A Fitting Memorial
On or around 14 November 2010 another 97 men, women and children lost their lives as asylum seekers crossing the sea to Australia. The recent …
We have to bring the world together and learn to live as one
Sometimes our musicians capture in few words ideas at the heart of human rights. This article is dedicated to the song “United”, which was produced by …
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Everyone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 23(4) This idea is hard to argue with. …
How old is the idea of abolishing foreignness?
Today it is entirely natural to think that every person in the world is endowed with certain rights, ones that transcend foreignness and apply absolutely …
The Duty of Kindness and Sympathy Towards Strangers and Foreigners
It is hardest to write of those things about which we feel most deeply. Today I wish to write about someone whose words and life …
Is ethnic nationalism a surrogate religion?
The notion of foreignness relies on a separation of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and today’s world, it is often ethnicity and nation—two terms that are related …
The borders of virtue and power
Closing borders: to refugees, to undocumented migrants, raises questions of virtue and questions of power. The public debate around borders is so fractured, so superficial, so bedevilled with …
Viewing Libya through a different lens
An inevitably recurring theme in discussions of foreignness is the disjunction between our increasingly globalized world and global systems that limit and misrepresent that globalization. …
Would you have me argue that all human beings are equal?
Frederick Douglass was a remarkable worker for human rights. Although he lived more than a century ago, his thoughts remain pressingly relevant. He began life as …