NB: I appreciate this author’s empathetic understanding of religion, especially this sentence: of my three particular political heroes, only one – Dr King – is a Christian. Gandhi was Hindu, and his colleague, the too-little-known Abdul Ghaffar Khan – was a Muslim. I learned something special in this line: Philoxenia is the Greek term used… Read More They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity
The Serbian-American economist Branko Milanović has emerged as one of the most discerning thinkers of our time – and certainly one of the most productive. In his books since 2016, he has moved from measuring global inequality to theorising capitalism’s competing forms to excavating how we’ve historically thought about inequality. His new book, The Great Global Transformation, studies… Read More The Great Global Transformation
This article, The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho; is an abridged version of The Bible: No Evidence on the Ground; by Zeev Herzog, Professor at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University. He participated extensively in collaboration with other archaeologists in excavations at ancient sites relevant to Biblical legends.… Read More Biblical Archaeology and the Judeo-Christian legends / The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho
María Ramírez Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936 – by Jeremy Treglown Reviewed by Jeremy Adelman On August 19, 1936, militiamen loyal to General Francisco Franco murdered Spain’s famous poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. Afterward, one of the killers, the Falangist Juan Trecastro, burst into a local bar and said, “We’ve just… Read More Spain: Emerging from the Labyrinth / I grew up in Spain amid a collective amnesia about Franco. It is time we faced up to our dark past
Donald Trump is using US power to insert himself into other countries’ affairs, treating them as vassals Steven Greenhouse For decades, president after president has sought to rid the US of its image as a bullying, imperialistic nation. But with his blustering, often brutish behavior toward other countries, Donald Trump has rapidly revived that notion. Under Trump,… Read More Brutish, bullying, imperialistic: the Ugly American is back
Where the postcolonial Left meets the Hindu Right NB: This is an interesting overview, although I cannot agree with some of the author’s arguments. For instance, I think it is true that Hindutva marks an attempt to recast Sanatan Dharma as an Abrahamic-style faith; the main objective being homogeneity and subjugation of an entire population… Read More India’s Conservative Revolution
NB: The phrase ‘the fundamental racism of their editorial line’, sums up what it feels to be the perennial object of dehumanisation by the Western establishments and a sizeable part of their populations. Lina Mounzer has said something very important here, and it has lessons not only for the West and Israel, but also for… Read More The Disaster Correspondent: Why I stopped explaining the Middle East to Americans
NB: Either you’ve never heard of these events and happenings – or, even if you have, they are not spoken about much. The younger generation, the ones who will live through more of this century than I will, may find these matters to be necessary knowledge. I will add to this list from time to… Read More Things the mainstream don’t talk about
In 1976, it was the Muslims of the walled city deemed ‘in the way’ of Delhi’s progress and in 2025, it will be the urban poor — the migrants of Madrasi Camp and Bhoomiheen Payel Das The recent demolition of two working-class colonies — Madrasi Camp, a six-decade-old settlement, and Bhoomiheen Camp, a three-decade-old one… Read More Bulldozer politics: Turkman Gate under Sanjay Gandhi to Jangpura, via Adityanath’s UP
“Directorate S,” was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan’s sphere of influence From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, the epic and enthralling story of America’s intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11Prior to 9/11, the United… Read More Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
After the truth-shower 