Geography Archives: Middle East

  • Turkey Today — Who Is Next Tomorrow?A Call for International Trial Observers

    Ibrahim Çiçek, Chief Editor of Turkish socialist newspaper Atilim Starting September 8, 2006 and during the several following months, over 120 socialists, communists, and other people of leftist orientation have been arrested by the Turkish Anti-Terror Police Department.  Among them are journalists, including Ibrahim Cicek, the Chief Editor of weekly revolutionary socialist newspaper Atilim www.atilim.org, […]

  • An Open Letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

      I had the great fortune of attending the 79th Academy Awards following my nomination as producer for a film in the Best Documentary Feature category.  At the Awards ceremony, most categories featured an introduction that glorified the filmmakers’ craft and the role it plays for the film audience and industry.  But when comedian Jerry […]

  • U.S. Religious Delegation Finds Hope in Iran

      As Christian leaders from the United States, we traveled to the Islamic Republic of Iran at this time of increased tension believing that it is possible to build bridges of understanding between our two countries.  We believe military action is not the answer, and that God calls us to just and peaceful relationships within […]

  • All Roads Lead to Checkpoints

    All roads may have once led to Rome, but, for the Palestinian people, all roads lead to checkpoints.  The latest checkpoint to block the Palestinians is not manned by Israel but the ostensible mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Quartet (which is composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United […]

  • U.S. Imperialism and Arroyo Regime in the Philippines on Trial at the Permanent People’s Tribunal, the Hague

      An interview with Luis Jalandoni, chairperson of the National Democratic Front-Philippines Negotiating Panel, follows E. San Juan, Jr.’s analysis. The February visit of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, reconfirmed the barbarism of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s de facto martial-law regime in the Philippines.  Stavenhagen bewailed the worsening pattern of […]

  • Now (That the Dems Have Taken Back Congress) What?

    The November ’06 election presents socialists and progressives in the US with a (thankfully) new situation.  The next couple of years offer many opportunities, questions, and dilemmas . If we squarely face the many complications inherent in the current balance of class forces in America, maybe we can help to keep things moving away from […]

  • Uprising against the “War on Terror”: The Danger of US Foreign Policy to International Security

    For those among us who hoped that 2007 would be a more orderly year in world politics, the current trends have been frustrating.  Over the past few weeks, the Bush administration has pursued the escalation of two major international crises. The first major crisis is taking place in Somalia, where the Ethiopian Army and its […]

  • Picturing Reality

      A Sense of History? “Kahin building, kahin trame, kahin motor, kahin mil; sab milta hai yahan par bas milta nahin dil,”1 croons the late Johnny Walker to Sahir Ludhayanvi‘s immortal lyrics (CID, 1956) while ruing the difficulties one has to face in finding true love in a world of industry, automation, and speed.  In […]

  • Ammunition against the Empire

      Need a crash course on the present state of the world?  Want to untangle the terminology, separate the victims from the victimizers, understand the dynamics of unilateralism, and deduce what can be done about it all?  I’d like to introduce you to a small literary arsenal. A good place to begin is the book […]

  • Is the Big Ship America Sinking?Contradictions and Openings

    There’s something happeningWhat it is ain’t exactly clearBuffalo Springfield, 1966 Are we in the midst of a momentous turn in world politics?  Donald Rumsfeld has been shuffled out of the Pentagon.  Daniel Ortega, Washington’s nemesis from the Sandinista Revolution of the late 1970s, is back as President of Nicaragua.  Hugo Chavez has been triumphantly re-elected, […]

  • Abolish It!

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. […]

  • Consuming Karl

    Now that I have mastered the art of writing for social change, I have decided to become a famous literary agent!  Of course, before I open my own agency, I’ll need to practice editing.  Luckily, the right manuscript recently came to my attention, and I have just finished crafting this cutting-edge feedback. Dear Karl Marx […]

  • Freedom Fight: An interview with Milenko Srećković

      Milenko Srećković is a spokesperson for the Balkan anarchist movement FreedomFight and is one of the editors of the webzine www.freedomfight.net. Q: Could you start by telling us a bit about the alternative media initiative you are involved with? A: FreedomFight is an anarchist, alter-globalist movement created in Serbia in 2003.  The FreedomFight movement […]

  • Lebanon: Women against Civil War and Sectarian Divisions [Liban : Les femmes contre la guerre civile et les divisions confessionnelles]

    Les derniers développements politiques au Liban, notamment les événements sanglants du jeudi 26 janvier, ont poussé les représentantes de 15 associations féminines libanaises (dont la « Ligue des droits de la femme libanaise », l’« Association « Wardé Boutros » des femmes communistes », « Kafa », « Les dames de Choueifat »…) ainsi que […]

  • Toward a Surge for “Out Now”

    THE ANTI-SURGE GETS ROLLING It’s not about Bush’s surge anymore.  It’s the Antiwar Surge that’s capturing the headlines and threatening to upset all the warmakers’ calculations. On January 27, “a raucous and colorful multitude” (Washington Post) brought their “Out Now!” message to the streets of Washington.  With participants ranging from active duty GIs to members […]

  • Pledge to Abstain — Stop Funding the War

    View Current Signatures Sign the Petition To:  U.S. Congress Whereas: the U.S. military occupation of Iraq is a cruel and illegal occupation that has cost nearly 700,000 lives, shattered a viable society, and displaced more than a million people, and Whereas: the occupation itself is the single greatest causative agent of inter-Iraqi violence, and Whereas: […]

  • Israeli Left Archive

    Nostalgic?  Curious?  Historian? We would like to take this occasion to present to you and your friends our new Web site data base: ISRAELI-LEFT-ARCHIVE.ORG The Web site is built around collections of historical documents from various important sections of the Israeli left and peace forces: Women in Black and other sections of the women’s peace […]

  • Jacques Chirac Minimizes the Threat of an Iranian Nuclear Bomb [Jacques Chirac minimise la menace d’une bombe nucléaire iranienne]

    Jacques Chirac a fait, lundi 29 janvier, au sujet du programme nucléaire de l’Iran et de ses conséquences possibles au Moyen-Orient, une série de déclarations tranchant avec le discours habituel de la diplomatie française sur ce dossier.  Il parlait à des journalistes du Nouvel Observateur, du New York Times et du International Herald Tribune. Le […]

  • The Paris III Conference on Assistance to Lebanon: Who Aids Whom? [La conférence de Paris III pour le soutien au Liban : qui aide qui ?]

    Le 25 janvier 2007 se tenait, à Paris, la Conférence internationale de soutien au Liban, dite « Paris III », convoquée et présidée par Jacques Chirac. Etaient réunis les représentants de trente-six pays, notamment la secrétaire d’Etat américaine Condolezza Rice, et de quatorze institutions internationales dont le nouveau secrétaire général des Nations Unies Ban Ki-Moon, […]

  • Visualizing the Iraq Death Toll

    Veterans, community groups, and campus activists organized an action of solidarity to make the University of Oregon the second school in the nation to visually represent the Iraq death toll.  Two hundred volunteers placed 112,000 white flags around school property, with each flag representing 6 Iraqi lives destroyed during the US occupation.  3,000 red flags […]