September - October 2023

New Internationalist

People, Ideas and Action for Global Justice

New Internationalist2 min read
Tales Of Empire
There’s a popular proverb displayed on a sign in the Barbados Museum: ‘Unless you know the road you’ve come down, you cannot know where you are going.’ As Barbados continues on its path as a young republic, it’s a reminder that the past is always pre
New Internationalist1 min read
This Month’s Contributors Include:
Kojo Koram is a writer and an academic, teaching at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire. Mira Galanova is a freelance investigative journalist specializing in human rights a
New Internationalist1 min read
New Internationalist
Accounts: Katalin Szombati Subscriptions and administration: Louise Waters Advertising: Michael York Design: Andrew Kokotka Editorial (Magazine and Website): Amy Hall, Conrad Landin, Husna Ara, Nick Dowson, Bethany Rielly, Alice McCool, Anna Scott Co
New Internationalist1 min read
Online Features
newint.org 17.07.23 Carbon credit dollars stir up communities in Kenya Can you really put a price on nature? Anthony Lang’at reports on a controversial scheme seen as innovative and beneficial by some, and as carbon colonialism by others. 13.07.23 Th
New Internationalist3 min readGender Studies
Send Us Your Feedback
Thank you for your article on the UAE (NI 543), from which I learned a lot. One question arose for me regarding the literacy statistics, largely due to my compulsive counting obsession. If men scored 92.56 per cent and women 95.8 per cent, what missi
New Internationalist3 min read
The Storyteller
Roldan Canaquiri shuffles over dried reeds that crackle under his bare feet, and climbs slowly down the riverbank, testing the soft earth with his toes before each step. The big winter rains have come and the river is rising: every day part of the ba
New Internationalist1 min readGender Studies
Borderlines
Escaping anti-LGBTQI+ hate When Uganda passed a new anti-LGBTQI+ law in March, Vinka’s stomach dropped. ‘The attitude of the people around me changed, and my home was no longer safe,’ she explains. As a transgender woman, Vinka was forced to flee her
New Internationalist2 min read
Introducing… Bola Tinubu
Africa’s most populous country seems to have succeeded in a peaceful transfer of presidential power from an incumbent to an aspirant. But there is no big political rupture here. The victor, 71-year-old Bola Tinubu, is a consummate insider in Nigerian
New Internationalist2 min read
Ethiopia On The Edge
Letay Tesfaye fears her baby has just days to live. ‘We eat dry bread (injera) or whatever is offered to us from the village,’ she says. ‘My newborn is always crying of hunger. He is extremely malnourished and weak. I am almost certain I will lose hi
New Internationalist1 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Seriously?
This misogyny is hidden Amid an endless torrent of hateful words and harmful images on social media, we can rest easy; safe in the knowledge that the hashtag #VaginalCancer was banned from Instagram. Gynaecological charity The Eve Appeal discovered t
New Internationalist3 min readWorld
Currents
In May striking workers at a kitchen appliances factory in the Chinese city of Shenzen blocked the entrance to the premises in protest over unpaid benefits and wages. The action taken by 100 employees at the Sundairy Xin’an Electrics Company (SXEC) w
New Internationalist2 min read
Bangladesh Hunger Trap
A new round of food ration cuts is putting Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh at risk of starvation. At the beginning of June, the world’s largest refugee settlement of 900,000 people in Cox’s Bazar saw food rations slashed to a level that UN spe
New Internationalist1 min read
Reasons To Be Cheerful
The Church of England has finally agreed to divest from oil and gas in its multi-billion-pound endowment and pension fund. The move, which follows years of pressure by climate campaigners, cuts off the church’s investments in oil giants including She
New Internationalist2 min readCrime & Violence
France Violent Denial
In June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of North African descent, was shot and killed by a police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Initially, the officer claimed he had fired at Nahel in ‘self-defence’, but a video of the incident contradi
New Internationalist1 min readInternational Relations
Why Subscribe?
The first ever issue in 1970 carried an interview with the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. He had argued that 10 per cent of all overseas aid should be spent on educating the ‘first world’ about the real causes of world poverty. We wanted to s
New Internationalist12 min read
The Long Goodbye
As people across the world struggle to afford to eat, spare a though for the bosses at Unilever – makers of popular brands such as Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soap. They reported a 22 per cent rise in operating profits during the first six month
New Internationalist2 min read
Empire The Facts
£7.5tn the estimated amount of wealth Britain extracted from African countries due to the slave trade.2 Europe’s share of global GDP went from 20% to 60% during the colonial period.3 $2.5m a year the estimated resource flow from India to Britain betw
New Internationalist5 min readInternational Relations
How Third Worldism Was Silenced
As the euphoria of the 1960s cascaded into inertia on the war in Vietnam and the stagnation of the post-war ‘golden age’ of western capitalism, the direction of the world seemed very much up for grabs. As the 1970s began, the proliferation of proxy c
New Internationalist14 min read
Ain Dun Yet
If you’re looking for a dominoes game in the middle of Bridgetown, it’s worth trying your luck at the tables in Golden Square Freedom Park. Come Friday night, things get livelier as people finish work and shoot the breeze. As the sun goes down, the s
New Internationalist7 min read
The Fight For Reparations
The fight for reparations is not new. One of the earliest examples of organizing for this in the UK was the ‘Sons of Africa’, a late 18th century political group led by African activists who campaigned to end Transatlantic slavery. Britain had a huge
New Internationalist4 min read
Get Up, Pay Up
This October, for only the second time since they were founded, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will hold their annual joint meeting on the African continent. And activists will be there in Marrakesh to meet them. A growing coaliti
New Internationalist5 min read
‘Our Culture Is Word Of Mouth’
One Saturday in late July, I attended a show called Story Sosa, at the National Museum in Nairobi. Billed as ‘an experiment in live storytelling’, the event consisted of five stories with themes including the racial construction of artificial intelli
New Internationalist6 min read
How Modi Hijacked The Call To Decolonize
As India celebrated 75 years of independence last year, Narendra Modi and his supporters worked to cement a crucial narrative of their project: that their brand of religious nationalism was finally freeing India from its colonial hangover. In his 15
New Internationalist1 min readGender Studies
Star Ratings
With an economy in near free-fall after eight years of war, most Yemenis can’t even get enough to eat, while a few with connections to tribal and political elites live luxuriously. An estimated 70 per cent of Yemenis aged 15 years and above are able
New Internationalist4 min readWorld
Country Profile
‘Helloooo’ – Abu Mohammed’s usual greeting, ‘Helloooo, in Arabic, when he sends a message to my phone. Our exchanges are usually short, catching up on news, but also covering power outages and bombs from Saudi jets. In May: ‘There’s no work here anym
New Internationalist3 min read
Temperature Check
Ten years ago, the UK arts and culture scene was awash with oil company logos. From the BP Portrait Award to the Shell-sponsored Southbank Centre in London, the industry was deeply embedded in the most high-profile arts institutions. Today, things lo
New Internationalist1 min read
Under The Banner Of King Death
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, A Graphic Novel, by David Lester and Marcus Rediker, is published by Verso, £12.99. versobooks.com ■
New Internationalist2 min read
View From India
A childhood memory forever engraved in my mind is that of my mother, handing over her salary to my father each month – and him handing her back a ‘stipend’. It was the 1970s, and my mother had bagged an enviable government job as a police officer, ye
New Internationalist4 min read
Sofia Karim
Artist and architect Sofia Karim was born in 1970s Liverpool, in the North West of England, to Bangladeshi parents. Her parents – both doctors – relocated the family to Libya for work when Karim, the middle of three sisters, was an infant. They retur
New Internationalist1 min read
Subscribe to New Humanist
New Humanist stands for free thought in an age of extremes. A quarterly magazine of ideas, culture, politics and science, we bring you quality journalism to illuminate these turbulent times. Subscribe today! Use the code NEWINT to unlock the special
New Internationalist2 min readInternational Relations
View From Africa
The war in Ukraine is well into its second year, many thousands have been killed and millions displaced. Like most parts of the world, Africa has not escaped being impacted by the war, thanks to a web of trade links which have led to price hikes in g
New Internationalist8 min readCrime & Violence
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
On 8 March 2017 Guatemala woke up to the news that a state-run home for vulnerable children was on fire. Nineteen girls died at the scene and 22 others later in hospital. Fifteen survived with life-changing injuries. The girls had been locked inside
New Internationalist5 min read
Tragedy - Or Murder?
Details of the tragedy, down to the name of the fishing trawler, remained murky for days. Surveillance footage released by FRONTEX, the European border agency, then revealed that the boat was under Greek coastguard surveillance for at least two hours
New Internationalist1 min read
Southern Exposure
Documentary photographer Mahshad Jalalian captured this portrait of a nomad girl in Razavi Khorasan province, Iran. ‘The nomads are travelling to find new pastures. They are mostly shepherds and sell the animal products in nearby cities,’ the photogr
New Internationalist2 min read
View From Brazil
The election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came as a big relief for all concerned about the planet’s future. One of his main pledges was to protect forest and cut carbon emissions – and indeed the rate of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon fel
New Internationalist2 min read
One World Calendar 2024
Now in its 42nd year, the One World Calendar 2024 will be published in September by New Internationalist, and be available to order in Ethical Shop. Here Chris Brazier, its editor, introduces this year’s theme: Contrasts The contrasts highlighted and
New Internationalist6 min read
‘We Believe That Humanism Is More Embracing Than Socialism’
David Martin: [Ian] Smith said he wanted an assurance from you that you would no longer support the Zimbabwe liberation movements. What is your reply to this? Kenneth Kaunda: We in Zambia have always said that if Mr Smith wants our co-operation let h
New Internationalist3 min read
Hall Of Infamy
POSITION: President of Tunisia REPUTATION: Autocrat in constitutional clothing. When Kais Saied, a former law professor and political outsider, was elected president of Tunisia back in October of 2019 he was the hope of the region’s young democrats.
New Internationalist3 min read
Books
by Anna Biller (Verso, ISBN 9781804291856) versobooks.com When Gothic romance novelist Judith is swept off her feet at a wedding party by a charming baron, a fantastic new future opens up to her that mirrors that of her fictional heroines: a castle,
New Internationalist5 min read
Books
by Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger (And Other Stories, ISBN 9781913505721) andotherstories.org On 3 January 1963 the Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat took her own life at the age of 26. Her only completed novel, Love and Silenc
New Internationalist2 min read
Film
directed and co-written by Clement Virgo 120 minutes The muscular guy in an athletics vest tells his wiry younger brother to move as he does. To take in the views, they’re going to climb a soaring electricity transmission tower. It takes nerve, stren
New Internationalist2 min read
Music
Newton Armstrong/Juliet Fraser (All That Dust, CD, DL) https://allthatdust.com Before Rachel Carson delivered the devastating alarum that constitutes Silent Spring (1962), she wrote a biography of the oceans of our planet. The Sea Around Us (1951) is
New Internationalist3 min read
Spotlight Roger Ballen
Generally speaking, I am not a fan of Brutalist architecture. I find it cold, uninviting, even defensive. But Roger Ballen’s newly opened Inside Out Centre for the Arts is different. Standing on Jan Smuts Avenue, in central Johannesburg, the raw conc
New Internationalist3 min read
The Puzzler
6 Various sites, Byzantine, found in an old communist state (6,6) 10 Citizens with other outsiders got out to the south (9) 11 Cape’s part of cover defence (5) 12 English flower’s hue, looking back, you and I see at the National Trust (7) 13 One’s at
New Internationalist1 min read
Association Words 31
1 Grand; Of the Universe (7) 5 Reinvent the; Of fortune (5) 8 Date; And sealed (7) 9 Face the; To one’s ears (5) 10 On the Bible; Black and blue (5) 11 Magic; Jaw (7) 12 The Cat and the; Wharf (6) 14 A sharp; Of guilt (6) 17 Massage; Games (7) 19 Sit
New Internationalist1 min read
Wordsearch 110
The 16 Capes were: Canaveral, Cod, Cretin, Farewell, Fear, Good Hope, Horn, Kennedy, Leeuwin, Lookout, Orange, St Vincent, Van Dieman, Verde, Wrath, York. Find the 15 New York boroughs and neighborhoods hidden here. ■
New Internationalist3 min read
Agony Uncle
Q: I’m working class and have recently moved away from the city I grew up in, as soaring rents meant I could no longer afford to live there. But prices are rising here too as incomers move in, many taking advantage of new possibilities to work remote
New Internationalist3 min read
We Were Not Socialized To Be Monogamous?
On my aunt’s golden wedding anniversary I asked her what it was like to spend half a century with one man. ‘It’s been wonderful, and, you know, I would have another 50 years,’ she replied. How beautiful I thought, to spend a lifetime with the person

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