Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, directed by Max Cacopardo, 1967. Director First Run/ Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 1967. Video and DVD, 60 mins., b/w. A “time capsule” was how Simone de Beauvoir described Max Cacopardo’s documentary about her and Sartre, made for Canadian television in 1967 and re-issued in 2005. She was certainly […]
Geography Archives: Africa
Countries in the continent of Africa
Who Says Iran Is Becoming Isolated in the Middle East?
We have argued for some time that the policy debate about Iran here in the United States is distorted by a number of “myths” — myths about the Islamic Republic, its foreign policy, and its domestic politics. One of the more dangerous myths currently affecting America’s Iran debate is the proposition that, through concerted diplomatic […]
Neoliberalism, Neocolonialism, and the Criminalization of “Homosexuality”: Interview with Scott Long
Nan Hunter and Scott Long
Scott Long: Around the world, there are existing sex laws being strengthened, there are new sex laws being passed. In Egypt you have people being jailed for homosexuality and for being HIV positive under what’s actually a prostitution law that dates from the fifties. In Burundi and Nigeria, you have people trying to pass […]
Revealing Moments: Obama, WikiLeaks, the “Good War” Myth, and Silly Liberal Faith in the Emperor
War Crime Whistleblower in Obama’s Sights, War Criminals Not Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, is being prosecuted by the Obama administration for disclosing a classified video showing American troops murdering civilians in Baghdad from an Apache Attack Helicopter in 2007. Eleven adults were killed in the […]
Sending a Message, Setting a Precedent: Nuclear Powers vs. Iran, Brazil, Turkey, and Other Emerging Powers
In international politics, if an action seems reckless or callous and the ones taking it are not certified loonies, usually it’s because it was made to look that way, on purpose. To send a message. Take Israel’s attack in international waters on a civilian flotilla that resulted in the death of nine Turkish passengers. […]
‘God Helps Those Who Help Themselves’: Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein, Part 2
What is the British government’s role in the conflict? It is officially committed to the international consensus two-state settlement, but what has our record been in practice? It’s been awful. Britain doesn’t have an independent role — it just does what the US tells it to do. On the other hand, the struggle is easier […]
The Myth of Conflict-Free Diamonds
The issue of “blood diamonds” has once again made the news: Farai Maguwu, Director of Zimbabwe’s Mutare-based Centre for Research and Development (CRD), languishes under the long arm of Zimbabwe’s laws on alleged charges related to his research on Zimbabwe’s Marange mines. According to a confidential 44-page report produced by investigators mandated by the Kimberley […]
Treasure Islands: Mapping the Geography of Corruption
When is a tax haven not a tax haven? When Mauritius’ Vice Prime Minister Ramakrishna Sithanen says so. “We are a not a tax haven,” stated Sithanen, who is also the country’s Minister of Finance. Ironically, Sithanen would go on to reveal that ring-fenced financial services (FS) — the legal and financial secrecy vehicles facilitating […]
Srebrenica 15 Years After: The Politicization of “Genocide”
It has become an annual ritual each July to commemorate the “Srebrenica massacre,” which dates back to July 11-16, 1995. The now institutionalized characterization is that “8,000 [Bosnian Muslim] men and boys” were executed by the Serbs at that time, in “the worst mass killing in Europe since the Second World War.” This memorial is […]
Reading The Politics of Veil
Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Vii + 208 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $24.94 U.S. (cl), ISBN 978-0-691-1243-5. On March 15, 2004, the French government passed a law banning the wearing of « conspicuous signs » of religious affiliation within public schools. The decision […]
The 2010 Commonwealth Games: Delhi’s Worrying Transformation
Amid spells of heavy monsoon rain and sticky, sweltering heat, Delhi is an anxious city, struggling to meet a deadline. Preparations are furiously underway for the nineteenth Commonwealth Games, to be held in town in less than three months (from October 3-14). Delhi residents expect that their upturned streets, recurrent blackouts and impassable traffic jams […]
The Magic Kingdom
Pacho Maturana, Colombian, a man of vast experience in these matters, says that football is a magic kingdom, where anything can happen. The recent World Cup confirmed his words: it was a strange World Cup. Strange were the ten stadiums where the matches were held, beautiful, immense, which cost a fortune. No one knows what […]
‘God Helps Those Who Help Themselves’: Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein, Part 1
Norman Finkelstein is one of the world’s foremost public intellectuals writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is the author of many books on the topic, most recently Beyond Chutzpah, an exhaustive account of Israel’s human rights record, and This Time We Went Too Far (reviewed in New Left Project), an analysis of the Gaza massacre […]
Paris, October 1961
Leïla Sebbar, The Seine Was Red. Paris, October 1961: A Novel (translated by Mildred Mortimer). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008. xxiv + 116pp. $17.95 U.S. (pb). ISBN 10-0253-2202-38. The official French obfuscation of the police violence against Algerians in Paris in October 1961 has inspired long-term personal and collective memory retrieval that […]
Apartheid South Africa’s Secret Relationship with Israel
Thank you for having me, Yousef [Munayyer], and thank you all for coming out on a day when it’s over 100 degrees. I know it wasn’t easy. I’m going to talk a little about the research that went into this book [The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa] and where my interest […]
The Dollar Question: Where Are We?
The global crisis has led some to question the dollar’s place as the dominant currency. This column discusses three camps in the literature: those advocating a new synthetic global currency, those arguing that a new reserve currency will emerge, and those suggesting a return to sharing the role. It concludes that talk of the […]
Remembering Lumumba
On 17 January 1961 Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic first and only elected prime minister of Congo, was brutally murdered. The circumstances of his death remain a mystery, the identity of his killers unknown. In 1956 Lumumba was a post office clerk; four years later he would be prime minister. In between he had been […]
Somalia: Peace, Security, and the Upshot of Political Subjugation
If I could think of any tactfully discreet and diplomatically clear way to describe the outcome of the 15th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on Somalia without compromising the essence of my message, I would simply choose that approach. Therefore, going crude is the appropriate way: As a […]
Toronto G20: Remembering Politics, Celebrating Activism
As news of the G20’s Toronto Summit recedes from the headlines, which memories shall prevail? The answer to this question will not only shape official decisions, such as whether allegations of police brutality are seriously investigated, but may also have a profound impact on the political sensibilities of a generation of Canadians. Given the constant […]
The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation
Shir Hever and Paul Jay
Paul Jay: So, in talking to people in Israel, one thing I hear constantly is the fight here is about national identity, it’s about the defense of the Jewish state. I don’t hear very much about economics of Israel or the economics of occupation. So how does national identity relate to the economics here? […]
