The 2021 UN-aligned poetry competition: Deadline Extended!
To celebrate the international literature day on the 8th of September, UN-aligned will be holding a poetry competition open to everyone.
The application was opened on the 1.08.2021 and has been extended to 15.09.2021.
Applicants will be informed about the decision during the last week of September. The finalist(s) poems will be featured in the Gordian Magazine’s October issue.
The goal of this competition is to creatively portray the values which UN-aligned’s Manifesto campaigns for. The competition aims to highlight the importance of the creation of a different kind of a United Nations as well as the promotion of human rights, animal welfare and environmental protection.
The winners will be selected by our literary editor, winner of the international ‘Il Leone D’Oro’ award, Alex Liberto. Learn more about Alex’s achievements as a poet and writer.
- First: 100 euros + certificate
- Second: A poetry book
Finalists will also be invited for an interview with our team in order to promote and publicise their works. Your interview may be published on our website (un-aligned.org), our monthly magazine (the Gordian), podcast (the Gordian in Audio) and newsletter, which are followed by hundreds of similar-minded members across 25 countries.
Counties who criminalise homosexuality must not be allowed a seat on the UNHRC
This is an open letter drafted by UN-aligned and addressed to the President of the United Nations Human Rights Commission to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and make rescinding discriminatory laws against LGBT+ community a precondition of membership to the UNHRC.
When it was illegal for me to be alive
By Adrian Liberto
“Disaster… it could happen to anyone.” Think about it too much and you will go mad: that endless list of slings and arrows. Yes, it could happen to anyone, but it is best to plod along as though it could never happen to us. Perhaps they deserved it. Karma. Their suffering is like a parallel universe: it need never touch us…
Then, out of the blue, or through a slow and inevitable twist of events, it does.
‘Unanimous Verdict: the UN is failing to eradicate poverty’
By Jay Davis
Poverty, to put it simply, is one of humankind’s greatest ills and despite various ways to quantify, analyse or measure it, the problem remains unsolved. With the world finding itself in unprecedented straits owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has not only claimed the lives of 4,000,000, but has revealed ominous and record-breaking poverty worldwide, humanity more than ever needs its leaders to come together and work towards effective solutions.
The UN initially committed to this duty in 2015 before COVID-19, where at the General Assembly its members set the ambitious aim of ‘no poverty globally.’ This was the first of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set to be achieved by 2030 ‘for a better and more sustainable future for all.’ 6 years on, amidst the harrowing COVID-19 pandemic, this article intends to evaluate the UN’s progress towards eradicating poverty.
“There is too much stupidity around”: The Climate Change Report
By Adrian Liberto
The Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published on August 9, 2021. The Report paints a grim picture of the planet’s health owing to human induced climate change and rising temperatures. These seem set to rise above the 1.5° threshold, which will signal a critical point of no return for those most exposed to the catastrophe.
Samuel Beckett & Harold Pinter: Two Giants of the Theatre of the Absurd
By Alex Liberto
In the last issue we saw how some 20th century writers envisioned a dystopian future in reaction to the two world wars and to the dwindling human values. Protesting against society and the situation of man, but in a different way, were the giants of the Theatre of the Absurd Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Both playwrights developed a new drama which was characterised by features that had nothing in common with the prevailing criteria of the time.
When Art is Mystery: The Sculpture of the Veiled Christ
By Carla Pietrobattista
Among the works that I believe to be wrapped in mysterious perfection, as though made by divine hands, there is certainly the sculpture of the Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino in the Sansevero chapel in Naples. As was the case with my article on Michelangelo, it will be difficult to excel in interpretative originality here because this sculpture has reached such levels of stylistic perfection that it has struck and interested many art historians.
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