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✌🏾Quote of the week:
“We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone. What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?”
~ Rachel Corrie
🤔 This week’s topic: Redefining Power in a Borderless World
When a young climate activist in the Maldives speaks of her nation's impending disappearance beneath rising seas, her call for justice echoes far beyond her island home. It resonates with Indigenous land defenders in the Amazon, Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis, and refugee advocates on the Mediterranean's shores—all united by a common demand: that human dignity be prioritized over political interest. This is the new language of global justice, a politics of ethics that transcends borders and challenges the entrenched interests of power.
In last week’s newsletter, I began tracing the contours of our new political landscape—one where ethics, not just interests, increasingly drive the body politic. Movements rooted in a shared sense of justice and human dignity are challenging the old guard, dismantling the structures of power that have long defined international relations. This week, I want to continue that exploration, diving deeper into the forces that are shaping this emerging politics of ethics and asking: are we on the brink of a new era?
At its core, a “politics of ethics” rejects the traditional pursuit of power for its own sake, instead prioritizing principles like human dignity, justice, and equality in shaping global action. It is a call to center the moral imperatives that unite us as a global community above the narrow interests that have long divided us. Unlike conventional politics, which often prioritize state sovereignty, economic gain, or strategic advantage, this approach emphasizes shared humanity and collective responsibility.
We live in a world where borders, once the defining lines of our political and social imagination, are dissolving. The rapid advance of globalization and technology has woven us together in ways that were once unimaginable. Climate change, pandemics, systemic inequality, and mass migration—all transcend national boundaries, demanding a collective response that moves beyond the narrow confines of state sovereignty. As a result, the traditional “politics of interests,” where power is pursued and protected at all costs, is increasingly giving way to a new, ethics-first framework—one that recognizes human rights as fundamental, universal, and inalienable, regardless of geography or nationality.
This politics of ethics is uniquely suited to addressing today’s global challenges, where interdependence and shared threats make cooperation not just desirable but necessary. By centering ethics, it offers a path away from the zero-sum calculations of power politics and toward solutions grounded in solidarity and mutual respect. It signals the emergence of a new era. The old world order, constructed around the sovereignty of nation-states, is being reshaped by movements that refuse to recognize borders—movements that leverage digital platforms, transnational networks, and grassroots activism to challenge and change the status quo. These movements insist that human rights are not the domain of states to grant or withhold but are inherent to every individual, simply by virtue of being human.
Yet, this paradigm shift is not without contradictions and challenges. How do we reconcile the universality of human rights with the cultural and political particularities that shape their interpretation and application? How do we navigate the tension between state sovereignty and global accountability? And, how can we ensure that a politics rooted in ethics does not simply become a new form of power politics, co-opted by those who would use it to serve their own ends?
These questions lie at the heart of the evolving human rights movement—a movement that is rapidly becoming the moral compass for a new generation. In what follows, I will expand on these themes, exploring how globalization and technology are breaking down the barriers that have traditionally defined human rights discourse, and considering how this shift challenges the supremacy of national interests and opens up the possibility for a different kind of world—one where human dignity becomes the primary measure of justice and legitimacy.
Ultimately, the challenge we face is not just to assert that human rights are universal but to redefine what this universality means in an interconnected, interdependent world.
The Evolution of the Human Rights Movement
To understand the emergence of this new kind of politics, we must first recognize how radically the human rights movement has evolved. Historically, the idea of rights was inextricably tied to the state. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, established the concept of state sovereignty as the foundation of the international order. From that point onward, rights were primarily framed in terms of the relationship between a government and its citizens—a social contract in which the state granted certain freedoms and protections in exchange for loyalty and obedience.
Even after states signed declarations and treaties that enshrined human rights in law, these rights were often contingent upon geopolitical interests and the exercise of state power. The Cold War illustrated this clearly: human rights became a tool of ideological warfare between the Western and Eastern blocs. Human rights abuses were condemned selectively, depending on whether the violator was a friend or foe. For the past 75 years, we have seen this hypocrisy play out in bas-relief in the case of Palestine, where the articulation of rights has repeatedly clashed with the strategic interests of powerful states, leaving Palestinian demands for justice sidelined and undermined. Here, the limitations of state-centered rights regimes are exposed, as their enforcement has too often been determined not by principles, but by political calculations.
Today, however, we are witnessing a shift from this state-centric notion of rights to a more individual-centered approach, driven in large part by resistance movements like those of the Palestinians, who have argued for rights that are inherent and indivisible, rather than conferred by states. This shift has been catalyzed by a growing recognition that human rights are not privileges to be granted or revoked by states but are intrinsic to every person, transcending national borders and political affiliations. Palestinian activism, which has continuously appealed to the global community on the basis of universal human rights, underscores this shift, challenging the selective application of rights and advocating for an ethics of justice that applies equally to all.
This individual-centered perspective has been reinforced by international institutions and legal frameworks, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European Court of Human Rights, which assert jurisdiction over crimes against humanity regardless of where they occur. These bodies embody the emerging paradigm that rights are universal and cannot be subordinated to the interests of any single nation-state. Increasingly, the global human rights movement demands that states be held accountable to a higher standard—a standard that recognizes human rights as fundamental and inalienable, beyond the reach of any government to grant, withhold, or violate.
The Breakdown of Borders
This shift towards an individual-centered approach has been accelerated by the forces of globalization and technology. In our increasingly interconnected world, national borders have become more permeable. Information flows freely across continents, creating unprecedented opportunities for advocacy and solidarity. Digital platforms have democratized the human rights space, enabling movements to organize, amplify their voices, and build coalitions that span the globe. However, this digital era also brings new challenges, such as state censorship and surveillance, which attempt to suppress dissent and control narratives. Yet, even as governments attempt to restrict access and monitor communication, the sheer speed and reach of digital tools have often outpaced their efforts so far.
Consider the Arab Spring, where social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook played a pivotal role in mobilizing protesters, documenting abuses, and communicating with the international community. Or think about the #MeToo movement, which began in the United States but quickly spread worldwide, exposing patterns of gender-based violence that exist across cultures and societies. These movements bypassed traditional state mechanisms and state-controlled media, creating global conversations that forced governments and institutions to respond, despite efforts to censor or control the flow of information.
A more recent example is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has gained traction globally, urging individuals, companies, and institutions to withdraw investments from Israel in protest against its policies toward Palestinians. Just this year, major pension funds in Norway and the United States divested from companies operating in Israeli settlements, citing violations of international law. This divestment reflects growing pressure from grassroots campaigns and activists worldwide who leverage digital platforms to advocate for Palestinian rights. The BDS movement’s success illustrates how a decentralized, grassroots coalition can influence state and corporate behavior, challenging traditional notions of sovereignty and state control.
This new paradigm challenges the very foundations of state sovereignty. When human rights abuses can be broadcast to the world in real-time, governments are less able to shield themselves behind borders or easily manipulate narratives to maintain control. Despite censorship efforts, digital platforms enable grassroots movements to circumvent state-imposed information barriers, undermining the state’s traditional gatekeeping role and shifting power to transnational forms of governance, advocacy, and accountability.
These movements often take on a rhizomatic nature—spreading horizontally and coalescing where ideas overlap, forming networks that connect disparate issues like imperialism, environmental degradation, and systemic racism. By linking seemingly separate struggles, these movements create a more unified and potent challenge to the status quo, showing how interconnected our global challenges truly are.
As these technologies continue to evolve, they push the boundaries of what is possible in human rights advocacy, creating both new possibilities and new dilemmas. The global public is increasingly demanding transparency and accountability, challenging not just the borders of states but the very idea that rights can be confined within those borders. We are witnessing a new human rights paradigm, one that leverages globalization and technology to advance a politics of ethics that knows no boundaries.
Ethical Dilemmas: Contradictions and Challenges
Despite my optimism surrounding this new politics of ethics, there are important contradictions. One of the core challenges is balancing the universality of human rights with the need to respect cultural and political differences. While human rights are often described as universal, their interpretation and implementation can vary widely depending on local contexts. For example, the rights of women and LGBTQ+ individuals are contested differently across cultures, raising questions about how to promote universal standards without imposing a form of cultural imperialism.
Another significant challenge is the risk of co-optation. Throughout history, the language of human rights has been appropriated by powerful states to justify interventions or policies that align with their strategic interests rather than the actual promotion of global justice. For example, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was partly justified by the U.S. and its allies on human rights grounds, citing the need to end Saddam Hussein’s oppression of his people. Of course, this rationale masked underlying geopolitical objectives, such as securing oil resources and exerting influence in the Middle East. The hypocrisy of this justification becomes evident when considering the human cost: estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died as a result of the invasion and subsequent conflict, far outstripping the scale of the initial oppression it purported to end.
A Global Human Rights Coalition
When we think of a global human rights coalition, the United Nations often comes to mind—it’s a forum where states come together to discuss and implement human rights standards. Yet, the UN itself is deeply influenced by the geopolitical dynamics and power struggles of its member states. While it has played a significant role in establishing a legal framework for human rights, its capacity to enforce these rights has often been limited by political relationships between member states. The UN’s consensus-based decision-making system requires broad agreement among diverse and often conflicting national interests, making decisive action difficult when those interests clash. The question is, then, whether a truly effective coalition for human rights can emerge within or beyond the current structures.
Today, the outlines of this coalition are being redrawn by forces that extend well beyond traditional state actors. Young activists, indigenous leaders, and grassroots movements are increasingly at the forefront of this new coalition, advocating for a politics of ethics that moves beyond the constraints of state interests. From climate strikes led by young people around the world to movements for racial justice, gender equality, and economic fairness, these coalitions are reshaping human rights discourse, by insisting on a truly universal application of rights that respects both global standards and local realities.
Today’s activists are not waiting for states or international organizations to take the lead. Instead, they are building new forms of solidarity and cooperation that cross borders, challenging the limitations of existing institutions and proposing alternatives that are more inclusive and more responsive to the needs of all people. They are defining what it means to be part of a global human rights movement, one that is accountable to those it seeks to serve rather than beholden to the interests of the powerful.
Bridging the Politics of Ethics and the Human Rights Movement
As we look ahead, it is clear that the human rights movement is at a crossroads. On the one hand, traditional structures like the U.N. continue to provide a necessary platform for dialogue and coordination. On the other hand, there is a growing recognition that the future of human rights lies not solely in state-centric institutions, but in a more expansive, inclusive, and ethical politics that transcends national borders and geopolitical interests.
The politics of ethics represents a transformative vision for the future. It calls for a fundamental shift in how we conceive of power, justice, and solidarity—a shift that centers human dignity as the primary measure of legitimacy. In practice, this means supporting and amplifying the efforts of those who are already challenging the status quo: the activists demanding climate justice, the grassroots organizers advocating for economic equality, the students demanding divestment from Israel, and the global networks fighting for the rights of the most marginalized.
Ultimately, the question is how we will choose to define and defend human rights in the upcoming new era. How long will we cling to outdated models that serve narrow interests, and when will we fully embrace a politics of ethics that speaks to our shared humanity in an increasingly borderless world?
📚 This week’s reads:
You’ve probably heard that Dick Cheney is voting for Kamala Harris. So are Liz Cheney and George W. Bush—along with around 200 of their administration’s “alumni.” They tell us they want to “save democracy,” but how can we take that at face value, given that these neocons were the architects of the “war on terror,” which they used to justified dropping bombs on civilians and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, the Democrats have now openly aligned with the architects of the Iraq War and the surveillance state, believing, as articulated by Rep Jamie Raskin, that this shift to the right is necessary to combat a greater authoritarian threat. Figures like Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, and George W. Bush have now endorsed Kamala Harris and rallied around the Democratic Party, not because they’ve suddenly had a change of heart, but because the party’s move to the center-right aligns with their own imperialist worldview.
These neocons are really just opportunists who see an opening to preserve their vision of American hegemony under the guise of fighting authoritarianism. Their support for Harris is not about protecting civil liberties or expanding justice; it’s about ensuring that their militaristic policies—endless wars, aggressive foreign interventions, and a surveillance state at home—remain intact. When the supposed "resistance" to authoritarianism involves embracing the very people who have justified torture, targeted assassinations, and mass surveillance, we really have to question what kind of democracy they are trying to save. The Democrats have told us this was their plan. We should be listening.
What makes Cheney’s endorsement, and the Democratic Party’s embrace of it, particularly galling is the way in which they gloss over these past sins in order to paint him as a guardian of American values. While Trump’s rhetoric and policies may have caused harm within the US, Cheney’s decisions inflicted untold suffering on far more people all across the globe. The selective moral outrage they direct at Trump while embracing Cheney as a saviour of democracy, is a testament to the hypocrisy of the liberal political establishment in the country.
Ayşenur Was My Friend. Nothing Can Justify Her Murder by an Israeli Soldier
Unfortunately, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s murder by an Israeli soldier was not an isolated act, but part of an ongoing, deliberate strategy to suppress exposure of Israel’s occupation tactics. I experienced this firsthand about ten years ago while interviewing the leader of a Palestinian non-violent weekly protest near Nablus. The protest leader, who was later held hostage by Israel under its "administrative detention" law, had drawn international attention to these non-violent demonstrations. The IOF knew we were Americans documenting the protest, and so they targeted the house where we were conducting our interview—firing numerous tear gas canisters at the roof, flooding the home with a chemical weapon called skunk water, and shooting out the back window of our car, which had Israeli plates, with a rubber bullet as a warning.
Ayşenur’s murder was not a random act of aggression but a calculated effort to intimidate and suppress any attempts to expose their actions to the world. The logic of a normal human being would say that only psychopaths value destroying a home over taking a life, but that is precisely the logic that Israel operates under. The murder of American activist Rachel Corrie in 2003 was a similarly brutal warning—crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she protested the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes. These incidents reflect a consistent pattern: the IOF uses military-grade weapons and live rounds on unarmed protesters, and their actions are carried out with the tacit approval of the U.S. government.
These tragedies will continue until we dismantle the power structures that enable them. As long as entities like AIPAC control U.S. policy, Israel will act with impunity. If we want to prevent future atrocities, we must get these lobbying organization out of U.S. politics.
A Harris-Walz administration would be a nightmare for free speech
What kind of democracy will we have without free speech? We should all be asking ourselves this question. The recent moves by the Harris-Walz administration to expand surveillance and curb free expression under the guise of “public safety” reveal a dangerous trend. As this article from The Hill points out, the administration’s support for measures like censorship laws and expanded surveillance is framed as necessary to protect democracy. But what kind of democracy is left when the state decides which voices are heard and which are silenced?
The idea that limiting speech can somehow preserve democracy is not only a contradiction but a sure path to authoritarian control. We need to resist the normalization of these policies and question the motivations behind them. Are they truly about safety, or are they about consolidating control over public discourse? Our answer will shape the kind of society we live in—and whether we continue to have any freedom to speak out against abuses of power.
As vice president, Harris has long supported these anti-free speech policies. The addition of Walz completes a perfect nightmare for free speech advocates. Walz has shown not only a shocking disregard for free speech values but an equally shocking lack of understanding of the First Amendment.
Walz went on MSNBC to support censoring disinformation and declared, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”
Ironically, this false claim, repeated by many Democrats, constitutes one of the most dangerous forms of disinformation. It is being used to convince a free people to give up some of their freedom with a “nothing to see here” pitch.
🔔 Other links to explore:
The biggest lie told during the debate was that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” When Nuremberg 2.0 happens years from now, I sure hope those telling this genocidal lie will be held accountable.
The repression of discussion about the political ideology of Zionism is a serious widening of government censoring of private spaces, and that’s not all they have in store this school year: U.S. universities spent the summer strategizing to suppress student activism. Here is their plan.
This is just the beginning of what is to come in the West Bank: Dispatch from Jenin: Resistance Swells After Israel’s Brutal Invasion and ‘Days filled with terror’: Palestinians in Jenin recount harrowing 10-day Israeli army invasion
No word on any accountability for Israel’s murder of the Turkish American activist in Nablus, but criminal charges filed against Hamas in New York. More than likely this is a strategy to use terrorism laws to repress pro-Palestinian activism. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the US, EU and only 6 other countries.
As I suggested in Taking Radical Responsibility for Peace, Palestinians are also victims of the Holocaust. Here is a wonderful article detailing the history: Palestinians: The Final Victims of the Holocaust
BDS works! French Insurance Firm Succumbs to Years-Long Pressure to Divest From Israeli Banks
The shocking level of gaslighting coming from the Biden administration is causing Americans to misunderstand that An arms embargo on Israel is not a radical idea — it’s the law
Here’s a fascinating explanation of why Iran has not struck yet: Iran's Retaliation Against Israel is Multi-Faceted w/ Ehsan Safarnejad
On the streets the movement continues to grow: Labor Raises Collective Voice Against Genocide in National Network for Ceasefire
Thanks for reading! See you next week!