On March 12 this year, the Public Safety Committee of the Philadelphia City Council held a public hearing to review the practice of detaining undocumented immigrants in what are known as “ICE Holds.” An ICE Hold, or civil immigration detainer, is a request from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to local police […]
Geography Archives: Asia
Countries in the continent of Asia
Constructing the North Korean Revolution
Suzy Kim. Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Cloth, 45.00, pp 307. With Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950, Suzy Kim has filled a major gap in the history of North Korea. In the West, it has become customary to fixate on the top leadership in historical […]
Russia and the Ukraine Crisis: The Eurasian Project in Conflict with the Triad Imperialist Policies
Moscow, March 2014 1. The current global stage is dominated by the attempt of historical centers of imperialism (the US, Western and Central Europe, Japan — hereafter called “the Triad”) to maintain their exclusive control over the planet through a combination of: so-called neo-liberal economic globalization policies allowing financial transnational capital of the Triad to […]
The Revolutionary Legacy of Bhagat Singh: An Interview with Chaman Lal
Chaman Lal retired as professor of Hindi translation from the Centre of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is now associated with the Centre for Comparative Literature as Professor-Coordinator at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda. His most recent book is Understanding Bhagat Singh (Aakar Books, Delhi, 2013). BD: March 23 marks the […]
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Its Uses and Limits
Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. $39.95. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty has caused a stir, which it deserves. Capital 21, as we will abbreviate the title, grapples with a prominent current issue: outrageously unequal incomes and wealth. It is a data-rich, […]
“Deglobalization” Versus “Inclusive Growth”
The race of globalization is leaving the majority of the world’s population far behind. According to UNICEF, the richest 20% of the population gets 83% of global income, while the poorest quintile has just 1%.1 This trend is getting worse. A new UNDP report called “Humanity Divided” estimates that 75% of the world’s population lives […]
Come Together: Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Solidarity March
All the leaders and many of the active members of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) — arbitrarily held responsible for the violent 18 July 2012 incident in the Manesar works of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in the province of Haryana — 148 of them, repeatedly denied bail, are in jail since August of that […]
Treme Rewrites Post-Katrina History. And That’s a Good Thing.
After three and a half seasons, HBO’s Treme concluded in December, and last week the entire series became available as a box set. The show started with low ratings that got lower as time went on, never won many awards, and divided critics. But as time passes and more audiences discover the show, it may […]
Tarek Mehanna: His Tragic Immoderation
I have become a card-carrying, tax-paying moderate, thanks to a study I found in Politico.com. In this study, psychologists Kaitlin Toner and Mark Leary discovered that the more extreme politicians’ views are, the more they think they’re right. In fact, politicians’ “belief superiority” — the certainty that their own viewpoints are correct — was linked […]
The “Brown International” of the European Far Right
In the lead-up to the international day of action against fascism on 22 March, Thanasis Kampagiannis, writing in the latest issue of Σοσιαλισμός από Κάτω (Socialism From Below), the theoretical journal of the Greek Socialist Workers Party (SEK), looks at the danger of a major far Right breakthrough in May’s European Parliament elections and […]
Guerrilla Girls of the FARC-EP: Making War, Peace, and History
If regular armies are generally a man’s world, guerrillas and insurgent forces are just the contrary. There women have always had a central role. Think of Agustina of Aragon, Olga Benário, Tania Bunke, Maria Grajales, and Celia Sánchez, or even (stretching a bit) the legendary Amazons. It is not for nothing that Liberté — the […]
A Call for Justice — Free the Cuban 5: An Interview with Netfa Freeman
Netfa Freeman is a longtime activist/organizer who has worked on Cuba solidarity issues for several years. A frequent traveler to Cuba, Netfa talks about his visit last November in support of the Cuban 5. Gregory Elich: You’ve recently returned from Cuba, where you attended the Ninth International Colloquium to Free the Cuban 5. In 1998, […]
What Is Political Will?
Samuel Grove [SG]: For a while now you’ve been working on and defending the old idea of ‘the will of the people’, and you’ve described it in terms of a ‘dialectical voluntarism’; what do you mean by this? Peter Hallward [PH]: I’m not stuck on the terminology, and I’m leery of the way these […]
To Struggle With Hindutva Fascists Among the Adivasi Community
Samir Amin in “The Democratic Fraud and the Universalist Alternative” in our issue of October 2011 sets out the fundamental process of the “democratic” fraud: [A]ll hitherto existing societies have been based on a dual system of exploitation of labor (in various forms) and of concentration of the state’s powers on behalf of the […]
Mandela Was Not a Hallmark Card
Long-time South African educator and President of the New Unity Movement, R. O. Dudley had a quote that he used when speaking of various iconic South African struggle leaders: He “had arms, not wings.” It is a phrase that we should remember when speaking of the late Nelson Mandela, but unfortunately, press coverage in the […]
Challenging Harper’s Imperialist Agenda
It has become commonplace to observe that the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been re-making the symbols and practices of the Canadian state. Canada, in this view, was once the social democratic heartland of North America. But under Harper, Canada has been transformed into a hyper-regime of neoliberal market fundamentalism. Nowhere, it is argued, […]
White Earth Nation Adopts New Constitution
Welcome sign — “Aaniin” (Hi) and “Biindigen” (Come in) — to the White Earth community of Rice Lake, at the entrance to Lower Rice Lake, a popular site for harvesting wild rice. Photo by David Thorstad. In a historic vote, on November 19, 2013, the White Earth Nation in northwestern Minnesota became the first member […]
Listen to Afghan Peace Volunteers
I’ve been a guest in Colorado Springs, Colorado, following a weeklong retreat with Colorado College students who are part of a course focused on nonviolence. In last weekend’s Colorado Springs Gazette, there was an article in the Military Life section about an international skype phone call between U.S. soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan and sixth-grade girls […]
Do What You Must (Tum Apni Karni Kar Guzro)
Laal is a revolutionary band from Pakistan. Lyrics by Faiz Ahmad Faiz (13 February 1911-20 November 1984). Directed by Taimur Rahman. | Print
Voices From the Drone Summit
Last weekend, I participated in a panel on the illegality of drones and targeted killing off the battlefield at the conference “Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance” in Washington DC. Nearly 400 people from many countries came together to gather information, protest, and develop strategies to end targeted killing by combat drones. I found […]
