Generations of organisers and dissidents have kept the Iranian struggle alive Sahar Delijani Source: EQUATOR A protest in Tehran against mandatory veiling, 1979 / Courtesy Hengameh Golestan and Archaeology of the Final Decade 1. A few hours after I was born, my mother and I were taken back to prison. It was September 1983, four… Read More Hope Against Hope
Presented below is the Foreword by ROBERT ELEGANT. And this is an excellent review: Simon Leys: The art of interpreting non-existent inscriptions written in invisible ink on a blank page. Book review As his seventieth year approached, Laszlo Ladany decided to retire from the strenuous tasks of periodical scholarship to which he had voluntarily subordinated himself since… Read More LASZLO LADANY: The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985: A Self-Portrait (1988)
Carolina Landsmann Apropos talk about a plea bargain for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in exchange for his retirement from political life, which President Isaac Herzog is working on; apropos the Supreme Court’s attempts to buy time to postpone the “constitutional crisis” (that is, the “storming of the Bastille,” aka the court, by “the people,” which,… Read More Netanyahu Will Go, but the State Will Die With Him
NB: A thought provoking essay to which some caveats could be placed. To begin with, Hindutva is not synonymous with Hindu Nationalism, the latter being more widespread and accomodative than Hindutva. The fascination with violence that characterised early militant nationalist groups was something which held sway in Maharashtra and Punjab as well; and the tendency… Read More Bengal was the First Breeding Ground of Hindu Nationalism
Bhagat Ram Talwar, one of the greatest spies of the Second World War SILVER: The spy who fooled the Nazis by Mihir Bose Navtej Sarna Spies, by definition, live in a world of grey, but the life of Bhagat Ram Talwar, alias Silver, seems to have been exceptionally shadowy. Born a Hindu Pathan in the… Read More An unlikely Prince of Spies
Mukul Kesavan NB: The irredeemable racism of the Anglo-American establishment is on full display in the observations of the Chief Editor of The Economist. They remind me of the phrase “life unworthy of life” (Lebensunwertes Leben), the Nazi designation for those human beings who, according to Hitler and Co., had no right to live. Well… Read More Grotesque priorities
William Pfaf (June 2013) Reviewed: The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century by Vladimir Tismaneanu The twentieth century undoubtedly will mainly be remembered for producing totalitarian politics. Italian Fascism was the first to give this name to the phenomenon, even though Mussolini’s movement was the least “total” of the… Read More Pure, Purifying, and Evil
The recent bulldozing of the Gaza War Cemetery has disturbed the final resting place of thousands of soldiers, including those from the British Indian Army. While Australia has expressed outrage, the silence from Southasian governments raises urgent questions about how we value our shared historical memory. By Inderjeet Parmar / Sapan News The Gaza War Cemetery in al-Tuffah,… Read More Desecrating history: Southasia’s silence as Gaza war graves are bulldozed
The Trump administration is embracing violence for the sake of violence Jan-Werner Müller It appears that members of Trump’s cabinet get chosen not despite their endorsements of violence, but because of them. Pete Hegseth was primarily known as a dapper TV host willing to defend war crimes. Markwayne Mullin is apparently still proud of challenging… Read More Pete Hegseth is promoting a nihilist cult of death
Governments that mutely line up behind the US as it prosecutes a sinister, illegal war that threatens to destroy their citizens’ ability to cook and eat aren’t rational actors, they are lemmings… Narendra Modi and his partymen are attracted to Israel’s fanatical, anti-Muslim Zionism because it has achieved the disenfranchisement and apartheid that Hindutva aspires… Read More A grey silence
After the truth-shower 