On Thursday, the 19th of March, about 30,000 teachers and students took to the streets of Barcelona to march against the education policies of the Government of Catalonia. The unions charged that the New Law of Education, like the Bologna Plan, aims to open the door to the privatization of education. The demonstrators demanded […]
Subjects Archives: Media
Media, Communications, and Literature
The Zionist Masquerade
James Renton. The Zionist Masquerade: The Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance 1914-1918. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xi + 231 pp. ISBN 978-0-230-54718-6; $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-230-54718-6. The word “masquerade” is not one to be used lightly by historians. Obviously, James Renton is aware of this, and he strives to justify his choice of […]
Culture Is the New Barbarism
This year sees the 20th anniversary of the death of Raymond Williams, one of the towering socialist thinkers of the past century. A superb biography — Raymond Williams: A Warrior’s Tale — has just been published by Dai Smith. He charts Williams’s passage from the Welsh border country, where his father was a railway signalman, […]
Békés: A Matter of Inheritance
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 […]
Iran: Poverty and Inequality since the Revolution
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 […]
Mexico Unconquered: Reviewing a People’s History of Power and Revolt
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 […]
X-Plain: Israeli Hasbara
“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.
Sharia in Pakistan’s Swat
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 […]
Statement of Joel Kovel Regarding His Termination by Bard College
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 […]
Interview with Mohammed Nafa’h, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Israel
“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, […]
Why Support the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel?
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 […]
Indian Muslims and Media: Interview with Kashif ul-Huda
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 […]
Prophetic Verse
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 […]
Israel: The Left vs. the New Left
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 […]
Cries of Ghosts across Centuries
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 […]
Chavismo: Christian, Anti-Nazi, Pro-Muslim, and Pro-Jewish
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 […]
More Zionist Than Israel? German Policy and Media on Gaza
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 […]
Getting the Questions Right
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, […]
Farewell the Nightingales
“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 […]
Forever Blowing Bubbles: A Walking Tour with Peter Linebaugh and Fabian Tompsett
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.
