Tag: History

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: tributes paid to ‘a moral giant’ after anti-apartheid hero dies

Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90.  Desmond Tutu, giant in fight against apartheid South Africa, dies at 90 Desmond Tutu: A life in pictures Desmond Tutu, the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and who received… Read More Archbishop Desmond Tutu: tributes paid to ‘a moral giant’ after anti-apartheid hero dies

Dilip

Former student leader Gabriel Boric to become Chile’s youngest president after beating far-right rival

NB: This is a truly historic moment for the Chilean people; and for all of us who are old enough to recall the terrible history of the 1973 coup. I am very happy the wheel has turned full circle after 50 years. I still recall the horror we all felt at the CIA-instigated Chilean coup of 1973; and… Read More Former student leader Gabriel Boric to become Chile’s youngest president after beating far-right rival

Dilip

Memories of 1971

NB: December 1971 is a time I remember vividly. I was in Kolkata and travelled to Purnea in North Bihar to meet my dear comrade Lalloo, (Rabindra Ray). We were then amongst the last remaining comrades from amongst our collegiate group who were still in what was known as ‘the underground’. That story has been… Read More Memories of 1971

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Memorial and the liberating power of history. By Timothy Snyder

NB: Attempts to rewrite history with the use of political power are taking place in India as well. Ironically, the infamous habit has been connected to communist regimes, but is quite clearly popular with anti-communist ones as well. As George Orwell remarked in his dystopian novel 1984: “He who controls the past controls the future;… Read More Memorial and the liberating power of history. By Timothy Snyder

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Book review: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece is finally appearing

In the mid-1970s, exiled from the Soviet Union for exposing its vast crimes against humanity, and having won the Nobel Prize in Literature for that endeavor, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) turned his back on the lionization that awaited him in New York and other cultural capitals of the West and instead settled with his family in… Read More Book review: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece is finally appearing

Dilip

Jill Lepore: Is society coming apart?

Forging stronger bonds in a post-pandemic world… will require acts of moral imagination that are not part of any political ideology or mission statement, but are functions of the human condition: tenderness, compassion, longing, generosity, allegiance and affection. These are the only answers to loneliness, alienation, dislocation and disintegration. But the fullest expression of these functions…… Read More Jill Lepore: Is society coming apart?

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Aryaman Jain, Irina Cheema – Farmers’ Movement in India: A Moment for Collective Introspection / Gallery: One Year of Kisan Andolan

With the Narendra Modi government, the American empire finally has at India’s helm, a reliable handyman unperturbed by factors such as the sufferings of common people. What previous governments since 1991 had failed to deliver… Modi has delivered with decisiveness. Since 2014, the government has dutifully gone about following the diktats of a fraudulent ranking… Read More Aryaman Jain, Irina Cheema – Farmers’ Movement in India: A Moment for Collective Introspection / Gallery: One Year of Kisan Andolan

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Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves. Albert Camus    La crise… Read More Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

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