

The already fraught relationship between the United States and South Africa has been put under even more strain with Donald Trump's decision to cut foreign aid, not to mention South Africa's case against Israel at the ICJ. Menzi Ndhlovu, a political economist and risk analyst at Signal Risk a risk analysis consultancy focused on Africa, joins us to discuss this critical moment for South Africa. —...

Danny Sriskandarajah is the author of Power to the People: Use your voice, change the world Sriskandarajah discusses the shift from a positive phase of civic engagement to a reversal over the past decade, emphasising the importance of community networks beyond state and market fixations. He highlights the role of civil society in nurturing democracy and the need for international solidarity. Srisk...

Jimmy The Giant is a popular YouTuber who did what many would consider to be beyond the pale - he changed his mind about politics. Jimmy went from heading down the right wing pipeline of self improvement gurus to U-turning and becoming, dare we say, ‘woke’.  In today’s episode Aman Sethi talks to Jimmy about how and why he changed his mind about the political landscape and together they exami...

Borders patrolled by AI-powered robotic dogs once seemed like something purely in the realm of dystopian sci-fi novels. But the border industrial complex is working hard to make them a part of our (still dystopian) reality.  Petra Molnar, author of The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence , joins us to discuss the militarization of border technologie...

Something strange is happening in Germany.  Last year, the Alternative for Germany or AFD, as it scored, became the first far right party to win a state election in Germany since World War Two. Then in February this year, the AfD came second in Germany's national elections, with 20% of the votes. The AFD isn't just another populist right wing party. Members of the party have consistently down...

What do the Ukrainians at the heart of the conflict with Russia feel about being used as a bargaining chip by countries like the United States? In this episode we speak to Volydomyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, academic, and editor of Ukraine World. Volydomyr lives in Kyiv and is also the host of the Explaining Ukraine podcast. — Get our independent journalism delivered direct to your...

The rising global far right is violent, racist and misogynistic – and depends on exploiting women.  While many of us associate attacks on women’s bodily autonomy with ultra-religious groups, openDemocracy’s Sian Norris argues that the stripping away of abortion rights is a political issue, rooted in fascistic ideas about women and men. Her book, Bodies Under Siege: How the Far-Right Attack on...

Have we all been looking at Donald Trump’s success in the wrong way? Jeff Sharlet, journalist and author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War , makes a compelling case for examining his rise not as a political figure, but as a religious one. After all, Trump himself would surely be the first to suggest that he is divine. Do the president’s most ardent supporters truly believe that he is a...

Since al-Assad’s regime fell from power in December 2024, much of the reporting on Syria has focussed on geopolitics in the region. More concern has been paid to the reactions of neighbouring nations than the ordinary Syrians whose lives have been uprooted by years of violence.  But Syria is so much more than a strategic stronghold to be fought over by nations in the Global North.  We sp...

Trump 2.0: Is This the Inauguration of A New Era of the Strongman? Professor Wendy Brown is an American political theorist, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and an author.  Professor Brown’s bibliography includes what we refer to as ‘the Trump trilogy' - three books that span the political career of President Donald Trum...