Last October, a Russian private military contractor, the Moran Security Group, shanghaied another PMC, the Slavonic Corps, by promising recruits $2,000-5,000 a month if they went to Syria to guard strategic facilities (military bases and power plants) to free up the regular Syrian Army guards for the front line. (More…)
The cars and trucks that draw my eye usually display an excess of public expression, with an array of bumper-stickers telling a complex and sometimes contradictory story of political and cultural allegiance. But sometimes I’m stopped short by a different kind of message, elegant as one of Ezra Pound’s Imagist couplets. Like this formulation: “Forget 911. I dial .357.” (More…)
Water is finally being discussed, however disingenuously, in regard to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. But actually, water needs to be understood as a fundamental reason for the ongoing occupation. It came to the fore this week when the EU Parliamentary President mentioned it in his speech in the Knesset. (More…)
For decades, there have been calls for a Protestant Reformation in the Muslim world. There’s something to it. Unfortunately, most press for a vaguely defined liberal secularism against an equally unclear Islamic backwardness. This can be particularly sinister when Muslims do it, since it contributes to a senseless dichotomy between secular elites and religious extremists that paralyzes the Islamic world. (More…)
A common criticism of Valentine’s Day is that it was invented by a greeting card company. Even though I sympathize with that genre of criticism, I also find it contrived. Yes, Valentine’s Day is highly clichéd, and a vehicle for all sorts of crass interests. Still, it’s a rare occasion to publicly reflect on love and the significance of romantic relationships. (More…)
Multiculturalism isn’t an abstraction. It’s about people of different ethnic backgrounds, living together, as equals. Predicated on the idea that in an increasingly globalized world, governments must develop policies that encourage tolerance and foster integration. Initially associated with Canadian immigration policy, over the last half century, the term has become a synonym used to describe the ethnic transformation of European society. (More…)
On July 27th, 1983, the Turkish Ambassador’s residence in Lisbon was seized by militants of the Armenian Revolutionary Army, following a failed attempt at storming the embassy. After a standoff with 170 Portuguese riot police, the building was blown up, killing the four ARA fighters inside, one Portuguese policeman and Cahide Mıhçıoğlu, wife of the embassy’s charge d’affaires. (More…)
The spiraling space-funk at the heart of Gardens & Villa’s Dunes could only be called “Echosassy.” The album’s fifth track is the mesmerizing template for Gardens & Villa’s sound, a synth-rock that knows its history, with more than a subtle allegiance to the sci-fi notion of retro-futurism. (More…)
The world ended on December 27th. Or so it seemed. My visa sponsor at Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies sat me down and told me that I had to leave the country by the end of the weekend. Defeated, I began packing my belongings, and walked around Sana’a with the knowledge that I may never see it again. I arrived in Berlin on New Year’s Day. (More…)
It should have been a meme. For several months, at least, the news media could not put it down. First invoked in 2011, in reference to the 15-M movement protesting the Spanish government’s inept handling of the economic crisis, the term ‘Indignados’ became a media catch-all, used to describe European leftists, critical of Brussels-mandated austerity policies. (More…)
The announcement of a celebrity boxing match between George Zimmerman, and rap-star DMX, has generated quite a lot of anger. The Nation‘s Mychal Denzel Smith does not mince words about how disgusted it makes him feel. (More…)
Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations are the biggest journalistic event in the past decade, and certainly the most important US leak since the Pentagon Papers. They have exposed practices that have been judged to be government privacy boards to be illegal, and by courts as an affront to the Constitution. And they have demonstrated that large amounts of state surveillance in the post 9/11 era have nothing to do with terrorism. (More…)
