Geography Archives: Middle East

The KCK (Union of Communities in Kurdistan) Executive Council said that the Gezi Park protests, which began as social resistance, have sent a message calling for a new, democratic Turkey.  The KCK called on the Kurdish people to take initiative, saying that the Kurds should fulfill responsibility by working with the democratic forces in Turkey so that the Democratic Solution Process will develop on the right track.

The KCK Executive Council stated that the social resistance around Gezi Park has an important message.  Noting that the current situation poses significant consequences for Turkey’s transition into a democratic country, the council also warned against “opportunist” approaches.  The KCK called on the democratic and working-class sections of civil society to stand against potential barriers to the Democratic Solution Process.

  1. For days now Turkey has been witnessing a genuine popular movement.  The actions and protests, which have started in Istanbul and spread all over Turkey, have a massive, legitimate, and historic character.  The most important of all is the striking change in the mood of people.  The fear and apathy has been overcome […]

“You have to stay in the square, in Taksim, until the government accepts your demands.  Don’t leave it.  [Stay] there with your peaceful demonstration, your peaceful strike, sit-in.  And I call upon women to join it on a wide scale everywhere, in the squares in different cities, not only in Taksim.  Long live the people’s […]

  31 May 2013 This is our Tahrir. Friday evening.  This is probably the busiest street of Ankara at this time of the week.  It’s busy today, too — not with traffic, but with thousands of demonstrators. On the surface, everything has only to do with a public park, which is slated to be demolished […]

May 29, 2013 A few evenings ago, as the sky began to darken here in Kabul, Afghanistan, a small group of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (APVs) gathered for an informal presentation about WikiLeaks, its chief editor Julian Assange, and its most prominent contributor Bradley Manning.  Basir Bita, a regular visitor to the APV household, began […]

May 27, 2013 When she was 24 years old, in 1979, Fahima Vorgetts left Afghanistan.  By reputation, she had been outspoken, even rebellious, in her opposition to injustice and oppression; and family and friends, concerned for her safety, had urged her to go abroad.  Twenty-three years later, returning for the first time to her homeland, […]

Russia, as travelers have noted over the centuries, is immense.  Most of it is far from large bodies of water.  And yet, in a first visit after many years, I came upon some unusual islands right in the heart of the country.  But they were not islands in the geographic sense.  Some were children’s islands. […]

Gay greetings, LGBT-town!  I’m your out-and-proud lesbian pundit.  You may recognize me from my latest blog entry, “How Gay Was My Condo.”  Today, I bring you a hard-hitting work of in-depth political analysis re: Private First Class Bradley Manning.  It seems some malcontents on the Board of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade have suggested Private […]

On Nakba Day, 15 May 2013, Palestinians will mark the passing of 65 years since the massive forced expulsion of Palestinians from their national homeland.  The Nakba commemorations demand reflection not only on the “catastrophe” of the loss of life, land, and property in 1948, but also on Israeli policies that are still dispossessing Palestinians […]

  We went on “Israeli Independence Day” to Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, to celebrate the “ethnic cleansing” along with the people of Israel.  We distributed maps prepared by Zochrot documenting the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the beginning of Zionism to 67.  Reactions?   The “best” you can find on the Zionist streets. Here […]

“These people who are commonly known as leaders view politics and religion as that crippled, lame and injured man, displaying whom our beggars normally beg for money.  These so-called leaders go about carrying the carcasses of politics and religion on their shoulders, and to simple-minded people who are in the habit of accepting every word […]

More than 100 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo are starving themselves to death.  Twenty-three of them are being force-fed.  “They strap you to a chair, tie up your wrists, your legs, your forehead and tightly around the waist,” Fayiz Al-Kandari told his lawyer, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard.  Al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti held at Guantanamo for […]

Former U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland are two of twenty participants from seven countries that will participate in an international delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013.  The purpose of the delegation is to meet with communities affected by the fighting, with a view towards facilitating peace and […]

Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, faces three years in jail and heavy fines for organizing workers in the Iraqi oil fields.  They oppose privatization of Iraqi oil and demand fair treatment and respect at work.  Meet Hassan in this short video and act in international solidarity as requested in […]

In the final weeks of a six-month prison sentence for protesting remote-control murder by drones, specifically from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, I can only reflect on my time of captivity in light of the crimes that brought me here.  In these ominous times, it is America’s officials and judges and not the anarchists […]

This video shows a panel discussion, moderated by Gayatri Gopinath, featuring the following scholars and papers: Katherine Fobear, “Queer Settlers: Exploring the Intersections of Colonial Violence and Settler Homonationalism With LGBTQ Refugees in Canada”; Colleen Jankovic, “Paranoia, the ‘Untold Story’ of Queer Palestine, and Non-Aligned Queer Solidarity”; Emrah Yıldız, “Alignments of International Refugee Law, Liberalism […]

The anti-immigrant right has been mounting a scare campaign since late January about the supposed dangers of legalizing the country’s estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants. — “When you legalize those who are in the country illegally,” Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, announced on January 28, “it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers […]

  I was fortunate this week.  I had a quick and easy crossing from Jordan back into Israel.  No delays, no questions, no invasive body searches and no lengthy rummaging through my luggage.  The border guard sitting next to the computer took my passport, opened it and looked at the screen, presumably to check for […]

  In a society where employees are only expected to perform well according to predetermined criteria, where loyalty to superiors and management is permanently tested through the nightmare of contract non-renewal, where there is a desire to transform universities into subsidiaries of monopoly capital, those who say “a university should not be like that” will […]

Tunis, Tunisia Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum — the first to be held in an Arab country.  The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as […]