Richard Wolin As a political thinker, the German philosopher Carl Schmitt was enamored of symbols and myths. His biographer has shown that during the 1930s Schmitt was convinced that providing National Socialism with a rational justification was self-contradictory and self-defeating. The alternative that was conceived by Schmitt, a conservative who was an eminent member of… Read More The Cult of Carl Schmitt
First posted March 01, 2015 his interview has appeared in Scroll.in. The two parts may be read here and here. The Modi government has issued a special coin to commemorate the 175th birth anniversary of the Tata Group founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. In honouring him, what is the message the government is seeking to convey to the people? The… Read More Democracy and workers’ movements – stories from Jamshedpur
First posted May 1, 2021 NB: Today is International Labour Day, May 1, 2021. As a tribute to India’s workers, I post a chapter from my monograph on the history of the labour movement in Jharkhand during the 1930’s. It was titled The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism: Workers,Unions, and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928-1939. The… Read More 1938: the year Indian workers fought for themselves
First posted June 14, 2017 NB: This paper was first presented to the Association of Indian Labour Historians conference in Delhi, March 2000. It refers to material presented in my book, The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism: Workers, Trade Unions and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928-1939. It was also presented to the Nehru Memorial… Read More Strike-breaking or the Refusal of Subalternity? Ethnicity, Class & Gender in Chota Nagpur: The Tatanagar Foundry Strike of 1939
Opinion by John Avlon NB: As to why this political analyst fails to mention the glaring assaults on global democracy by the USA and UK, is something only he can answer. And as regards the fate of democracy in his own country, supposedly the leader of the ‘free world’, the less said the better. There’s a… Read More The tide is turning against autocracy
by Matthew Rose In the spring of 1941, as Hitler was laying plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union, Leo Strauss gave a lecture at the New School for Social Research as part of a seminar on “Experiences of the Second World War.” The lecture, which was not published until five decades later, marked one… Read More Leo Strauss and the Closed Society
Wilfred Chan Rose Tang was stunned when she saw videos last week of crowds in China chanting in Mandarin, “Give me liberty or give me death.” It was a phrase the Brooklyn resident had last heard more than three decades ago, when she was one of the student leaders at the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.… Read More ‘Freedom in China is precious’: Tiananmen Square protest veteran salutes new generation
First posted February 09, 2012 A photo of a lone man with his arms folded as hundreds around him perform a salute in Nazi Germany has resurfaced. The snap was taken in Hamburg in 1936, during the celebrations for the launch of a ship. In the crowd, one person refuses to raise his arm to… Read More Ordinary people. The courage to say NO
First posted December 22, 2015 Patrick Kingsley On Tuesday, the number of asylum seekers to reach Europe this year passed 1 million. Nearly half of them did so via the beaches of this Greek island As an institution, the Greek Orthodox church is often considered a bastion of nationalism and conservatism. Some of its priests have… Read More Lesbos is swept by wave of compassion as refugees continue to arrive by sea / ‘Love has no religion’ – priests and pastors reach out to refugees
First posted November 10, 2019 Belle Puri A pot of fresh borscht simmers on the stove. The aroma fills Karolina Rybka’s two-bedroom apartment in Kelowna, B.C. The walls are adorned with frames full of colourful needlepoint the great-grandmother did herself. Everywhere there’s something to see — arrangements of dried flowers, knick-knacks and endless family photographs. Karolina Kucharski Rybka lived in Balachadi, a… Read More ‘He saved our lives’: Canadian woman among a thousand Polish children adopted by Indian maharaja during World War 2
