The world is always in flux, but it seems to be more so now than usual. Eyes dart to the United States, China, Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, and many other places, but the African continent as a whole seems to be largely left out of the conversation. Even Sudan, the only African country listed above, receives much less media coverage than other active warzones. 

West African states such as Senegal are paid relatively little attention to, both from the United States and Europe and from the Middle East. The focus of MENA countries is currently on the Sahel, owing to geographical constants and political developments. However, people all around the world would do well to look at the political and economic dynamics on the continent’s other side as well, including countries such as Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, which formed the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS).

As part of their ongoing conversation on West African history, questions of identity, and the future of the nation-state in Africa, Cairo Review editor Omar Auf invited historian of West Africa and American University in Cairo history professor Mark Deets to a discussion on recent developments in the region. 

Deets is the author of A Country of Defiance: Mapping the Casamance in Senegal. The following transcript has been edited for clarity. 

Last time we talked about the Senegalese elections and [Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s] project and the political dynamics in Senegal vis-à-vis the West African region, Africa at large, and the West and the international sphere.

What developments have been taking place in Senegal that reflect these issues, and what’s been going on since Diomaye became president?

Well, one of the sort of interesting things that has come to my attention is the very recent publication of a new book by my fellow historian and Casamance specialist, Séverine Awenengo Dalberto, who is a French researcher with the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique. She recently published a book called L’idée de la Casamance. In other words, the idea of the Casamance. It’s basically tracing the development of the Casamance as a political idea. And unfortunately, she’s come under a lot of fire on social media, especially from various, I guess you could call them Senegalese nationalists, who view the publication of this book at this time as kind of like a ploy from the Diomaye administration and [Prime Minister of Senegal Ousmane] Sonko, coming from the Casamance, that this is something that is somehow government-directed. And so Severine has apparently come under some pressure for that, which is completely unfounded.

I mean, she’s a historian publishing a book about the history of the Casamance, but history, as we know, is always political in one way or another. And that history is being pulled into the political discussion currently in Senegal. Anyway, that’s the first thing that jumps to mind.

That’s very interesting. And it’s interesting how you contrasted what you say are Senegalese nationalists to Diomaye and Sonko, especially Sonko with his Casamancais roots. Do these nationalists not see them as sort of a national unity project? 

Nationalism always requires a certain kind of othering. And so I think that’s what it’s about. There’s always been a certain amount of kind of joking derision by some people, not everybody, but by some people from northern Senegal about their cousins to the south. And there are these tropes that somehow they’re more African. Their Islam is suspect. First of all, there’s a significant Catholic Christian population in the south, in the Casamance. However, the Casamance is still majority Muslim. It’s I think sixty to seventy-five percent Muslim. But there is this sizable Catholic minority. There’s a certain amount of that kind of othering that goes on. 

Diomaye Faye, coming from Faye, I’m pretty sure is a Serer name. There’s always been this kind of cousin relationship between the Serer and the Jola, which is the majority ethnic group in the south that has been largely associated with the rebellion in the Casamance.

And so there’s always this sort of question that a lot of people have. Okay, this person from the Casamance, first of all, are they Jola? And then if they are, okay, are they loyal to Senegal or are they a rebel? So there’s a kind of prejudice there against people from the south. There’s this derogatory discourse about their intelligence and their culture. Because it’s the part of the country where rice agriculture is a very important staple of the economy, and especially of the local political economy. So you know the way people in cities talk about people in the country, right? That they’re not as intelligent, they’re not as developed, they’re not as sophisticated. You have a certain amount of that from people who are from Dakar or Saint-Louis in the north, talking about the Casamance. And the Serer, which is Faye’s ethnic group, have often been considered, again, because of this kind of joking cousin relationship between the Serer and the Jola, they’ve always been considered as like the go-between, between the Jola in the south and the Wolof in the north.

Of course, there are other ethnic groups besides these two, but those are the ones that are at the center of these two identities. In fact, the very first president of the country, Leopold Senghor, was a Serer. And so in some ways, the father of the country inhabited this kind of interlocutor role between these groups.

So anyway, I’m not prepared to say that the people who are writing or saying these things on social media about Faye and Sonko, that they’re all Wolof. I’m not saying that. But Wolof is kind of at the center of this, if you will, northern Senegalese identity that tends to look down on people from the south.

So those people from the south, because their patriotism has often been called into question, they go above and beyond in order to establish their bona fides as Senegalese. When I was the American military attaché in Senegal, I would often hear from Senegalese officers that they loved having these Jola from the Casamance in the Senegalese army because they were willing to take risks and do high-risk things that not everybody in the army would be willing to do because they were so motivated to prove their loyalty to the Senegalese military and to the Senegalese nation.

You mentioned a lot of valuable points when it comes to African states and how they view themselves, especially in West Africa. And this is what our issue is about. It’s about the Organization of African Unity and its successor, the African Union.

How do African states and their leaders view themselves today vis-à-vis this idea of African unity, and given the diversity within the continent?

Well, last time we talked about Nkrumah and Senghor and actually especially Senghor having this vision of a West African federation, which is exactly what ECOWAS is supposed to be. But some of these regimes that have taken over these military coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali have chosen to leave ECOWAS because they basically said we don’t have anything to do with you and you’re not going to tell us how to run our country. So, yeah, I think that dream of some kind of sub-regional federation is still quite far off.

A part of the problem is that even in some of those countries where they do have a constitution, they don’t have the institutions that work or that abide by that constitution, if they even have a constitution.

And I’ve been teaching this American Studies course this semester where we’ve talked about this a great deal and talked about the Constitution of the United States and how it’s the only constitution right now that has been in effect since 1789. Now, granted, you have a number of amendments starting with the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments. But when you think about the revolution of the time on the other side of the Atlantic, the French Revolution, they’re on their Fifth Republic now, right? So that’s pretty amazing. 

How do you take that, the development of those political institutions and economic institutions, and how do you export that? I mean, this is what the United States has been trying to do with the whole democratization thing with the Bush administration and Condoleezza Rice and this whole idea of planting a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, in Iraq. All of that was tied to this democratization theory and democratization politics or political science, if you will. And obviously that didn’t go well, right?

How do you take that, those ideas, and develop a nation-state with that? I think that what these coup leaders are doing in West Africa is they’re rejecting those ideas. They’re rejecting that Western democratic model, and they’re very interested in what the Russians and the Chinese have to say. And part of the reason is because, at least in the past, and maybe this is changing a little bit, but the Russians and the Chinese don’t come in and criticize their human rights record and tell them how to run their country and tell them how to hold elections and send over a bunch of election observers. It’s much more hands-off, and there’s not the same concern about human rights and things like that, because obviously the Russians and the Chinese don’t want anybody poking around into their record on human rights. 

So yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. You know, I study the African past. If I had to take a guess on what’s going to happen with the possibilities of federation in Africa, I have no idea. I really have to say that.

How could they possibly begin to build institutions that would be strong, that will be stable, that will allow for economic growth and development, which all of those countries need and they know it? You know, there’s a lot of people who are arguing that they have to start by cutting the ties to the Western donors, that they have to start with that so that they can have a certain amount of autonomy.

And this is what the argument of Dambisa Moyo, which I may have mentioned to you before, she wrote this book called Dead Aid, where she was basically calling for African leaders to refuse or turn down Western aid so that they could be responsible to their own citizens, their own population. But a lot of African leaders, especially some of the ones that we’re talking about who perpetrated these coups in West Africa, they haven’t really expressed an interest in being responsible to the citizens of the country. So I think that this really bears watching.

In the book, [Moyo] is talking about African sovereignty. She’s talking about each country being sovereign and turning down, turning away Western aid. And I don’t know that she’s necessarily calling for isolationism and only developing your own economy without any trade with anybody else in the world. I don’t think that’s what she’s saying. But I think she is saying that they have to turn down Western aid because Western aid is not being given in the interests of Africans, African states. They’re being given in the interests of Westerners and Western institutions.

I think it’s a very contingent time, if I might use that historical term, that we’ll see what happens. But things have changed. I feel like the forces of the Cold War still operated for quite some time in a lot of these African countries, even though the Cold War was over. Some of the institutions that were sort of set up for the Cold War, especially when it comes from the U.S. government, were still in effect, even though there had been some adjustment for the global war on terror and those developments. A lot of that was still in effect. And again, I feel like with this new generation of African leaders, a lot of them have finally told the French and the Americans and any other Western power that tries to exert influence in their country, they’ve told them to buzz off, to go pound sand.

We’ll see if that continues because, like I said, the other thing that they need is they need development for their countries. Otherwise, they’re going to be thrown out in the next coup. So I think if they’re smart, they know that, and they know that it’s just a matter of time until the next coup if they can’t change the situation.

But how do you change something, or how do you build an institution that’s never been there to begin with? How do you exercise sovereignty if you’ve never really had it? So these leaders are rejecting the West and taking over in these coups in West Africa, I mean in a way it’s kind of great that they’re asserting their sovereignty, but what are you going to do with it?

So I think they’re going to have to begin to produce in some way for their people or they’re going to find themselves thrown out in the next coup. So we’ll see.

It comes to show the intersections between disciplines. You’re a historian and there are legal issues involved, and we’re talking about these at very core political issues about how to design our international system, how to design the units that compose the system. It’s really a wide and interdisciplinary discussion.

Yeah. The other thing that’s relevant that we never really expressly talked about was the Senegambian Confederation. But that is an example of where Africans did try to take charge of their own destiny and do something different that was not solely based on the nation state. There was an attempt at federation. And at the end of the day, these two groups of elites in the Gambia and Senegal could not work things out. And the Senegambian Confederation, it was a national security and political union that never really extended to economics. They maintained separate currencies in the two countries. It wasn’t necessarily free and open trade between the two countries. So the thing that really led to the demise of the Senegambian Confederation was the economic regime, which they could never really figure out because of these elites who were not ready to give up the power that they had.

And so thinking about the future, perhaps alternative political imaginations for Africa, that’s one of the things that’s going to have to be worked out is the interest of the various groups of elites in all of these countries. And how are you going to get these people to, in some ways, give up what they have for the good of the country? And I think that’s why some of the Marxist alternatives are often very attractive because they basically promise to do that.

But there’s a track record of that that hasn’t exactly gone well in Africa as well. So there’s  a lot to continue paying attention to on this issue of federation in Africa. But that’s a part of why I’m interested in trying to develop an article and eventually a book about this question of federation in Africa.

What you just said is very interesting because it emphasizes the role of economic union. I think if you look at the history of what became the EU, it makes sense that the EU started as the coal and steel community and it grew from there. So maybe it is all about economics at the end of the day.

Yeah. Maybe they should start with that instead of starting with the political and the military and the national security apparatus, which is what they did. And then eventually they just abandoned the whole idea after seven years.

But what was the point in time that was identified as the one where people realized, okay, this political union idea isn’t working? 

I don’t have a sense for that from the sources thus far. You know, I think if I had to guess, I would imagine it was about two years before it actually ended in 1989, that the elites in each country were just getting tired of each other.

I think the Senegalese felt like the Gambians were dragging their heels on effecting this union, and I think that the Gambians never got over the fear that they were just going to be swallowed up by Senegal. So, there was a precipitating event that brought about the Senegambia Confederation, which was that coup in 1981 while the president was out of the country at Princess Diana’s wedding. And then the precipitating event for the end of the confederation was a conflict with Mauritania. 

Senegal got into a border conflict. It wasn’t really about the border, but anyway, a border conflict with Mauritania along the Senegal River because Mauritania began oppressing and attacking Senegalese communities in southern Mauritania. And so these Senegalese communities began to appeal to Senegal to save them from the Mauritanian state. Now, these Senegalese communities in Mauritania are purportedly Mauritanian, right? But they’re really Senegalese.

And this goes back to this old Arab and black African slave relationship where a lot of the slaves in Mauritania came from Senegal. And there’s plenty of books written about how race gets coded onto these things. 

But that conflict in 1989 was the precipitating event that marked the end of the Senegambia confederation because the Senegalese said to themselves that the confederation was becoming too much of a distraction. And what they really needed to do was focus on this conflict with Mauritania. 

That was the precipitating event. In terms of like when it began to break down, it’s in the last few years of the confederation as again both groups are looking at the other with suspicion. The Senegalese and the Gambians, the Gambians are fearing that the Senegalese are just going to take over and the Senegalese are looking at the Gambians like they’re never going to actually try to make this work. They’re dragging their heels all the time.

And so I think that maybe those thoughts were there from the beginning and they just never went away. 

It also draws a lot of parallels to the United Arab Republic and this suspicion between elites, or fear of getting swallowed up by the bigger country. 

Yeah, exactly.

What lessons can we learn from the Senegambian experience beyond the dimension of the insufficiency of the political union alone? 

First of all, the colonial legacy is lasting and enduring and it’s not going to be easily overcome. But at the same time, it seems like right now there is a desire by this new generation of leaders in West Africa that we’ve been talking about, like Faye, there’s a willingness by these guys to reexamine that colonial legacy and think about making perhaps alternative political configurations of the nation-state. Now, you know, nobody’s conducting a war, thank God, but it seems like that generation, leaders like Sonko and Faye, are willing to rethink this a little bit. I think they view getting the French out of their country as an important step along the way to reconsidering and overcoming that colonial legacy in general. 

And those three Sahelian [Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali] have decided to do that in the ASS, there’s a willingness to reconsider the colonial legacy and go in a different direction. And of course, what this means with those three countries, the ASS, is that they’re also willing to accept the partnership with China and with Russia, which is what has the NATO countries so concerned. But if I were going to draw some lessons from what’s been going on, I think those are the things that I would point to, that this idea has not gone away. I think that’s maybe that’s another point to make, Omar, is that Africans have been resisting colonialism from the beginning, and they never stopped.

Now, the resistance was often being waged at different levels, right? It wasn’t always like all out combat. Nevertheless, sometimes it was kind of a passive resistance, right? Just in not accepting various aspects of Western culture, maybe. But in various ways, Africans, since the earliest days of colonialism, the colonial conquest in the late 1800s, have never stopped resisting colonialism.

And I would argue that some of the stuff that we’ve been seeing going on in West Africa, with these coups and the election of these new leaders, this younger generation of leaders, in many ways that has [carried on the anti-colonial legacy]. It’s like a new form of resistance. And these three countries that have rejected ECOWAS and have formed the ASS and have welcomed the support of China and Russia, in a way, that’s a resistance. In this time and place, that is a way of them [expressing] a resistance to colonialism. 

I think that continues. I don’t know when we get to stop talking about colonialism, Omar, in African history and politics, but we’re not there yet. It sounds kind of obvious, like the colonial legacy is lasting and enduring and still a factor today. I mean, that sounds really boring and kind of like, yeah, no kidding. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think we’ve seen this in the news almost every day still, especially in those three countries [of the ASS].  

Awad has, for decades, served as a thought leader and practitioner on issues of labor, migration, development and political economy, and international relations. A professor of practice at the American University in Cairo and director of its Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, he is also currently the co-principal investigator for the Pathways Beyond Neoliberalism: Voices from MENA project. 

The project has been active this year, launching its podcast in March 2024, hosting a summer school on economic journalism in June, and organizing the Political Economy of the Global South conference in September. 

The conference brought together scholars from around the world to discuss a variety of pertinent issues. Anchored on an imaginative Global South perspective, sessions included panels and talks ranging from industrial policy to democratic backrolling, including discussions on reimagining a new economic order, post-colonialism, and global governance and cooperatives in the Middle East. 

On the sidelines of the conference, the Cairo Review’s Omar Auf sat down with Awad to discuss the questions of labor, development, and reimagination.

What does it mean to host the first conference on the political economy of the global south?

IA: This is indeed the first conference ever on the political economy of the Global South. The scholars, researchers, and authors who are interested in political economy—which, in simple terms, is the interaction of politics and economics and the outcomes of these interactions—have never come together. I mean by this the scholars from the Global South, from Africa, the different regions of Africa including North Africa, from Asia, from Latin America, they have never come together to discuss what are the common issues that they confront, what are the different issues in each region, what are the commonalities between them.

Why do we say the Global South? Because the Global South is made up of regions of the world that are in a dependent relationship with the core of the world, with the most advanced industrialized countries in the world. And they are in dependent positions in the structure of the global economy, but of course in different locations. But they share the [fact of] dependence. A good part of the value added produced by their economies is drawn up by the Global North, all economies being interlinked in a global economy. 

Now if you look at the structure of the conference, many subjects could have been discussed, but the deliberations between different universities involved in the larger project, which is about finding alternatives to neoliberal economic and social policies, have resulted in a certain structure of the conference and in this structure you find, for instance, issues of industrial policy. The assumption being that in order to develop you need to have purposive industrial policies, a purposive set of measures meant to grow both in quantity and in quality in a certain area.

Industrial policy is not necessarily about manufacturing industry; services could also be subjects of industrial policies. So the idea of overcoming underdevelopment needs industrial policy. In fact, even industrialized countries are now embarked on industrial policies, a term and a concept which was derided, looked down upon for several decades, but which has regained respectability, if you wish, between inverted commas, since the global financial crisis.

You have questions related to colonialism and the relationship between colonialism and capitalism and what you can expect in a post-colonial world. Prominently, you have the question of the democratic backrolling under neoliberalism and this we witness not only in the developing world, but even in the industrialized world. And then, of course, you have the question of informality.

The economies of the Global South are to a large extent informal, but the degree of informality varies. And let me also add that we do not have a cut-off line between the industrialized world and the developing world. We have informality in the industrialized world to different degrees.

You have informality in Greece, you have informality in Italy. But the Global South is characterized by a large informality. Here we are concerned with the economies, but you have informality in different segments of social life.

We are discussing questions surrounding informal economies. The economies in the Global South in developing countries are largely informal, like in Egypt or Morocco. In India, ninety percent of employment is informal. Even in relatively developed countries in the Global South, like Argentina, their informal economy is quite large. 

This is also what this conference explores. For instance, we just had a session where one of our Mexican colleagues explained certain aspects of informality in the Mexican economy that are also seen in Egypt. There are commonalities. Maybe if we put our heads together, this can advance us in dealing with the challenges of informal economies. 

We look at the conditions of work. Conditions of work in the Global South are, of course, unfavorable. Unfavorable for human development or for development. Let’s say that conditions of work are reflective of lack of development and their improvement is conditioned on advancing towards development. 

Talking about informality leads us to discussing social protection. We have in the Global South human beings, workers, who spend their lives working without social protection. So the moment they cannot work, they don’t have income with which to meet their needs, because they don’t have social protection.

It is thus clear that terms and conditions of employment are of great significance when employment is discussed. Class, race, inequality are other important questions dealt with by the conference. Our colleagues will have agreements and disagreements on the topics discussed. What is important is to have a space for discussions. This is a step in a process which hopefully will take us forward and will lead us to a fairer global economy in a more just world. 

How does holding a conference like this one work toward re-imagining and pursuing a different international economic order? 

IA: I think that no conference or event alone can achieve a desired outcome. A conference is one step in what will be analyzed, many years in the future, as a process. This is the process of thinking about development in the Global South. 

This process started with the Economic Commission of Latin America (ECLA), starting all the way back in the late 1940s, through the very important conference on the Problems of Economic Development held here in Cairo in 1962. People mention [the 1962 Cairo conference] only briefly, but it was foundational for what came later. So I think a conference like this, raising these topics, brings people together. People network and debate among themselves. Not everyone will be convinced on every argument their colleagues make, but some will be. Some will be eighty percent convinced, some will be sixty percent convinced, and things will go forward. 

As someone who has worked extensively on issues of labor, both in academic and policy spheres, what role do you think labor has as a factor of production that should be included in a new economic order? 

IA: Without labor there is nothing. There is no production without labor. So you may have capital, but capital without labor takes you nowhere. 

But now the question is, how do we represent labor? How will workers be represented? During this conference we have talked about the development of international or global civil society and non-state actors. Labor movements have been a major actor in society when it comes to the issue of work and employment. The International Labour Organization, for instance, is the only organization in the United Nations system where labor is represented, along with business, or employers, and naturally governments.

When it comes to labour, it can be noticed that a combination of factors, including the effects of neoliberalism, the rise of new technologies, and demographic transitions have resulted in shrinking labor forces in manufacturing. The labor unions I mentioned earlier were built for the manufacturing industry. We used to have lines of production, hundreds of workers; when they picketed, they had influence. Now, this concentration of workers no longer exists. We have a fragmented labor force. In addition, we are seeing the transition from manufacturing to service industries, especially in economically developed countries, which further impedes the influence of labor unions. Some places, like Germany, still have strong manufacturing sectors. But the UK, which used to have the most famous labor movement in the world, is changing to the service industry and losing that movement. 

What effect does this diffusion of the labor force have on developing countries? 

The informal economies lack a concentration of workers. In the Global South, over ninety% of enterprises are small and micro enterprises.   This means the workers don’t have strong representative organizations, which affects their bargaining power with employers. 

You had mentioned informality in industrialized countries like Italy and Greece. I was wondering how migration intersects with informality in these countries and what are the dynamics between them? 

Migration connects economies and migration makes national economies a global economy. In the industrialized world, you have drivers of migration. You have shrinking populations and labor forces. So in order for the economies to function, you need workers. The workers are also needed in order to sustain social protection systems. Because those who work now support those who have stopped working. This is the pay-as-you-go social security system. 

Workers are also needed in countries with small populations like in member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The resources that a country may have need to be used, which requires labor, i.e. workers. This a driver of migration. In addition, of course, there are the drivers of migration in the countries of origin. There are essentially the questions of deficient terms and conditions of employment that we have discused. You work 10 hours, 12 hours. You don’t have paid annual leave. If you have a work accident, you don’t have an income any longer.

All of this also drives people to migrate, not only nor chiefly their unemployment. As for irregular migration, it is associated with informality. Everyone wishes for legal migration to meet demand for labor. The economy of a country X may need 1,000 workers. But this country may formally demand 600 only. If this country has an informal economy, it will attract irregular migration. In the informal economies, workers don’t need work permits. So in fact, by not recognizing labor demand in their economies, countries may end up bringing in migrants in irregular situations. The informal economies are at the origin of irregular migration. Which is a fact that is very often overlooked and not given the importance it deserves. 

And by the way, let me add that the informal economies are not created by migration. Informal economies exist. Migrants come to meet the demand for labor. But informality exists well before migration became a social phenomenon of importance. This is the case of Italy, for example.

How has migration been affected by neoliberal governance, and how can that change? 

IA: One thing that can be said is that the liberal order resulted in countries of the Global South specializing in low value-added production. In the MENA region, this has caused there to be a low level of demand for skills; there is no need for highly skilled workers to engage in the type of low value added, low knowledge-content production being done in MENA. As a result, you have high rates of unemployment among the highly educated. Holders of master’s degrees or PhDs in science disciplines unable to find employment in their countries may migrate. For the highly-educated who are employed, the deficient terms and conditions of their employment may drive them to migrate. 

Take the example of young medical doctors who, because of low pay,  will combine two jobs, one in a public hospital and another in a private one, in order to raise their incomes. This means that these doctors are exhausted. 

Meanwhile, industrialized countries have a high demand for medical doctors because they suffer from an aging population and a low entry into their labor forces. These countries’ education systems cannot keep up producing the doctors they need. Doctors from developing countries move to industrialized countries to close the gaps in their needs. The result is a deficit in meeting demand for medical services in developing countries. This applies in the MENA region and beyond. It happens in Tunisia, but also in Ghana, the Philippines and India. 

So this is the link between the neoliberal economic order and the issues we are seeing in developing countries. Some analysts, though, will point more toward policy problems at a national scale, rather than pointing to problems with the global system. It is a difference in levels of analysis, either systemic or at the level of the country. 

How do we take the fact that many developing countries are suffering from this migration problem and turn it into something that is policy in a way that can be used by policymakers? 

IA: Discussions now are being framed as brain drain, brain gain, brain waste. I think that the three exist. But developing countries of the Global South cannot ignore brain drain, which, by the way, is also experienced in some countries of the Global North.  

In countries of the Global South with still high growth rates of population of labor force, education and training systems can be developed so as to produce highly skilled workers, medical doctors, and engineers, in sufficient numbers to meet domestic demand as well as external demand in the industrialized world. 

This would need a large transfer of resources, not only of financial resources, but also of technical resources. Migration and development policies should be coordinated. Developing countries can take advantage of the international demand for skilled labor to improve their bargaining position on issues of migration with their industrialized counterparts. Migration negotiations would thus move beyond irregular migration and smuggling to encompass questions of highly-skilled migration. .  

Traumas: Hamas’ Attack on Israel and Israel’s Military Response 

Trauma is the Greek word for wound, but in other European languages, it denotes a profound emotional shock with latent and long-term disabling effects. Psychiatrists have traditionally applied it to individuals, but it is now increasingly used to describe group experiences. Thus, when there is an unexpected and vicious attack by an enemy or when a group becomes the target of mass violence, a “collective trauma” is the result. In From the Ashes of History: Collective Trauma and the Making of International Politics, Adam Lerner argues that scholars of international relations have radically underestimated the long-term impact of mass violence and structural injustices, whose legacies become “embedded over time, liable not only to shape dominant modes of thinking but also to resurge in importance during pivotal moments and motivate action”.

Various such events have punctuated the modern history of the Jewish people, creating collective traumas, while a century of hostile relations between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews has fostered collective traumas on both sides. This essay sets the horrific and ongoing destruction of Gaza in this context in order to understand why this military campaign has received broad support from Jewish citizens of Israel, at least until recently. Furthermore, it is worth asking why this support has persisted despite vehement dissent against the overall policy orientation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government.

Confronting this paradox requires delineating why there exists a wide disparity between perceptions.

On the one hand, is the perception of this conflict by the Jews of Israel, with most Jews in the Diaspora probably concurring with the Jewish Israeli perception—although it is important to acknowledge the vocal opposition of some Diaspora Jews. 

On the other hand, there are non-Jewish perceptions, though one must acknowledge significant differences between this latter residual category. 

In general, Western governments, societies, and media have been supportive of Israel’s right of “self-defense”, i.e., the invasion of Gaza in pursuit of Hamas’ leaders and militants. This position has implicitly tolerated the multiple mass displacements of Palestinians, the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and the obliteration of their homes and civil institutions. However, as the disaster in Gaza continued to unfold 15 months later, even Israel’s allies criticized its behavior and offered some aid to alleviate Palestinian suffering. Meanwhile, most Arab and Muslim governments, societies, and media, along with several Western governments and media outlets—and let us not forget the International Criminal Court—have taken the view that Israel has flouted international humanitarian law in its prosecution of this war. The Israeli onslaught has exposed the extreme vulnerability and isolation of Palestinians, prompting these bodies to respond more sensitively to their deprivation and desperation.

What is striking, however, is that on the Israeli-Jewish side, despite avowals of support and military aid from Western countries, especially the U.S., there is an underlying feeling that it is the Israelis and Jews rather than the Palestinians who are isolated and vulnerable. As Eyal Mayroz wrote in The Conversation in February 2024: 

“By magnifying old, festering feelings of isolation and victimization within Jewish society, the callous or insensitive reactions to the October 7 attack ended up inflicting damage on the Palestinian cause. . . As emotions in Israel continued to run high, more and more people adopted the view that if the world hates us so much (evoking the days of the Holocaust), we will forever have to live by the sword.” 

Mayroz goes on to argue that external mediation is the only way forward for Israelis and Palestinians. Still, the asymmetry of power and the Israelis’ well-known distrust of international institutions, which he acknowledges, make it extremely unlikely that they would accede to any such proposal. 

For most Israelis, the current military operations in Gaza are legitimate retaliation for the attacks Hamas launched on October 7, 2023. The Hamas attacks caused the deaths of around 1,200 Israelis, about 800 of them civilians. In addition, around 250 persons of all ages were kidnapped during the Hamas coordinated assault, many of whom subsequently died or were killed in captivity. But it was not only the number of persons killed or injured that shocked the Israeli public; it was also the extreme brutality of the assault. It should be noted that some of the alleged atrocities committed by Hamas were later shown to be fabricated, and these damaged the credibility of the Israeli government that circulated them. Nonetheless, a U.N. report of March 11, based on an extensive review of the evidence, stated that Hamas’ offensive on October 7 produced “a catalogue of the most extreme and inhuman forms of killing, torture, and other horrors. . . .” including instances of victims, some whole families, murdered within their homes and communities. A music festival in southern Israel was also the scene of extensive carnage. Dov Waxman writing in The Conversation in early October 2023, explained the same disparity between Jewish and non-Jewish feelings, affirming those of Mayroz: 

“Many people who aren’t Jewish are responding as if what’s been taking place is just another episode of Israeli-Palestinian violence. But it’s different for many Jews. . . Many Jews have friends and family in Israel, so it’s very personal for them. Many Jews are still grieving, shocked, and traumatized by what happened on Oct. 7. . .  Jews are often looking for what people have to say about the massacres of Israeli citizens. Most want to hear an unequivocal condemnation of what Hamas did,” Waxman wrote.

Like Mayroz, Waxman comments that the trauma and existential fear induced by the Holocaust was reactivated on October 7.

Zionism as Autoemancipation: Pinsker’s Response to Jew-hatred in Europe

While the primary contemporary trauma defining Jewish identity is the Holocaust, this event—or, more accurately, the complex Nazi-directed but pan-European processes and institutions that perpetrated the murder of some six million Jews during World War II—is not, in my view, the most appropriate historical analogy to use in analyzing the events of October 7. Gaza under Hamas is not remotely like Nazi Germany, and the attacks on Jews on that tragic day are, for all their brutality and seemingly arbitrary and indiscriminate character, hardly reminiscent of the methodically organized killing centers of the “Final Solution”. The Holocaust is nevertheless undoubtedly relevant to understanding Jewish responses, as has just been suggested, and we will return to a discussion of its relevance below.

When examining modern Jewish history, a more explicit parallel can be drawn with the pogroms that occurred in Tsarist Russia in the spring of 1881—events that later catalyzed the establishment of the Zionist movement. This analogy also has significant defects, primarily due to the vast differences between the Tsarist Empire and Hamas-ruled Gaza. It is necessary to avoid decontextualizing either the Russian pogroms or the struggle between the state of Israel and Hamas. So, let us begin by acknowledging significant differences in relations between Russian Jews and Russian peasants, with their own set of reciprocal grievances, and Israelis and Palestinians. Crucially, there is a difference between the capacity of Jews to protect themselves in 1881 and 2023. Thus, the Jews of Tsarist Russia were practically defenseless against the pogroms in 1881. By contrast, the Israeli military, though caught by surprise on October 7, possessed the means to retaliate within a short time, and in doing so—comprehensively, systematically, and disproportionately—has exhibited, if ever doubt existed, Israel’s overwhelming superiority in military force over Hamas and its allies. Three specific points reinforce and expand on the observations of Mayroz and Waxman, forming the basis for the heuristic value of this analogy in terms of subjective Jewish experience.

The pogroms of 1881 followed earlier episodes of widespread assaults on Jews, similar to how the October 7 attacks followed significant exchanges of fire between Hamas and Israel. In Russia, there were periods of coexistence between the outbreak of pogroms that nurtured hopes of a long-term change in government policy and popular attitudes. Similarly, while the relationship between Hamas-ruled Gaza and the state of Israel witnessed eruptions of violence, there were interludes of relative calm that encouraged belief in the possibility of a modus vivendi, or at least the notion that Hamas’ extremism had been moderated. It must be emphasized that Israeli policy toward Hamas before 7 October was much more collaborative than present rhetoric would lead one to believe. For all the Israeli Prime Minister’s bluster about the monstrous evil of Hamas terrorists, Tal Schneider’s headline article, published just after the 7 October massacres, contradicts him: “For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces”.

Second, the pogroms of 1881 and subsequent years appeared to many outside observers as part of a series of categorically related events; many Jews experienced the pogroms of 1881 as categorically distinct. The 1881 pogroms were far more widespread than previous anti-Jewish riots. Though there were relatively few deaths, Jews were horrified by the tacit approval and even outright encouragement of the violence by agents of the Russian government and members of the intelligentsia. Waxman’s observation is worth repeating here: to most Jews, October 7 was not just another violent spasm in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, comparable to the blow-ups involving Hamas that took place in 2008-09 and 2014. For most Israelis, it was a vile and gratuitous offensive against Jewish civilians, impelled by the fanatical anti-Semitic annihilationist program of the Hamas movement. As Netanyahu told Israelis in a post on the social media platform X the day after the massacres: “Hamas wants to murder us all.” 

Third, since the Jewish experience of the 1881 pogroms was, it seemed, sui generis, so was the response. Among other things, it set in motion a vast tide of emigration from Tsarist Russia.  Furthermore, it produced a profound and activist reassessment of the Jews’ situation, especially by Jewish intellectuals who had believed that Russia would liberalize and that the government would eventually emancipate Russian Jews. In Leon Pinsker’s landmark Zionist essay of 1882 entitled Autoemancipation!, he exhorted Jews to completely rethink the Jewish situation. Pinsker was himself an assimilated Russian Jew and had hoped that Russia would “emancipate” its Jewish citizens, granting them legal equality and permitting their full integration into modern Russian society; still, the pogroms of 1881 shattered this hope. In his essay, he contended that Jew-hatred, “Judeophobia” as he termed it, was a psychic aberration that was hereditary, universal, and irrational. Jews, he claimed, were indeed the chosen people—“chosen for universal hatred”.

Therefore, emancipation and assimilation had failed or would fail everywhere, regardless of how things might appear at the time. The Gentile populations among whom Jews lived did not truly accept them. Although conditions in Russia were worse than in other regions, liberal Jewish intellectuals’ investment in assimilation did not change the underlying reality in European societies, which viewed Jews at best as guests and, at worst, as outsiders, strangers, and “undesirables.” The only true hope for Jews was “autoemancipation” or self-liberation, i.e., Jews becoming once again agents of history, organizing themselves into a national state through which they could enter collectively into mutually respectful relations with their neighbors. 

The 1881 pogroms traumatized Pinsker, and impelled him toward a revolutionary reevaluation of the Jews’ present and future condition. In the 1880s, he became the leader of the embryonic Zionist movement before Theodor Herzl’s appearance. A similar kind of reassessment among Israeli Jews took place after October 7, with many Israeli Jews, especially partisans of the peace movement, saying that they had “woken up”. They were referring to the realization of an allegedly immovable hatred of Israel that has made and will make any negotiated peace with the Palestinians impossible. They were also referring to a new realization of Israel’s lonely position on the international stage. As Israel’s incursion in Gaza enters its 15th month, international protest against the loss of Palestinian lives, homes, and institutions continues to mount. The overwhelming support for a General Assembly Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in December 2023 is proof of this. Thus, Pinsker’s vision of a Jewish state functioning within a larger community of states has certainly come to fruition; still, his dark paranoia about Gentile feelings toward the Jews also appears validated.

Pinsker wrote: 

“No matter how many nations are at variance with one another, no matter how diverse in their instincts and aims, they join hands in their hatred of the Jews; in this one matter they are all agreed. The extent and manner in which this antipathy is shown depends, of course, upon the cultural level of each people. The antipathy as such, however, exists in all places and at all times. . . .” 

To Israeli Jews, the world’s attention to Palestinian suffering in Gaza, war-crime accusations against Netanyahu, Gallant, and the Israeli military, and amnesia toward the killing and hostage-taking of October 7 are simply more evidence of the correctness of Pinsker’s judgment. This judgment gains plausibility because it aligns with a well-known religious principle or “law” that asserts the eternal opposition of “Esau” (Gentiles) to “Jacob” (Jews).

The Holocaust in Relation to October 7

Although the Holocaust may not provide the most valuable historical analogy for understanding the events of October 7 and their aftermath, it was inevitable that people would invoke it when interpreting Hamas’ killing spree that day. Thus, observers have noted that October 7 was the largest one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The implied message is that Hamas, in addition to Palestinian nationalists more generally, are ideological successors to the Nazi regime since they are guilty of the same annihilationist intention. Thus, in 2015, Netanyahu attempted to implicate the Palestinians in the Nazi genocide against Jews by charging that Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the foremost leader of the Palestinian community before World War II, had convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate Jews instead of expelling them. While German and Israeli historians immediately called Netanyahu’s statement a disgraceful distortion, he stood by his comment, stating that he wanted “. . .to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy the Jews, also without there being territories, occupation, settlements”. Netanyahu wants us to believe that Palestinian hatred of Israel is rooted in a primordial murderous anti-Semitism and is not a response to Israel’s past, present, and ongoing dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people or the perpetual frustration of their political aspirations.

This essentialist claim simply discounts the historical traumas of the Palestinians and dehistoricizes the entire conflict. Nonetheless, it attains a measure of credibility among Jews, perhaps because of acceptance of the Esau-Jacob opposition mentioned above, but also in particular on account of the Holocaust, as Mayroz and Waxman suggest. Further to the same point, Amos Elon, in his The Israelis: Founders and Sons, expounds on the Holocaust’s impact:

“The holocaust remains a basic trauma of Israeli society. . . It explains the obsessive suspicions, the towering urge for self-reliance at all cost in a world which permitted the disaster to happen. It explains the fears and prejudices, passions, pains, and prides, that spin the plot of public life and will likely affect the nation for a long time to come. The lingering memory of the holocaust makes Arab threats of annihilation sound plausible. . . . 

“Six million perished not because of a cataclysm of nature, as is evoked by that inadequate term ‘holocaust’; they died not because they lacked courage, but because they lacked the minimum prerequisites for putting such courage to practice. . . In the eyes of the younger, post-Zionist generation, the holocaust has thus come to confirm one of the basic tenets of classical nineteenth-century Zionism: without a country of your own you are the scum of the earth, the inevitable prey of beasts.”

Now, it would be facile to prescribe an antidote to the effects of trauma as Elon delineates them here. Elon suggests that the antidote had already been discovered by Israel’s founders in the form of a Jewish sovereignty— and a colossal defense establishment. Nonetheless, the trauma—the “open wound”—as Elon calls it, remains operative. The Holocaust, from this point of view, is not primarily a warning to the whole world against the perils of racist dehumanization; rather, it has a lesson specific to Jews to remain united and strong or face extermination. The problem with the intrusive presence in public discourse of this latter interpretation of the Holocaust, understandable though it is, is that it produces what Lerner has called a “victimhood nationalism”. Here, trauma is neither repressed nor assuaged or sublimated but instrumentalized for the purpose of consolidating the national identity of Israelis and the transnational identity of Jews, qua victims. This consolidated victim identity seems to preclude empathy toward Zionism’s victims (per Edward Said), the traumatized Palestinian people.

In conclusion, Israelis and Palestinians need an enlarged and demythologized history of Israel-Palestine, in which both groups recognize themselves as being—to borrow a phrase from Cathy Caruth’s piece, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and the Possibility of History—“implicated in each other’s traumas”. Only such a history, which moves toward reciprocal empathy, can produce the conditions for attaining Pinsker’s founding vision’s security, self-respect, and mutually affirming relations.

Social change, from political movements to cultural shifts, all relate to the concept of knowledge, or, more specifically, to the actors who produce knowledge. For Africa, this framework of knowledge production can be used to understand three key developments which occurred in the post-colonial era as the continent explored its new regional governance: a fundamental reframing of security, the promotion of human rights, and the expansion of relations with Asia.  

Sociologists trace the concept of the social construction of knowledge to the French scholar Émile Durkheim, who pointed to the social foundations of knowledge and the individual’s “inherited” ways of “acting, thinking and feeling” stemming from their location within the social structure. These scholars also allude to Karl Marx’s contention that the constraints of social structure and the individual’s “social being … determines their consciousness”. 

These ideas were later expanded upon by Hungarian sociologist Karl Mannheim who identified systems of knowledge as shaped by social existence and claimed that different ideas arise out of various group locations within the social structure. Unlike European thinkers who reflected on, and theorized about, society in general, many post-colonial African thinkers, such as Kwame Nkrumah (former president of Ghana), Julius Nyerere (former president of Tanzania), and Gamal Abdel Nasser (former president of Egypt), shouldered the extra responsibilities of creating political movements and shaping newly established states. 

Knowledge Production in Africa

Utilizing the sociological concept of the social construction of knowledge, we argue that international organizations, such as the African Union (AU), created in 2002, and its predecessor the Organization of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963, are both products and producers of knowledge. 

The AU is grounded in pan-Africanism, a form of knowledge that has reflected different visions of the people of African descent at various times since early in the 20th century. In our book, The African Union: Addressing the challenges of peace, security, and governance, Dr.  Wafula Okumu of the Nairobi-based Borders Institute, Associate Professor of African studies and International Relations David Mickler of Curtin University, and I argued that “knowledge production is a social and political process that reflects the historical, cultural, and institutional milieu of its producers. Knowledge is constructed for a social, scientific or political purpose, and for a community of scholars or policy makers.” 

Earlier, the late Professor Ali A. Mazrui, who was the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University, had argued in Principled World Politics: The Challenge of Normative International Relations that “The entire international system of stratification has come to be based not on ‘who owns what’ but on ‘who knows what’”. Moreover, Mazrui’s 1986 BBC documentary, The Africans: A Triple Heritage underlined the view that Africa’s values and knowledge were derived from a combination of African, European, and Islamic bases. 

The visions of pan-Africanism that underpinned the OAU/AU were further articulated by various political leaders, such as the aforementioned, and intellectuals, such as African-American sociologist W.E.B DuBois, as well as French-speaking Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon. 

While they all sought to capture the aspirations of Africans in the diaspora and on the African continent, they differed in important ways and their ideas were contestable. Their work illustrates the sociological observation that knowledge producers generate knowledge that is relevant to, and reflective of, their unique circumstances. Produced by socially embedded and unequally empowered actors and groups, knowledge is partial and reflects the values, norms, and social and political interests of those who are involved in its production. 

While knowledge is constructed from several standpoints, the understandings and values of dominant groups become legitimized forms of knowledge. The production of knowledge in Africa, as elsewhere, reflects, reinforces and, sometimes, challenges relations of power. While dominant understandings shape and define social life and become institutionalized definitions of social reality, subaltern groups often seek to challenge these understandings. African leaders and intellectuals challenged hegemonic views of the world and the black people’s place in it. They generated knowledge that was influenced by imperialism, colonialism and racism. 

The generation of knowledge is a social process that reproduces social structure, reinforcing the rules, values, and norms of society, including its formal institutions and laws. The creation of the OAU in 1963, for example, assumed the form it did only after the African leaders aligned with former Ghanaian President Nkrumah had been outmanoeuvred and isolated. Nkrumah, who proposed the immediate creation of a continental government (the United States of Africa), argued that he was “prepared to serve in a political union of free African states under any leader who [was] able to offer the proper guidance”, but his peers were incredulous. They ultimately settled on a compromise; the OAU would pursue a gradual approach to regional integration.

Inclusion and Exclusion

Indeed, hegemonic understandings of knowledge create boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, dominance and subordination. The knowledge of dominant groups become visible and repeatable, while subordinated groups are situated as objects of knowledge. Certain forms of knowledge become valid and are seen as natural while others remain subordinated. Thus, the apparently natural and neutral knowledge of human life, including African organizations, is produced through relations of power. 

However, as Michel Foucault claimed, resistance to power is an important element of the production of knowledge and the operation of power. Valid understandings shift over time, reflecting continuing intergroup relations of domination and resistance. This explains why when it came to discussing the “Consideration of a proposal for the establishment of a Union Government of Africa”, submitted by Ghana, the 1964 Cairo summit simply referred it to “the Specialized Commission” of the OAU. This understanding of the processes of knowledge production helps explain why some African leaders advocated for a continental government prior to the creation of the AU in 2002.

Thus, the 1964 OAU summit in Cairo was a product, as well as a producer, of knowledge for Africa’s prevailing geopolitical circumstances. It sought to promote some perspectives while suppressing others. The conference also tried to ensure that the OAU would serve the interests of most of the states that participated in it. While it canvassed many issues, three important themes emerged that continue to influence African politics and global diplomacy: racism and its impact on peace and security; Afro-Asian unity or Global South solidarity; and borders and their effects on the sovereignty and stability of African states. Therefore, any serious analysis of knowledge production in the evolution of African unity needs to take note of these issues and how they have informed subsequent knowledge construction and political debates in Africa as well as Africa’s relations with the rest of the world.

Reframing Security

The Cairo conference’s resolution AHG/Res. 6(I), for example, related to knowledge about how racism had disadvantaged Africans globally, characterised white-black relations in African colonies, and was continuing to deny black South Africans equal opportunities for advancement. DuBois had argued in 1903 that “the problem of the twentieth century [was] the problem of the color line”. Reflecting this sentiment, the 1964 Cairo summit reaffirmed the view that apartheid in South Africa, which legitimated a system of ranking the country’s people along racial lines, with whites at the top, represented a serious threat to peace and international security. The OAU’s linking of racism to the global threats to peace and security was designed to challenge the Western-centric view of security. The Cairo summit claimed that South Africa, “whose policy [was] incompatible with its political and moral obligations as a member … of the United Nations”, constituted “a grave danger to stability and peace in Africa and the world”. Ironically, when Westerners embraced the non-military sources of insecurity at the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, they gave no credit to the Africans who had advocated for the same approach two decades earlier.

Any opposition to racism has to be viewed within the prism of universal human rights, but African states and the OAU ignored the violations of human rights by African governments. Although the OAU adopted the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1981, which came into force in 1986, the organization did not enforce it. 

However, following the end of the Cold War, and the replacement of the OAU with the AU, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights has pursued its purpose of promoting and protecting rights and basic freedoms. The re-activation of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights was largely due to global geopolitical changes that compelled the OAU and African leaders to re-examine their stances on sovereignty and rights. It reflected a broader shift in international society where an increased emphasis on human rights underpinned a conception of sovereignty grounded in these rights.

In February 1990, African political leaders met in Arusha, Tanzania, to sign the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation. This meeting was shortly followed by another in Kampala, Uganda. The subsequent Kampala Forum re-emphasized the Cairo conference’s linking of human rights with security by claiming that human rights, peace, and development were the bases of security. It observed that the democratic deficit, injustice, and rights violations were causes of insecurity and, accordingly, proposed new guidelines under which African states would be governed by adherence to the rule of law and popular participation. The Arusha and Kampala meetings were among many in the 1990s that sought to replace the OAU with an organization that was willing to promote human rights. Hence, the creation of the AU in 2002.

Promoting Human Rights

The AU’s architects gave it authority to intervene in member states to uphold rights under certain circumstances. For example, Article 4(h) of the AU’s Constitutive Act gives the organization “the right…to intervene in a member state…in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”. Moreover, Article 3(g) of the Constitutive Act seeks to promote “democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance”, while Article 3(h) seeks to promote and protect “human and people’s rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and other human rights instruments”. Thus, by the early 2000s, there was evidence that African states and citizens had re-defined sovereignty in favour of human rights.

At least five AU agencies have responsibilities regarding human rights. The first is the AU Commission, which is also the administrative arm of the organization. The second is the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. The third is the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which was established in 1987. Its main function is to monitor the implementation of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. The fourth instrument is the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The court’s mandate is to complement and reinforce the work of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The fifth instrument is the African Peer Review Mechanism, which was created in 2003 to monitor the participating AU members in four areas which are crucial for the promotion of rights: democracy and political governance; economic governance and management; corporate governance; and socio-economic development.

Moreover, in 2007, the AU adopted its African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, whose objective is to promote adherence to “the universal values and principles of democracy and respect for human rights”. The AU has also adopted other instruments for the enhancement of rights, including the Guidelines for African Union Electoral Observation and Monitoring Missions, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa.

As the AU marked the 40th anniversary of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in June 2021, it claimed that the charter’s “challenges stem from the aftermath of colonial exploitation; issues of state sovereignty; weak enforcement and accountability measures, limited resources for effective implementation of the human rights standards exacerbated by conflicts, corruption, competing priorities at the domestic level, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic”. It pointed out that these problems had “led to a democratic governance deficit; poverty and deepening inequality; pervasive gender oppression; rising insecurity and violence; conflict over resources brought about by climate change and displacement of people as refugees and internally displaced persons; and the deprivation of the means of livelihood, human dignity and hope for African citizenry”.

However, the AU’s definition of human rights remains limited. Although there is widespread knowledge about the existence of other rights, the AU is yet to take measures to ensure the respect and recognition of all human rights, including those relating to gender and sexuality. It continues to resist the validity of these rights as international norms that are now institutionalized in international law. It could be assumed that one of its resistance strategies is to pretend to not know of their existence.

Defining Borders

The second important issue that emerged out of the 1964 Cairo conference related to the nature of African borders and their impact on stability, peace, and security on the continent. After considering that border problems constituted a grave and permanent factor of dissention in Africa, resolution AHG/Res. 16(I) claimed that “the borders of African States, on the day of their independence, constitute[d] a tangible reality”. It accordingly declared that all OAU “member states pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence.” However, this statement has been criticized over its effectiveness. 

In a 2010 article, researcher on territorial disputes, Wafula Okumu, argued that “this OAU decision has maintained a ‘false peace’ over border disputes” because “numerous border disputes have continued to rumble on between African states”. Nonetheless, since its adoption, most African state borders have remained unchanged with a few exceptions, including the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1991 and South Sudan’s independence in 2011. 

One notable point of contention is Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that declared independence in 1975 and which the AU calls the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and to which the AU has given full membership. However, the UN, in a move of non-compliance with the OAU/AU, still lists Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory. Meanwhile, Morocco continues to claim that Western Sahara is its own territory.

In another interesting case, Somaliland Republic, which seceded from Somalia in 1991, has not received international recognition by either organization. Both the UN and the AU base their decisions on OAU resolution AHG/Res. 16(I) of 1964, which requires that member states will respect the borders established when the country achieved independence. Somaliland Republic and the rest of Somalia, which were British and Italian colonies respectively, attained independence separately and on different dates before they united into one country. British Somaliland achieved independence on 26 June 1960 while Italian Somalia became independent on 1 July 1960. The two “united” into one country, the Somali Democratic Republic, in July 1960 and remained so for 31 years. Somaliland Republic has been self-governing for a longer period than it was a part of Somalia. If the AU and UN were to go by the letter of the 1964 Cairo resolution, there would be nothing to hinder the recognition of Somaliland Republic as a separate and independent country. What appears to underpin the AU and UN positions is the lack of conviction to admit that the 1964 Cairo resolution is an inappropriate tool in this situation.

Developing Relations with Asia

The third major theme out of the 1964 Cairo summit relates to Africa’s interest in seeking closer relations with Asian countries. This was a continuation of the dialogue established at the Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. The Bandung conference, which brought together 29 African and Asian leaders, focused on self-determination, sovereignty, and human rights. It was a forerunner of the “Global South” solidarity, which morphed into other groupings in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Non-Aligned movement and the Group of 77 within the UN system. At the 1964 Cairo conference, Algeria offered to convene the follow-up to the Bandung conference. Hence, resolution AHG/Res. 14(I) stated that the summit had accepted “the generous offer of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria to play host to the Second Conference of African and Asian States”.

Much diplomatic and economic activity between the OAU/AU and Asian states has taken place following these early efforts. One important example is the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the latest of which took place in early September 2024. FOCAC was established in 2000 at the request of African states seeking greater coordination with China. It has since evolved into a major diplomatic framework between China and African states. FOCAC is held once every three years, alternating between China and an African state as a host. This dialogue and collaboration between China and African states reflects how the OAU and AU have evolved since the 1964 Cairo summit. Indeed, China’s construction of the USD$200 million AU headquarters, which was inaugurated in January 2012, can partly be seen within the context of shifting Afro-Asian relations. The entire project was funded by China and involved 1200 workers, half of whom were Chinese.

FOCAC has been central to China’s engagement with African states and the OAU/AU. Through this forum, China has offered African states significant development projects covering economic, political, and social domains. Many of these projects have been organized around specific themes, such as health, agriculture, education, trade and investment, peace and security, industrial cooperation, infrastructure, climate change, and people-to-people exchanges. As Yixin Yu observed in The Diplomat on 30 August 2024: “Financial commitments, a hallmark of FOCAC conferences, often capture the most attention—such as the $60 billion in new financing announced in 2018 and the $40 billion pledge in 2021. These commitments reflect the scale and scope of China’s engagement with the continent.” 

Moreover, the growing diplomatic ties between African states and the Asian economic giants, including with India and Japan, can partly be traced to the early efforts to consolidate Afro-Asian links. These relationships have involved the sharing of knowledge, goods, and services, but they have also led to a decline in democratic accountability in some African states.

All in all, knowledge production has played a significant role in shaping the OAU/AU since the 1964 Cairo summit. In reflecting on the OAU/AU’s evolution over a 60-year period, it is important to note that knowledge is contestable, often reflects the positions of hegemonic actors, and requires constant attention to ensure that it serves Africa’s core interests. One of the important lessons from the evolution of the OAU and AU in the past 60 years is that Africa needs to construct its own intellectual framework or paradigm for generating knowledge with which it can effectively address human rights, development needs, diplomacy, peace, and security. Just as pan-Africanism benefitted from ideas produced by black people in the diaspora, Africa’s paradigm should utilize ideas produced in Africa and outside the continent to generate useful knowledge.  

Pan-Africanism as an ideology dates back over 400 years; while it has many definitions, what is unmistakably at its core is the desire for the unity of Africa and its peoples. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963, was the first institutional framework aimed at achieving this goal. From its beginning, the organization was a compromise between those who wanted to pursue the immediate ideal of political unification of all African states and those who preferred a more limited, gradual integration. The OAU, which was eventually succeeded by the African Union (AU) in 2002, faced significant obstacles in pursuing this ideal of unity. The nature of these challenges faced by the OAU and the AU suggests that there is a need to rethink the essence of Pan-Africanism, specifically regarding the type of unity desired by contemporary actors. 

The Origins of Pan-Africanism

The history of Pan-Africanism is centuries old but the official recognition of the concept occurred after the 1900 Pan-Africanist Congress in London. Born from the philosophy of diaspora Africans, the idea was given vent to by a variety of factors, such as the experience of slavery, European racism, and a growing self-realization among Africans. The concept was a cultural and, more significantly, political movement that became a driving force for the African independence movement; nearly 90 percent of the continent was under European control by 1914 and decolonization was not completed until the 1970s. Following independence, the subsequent goal was African integration. 

Pan-Africanism can be broadly defined as the intellectual foundation of a desire for unity of Africans in the diaspora, a regional push for African unity, a global movement intended to unite Africa and its people against European hegemony, and the general liberation of the people of Africa and those of African descent. Pan-Africanism aims to achieve four primary objectives. The first is the political unity of Africa that aims to bring the states of Africa under a unified political command, similar to the United States of America. Indeed, the original idea was tagged the United States of Africa. Out of all of Pan-Africanism’s goals, this one is the most pronounced and empirically pursued. The second goal is the equality of all Africans. The third is the racial unity of all Africans. Last, but not least, is cooperation among African states and peoples. 

The push for African integration via the mechanism of Pan-Africanism was revived after a lull between 1945 and 1958. This period was marked by a transitional phase, where the ownership of the idea was shifting from the diaspora to those based in Africa, with a larger focus on securing the independence of African states rather than pursuing immediate unity. The Pan-African ideal picked up speed again in 1958 with the first Pan-African conference of independent African states, convened by the President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah in Accra.

In the second conference in Accra in the same year, Nkrumah guided the call for the creation of the United States of Africa, which would dismantle the artificial colonial boundaries in the continent. 

The organization of the United States of Africa would be based on the political entities that had existed before colonization in Africa. This idea came with its own challenges because of the uncertainties regarding the specific borders of pre-colonial entities and the possibility of inter-tribal or kingdom wars. In any case, given the vision of the United States of Africa, it can be concluded that whatever form these boundaries took, they would have existed as sub-units of a larger federal system. 

Ultimately, the timing of this call was ill-judged. The whole of the continent had not yet attained political independence and the remaining colonial powers could not be expected to surrender their territories so that a politically unified Africa could be achieved. These obstacles created difficulties for implementing the idea at the time. Since then, the goal of political unification under a federal system has given way to a more practical approach to unification, primarily in the form of the OAU and the AU. 

Pan-Africanism and the Organization of African Unity

Despite the attempts by diaspora and African based Africans to forge African integration through the various Pan-Africanist congresses, the OAU is believed to be the first institutional manifestation of the Pan-Africanist desire for African unity. This is because the OAU was more organizationally matured and broadly subscribed to than the previous Pan-Africanist integration projects. In some ways, the OAU developed the idea of Pan-Africanism by taking it beyond just conferences and intellectual reflections: it pursued tangible outputs on the continent, such as providing a well-structured organization for the pursuit of African unity. Through this, organizational and institutional support was provided for the liberation movements in Africa such as UNITA in Angola and the African National Congress in South Africa.

However, the OAU was still ultimately considered a compromise of the core idea of Pan-Africanism. The reason for this lies primarily in the ideological foundation of the organization. Three ideological blocks were influential in the founding of the OAU; specifically the Brazzaville, Monrovia, and Casablanca groups. The Brazzaville group advocated for a realistic regional approach to African unity with the ultimate aim of achieving a continental government. The Casablanca group, in contrast, desired a radical approach to the achievement of African unity with the immediate creation of The United States of Africa. In the end, the moderate Monrovia group, which argued for a moderate gradualist approach to regional integration, won the ideological contest over the integration of Africa preparatory to the formation of the OAU. This led to the formation of the OAU, with a focus on functional cooperation and African unity, pursued in a gradualist manner through negotiation and consultation. 

This compromise meant that the OAU could not implement the types of policies that were meant to foster the level of African unity proposed in the ideal Pan-Africanism. As a result, from the inception of the OAU, African unity was constructed through a gradualist approach with emphasis on cultural and intellectual development, rather than political integration.  This was in contrast to the Pan-Africanist dream envisaged by the Casablanca group, which argued that political integration should precede and facilitate economic integration. 

Even with this compromise in place, the commitment of African states themselves to the unity of Africa was in doubt from the beginning; the annual meetings of heads of state were not held regularly. Meanwhile, imperialist manipulation (mainly the French colonizers through their influence over francophone African states) and the competition of regional blocs (such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League) for the attention of independent African states coalesced to cripple the OAU’s aspirations for African unity. The goal was also threatened by a number of intra-African conflicts such as the Biafra war in Nigeria (1967-1970), Tanzania-Uganda war (1978-1979), and the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute (1998-2000). The OAU was not able to issue a uniform response to these conflicts and independent African states began taking sides against each other. 

Thus, from its initiation, the OAU was not able to achieve African unity beyond mere association. Some progress was made, nonetheless. Africa was able to collaborate around the issues of anti-apartheid in South Africa and anti-colonialism in Southern Africa by mobilizing funds in support of their activities and mounting diplomatic pressure wherever the opportunity arose, but these successes were largely the result of efforts by individual nations like Nigeria, which had become a ‘frontline state’ in the anti-apartheid struggle. Most countries, however, were too consumed by their internal challenges of development to focus on continental issues. These young states were too occupied with navigating the end of colonization, managing economies with scarce resources, facing the challenges of political instability, and tying their economies to the apron strings of their former colonizers to pursue African Unity. 

Pan-Africanism and the African Union

In the 1990s, the successful rise of the European Union (EU) and the chronic pitfalls of the OAU compelled Africa to give unity another shot through a more closely knit and organized regional framework. This desire culminated in the creation of the AU in 2002, following the ideals of Pan-Africanism more closely than the OAU’s approach. In contrast to the OAU, the AU provided platforms like the Pan-African Parliament and Court of Justice. These institutions represent attempts at achieving the greater unity of Africa and progress towards the historically desired United States of Africa.

The journey to the AU really began with the Abuja Treaty of 1991, where the foundation was laid for the African Economic Community which eventually served as the framework for the establishment of the AU. The champions of Pan-Africanism in this era were Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi, South African president Thabo Mbeki, and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. Gaddafi in particular was a driving force in the transformation of the OAU into the AU, as he ideologically and practically led the transformation of the OAU to the AU. 

The institutional expression of the AU in 2002, with a closely knit and a more functional secretariat, was a significant milestone in the progress towards the realization of a more united Africa. While the OAU was mainly focused on eradicating colonialism and deepening cooperation among African states, the AU directs its attention to economic collaboration and peacekeeping. Pursuant to this, the AU Charter provided for a number of financial institutions, specifically the economic, social, and cultural council and the creation of an African peace and security architecture of which the African standby force is a big part. 

Multiple AU institutions, programs, and activities have successfully engendered the ideas of Pan-Africanism, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aims to eliminate barriers to trade in Africa, and Agenda 2063, which is an ambitious attempt at crafting a development blueprint and master plan for Africa, aimed at making the continent the global powerhouse of the future.

The AfCFTA case demonstrates the struggle of independent African states to commit to the values of Pan-Africanism. It is an agreement that is meant to promote intra-African trade and commerce. As one of the most recent mechanisms of achieving integration and development in Africa, AfCFTA has not achieved much since its formation in 2018. Although 48 countries out of 54 have now deposited their instrument of ratification of the agreement (a membership second only to the World Trade Organization) progress has been slow on this program which promises real potential. The unwillingness to commit to the provisions of the AfCFTA act such as the provisions for an African Customs Union, dispute settlement body, and the setting up of non-tariff barriers, can only indicate that many states in Africa are still protective of their national interest and mutually suspicious of one another. 

Despite these achievements, African unity has continued to be challenged since the formation of the AU. Agenda 2063 has so far been impeded by economic challenges (such as poverty, low living standard, and poor infrastructure), increasing threats to democracy (as manifested in recent military coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea, and Mali), and endemic ethnic and secessionist conflicts (like the case of Biafra and Boko Haram in Nigeria), have conspired to unsettle Africa and prolong the long road to the continent’s political unity.

Pan-Africanism and the Future of African Integration

In a major way, the ideological divide that has existed since the days of the formation of the OAU has continued in the AU. This divide has traditionally been between those who want immediate and total unity and those who desire piecemeal and gradual and maybe not complete or total political unity. The leaders of the Monrovia (based in Nigeria) and Casablanca (based in Ghana) groups have maintained their historical position. The Brazzaville group, in contrast, seems to be changing in configuration and outlook; some members of the group have recently seen military coups (like Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali) and withdrawn from the ECOWAS sub-regional group. This has hindered any current consensus on Pan-Africanist unity. 

One significant challenge comes from the commitment to the principle of territorial and national sovereignty (contrary to the core idea of Pan-African political unity) by states in the continent. This has made it difficult and, in many cases, impossible to submit national sovereignty to continental supervision, to say the least. This reality is a contemporary limitation to the traditional notion of Pan-Africanism, which has made a rethink of the idea very necessary.

Commitment to Pan-Africanism has always been divided between those who support an immediate, total political integration of the continent and those who support a gradual approach that incorporates a measure of respect for national boundaries. The latter approach is split into two groups, those who advocate for progressing toward political unit from sub-regional groupings and those who favor outright nationalism (these two groups have always been present). Given the drag in outright political unity of the continent, within the framework of the historical development of Pan-Africanism, perhaps, it is trite to say that the ideal of Pan-Africanism can best be achieved when “national self-interest and continent-wide unity come together”.

For this to happen, there will have to be a fundamental alteration to the architecture of Pan-Africanism by adjusting the assumptions and goals of equality, racial unity, the need for baseline cooperation, and the project of the political unity of all Africans. Originally, Pan-Africanism was perceived as a comprehensive framework, including economic, cultural, political, and social integration, with the ultimate aim of unifying all of Africa simultaneously. But there have been challenges such as the desire to protect national sovereignty, the unreality of the notion of the equality of all Africans (given that inequality is a fact of life), and the potential adversarial nature of ethnic differences. 

Consequently, the Pan-Africanism that should guide future unity projects in Africa should not be based on the historical assumptions of the idea, such as similarity of culture, language, race, or residence. Attention should now shift to building unity around the idea of a highly networked economic cooperation.  So that, as I wrote in 2023, “the idea should offload the racial, cultural, and the quest for political unity burden it currently carries. It should be simply defined as the unity and cooperation of Africans and people of African descent for the economic, social and political progress and upliftment of the people of Africa and African descent, both on the continent and in the diaspora”.

The ultimate proof of African unity as contained in a major tenet of Pan-Africanism is the political unity of all Africans aimed ultimately at the creation of the United States of Africa. Unfortunately, the inability to achieve this objective has made the Pan-Africanist project regarded as largely unsuccessful. Given the opposition to this objective, perhaps the gradualists were right ab initio for proposing that the pursuit of African unity should proceed from the national level, to the sub regional, and finally conclude at the continental level. However, even with the compromise of the OAU and the progression to the AU, the gap between African nations has widened and the cold war in Africa between African states struggling for supremacy and foreign powers contesting over control of the continent, seems to have reached full throttle. So rather than make progress, the African unification front has receded rather than advanced. 

Therefore, the option for Africa is to continue the loose continental integration as made possible by the AU. Even then, to maintain this course, there will need to be individual and state leaders championing the cause of Pan-Africanism on the continent. This is because any form of cooperation or organization on the continent can only be possible with such leaders. Reforming Pan-Africanism to deemphasize political unity should not suggest a total abandonment of the idea. There is much to gain from African cooperation that Pan-Africanism preaches without pursuing the clearly challenged objective of political unity.

In 2011, the influential weekly Economist published a cover titled Africa Rising highlighting the great potential the continent had for economic growth, sustainability, and peace and security.

A year later, Time magazine published a similar cover with the same title praising the continent’s promise to become the next global economic powerhouse, with a particular nod to sub-Saharan Africa.

But numerous challenges persist. Despite being independent for the latter half of the 20th century, the pangs of colonialism thinking remain entrenched in many African nations.

In this issue, we examine how a pan-African community of nations needs to be established on a foundation of indigenous education systems that have done away with colonial paradigms and instead moved closer to continental integration.

Pan-Africanism in this issue is rooted in the “intellectual foundation of a desire for unity of Africans in the diaspora, a regional push for African unity, a global movement intended to unite Africa and its people against European hegemony, and the general liberation of the people of Africa and those of African descent,” writes Stephen Okhonmina in the article Pursuing Unity: Pan-Africanism in Practice.

He and other leading academics, policy researchers and scholars hold that Pan-Africanism cannot be achieved without the political unity of Africa; the equality and racial unity of all Africans; and last, but not least, African cooperation.

For these four goals to be met, African institutions need to first revisit its knowledge creation enterprises.

Samuel M. Makinda and Angela Leahy argue that the African Union, established in 1963, is grounded in pan-Africanism, a form of knowledge that has reflected different visions of the people of African descent at various times since early in the 20th century.

Writing about knowledge in Africa, they draw on the works of earlier scholars who posit that “knowledge production is a social and political process that reflects the historical, cultural, and institutional milieu of its producers. Knowledge is constructed for a social, scientific or political purpose, and for a community of scholars or policy makers”.

In this issue of The Cairo Review, we examine the necessity for Africa to locally produce renewable energy and various other technologies—including medical tools, diagnostic chips, desalination tech, innovative hardware, and electronic products—that will realize the potential this continent has for deep-tech investment.

Our distinguished panel of contributors acknowledge that Africa has a trove of high quality raw material that can be converted to modern day applications, but the tech companies, and often the infrastructures, required to process these materials are noticeably absent. With a population of 1.4 billion people, the continent has a great local market that can justify the spending to establish new deep tech companies to compete on a global scale and bring Africa to the world. And when that happens, Africa will be well on its way to the rise predicted a decade ago.

Cairo Review Co-Managing Editors,

Karim Haggag

Firas Al-Atraqchi

The African Union (AU) has since its establishment centred African people, human rights, the rule of law, and constitutionalism in its legal instruments and frameworks. This builds on the foundation of human and peoples’ rights that were instrumental to its predecessor—the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)—and its decolonial agenda. The journey from the OAU Charter to its successor, the AU, placed a spotlight on the need to embed human rights and good governance within the continent’s systems and structures. While the AU has succeeded in creating the normative framework to promote such notions, more action is needed to ensure that member states adhere to this framework.

The past sixty years have seen African institutions shift and adapt to evolving realities that stress the need for stable and inclusive democracies.  The 2002 Constitutive Act of the AU is a critical turning point for the African intergovernmental structure because it ushered in a new system undergirded by mutual respect for human rights, justice, and the rule of law. Building on this, the AU has adopted instruments that seek to advance, respect, protect, and promote the rights and welfare of children, human and peoples’ rights, the rights of women, the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa, accountability for serious crimes, and dispute resolution. It has also taken a position against unconstitutional changes of government, as signalled first and foremost by Article 30 of the Constitutive Act, which states that “[g]overnments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union.”.

From 1963 to 2024, a slow and gradual shift from Africa being a club of “big men” to a continent in which its people assert their rights and push for better governance can be observed. This has not been without its hurdles. For example, there has been a resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government—whether through coups d’état or efforts by incumbent leaders to cling to power. Significantly, between January 2010 and July 2023, there were over forty-five coups and attempted coups in numerous African countries. Twenty-two of these were in West Africa.  Notably, half of the fourteen successful coups took place between August 2020 and July 2023 alone, with some countries like Burkina Faso and Mali experiencing multiple coups during this time. In addition, the continent is still plagued by conflicts (some intractable) in which gross human rights violations are committed with no concerted efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable.

1963 to 2002: Decolonization and African Solidarity

From 1963, African countries were united under the OAU—a continental body whose founding was rooted in the need to decolonize Africa and promote the unity, solidarity, and cooperation of African states. Inherent in these foundational goals was the need to defend sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence, as well as promote international cooperation. The first seventeen years of the OAU were a spirited effort to accelerate the decolonization of Africa. With the majority of African countries unyoked from colonialism by 1980, the OAU shifted gears to adopt key instruments to steer the continent’s future. This included the adoption in 1981 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (entered into force in October 1986), the 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (entered into force in November 1999, and the 1998 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (entered into force in January 2004). All AU member states, except for Morocco, have ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This demonstrates a commitment, at least on paper, to advance human rights. Most African countries also include clear respect, protection, and promotion of human rights in their constitutions.

While a solid foundation to advance human rights was being laid, the reality in many African countries at the time reflected a failure to protect and promote these rights, the rule of law, and constitutionalism. This included a laissez-faire approach adopted by the OAU, which meant limited to no intervention in the affairs of its member states. Despite affirming foundational principles of human rights, the OAU did not proactively address horrendous violations in the continent or respond decisively to conflicts. This includes the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the post-independence wars in Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Western Sahara, in addition to the conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and Kenya and Uganda, among others. Furthermore, in the absence of mechanisms to address human rights violations and autocratic rule, the OAU became a “safe space” for many dictators during its time.

Already, before the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the AU in 2002, some African heads of state were concerned about unconstitutional changes of government. This included pronouncements in 1997 at the Summit in Harare, Zimbabwe, and a 1999 decision on unconstitutional changes of governments intended to reinforce respect for democracy, the rule of law, good governance, and stability. The decision affirmed international human rights instruments such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This culminated in the Lomé Declaration in 2000 which now serves as the basis of the AU’s official stance on unconstitutional changes in government.

These shifts within the OAU recognised the many interconnected challenges on the continent, including political instability, popular uprisings, coup d’états, civil wars, slow development, and socioeconomic decline.

Shifting Gears: Two Decades of Revolutionizing Constitutionalism and Human Rights

Heralding a new era for Africa, the AU was established as the OAU’s successor in 2002. With a vision for peace, security, stability, democracy, good governance, and human rights, the AU’s framing has always been progressive, and its instruments are clear on what the organization intends to advance. This includes moving away from non-interference in the affairs of member states to “non-indifference” towards mass atrocities.

The Preamble of the Constitutive Act of the AU underscores the organization’s commitment “to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and to ensure good governance and the rule of law”. Read together with, among others, the objectives of the AU in Articles 3(e) and 3(h) referencing human rights instruments; and guiding principles enshrined in Articles 4(m-o), naming the respect for democratic principles, human rights, the role of law, social justice, and the sanctity of life as founding principles; as well as Articles 3(f) and 4(c) emphasizing peace, security, and cooperation on the continent, the AU’s stance—at least on paper—is to depart from the indifference of the OAU before it.

The AU is thus empowered to intervene in the internal affairs of member states to protect human rights and maintain constitutional order. Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act articulates that pursuant to a decision of the Assembly of Heads of State regarding “grave circumstances”, the AU has the right to intervene in the affairs of a member state to restore peace and stability. These grave circumstances are war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) Protocol clearly states that “observance of human rights and the rule of law” is “essential for the promotion of collective security, durable peace and stability, as well as for the prevention of conflicts”. This shift was informed by the previous gaps in the OAU’s infrastructure and practices in addressing key challenges arising from impunity for gross human rights violations, international crimes, and instability.

There is a growing consensus among African states on their obligation to respect, protect, and promote human rights as well as to intervene in situations to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. However, recognition is only the first step. To back the AU’s legal tools, states and the AU must act according to these precepts. Norms and principles are only effective if they are systematically and effectively enforced.

The AU has the vision, but concerted effort is needed to make this vision a reality. The AU and its member states must ensure that its treaties and policies to advance good governance and protect human rights are actually implemented. The AU is doing something about this—albeit slowly. Over the past 20 years, the AU has established judicial, human rights, and legal institutions and organs. These include the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, AU Commission on International Law, Pan-African Parliament, African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Economic, Social and Cultural Council, AU Advisory Board Against Corruption, and African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Still, the practice of human rights in Africa is varied. Though most African countries have legal frameworks and institutions to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights, most Africans still do not enjoy the rights enshrined in them.

Furthermore, continental institutions tasked with advancing human rights—particularly the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court—are under-resourced, with small financial allocations and mostly temporary staff. This means their ability to deliver on their mandate is negatively impacted. Moreover, when both institutions issue recommendations, decisions, or judgments, states do not always comply with them or implement the findings.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence of progress at the continental and national levels. This has included the promotion of democracy and good governance as fundamental to sustainable peace, security, and development.

Africa is Evolving

On paper, the AU has been very progressive in setting clear guidelines on how to deal with unconstitutional changes of government that include military coups and refusals to vacate offices on termination of terms in office. This has included the AU’s PSC pronouncing itself on unconstitutional changes of government, imposing sanctions, and calling for the restoration of constitutional order in several African countries. Since 2003, the AU has suspended 13 member states following coups or other unconstitutional changes of government. These include Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Togo, Madagascar, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Egypt, Burkina Faso Sudan, Niger, and Gabon. Most of these suspensions were lifted once constitutional order was restored, though, in some cases, countries have had recurrent coups during this time. At the time of writing, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali, Niger, and Sudan remained suspended.

Though challenges remain, including the inability to prevent unconstitutional changes in government, the existence of a normative framework guiding the AU’s position on these issues is itself a success. It reflects, at the very least, an institutional attempt to ensure that constitutionalism and the rule of law are respected.

At the national level, constitutionalism is increasingly a feature in AU member states, with several adopting constitutional reforms aimed at promoting rights, advancing multi-party democracy, and enhancing political freedom. This is reflected in assessments by the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, for example.

This index shows progress since 2014 (when the first phase of implementation of Agenda 2063 commenced) on questions of the rule of law and access to justice, however limited, and in some instances the overall picture shows a decline.

In 2024 (compared to 1964), there is multi-party democracy in many African countries. There is some consensus on presidential term limits, regular free and fair elections at the local and national levels, and separation of powers (with the required checks and balances) between the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature. The media reports freely and independently, civil society is growing and vibrant, and young people are taking on the challenge of peacefully addressing their countries’ woes. Still, challenges such as a rise in “constitutional coups”, popular uprisings that can and do turn violent, and military coups d’état, remain. These have the potential to stifle progress.  The task is for the AU and its member states to pay close attention to developments, and adapt to the needs of 1.4 billion Africans by advancing inclusive development, human rights, and improved governance.

This article is drawn from a Chapter on ‘AU promotion of constitutionalism, the rule of law and human rights,’  by the author in W Okumu & A Atta-Asamoah (eds), AU at 20: African perspectives on progress, challenges and prospects 

The advent of colonialism in 1492 had detrimental impacts on the socio-economic development of African nations, including on education. The colonists instituted their educational systems to subjugate and assimilate Africans, and weaponized it as a tool for the underdevelopment of Africa ever since. To date, Africa continues to be ravaged by economic subjugation, miseducation, deculturization, and extractivism by foreign colonial powers. Prominent historians and thinkers like Walter Rodney, Franz Fanon, Aime Cesaire, Kwame Nkrumah, Ivan van Setima, and Cheikh Anta Diop, to mention a few, have all written in-depth analyses of colonial domination in Africa.

Rodney, for example, notes in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa that the continent’s history of colonial dominance has paved the way for the development of the current educational systems, derivative of colonialism and imperialism. This has therefore privileged European and Western knowledge and practices.

In Colonial Education in Africa: Retrospect and Prospects, pedagogy scholar William H. Watkins notes that the “European curriculum continues to dominate many countries of Africa” even after the end of “direct colonialism”. Similarly, in The Resurgence of the African World in the 21^st Century, Africologist Molefi Kete Asante points out that Europeans have been the “designers of our mis-education”.

As such, Africa could benefit from anti-racism education to begin the process of decentering Euro-western coloniality and whiteness, explains Niketa Afia Peters, educational consultant, poet, and ancestral knowledge protector, and George Sefa Dei, scholar in the Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

How can we use anti-racism practices and analytical framework to decolonize education in Africa? 

To redress the current educational malaise, African systems and structures must prioritize anti-racism and decolonial education to reflect African histories, cultures, values, knowledges, experiences, and ancestral ways of knowing and being; decolonial education approaches align with anti-racism education. In Actualizing Decolonization: A Case for Anticolonizing and Indigenizing the Curriculum, Dei and Alessia Cacciavillani assert that decolonization is anchored in different practices, including: the deconstruction of colonial power and knowledges, indigenous teachings and perspectives, resistance to colonial and imperialist dominance, relationality, critical curricula that challenge ongoing coloniality, engaging in learning based on respect and appreciation for the land, and incorporating indigeneity as pedagogical practice. It offers alternative ways of understanding and producing knowledges, acting as a catalyst for social and educational change.

Education is a microcosm of a larger society, and according to Nelson Mandela, serves as the “most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”. In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney establishes that “education is crucial in any type of society for the preservation of the lives of its members and the maintenance of the social structure.” Education, then, should be transformative and address the challenges and needs of the people. African educational systems should advance their people culturally, politically, spiritually, socially, and economically by requiring, Rodney asserts, that they return to their ancestral archives to understand that “the most crucial aspect of pre-colonial African education was its relevance to Africans”.

Working with the idea of making education relevant to Africans, we examine the role of anti-racism education in addressing the racist colonial legacies ingrained in African educational systems. We also draw on De/anti-colonialism, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and Integrative Anti-Racism to theorize the value of anti-racism education within the African context. It is important to note that race and racialization are socially and historically co-constructed with other sites of difference. Race is formed through the process of racialization, whereby groups are constructed by attributing racial significance to them for political objectives. We believe that as a result, race becomes relevant in the African context given the process of racialization, where class, gender, sexual orientation, and disability can be tropes for racializing people as different and subjecting them to unequal and differential treatment. It also necessitates that the potential for integrating anti-racism education into educational systems, curricula, and epistemologies be considered.

The question of what it means to radically rethink education by reclaiming and recentering local and national African indigenous knowledges and practices can be answered through practical strategies for implementing anti-racism education in practice. It is our hope that this text will inspire further critical analysis of African educational systems and propose new ideas for their indigenization.

What is the starting point to recenter knowledge?

We begin by acknowledging our ancestors and elders whose collective knowledge and wisdom we walk in daily. It is their teachings and wisdom that we lean on to write this text.

It is important to acknowledge our social locations because it influences our worldview and “how we build relationships, educate others, and conduct research.” In Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness, bell hooks states that locating ourselves within the margins and understanding marginality as a space of resistance are imperative for “radical openness and possibility.” Locating ourselves within society makes clear the possibilities and limitations of our knowing and theorizing.

Therefore, we understand that our identities and lived experiences will inform our knowledge production in this text. I, Niketa Afia Peters, am a Black African, able-bodied, and able-minded woman who was born in the Global South, in Guyana, and was raised and educated in the Global West. My interest in the topic of anti-racism education within Africa is both political and personal. Education should unchain people from colonialism that has taken root in their minds and bodies and liberate them in all spheres of their lives. My experiences of historical displacement, socioeconomic privileges and disadvantages, anti-Black racism and anti-Blackness, western education, sexism, and African indigeneity and history inform my discussion on anti-racism education. The lens from which I write is critical for challenging universalized Euro-western hegemonic knowledges within African educational systems.

I, George Sefa Dei, am a Ghanaian-born, able-bodied and able-minded man. I completed my primary and undergraduate education in Ghana. My graduate studies were completed in Canada. Therefore, I have lived experience and knowledge of African educational systems. I enter this discussion as someone who holds extensive knowledge about race and racism, anti-racism education, Indigenous knowledges and decolonization, education in African contexts, anti-racism research, and anti-colonial thought. Much like Africa, Canada has a history of colonialism and its imprints have been systemically embedded in the educational systems. Anti-racism education connects contemporary racist practices and ideologies to Canada’s history of colonialism. Given Africa and Canada’s histories of colonial domination, anti-racism education is crucial for uprooting deep-seated colonial ideas within the systems. I ask, what would African educational systems look like without colonial influence?

What role does anti-racism education play? 

Dei in Anti-racism Education for Global Citizenship and Audrey Thompson in For: Anti-Racist Education assert that anti-racism is about the critical examination of racism as well as creating ways to resist dominant and hegemonic systems that privilege Whiteness and perpetuate racism.  Anti-racism considers the ways in which race interlocks with other social differences such as class, gender, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability to further oppress individuals and groups.  Social work researchers Sheliza Ladhani and Kathleen Sitter, in The Revival of Anti-Racism: Considerations for Social Work Education, explain that anti-racism actively disrupts systems of oppression. Put simply, anti-racism is concerned with understanding racism, challenging unequal power structures, and eradicating racism and other forms of oppression.

Similar to anti-racism, in Anti-Racism for Global Citizenship, Dei describes anti-racism education as “an action-oriented educational strategy to deal with racism, White power, and White privilege, including how these concepts intersect with other forms of difference and oppression.” Dei further explains in Anti-Racism Education: Theory & Practice that anti-racism education is an approach that acknowledges race as a social construct that has been utilized as a tool of othering. It takes a comprehensive approach, recognizing that particular knowledges and lived experiences are delegitimized and excluded from the educational systems. Ladhani and Sitter note that anti-racism “[politicizes] education to uncover and dismantle the structural roots of inequality.” It acknowledges the role of historical education in creating and sustaining oppressive systems and structures. Fundamentally, the core of anti-racism education is justice and liberation. It is a marriage of critical theorizing and pragmatic practices to address dominance in education and beyond.

Why anti-racism in Africa?

Given the saliency of race in anti-racism education, one might question the relevance of anti-racism in Africa given that Africans are predominantly Black. Anti-racism education is not solely about race and racism. It considers the ways in which classism, heterosexism, ableism, and other forms of oppression intersect with racism. Additionally, racism, coloniality, and white supremacy have been structurally embedded into African educational systems, as they have been inherited from colonial powers. An anti-racism education would therefore prove critical in addressing the historical and ongoing challenges faced by the continent.

In The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D., sociologist and historian Chancellor Williams explains that “the ideologies and value system of the oppressors quite unconsciously become those of the oppressed, even when the result is demonstratively against themselves.” Consequently, some Africans have internalized colonial racist narratives that subsequently cause them to reject their local Indigenous knowledges and practices and give preference to White ways, as White people are perceived as more legitimate and knowledgeable.

In Revitalizing African Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Knowledge Production, sociologist Hassan O. Kaya states “little attention [is] given to African indigenous literary and philosophical traditions, as they tend to be viewed as primitive and unscientific, as well as improper sources for social theory and research development.” Therefore, anti-racism education is one way of unyoking the White colonial programming. In African Betrayals and African Recovery for a New Future, Molefi Kete Asante declares that “new forms of thinking and new ways of asserting ourselves in our own history must be invented. This means that African scholars must think beyond Europe.” Africans, in general, must break free of Euro-western doctrines.

In thinking beyond Europe, anti-racism education offers possibilities for centering African perspectives, histories, and cultures in the curricula. Anti-racism education would pose critical inquiries about how to rehumanize African education and histories, the function of community in educational development, and the prospects for integrating African Indigenous knowledges in educational and non-educational systems. Further, an anti-racism education approach would examine the ways in which African individuals and institutions uphold anti-Black (African) racism and provide recommendations for addressing internalized racism and colorism. For writer Audrey Lorde reminds us in Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference that the “true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.”

How do we imagine something different for African education?

An aspect of anti-racism education involves critically (re)thinking the ways in which we understand race and racism as well as how we engage with dominant systems of oppression.  As a starting point, Africans might ask interrogating questions about the current educational systems. For example, do Africans benefit from the current educational systems? Who gains from the existing policies and curricula in education? Will a strong and united Africa be built with the current curricula and educational institutions? How might Africans disrupt epistemic colonialism? How might Africans begin to dismantle white power structures within education systems, policies, and practices? How do Africans escape the entrapments and programming of colonialism? What would curricula look like if they educated learners for life rather than merely the labour force? What knowledges and teachings should learners engage with? What does anti-racist leadership look like? How do Africans (re)define and measure academic success using African knowledges and principles?

Radically (re)imagining the future of the policies, practices, and curricula of African educational systems is another aspect of anti-racism education.

In Why Social Movements Need Radical Imagination, sociologists Alex Khasnabish and Max Haiven identify radical imagination as “not just about dreaming of different futures. It’s about bringing those possibilities back from the future to work on the present, to inspire action and new forms of solidarity today.” Accordingly, how might Africans reimagine educational systems and curricula?

Africans need to ask new questions as they continue to consider the challenges in their educational systems. Africans must extend their questioning to involve the integration of their cultural wealth. For instance, how do Africans reorient their consciousness in African indigeneity and traditions? What is the role of local communities in education and learning? What role do the Elders play in learning and education? How do Africans integrate Indigenous knowledges into their knowledge production and theorizing? How does spirituality fit into the educational systems? In what way might Africans integrate indigenous educational ways of knowing into the curricula? How might Africans (re)humanize education and African people?

What next?

Some possibilities that might emerge from these noted questions may include decolonizing education, incorporating Indigenous knowledge systems and practices, addressing internalized racism, community engagement, and intersectionality. First, among others, decolonizing education offers the possibility for what historian Achille Joseph Mbembe, in his article titled Decolonizing the University: New Directions, describes as (re)centering African ways. This involves positioning African histories, cultures, perspectives, and knowledges at the center of learning and knowledge production. Second, Africans should also lean on proverbs, the land, ancestral stories, songs, and nature (science and spirituality) for indigenizing their practices and knowledges. Third, beyond interrogation of the impact of internalized racism, active efforts should be made to combat colorism and the privileging of Whiteness in African societies. Fourth, Kaya recommends “involving community knowledge holders in research, teaching, and learning” as a means of community engagement. Fifth, Africans should consider respecting and valuing the strength in social differences (sex, age, gender, (dis)ability, etc.). The integration of these possibilities could radically change the course of education in Africa.

International, national, and regional efforts will be essential to address disparities and forge new possibilities for systemic educational change across the continent.  Internationally, African governments must prioritize implementing legislation that mandates school attendance for children aged five to eighteen. Governments at the national and regional levels should create policy measures regarding appropriate funding allocation. There should be enough funding to guarantee that all children, regardless of gender, socio-economic status, location, or mental, intellectual, or physical abilities, have free, inclusive, and accessible quality education. Policies and standards must be developed to improve teaching and teacher education. Further, national and regional authorities should mandate the inclusion of African history and indigenous cultures as essential components of the core curriculum.

How do we begin?

African systems and structures, especially the educational systems, are largely influenced by the legacies of colonialism, enslavement, and imperialism as well as ongoing coloniality and white supremacy. For this reason, anti-racism education is required to start the process of unlearning and eradicating coloniality and whiteness within African structures. With certainty, the incorporation of anti-racism education will be met with challenges; however, it is crucial for reinventing and rethinking African educational futures. Africa’s intellectual, moral, economic, and social growth depend heavily on anti-racism education. Africans may also want to consider Decolonization and Anti-colonialism frameworks as they deconstruct and interrogate the ideologies that structure their systems as well as their understanding of themselves and themselves in relation to each other.

Africans need to continue to ask critical questions about the continent’s contemporary educational systems and the potential for creating transformative and revolutionary reforms. Anti-racism education is necessary to begin the process of deprogramming Africans from coloniality. As Steve Biko reminds us, the “most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” Through anti-racism education, Africans can unlearn and think critically about the dominant forces that are informing education and schooling. Anti-racism education provides opportunities for educators and educational leaders to pause and imagine possibilities for transformative education through the rehumanizing of themselves and, as such, the rehumanizing of learning and learners.  We remain radically hopeful in the resurgence and liberation of African people and their educational systems.

Note: Some of the links in this essay are downloadable PDFs.

In May 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who voiced concerns regarding the so-called judicial reforms that Netanyahu was leading, and that they could bring Israel to depart from the community of democratic nations. Netanyahu tried to assure the German leader: “Israel is democratic and Israel will remain a liberal democracy,” he said.¹

But the term “liberal democracy” refers to a system of governance where the inalienable rights and dignity and worth of each individual are recognized, and their basic liberties are assured; where equality before the law exists, and equal political voice for all citizens enshrines popular sovereignty.

This essay, therefore, takes issue with Netanyahu’s statements and argues that Israel is not a liberal democracy. Instead, it is a Jewish democracy where the Jewish majority dictates the affairs in accordance with its conception of the good. Judaism and liberalism are contradictory. Moreover, the occupation of the West Bank detracts from the democratic nature of Israel, and the litmus test of a decent or civilized liberal democracy is the status of minorities.

In this context, Netanyahu’s self-description is insufficient. Mere statements of leaders do not make a country a liberal democracy. We need to examine the country’s laws, norms, its relationship with the “other”, human rights, and basic rights and liberties to decide whether a country is a liberal democracy. In this examination, I first outline the underpinning principles of liberal ideology. Then, I examine whether these principles are applied in Israel. 

Since 1948, it is argued that Israeli leaders have preferred the country to be Jewish rather than liberal. This is seen in how the dominance of Jewish Orthodoxy results in direct confrontations with liberal principles; liberal values are irreconcilable with the values of Jewish Orthodoxy. It is further argued that the lack of separation between State and religion makes Israel illiberal. Israel’s treatment of minorities is also highly problematic. 

This paper addresses four arguments against the claim that Israel is a democracy: First, Israel is an occupying power and, therefore, it cannot be democratic. Second, Israel is an apartheid state and apartheid is not democratic. Third, the recent anti-democratic judicial revolution has undermined Israeli democracy. Lastly, Israel cannot be called a democracy due to its war conduct against Hamas. I attend to these criticisms one for one, chiefly the argument that Israel is a democracy, albeit a flawed democracy.

Liberalism

Liberalism is grounded in a set of principles. Below I outline some of its basic tenets that will be later considered vis-à-vis Judaism, highlighting the inherent contradictions between liberalism and Orthodox Judaism. While Judaism includes different denominations, e.g. Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, Orthodox Judaism is dominant in Israel.

Rationality

Liberal thought argues about human rationality. This is a normative assumption. Liberals acknowledge that there are different, sometimes competing interests, and humans can discern different ways of realizing them. This does not mean that we are all equally rational. Nor does it mean that there are no irrational desires, but that the person recognizes human irrationality and tries to regulate irrational desires, to control them in order to avoid harm, to herself and to others.

Individualism

The chief characteristic of liberal theory from Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) to John Rawls (1921-2002) lies in its focus on individualism and the autonomy of the person. The individual is at the centre of attention. The notion of autonomy involves the ability to reflect upon beliefs and actions, and the ability to form an idea regarding them, so as to decide the way in which to lead a life. By deciding between their own conflicting trends, agents consolidate their opinions more fully and review the ranking of values for themselves with a clear frame of mind. The central idea of autonomy is self-rule or self-direction. Accordingly, the view is that individuals should be left to govern their business without being overwhelmingly subject to external forces. We are said to be free when our acts are not dominated by external impediments, thus enabling us to form judgments, decide between alternatives, and act according to the action commitments implied by our beliefs. 

Liberalism holds that autonomous individuals who are capable of acting rationally and deliberately, of being self-governed and self-controlled rather than subordinated to external forces and inspection, are entitled equally to respectful treatment. Two requirements have to be fulfilled in order to enable the development of individuality: first, the State must recognize that it “can have no end which is not also an end of individuals; its end can be realized only in the free wills of individuals; its end is, in fact, the development of the character”.² The state is a means and not an end (as opposed to fascism). The state is a vehicle and exists to serve the people. The state is regarded as an organization aiming to serve the given society and make it more of a community. The focus is on individual will, individual freedoms, and individual rights.

Secondly, the individual must be able to share equally in deciding what is essential for the flourishing of society. She also must not view herself as an isolated object who is interested only in herself, but as an object who could satisfy her needs and ambitions, and accomplish self-realization in the community, through community and with the help of others. The individual lives within a certain social framework and has to respect those who share with her the benefits of democracy.³ Extreme individualism, i.e. egoism, is rejected.

Rights and liberties

“Rights” refer to claims that are recognized as legitimate. “Freedoms” relate to the ability to guarantee yourself what you deserve on the basis of right.

In liberal thought, certain rights are defined as natural, basic, fundamental rights that each person deserves as a person. The Classical Liberal tradition from John Locke onwards was concerned above all with the preservation of individual rights, and with the emancipation of the individual from public control. Liberal ideology had set the individual on legal equality in opposition to feudalism, and challenged the right of the monarch to govern except in the interests of the citizens.

Liberty allows everyone the greatest amount of freedom consistent with order. Liberty is the right to act without any restraints except those imposed by law. In a country where the law is an expression of the will of the community, all actions are legally permitted to the citizens except those which injure equal exercise of rights by other persons. A free act is an act of will and not just a mere impulse; it is the power to do what one wants to do. As Voltaire enunciates: “To be truly free is to have power to do. When I can do what I want to do, there is my liberty for me.”⁴

John Stuart Mill valued freedom for its contribution to autonomy and to the realization of the higher potential of the individual. Liberty is desired as part of happiness and is consequently a component of that end, as well as a means to it. It is a means to reason, and the midwife of individuality which enables the pursuit of what we consider to be good. In turn, liberty also contributes to the development of civilization; for without it, progress is impossible.⁵ Mill instructs that there must be free debate and discussion within the participatory democracy, in which opinions and subjects can be heard, and criticism of the existing agenda is freely exchanged.

Equality

Liberalism advances and promotes the idea of equality. Liberals refer to this as equality before the law, gender equality, equality in voting, and equality in participating in public and civic life.

Tolerance

The idea of ​​tolerance is important and is needed to advance ourselves, to develop reasoned discussions and arguments, and to progress society. Disagreement is not necessarily negative, but legitimate, and even positive. Diversity of opinions is enriching, and therefore positive. Tolerance, different from apathy and indifference, is composed of three main components: (1) a strong disapproving attitude toward a certain conduct, action or speech; (2) power or authority to curtail the disturbing conduct, and (3) moral overriding principles which sway the doer not to exert her power or authority to curtail the said conduct. Tolerance cannot be considered as indifference, for the doer does have strong reservations regarding the conduct. He or she cares greatly about the issue but nevertheless applies self-restraint. Tolerance should not also be equated with the concept of neutrality because the latter is perceived as a specific requirement of justice and, in this respect, its meaning is akin to that of impartiality. As stated, tolerance, on the other hand, assumes that the agents are very partial regarding the phenomenon they consider.⁶

Liberals first emphasized religious tolerance. Later, they also accentuate the need for political tolerance. Since the 20th Century, there has been growing awareness of multiculturalism. The idea of compromise is endorsed to resolve all conflicts.

Minority rights

From the ideas of ​​tolerance and compromise a further idea of minority rights is derived. Liberal democracy is not merely majority rule. It is majority rule while protecting the rights of minorities. Democracy is a system of government in which the majority rules but does not neglect the basic rights of minorities, such as life, freedom, property, fair opportunities to develop their talents and capacities, as well as to become the majority. 

The majority rule is commonly justified and accepted in practice simply because, from a practical point of view, no reasonable alternative exists. This alternative denotes that in the democratic system, the government that implements political decisions is ultimately elected by at least fifty per cent plus one of the enfranchised citizens. The attraction of this alternative rests in the claims that this is the best way of ensuring sensitivity to the widest possible range of interests and that the majority ‘naturally’ is entitled to act for the whole. Since unanimity of opinion is impossible and there is no way to fulfil everybody’s aspirations, it is the greater rather than the lesser number of preferences that should prevail since it is nearer to the whole number; it is taken to be the best approximation to the ‘general will’. However, it is a practical necessity rather than an ideal in itself. It does not follow that the majority right is absolute, or that the majority opinion cannot be wrong. Quantity does not necessarily entail quality. Numerical relation in itself does not necessarily entail that the prevailing opinion is right, or just. The fact that the many are literally stronger than the few does not imply that might makes right. A majority can hold destructive views and the fact that we are speaking about a considerable number of people does not make beliefs just; it just makes the situation more terrible. 

Rule of Law

The rule of law attempts to ensure individualism, basic freedoms and the restriction of government by appropriate legislation, instituting a just, socio-political system. The law should be public, transparent, and apply to all the citizenry without exception. Liberalism further accentuates that no one is above the law.

Universalism

The principle of the dignity of the person is universal.⁷ German philosopher Immanuel Kant identifies dignity with moral capacity, arguing that human beings are infinitely above any price: “to compare it with, or weigh it against, things that have price would be to violate its holiness, as it were.”⁸ In other words, “morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity”⁹. Kant explains that such beings are not merely “subjective ends” whose existence as a result of our action has value for us but are “objective ends,” i.e. things whose existence is an end in itself.¹⁰ Each person has dignity and moral worth. People should be respected qua being persons. The concept of dignity is universal. Dignity cannot be qualified due to one’s gender, race, religion, culture, class or any other characteristics, and it requires us to take responsibility for our conduct. 

Democracy

From the 17th century, and especially from the 19th century, liberalism and democracy increasingly have gone hand in hand. Democracy is seen as the institutional expression of the idea of ​​liberalism.

Democracy, then, is essentially a form of political action, a system of government in which political power is exercised by the state over individuals within it. The term is derived from the Greek words ‘demos’ (the people), and ‘kratos’ (authority), meaning: the rule of the people. The political authority rests with the people and can be exercised to establish, modify or abolish the system of power. Commonly, democracy is defined as a form of government in which political power belongs to the public as a whole and not merely to a single person or a particular limited group of people. ‘Democracy’ has been used in conjunction with the terms ‘monarchy’ and ‘aristocracy’, and this trilogy has been employed to discern situations of monopoly, oligopoly, and equality. A state is democratic, not ‘if’, but insofar as the great mass of the population can exercise an effective influence on the process of decision-making. Thus, democracy is a matter of degree and not a fixed concept; it is more useful to think in terms of a scale than to attempt to lay down conditions for democracy.¹¹ 

At the heart of the democratic theory lies the principle of popular will. Democracy in its essence is a participatory mode of collective decision-making, one in which all citizens have the opportunity and ability for involvement in public affairs. The citizens participate in influencing and shaping the policies which concern their lives. They share the duties and rights of political life; they possess the same burdens and benefits, rights and liberties; they initiate policies and govern the political authority. This means making the community freer and of a participatory character. 

Every citizen is a potential participant in civic life. Participation is one of the expressions of liberty, and it is only when people can shape their will, that it becomes in any real measure creative. Hobhouse writes: “Democracy is not founded merely on the right or the private interest of the individual. This is only one side of the shield. It is founded equally on the function of the individual as a member of the community. It founds the common good upon the common will, in forcing which it bids every grown-up, intelligent person to take a part.”¹² 

Democracy involves non-governmental as well as governmental decision-making. The growth of democracy has been associated with the flow of opinions, with free discussion of political issues, with the right to differ concerning them, and with the settlement of the differences, not by sheer force, but rather by resorting to notions of discovering what ‘the will of the people’ is. The democratic principles include the right to vote, citizens’ participation and representation, separation of powers and having adequate checks and balances, a strong rule of law, the safeguarding of basic human rights, and having majority rule while protecting the rights of minorities. 

Democracy can be considered as a way of administering discussion between different persons who hold different interests. The aim is not to secure complete agreement on every question, though democracy certainly welcomes the crystallization of consensus and agreement. Democracy does not demand the creation of a society which consists of people who parrot decisions of the governing body, but rather it demands to accept the right to be different, to accept that there can be a range of opinions. This acceptance implies, in turn, an agreement on the ways in which these differences could be settled in practice. 

The degree of democracy in any society can be evaluated by the extent to which all constituent groups are incorporated into, or excluded from, the decision-making process, the extent to which governmental decisions are subjected to popular control, and the extent to which ordinary citizens are involved in public administration, of ruling and being ruled. An active sense of community membership involves the deliberate adoption of community purposes and public-spirited action to bring them about; the active ability to resolve social problems; and the enjoyment of the feeling that one has the potential, and more importantly, the actual ability to change substantive things which concern his life. It is essential for a democratic society that citizens will be interested in, informed about, and active in politics. If democracy is the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, then the people, by definition, must show interest and be active. 

These are the basic tenets of liberal democracy. Now, let us reflect on the question of whether these tenets are reconcilable with Orthodox Judaism. 

Judaism v. Liberalism

Throughout the years, I have always been surprised talking to many leaders in Israeli society who do not think the present situation is problematic, and who think it is possible to reconcile the contradictions between the liberal and religious worldview in Israel. Politicians (David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu, to name a few), Supreme Court justices (Meir Shamgar, Aharon Barak and Elyakim Rubinstein), and public intellectuals (Ruth Gavison, Asa Kasher, Fania Oz-Salzberger) think this is possible.¹³ 

I disagree. I think that the contradictions between the two are fundamental and irreconcilable. Both liberalism and Judaism offer comprehensive weltanschauungs, aiming to affect society and politics. Thus, unlike Israeli historian Fania Oz-Salzberger who contends that liberalism and Judaism belong in different spheres and thus they “could work quite well together,”¹⁴ I think that unfortunately liberalism and Judaism are competing one against the other in the same sphere, so long as no separation between State and religion is maintained. Unlike Oz-Salzberger who thinks that the solution is “to fatten one cow” (democracy) and “slim down the other” (Judaism),¹⁵ I think the solution is to establish two separate spheres to ensure that liberalism and Judaism will not clash. 

Essentially, the private sphere of Israeli citizens should be significantly enlarged to enable individual development and autonomy as people see fit; this is within the confines of the underpinning principles of respect for others and not harming others. Especially in recent years, Israel has been prioritizing Judaism over liberal democracy. In the 2018 Democracy Index, 45% of the Jewish and Arab respondents said that the Jewish component is too dominant in Israel while 27.8% thought there is a good balance between the two components, and only 20.9% thought that the democratic component is too dominant.¹⁶ A poll conducted among Israeli Jews in 2022 asked, “Which component should be the dominant one, the Jewish or the democratic?” Forty-three percent responded that the Jewish component should be the dominant factor.¹⁷ Many believe that to survive as a Jewish state, the Jewish character of the State should be preserved and promoted even if that entails inequitable treatment of the other.¹⁸

In Israel, there are inherent contradictions between the religious and the liberal worldviews. The first source of contention relates to the notion of rationality. Religion is based on faith, and believers believe in a supernatural entity called God. God can make miracles that are not easily fathomable and explainable by rational faculties. Not everything in religion can be explained because humans are unable to understand the ways of God.

Liberalism perceives God as a subjective truth, existential only to the extent that one decides to make God existential for one’s life. God may exist in individual beliefs but this belief is a matter of personal choice. God is not necessarily part of the equation. Judaism believes in God in an existential way, as an objective truth. Thus, liberalism and Judaism offer very different comprehensive societal and legal dimensions.

The second source of contention relates to the notion of Individuality. In the centre of the analysis of the liberal stands the individual. All stems from the individual; all return to the individual. The individual stands at the center of the universe. In the theocratic worldview, God is the centre of the universe, the source of all authority and the mighty power which we all respect and fear. In the liberal worldview, God is a debated concept, a question of belief. God does not necessarily guide life. Belief is a matter of personal choice, not an absolute dictate. In liberalism, the question of whether God created man, or man created God, remains open.

In Orthodox Judaism, the collective is more important than the individual. Individuals must all be working in harmony, each completing his or her unique task that responds to the needs of the greater good of Judaism. The actualization of individual abilities can only come through working in harmony with the greater body of Israel. Jewish people can only actualise their full potential when they work together as a collective. Moreover, God gave us individuality as a challenging voice that must be suppressed, lest we risk undermining the community. The message of the Torah, according to the Orthodox interpretation, is that everyone is working in accordance with God’s mysterious plans, and we must not question them.

While liberalism aims to promote individual autonomy, Judaism aims to constrict individual autonomy. While liberalism appreciates pluralism and diversity and endorses human equality for all, Judaism is a national religion, in that most of its commandments and directives pertain to a particular people, the congregation of the Jewish State, and only a few are directed toward humanity per se.¹⁹

The third source of contention relates to the concepts of rights and liberties. Liberal groups and Orthodox groups clash. Liberals believe in live and let live, as long as you don’t harm others.²⁰ The religious belief is that people are not at liberty to conduct their lives. People are expected to abide by a given set of rules and dictates. Consequently, some religious people see the liberal concept of liberty as dangerous.

The fourth source of contention relates to the notion of equality. The idea that each individual matters, and that she matters equally, is at the heart of liberalism.²¹ By contrast, Jewish law, Halacha, does not perceive men and women as equal. Many of the halachot (dictates) stand in striking contradiction to present conceptions of basic human and civil rights. They do not have a place in a liberal democracy. Many of these halachot are not enforced in Israel as they seem ill-suited for present Israel. Still, the overall culture and the structure that Jewish law creates are discriminatory against women, and plenty of inegalitarian dictates are still adhered to.²²

Liberals and Orthodox Judaism disagree on the ideas of tolerance and compromise. Indeed, the concept of coercion is a major source of contention. Liberals distinguish between authority and coercion. Authority is one thing; coercion is another. Liberals believe in freedom and dread coercion. They may respect order and accept some restrictions on their freedoms to enable others’ freedom, but any form of coercion requires justification.²³ By contrast, religious people have no qualms about coercing others because they believe people are not free to start with. Moreover, some of them believe that if some people go astray, they may lead the entire community down the drain. We Jews sit in the same boat, and if some are leading reckless lives, they knock holes in the boat and we all sink to rock bottom. Thus, tolerance and compromise cannot be the answer. The only way to avoid this fate is to coerce the reckless to change their way of life and adopt the “correct” one. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to find a modus vivendi, some form of reconciliation between liberals and religious people.²⁴

The religious coercion brings about continued agony and a great deal of hardship, both alienating many parts of the population from the State and its institutions. As Judaism is governed by patriarchal norms, these guide state interference in people’s most personal matters. The most intimate private concerns become open to public regulation. Secular people are required to abide by a set of norms and halachic regulations that are not part of their worldview. The most significant private events in one’s life, birth, wedding, divorce and death, are within the responsibility of the Orthodox Rabbinate. These very personal issues should be handled in accordance with people’s own choices. The preservation of the Jewish character of the State should not entail coercion of the predominant secular circles of Israel. 

Liberals and Orthodox Judaism disagree on the issue of minority rights. Israel was established to protect the individual and collective rights of only the Jewish people. Arabs want full citizenship, to be distinguished from formal citizenship. Israeli Jews can be said to enjoy full citizenship: they enjoy equal respect as individuals, and they are entitled to equal treatment by law and in its administration. The situation is different with regard to the Israeli-Palestinians, the Bedouin and the Druze.²⁵ Although they are formally considered to enjoy liberties equally with the Jewish community, in practice they do not share and enjoy the same rights and liberties. Palestinians do not have national rights. These rights are reserved only to Jews. The raison d’être of the State is to be a magnet and a place of refuge for Jews from all over the world. As a democracy, Israel recognizes that all its citizens should enjoy basic human rights. This does not mean egalitarian implementation of rights. Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian minority involve coercion, limiting their access to power positions, and putting them in constant check as the Palestinians are often seen as a security threat, posing an alternative to the existent reality. The Palestinians are not part of the Zionist enterprise and do not share the Jewish vision and aspirations. Their national movement competed with Zionism, offering an alternative that would have ended the Zionist dream. Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians have aimed to answer the dual challenges of security and demography. Both are very much on the minds of Israeli decision-makers.²⁶

Consequently, Israel is willing to accommodate Palestinian interests to an extent; concessions are measured; discrimination against Israeli-Arabs/Palestinians is prevalent in many spheres of life, including land allocation, housing, municipality budgets, employment, education, urban development and basic civil rights. There is an unhealthy discrepancy between official statements which are not backed by deeds. The Arab-Palestinians do not enjoy the same rights and liberties. The symbols of the Jewish state ignore its minorities.²⁷ 

Liberals and Orthodox Judaism disagree over the issue of the rule of law. Believers cherish first and foremost Halacha, Jewish Law, as they see it as Godly directives that are superior to any other competing values. Between the rule of law and the rule of the Torah, people are not in a position to freely balance and choose. They must follow the dictates of Jewish Law. Thus, in a case of conflict, believers have no hesitation as to how to act. Liberals, on the other hand, believe in the rule of law and would see any competing worldview that posits itself as superior to the law of the State as dangerous and subversive, and as undermining democracy, civil rights and freedoms. Religious parties have objected to a written constitution as they do not wish to have a man-made constitution that might conflict with Jewish law.

Liberal legislation tries to find the Golden Mean between individual rights and liberties, on the one hand, and State authority, on the other. The State is perceived as an enhanced and complex machiner to enable self-development and enriched autonomy. Restrictions stem from the concepts of respect for others, and not harming others. Religious worldview, however, is guided by utterly different considerations. Legislation must conform to the will of God. People are merely uncovering His will. Legislators are but interpreters of that will, intent to achieve the most faithful interpretation of Godly categorical imperatives that are obviously external to people. Consequently, the freedom that the legislators can take upon themselves is limited. They must constantly direct themselves toward clarifying the exact requirements of the divine commands.²⁸

Another source of contention relates to the notion of universal dignity. In liberalism, the principle of dignity is universal.²⁹ In Judaism, human dignity is not necessarily universal. The nature of dignity has been distorted, establishing a gender hierarchy in which the dignity of men receives more protection than that of women. The Talmud invokes the idea of kevod ha-tsibbur, “dignity of the congregation”³⁰ or zila milta, maintenance of propriety/modesty within the community, to prevent women from being called to read the Torah in the synagogue. It is considered a breach of propriety (zila be-hu milta) were women to assist the masses in fulfilling their obligation to read the Torah.³¹ Essentially, the exclusion of women is designed to promote the dignity of both men and women. With this exclusion, men can concentrate on reading religious texts while women can focus on doing other things, perceived by Jewish sages as more “meaningful” to women. That women’s dignity is violated by giving precedence to the dignity of the community is not a consideration. 

Israeli Democracy

I have established that Israel cannot be called a liberal democracy, arguing instead that it is a Jewish democracy. Critics, however, may challenge the characterisation of Israel as a democracy. Recently, critics have voiced four main accusations: First, Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza. An occupying force cannot be called a democracy. Second, Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid is not democratic. Third, the recent government has attempted to transform Israel from a democracy to authoritarian-theocracy. I term it the anti-democratic judicial revolution. And lastly, Israel cannot be called a democracy due to its conduct in the ongoing war against Hamas. Let me attend to these criticisms one for one. 

Occupation

Throughout the years, I have condemned the occupation time and again. Since the 1980s, like Old Cato, the Roman historian, I have said time and again: Occupation qua occupation is evil. Occupation qua occupation is morally repugnant. I reiterated that no one should live under occupation. The occupation denies the Palestinians basic human rights. Since 1967, Israel has controlled Palestinian life in all vital aspects: civic, economy and security. Israel behaves like a control-freak, motivated primarily by fear as well as feelings of superiority. I also argued that while the occupation is primarily bad for the Palestinians, it is also bad for Israel. The occupation erodes Israeli moral fiber, its humanity and civility, and it also undermines Israel’s position in the community of nations. Israel is paying a very high price for its conduct in the occupied territories, and the price will be dearer as the occupation continues. The occupation has to come to an end, the sooner the better.³² Israel should strive to strike a deal with the Palestinians so that the Palestinians enjoy freedom and Israel enjoys life that is free of violence and terror.³³

Two further assertions are pertinent: First, the occupation alone does not transform Israel from a democracy to a non-democratic country. While it detracts Israel’s democracy and affects it negatively, making it a flawed democracy, Israel is still a democracy. Notwithstanding the occupation, many of the characteristics of democracy still exist. There is a rule of law which guarantees that everyone enjoys equal protection in the democratic process. It is backed by coercive power and it depends on sanctions and especially on the general acknowledgement of its authority. All citizens enjoy civil rights. There is free speech, a free press, free association, and free movement. Citizens have the right to protest against government policies even by a direct appeal to the Supreme Court. Citizens have the right to scrutinize the character and the motives of governmental conduct. Civic participation is lively. Citizens are agents and not merely spectators. Non-government organisations are very active. There is popular sovereignty. There are periodic, universal and free elections. Citizens are free to organize different parties and enjoy the right to vote and the right to be elected. Each citizen has an equal vote to influence the outcomes of the legislative process. 

Second, different arguments need to be made about the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank, Israel is an occupying power. Palestinians live under Israeli security control and are denied basic freedoms. The situation is different in Gaza. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza; no single Israeli, civilian or soldier, remained. For security reasons, both Israel and Egypt closed their borders, making Gaza what the Palestinians term “the largest open prison in the world”. Both Israel and Egypt are very concerned about their security, given that since 2007 Gaza has been under the control of Hamas, a terrorist organization that never even tried to have a perception of abiding by international law. The Palestinians in Gaza were denied freedom of movement and were put under external restrictions that made their lives difficult. Still, their situation is different from their West Bank brethren. I will say more about the ongoing situation in Gaza infra.

Israel is an apartheid state

Israel has been accused of bearing similarities to the infamous South African apartheid regime. The Palestinians in the West Bank are not equal to the Israelis in the West Bank. Palestinians and Israelis are governed by different laws with the former under military rule even if the Palestinian Authority assumed responsibilities for the majority of Palestinians on civic matters. The Israelis in the West Bank are governed by Israeli rule. Their economic systems are very different—comparatively, Palestinians earn a fraction of what Israeli earn. There are separate road systems in the West Bank—one for Jewish residents and another for Palestinians. This brute reality is seen as echoing aspects of apartheid-era segregation.

Having said that, critics of Israel should clearly differentiate between the Israeli occupation of the West Bank—where Palestinians are undeniably treated unequally in comparison to Israelis living in the same region and are routinely subjected to restrictive occupation policies—and the situation within Israel itself. In my view, the argument that Israel’s treatment of its Arab-Palestinian citizens constitutes apartheid does not hold. The substantive rights for the Arab minority are ensured, including voting rights, the right to form political parties, freedom of expression, religious autonomy, and access to separate educational systems. These advancements are neither trivial nor self-evident, and they reflect meaningful legal and social processes.

While I acknowledge that Israeli-Palestinians do not always receive equal treatment or fully enjoy the same rights and liberties as Israeli-Jews, their experience does not resemble South African apartheid.³⁴ Discrimination, though problematic, is distinct from apartheid. Exaggerating the situation’s severity is unnecessary. Those who label Israel as an apartheid state often have limited understanding of the realities in Israel and South Africa under apartheid. Israel is a multicultural society, and while multiculturalism poses challenges, sometimes resulting in discrimination against minorities—including those based on age, gender, or sexual orientation—these issues are subject to rigorous judicial review by the Supreme Court. Although gaps remain and more government action is needed, discriminatory acts are not legitimized, and those who engage in discriminatory practices face legal consequences and court censure.

The anti-democratic judicial revolution

In November 2022, polls were held to elect the 25th Knesset. Benjamin Netanyahu was elected as prime minister, leading the most extreme, right-wing theocratic government in Israel’s history. Shortly thereafter, a legislative blitz began. In the first three months of the Knesset, 2,910 private law proposals were tabled together with 27 government law proposals. Five more legislative proposals were tabled by the Knesset committees. Some 141 of those law proposals were related to the governance of Israel,³⁵ and aimed to politicise procedures, were self-serving, theocratic, discriminatory and on the verge of science fiction due to their blunt hutzpah, lack of judgement, lack of research, and their anti-democratic character. I take note of some of the proposed laws in the legal revolution, arguing that if those law proposals were enacted they would undermine Israeli democracy significantly. Due to lack of space, I will not review all of those proposals. I highlight some of the most problematic law proposals.

Corrupt Laws

Prime Minister’s immunity.

The prime minister can be declared unfit to perform his/her role only due to physical or mental incapacity. Criminal charges or criminal convictions cannot be grounds to declare the prime minister unfit. Notably, Netanyahu is currently facing several severe criminal charges against him. 

Barring criminal investigations against the Prime Minister as long as he/she is serving in office.

Ministers and deputy ministers could be barred from office due to criminal charges against them only by the Knesset, instead of the Supreme Court as is the case now. 

Furthermore, the Supreme Court could not intervene in appointment of ministers. A senior minister and leader of the Shas Party, Arieh Deri, is a convicted felon who wishes to serve in the government.

Deputy Director Generals of ministries would cease to be professional appointments. Other law proposals were to enable people without appropriate qualifications to serve in governmental companies as directors and in other senior positions. Politicians will be able to appoint their loyal servants.

Public officials will be able to receive donations for legal defence and for emergency medical treatments. This proposal is tailored for Netanyahu. One of the charges against him relates to acceptance of gifts in return for favours.

Legal Advisors of ministries will be appointed by the ministers. They will become trusted officials of the ministers in charge and report to the minister instead of reporting to the Legal Advisor to the Government.

The Legal Advisor to the Government and the State Attorney will be appointed by the government without a need for tender, as is the case now.

The Department of police investigations will be taken from the Office of the State Attorney and will be under the Minister of Justice who will be able to appoint the Head of the Department. 

Laws designed to weaken the police and its independence

The Minister of Internal Police will be able to decide police policies including the investigations’ policy.

Key functions within the police will be transferred to the responsibility of The Minister of Internal Police.

Laws to provide immunity to security forces

Immunity will be given to all security people during security operations. 

The Department of Police Investigations would not be able to investigate officers involved in preventing terrorism and other threats to national security. 

The drafters of those short-sighted laws fail to understand that the enactment of the laws would open a flood of petitions to international courts to investigate misconduct.

Laws that undermine basic human rights

The police could use advance photographic technology to monitor civilian activity and invade privacy.

At the same time, the immunity laws for Members of the Knesset would be expanded to prevent searching their (and their assistants’) smart phones and computers.

Discriminatory laws

Shabac, Israel’s security agency, would receive authorization to monitor and act against serious criminal activity, “especially in the Arab society”.

Anti-Democratic laws

Only persons who are directly affected by certain policy could appeal to the Supreme Court. NGOs would not be able to do so.

Civil rights organisations would be barred from documenting human rights violations, e.g. documenting soldiers who harass Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

Barring demonstrations near private homes of public officials.

Three-year imprisonment to those who block roads, e.g. protestors against the government anti-democratic laws.

One-year imprisonment to three people or more who wave together enemy flags.

Three-year imprisonment and a fine of at least 5,000 NIS (U$ 1,370) for waving the Palestinian flag.

Supporters of banning Israel would not be eligible to State prizes.

Those convicted for violating the Israeli flag or symbols would not receive national welfare.

Judicial revolution

The number of Supreme Court justices will be raised from 15 to 18. Three new justices would be appointed by the government now, with immediate effect.

The composition of the Committee that appoints judges will be changed, giving the government the majority to decide all appointments. The Supreme Court justices who serve on the Committee would no longer have a veto power over appointments.

The Supreme Court would be able to overrule laws only in its sitting in full, with all justices present, with only unanimous vote.

The President of the Supreme Court would be appointed by the government and confirmed by the Knesset. The Seniority norm would no longer be in existence. The President does not have to be a justice of the Supreme Court.

Chair of the Elections Central Committee would not be a Justice of the Supreme Court, as is now, but would be recommended by the Speaker of the Knesset.

If the government were successful in passing the above laws, Israel would cease to be a democracy. However, until now the government was unable to pass the majority of those laws. Israeli democracy showed its strength in opposing the suggested laws. Every week, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the main squares protesting against the attempt to overhaul democracy. The government was forced to rethink its strategy. The situation was further compounded on October 7, 2023 that sunk Israeli society into a deep trauma.

The 2023-2024 Hamas-Israel War

On October 7, 2023, the Hamas terrorist organisation raided more than twenty Israeli villages, towns and small communities neighbouring the Gaza Strip. On that fateful day, the terrorists shot and burned 1,200 people of all ages, among them some 260 young men and women who were dancing in a music and peace Nova festival.³⁶ In addition, thousands of people were severely wounded and some 250 Israelis and foreign nationals—including babies and children —were kidnapped to Gaza.³⁷ Israelis were deeply shaken by the gruesome attack. The government responded by declaring war on Hamas, aiming to eradicate its terrorist capabilities so it wouldn’t be able to repeat such cross-border attacks. At the time of writing, the war is still ongoing. 

Some Israeli leaders declared that they wish to exact revenge and retaliate strongly against Hamas brutality. Revenge should not guide decision-makers in peace or war times. Revenge is a terrible guide for conduct. The conduct of the Israeli army will traumatize the Palestinians in Gaza for generations to come. Here are some figures that show the scale of death and devastation until October 7, 2024:³⁸ 

Over 44,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and more than 100,000 were wounded. At least 720 Israeli soldiers were killed and 4,576 were wounded. Around 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced (90 per cent of the population of Gaza). More than 58,000 Israelis were displaced. Over 120,000 structures in Gaza were moderately damaged or destroyed (66 per cent of structures in the Strip). About 92 per cent of primary roads in Gaza were damaged or destroyed. 84 per cent of health facilities in Gaza were damaged or destroyed. More than 67 per cent of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza were damaged or destroyed.

While Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused widespread destruction, this does not mean that Israel ceased to be a democracy. The United States and the United Kingdom were involved in many conflicts and inflicted untold pain and damage on many societies; still they are regarded as beacons of democratic order, a model for the world to follow. One may argue that the war in Gaza is unjust but one cannot argue that the war, in itself, transformed Israel to an undemocratic entity.

Conclusion

Judaism, like any other religion, can live with liberalism if it provides opportunities for personal growth and is instructive rather than absolute. While providing specific, distinctive and instructive dictates that separate one religion from others, and provide adherents a sense of a community, religion should not be discriminatory against those who do not adhere to a specific religion. Religion should allow basic freedoms and the ability to opt-out at will. Religion is a matter of choice and tradition. People are born into a particular way of life and most of us will find our place within that framework. But some of us won’t; these people should enjoy the freedom to decide their own path of life. Religions that are flexible enough to accept pluralism and diversity, that are tolerant and humane in acknowledging the human spark, and human viability in each and every one of us, can coexist with liberal democracy. Coercive religions will come at the expense of liberal democracy. I, for one, as a liberal Reform Jew, believe that religion and liberal ideology can coexist provided that religion is excluded from the political sphere. The model that separates state and religion is not only desired. It is essential.

Data shows that the lack of separation between State and religion puts non-Orthodox Jews as well as the Israeli-Palestinians in a precarious position, undermines their equal rights and liberties, and paves the road for discrimination against them.³⁹ This situation makes Israel an illiberal society. It is a society under stress with many challenges to face, both internally and externally. Still, Israeli society and democracy are resilient and were able to withstand those challenges. In the long run, the key to Israel’s long-term survival is to integrate fully into the Middle East, and the key to Israel’s integration into the Middle East is to peacefully resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Footnotes used exceptionally

1.  Lazar Berman, “On Berlin visit, Netanyahu denies he’s working to curtail independence of judiciary”, Times of Israel (16 March 2023), https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-berlin-netanyahu-tells-scholz-israel-is-and-will-remain-a-liberal-democracy/
2.  Michael Freeden, The New Liberalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978): 171.
3.  Ronald Dworkin, “Liberalism,” in A Matter of Principle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985): 181-204.
4.  Bertrand De-Jouvenel, Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957): 248. For further discussion, see John Zvesper, “Liberalism”, in David Miller (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987): 285-289. 
5.  J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government (London: J. M. Dent, 1948).
6.  R. Cohen-Almagor, The Scope of Tolerance: Studies on the Costs of Free Expression and Freedom of the Press (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
7.  Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans: Lewis White Beck, with critical essays (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishers, 1969); George Kateb, Human Dignity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011); Michael Rosen, Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012); Marcus Duwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword and Dietmar Mieth (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity: Inter-disciplinary Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Stephen Riley, “Human Dignity as a Sui Generis Principle”, Ratio Juris, 32(4) (2019): 439-454.
8.  Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishers, 1969) or http://www.redfuzzyjesus.com/files/kant-groundwork-for-the-metaphysics-of-morals.pdf
9. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/c/1868/files/2012/12/Kant-Groundwork-ng0pby.pdf
10.  Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. For further discussion, see Ino Augsberg, “’The Moral Feeling Within Me’: On Kant’s Concept of Human Freedom and Dignity as Auto-Heteronomy,” in Dieter Grimm, Alexandra Kemmerer and Christoph Möllers (eds.), Human Dignity in Context (Munich: Hart, 2018): 55-68.
11.  Benjamin R. Barber, “Democracy”, in David Miller (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987): 114-119.
12.  L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), 228. Hobhouse maintained that there is no thought except in the mind of an individual thinker, and there is no such thing as a unitary social mind or will: only individuals, not society, have a distinct personality. 
13.  Discussions and communications with Meir Shamgar, Aharon Barak, Elyakim Rubinstein, Ruth Gavison, Asa Kasher and Fania Oz-Salzberger; State of Israel as Jewish Democracy (Jerusalem: International Association for Judaic Studies, Reut Institute, 1999, Hebrew); Fania Oz-Salzberger, “Democratic first, Jewish second: a rationale,” Justice, 49 (Fall 2011): 16; Asa Kasher, “’A Jewish and Democratic State’: Present Navigation in the Map of Interpretations,” in R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads (London: Routledge, 2005): 165-182.
14.  Fania Oz-Salzberger, “Democratic first, Jewish second: a rationale”: 16.
15.  Ibid.: 37.
16.  Tamar Hermann et al., The Israeli Democracy Index 2018 (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2018): 179, 222. The rest did not know or refused to answer.
17.  Tamar Hermann, “Jewish and/or Democratic in Numbers”, in Aharon Barak et al. (eds.), 75 Faces to the Jewish State (Tel Aviv: Yedioth, forthcoming) (Hebrew).
18.  Yehezkel Dror, Israeli Statecraft: National Security Challenges and Responses (London and New York: Routledge, 2011): 20.
19.  Aviezer Ravitzky, “Is A Halachic State Possible? The Paradox of Jewish Theocracy,” in R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads: 137-164.
20.  J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government (London: J. M. Dent, 1948); Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
21.  John Locke, Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).
22.  Raphael Cohen-Almagor, “Discrimination against Jewish Women in Halacha (Jewish Law) and in Israel”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 45(2) (2018): 290–310.
23.  R. Cohen-Almagor, “On Compromise and Coercion,” Ratio Juris, 19(4) (December 2006): 434-455.
24.  For further discussion, see R. Cohen-Almagor, “Avoiding the Destruction of the Third Temple: Separating State and Religion”, in Yossi Goldstein (ed.), Religion Nationalism: The Struggle for Modern Jewish Identity, An Interdisciplinary Annual (Ariel: Ariel University, 2014): 170-189.
25.  Kais M. Firro, “Reshaping Druze Particularism in Israel,” J. of Palestine Studies, 30(3) (Spring 2001): 40-53 and Firro’s The Druzes in the Jewish State: A Brief History (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
26.  Charles D. Freilich, Israel National Security (NY: Oxford University Press, 2018).
27.  R. Cohen-Almagor, Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism: Liberalism, Culture and Coercion (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021): Chap. 10.
28.  Yuval Cherlow, “’Jewish’ and ‘Democratic’ – Can They Coexist?,” Justice,  49 (Fall 2011): 8-9.
29.  Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans: Lewis White Beck, with critical essays (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishers, 1969); George Kateb, Human Dignity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011); Michael Rosen, Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012); Marcus Duwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword and Dietmar Mieth (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity: Inter-disciplinary Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Stephen Riley, “Human Dignity as a Sui Generis Principle”, Ratio Juris, 32(4) (2019): 439-454.
30.  Masechet Megillah 23a.
31.  Rabbi Aryeh A. Frimer, “Women’s Megilla Reading,” http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/tfila/frimer2.htm
32.  R. Cohen-Almagor, “Fifty Years of Israeli Occupation”, E-International Relations (October 14, 2017), http://www.e-ir.info/2017/10/14/fifty-years-of-israeli-occupation/
33.  R. Cohen-Almagor, “Parameters for Two State Solution”, Palestine-Israel Journal, 21(2) (2015): 112-119, and “Creating a New Road Map for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, E-International Relations (December 26, 2014), http://www.e-ir.info/2014/12/26/creating-a-new-road-map-for-resolving-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/
34.  Raphael Cohen-Almagor, “Israeli Democracy and the Rights of Its Palestinian Citizens”, Ragion Pratica, 45 (December 2015): 351-368.; Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021): chap 10, and Raphael Cohen-Almagor and Mohammed S. Wattad, “The Legal Status of Israeli-Arabs/Palestinians”, GNLU Law & Society Review, 1 (March 2019): 1-28; Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
35.  Yuval Elbashan, “This is how revolution looks like: 141 law proposals to change governance”, Ynet (March 25, 2023) (Hebrew).
36.  Roger Cohen, “Slaughter at a Festival of Peace and Love Leaves Israel Transformed”, New York Times (October 15, 2023). 
37.  Cassandra Vinograd and Isabel Kershner, “Hamas Took More Than 200 Hostages. Here’s What We Know About Them”, New York Times (October 19, 2023).
38.  “The Israel-Hamas war’s devastating toll, by the numbers”, AP News (October 7, 2024),https://a pnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-anniversary-statistics-e61765035c725b3c8d4840e2bab565cd; Lilach Shoval, “One year into the war – full figures: More than 15,000 terrorists eliminated, 728 IDF dead since October 7”, Israel Hayom (October 7, 2024) (Hebrew), https://www.bing.com/search?q=google+translate&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&ghc=1&lq=0&pq=google+translat&sc=10-15&sk=&cvid=E22305AD913F45C2886D7247178D125F&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=  
39.  Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Kais Nasser, Severe Housing Distress and Destruction of Arab Homes: Obstacles and Recommendations for Change (Dirasat, February 2012); Talya Steiner, Combating Discrimination against Arabs in the Israeli Workforce (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2013, Hebrew); Yousef Jabareen, “Two Kinds of Equality: Toward Critical Transformative Theory in Israeli Adjudication,” Public Space,  7 (2013): 37-65 (Hebrew); Alice Wood, “Israel’s Arab Citizens,” Fathom, Issue 1 (Winter 2012/2013); R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads; Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Frances Raday, “Self-Determination and Minority Rights,” Fordham International Law J.,  26(3) (2002): 453-499; Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, “Women, Religion and Multiculturalism in Israel,” UCLA J of International Law & Foreign Affairs, 5(2) (2000-2001): 339-366; David Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987); Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National Minority (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); R. Cohen-Almagor, “Coercion by the Orthodox Minority in Israel”, in Francois Boucher and Jean-François Caron (eds.), Multicultural Citizenship: Legacies and Critiques (London: Routledge, 2024), chap. 5.

In September, the United Nations hosted the Summit of the Future which brought together G20 foreign ministers to seek ways of improving global governance mechanisms. During these meetings, a growing number of quarters joined forces to attempt to steer the international community toward a more rational and peaceful path. The way forward, however, is not easy.

A quarter of the world’s population currently lives in conflict-affected areas and global peacefulness has reached its lowest level since World War II. A new arms race is under way. Despite the treaty prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the consensus of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council that a nuclear war cannot be won, “the idea that nukes won’t be used in a conventional conflict is no longer a safe assumption”, a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations has said. 

French academic Raymond Aron, in his seminal work Peace and War, beckons us neither to ignore our common history of belligerence nor to betray the ideal of peace. Is it possible to redefine pacifism for the twenty-first century? The following thoughts are an attempt to pursue a conversation on this vital matter.

Understandings of War (and Peace)

In his 2001 essay Reflections on War, Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco argues that the modern world has started to view war in ways similar to how crimes of passion are perceived: “people may still do these things, but they are increasingly viewed as evil and outdated”. Eco considers war as simply irrational. He points out that not only do the outcomes of recent wars often contradict the aims for which they were waged, but also that wars are “antiecological”. These ideas are worth revisiting in the context of contemporary debates. 

The twenty-first century has witnessed a number of wars carried out in violation of the UN Charter and in defiance of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Iraq, Ukraine, and Gaza are the most noteworthy examples. Yet, military budgets continue to rise and preparations for war consume vast human and material resources—as if war could still deliver valuable outcomes. Eco ends his essay with an admonition: war must become a taboo, akin to incest, for it is fundamentally at odds with the progress of civilization. He challenges us to assume the intellectual duty to announce the necessity for such a taboo. His final verdict: war is both a crime and a waste.

Since 2018, I have been a member of Leaders pour la Paix (LPP), a group founded by former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. This initiative brings together representatives from all regions and latitudes to coalesce around an agenda focused on promoting peace through dialogue, diplomacy, and multilateralism. Our latest annual report, entitled A March of Reason for Peace, draws on Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly. 

In her work, Tuchman posits the question: “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Clearly, this question remains as relevant today as it was when she posed it 45 years ago. Irrational attitudes seem to have found new currency in both domestic and international affairs. Using Tuchman’s framework to identify epochs when folly carried the day, we would have to acknowledge that today, many peace and security policies are perceived as counterproductive by contemporary observers and alternative courses of action are indeed available.

If these two truths were not the case, we would be heeding the warnings of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres regarding the existential threats posed by growing tensions between leading powers, the devastating impacts of climate change, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), to name but a few. We would be actively working to dissuade conflict between the world’s most heavily armed nations and promote nuclear disarmament. We would be cooperating to ensure that global warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. We would be negotiating international regulations and obligations with respect to emerging dual-use technologies like AI.

From the international community’s lack of action on the threats laid out by Guterres, it is evident that policies in these domains are seen as counterproductive by many international decision makers in terms of their ability to promote peace, sustainability, and responsible use of new technologies. It is also clear, however, that alternative courses of action to war, environmental degradation, and scientific irresponsibility are both needed and feasible. 

Suffice it to note that the paralysis of the Security Council on Ukraine and Gaza is widely denounced; conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change draw significant attention from both the public and the media; and the Secretary-General himself, along with support from spiritual leaders like Pope Francis, has been calling for the negotiation of international frameworks to control the misuse of AI. The call for change has been made, repeatedly.

Unilateralism: A Concerning Trend

It would be premature to conclude that folly has irrevocably replaced reason. There are encouraging signs from civil society, academia, the informed press, and enlightened political leadership that point toward more constructive policy directions. Still, a worrisome pattern of distrust is undermining prospects for international cooperation on the most pressing issues of our times. 

A debate on multipolarity and multilateralism at the 2024 edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi serves as an example of this tension. The meeting brought together a representative from the European Parliament, a U.S. academic, a foreign minister from a non-NATO Western country, and an Indian diplomat, as well as the author of this article. The discussions were telling. Some participants viewed multipolarity as intrinsically unstable. One participant believed the concept was really a ploy conceived by China to enhance its international standing. In contrast, others considered it the perfect antidote against hegemonic impulses.

Proving that one specific geopolitical distribution of power is inherently more or less conducive to stability and cooperation compared to another is a challenging task. Neither the bipolar period of the Cold War nor the unipolar moment of U.S. hegemony were free from conflict. It is perhaps easier to conclude that the real obstacles to cooperation and stability are not specific geopolitical distributions of power, but rather strong unilateralist attitudes and general disregard for international law. 

Unilateral military interventions have manifestly failed to achieve their intended objectives while undermining confidence in the international system that emerged after 1945. The most eloquent example is provided by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was conducted under the false pretext of eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The war indirectly contributed to the rise of terrorism in a country where it was notably absent and drew it into the Iranian orbit to the detriment of U.S. objectives in the region.

Global faith in international law is diminished in many ways; for instance, the targeting of civilians, which is often justified by unilateral interpretations of the right to self-defence, represents a serious challenge to predominant views on IHL. Israeli behavior in Gaza is an obvious example; Israel has justified killing over 40,000 Palestinians by claiming these deaths are necessary to ensure Israeli security. While terrorist attacks are well known for exposing civilians to increased violence around the world, governmental military action can also put civilians at risk, as seen in Ukraine, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Sudan, and Myanmar, inter alia.

The number of cases brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding illegal engagement with civilians has increased in recent years. Although the verdicts and arrest warrants issued by the ICC against Russian, Israeli, and Hamas leaders may not be automatically implementable, they constitute landmark instances of international condemnation likely to have long-term political and diplomatic repercussions. Meanwhile, as Guterres predicts in his New Agenda for Peace, we may be subject to “dangerous standoffs, possible miscalculations and spirals of escalation”. By convening a Summit of the Future in New York this past September, Guterres created an opportunity for this rising sense of alarm to express itself. 

The Possibility for Change

Could we be approaching a systemic tipping point? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines a tipping point as a critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly or irreversibly. Governments have come to recognise that current patterns of production and consumption have become unsustainable, as they contribute to rising temperatures that threaten the livelihoods of future generations on Earth. 

By analogy, we could be approaching an irreversible tipping point for the viability of multilateralism, as violations of the UN Charter become more frequent and the use of force is not being curtailed by a universal commitment to its letter and spirit. While activists are increasingly pressuring governments to decarbonise and accelerate energy transitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we have yet to observe a comparable movement to ensure future generations are bequeathed a functional inter-state system of rights and obligations under multilateral supervision to promote peace and security. Just as it would be irresponsible to allow temperatures to rise beyond dangerous tipping points, it would be equally unwise to allow for a breakdown in multilateral cooperation, as this could lead to a total systemic meltdown.

Eco’s prophetic vision of war as taboo is not likely to materialize any time soon, if ever. Nevertheless, the prospect of a world in which  the use of force is not subject to international legal constraints poses a serious threat to us all today. A new march of folly may become irreversible, as distrust among the most powerful grows, eroding international law and multilateralism. 

The awareness of our vulnerability, as a species, to an uncontrolled rise in temperatures must be matched by a corresponding effort to preserve the achievements of the past seven decades in the promotion of inter-governmental cooperation for the pacific settlement of disputes. This may require the emergence of a new movement advocating for a non-selective adherence to international law to ensure sustainability and peace. 

An Emerging Path

Is a new pacifism for the twenty-first century imaginable? Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Future of Pacifism”, published during World War II, may offer a partial reply. His is not the absolute pacifism of the Bible (although he does remind us that all religions urge humans not to kill). Nor does he align himself with Tolstoy or Gandhi and their total objection to the use of force.  He admits that there may be wars worth fighting; defeating Nazi fascism was a case in point. 

However, Russell also argues that a civilized and humane way of life can hardly survive where wars are frequent and severe. He therefore asserts that it remains of “immeasurable importance” to create a machinery that will diminish the likelihood of wars and guarantee that every nation is free from aggression. He thus advances the notion of “relative political pacifism”. As early as 1943, before the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, Russell advocated for the creation of a global authority responsible for upholding a body of international law to preserve and promote peace. According to Russell, wars would only be justified “when, and only when, they are fought in defence of the international law established by the international authority”. 

In theory, this vision should be considered fully operative today, on the basis of the ratification of the UN Charter by the Organization’s 193 member states. Ideally, we should have all become “relative political pacifists”. In practice, however, there is a new emerging consensus that the system is not working as intended. Military budgets are soaring, nuclear weapons are being upgraded, and new technologies are being weaponized, while disarmament efforts are not merely at a standstill—they have gone into reverse.

In the minds of some, pacifism is viewed as tantamount to appeasement, and understood as a preference for avoiding conflict with an aggressive power. This perception is mainly associated with the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which allowed for the annexation of the Czech Sudetenland by Germany under Hitler, contributing indirectly to further Nazi invasions and ultimately to the outbreak of World War II. Those momentous events provide important historic lessons that are not to be undervalued or forgotten. 

Clearly, Russell’s conception of pacifism is incompatible with appeasement in the face of Hiterlian proportions of aggression. Yet, the term has come to be misused to justify bellicose attitudes of questionable wisdom. In 1962, for instance, a prominent U.S. general accused John F. Kennedy of appeasement for not bombing Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, a decision which could have triggered nuclear war. Historical context matters in this regard. 

It is possible to contend that a contemporary form of appeasement would be the tacit acceptance that the militarily powerful have the prerogative to violate international law. In this sense, a modern-day pacifism represents a form of political resistance against unwarranted and irresponsible military aggression; it represents the opposite of resigned passivity.

A New Pacifism

A deep malaise persists among the international community, with no end in sight for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, insufficient efforts to combat climate change, and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals remaining far off track. These represent clear political failures. Aron reminds us that morality has developed through time and that it is through politics that the actions of states are to be judged and gradually transformed. As environmental concerns have helped to underscore, human civilization on Earth will not survive—let alone advance—in the face of reckless activity.

A pacifism for our times can and should integrate peace and environmental sustainability as central political objectives. It must also confront the two tipping points our generation is faced with: environmental collapse and systemic breakdown. Let us not forget that sustainability, as defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, rests on three pillars: environmental, economic, and social transformations. As the G20 meets in Rio de Janeiro this month, Brazil is calling for a renewed international commitment to the eradication of poverty and hunger, which underwrites what might be described as a humanist blueprint for our collective future.

Rising inequality undermines actions on poverty and climate and cannot be dissociated from instability at the national and international levels. Global wealth concentration is increasing at an unprecedented scale and pace. The estimated share of global wealth owned by the top one million individuals has risen from 4% in the early 1990s to 13% today, according to Gabriel Zucman’s report A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, commissioned by Brazil’s G20 presidency. According to the latest OXFAM position paper on this subject, income disparity      has increased in 37 countries and has fueled inequalities in gender, opportunity, and inheritance.      

The call for climate justice has exposed the inequitable burden borne by regions that scarcely contribute to global warming yet suffer the most from extreme climate events. To make matters worse, some of the countries most affected by climate injustice are also highly indebted, with limited access to foreign assistance and capital markets. Brazil is proposing a global minimum tax on the world’s approximately 3,000 billionaires. This initiative has garnered significant political support, including from the developed world. If implemented, it could generate tens of billions of U.S. dollars and foster a positive dynamic among interrelated social, environmental, and peace and security objectives.

At present, these various goals are working at cross purposes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military expenditure increased by 6.8% in 2023, the steepest year-on-year rise since 2009, reaching the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the financial commitments to help developing countries address climate change are falling short. Although reports from organisations such as the UNFCCC, IPCC, and Climate Analytics indicate the low likelihood of achieving the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, carbon emissions from military activity remain conspicuously absent from key documentation. 

Under IPCC guidelines, reporting on military emissions is voluntary and many governments opt not to disclose this data. A recent report by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) estimates that the military carbon footprint could account for 5.5% of global emissions. A less bellicose world would not only free up additional financial resources for combating climate change and reducing hunger and poverty, but also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from military activity. Additionally, the environmental degradation caused by avoidable wars is severe. In Gaza, not only has the massacre of civilians taken centre stage, but the environmental disaster has also reached devastating proportions, as if to illustrate Eco’s assertion that war is intrinsically antiecological.

A recent article by Professor Oona Hathaway, Director of the Yale Center for Global Legal Challenges, reminds us that International Humanitarian Law is intended to spare civilians from the worst calamities of conflict. She concludes that the law has failed in the Israel-Hamas war. Tragically, she asserts that the hard-won lessons of World War II may have been forgotten and that, if IHL is to survive today’s existential challenges, it must be regarded not as an optional constraint “to be adjusted or shrugged off as needed but as an unmoving pillar to the global legal order”. 

Philippe Sands, Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, wrote recently that the days of “international law for others” must end and that turning a blind eye to manifest violations by an ally should no longer be acceptable. These positions, taken by authoritative voices, are indicative of a growing mobilization for peace based on justice. Broader coalitions are echoing these concerns in similar fashion. At the Summit of the Future, the Global Governance Forum presented proposals for a new United Nations that rejects a perpetuation of the status quo of “deepening inequalities, accelerating climate change and the insatiable acquisition of more and deadlier weapons of war that increasingly put our future at risk”.

The Quincy Institute and its Better Order Project (BOP) report (to be launched before the end of the year) will likewise present recommendations on how to curtail the use of force, prevent nuclear war, and lower the risk of flashpoints escalating into confrontation among major military powers. The report reflects wide-ranging discussions, involving experts from the five UN Security Council permanent members as well as participants originating in all regional groups. The document is also being presented to the T20 (the G20 think tank gathering) in Brazil this month, to build support for a package of proposals adjusted for a non-unipolar world.

The working assumption, adopted by participants in the BOP from both the Global North and South, is that the shift away from unipolarity should not be perceived as leading to disarray and that a new era of relative peace and prosperity can be achieved under a multipolar geopolitical framework. In a similar vein, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) project on Shaping Cooperation in a Fragmented World suggests that restoring the credibility of the UN collective security architecture—an enterprise which will also require a combination of political courage and effective bilateral diplomacy—is crucial to avoiding a “collision course”.  

Leaders pour la Paix (LPP), in turn, has underlined the importance of subscribing to a single, universally applicable standard for upholding compliance with the UN Charter and IHL. Double standards breed cynicism, erode trust in a law-based world order, and undermine the authority of those who embrace it. LPP, with its focus on education for peace, suggests that we derive inspiration from the youth movements that rally to the climate summits to defend a sustainable path for our planet, highlighting that our future will also be jeopardized if systemic dysfunction is allowed to persist. 

In short, the motivation to craft an active pacifism for our times is inherent not only in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace but also in the initiatives of organisations such as LPP, SGR, the Global Governance Forum, the Better World Order Project at Quincy Institute, and the World Economic Forum. A pacifism for our times can be seen as synonymous with supporting civilizational progress or promoting a new humanism. In taking a stand against war and advocating for the preservation of a functional international system, environmental and social objectives will be more easily attainable, paving the way for a more cooperative order in a multipolar world.

At the 79th UN General Assembly this year, the Brazilian presidency of the G20 launched a pioneering initiative, marking the first time a meeting of the group was held at the UN headquarters. Convened on September 25, the meeting brought together not only G20 foreign ministers but also the broader UN membership to explore ways to improve multilateral governance. 

The meeting culminated in the adoption of a Call to Action on Global Governance Reform, addressing the need to modernize leading international institutions, such as the UN and World Trade Organization (WTO), while also committing to revising loan quotas at the IMF. Since his first address to the UN General Assembly in 2003, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has consistently defended the idea that nations committed to inclusive and democratic governance at the national level must also strive to preserve and improve international governance mechanisms. In this spirit, Brazil is proposing that serious consideration be given to convening a Review Conference of the UN Charter under article 109 thereof.

Not coincidentally, a day earlier, September 24, Brazil hosted an event at the UN entitled “In Defense of Democracy: Fighting Against Extremism”, co-led by Lula and Spanish Premier Pedro Sánchez, to foster dialogue on the challenges posed by extremism to democratic governance. By connecting the dots that interlink the most pressing objectives of the twenty-first century, the UN—and auxiliary mechanisms such as the G20—can come together to redefine pacifism as the galvanizing cause for the promotion of a global order that respects international law and is centred on human progress. A humanist foreign policy for a multipolar world should be the shared objective to ensure a future of sustainability and peace.