London gets too much credit. Whenever right-wing Israel advocates complain about hotbeds of Palestinian solidarity politics, they look no further. Perhaps its because the British capital is guilty as charged. Or maybe it’s due to a fear of finding out how widespread support for the Palestinian cause actually is, throughout western Europe. (More…)
People mistake my bitterness this time of year for hating Christmas. Actually, I’m fine with it. I just hate how it gets observed. And I especially hate being around American expats, in Yemen, on Christmas. (More…)
We’re a week into a major tribal war in Yemen’s Hadramawt province. Since there has been a media blackout in the area, and even Yemeni journalists are not being allowed in, core facts about the uprising remain unknown. What we do know is that there is a powerful new tribal confederation, the Hadramawt Tribes Alliance, which has led large rallies and armed clashes throughout the province. (More…)
If metal has become incoherent, there’s little sign that it is dying. Yet there are two dangers that are beginning to loom large over it. The first is that metal gradually dissipates. The music moves in a thousand different directions, by a thousand different artists. Any sense of it as an overarching idiom, a cultural identity, and a social space is lost. (More…)
The culture of food is directly connected to the politics of scarcity. This is especially true when it comes to environments that have been bombarded by war. The Gaza Strip is a perfect example. Even before Israel conquered the area, its population had always been marginalized. In keeping, every low point in Gaza’s history has been eclipsed with time. Today, it’s one of the poorest, most densely populated areas in the world. (More…)
Conquest isn’t what it used to be. Large scale invasions and occupations are out of the question. The West is still militarily preeminent on paper, yet in practice its coalitions have floundered in Iraq and Afghanistan. This situation has forced a shift away from conventional military force towards a more politically palatable method of warfare (More…)
Three times each week, from August through December, I walked by this SUV on the way to teach my first class. My mind would sometimes be preoccupied with its bumper stickers as I hurried to the classroom. After a while, they started to seem like a political koan, a puzzle I wasn’t meant to solve. (More…)
Media outlets are abuzz this week about the stabbing of a Japanese diplomat during an attempted kidnapping on Hada’a Street, in Sana’a. Tellingly, they leave out the information that is needed to put this event in context. Specifically, that there was a drone strike a few days ago that killed fifteen wedding-goers. (More…)
War continues in the restive tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. After several failures at democratization, many of us continue to seek a way to break the impasse. I believe that we must reformulate ourselves, and take inspiration from the Zapatistas. (More…)
Today we’re witnessing the fulfillment of the postmodern condition that figures such as Baudrillard and Lyotard first proclaimed – prematurely – in the 1980s. Abundance, and the simultaneous availability of every kind of cultural commodity threatens to ‘flatten’ out the world, creating a kind of continuous present, beyond progress, beyond history. (More…)
Who could argue with such a simple request? “1 Euro for education”, the sign reads, advertising IKEA’s ongoing commitment to donate that amount to Save the Children with the purchase of each soft toy. But given the context, it’s hard not to read the message as a disturbing double entendre. (More…)
The writing is on the wall. Saudi Arabia, in its current form, is destined to self-destruct. The question is what will succeed it. And if it’s the Saudi-we-know that will collapse, we’re already seeing indications of Saudi-to-be in the violent, and ineffective Nitaqat Program. (More…)