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
Akhtar Balouch Published March 23, 2015 First posted May 29, 2015 NB – This is a beautiful and moving story. It provides yet another example of human goodness, and reminds us how quick we are to pass it by, to overlook it, because we are so accustomed to negativity, denunciation and animosity. Beneath it (in the original) are scores… Read More Daya Ram Gidumal of Sindh: A silent servant, a silent sufferer. A good man
First posted September 06, 2020 NB: This is an example of how the micro-history of ordinary people can subvert all our stereotypes about animus based on race, ideology, religion and identity. Worth reading. DS. A love story between a 23 year-old black Army nurse and a 19 year-old white German POW during World War II? You… Read More Enemies in Love
NB: A recent article headed The Right is Writing Now, celebrates unsung warriors, and (if the report is correct) criticises the ‘Left’ for ignoring them. It is unfortunate that history has become a battleground and that aristocratic warfare seems to be the sole focus of those historians who choose to identify themselves as ‘Right’. (Judging… Read More P. Sainath: ‘The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom’
Webinar Link: https://youtu.be/m16ytCnXfBg About the Lecture: Ours is an age of ideology. Ideology is a means of submerging everyday existence into a dream-like waiting room. Ideologically-sustained life is a relentless deferral of presence on behalf of a hoped-for glorious future. Our gaze is prompted backward and forward, the future being the domain wherein the past may be… Read More The Disappearing Present: Reflections on Ideology: Webinar on October 16, 2020
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) An uneasy peace ruled in Jerusalem. Saladin’s victory against the Crusaders had cost the Muslims dearly, both in the loss of troops and in the depletion of the royal treasury. Saladin was resolved to rule with civilized humanity as far as possible. But it was an uneasy peace, with… Read More The Parable of the Three Rings
After the truth-shower 