I recently returned from a trip to Geneva, the human rights headquarters of the world, you might say. Only what struck me from the people I met, the stories I heard and the places I visited was not the undeniable force of activism and political will that characterises the city, but the sad sense that for the people it represents, the human rights movement is losing its grip.
World Humanitarian Day: Changing the world one conversation at a time
Is there one word that sums up what the world needs more of? That’s the question posed by the UN for this year’s World Humanitarian Day, when it pledges to “turn those words into currency”. Change, peace, hope and teamwork (the latter as favoured by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon) spring instinctively to mind. Along with justice and equality, they are among the trending suggestions in the run up to 19 August. But just how realistic is it to think that words have the power to accelerate global change to the extent that is needed?
Welcome to Britain: The Ugandan Asian Diaspora
On 5 August 1972 – informed by the census that had been carried out the previous year – Idi Amin announced that he had a dream in which it was revealed to him that some 60,000 Asians who were not classed as Ugandans (defined as such by a convoluted arbitrary lineage) must leave Uganda, declaring, “Asians came to Uganda to build the railway, the railway is finished, they must leave now”.