NB: What enables someone who has been a communist all his life become an ultra-chauvinist overnight? What lies beneath the slippery nature of ideology, and what is the difference between political philosophy and ideology? Why do Leninist parties in power enforce single-party dictatorships? What is the communist understanding of law and justice – is it… Read More Multipolarity, the Mantra of Authoritarianism
Letter from church source in anti-Hitler resistance reporting 6,000 daily killings undercuts Vatican’s claims of lack of knowledge Newly discovered correspondence suggests that the second world war-era Pope Pius XII had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German-occupied Poland. The documentation… Read More Letter suggests Pope Pius XII knew of mass gassings of Jews and Poles in 1942
Mahnaz Afkhami On September 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman, died while she was in the custody of Iran’s morality police for the “crime” of inadequate veiling. This event spearheaded an uprising that soon captured global attention and gained support, from grassroots activists to world leaders. As we have come to expect, the Iranian regime reacted to the uprising… Read More Iranian women know which battles to fight. They’ve been doing it for decades
I am reminded of a conversation years ago with Pakistan’s defence attaché in London, who later became the Director-General (Analysis) in the Inter-Services Intelligence. I got a call from Brigadier Javed Alam asking what I was doing then. I responded that I was working on my doctoral thesis and a chapter titled ‘threat perception in… Read More India calling itself Bharat fulfills Pakistan’s age-old wish
Ruby Lott-Lavigna The UK’s newly appointed minister for net zero is facing questions over her links to a think tank funded by oil giants that called for climate protesters to be jailed. Claire Coutinho, appointed minister for energy security and net zero this week, was a senior fellow to the opaquely funded right-wing think tank… Read More Net zero minister linked to oil-funded group that targeted climate protesters
Yan Shenkman A few months ago, I received a message from a random social media account in Russia, which asked me to sign an open letter in support of Russian political prisoner Azat Miftakhov. I knew the man behind the account, which has since been deleted; these days, he is ‘deep underground’, trying to stay… Read More Russia wants this young anarchist to stay in prison forever
Chrissy Stroop Elon Musk rarely states his own political views outright on X (formerly Twitter), other than to make vague nods in favour of “centrism” and “free speech” – one of his favourite topics – or to adopt a general “anti-woke” attitude. The owner of X has denounced the “woke mind virus” and even taken… Read More Elon Musk is using X to fuel right-wing hate in the US
Ashoka University’s treatment of Sabyasachi Das for his working paper on possible voter suppression in Indian elections has focused attention on the future of elite private universities in India Mukul Kesavan Ashoka University’s (henceforth Ashoka) treatment of Sabyasachi Das after he uploaded a working paper that touched on possible voter suppression in Indian elections has… Read More Ashokan Edicts
The RSS… is aware that Hindu–Muslim couples are only acting out the oldest impulse of our species—the pairing off of two persons attracted to each other. This impulse is not easily curbed. It resurfaces in even the most difficult of circumstances. This means that its prevention requires the constant threat of violence, which can only… Read More Casting Them Out
Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.. Organized as much against the left as the right, these defenses not only rang hollow; they have failed to forestall the political crisis they promised to transcend. The result has been the reversal of Cold War liberal triumph into today’s mood of… Read More Liberalism in Mourning
After the truth-shower 