“Violated, dishonoured, wading in blood, dripping filth – there stands bourgeois society. This is it in reality,” Rosa Luxemburg said. From Iraq to Syria, from Libya to Palestine to Lebanon, death-a guiltless negation of utopia- dances naked to Dionysian music, depicting the wild side of human experience. When Engels said, “Bourgeois society stands at the […]
Lebanon: A Land of Milk and Honey or Blood and Tears
The imperialist force is trapped in a Pandora’s Box of its own choice. The tantrums of a decaying empire highlight that it’s caught between the devil of its own making and a deep sea, the Strait of Hormuz, the trap of its enemy- fully aware of the consequences yet unguarded because of its false vanity […]
Iran War: A Watershed in the History of Liberation
As the US-Israeli aggression against Iran goes past the anticipated time of a few days to six weeks, the former vice-president and foreign minister of Iran, Javad Zarif, has advised the Iranian government to give up its uranium deposits meant for peaceful purposes and to enter a pact with the US to end the war. […]
Iran: Writing History in Unlit Pathways
Either stand tall and risk losing life gracefully or kneel to survive in humiliation-that is the stark message blowing in the wind. The people and leadership of Iran appear to have chosen the former, seeking permanence through resistance, while many Arab rulers have pursued the latter, confronting what Nietzsche once warned of-the abyss that eventually […]
Iran and the Crisis of Hegemony
Borrowing from Dickens, we are living “in the worst of times or the best of times.” It is a time for imperialism and a time to counter its hegemonic designs. Not many will believe the latter proposition, and one cannot blame them for their pessimism. For a moment like this, Adorno remarked, “One needs to […]
The Herzog Visit and Democratic Erosion
The invasion of the Global North into various countries of the Global South to export democracy has been carried out in such a “benevolent” way that the quantity and quality of democracy back home have not only been compromised but considerably reduced. Whatever is left is being stifled by ICE in the US and by […]
History as Tragedy and Farce (Part II)
From a Leftist perspective, Aijaz Ahmad succinctly concluded, “Khomeini’s takeover was one of those rare conjunctures in which the revolution and the counter-revolution were condensed in the same moment…It was a decisive retreat of the Left from the Middle East and the rise to ideological hegemony of Islamic fundamentalism in that whole region- the history-as […]
History as Tragedy and Farce (Part I)
To borrow Dickens’ phrase, we are living in the worst of times and perhaps the best of times. “There is lots of upheaval under the sun,” Chairman Mao said, “and things are ideal for a revolution. Humanity is living in a time when imperialism is running amok. From the brazen genocide inflicted upon Palestine to […]
Palestine and Venezuela Have Exposed the World
“Palestine,” Yahya Sinwar said, “will expose the world.” It has done precisely that. Gaza has stripped the mask from the global order. Israeli-induced starvation, the systematic annihilation of hospitals, the levelling of an entire society, and the open genocide of Palestinians have not merely revealed the barbarism of settler-colonial violence; they have exposed the moral […]
Kosher and Unkosher Terrorism
To ensure as Shakespeare writes, “that this foul deed shall smell above the earth,” the Australian government has taken every possible step to weaponize the grisly Bondi Beach killing committed by two psychopaths, allegedly linked to the Islamic State- to punish the Boycott and Divestment and the Palestinian solidarity groups. These are peaceful movements with […]