Dawn of the Cosmopolitan - The Hope of a Global Citizens Movement

From the website post: The Great Transition Initiative is a collective endeavor by scholars and activists who share a broad commitment to addressing the major problems confronting humanity: poverty, security, and the environment. Its mission is to imagine, assess, and advance a great transition to a global future of enriched lives, equity, solidarity and a healthy planet. It takes seriously the slogan of progressives everywhere that another world is possible, but proposes that such a world must first be imagined creatively as a plausible human project.

This report encompasses the great weight and gravity of the possibility of solving the sociological and political issues of our Global Society through the emergence of a single moral community, a Cosmopolitan Group if you will, or citizens of the cosmos. The unprecedented growth in GCMs (Global Citizens Movements) seen in the last half of the 20th century is proposed to be merely the tip of the iceberg regarding a deep shift in public engagement and awareness, and is the major influence for the rise of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) world wide.

Kriegman points out that the threats to our existence are very real. When contemplating the possibilities of ecocide, nuclear proliferation, global terror networks, new military technologies and the threat of pandemics, we are reminded of the statement made by Bertrand Russell its coexistence or no existence.

Internal Displacement In Burundi And Somalia: Comparison Of The Institutional Responses

COMPARING THE INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES OF INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT IN BURUNDI AND SOMALIA

INTRODUCTION

This term paper examines the institutional intervention and responses in managing the problem of internal displacement in Burundi and Somalia. The main focus of the term paper is to compare and contrast the intervention strategies employed in order to identify the specific institutional challenges in terms of the successes and failures peculiar to each of the states under reference. This is instructive to help facilitate future response strategies and develop an action plan for the management of IDPs crisis. This paper also aims at illustrating the need to prioritize economic recovery in Burundi as a requirement for creating a peace dividend and maintaining stability. In addition to this, it underlines the fact that early economic recovery is also of critical importance. In order to situate displacement in Burundi and Somalia within a broader context, it is important to first discuss the global IDP crisis and international responses to it. Two sets of issues in this context are raised: first, the tensions between international action and sovereignty in the context of the emerging international IDP regime, and second, the pitfalls of humanitarian assistance programs in opening the way for the construction of new forms of power relations regarding displaced groups.

One of the world's most acute and growing problems is the increasing number of internally displaced people. This phenomenon is a direct consequence of the spate of internal violent conflict; gross human right violation; endemic situation of famine and drought; the barbarism of xenophobia and genocide; natural and environmental disaster; all of which are re-occurring in quick succession especially in Africa. But this does not necessarily imply that other parts of the world (Europe, Asia and America) are not engulfed in the displacement generating phenomenon. In fact, the 2010 flood in China which left no fewer than 250,000 people displaced; the flooding in Pakistan which seemed intractable; the several earthquakes in the United States; all these are evidences to show that no part of the world is left out. Again, since the end of the cold war, especially in the past two decades, the occurrence of displacement inducing situation has increased in an unprecedented manner. What makes the situation peculiar in Africa is that the entire displacement generating situations are directly or indirectly related to violent conflict. And this again in the final analysis is as a result of the political pervasiveness of the African political elite.