In her award-winning film I Am Nasrine, Iranian-American director Tina Gharavi sheds light on the inexorable rise of post-9/11 xenophobia in the United Kingdom. Set in Tehran and northeast England, the film tells the story of teenage siblings Ali and Nasrine, who are sent off to England in hope of securing a better future. (More…)
I’ve long since unsubscribed from following Mashable on Twitter, simply because so many people retweet Pete Cashmore and his crew, I needn’t bother. I also don’t really visit the site regularly anymore because I find the ‘journalism’ these days around technology to be a lot of fluff, insider-gossip and an echo chamber of circle jerks. Mashable, included. (More…)
There is nothing so beautiful as the faces of insurgents. Nothing in this world is so attractive, so full of hope. No journalist, no politician, no religious leader or other sort of leader will ever be able to extinguish the beauty of the revolt or bury it under discourses that know nothing of joy or longing. (More…)
Tanzkommando Untergang herald Europe’s new dark punk. Combining a guitar-driven deathrock sound with grim, black and white visuals normally associated with radical hardcore, the politically-minded Berlin band is very much of its milieu, and its moment. (More…)
Recently declassified German government files confirmed what many had suspected: Palestinian terrorists who massacred Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics had the help of Neo-Nazis. They also reveal just how ineffectual the German security apparatus really was. In more ways than one, Black September was an inside job. My first reaction upon hearing this news? A profound sense of relief. (More…)
As the United States moves toward elections, we’re facing a grim future in the Middle East. Not only do electoral politics dictate that nothing positive is likely to come from Washington for the next five months. November’s poll holds little promise for the next four years, no matter who the victor is. (More…)
“Turkish coffee?” The throaty Armenian was clearly affronted. “Sure, it’s Turkish when I buy it. But when I make it, it’s Abkhaz coffee.” Insisting eyes awaited an apology, which I promptly offered. I never made the mistake again. (More…)
In “Diary of An Anarcho-Goth-Punk Fiend,” Alistair Livingston, a member of the British Kill Your Pet Puppy collective, records the transformational year of 1983 in terse bursts of prose. In clipped entries, he describes how 1983 began with him listening to bands like The Mob and Blood and Roses. By 1984 – the year of punk’s (and Orwell’s) apocalypse — he was trying ecstasy and getting into Psychic TV. (More…)
“Walk like an Egyptian.” “Trafalgar square = Tahrir Square.” Comparisons to the uprising then-underway in Egypt were aplenty at London’s anti-cuts protest in March 2011. No surprise there. For the first time since 1989, revolutionary fervor was crossing national boundaries, challenging authoritarianism in the name of democracy. (More…)
“Be careful, the walls have ears.” Ammar Khaf, a spokesman for the Los Angeles chapter of the Syrian American Council, quotes a saying that millions grew up with under Baathist rule. He talks of the fear that gripped the diaspora when Mukhabarat agents assassinated prominent exiles in the 1980s. But as anti-Assad protests spread, the community grew emboldened. (More…)
It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen Slayer live. As a metal fan for over twenty years it’s been hard to avoid seeing them, given the frequency with which they tour. Nor would I want to avoid seeing them. They are after all the ur-band, the mother lode of extreme metal, never wavering in their commitment to a tight-riffing, hyper-disciplined sound. (More…)
Imagine you lived in an impoverished area with virtually no hope for the future. It’s a place where there is little work to be had and your family struggles every day to keep a roof over their heads and find some food to eat. (More…)