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Narendra Pachkhédé

is a critic and writer who splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.

44 articles published

The Anatomy of an arrest: Mahmoud Khalil and the State

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” ― George Orwell, 1984, p.162 “Where exactly are we in the poem that begins, ‘When they came for the Communists, I did not speak out’?” Alluding to the poem by Martin Niemöller, the question echoed across the stone steps of a New York…

ByNarendra PachkhédéMarch 22, 20250Comments

The Ugly American Show

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” —Henry Kissinger in William F. Buckley Jr. United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey (1974), pp 56–57. In the spring of 2008, a nation's intricate history was brought to the forefront in a televised spectacle: 'Great…

ByNarendra PachkhédéMarch 3, 20250Comments

Gaza Is Not for Sale: Sovereignty Isn’t a Real Estate Deal

"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things... can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and…

ByNarendra PachkhédéFebruary 19, 20250Comments

The Classroom as a Battleground: Teachers as State-Builders

By Narendra Pachkhédé "The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality” — Mahmoud Darwish In the dusty classrooms of Gaza during the 1920s, an unassuming act of defiance unfolded—a quiet yet profound rebellion that spoke to the paradoxes of colonial rule, the audacity of educators, and the fragile scaffolding…

ByNarendra PachkhédéJanuary 28, 20250Comments

POLITICS Poetry

Temples of Memory, Monuments of Forgetting

There is no crop other than god and god is harvested here around the year. —Arun Kolatkar, verse 22, Jejuri, 1976 Located in the ancient city of Ayodhya in northern India, the Ayodhya Temple, is one of the significant spiritual landmarks. Revered as the birthplace of Lord Rama, a central figure in the Hindu…

ByNarendra PachkhédéJanuary 10, 20250Comments

Canada at the Edge of Its Idea

“Having to wait until one’s death to be allowed to live is really quite an ontological feat.” - Robert Musil, Austrian Novelist, Journalist and Writer Like a phantom limb, the unfinished The Man Without Qualities haunts the landscape of modern literature. It is…

ByNarendra PachkhédéJanuary 7, 20250Comments

Against the Tyranny of Fragmentation: Why Gregory Bateson Must Be Read in an Age of Genocide

“There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds, and its characteristic of the system that basic error propagates itself." — Gregory Bateson, Pathologies of Epistemology, 1971 The…

ByNarendra PachkhédéJanuary 2, 20250Comments

Poetry POLITICS Reviews

On Palestine And Narrative: We are in a new territory

“Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather, she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth.” — Mahmoud Darwish, Silence for Gaza (1973) Recognizing the Stranger - On Palestine and Narrative, a slim volume of 80-odd pages brings together Isabella Hammad’s the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture delivered at Columbia University nine…

ByNarendra PachkhédéDecember 28, 20240Comments

In a Genocide Words Die First

"In times of dread, artists must never remain silent. This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That's how civilizations heal." — Toni Morrison in No Place for Self-Pity,…

ByNarendra PachkhédéDecember 23, 20240Comments

Viewing In the Shadow of Genocide: Soundtrack to a Coup d’État

“Africa is shaped like a gun, and the Congo is its trigger.” — Frantz Fanon Over the year, I saw Johan Grimonprez's Soundtrack to a Coup d’État a few times. It is not an easy film to watch, and it always demands another viewing. Watching archival footage of Patrice Lumumba in the 150-minute long…

ByNarendra PachkhédéNovember 28, 20240Comments