Subjects Archives: Media

  Sitting in the shadow of an elegant carbet, feeling the trade wind, Roger de Jaham, age 60, lets his Creole accent lilt, talking about the blow that he recently suffered: “For the first time in my life, a man whom I greeted told me: ‘I don’t shake the hand of a béké.”  The man […]

Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective.  His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme.  Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric.  Yet the […]

John Gibler, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, 356 Pages, City Lights Publishers (January, 2009). Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, calls Mexico home, as do millions of impoverished citizens.  From Spanish colonization to today’s state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from […]

  “Look on us, Look on them. Who looks more like you? Us! We have McDonald’s and soon H&M. They don’t even have a Subway-type chain.” “Support US! Hate THEM!” Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country) is a satirical Israeli television program.  H/T to Norman G. Finkelstein.

  Part 1 Part 2 Cf.  Kamran Rehmat, “Swat: Pakistan’s Lost Paradise” (Al Jazeera, 27 January 2009); “‘Peace March’ in Pakistan’s Swat” (Al Jazeera, 19 January 2009); Sanjeev Miglani, “Pakistan Islamists in a Deal with China Communists: a Sign of the Times?” (Pakistan: Now or Never?  19 February 2009); Patrick Goodenough, “Turn to China, Islamists […]

  Joel Kovel holds the Alger Hiss chair in social studies at Bard College and is the author of Overcoming Zionism among other titles.  He has recently been informed by the college that his contract will not be extended beyond July 1.  In the statement below, he argues that the termination is due to his […]

  “Supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination is a duty of Israeli communists.” The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and its front Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) were the only political forces in Israel that confronted the massacre perpetrated by the Tzahal (IDF), the Israeli armed forces, in Gaza last January.  Regrettably, […]

February 3, 2009 Dear All, Last week, with initial hesitation but finally strong conviction, I endorsed the Call for a U.S. Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel.   I’d like to offer my reasons to friends, family and comrades.  I have tried in fullest conscience to think this through. My hesitation: I profoundly believe in […]

34 year-old Kashif ul-Huda runs TwoCircles.net, the leading Indian Muslim news and features web site.  In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about his work and reflects on Indian Muslims and the media. Q: What made you set up TwoCircles.net?  What was your source of inspiration? A: I come from a working class family […]

please keep in mind as you prepare to pass sentence you may at some time be in need of a presidential pardon and I may, understandably, be reluctant to grant it. Dennis Brutus is a South African poet.  Active against Apartheid, he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned for 18 months on Robben Island.  After […]

  Hadash released a great set of four election commercials today, which feature conversations between a supporter of Meretz and a supporter of Hadash, “The Left vs. the New Left.”  You can see the clips here. My favorite is the one on the Gaza war, which you can watch here in Hebrew.  The Leftie stutters […]

Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe!  Woe!  Woe! Towers that soared into clear blue are at blocks of stone settled into earth all gone, all shattered ground into scattered dust Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe!  Woe!  Woe! Now hordes of warring barbarians literate, skilled in killing […]

  Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States, speaks of numerous members of the Jewish community who have supported the struggles of peoples against imperialism and Zionism, and he rejects any attack against the Jewish people. Watching television footage of one of the necessary and legitimate protests against the Israeli Embassy in […]

The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over — ended just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over his first hours as U.S. President.  The initial Palestinian death toll is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise.  (Four times that number were injured, and more wounded […]

This is the story of a Canadian woman who started to explore economic issues.  The difficulties she encountered along the way led her to the conclusion that there are certain questions that can’t be answered theoretically but only practically, by people like herself.  The same discovery could have been made by someone, male or female, […]

“This is one local aspect* of a problem which is actually global.” — Dennis Brutus Farewell the Nightingales Walking the streets of the Shah’s Tehran I was conscious of lurking Savak — cries of tortured victims hung in the dusk even as I lingered over buttered long-grain rice in a dim bistro’s magic cave: That […]

  Peter Linebaugh and Fabian Tompsett guided a tour around the City on 12 November 2008, taking in landmarks of capitalist crisis past and present. Mute is an online magazine dedicated to exploring culture and politics after the net.

“After throwing a shoe at the US Consulate in Durban today to wish the Bush regime good riddance, I remind myself that this sentiment of disgust has occurred repeatedly.  In 1987, it was Reagan in the White House, tomorrow it will be Obama, but the problem is not the person, it is the system.” — […]

“Egypt is playing a tawdry role in the current agony of the Palestinians; but it is not new, sadly.” — Dennis Brutus Remembering Egypt  Solitary I walked the sands beside the Pyramids hot soil beneath my feet: ageless the cloudless skies aeons above invisible stars: men laboured in dusty rags parched reeds wilted in shallows […]

Among the signatories are some very well-known artists, musicians, and writers such as Dror Burstein, Ala Hlehel, Yitzhak Laor, Yehudith Levin, Avi Mograbi, Michal Naaman, Salman Natour, Judd Ne’eman, Aharon Shabtay, and Arik Shapira (Israel Prize Laureate) and university professors such as Yossef Grodginski, Uri Hadar, Hannan Hever, Orly Lubin, Adi Ophir, Yehuda Shenhav, and […]