As we move further into 2025, the world remains beset by crises that demand urgent attention. In Gaza, evidence continues to mount that Israel’s sustained siege, widespread bombardments, and the starvation of civilians amount to ongoing accusations of genocide marked by tens of thousands of deaths, mass displacement, and the cultural erasure of mosques, churches, libraries, and heritage sites. Simultaneously, in Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have intensified genocidal campaigns against non-Arab communities, with UN reports and the US government confirming acts amounting to ethnic cleansing and genocide, claiming thousands of lives and causing one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Meanwhile, eastern DR Congo is witnessing renewed brutality: from the catastrophic Kasanga church massacre where 70 civilians were beheaded in February, to the M23 rebellion capturing Goma in January escalating displacement, mining exploitation, and fear across the region. Yet amid these images of devastation, a resolute current of resistance and solidarity persists. International actors like the Hague Group have united 32 nations that met in Bogotá in mid-July to restrict arms to Israel, enforce international humanitarian law, and uphold justice for Palestinians. In Congo, a Qatari-brokered peace declaration offers a fragile glimmer of hope toward curbing M23’s territorial reach.
2025 begins with more questions than answers. The world has already voted and now it is time to see what policies await us. South Korea’s[1] ousted President Yoon indicted on additional criminal charges over martial law. In Bangladesh[2] After the removal of Sheikh Hasina, Jamaat-e-Islami mobilized mass rallies in Dhaka, signaling a dramatic shift ahead of anticipated elections. In the United States[3] under President Trump’s second term, protests erupted nationwide (“No Kings” demonstrations), while human rights watchdogs flagged authoritarian tendencies and democratic backsliding. The Russia–Ukraine[4] war still poses one of the top geopolitical risks, intensifying humanitarian and economic volatility. India / Australia,[5] though not crisis hotspots, they are both key players in 2025’s shifting power dynamics — Australia for its China–U.S. balancing act, and India as an emerging global power. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo[6], the capture of Goma by M23 rebels and related Kinshasa riots reflect deepening regional instability. In Mali[7], pro-democracy protests erupted in May after Junta leader Assimi Goïta dissolved political parties and extended his mandate. Tensions between the U.S. and BRICS nations[8] (including China and South Africa) strained the Durban G20 finance talks, highlighting larger splits in global governance.
In times of acute violence, authoritarian rule, and ecological collapse, our collective grief and righteous anger can serve as a catalyst for transformative action when channeled through practices of truth-telling and shared memory. By openly naming abuses through public testimonies, truth commissions, or community archives we contest dominant, distorted narratives and demand accountability. These processes do more than record facts; they build the emotional and moral infrastructure for solidarity, enabling individuals and communities to connect across divides and envision collective liberation. When we hold spaces for “solidaristic grief,” we gather mutual care, shared commitment, and sustained action – a communal alchemy that transforms sorrow into persistent resistance. Framing truth and memory as decolonial practices also helps dismantle oppressive master-narratives creating room for historically marginalized voices to shape their own stories and futures. Ultimately, solidarity in a fractured world looks like a layered mosaic of witness, remembrance, mutual care, and militant hope, an interwoven tapestry that honors the past even as it builds justice, liberation, and dignified futures.
We invite students across all university levels, postgraduate researchers, activists, and practitioners to contribute articles that critically examine the following themes (but are not limited too):
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Diaspora Solidarity: Global solidarity networks have responded rapidly to interconnected crises. In Bangladesh, diaspora communities and global NGOs have raised attention and resources amid unrest following Sheikh Hasina’s ouster. Elsewhere, actors mobilize in response to heightened conflict in Ukraine and the DRC.
- Collective Memory: Bangladesh’s student-led uprising (July 2024) and subsequent “Operation Devil Hunt” demonstrate grassroots resistance and collective memory in action. Communities utilized narrative and protest to rebuild agency and public accountability.
- Ethics & Morality: Ethical reflections shape recovery efforts. Oxfam GB advocates shifting from charity to solidarity, transferring power and funding to Global South actors and prioritizing debt relief and climate justice.
- Aid Reckoning: Humanitarian aid faces scrutiny. Cuts to global funding and demands for decolonized models reveal shortcomings in traditional systems, prompting calls for localization and equitable distribution.
- Media Narratives & Framing: How stories are told matters. Advocacy groups and NGOs oppose “victim-only” portrayals, instead highlighting agency, dignity, and systemic critique. Oxfam’s language shift from charity to solidarity embodies this framing change.
- Return and Reintegration: Examine the complex dynamics that emerge when displaced communities attempt to reunite, focusing on the tensions and evolving solidarities between returnees and those who remained behind. Key issues include disputes over property rights, struggles for social capital, and contested leadership roles in the reconstitution of community life after conflict.
This call for submissions seeks to engage these conjunctural crises through comparative politics. We welcome submissions that critically examine the intersections of genocide, occupation, resistance, and solidarity especially through lenses grounded in decolonial, intersectional, and feminist frameworks. We particularly encourage work that interrogates the role of memory; collective, historical, and intergenerational in shaping narratives of resistance and articulations of justice. How are power, identity, and agency being reconfigured across these global flashpoints through contested memories of violence and survival? What forms of organized collective action have emerged, and how do they challenge dominant structures whether colonial, capitalist, digital, and institutional while mobilizing memory as a tool of political transformation? In exploring these questions, we aim to foster transformative dialogue that transcends borders and reimagines solidarities in pursuit of justice, self-determination, and dignified futures.
Submissions should provide critical, intersectional, and forward-looking perspectives, drawing on empirical case studies, theoretical frameworks, or interdisciplinary approaches. We encourage pieces that inspire dialogue on navigating towards a more just and humane world. As an academic blog, we encourage positional statements, but remember to stay grounded in facts and evidence wherever required.
Submission Guidelines
- Word Limit: 1200-1500 words (excluding bibliography and footnotes/endnotes) (longer word count piece would be accepted but please contact the editorial team in advance)
- Deadline: Wednesday November, 12 2025 | 12:30 pm GMT (rolling submissions and publications)
- Format: Writing pieces should be submitted in MS Word format, with in-text citations and references in APA 7th edition, wherever necessary and as per need.
We accept a range of writing formats from blog entries, review pieces, life narrative essays, rebuttals, commentaries and research notes.
Please send submissions and inquiries to adifferentview@iapss.org best before/by November 12, 2025 (Wednesday) | 12:30 PM GMT.
Solidarity is more than empathy; it’s the deliberate forging of shared purpose that turns division into collective strength. When we stand together across identities and struggles, hope becomes action, injustice meets organized resistance, and isolated communities unite into powerful movements for justice.
[1]South Korea’s ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol was indicted Saturday on additional criminal charges related to his ill-fated imposition of martial law, about three months after he was formally thrown out of office.
[2] Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Jamaat‑e‑Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, assembled on July 19, 2025 in Dhaka’s historic Suhrawardy Udyan—a clear signal of its resurgence ahead of the anticipated 2026 general election. Under interim PM Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner, the government has slated the election for April but hasn’t ruled out a February date amid pressures from the BNP and its allies. The rally also evoked haunting memories of 1971, when Pakistan’s military launched a brutal crackdown in late March to suppress Bengali calls for independence—a moment that galvanized the Liberation War.
[3] Millions of Americans across the country took part in the “No Kings” protests on Saturday, marking what organizers called the largest coordinated demonstrations against President Trump since the start of his second term. Occurring alongside Trump’s 250th‑anniversary military parade in Washington—held on his 79th birthday—the protests spanned over 2,100 cities and towns with an estimated 4–6 million participants, who gathered to oppose perceived authoritarianism and the politicization of the military.
[4] A new era of geopolitical instability—driven by conflicts like Russia–Ukraine and U.S.–China rivalry—is upending globalization, exposing fragile supply chains, and fueling rising nationalism and protectionism. Energy price shocks from the war, combined with insufficient global climate action, have intensified the push toward decarbonization, though progress remains slow and politically divisive. Meanwhile, cyberwarfare is emerging as a central threat: attacks on energy grids, pipelines, and digital infrastructure—exemplified by incidents like Colonial Pipeline—are increasing in frequency and severity. The scramble for critical minerals has prompted regions like the EU to stockpile resources and consider governance mechanisms to reduce supply-chain vulnerabilities. Financial systems are also fragmenting, with nations building alternative payment networks amid sanctions and trade conflicts, while banks and investors are stressing portfolios against geopolitical shocks.
[5] As President‑elect Trump prepares to assume office amid heightened global volatility, a world already disrupted by cascading crises is entering a new era of uncertainty. In the Middle East, the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack unleashed a regional upheaval—Israel’s campaign has devastated Gaza, weakened Iran’s proxy networks, and precipitated the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria, now contested by Islamist rebels. Across Asia, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and the Korean Peninsula is intensifying the U.S.–China rivalry, while Europe braces against a worrisome Russian revisionism following the Ukraine war. Meanwhile, Africa and beyond grapple with multiple brutal conflicts—from civil war in Sudan and rebellions in eastern DRC, to Islamist insurgencies in the Sahel and gang rule in Haiti—compounding the highest levels of global displacement and hunger seen in decades. In summary, these overlapping crises reflect a broader fracturing of the global order, where the erosion of hegemonic constraints emboldens actors to pursue objectives by force amidst rapidly shifting power dynamics.
[6] The Washington Accord—a U.S.‑ and Qatar‑mediated peace treaty between the DRC and Rwanda—requires Rwanda to pull its troops from eastern Congo over a period of months, while the Congolese government agrees to end its support for FDLR militias and pursue a joint security coordination mechanism within a set timeframe. It also establishes a regional economic integration framework aimed at attracting Western investment into critical‑mineral supply chains. Although this agreement marked a significant diplomatic breakthrough, it notably excluded the M23 rebel group, which continues separate negotiations in Doha.
[7] Hundreds of Malians in Bamako took to the streets on May 3 to demand an end to Colonel Assimi Goïta’s military junta and push for a democratic transition—the first major public act of civil resistance since the 2020 coup. Protesters denounced the regime’s jailing of opposition figures, its plans to dissolve political parties, and efforts to extend Goïta’s rule beyond his mandate—actions condemned by international watchdogs such as Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights as part of a persistent pattern of repression. Government forces responded with preemptive bans on political activity and the disappearance of activists, intensifying the standoff between civil society and the junta.
[8] The upcoming G20 finance chiefs summit in Durban is set to be dominated by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s absence—his second no-show following Cape Town—which has raised serious questions about America’s engagement and the G20’s future relevance. Simultaneously, President Trump’s sweeping tariff strategy—a 10 % baseline on all imports, sharp duties on steel, autos, pharmaceuticals, and threats to levy up to 200 % on certain countries, including BRICS members—has intensified tensions and cast a shadow over global trade talks. With rising friction between Washington and BRICS nations and the U.S. pushing to streamline the G20 into a “back to basics” financial forum under its next presidency, Durban’s ability to produce a unified communique is in doubt.
