The lessons of Afghanistan were purchased at a bitter cost: the war claimed more lives, more years, and more money than any other campaign in NATO’s history. Unless the alliance takes those lessons to heart, a war in Syria and Iraq to extinguish D…
Continue readingAuthor: Akaash Maharaj
Akaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Fellowship of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
My high school geography teachers would be baffled, but I am deeply honoured to have been elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. The Fellowship includes many of Canada’s most intrepid explorers, who have sledded across arctic t…
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Being at the table during deliberations on war, peace, and the fate of nations was an extraordinary experience. I remember seeing the Berlin Wall fall, and hoping that the age of global warfare might be over. That moment now feels far away. We are clearly facing terrible risks, and it
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Huffington Post: Addressing the United Nations
Political corruption kills more people than war and famine combined. I addressed the United Nations on how the international community can and must act to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the United Nations – Akaash Maharaj Podcast
Addressing the United Nations was one of the more intimidating experiences of my life. I spoke on behalf of GOPAC’s global alliance of parliamentarians, on our work to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the United Nations – Akaash Maharaj Podcast
Addressing the United Nations was one of the more intimidating experiences of my life. I spoke on behalf of GOPAC’s global alliance of parliamentarians, on our work to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: Addressing the United Nations
Political corruption kills more people than war and famine combined. I addressed the United Nations on how the international community can and must act to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: Gold Medal Hypocrisy at the Sochi Winter Olympics – Toronto Star
Nothing in Sochi did more to honour and advance the Olympic ideals than the worldwide fight for equality unleashed by Russia’s infamous homophobic law. My post-Olympic analysis in the Toronto Star.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – News: Corruption Declared a Crime Against Humanity
Reuters reports on our efforts at the United Nations: There are some forms of corruption so grave, whose effects on human life, human rights, and human welfare are so catastrophic, that they should shock the conscience of the international community and mobilise the will of nations to act across borders.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – News: Corruption Declared a Crime Against Humanity
Reuters reports on our efforts at the United Nations: There are some forms of corruption so grave, whose effects on human life, human rights, and human welfare are so catastrophic, that they should shock the conscience of the international community and mobilise the will of nations to act across borders.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Huffington Post: The True Cost of Political Corruption
Every year, political corruption kills 140 000 children across the world, by depriving them of food, water, and medical care. My GOPAC parliamentary colleagues and I are at the United Nations UNCAC to bring the worst offenders before the bar of international law.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: The Summit of Caribbean Parliamentarians
My address to the Summit of Caribbean Parliamentarians in Trinidad: Apartheid gave us some of colonialism’s worst crimes, yet the choice of people of conscience to stand against Apartheid gave us both Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, and Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress…All of us are
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: Fighting a Crime Against Humanity
My Huffington Post article: Political corruption kills 140 000 children annually, by depriving them of medical care, food, and water. Yet, far too often, the perpetrators of the most outrageous acts of corruption are able to use their illicit wealth and power to pervert the very laws and institutions that
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: A Witness to Triumphs and Terrors
My article in the Huffington Post: Recently, work took me to Istanbul to meet with the Syrian resistance. We discussed options for the international community to help bring an end to the Syrian war, by destroying the financial networks that enable the Assad regime to purchase weapons and finance assaults
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj: Margaret Thatcher’s Verdict on the Liberal Party of Canada
My article in the Globe and Mail: My one conversation with Margaret Thatcher about the Liberal Party of Canada began with a chill in the air, and ended with our host mopping his brow. We were all polite, but there were daggers behind the smiles and venom coiled around the
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Advisory: New Leadership for the GOPAC Global Secretariat
I am enormously grateful to the Board of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption for their confidence in naming me their Executive Director, and I will work tirelessly to justify their faith. I feel deeply privileged to have a chance to work with GOPAC’s global alliance of democratically elected
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Advisory: New Leadership for the GOPAC Global Secretariat
I am enormously grateful to the Board of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption for their confidence in naming me their Executive Director, and I will work tirelessly to justify their faith. I feel deeply privileged to have a chance to work with GOPAC’s global alliance of democratically elected
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Globe and Mail: False Flags and True Principles
On the injustice of Tiffany Foster’s disqualification from the London 2012 Olympics. This is more than a fight over the treatment of a single athlete. This is more than a struggle for the future of equestrian sport. This is a battle for the values, the honour, and the very soul
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: The New McCarthyism
There is no worse cancer in a free society than the thuggish impulse to equate dissent as disloyalty… The greatest patriot is the person with the courage to be the lone voice in the crowd crying out that the Emperor has no clothes. The test of our society’s democratic nature
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: The New McCarthyism
There is no worse cancer in a free society than the thuggish impulse to equate dissent as disloyalty… The greatest patriot is the person with the courage to be the lone voice in the crowd crying out that the Emperor has no clothes. The test of our society’s democratic nature
Continue reading