Tag: religion

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The current talk of decolonisation is about an exclusionary political agenda

Current decolonisation project drips with resentment. It conflates modernity merely with colonialism. To see the insidiousness of this project, just ask this question: What should be the terms on which citizens relate to each other? “Decolonise!” This imperative seems to be the ideological flavour of the moment. It is behind the calls to restructure education,… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The current talk of decolonisation is about an exclusionary political agenda

Dilip

The Decreationist

Simone Weil’s thoughts on the unmaking of the self.. the postwar publication of the great bulk of her writings, including The Need for Roots, was overseen by one of her greatest admirers, Albert Camus. By Robert Zaretsky Eighty years ago on this date, one of the 20th century’s most unusual and unsettling thinkers died at… Read More The Decreationist

Dilip

The world is burning. Who can convince the comfortable classes of the radical sacrifices needed?

Simone Weil’s life illustrates the capacity to give up the things we feel we’re owed – such as a carbon-intensive consumer-driven lifestyle Justine Toh Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The saying takes on new meaning after the hottest July ever, devastating wildfires in Greece and Canada, and the declaration by the UN secretary general, António Guterres,… Read More The world is burning. Who can convince the comfortable classes of the radical sacrifices needed?

Dilip

Taliban’s war on women must be formally recognized as gender apartheid

Vrinda Narain The second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is fast approaching. Since then, Afghan women have been denied the most basic human rights in what can only be described as gender apartheid. Only by labelling it as such and making clear the situation in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity can the… Read More Taliban’s war on women must be formally recognized as gender apartheid

Dilip

Famed Iranian director sentenced to prison over Cannes Film Festival screening

Famed Iranian director Saeed Roustaee has been sentenced to six months in prison, according to local reports, after presenting his most-recent film at the Cannes International Film Festival last year. Roustaee screened the film “Leila’s Brothers,” a movie about a family in Tehran trying to make ends meet, in competition for the Palme d’Or, the… Read More Famed Iranian director sentenced to prison over Cannes Film Festival screening

Dilip

David Bergman: As Bangladesh court reaffirms Islam as state religion, secularism hangs on to a contradiction

First posted April 01, 2016 NB: This issue relates to the centuries-old debate about civil religion, a matter dealt with extensively by Ronald Beiner in his excellent book Civil Religion: a Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy. After 1789, nationalism emerged as an alternative civic religion and patriotism became a political form of prayer. So zealotry… Read More David Bergman: As Bangladesh court reaffirms Islam as state religion, secularism hangs on to a contradiction

Dilip

Afghan women are being ‘erased from everything’

Tuesday marks the two-year anniversary of Kabul falling to the Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan amid the United States’ chaotic, controversial withdrawal from the country after nearly 20 years of fighting…. But celebrating is the last thing many Afghan women want to do… as life under Taliban rule becomes increasingly repressive and brutal. When Zahra thinks back to her life before the… Read More Afghan women are being ‘erased from everything’

Dilip

‘Written out the history books’: the British spy who planned the Iranian coup

Julian Borger Seventy years ago, the fate of Iran hung in the balance, when a US-UK coup to oust the elected prime minister appeared to have failed. The CIA was ready to pull the plug on the operation, but a 28-year-old British intelligence officer, monitoring events from a clandestine base in Cyprus, insisted on persevering.… Read More ‘Written out the history books’: the British spy who planned the Iranian coup

Dilip