Instead of covering the Gezi Park protests, CNN Turki chose to show a documentary on penguins. So Tweeted Aaron Stein, from Istanbul, last week. It would have been one thing if it was just another Turkish broadcaster. Noted for their self-censorship, domestic news agencies had imposed a blackout on the uprising, one of the largest in the country’s history. (More…)
“US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST.” The simplistic slogan was trumpeted by the radical left for many years before George W. Bush’s foray into Iraq made it a common bumper sticker. The same call could have been used by the isolationist right as well. Unfortunately, both practicality and, more importantly, morality make removing the US from the region more complicated. (More…)
The pattern was familiar. Following the identification of the Boston Marathon bombers, US media were awash with experts, explaining the appeal of Jihad in Muslim communities. Security forces were deployed in major metropolitan areas. Returning from Pakistan a week after the attacks, a Homeland Security officer at JFK Airport asked me how often I pray, as though, because I’m South Asian, I must therefore be religious. (More…)
June is shaping to be a very eventful month. The crisis in Syria continues to swell, with no end in sight. The dilemmas facing the United States, Israel and Europe seem to be getting more complicated by the day. Iran will hold its next presidential election, and with the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from that office the United States will be faced with a new set of questions, depending on the outcome. (More…)
The English climate is lamentable at the best of times. No. Not the weather. The political climate. But today we seem to be dealing with something more profound than the perfunctory shenanigans of Great Britain’s political aristocracy. (More…)
Truer words are rarely spoken: “…the State of Israel is already a bi-national state – a state in which two nationalities reside, Jews and Arabs. The advocates of the establishment of a Palestinian state … simply oppose the addition of any more Arabs to the existing Arab population of the State of Israel. (More…)
I arrived in Pakistan during Tahir ul-Qadri’s widely promoted Long March. Landing in Islamabad, I was ushered through side roads to see my mother in Rawalpindi. She told me that it would be impossible to get anything done for days, as ul-Qadri had effectively shut down the capital. (More…)
There’s only one word that can raise the blood pressure of apologists for the Israeli occupation. That word is “boycott.” Their hysterical reaction to Stephen Hawking’s decision to pull out of a Jerusalem conference is a perfect example. (More…)
During the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, sociologists Mamie and Kenneth Clark received national attention. Their 1947 study, Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children, would prove integral to the US Supreme Court’s decision to end the segregation of public schools seven years later. (More…)
The city wants to remember and forget. It’s a physical event, an idea, a product of conflict. It’s a context for daily life, for social and civilized modern life, where people participate in events and create collective memories. The city is a manifestation of the culture, identity, ideology, and symbols of its people, a place for their ‘presence’. The city is also a context for governments to establish and declare their agenda and order. (More…)
The two-state solution has one to two years left before it is finished. So stated John Kerry to Congress. That the Secretary of State even hints at the possibility reinforces the idea that a new era is upon us, which many have been proclaiming for some time. The two-state solution is in fact dead. The question is where to go from here. (More…)
International sanctions on Iran have devastated the country. In the past year, the latest round of US and EU sanctions due to Tehran’s nuclear development program are the toughest in Iran’s history.
With a plummeting currency, medicine shortages, and rising food prices, Iranian students now find themselves struggling to gain admission to universities abroad. (More…)