Trotz alledem (AT)

The combative legacy of the passionate critic of globalization. In a time marked by devastating wars in Gaza and Ukraine, a looming climate catastrophe, the plight of refugees, and the rise of authoritarian regimes, Jean Ziegler, long-time UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, reminds us that a war of annihilation against the weakest members of humanity has been raging in the Global South for decades, increasingly so, with over sixty million deaths alone in 2023. Dying from hunger, thirst, epidemics, or through conflicts over distribution, they leave behind a silent yet eloquent testimony to the effects of predatory capitalism: Today, 50 individuals possess as much wealth as the impoverished half of humanity, and the 500 largest transcontinental companies generate more than half of the global gross product. Do we really have to continue to endure this cannibalistic world order, in which the oligarchs of globalized financial capital rule over hundreds of millions living in misery? Hope cannot be suppressed that a planetary civil society may still emerge, where human rights and the right to self-determination of peoples are upheld, and justice and solidarity with the poor and weak are practiced. Jean Ziegler, the tireless fighter against misery and oppression, advocates for a powerful uprising of conscience and provides us with the intellectual tools to do so.