Geography Archives: Middle East

JASMINE AND STARS: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran by Fatemeh KeshavarzBUY THIS BOOK Fatemeh Keshavarz, author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, on how literature can be used to create or destroy stereotypes. Q: How did Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran come to be? A: You […]

  I have been very puzzled by how many on the left and in the liberal media seem to imagine that the situation in Iraq and the Middle East is bad for the Imperialists.  They are having a heyday with the so-called WOT. . . . It is going very well for them . . […]

7 March 2007 On 10 March 2007 in Baghdad a stillborn regional conference will convene in which the Iraqi people will again be absent, their resistance not represented.  Instead, a defeated US occupation will continue attempting to write the fate of the Iraqi people, conspiring with an undemocratic Security Council, as well as neighbouring and […]

Folks often ask, rather cynically, where are the students protesting the war?  Well, the answer is that they are there — on their campuses and in the dorms — organizing speakers, rallies, and teach-ins.  The fact that folks off campus do not hear about these events does not mean that they aren’t happening.  What it […]

Part I Combine the strengths of the environmental and anti-war movements to defeat U.S. Middle East policy, end the Iraq War, and join the global community in the common struggle for a sustainable future. Communities Uniting for Climate Action Now! This April 14th, tens of thousands of Americans will gather all across the country at […]

(PU)  Amid growing concern over military losses in Iraq and reports that the US might broaden its presence in the Persian Gulf by attacking Iran, President George W. Bush today called an emergency press conference at the Pentagon.  His purpose, he said, was to alert Americans everywhere to the “nondisputable” fact that, regardless of her […]

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, […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

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, […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]