There’s a funny if intimidating gun-nut bumper sticker you may have seen on the road: “gun control means using both hands.” It’s clever, invoking and mocking gun control at the same time. This last week the United States government, by its actions, formally adopted this bumper sticker as its de-facto nuclear weapons and arms control […]
Geography Archives: Africa
Countries in the continent of Africa
2010 U.S. Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid
Our Purpose, Goals, Assumptions, and Expectations for the Assembly What Is Zionism? Zionism is a political movement that supports the ongoing project of colonizing Palestine for the purposes of building a state premised on Jewish nationalism. Therefore, a central goal of the current Zionist movement is to ensure that Israel maintains the maximum area […]
Mr. Lula Goes to Tehran — Brazil’s Neocons React
Brazil’s Ascent under Lula’s Leadership Under the leadership of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has become a regional leader in Latin America with vibrant international foreign policy. A look at the internal political dynamics of Brazil would be useful also. During President Lula’s presidency, Brazil has had tremendous economic growth. But in the coming […]
Lula and Erdoğan Go to Tehran: Alternative Perspectives on Their Diplomatic Prospects
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday. But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]
The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners
Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture, Palestine Center, Washington, D.C., 29 April 2010 It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out […]
Glimpses of Alternatives to Neoliberalism
Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives. Adrian Smith, Alison Stenning, and Katie Willis, eds. Macmillan/Zed Books, 2008. 253 pages. Following the tradition of critical geographers, this book explores the expansion of neoliberalism into different spheres and spaces of everyday life. It consists of a collection of essays by writers from the global South, the […]
Israel’s Big and Small Apartheids: The Meaning of a Jewish State
A talk delivered to the Fifth Bil’in International Conference for Palestinian Popular Resistance, held in the West Bank village of Bil’in on April 21 Israel’s apologists are very exercised about the idea that Israel has been singled out for special scrutiny and criticism. I wish to argue, however, that in most discussions of Israel it […]
It Is Deep (don’t never forget the bridge that you crossed over on)
Having tried to use the witch cord that erases the stretch of thirty-three blocks and tuning in the voice which woodenly stated that the talk box was “disconnected” My mother, religiously girdled in her god, slipped on some love, and laid on my bell like a truck, blew through my door warm wind from […]
The Erupting Insurrection
By one swift, decisive act, it has paralyzed Europe’s airline industries for almost a week, delayed 64 thousand flights (and counting), affecting millions of travellers, reminding a whole continent that geography and distance still exist, while lessening the airlines’ carbon footprint by an amount equal to the annual output of several smaller states combined, […]
On the Goldstone Phenomenon, Etc.
Norman G. Finkelstein: Israel would not be so up in arms about the Goldstone Report, would not be so upset by it, were it not for the fact that, yes, they are very vulnerable to the public opinion, and they know very well the limits beyond which it may not express itself against them, […]
The Politics of the Soundtrack
Was there a golden age of the film soundtrack? One might reach for Ennio Morricone (at least until the late 1980s) or the ’70s and ’80s records Popul Vuh made for Werner Herzog’s most memorable films, Aguirre, Nosferatu and Cobra Verde. Even if much of the concept has gone out of ‘conceptual’ film-making and the […]
The Bank Loan That Could Break South Africa’s Back
Just how dangerous is the World Bank and its neo-conservative president, Robert Zoellick, to South Africa and the global climate? Notwithstanding South Africa’s existing $75 billion foreign debt, last Thursday the bank added a $3.75bn loan to Eskom for the primary purpose of building the world’s fourth-largest coal-fired power plant, at Medupi, which will spew […]
Here Comes the Neighborhood: The Housing Movement Goes Global in East Harlem
Here, amid the glittering ruins of globalized gentrification’s gilded age, a kind of glocal tenants’ movement is taking shape, at once locally rooted and globally connected. On April 6, 2008, a gathering of global dimensions was afoot on the steps of New York’s City Hall. You may have missed it at the time. You may […]
“It’s All about Reconciliation”
I had the opportunity to sit for a conversation with the Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan at the end of the 2009 meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Montreal. Ramadan is a public intellectual who has been a figure of both much praise and much condemnation, occasioned by controversial statements and positions that […]
Why Are American Jewish Groups So Intent on Defending Illegal Israeli Settlements and Other Human Rights Violations?
A coalition of nearly 20 Jewish groups, ranging from the right-wing David Project and the Jewish National Fund to the liberal J Street, is distributing a misleading statement condemning a Student Senate bill at UC Berkeley. The ground-breaking bill calls for divestment from companies that profit from the perpetuation of the Israeli military occupation […]
Our Summer in Tehran
(Phone Message) “Hey, Justine, I just wanted to say, ‘Come back safely.’” May 16, 2007. Tomorrow morning, my son and I leave for Iran. (Phone Message) “Hi, Justine, I want you to be careful and maybe not mention to people that you’re Jewish.” (In-flight Announcement) “. . . We do ask you to respect […]
Still Struggling, Still Protesting, Fifty Years after the Sharpeville Massacre
It is amazing that I am now at last again on South African soil, since my previous trip here was in December. I am at home in my soul in a way that is unique for my travels. I am breathing in the salty air from the Indian Ocean, feeling the hot rays of the […]
Food Crisis before Financial Crisis
What are the consequences of the implementation of neo-liberal economic philosophy for industrialization and development of poor countries? The answer: de-industrialization of many low-income countries; destruction of their food production (influenced also by protectionist agricultural policies of developed countries), thus their heavy dependence on food imports. The boom in commodity prices had improved the […]
Walking with the Comrades
The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with India’s Gravest Internal Security Threat. I’d been waiting for months to hear from them. I had to be at the Ma Danteshwari mandir in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, at any of four given times on two given days. That was to […]
Israeli Socialism and Anti-Zionism: Historical Tasks and Balance Sheet
A talk delivered at the conference “The Left in Palestine/The Palestinian Left,” School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 28 February 2010 This talk is dedicated to the memory of my late friend and comrade, the Arab Marxist Jabra Nicola (1912-74). The terms “Right” and “Left” as used in Israel are misleading: they do […]
