Tag: critical commentary

Thanks to Gaza, European philosophy has been exposed as ethically bankrupt / South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

From Heidegger’s Nazism to Habermas’s Zionism, the suffering of the ‘Other’ is of little consequence. GAZA casualties live statistics We must be forgiven if we thought what Germany had today was not Holocaust guilt, but genocide nostalgia, as it has vicariously indulged in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians over the past century Hamid Dabashi Imagine if Iran, Syria, Lebanon,… Read More Thanks to Gaza, European philosophy has been exposed as ethically bankrupt / South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

Dilip

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime

First posted December 27, 2016 NB: An interesting obituary to a great intellectual. My knowledge of the situation is limited, but as regards this article, I’m uncomfortable with the argument that there should be no objection to the participation of communal parties in a democratic alliance. My views on this are conditioned by the history of religion-based mobilisations in… Read More Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime

Dilip

Ayodhya event not about Ram, but coronates Hindutva as state religion

To accept that the spectacle about to be staged in Ayodhya can be extricated from politics is to sanctify the falsification of our living memory KAPIL KOMIREDDI There is no ritual that can sanitise the genesis of the temple that will be consecrated in Ayodhya on 22 January. It exists because the house of worship… Read More Ayodhya event not about Ram, but coronates Hindutva as state religion

Dilip

Far right infiltration of Israeli media is blinding the public to the truth about Gaza / Major US newspapers heavily biased toward Israel

Etan Nechin GAZA casualties live statistics Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, Israelis have been glued to their TV sets and scrolling through news and social media. The ordinarily news-obsessed public has become even more engrossed, and the war has seen the propagation of a point of view that for much of Israel’s media history… Read More Far right infiltration of Israeli media is blinding the public to the truth about Gaza / Major US newspapers heavily biased toward Israel

Dilip

China’s capitalist reforms are said to have moved 800 million out of extreme poverty – new data suggests the opposite

It has become an article of faith among many economists that China’s pro-market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s ushered in a sustained reduction in poverty. This narrative relies on figures from the World Bank, showing that over the past 40 years the number of people in China living in “extreme poverty” (less than US$1.90… Read More China’s capitalist reforms are said to have moved 800 million out of extreme poverty – new data suggests the opposite

Dilip

The Rise of the Sectarian University (in the USA)

Greg Conti It has quickly become a commonplace that American elite higher education is in a more perilous position than it has been in recent memory. Long-standing conservative discontent has crystallized as a result of recent events; multiple proposals targeting universities’ pocketbooks have been floated by lawmakers in the past weeks. Republican officials have made… Read More The Rise of the Sectarian University (in the USA)

Dilip

The climate costs of war and militaries can no longer be ignored

More than 5% of global emissions are linked to conflict or militaries but countries continue to hide the true scale Doug Weir n early 2022, journalists began to ask us how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was affecting the climate crisis. While we could point to landscape fires, burning oil refineries and the thirst of diesel-hungry military… Read More The climate costs of war and militaries can no longer be ignored

Dilip