WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces apply pressure on Ukraine's Avdiivka, Kupiansk

Russian forces on Monday pressed their attacks on two frontline areas of eastern Ukraine, seeking to sever the sole supply route into the devastated city of Avdiivka and advance on the key town of Kupiansk farther north.

The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said its troops had repelled about 10 Russian attacks on Avdiivka. Vitaly Barabash, head of Avdiivka's military administration, said there were round-the-clocks strikes on Avdiivka's town centre and on the sole road used to bring in supplies.

"A very difficult situation with supplies, with 22 km (15 miles) of road constantly under fire, day and night," Barabash told U.S-funded Radio Liberty.

"This complicates evacuation and delivery of aid. The enemy is trying to cut it off. Any movement is a signal to open fire."

Barabash said roughly 1,600 residents remained in the town, down from a pre-war population of about 30,000. Most of those remaining had no wish to leave, he said.

Avdiivka has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after months of attacks. It was briefly captured in 2014 by Russian-backed separatists who overran large stretches of territory in the east, and Ukrainian forces have erected solid fortifications in the intervening nine years.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy paid tribute to those defending the town in his nightly video message, saying: "Their resilience is the strength for all Ukraine now."

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, described conditions along the entire 1,000-km (600-mile) front as "challenging". He singled out Bakhmut, seized by Russia in May after months of battles, and Kupiansk, both northeast of Avdiivka, for facing the greatest difficulties.

"The enemy is sustaining significant losses, primarily in terms of personnel, but is constantly replenishing its forces by bringing in reserves, including from Russia," Syrskyi told the UNIAN news agency.

Local officials also said Russian forces had again shelled areas in the southern Kherson region that are under Kyiv's control. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for more than 800 children, they said.

Russia has focused on gaining control of the eastern Donbas region, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk cities and surrounding areas, since failing to move on Kyiv in the early days of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow calls the war in Ukraine a "special military operation".

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June this year in both the east and south, making much slower progress however than a lightning advance through the northeast a year ago.

Russian accounts of the fighting on Monday made no mention of Avdiivka for the third straight day. It said Russian forces had repelled three attacks outside Kupiansk and a further 10 near Bakhmut.

Reuters could not independently confirm the battle reports from either side.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky orders Ukrainian army to advance ‘500 meters a day’

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has given his military a tall order, demanding that they take at least 500 meters of territory every day after suffering tens of thousands of casualties in their floundering counteroffensive against Russian forces.

“Ukraine needs results every day,” Zelensky said in his evening video address on Sunday. “We need to resist the Russian assaults, kill the occupiers and move forward. We must advance by at least a kilometer, at least 500 meters, every day. We must keep moving forward in order to improve the Ukrainian positions and put pressure on the occupiers.”

Such progress is needed to strengthen Ukraine and motivate foreign allies to provide more military support, Zelensky said, adding that next week “will bring more opportunities for Ukraine.”

Zelensky made his comments at a time when Russian forces are advancing around the town of Avdeevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Kupyansk, in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated that Ukrainian forces had suffered more than 90,000 casualties in their counteroffensive, which began in early June, describing it as “failed.” Meanwhile, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, admitted in an interview that the operation isn’t so much “behind schedule”as off the schedule entirely.

Kiev also faces a potential competition for Western support and attention after surprise attacks by Hamas ignited a new war in Israel earlier this month. Even before the latest Israel-Hamas conflict began, President Joe Biden’s administration was struggling to win approval from US lawmakers for additional military and economic aid to Ukraine.

Reuters/RT

Members of Gen Z — or those born between 1997 and 2012 — are eager to climb the corporate ladder. A majority, 70% say they’re looking to reach the C-suite, according to a September 2023 Adobe survey of 1,011 members of the generation.

Whether you’re part of Gen Z or not, there are all sorts of ways to reach the heights of leadership. If you ask Ryan Simonetti, CEO of hospitality company Convene, which has raised more than $280 million in funding, it’s about taking on projects beyond the scope of your role — especially when your company is in a bind.

When an opportunity to take on new and pressing work arises, “put your hand up,” he says.

‘There’s never enough people to do the jobs’

When it comes to organizations that are constantly growing, like startups, “there’s never enough people to do the jobs,” says Simonetti, who spoke to CNBC Make It at the Fast Company Innovation Festival. But “if you put your hand up and take an initiative, take a stretch project,” he says, you’re helping the organization solve problems in real time. That’s exactly what it needs from its workforce.

Not only does volunteering in such a way offer critical help, it gives you an opportunity to learn and accrue more skills. The people who’ve raised their hands at Convene have consistently continued learning, says Simonetti, “and that’s created opportunities for them professionally.”

It’s that “I want to learn, I’m curious, and I’m willing to do the work attitude” that “has paid real dividends” for people at his company, says Simonetti. Especially for young people.

‘There’s two parts of being a leader’

There’s another component to taking on more responsibility that helps you climb that corporate ladder: It proves you’re a dedicated teammate.

“There’s two parts of being a leader,” says Djenaba Parker, general counsel and chief people officer at Goop. “It’s being a good leader and being a good teammate.” Good teammates look at their organization’s needs and just “do more,” she says. They see where critical gaps need to be filled and help fill them. This takes work off of their colleagues’ plates and helps everyone move forward together.

When you raise your hand “with collaboration and with intention, you really garner the respect of people around you,” she says. Including by the higher ups making hiring and promotion decisions.

CNBC

Nigeria on Monday won its bid to overturn an $11 billion damages bill for a collapsed gas processing project it said was procured by a concerted campaign of bribery.

The West African country was on the hook for the sum – representing around a third of its foreign exchange reserves – after a little-known British Virgin Islands-based company took Nigeria to arbitration over the deal.

Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) was awarded a 20-year contract in 2010, to construct and operate a gas processing plant in southern Nigeria, as part of a wider plan to exploit Nigeria's abundant reserves of gas.

After the deal collapsed, P&ID took Nigeria to arbitration in London and in 2017 was awarded $6.6 billion for lost profits – a sum which has swelled with interest to over $11 billion, representing ten times the country's 2019 health budget.

However, Nigeria's lawyers say the country was the victim of "a campaign of bribery and deception" by P&ID, which they say paid bribes to senior officials to obtain the contract and then corrupted the country's lawyers to obtain confidential documents during the arbitration.

P&ID denied that it procured the contract through bribery or that it corrupted Nigeria's legal team during the arbitration, blaming the failure of the gas deal and the country's arbitration defeat on institutional incompetence.

Judge Robin Knowles allowed Nigeria's challenge in a written ruling on Monday.

"I have not accepted all of Nigeria's allegations," the judge said in his ruling.

But he added that the arbitration awards "were obtained by fraud and the awards were, and the way in which they were procured was, contrary to public policy".

Reuters

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has urged the Supreme Court to admit fresh documents against President Bola Tinubu.

Speaking at the court on Monday, his lead counsel, Chris Uche, described the matter as a grave and constitutional matter.

He urged the court to adopt the application and grant their request.

Presenting his argument, he said, “The issue involving Tinubu’s certificate is a weighty, grave, and constitutional one, which the Supreme Court should admit. I urge the court to admit the fresh evidence of President Tinubu’s academic records from CSU presented by Atiku.

The Supreme Court must take a look at Tinubu’s records and reach a decision devoid of technicality.

INEC lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, urged the Supreme Court to dismiss Atiku’s application seeking to present Tinubu’s academic records.

Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, argued that INEC should have been a party at the deposition proceedings in the US, noting that the CSU depositions are dormant until the deponent comes to court and testify.

He told the court that Atiku cannot seek fresh evidence at the Supreme Court.

In a related development, the Supreme Court reserved judgment on Peter Obi’s appeal seeking to invalidate Tinubu’s  election.

A seven-member panel of the Supreme Court headed by John Okoro made the announcement after taking arguments from lawyers to the parties on Monday.

“This appeal is reserved for judgment until a date to be communicated to parties,” Okoro said.

During the hearing, Obi’s lead lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu, urged the court to allow his client’s appeal.

He prayed the court to set aside the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja which affirmed Tinubu’s election on 6 September.

However, Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, argued that Obi’s suit lacked merit.

Olanipekun urged the court to dismiss the appeal.

The All Progressive Congress (APC) through its lawyer, Akin Olujinmi, asked the court to uphold the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court affirming Tinubu’s election.

Inyang Okoro is the leader of the panel of seven justices, which include Helen Ogunwumiju, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Tijani Abubakar, Emmanuel Agim and Lawal Garba.

Punch/Vanguard/PT

The Supreme Court, on Monday, dismissed the appeal filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenging the Presidential Election Petition Court’s judgement affirming President Bola Tinubu’s victory.

“This appeal having been withdrawn without objection (from the respondents) is hereby dismissed,” Okoro said.

The APM appeal challenged the eligibility of President Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima. The contention was based on an allegation of Shettima’s double nomination as a vice presidential candidate and senatorial candidate in the same election cycle.

But the Supreme Court had in May decided a similar case filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against Tinubu and Shettima.

Okoro had led the court’s panel that dismissed the appeal filed by the PDP, holding that the PDP had no right to challenge the internal qualification of candidates of another political party.

The Supreme Court further held that Shettima properly relinquished his nomination for Borno South Senatorial District ticket before becoming Tinubu’s running mate at the 25 February presidential election.

The Supreme Court panel on Monday drew the APM’s lawyer’s attention to the earlier judgement, and discouraged him from continuing to pursue the appeal on that basis.

After a period of conversation between the lawyer and the bench, the lawyer decided to withdraw the case.

PT

The number of Nigeria’s Supreme Court justices is about to drop to 10, widely coming short of the court’s statutory full complement of 21 justices.

The number, currently 11, will drop to 10 as another justice of the court retires on 27 October.

Within the space of three years, the number of judges on the court’s bench plummeted from 20 to 14 in June 2022, when then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, abruptly resigned.

Since then, the number has further spiralled down to 10, as Musa Dattijo Muhammad, who joined the bench of the Supreme Court over a decade ago, retires on 27 October.

He is the second most senior judge on the court’s bench.

The jurist’s retirement will bring the number of justices of the court to an all-time low of 10 in the Supreme Court’s recent history.

A statement by the Supreme Court’s Director of Press and Information, Festus Akande, on Sunday, said Muhammad clocks the mandatory retirement age of 70 on 27 October.

It also said a valedictory court session to mark Muhammad’s exit from the bench would be held on Friday, 27 October.

“With the retirement of Muhammad, the Supreme Court of Nigeria is now left with 10 Justices,” the statement read.

PT

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have attacked a customs house in Geidam town, Geidam LGA, Yobe State, killing one officer, identified as Usman Gombe.

The insurgents stormed the customs house along Maine Soroa road in a Volkswagen Golf and a Land Rover around 10pm on Saturday and started shooting.

“They struck when they were sure the customs officers had retired home. Panicked by the rain of bullets, the officers scampered for safety, some escaped through the gate, while others scaled the fence.

“Unfortunately, one of the officers, Usman Gombe, was shot dead while attempting to climb the fence,” a security source told our correspondent.

He said the assailants also burnt down the customs patrol van, a generator, and part of the customs house building.

“This is the second time Boko Haram insurgents killed customs officers. Last month, an officer Babalola, and his junior officer, were abducted and later killed by the insurgents,” he said.

Residents of the town told our correspondent that the activities of Boko Haram insurgents on the outskirts of Geidam had increased in recent days.

“They collect taxes from farmers and herdsmen a few kilometers from the town and nobody is doing anything.

“Instead, the security operatives have relocated over 17 checkpoints into the town where they also taxed traders that brought goods through the same route. We are in difficult condition in this town,” one of the traders alleged.

Daily Trust

Israel strikes Gaza, Lebanon overnight; Netanyahu convenes meeting of generals

Israel bombarded Gaza with air strikes early on Monday and its aircraft struck southern Lebanon overnight, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his top generals and his war cabinet to assess the escalating conflict.

Israel's attacks concentrated on the Gaza Strip's centre and north, Palestinian media reported. A strike on a house near the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, killed several Palestinians and wounded others, according to media reports.

Health authorities in Gaza said at least 4,600 people were killed in Israel's two-week bombardment that began after a Hamas Oct. 7 rampage on southern Israeli communities in which 1,400 people were killed and 212 were taken into Gaza as hostages.

Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian discussed in a call late on Sunday the means of stopping Israel's "brutal crimes" in Gaza, Hamas said in a statement.

Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around Gaza for a planned ground invasion aiming to annihilate Hamas.

Fears that the Israel-Hamas war could mushroom into a wider Middle East conflict rose over the weekend with Washington warning of a significant risk to U.S. interests in the region and announcing a new deployment of advanced air defenses.

The Pentagon has already dispatched a significant amount of naval power to the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers, support ships and about 2,000 Marines, to help deter attacks by Iran-affiliated forces.

"What we're seeing ... is the prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told ABC's "This Week" program on Sunday.

China's Middle East special envoy Zhai Jun, who is visiting the region, warned that the risk of a large-scale ground conflict was rising and that spillover conflicts in the region were "worrisome", Chinese state media said on Monday.

Iranian security officials told Reuters Iran's strategy was for Middle East proxies like Hezbollah to pursue limited strikes on Israeli and U.S. targets but to avoid a major escalation that would draw in Tehran, a high-wire act for the Islamic Republic.

In neighbouring Syria, where Hamas' main regional backer Iran has a military presence, Israeli missiles hit Damascus and Aleppo international airports early on Sunday, putting both out of service and killing two workers, Syrian state media said.

Along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has clashed with Israeli forces in support of Hamas in the deadliest escalation of frontier violence since an Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

Early on Monday, Israeli aircraft struck two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon that were planning to launch anti-tank missiles and rockets toward Israel, its military said. Israel's military also said it struck other Hezbollah targets, including a compound and an observation post.

Hezbollah said on Monday that one of its fighters was killed, without providing details.

With violence around its heavily guarded borders increasing, Israel on Sunday added 14 communities close to Lebanon and Syria to its evacuation contingency plan in the north of the country.

MORE AID ARRIVES IN GAZA

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called on the international community to create "a united front" to stop Israel's attacks in Gaza and allow desperately needed aid which has only begun to trickle in.

A second convoy of 14 aid trucks entered the Rafah crossing to the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday night, and U.S. President Joe Biden and Netanyahu affirmed in a call "there will now be continued flow of this critical assistance into Gaza," the White House said.

The U.N. humanitarian office said the volume of aid entering so far was just 4% of the daily average before the hostilities and a fraction of what was needed with food, water, medicines and fuel stocks running out.

Biden also ramped up his diplomacy, convening calls on Sunday with Netanyahu and Pope Francis and speaking with the leaders of Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Britain about getting aid into Gaza and preventing the conflict from spreading.

In a joint statement, the leaders voiced support for Israel's right to defend itself. They also called for adherence to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.

Netanyahu also held a phone call with the leaders of France, Spain and the Netherlands late on Sunday, the Israeli leader's office said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will visit Israel on Monday and French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Tuesday.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces intensify pressure on Ukraine's Avdiivka, Kherson

Russian forces aiming to contain a four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive maintained unrelenting pressure on Sunday on the shattered town of Avdiivka in the east and intensified shelling in the southern area of Kherson.

Russia has focused on the industrial east since pulling back from a failed advance on Kyiv at the start of the February 2022 invasion and its forces have tried to maintain positions in Kherson since abandoning the region's main town late last year.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, in its evening report, said Ukrainian forces repelled nearly 20 Russian attacks around Avdiivka, its buildings now largely reduced to shells. Russian air strikes hit nearby villages, it said.

Avdiivka has become a watchword for resistance, viewed as the gateway to recapturing the Russian-held city of Donetsk and the rest of Donbas -- made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It was briefly seized in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists captured swathes of eastern Ukraine, but was later retaken by Ukrainian forces who, in the ensuing nine years, have built solid fortifications.

"It is true that Avdiivka has significance," Andriy Yusov, spokesperson for the Ukraine Defence Ministry's Intelligence Directorate, told the Espreso TV news outlet.

"This is not the first instance the occupying forces have boosted tension with declarations of taking over all of Donetsk and Luhansk...Their plans have failed, the deadlines pushed back. This is just another episode of tension."

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the situation in Avdiivka and the nearby town of Maryinka was "particularly tough. Numerous Russian attacks. But our positions are being held.

"Every day, we need results for Ukraine, to withstand Russian assaults, to eliminate occupiers, to move forward," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "Whether it's a kilometre or 500 metres, but forward, every day."

Russian military accounts made no mention of Avdiivka, but described successful operations against Ukrainian positions to the east in Bakhmut, seized by Moscow in May after months of fighting.

In Kherson, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said several villages had been struck in shelling episodes, as had transport and food production sites in the city of Kherson.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts from either side.

Russian forces routinely shell Kherson and villages on the western bank of the Dnipro from positions on the eastern bank, where they retreated late last year.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War has reported in the past week that Ukrainian forces have crossed the Dnipro to take up new positions of their own and pursue Russian forces.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainians using Russian chips for drones – media

The Ukrainian military is using electronic components salvaged from Russian Geran-2 loitering munitions to assemble their own suicide drones, the online outlet Mash reported on Saturday.

The outlet circulated imagery of a Ukrainian homebuilt suicide drone, apparently containing a navigation module from a Geran-2 (Geranium-2). The large crude-looking UAV, which features two prop motors, was intercepted by Russian forces. It was not immediately clear whether the drone was shot down or forced to land through electronic warfare means.

The re-purposed navigation component used in the Ukrainian drone was identified by the outlet as a Kometa (Comet) module that is utilized in Geran-2 drones. The module is said to be located in the wing section of the Russian loitering munition and usually survives impact. The Kometa is said to use the Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS for setting the course of the drone. 

Russia began widely using Geran-2 drones in Ukraine last fall, launching the long-range munitions at targets deep in the country’s territory. They widely became known as “mopeds” during the conflict, thanks to the noise emitted by the engine.

Kiev and its Western backers have repeatedly claimed the drones are actually of Iranian origin, pointing out the striking similarities between the Geran-2 and Shahed-136.

No solid evidence to back up such claims has ever emerged, while both Moscow and Tehran have repeatedly denied the drones had been supplied by Iran to Russia. However, Tehran admitted to sending a sample selection of drones to Russia months before the full-blown conflict between Moscow and Kiev broke out in February 2022.

Reuters/RT

Lea Ypi’s Free: Coming of Age at the End of History has met with a hostile reception in her home country of Albania, and it is easy to see why. Her self-description as a “Marxist Albanian professor of political theory at the London School of Economics” says it all.

Reading Ypi’s book, I was struck by the parallel between her life and that of Viktor Kravchenko, the Soviet official who defected while visiting New York in 1944. His famous bestselling memoir, I Chose Freedom, became the first substantial eyewitness account of the horrors of Stalinism, beginning with its detailed description of the Holodomor (famine) in Ukraine in the early 1930s. Still a true believer at the time, Kravchenko had participated in enforcing collectivization, and therefore knew of what he spoke.

Kravchenko’s publicly known story ends in 1949, when he triumphantly won a big libel suit against a French Communist newspaper. At the trial in Paris, the Soviets flew in his ex-wife to testify to his corruption, alcoholism, and domestic abuse. The court was not swayed, but people tend to forget what happened next. Immediately following the trial, when he was being hailed around the world as a Cold War hero, Kravchenko grew deeply worried about the anti-Communist witch hunts unfolding in the United States. To fight Stalinism with McCarthyism, he warned, was to stoop to the Stalinists’ level.

As he spent more time in the West, Kravchenko grew increasingly aware of its own injustices and became obsessed with reforming Western democratic societies from within. After writing a lesser-known sequel to I Chose Freedom, entitled I Chose Justice, he embarked on a crusade to discover a new, less exploitative mode of economic production. That quest led him to Bolivia, where he invested in an unsuccessful effort to organize poor farmers into new collectives.

Crushed by that failure, he withdrew into private life and ultimately shot himself at his home in New York. And no, his suicide was not due to some nefarious KGB blackmail operation. It was an expression of despair, and further proof that his original denunciation of the Soviet Union had always been a genuine protest against injustice.

Ypi’s Free does in one volume what Kravchenko did in two. When Albania descended into civil war in 1997, her whole world fell apart. Reduced to hiding in her apartment and writing a diary while Kalashnikov shots clattered outside, she made an extraordinary decision: She would study philosophy.

But what is even more extraordinary is that her engagement with philosophy brought her back to Marxism. Her story attests to the fact that the most penetrating critics of Communism have often been ex-Communists, for whom the critique of “actually existing socialism” was simply the only way to remain faithful to their political commitments.

Free grew out of an earlier treatise on how socialist and liberal notions of freedom are interrelated, and it is this perspective that structures the book. The first part, on how Albanians “chose freedom,” provides an eminently readable memoir of Ypi’s childhood in the last decade of communist rule in Albania. While it includes all the horrors of daily life – food shortages, political denunciations, control and suspicion, torture and harsh punishments – it is also punctuated by comical moments. Even under such harsh and desolate conditions, people found ways to preserve a modicum of dignity and honesty.

In the second part, which describes Albania’s post-communist turmoil after 1990, Ypi recounts how the freedom chosen by – or, rather, imposed on – Albanians failed to deliver justice. It culminates in a chapter about the 1997 civil war, at which point the narrative breaks off and is replaced by snippets from Ypi’s diary. The strength of Ypi’s writing is that, even here, she is tackling the big questions, exploring how ambitious ideological projects usually end not in triumph but in confusion and disorientation.

In the 1990s, one such project was replaced by another. With communism toppled, ordinary Albanians were subjected to “democratic transition” and “structural reforms” designed to make them more “like Europe” with its “free market.” Ypi’s bitter conclusion in the last paragraph of the book is worth quoting in full:

“My world is as far from freedom as the one my parents tried to escape. Both fall short of that ideal. But their failures took distinctive forms, and without being able to understand them, we will remain forever divided. I wrote my story to explain, to reconcile, and to continue the struggle.”

Here we have an ironic rebuttal to Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach, which famously observes that, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” The counterpoint is that one cannot change the world for the better unless one first understands it. This is where the great initiators of both the Communist and liberal projects fell short.

The conclusion Ypi draws from this insight, however, is not the cynical stance that meaningful change is either impossible or inevitable. Rather, it is that the struggle (for freedom) goes on, and always will. Ypi thus feels that she owes a debt to “all the people of the past who sacrificed everything because they were not apathetic, they were not cynical, they did not believe that things fall into place if you just let them take their course.”

Therein resides our global predicament. If we believe that things will fall into place by just letting them take their course, we will end up with multiple catastrophes, from ecological breakdown and the rise of authoritarianism to social chaos and disintegration. Ypi channels what philosopher Giorgio Agamben called “the courage of hopelessness,” his recognition that passive optimism is a recipe for complacency, and thus a hurdle to meaningful thought and action.

At the end of Communism, there was a widespread, euphoric hope that freedom and democracy would bring a better life; eventually, though, many lost that hope. That is the point where the real work begins. In the end, Ypi does not offer any easy way out, and therein lies the strength of her book. Such abstinence is what makes it philosophical. The point is not to change the world blindly; it is, first and foremost, to see and understand it.

Project Syndicate