Men are power, children mean power. Taiye Selasi, celebrated author of Ghana Must Go, opens up glimpses into inescapable gender hierarchies. Through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl The Sex Lives of African Girls tells the story of a fateful day in a village in Accra, on which male dominance unfolds in all its harshness, the more so as it is supported by women. The girl Edem has no mother, her auntie Khadijeh can’t have children of her own, both don’t stand a chance: “In the peculiar hierarchy of African households the only rung lower than a motherless child is a childless mother.” An excerpt from this story accompanying the Violence edition of the Dictionary of Now. To article...

Antony T. Anghie writes about an enduring idea that shapes international law. To article...

Is democracy dead? For the launch of the program series Staat 1-4 (2016-2018) from Rimini Protokoll on the decline in state influence in the political sphere and the gaps in the system, the philosopher Boris Buden illuminates the historical “truth” of modern democracy. To article...