Analyses
Hatem Nafti: “Tunisia, A Regime with No Alternative to its Rhetoric of Conspiracy”
Federica Zoja 21 October 2024
After surpassing 90 percent approval in the first round of the presidential elections on October 6, incumbent Tunisian leader Kais Saied faces his new term in a political, social, and economic climate vastly different from that of 2019. We discussed this shift with writer and essayist Hatem Nafty, whose latest work, Notre ami Kaïs Saïed. Essai sur la démocrature tunisienne (Our Friend Kais Saied: An Essay on the Tunisian Dictatorship), was presented in late September.
  • The Gaza Massacres: A Suicide for Israel?
    Alessandra Tommasi 22 November 2024
    “The siege. The hunger. Innocent children, the first victims of war. […] Why does God allow harm to be done to children? […] It pairs with another insoluble question: how could God allow the Holocaust? Children were the first to be sent to the gas chambers. The only thing that should be clear to everyone is that a Palestinian child is worth exactly the same as a Jewish child.” From the biblical massacres of the innocent to the war in Gaza. This is how Macellerie – Guerre atroci e paci ambigue (“Slaughterhouses – Atrocious wars and ambiguous peace,” by Siegmund Ginzberg begins, a book that profiles a violent humanity through conflicts and atrocities in history, from the Warring States period in China to today’s wars. Ginzberg, a journalist and essayist born in Turkey to a Jewish family, is not alone in taking a stand in recent weeks. Historian Anna Foa, “a Jew of the diaspora,” explores the “same pain for both sides”—the victims of October 7, the Israeli hostages, and the civilians killed in Gaza—in her book, Il Suicidio di Israele.
  • Pakistan’s Half Widows Call for Justice
    Iqra Khan 21 November 2024
    “I just hope that both of my children are returned to their tribe,” says Masta Bibi, a partially blind Pashtun woman in her seventies. Originally from Mirali in North Waziristan, Pakistan, she is the mother of two missing sons: Bilal, who disappeared 11 years ago, and Ihtesham, who vanished two years ago. Her home was destroyed during a military operation targeting terrorist groups that sought refuge in the ex-FATA region after September 11, 2001. Despite her frailty, she attended the Pashtun Qaumi Jirga, held from October 11 to 13 in Jamrud, Khyber, with a lingering hope for justice.
  • Can Sri Lanka Balance IMF Reforms with Relief for Its Citizens?
    Maria Tavernini 19 November 2024
    The sweeping majority secured by Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition in the snap parliamentary election on November 14 marks a major shift in the country’s electoral landscape. Cutting across ethnic and religious differences, Sri Lankans swept the National People’s Power (NPP) front to a landslide victory, granting Dissanayake’s alliance a total of 141 seats out of 225.
  • Silent Endorsement? Political Inaction Fuels Cow Vigilantism in Modi 3.0
    Akash Chopra 14 November 2024
    On October 20, 2024, tensions erupted in Jammu, Kashmir, when accusations of cow smuggling triggered a violent clash, part of an escalating wave of Gau Rakshak (cow protection vigilante) aggression across India. Under Prime Minister Modi’s third term, commonly known as “Modi 3.0,” these self-styled cow protectors have become increasingly emboldened, often targeting marginalized groups – particularly Muslims and Dalits involved in the livestock trade. Modi 3.0 has seen a noticeable rise in such incidents, with vigilante groups frequently operating with implicit political backing as they enforce cultural and religious norms around cow protection.
  • Trump Rally Jobs
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    Jeffry Frieden: Once Again, it’s the Economy, Stupid
    Sofia de Benedictis 13 November 2024
    One week ago, Donald Trump secured a resounding victory over opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 US elections, primarily due to a country-wide shift to the right. Swing states like Georgia and Michigan that were previously blue, are now red, and urban areas – historically Democratic bastions – have shifted their favor considerably towards the Republican party. We asked Jeffry Frieden, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University what was motivating voters and whether this rightward shift will mean for democratic values and whether Trump will be able to live up to his lofty election promises.  
  • The Enigma of a New German Coalition
    Lorenzo Monfregola 11 November 2024
    The German Ampel, the so-called Traffic Light government coalition, is now history. Its collapse came on November 6th, just hours after Donal Trump’s election victory across the ocean. Germans won’t be voting for their next government on September 28, 2025, as originally scheduled; instead, snap elections will take place by the end of March at the latest, potentially even sooner. This will be one of Germany’s rare early votes – the last was in 2005 – in a country where political stability is the norm, making government crises all the more disruptive.
  • Inside Trump’s Sweeping Comeback
    Matteo Muzio 8 November 2024
    Donald Trump’s unmitigated triumph in the 2024 presidential election has left American Democrats in a state of profound shock, possibly surpassing their dismay from his earlier 2016 win. Notably, Trump became the first Republican candidate to win even on a purely numerical level, meaning that if Democrats had succeeded in abolishing the Electoral College, he still would have emerged victorious.
  • The Triumph of Trump and Netanyahu: The End of the Two-State Solution?
    Claudia De Martino 8 November 2024
    Donald Trump’s clear-cut victory in the US presidential election has shaken the entire world, and has been greeted with sharply contrasting reactions, especially in Middle East. For Palestinians, it felt like the final nail in the coffin. Hopes for American mediation toward a fair resolution of the conflict are virtually non-existent, and Palestinians view the next four years through a lens of mere survival, trying to withstand the blows from Israel’s most right-wing government in history, which will now feel even freer from burdensome external constraints, such as the call to respect international law.
  • Georgia: Caught Between Russia and an Uncertain Europe
    Luca Sebastiani 5 November 2024
    The October 26 elections and the developments that followed have drawn international attention to Georgia in a way not seen for some time. This interest arose both from the uncertainty surrounding the vote and, especially, from the broader historical and political context: the ongoing war in Ukraine, renewed debates about European Union expansion, and concurrent, hotly contested elections and referendums in Moldova.
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