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Beirut Diary

Beirut Diary, April 2010 Walking into Beirut this spring was like walking into history. Not ancient history, necessarily, but the history of the city which is the history of Lebanon, pulled apart between “western” and “eastern” poles. Being in the city evokes the memory of people who lived there. Writers, intellectuals, activists, and artists from all…

ByMagid Shihade

Aid is not a substitute for politics : unmaking Gaza as a humanitarian casualty

“The occupied territories have the dubious distinction of having become a failed state before even becoming a state.” (International Crisis Group, 2007). The international spotlight is back on Gaza. Israel’s 31st May attack on the six-ship flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has dominated news headlines in the West and beyond; from…

The New American Imperialism

Interviewed by David Barsamian MIT, Cambridge, MA 2 April 2010 (Article Courtesy of Alternative Radio : www.alternativeradio.org) One of the themes that Howard Zinn tried to address during his long career was the lack of historical memory. The facts of history are scrupulously ignored…

‘Islam, Colonialism, and Resistance’ – Zia Sardar

Zia Sardar Interviewed by Bux Qalandar Memon (forth-coming in NP 14 - Summer 2010). 1 - In your recent book Balti Britain you recall racist encounters that you had as a child growing up in East London. Could you explain the operative dynamics behind the racism of your youth and how it operates today? Has…

Come back to Pleasure

Despite his image as the sober genius of high modernism, T.S. Eliot often speaks of art as essentially amusement. The poet, says Eliot, "would like to be something of a popular entertainer,..would like to convey the pleasures of poetry...As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a…

ByRICHARD SHUSTERMAN

Report on the Anti-Cuts Campaign at the University of Sussex

Report on the Anti-Cuts Campaign at the University of Sussex Images: Catarina Neto Carvalho This report is for information. - HEFCE Strategic Plan, 2010-2011 We begin with a comparison of two proposals. In January 2009 the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group (VCEG) issued, in an attractive high-gloss brochure, a new strategic plan. Titled Making the Future, the document…

ByCollectively Written

Chhattisgarh: The Future of India?

NANDINI SUNDAR Chhattisgarh: The Future of India? Interviewed by David Barsamian New Delhi, India 29 November 2009 Nandini Sundar is a professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Let’s start with Chhattisgarh, a state in India where you have spent a great deal of time and you’ve written about. There is an…

ByNANDINI SUNDAR

British terror trial: UK collusion with Musharrafâ€™s dictatorship

The London trial of Baloch human rights activists on trumped up terrorism charges revealed high level collusion between the British government and the dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were threatened: arrest the Baloch exiles in London or Pakistan will halt all cooperation with Britain in the ‘war on terror.’…

ByPeter Tatchell

Vortex in Bengal.

Violence in West Bengal's western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The total figure is now over two hundred dead since late 2007 (most are members and supporters of…

ByVijay Prashad

Bad Sufi

The Bad Sufi A look at the practise of Contemporary Sufism in Pakistan. It is often assumed that Sufism stands opposed to Wahhabism. Wrong. Sufism and Wahhabism, in fact, share a fatal characteristic – they are religions of the status quo. In Pakistan, Sufism legitimises barbarities of inequality and starvation – ‘do nothing, it’s god’s…

ByQalandar Bux Memon