Subjects Archives: Media

  Even as hundreds of thousands gathered across Iran on Thursday [11 February 2010 — ed.] to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic, it’s worth noting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t the religious fanatic he is portrayed as in the West.  In fact, in a country where overt allegiance to fundamentalist Shiism […]

  “My friend told me to call Israel the ’48 lands while in Gaza.  Here’s one of many reasons why, and why a one-state struggle is the right(er) struggle.” — Max Ajl Targeted Citizens, written, directed, produced, and edited by Rachel Leah Jones for Adalah, surveys discrimination against Palestinian citizens in Israel.  With the participation […]

To Rom, and Parichehr Today I met Iranians who don’t hate Arabs. They smiled and said “hey, selam,” even knowing I was Arab. They didn’t have green eyes, yet they seemed to bear up pretty well without them, and they don’t fault Arabs, not all of us, at least, for Nahavand, and the bloody flare-up […]

  A talk delivered at the conference “The Left in Palestine/The Palestinian Left,” School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 28 February 2010 This talk is dedicated to the memory of my late friend and comrade, the Arab Marxist Jabra Nicola (1912-74). The terms “Right” and “Left” as used in Israel are misleading: they do […]

  Athens, Greece, 11.03.10. — Tens of thousands of trade unionists and anti-capitalists demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government’s austerity measures.  People explain why the have taken to the streets. “Today’s 24-hour general strike was called by GSEE and ADEDY (private and public sector unions).  They are demanding that working people not […]

Boston University is planning a “celebration” of Howard Zinn on March 27th. I dare think that this is a proper moment for the university to address the need to reverse the grievous discrimination against Zinn, who taught political science at BU for over two decades and yet retired with a paltry junior faculty salary. John Silber, BU’s president at the time of Zinn’s tenure, repeatedly denied any salary increase for him, voted on unanimously by the faculty committees at BU. In one instance, Silber wrote an opinion letter justifying his unilateral decision against pay increase for Zinn by labeling Zinn’s books as “nonsense” and bereft of scholarly value.

  “It’s necessary to campaign on my record,” Nicolas Sarkozy had told UMP leaders in the regional elections, before prudently beating a retreat when polls revealed the darkening sky for the party.  Despite the same old cliché repeated by UMP spokespeople according to the dictate of the Élysée, the fact remains that voters clearly rejected […]

  Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was featured on the home page of Rebelión on 13 March 2010. | | Print  

  Michael Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution.  Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008.  x + 493 pp.  $45.00 U.S. (cl).  ISBN 978- 0691124988. Michael Sonenscher begins, “This is a book about the sans-culottes and the part that they played in the French Revolution” (p. 1).  Actually, there are no revolutionary sans-culottes […]

  “Census forms are being mailed to all Americans this month so make sure to fill yours out.  Iranian-Americans are asked to mark ‘other’ on question 9 and write in Iranian or Iranian-American.  (I’m told that the FBI does not get these forms, but please let me know if you do end up getting deported […]

Johannesburg, 11 March 2010 (IRIN) — Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020.  This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by […]

On March 2, the New York Times ran a story informing readers of recent “controversies” related to global warming.  The story chronicled the efforts of scientists affiliated with the United Nations Climate Panel and other major research institutions to answer the claims of conservatives who suggest there is a conspiracy to hide the “debate” over […]

China and India are generally regarded as the two large countries in the developing world that are the “success stories” of globalisation.  This success has been defined by the high and sustained rates of growth of aggregate and per capita national income; and the substantial reduction in income poverty.  Further, both China and India are […]

  The white man called you Bhagat Singh that day, The black man calls you Naxalite today. But everyone will call you the morning star tomorrow. — Excerpt from the Telugu poem ‘Final Journey: First Victory’ by Sri Sri 1 It has been a long and tortuous route.  Forty-three years ago, a group of Maoist […]

  The Barcelona-born writer recalls his intense relationship with one of his “greatest literary idols.” Juan Goytisolo has just published Genet en el Raval (Genet in El Raval, Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de lectores, 2009), a chronicle of a literary as well as emotional friendship.  The Barcelona-born writer met the poet Jean Genet (1910-1986), one of […]

  Interview with Salim Lamrani, French professor, writer, and journalist, specialist on the relationship between Cuba and the U.S., and author of the recently published book Cuba. Ce que les médias ne vous diront jamais (Paris: Editions Estrella, 2009). You have just published a new book about the treatment the communications media give to Cuba. […]

Dear Colleague, Eight months after the June 12 presidential elections in Iran, coverage by Western media like yours prompts us to pose the following questions based on common standards of journalism. 1. Most journalists who travel to Iran stay at hotels located in affluent north Tehran, but you convey their observations as “demands of the […]

On February 23, 2010, Cuban inmate Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 83 days on hunger strike.  He was 42.  This is the first such incident since inmate Pedro Luis Boitel died in 1972 under similar conditions.  The corporate media put the tragic incident on the front page and emphasized the plight of Cuban prisoners.1 Zapata’s […]

The U.S. ruling class and its political representatives at all levels have launched an all-out assault on public education.  While disparate elements of this campaign have been in place for the past three or four decades, we are today seeing a confluence and culmination of these trends, orchestrated by President Obama and his Education secretary […]

  Even though Catholics and Protestants are nowadays both on the defensive, theism is again becoming an actual force in the period of its decline.  This follows from the very meaning of “atheism.”  Only those who used “atheism” as a term of abuse meant by it the exact opposite of religion.  Those who professed themselves […]