For Marx, shame is a revolutionary feeling. Perhaps that explains its scarcity in Western civilization, whose Orwellian and anti-revolutionary character has been exposed once again by its indifference to the heaps of dead babies scattered in Gaza, by the valiant effort of the South African state calling its humanitarian bluff in ICJ and not to […]
Gaza: A Dien Bien Phu Moment of Israel?
“If some things do not let you lose your sense of reason,” G E Lessing says, “then you have none to lose”. The same holds with the West, its reason, in the wake of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians is at best labelled as a stylized barbarity. Leaving the Western media in the service of […]
From Judenhass to Ertz Israel
Lest we forget until recently Ukraine fighting against an “aggressor,” was the only darling of the Western media. Ever since the battleground has shifted to an occupied country, once a peaceful land of historical significance for all three monotheistic religions, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan named Palestine, Ukraine has lost its […]
Recurring Nightmares – II
Through indiscriminate bombardment, Israel wants to wipe out the Palestinians in Gaza to occupy the territory, a replica of Nazi’s Lebensraum. But killing 2.3 million unarmed people in the scrutinizing gaze of a highly polarized world will be a gory and uphill task if not an impossible one. The self-seeking puppets, the leaders of the […]
Recurring Nightmares – I
Poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric because no catharsis could be applied to Auschwitz. However, philosophy, for Adorno, lives on because the moment of its realization is missed. The conclusion refutes Hegel’s claim of fate being the arbiter of humankind’s sufferings while laying emphasis on Marx’s lamentation about the infatuations of the philosophers with the interpretation […]
Thinking Men Are Dangerous
“What progress we are making,” Sigmund Freud complained. “In the Middle Ages,” he said, “they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books”. Freud forgot to recall a gigantic difference between burning one’s books and burning a living human being at the stake. The difference is remarkably evident in Gaza and […]
Palestine: Homeland or Death
“Auschwitz happens when someone looks at the slaughterhouse and thinks they are animals”. One wonders how Adorno would have reacted to the recent not-very-gallant statement of Yoav Gallants, the Israeli Defense Minister who, while besieging Gaza and denying the people food, fuel, and electricity, has declared them human animals. In his moment of nihilism, watching […]
Fascism Taking the Wind from Democracy’s Sails -II
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels described the spectre of socialism haunting the world. That year was 1848. More than a century and a half later, the much-predicted spectre continues to loom large, but it is the spectre of fascism rather than that of socialism carrying the people to their graves, not dug by […]
Fascism and Democracy’s Sails (Part I)
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels described the spectre of socialism haunting the world. That year was 1848. More than a century and a half later, the much-predicted spectre continues to loom large, but it is the spectre of fascism rather than that of socialism carrying the people to their graves, not dug by […]
The Privatization Syndrome and Pakistani Elite
“Sell when you can; you are not for all markets,” Shakespeare advises. During the primordial economic chaos, the unfortunate destiny of the Pakistani state from its inception, the ruling class has nothing but to sell further privatization as a panacea, a lethal solution to a terminally ill patient. To improve the health of the education […]