Alexey Navalny: A hero of the new time

Russian leaders first tried to poison him, then unlawfully imprisoned him, and now are publicly torturing him. His enemies see him as an illegitimate pretender to the Russian throne. His fans are captivated by his ability to survive assassinations and withstand torture. I was among those who nominated Alexey Navalny for the Nobel Peace Prize. Though he has not received it, this failure exposes meaningful though underappreciated truths about Russia and about the world. My story will leap back and forward between Navalny’s individual actions, the peculiarities of Putinism, and global issues of neoliberal governance.

Borderline: Frontiers of Peace

From Portugal to Bulgaria, from Finland to Greece, photographer Valerio Vincenzo zigzagged along the length of nearly 20,000 kilometers of borders between the countries that are part of the European Union and/or the Schengen Area. Considering Europe’s history over the 19th and 20th centuries, full of scars, walls and trenches, these images document a silent revolution. Barely sixty years ago, the Schengen Area was merely a utopian notion. This photographic work shows a utopia that has become reality. Europe received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 for such an achievement. The Nobel Committee stated, ‘The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.’ Today, the final words of this statement are being called into question, as indeed are the construction of Europe and the Schengen Area, too. Is Europe caught in a dilemma between its values and the pragmatic difficulty of enforcing them? Will the images included in this project end up relegated to history books, witnesses to a bygone age? Borderline, Frontiers of Peace was awarded the 2013 Louise Weiss Prize for European Journalism, the first time that such an award has been granted to a photo project. The project has been exhibited numerous times, notably at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2015, St. Petersburg (Russia) in 2016, Brest and Orléans (France), Zagreb and Vukovar (Croatia) in 2017, Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina) and the fortress of Salses (France) in 2018, Amiens (France), Berlin and Bamberg (Germany) in 2019, Tallinn (Estonia) and Lübeck (Germany) in 2020, and Strasbourg (France) and Cuneo (Italy) in 2021. Valerio Vincenzo is currently extending his project to the now peaceful borders of the Balkans.

Avoiding the humanitarian trap: The ‘Nobelization’ of food aid

Despite the significant role that hunger relief has played in global emergency response efforts throughout much of the last century—notably showcased with the 2015 naming of ‘Zero Hunger’ as the second Sustainable Development Goal, and more recently when the World Food Program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize—significant hunger and malnutrition remain. Concerningly, past crises have demonstrated the potential for hunger relief efforts, particularly the provisioning of food aid, to undermine the ability of Global South countries and communities to recovery fully from shocks. This commentary takes a critical look at the role of food aid during extended crises and presents several thoughts for how aid agencies and Global North governments can continue to work toward Zero Hunger while simultaneously supporting Global South economies and cultures.

The World Food Programme

The World Food Programme (WFP) has emerged as the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security. The chapter explores how the need for emergency assistance has increased to meet growing humanitarian needs, and particularly its relationship to conflicts. We explore the evolution of WFP’s objectives from internationalizing US food aid, as a pilot program in FAO, into a full-fledged, multilateral organization, delivering emergency assistance while addressing the disincentive effects of food aid on domestic food production, with substantial evolution from aid in-kind to cash transfers, and from emergency aid to building capacity of developing countries to address their own emergencies. WFP has filled a void that would have existed had it not responded rapidly and innovatively to meet the growing needs of emergency assistance, now serving the largest displaced and refugee population in the world. The chapter also demonstrates the differences between development aid and emergency assistance. For its achievements, WFP was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Prize has also highlighted the need to address the underlying issues of peace and security, without which, the need for emergency aid will continue to grow. The chapter shows how cooperation across international and bilateral organizations has evolved and where it needs to go in the future.

Commentary from Established Scholars: A man is not a tree, The Aftermath

In 30 June 2020, Dr. Farid Shomali, an architect meditating on current religion debates and human behaviors, was the first person on planet earth to reject the burial of the body in a peer review condensed two pages research paper or manifesto. While people from all thoughts and religions; the educated, the intelligent, the illiterate, even the rich and the broke practiced or witnessed that, in site or in media, from the beginning of creation tell now. His research paper: A man is not a tree will show you why GOD will never say to put people under the ground let alone cremate them, and how burial and cremation are deadly sins since GOD rejected it in his words, and practicing it will lead to complete destruction of Human thoughts and feelings. Then he tries to come up with his best solution.He is calling prohibiting burying and cremation the 11th commandment. The message must be spread to the entire world, so the Author encourages people to include his idea in religion debates, schoolbooks, university books, TVs, newspapers and manifestoes. Dr. Shomali while waiting for biblical institutions and all other religious institution in the whole world, to justify their position; telling us from where did they get this stupid and wrong idea called “burying” "you don't even bury a pencil, you bury a human!". Which is the most disgusting and stupid idea in the whole world that shows they got it wrong. He ask people to give him the Nobel peace prize for his research paper and if not the Templeton Prize or Pulitzer prize or at least a certificate from all of those recognized institutions and he also asks to announce June 30th 2020 a “no burial and no cremation day”- Note: no co-authors, Institutional or Influencers’ interventions

Hospitality as a pivotal value in leadership: A transdisciplinary engagement with the case of Chief Albert Luthuli

This article presents hospitality as a pivotal value in the context of increasing diversity that characterises the complex relations in which leadership emerges. After reviewing the concept of Otherness in philosophy, the notion of hospitality as developed by Richard Kearney in relation to his philosophy of religion (The God Who May Be) is introduced. The case of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Chief Albert Luthuli is then presented as a biographical leadership study from the African context to illustrate how hospitality as open response to radical Otherness may inspire collaboration and foster positive change. The article then addresses ways in which the notions of hospitality and Otherness present new opportunities to leadership studies for responding to the relational challenges of the globalised world. Amidst an increased scholarly focus on relationality and the need for relational intelligence, globalisation routinely confronts leaders and their followers with radical Otherness. Through dialogue between theology, philosophy of religion and leadership studies and by presenting a case from the African context, the article offers in print what is called for in the global context, namely an open response to the alterity of the Other that enables collaboration amidst increasing diversity.Contribution: Proceeding from a transdisciplinary engagement, the article illustrates that leadership studies stood to benefit from dialogue with theology and philosophy of religion, which offers ways of addressing the Otherness that characterise the globalised context of leadership.