Subjects Archives: Culture

  Israel’s Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland.  Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE.  The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia […]

  Here are two documents on the Kosovo question in light of international law: an appeal of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and a diplomatic initiative of University of Belgrade law students. — Ed. APPEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE FACULTY OF LAW The Senate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law […]

  Introduction Japan’s vast higher education system has around 5,000 institutions.  This includes a tertiary level of about 1,300 government-approved, degree-awarding colleges and universities.  Seven hundred forty-five of these are designated as ‘daigaku,’ a term which refers to any institution that has received government sanction to award four-year degrees equivalent to a baccalaureate.  These four-year […]

  Lara Deeb.  An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon.   Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Series.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, footnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb is an important book that illustrates and explores the lives of real, modern, Muslim women.  Published […]

The mark of Cain won’t sprout
from a soldier who shoots
at the head of a child
on a knoll by the fence
around a refugee camp —
for beneath his helmet,
conceptually speaking,
his head is made of cardboard.

  South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston.  In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly.  The cops beat the crap out of the protesters.  Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot.  And of course, of […]

  “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

  “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

  “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

  “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

  This meeting, after thorough discussion of all aspects of the situation arising from the imposition of State of Emergency by the Chief of the Army Staff, resolves as follows: We strongly condemn the imposition of State of Emergency, promulgation of Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), suspension of fundamental rights and the dismantling of the entire […]

  Richard York and Brett Clark’s cogent essay “Gender and Mathematical Ability: The Toll of Biological Determinism” (MR, November 2007) brings to mind the extreme complexities and biases entangled in separating genetic from environmental factors.  I suggest the following example to illustrate the point. Suppose we are confronted with the hypothesis that there exists a […]

  Preamble Dear Friends, it is a great privilege to be with you again since 2002.  As you know, my address then has recently been in the news because on the basis of a distortion of what I said, President Dease of St Thomas University decided I shouldn’t visit his campus.  It is good that […]

Dans son chef-d’oeuvre Les Lettres persanes, publié en 1721, le grand philosophe français Charles-Louis de Montesquieu s’interroge sur les comportements surprenants des Français : lorsque Rica, son voyageur iranien arrivé à Paris, décide de s’habiller à la française, il constate avec étonnement que ses amis français ne le traitent plus avec l’admiration qu’ils lui portaient […]

Le Parti communiste libanais participe à la résistance contre l’occupation israélienne, résistance politique, sociale, mais aussi armée, malgré le peu de moyens dont il dispose.  Nous avons passé une journée entière à Jamaliya, dans la vallée de la Bekaa, où 7 militants communistes sont tombés les armes à la main lors d’une opération israélienne en […]

  The Curve was a club on Lower Main Road in Observatory, a neighborhood with pretensions of being the home of bohemian Cape Town.  “A strange place,” was how Ntone Edjabe, a DJ whose long sets of Fela-tinged Afrobeat were the highlight on Saturday nights, described The Curve.  What made it unique, according to Ntone, […]

  Rutgers Students Visit Hugo Chavez Jason Bellifemini is one of the Rutgers students who recently visited Venezuela and co-authored “Traveling Rutgers University Students Share Their Views on Developments in Venezuela” (MRZine, 4 June 2007).  Bellifemini has put together an interactive Web site, with many photo albums, to share his and other Rutgers students’ experience […]

  The nation is in grief; our memories are full of anguish, and yet we have fresh wounds.  As the Palestinians were commemorating our losses to the Israeli occupation in the Nakba and the Naksa, our blood was running hot in Gaza — but this time we are the murdered and the murderers, too. Hamas […]

  How should progressives respond to the ongoing brouhaha about Salman Rushdie‘s knighthood?  We should begin by reminding ourselves, particularly if we live in the West, that the so-called “Muslim” response to the announcement of Rushdie’s knighthood does not speak for the majority of Muslims, or for what matters to most Muslims in the world.  […]

EXCLUSIF LE FIGARO : Le premier ministre palestinien du Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, a reçu notre correspondant dans sa maison du camp de réfugiés de Chati, ciblée par des bombardements jeudi. Le Figaro : Certains accusent le Hamas d’avoir mené un coup d’État dans la bande de Gaza.  Que leur répondez-vous? Ismaïl Haniyeh : Je leur […]