First posted August 6, 2019 NB: An insightful essay. In the ideas contained in Weber’s inaugural lecture on his appointment to the chair in political economy at Freiburg (1895) he comes across as an economic nationalist in favour of colonial expansion; and the closure of Germany’s eastern border to ‘cheap’ Polish labour migrants. He also used… Read More P. B. Mehta: Reading 1919 in 2019
Like me, I am sure you remember reasonable Remainers’ warnings about the incoming non-availability of European manufactured, sewage-refining chemicals being dismissed as “project fear”; like me, I am sure you remember how Michael Gove snorted with haughty delight as he promised us leaving the EU would enable us to enjoy even tighter environmental protections, rather… Read More Brexit Britain floats in British shit
History might have been very different if the original leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had not been decimated by Chiang Kai-shek’s White Terror of 1927, or expelled by their own comrades in subsequent party purges. They were civilised and sophisticated urban intellectuals, upholding humanistic values, with cosmopolitan and open minds, attuned to the modern… Read More Simon Leys: The art of interpreting non-existent inscriptions written in invisible ink on a blank page. Book review
By Jared Marcel Pollen NB: Victor Serge was the conscience of twentieth century communism. Salute Victor! May you never be forgotten DS A night filled with stars, a darkness filled with you So that I could love you I had to understand the world And before I could understand the world, I had to love you unpublished… Read More Victor Serge: The Spirit of Liberty
By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The firing of Palestinian American woman, Natalie Abulhawa, has sparked a debate over free-speech, “cancel-culture” and the ever-growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. The 25-year-old athletic trainer was fired by a private girls school in Bryn Mawr over years-old social media posts criticising Israel. In March the… Read More The Real Cancel Culture: Anti-Palestinianism and the Crisis of American Free Speech
First posted December 5, 2011 By Dilip Simeon; published in Bruised Memories: Communal Violence and the Writer, by Tarun Saint (ed), Seagull Books, Calcutta, 2002 Early in the year of grace 1988 certain (dis)reputable members of the academic community in the University of Delhi organized a public address on an unspeakable subject by a reluctant speaker in an… Read More Venue for a Speech on Tamas: A Chronicle of an Event That Should Never Have Happened
First posted August 31, 2017 The true and durable path into and through experience involves being true … to your own solitude, true to your own secret knowledge. Seamus Heaney you’ve got to tell the world how to treat you [because] if the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are… Read More Seamus Heaney’s Advice to the Young. By Maria Popova
First posted October 23, 2015 A poem is a glass, through which light is conveyed to us. “March… Someone has walked across the snow, Someone looking for he knows not what.” “Singeth spells.” The poetry of Wallace Stevens makes me happy. This is the simple truth. Pleasure springs from the sense of fluid sound patterns… Read More Susan Howe: The essence of Wallace Stevens: Roses, roses. Fable and dream. The pilgrim sun.
Across the world, we are all still reeling from the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie and are hoping that he recovers from it. In light of this, Magar is focusing on blasphemy, books and free speech. Read Taslima Nasreen, no stranger to being banned, on the attack on Salman Rushdie. To understand the banning of the Satanic Verses listen to… Read More Magar Newsletter – Issue #87
Bharat Bhushan The new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), being shaped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trusted lieutenant Home Minister Amit Shah, neither forgives nor forgets. This is reiterated by the decision to drop senior leader Nitin Gadkari from the party’s Parliamentary Board, and its Central Election Committee regardless of how the move is read….… Read More Gadkari done and dusted: Who’s next?
After the truth-shower 