Tag: ideology

Fierce anti-government protests in Bangladesh, 39 dead; thousands injured

Incensed crowd facing riot police set BTV building on fire as students demand end to discriminatory job quotas NB: What is needed now is international democratic solidarity, across frontiers, age, language and religion. Solidarity for justice, peace, and renewed communication. Stand up for the embattled students of Bangladesh. In 1971, General Yahya Khan sent tanks… Read More Fierce anti-government protests in Bangladesh, 39 dead; thousands injured

Dilip

Burning Books and The Nazification of Literature

Heinrich Heine, arguably one of the most famous of German authors, had prophetically announced that wherever they burn books, they will one day burn humans. Pramod K. Nayar German cultural production, as is well known, in the decades leading to Nazidom set about creating a ‘national’ culture by destroying Jewish, communist, humanist and other artwork,… Read More Burning Books and The Nazification of Literature

Dilip

Hidden behind Labour’s ‘landslide’ win is a depressing disfranchisement

The gulf in voter turnout between haves and have-nots has widened. The result is no politics for those who can’t afford it Nesrine Malik It’s weird isn’t it, this bit? That period right after a new government has taken over with its all-new faces and fresh starts. The imperative to celebrate feels almost mandatory. Even… Read More Hidden behind Labour’s ‘landslide’ win is a depressing disfranchisement

Dilip

Things are not going to get better as long as oligarchs rule the roost in our democracies

The history of many centuries, including our own, shows that the default state of politics is not redistribution and general welfare, but a spiral of accumulation by the very rich, the extreme exploitation of labour, the seizure of common resources and exaction of rent for their use, extortion, coercion and violence. Normal is a society in which… Read More Things are not going to get better as long as oligarchs rule the roost in our democracies

Dilip

EXIT GOD, ENTER MADNESS: Nadeem Paracha on religious extremism in Pakistan (2012)

First posted July 06, 2012 As one distraught friend of mine once prayed: ‘May Allah save Islam from Pakistan.’ The self-claimed ‘bastion of Islam’ has gradually mutated into becoming a bastion of deluded messiahs and mindless, violent ranting machines to whom anything, from incoherent malangs to the reopening of Nato supply routes, are conspiracies against Islam. On… Read More EXIT GOD, ENTER MADNESS: Nadeem Paracha on religious extremism in Pakistan (2012)

Dilip

Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism

First posted March 10, 2015 The latest issue of Oxford Left Review has a number of engaging articles on the nature and consequences of neoliberalism. Neil Davidson from the University of Glasgow examines the changing social base of neoliberalism, where he explores the shift from vanguard to ‘social’ neoliberalism and the relationship of the latter to the middle… Read More Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism

Dilip

Ralph Dumain: Paranoia Papers Bibliography. The (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia

First posted October 19, 2020 Fascism has awakened a sleeping world to the realities of the irrational, mystical character structure of the people of the world: Wilhelm Reich… .. the concept of ideology makes sense only in relation to the truth or untruth of what it refers to. There can be no talk of socially necessary delusions… Read More Ralph Dumain: Paranoia Papers Bibliography. The (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia

Dilip

Liberal Zionism and the facade of Israeli genocide

GAZA casualties, live statistics YOAV LITVIN ( The New Arab ) – Israel’s ongoing genocide is part of a downward spiral for the Zionist project. In the words of acclaimed historian Professor Ilan Pappe: “We are witnessing a historical process – or, more accurately, the beginnings of one – that is likely to culminate in the downfall of Zionism.” Yet… Read More Liberal Zionism and the facade of Israeli genocide

Dilip

Colonial Reality of India’s Criminal Laws Remains Despite the New Hindi Names

NB: The rendering permanent of an ’emergency’ was the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s contribution to the jurisprudence of tyranny. For him, ‘sovereign is he who decides the state of exception‘; and politics was defined in its essence by the ‘friend-enemy distinction‘. I have developed this argument at length in my 2023 essay on the demolition… Read More Colonial Reality of India’s Criminal Laws Remains Despite the New Hindi Names

Dilip