First posted May 8, 2018 NB: This is a longer version of my review of this book which appeared in the April 2018 issue of Biblio. DS The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962–1976 By Frank Dikötter; Bloomsbury Press, 2016 The GPCR was yet another example of the totalitarian impulse, the open secret that motivates all… Read More Book review: The State as Faction: Mao’s Cultural Revolution
There is no existing vocabulary to illustrate a condition that requires a special kind of reality. Once it comes to a point when the authority cannot rationally communicate or have a clear exchange of ideas or when they cannot allow the argument, then the only thing they can do is to make you feel that… Read More Ai Weiwei: ‘I became the enemy of the established power, but without a crime’
JUAN COLE Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a creepy policy out of a Kafka or Joseph Heller novel, Israeli authorities have decreed that if a foreign visitor to the Palestinian West Bank develops a romantic relationship with a local Palestinian, they must report the relationship to the military Occupation authorities within 30 days. So reports the… Read More Now Israel is Occupying the Hearts of Lovers in the Palestinian West Bank
The Cabinet Office has announced it will radically overhaul an ‘Orwellian’ government unit that has been accused of blocking the release of information. The news comes as a victory almost two years after openDemocracy first revealed that the ‘Clearing House’ was vetting Freedom of Information requests from journalists. At the time, Cabinet Office minister Michael… Read More UK Government’s ‘Orwellian’ unit to be disbanded after openDemocracy revelations
On Salman Rushdie by Justin E. H. Smith “Never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things – childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves – that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.” — Salman Rushdie The goring of Salman Rushdie… Read More The Fragile Bodies of Famous Men
The Sophists taught, rather publicly, that the summit of happiness is to combine the appearance of justice with actual injustice: G. A. McBrayer; On the origin of the Idea of Natural Right; in Brill’s Companion to Leo Strauss, 2005; p 44 Actor Ashutosh Rana की आवाज में Poet Aalok Shrivastav की ये Hindi Ghazal “that… Read More Socrates: If the whole is ailing the part cannot be well / Kautilya: Disaffection among Subjects / Darkness at noon, felled by the judiciary
Colourful onion-domed churches capped with sparkling snow, seductive spies in lavish mink coats, dancing bears, strong-willed revolutionaries…we see these tropes everywhere. They feature in Netflix shows such as Shadow and Bone, in Marvel blockbusters, gritty Cold War-inspired thrillers, and children’s animated films like Anastasia. Western pop-culture’s fascination with Russia – or, rather, with a simplified… Read More Olexandra Povoroznyk: Tsars, spies and colonialism
When my daughter asked why she couldn’t have an Alexa, I told her it is because Alexa steals your dreams and sells them It is often said that people are entitled to their opinions. But are they really? Do you have a God-given right to believe that torture is good, or that the moon… Read More Book review – Freedom to Think: the big tech threat to free thought
We are living in the age of the nonagenarian: the Queen continues to gain popularity against her elected officials, and Rupert Murdoch has been given everything he’s ever asked for, just a few weeks from his 91st birthday. In between meetings in Saudi Arabia, Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, announced the removal of legal restrictions designed to prevent the… Read More Rupert Murdoch waited years for a pliant government – now he’s got one. By Jane Martinson
A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday. In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security… Read More ‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics
After the truth-shower 