The Shadows of Muslim Men
A confession. In case you did not know I am a man. A generic, universal entity about which the seventeenth century French aristocrat Madame de Sevigne knew a thing or two. ‘The more I see of men’, she declared, ‘the more I admire dogs’. Knowing myself as well as I do, I appreciate her preference. […]
A Filmmaker’s Novel Idea
Mostly filmmakers are cocooned in the world of cameras and visuals. They take a pen only to make necessary corrections in the screenplay to be shot. Some geniuses like Kieslowski and Chaplin have written memoirs. Novelists usually become screenwriters. Masters like William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Truman Capote have are examples. Others stuck to the […]
Modiano’s Fictions: The Political Landscape
There is a question Edward W Said reserves for Jewish intellectuals who write about Holocaust and atrocities against Jews: How do they read and respond to the similar genocide that the Zionist government orchestrates against Palestinians. Their answer would be the proof of their radical politics not being sectarian. Sadly, Modiano is silent about Palestine. This […]
Will Speed Survive US?
The game series with which smart phones fall instantly in love is the zeitgeist of this millennium. We crave speed and annihilate snails. No matter if we become hares in the hubris of being speedsters, leaving the space for tortoises to claim the victory spot. Though you fall asleep midway, the fact that you ‘can’ run like a […]
The Strategic Partner
Review of Jason Brownlee’s Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the US, Egyptian alliance Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the US, Egyptian alliance Paperback: 296 pages Cambridge University Press (October 4, 2012) ISBN: 1107677866 In the heyday of counterrevolution against the deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, I had chat with a Communist party member in India […]
The Meaning of Jerusalem
Jerusalem: One City, Three FaithsPaperback: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (4/97) ISBN: 0345391683 Karen Armstrong’s Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths is always contemporary, or for that matter till the Israeli aggression and Palestinian resistance cease. There is nothing in a book of history to make it contemporary; except that it becomes a mirror held out against […]
Kurdish rivals unite to fight Islamic State
Erbil, Iraq – The President of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, visited fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the first time last week, after the PKK joined Kurdish Peshmerga forces to expel the Islamic State group from the town of Makhmour. In a video published online, Barzani thanked the PKK fighters: “We are […]
No, it’s not anti-semitic
Profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-semitic in their effect if not their intent. Lawrence Summers, 17 September 2002. When the president of Harvard University declared that to criticise Israel at this time and to call on universities to […]
Sociality and the burqa question
France may have lost the football World Cup but it has won its case in the European Court of Human Rights to ensure that no one covers his or her face in public. This verdict stems from a challenge to France’s 2010 edict banning the public from wearing religious symbols, including crucifixes, yarmulkes and burqas. […]
Five reasons why Hawking is right to boycott Israel
As announced by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) and subsequently covered by The Guardian, Reuters and others, world-renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking has decided to heed the Palestinian call for boycott, and pull out of an Israeli conference hosted by President Shimon Peres in June. After initial confusion, this was confirmed – Hawking is staying away on political […]
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