Archive | Commentary

Would Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu say the magic words “two states” after his meeting with President Obama?  All Israel held its breath.  (He didn’t).  The gap between the two is wider than those words could ever have bridged, however.  Obama, I believe, sincerely — perhaps urgently — seeks a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, a […]

  Civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen is finally a free man after spending two years in jail. This video was released by IBN on 26 May 2009.

  Saman Salour was born in Boroujerd, Iran in 1976.  His last feature film Lonely Tune of Tehran was screened during the Directors’ Fortnight a the Cannes Film Festival last year.  “The Final Match” was made as part of Art for the World’s “Stories on Human Rights” on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of […]

  En route to the Cannes Festival, where he is to present his latest film (Looking for Eric), Ken Loach stopped by in Marseilles on the 16th of May.  On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the great miners’ strike in Britain, the NPA 13 and the Païdos Library invited the English director, whose […]

  Hany Abu-Assad is a Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker, whose 2005 film Paradise Now won the 63rd Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film award among other awards.  “A Boy, A Wall and A Donkey” was made as part of Art for the World’s “Stories on Human Rights” on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal […]

This much is clear: not in a long time has capitalism been so critically questioned in the US and “socialism” so widely debated as a social alternative.  The left can and should seize this moment.  One part of doing that is to formulate a new program — including a new definition of socialism — that […]

One of the central paradoxes in economic theory relates to the hostility that financial interests in a modern capitalist economy systematically display towards any policy of enlarged State expenditure financed by borrowing, even though such expenditure increases capitalists’ profits and wealth. Let us suppose that the government undertakes a larger borrowing-financed public expenditure programme, and […]

  Hello, friends — I’m writing you on behalf of Felice Gelman, who is now in Cairo.  She is leading a group of 14 people who will try to get into Gaza.  The group will arrive in Cairo on Sunday and then, hopefully, will get to the border of Egypt and Gaza at Al Arish […]

  Part 1 Part 2 Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr., the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, is the author of In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy (2001).  Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian human rights activist and the publisher of Sahara Reporters.  This interview was produced for Sahara Reporters and brought […]

  “For fifty years, crude oil has been flowing from under the feet of the people of the Niger Delta.  For fifty years, they have been promised that this would mean a better life.  This promise has never been kept.  Now, the people have had enough.” Sandy Cioffi is a Seattle-based film and video artist.  […]

  Fit Chick Unbelievable Knockers Earlier in 2003 this T-shirt (Fit Chick Unbelievable Knockers) became one of the best-selling items ever for the British high street fashion store French Connection.  Like French Connection’s generic T-shirt ‘fcuk me’ and the World Cup inspired bestseller, ‘fcuk football’ it was a huge success.  It could be seen everywhere, […]

The keynote address at the “Climate Change, Social Change” conference (organized by Green Left Weekly), Sydney, Australia, 12 April 2008. This address became the basis for John Bellamy Foster, “Ecology and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism” (Monthly Review, November 2008), which in turn became the last chapter of The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with […]

On May 16th, some 60 percent of India’s 714 million-strong electorate delivered a definitive victory to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), giving it a commanding 262 seats in India’s 543-member parliament.  The UPA’s principal opponent, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), took a severe beating, dropping down […]

  This is the first in a series of articles on “Ideas for the Struggle” by Marta Harnecker. 1.  The recent popular uprisings at the turn of the 21st century that have rocked numerous countries such as Argentina and Bolivia — and, more generally, the history of the multiple social explosions that have occurred in […]

  Go to <www.democracynow.org/2009/5/21/nigeria> for the transcript of this program. ABUJA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) — Thousands of civilians have fled their villages in Nigeria’s Delta state after government troops launched an offensive against militant groups in the state on 13 May. Villagers in Delta state’s Gbramatu kingdom reported Oporoza and Okerenkoko villages being attacked […]

In the recently concluded 2009 general elections to the lower house of the parliament, the Social Democratic Left (SDL henceforth) In India, composed of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), the Communist Party of India (CPI), and a bunch of smaller left-wing parties, has witnessed the severest electoral drubbing in a long time.  This year, […]

May 21, 2009, New York — Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner and Managing Attorney for CCR’s Guantanamo project Shayana Kadidal responded with disappointment to President Obama’s speech this morning.  CCR represents the detainees at Guantánamo and is part of the key FOIA lawsuit surrounding the torture photo disclosures. Ratner and Kadidal were disturbed […]

  Enormous resources have been marshaled by conservative and Zionist organizations in an attempt to silence criticism of the Canadian government’s unwavering support for Israel.  The first few months of 2009 have seen a concerted campaign to shut down Palestine advocacy in Canada.  Such examples include: cutting funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) due […]

  A discussion with Judith Butler on public mourning: Antigone, grieving, victimization, the production of certain populations as “ungrievable”, and the politics of public mourning as the expansion of our ideas of what constitutes a livable life, the expansion of our recognition of those lives that are worth protecting, worth valuing. Nelly Kambouri: In your […]

  Elkalam.com talks with Nadine Rosa-Rosso, former secretary general of the Parti du Travail (Workers’ Party) of Belgium, who has launched a Europe-wide campaign to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations.  She explains the reasons for this initiative today. Why did you decide to launch an appeal for the removal of Hamas from […]