Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Adivasis, Afghanistan, Armenian Genocide, Arundhati Roy, Authoritarian, Ayodhya, Babri Masjid, BJP, Capitalism, Chhattisgarh, Communalism, Dalits, Developing Countries, Fascism, Free Market, ganga, George Bush, Gujarat, Hindu, Hindutva, India, Jharkhand, Kashmir, L.K. Advani, liberal democracy, Mohammed Afzal, Mumbai Attacks, Muslim, Narendra Modi, Non-Aligned Movement, Orissa, P. CHidambaram, Pakistan, Ram Janmabhoomi, Soviet Union, Totalitarian, West Bengal
* * * * *
3 July 2009
Source: Outlook India
While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.
So, is there life after democracy?
Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defence of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: ‘Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia…is that what you would prefer?’
Whether democracy should be the utopia that all ‘developing’ societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn’t meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It’s meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy-too much representation, too little democracy-needs some structural adjustment.
The question here, really, is: what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the Free Market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, AfPak, Air Strikes, Al Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, American Imperialism, Asif Ali Zardari, Baitullah Mehsud, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, bin Ladern, Central Asia, CIA, Colonialism, Congress Government, Drone Attacks, Fata, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Hillary Clinton, Humeira Iqtidar, India, ISI, Malakand, Manmohan Singh, Militants, Mujahedeen, Mullah Omar, New Delhi, NWFP, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Pakistani Government, Pakistanis, Partition, Pashtun, Pervez Musharraf, Racism, Ruling Class, South Asia, Soviet Union, Swat Valley, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US interests, US military, US occupation, War on Terror, White Supremacy
* * * * *
June 2009
Source: Liberation
Even as the US military offensive intensifies in Afghanistan, a parallel offensive by the Pakistani Army, clearly under US pressure, in the country’s autonomous region of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is underway. Estimates suggest that over 10 lakh civilians are being forced to flee the Swat Valley, one of the major theatres of the war, in what is being called the biggest displacement of people since the Partition (1947). While US air strikes recently massacred 150 civilians, mostly women and children, in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military strikes are said to have killed hundreds of (more…)
Filed under: Asia, Middle East | Tags: 1979 Iranian Revolution, Afghanistan, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Anglo-American, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Ayatollah Khomeini, Barak Obama, British Petroleum, Carter Administration, Central Asia, CIA, CIA coup, CIA Destablization Plan, Coup D'etat, Democracy, Egypt, Ex-Foreign Minister Yazidi, George Bush, Haiti, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hosni Mubarak, Iran Election 2009, Iran Guardian council, Iran Interior Minister, Iran June 12 Presidential Election, Iran Protests, Iran Ruling elite, Iran's Parliament, Iran's Prime Minister, Iranian, Iranian Street protests, Iranian workers, Jean-Bertrand Aristed, Jebhe Melli, Lebanon, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Hussein Mousavi, Mohammed Javed Mozafar, Mohammed Mossadegh, Monarchy, National Front of Iran, NATO, Palestine, Pashto Radio, Protests, Republicanism, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Sadeq Mahsouli, Seymour Hersh, Soviet Union, Stolen Election, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran, Tehran University, Theocratic State, Theodore Roosevelt, US Media, Venezuela, Wall Street Journal, Washington, Washington Post, White House
* * * * *
18 June 2009
Source: Global Research
In the run-up to Iran’s June 12 presidential election, early indications suggested the media’s reaction if the wrong candidate won. On June 7, New York Times writer Robert Worth reported “a surge of energy (for) Mir Hussein Mousavi, a reformist who is the leading contender to defeat Mr. Ahmadinejad (and) a new unofficial poll (has him well ahead) with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad.” No mention of who conducted the poll, how it was done, what interests they represented, or if Mousavi winning might be the wrong result. More on that below.
Writing for the influential far right Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Fariborz Ghadar described the contest as “pit(ting) the hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against two relatively moderate and one conservative challenger.” In spite of one or more independent polls showing Ahmadinejad way ahead, he suggested that “the outcome (isn’t) (more…)
Filed under: Middle East | Tags: 1967 Invasion, Arab Countries, Arab Intellecutals, Arab Monarchies, Arab Nationalism, Baghdad Pact, Bermuda Conference, Britain, China, Cold War, Colonialism, Denationalization, Egypt, European Colonization, France, Frantz Fanon, Gamal Abdul-Nasser, Gaza, Gaza Ghetto Uprising, gaza Strip, Gazans, Green Zone, Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Iranian Threat, Israel, Israel's Arab Allies, Israeli Intelligence, Isreali Massacre, Jordanian Army, Lebanon Invasion 1982, Mahmoud Abas, Moroccan dictatorship, Muslims, Nasser, Nasserism, Nazi, Nazi Genocide, Nazi-Occupied Europe, Neoliberal Arab Intellectuals, Oil Money, Omani Dictatorship, Oslo Agreement, Palestine, Palestinian Bantustans, Palestinian Liberation Organization, Palestinian People, PLO, Racism, Racist, Ramallah, Saudi Media Outlets, Settler-Colony, Soviet Union, Szmul Zygielbojm, the Bund, Third World Revolutionism, Tzipi Livni, US, US Aid, US Dictatorial Allies, Warsaw Ghetto, White Supremacy, Zionism, Zionist, Zionist Entity
4 January 2009
Source: Electronic Intifada
One is often baffled by the ironies of international relations and the alliances they foster. Take for example the Israeli colonial settlement that had declared war on the Palestinian people and several Arab countries since its inception while at the same time it built alliances with many Arab regimes and with Palestinian leaders.
While Hashemite-Zionist relations and Maronite Church-Zionist relations have always been known and documented, there has been less documentation of the services that Israel has provided and continues to provide to Arab regimes over the decades. It is now recognized that Israel’s 1967 invasion of Egypt aimed successfully to destroy (more…)
