Idle No More is back. After a lull, the movement has been reinvigorated by a march at a shale gas field in Rexton, New Brunswick last week that turned violent. Now that discussions of the group are once again making headlines, it’s a perfect time to discuss what led to the movement’s creation, as well as how it functions within the broader context of Canadian multiculturalism. (More…)
One of the more absurd international crises could be coming to an end. The word out of Geneva this week is that the P5+1 (which consists of the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France plus Germany) was impressed with the presentation made by the Iranian delegation. It’s only the beginning of what is sure to be a difficult process. (More…)
Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than the government shutdown for those of us living in the United States has been the mainstream media’s coverage of the shutdown. Day after day, pundits speculate about how much the Tea Party-led campaign to defund the Affordable Heath Care Act by holding the nation hostage will hurt Republicans in the next election cycle. But they ignore the obvious: the ideologues responsible simply do not care. (More…)
“The two-state solution is the only viable option to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” So goes the familiar refrain. Lately, I’ve noted a couple of instances where the cliché has been accompanied with mockery of those who advocate for one secular, democratic state in all of the land Israel now controls. There’s a lot of arrogance and condescension in that attitude. (More…)
Somalia’s PR strategy is violence. Or so one might be inclined to think, based on press coverage of Nairobi’s spectacular Westfield mall attack by al-Shabaab gunmen (and apparently women.) The last time that Somalia fanned comparable ripples in US media culture was during the Battle of Mogadishu, a highfalutin moniker for the botched commando raid in 1993, in which 18 American soldiers and an estimated 1000 Somalis were killed. (More…)
It wasn’t until I was stretching as far as I could towards the ceiling, my hand inching towards the smoke detector, that I realized how high up I was. For many people, standing on a ladder, twelve feet above the ground, is no big deal. But for me, the boy who had almost failed out of Cub Scouts for not being able to climb half that high, it surely was. (More…)
I just got off the phone with a Pakistani-American friend, who had just read a Facebook post of mine. He called me to ask if I could elaborate on the first sentence: “I have no patience for people in the Diaspora who say that Pakistan is finished.” I replied that I’m aggravated with how expats often give a desperate assessment of our country’s prospects. (More…)
With repetition, truth accretes. For example, repeat that Iran must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons, and everyone believes that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. The problem is, the facts don’t support so certain a conclusion, any more than they prove Iran’s innocence. (More…)
According to Vittorio Longhi, Nepal sees “on average” two guest workers return in coffins to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport every day. More than 7,000 Nepalese guest workers are known to have died on the job in the Middle East between 2003 and 2013 – over 700 in 2013 alone so far, according to The Kathmandu Post – from a combination of workplace injuries, natural causes, and traffic accidents. (More…)
Phoolan Devi was shot dead on July 25th, 2001. The gunmen fled the scene, and within two days, a man named Sher Singh Rana surrendered himself to police, saying that the murder was an act of revenge. For many Indians, the following years of police incompetence, and Rana’s own short-lived escape from Tihar Jail in 2004, were to be expected. (More…)
Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in!” Those were the words of Michael Corleone, an old man who had spent his life reluctantly running a Mafia family, in the third installment of The Godfather trilogy. This was a movie, of course, but the line probably has some resonance right now for US President Barack Obama. (More…)
Blaming women for rape? Bollywood actresses talking smack are an obvious satire. The sarcastic video called It’s Your Fault, by comedy troupe All India Bakchod, has won praise, as well as criticism, including from progressives, normally skeptical of English-language productions. For foreigners, it’s a great introduction to how seriously Indians are taking the sex crimes epidemic sweeping their country. (More…)