A few metres from my office at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the heart of London’s Bloomsbury area is the Senate House of the University of London, a remarkable neo-classical colossus of a building which functioned as the headquarters of Britain’s ministry of information, where George Orwell worked occasionally during the second […]
Geography Archives: Colombia
Economics, Ideology, and Imperialism
Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, eminent Marxist economist, taught in CESP-JNU (Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University) over the last four decades. He has been one of the most outstanding economists in India and a great teacher. He has retired from JNU recently. On the occasion of his farewell, the students of CESP […]
The Palestine Question and the U.S. Public Sphere
The 2010 Edward Said Memorial Lecture, the Palestine Center, Washington, DC, 7 October 2010 Thank you all for coming today, and, to those of you who are watching, thank you for viewing this talk. Those of you who live in Washington, who are subjected to the American media, will probably be relieved to hear […]
Iran and Honduras in the Propaganda System: Part 1, Neda Agha-Soltan versus Isis Obed Murillo
It would be hard to find a better test of the integrity of the establishment U.S. media than in their comparative treatment of Iran and Honduras over the past couple of years (2009-2010). Iran has been on the United States’ regime-change hit list for many years. Since the first-half of 2003 (and overlapping its soon-to-be-discredited […]
Why Does Israel Still Occupy the Palestinians?
1. The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society The majority of Israel’s anti-occupation movement, unfortunately, does not focus on the rights of Palestinians to live free, but on the damage that the occupation causes to Israeli society (Sternhell, 2009). The arguments that the occupation is a major investment of resources that could be useful […]
“Combat Troop Withdrawal” from Iraq and the Threat of Another War: Interview with Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
In your view, does the combat troop withdrawal mean that the mission has been completed successfully? Viewed from all conceivable angles the war must be considered a strategic failure and a humanitarian disaster. True, the US government, together with its allies primarily the United Kingdom, managed to oust Saddam Hussein who was, by all […]
Left Think Tank Mystifies Iran-Saudi Tensions
No one should be surprised when The Economist or another controlled opinion source misrepresents tensions in the Persian Gulf as religious rivalry while overlooking decades of U.S. and Israeli success in stoking them for imperial gain. The so-called mainstream press typically repeats unsubstantiated charges to pretend that Arab client states of Washington buy tens of […]
The Structural Crisis of Capitalism
There is a very pervasive view that the current capitalist crisis consists exclusively of the financial crisis and, in so far as the financial crisis is now over, the crisis as a whole is over. This, I believe, is erroneous, and this is because, like Bob Brenner, I also believe that the current financial crisis […]
Latin America: Stop Using Colombia against Left-wing Governments
In March I wrote about the Obama Administration’s contribution to the election campaign under way in Venezuela, where voters will choose a new National Assembly in September. I predicted that certain things would happen before September, among them some new “discoveries” that Venezuela supports terrorism. Venezuela has had thirteen elections or referenda since Hugo Chávez […]
“Secularism . . . a Really Interesting Problematic”: A Conversation with Joan Wallach Scott
DKK: Joan, because people know you as many things — as a theorist of gender, as a cultural historian, as an inveterate advocate for academic freedom and defender of the rights of the professoriate — I’m curious how you would describe yourself to someone who had never met Joan Scott. JWS: That’s really hard . […]
A Defining Moment of the 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon
Paul Jay: One of the moments of the war that we hear, as we’ve been in Beirut, people talking about is one point during the war where Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is making a speech and tells people to look out to the sea. Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General, Hezbollah: Now . . . […]
Jordan Crossings
Joseph A. Massad. Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Paperback, 396 pages, ISBN: 0-231-12323-x. In Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan, a book that is painstakingly researched (there are almost 75 pages of end notes alone), Joseph A. Massad explores and analyzes the roles […]
A New Order in “Greater West Asia”: AfPak to Palestine
When the Soviet Union was in terminal crisis in 1990 and the prospect emerged of the United States establishing long-term domination of the international political system, the influential Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer sought to capture the character of the unfolding geopolitical era. The term he used became a buzzword in then-emerging neo-conservative circles, and […]
SEIU Buys Its Own Version of History
In the last five years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization. Some of SEIU’s negative publicity is a product of right-wing union bashing. But a huge amount is self-inflicted — the result of conflicts with other […]
Colombia: From Uribe to Santos
Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. This cartoon was published in his blog on 28 June 2010, shortly after the second round of the Colombian presidential elections on 20 June 2010. | Print
British Columbia’s Fossil Fuel Superpower Ambitions
The province of Alberta is well known as a climate-destroying behemoth. The tar sands developments in the north of that province are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. Less well known are the ambitions of its neighbouring province, British Columbia. It shares similar fossil fuel reserves and ambitions as Alberta. […]
Right Wins Big in Colombia
Paul Jay: So, what happened in the Colombian elections on Sunday? . . . Before the runoff election, the last time you and I talked, which is I guess just over a month ago, the other candidate, Mockus, looked like [trending up] — in fact, I think the headline of our story was “Upset […]
Colombia: The FARC Side of the Story
In Cauca, Colombia is still at war. You find trenches in every corner, tanks, Blackhawk helicopters and lots of soldiers. Fighting takes place here almost every day and people have gotten used to it. More than that, they are certain that on election day there will be attacks. But in spite of all that […]
Two, Three, Many 1960s
The global Sixties began in Tokyo on June 15, 1960, with the death of Michiko Kanba, an undergraduate at Tokyo University. On the night of her death she had joined a group of fellow university students at the front of a massive demonstration — 100,000 people deep — facing off against the National Diet Building. […]
The Greenest Building in New York (and Maybe the World)
If it were set in, say, Manhattan, Kansas, it would be a spectacular sight: a twisting, shimmering 51-story tower of glass. As it is, though, it doesn’t stand out in Midtown Manhattan, New York — a stylized office tower, topped by a harpoonish spire. In short, another glass office building that screams “architecture” while exuding […]
