Why Ugandans Embrace U.S. Christian Right's Anti-Gay Agenda | RHRealityCheck.org
"There is a joke among Africans about how colonialism began. A Christian missionary came with a Bible in hand, told our ancestors to bow their heads for a prayer, and when they opened their eyes their land was gone. Today, the same can be said about African constitutions.
American religious right-wingers are flocking to Africa and are having more success in passing new legislation criminalizing homosexuality there than they are having in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. "Democracy Now! never fails. The anecdote about Simón Bolívar's relation to Haiti is especially interesting.
Plan for all seasons - The National Newspaper
"It is not only that Marshallplanism posits that every regional problem has an American solution; as a lens through which to view the Middle East, it has enormous blind spots. Marshallplanists regard economic issues – unemployment, poverty, etc – as the root of the region’s problems and the key to their solution. They ignore any problems caused by American policy, particularly support for Israeli landgrabs and wars of collective punishment. Marshallplanism takes the outsized American presence in the region as a given, and argues that the solution to every problem is more, rather than less, American involvement; it ignores the fact that the Middle East of today is already, in many ways, an American Middle East, whose political landscape was shaped largely by US strategic planning over the course of the Cold War."
Get Elected; or, al-Baradei Tryin’ (Part 3 of 4) « THE BOURSA EXCHANGE
Part 3 of the translated interview with Mohamed ElBaradei from al-Shorouk newspaper.
LENIN'S TOMB: Haiti: opportunity knocks
Crucial reading on Haiti.
US steps up missile attacks in Pakistan - Yahoo! News
From the War President with love: U.S. missiles rain down on Pakistan (and Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, and Somalia, and let's not forget Palestine...) "ISLAMABAD – The United States has unleashed an unprecedented number of missile attacks by unmanned drones in northwest Pakistan over the last two weeks"
Catastrophe in Haiti | SocialistWorker.org
"WHILE MOST people reacted to the crisis by trying to find a way to help or donate money, Christian Right fanatic Pat Robertson stooped to new depths of racism. He explained that Haitians were cursed because they made a pact with the devil to liberate themselves from their French slave masters in the Haitian revolution two centuries ago.
The corporate media at least reported that shifting tectonic plates along a fault line underneath Port-au-Prince caused the earthquake--and that Haiti's poverty and the incapacity of the Préval government made the disaster so much worse. But they didn't delve below the surface."YouTube- Black Iraqis claim discrimination - 11 Jan 10
"Black Iraqis in the southern province of Basra are complaining of discrimination, saying they are not fairly represented in the state." Communities descended from African slaves also exist in southern Iran (especially in Abadan, Bandar-e Abbas, and throughout Sistan-o-Baluchestan province) and in Pakistan (especially along the Makran coast in Pakistan's Baluchestan province), and face varying levels of discrimination there as well.
Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | Poetry is politics
Interview with Tamim al-Barghouti.
For all you language nerds and nostalgic Arab nationalists out there, check this out. It's a rough transcription of Il Cantilena (the oldest known poem in the Maltese language) into Arabic orthography. Maltese, especially its classical form, is itself derived from Arabic.
ei: Making a business out of Palestine's struggle
"Hani Masri and Abul Huda Farouki founded Palestine Note in early 2009. Masri and Farouki are two businessmen and Democratic Party fundraisers with connections to the PA, as well as the lobbying group the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP).
The two men epitomize the kind of Arab-American political strategies that have created few benefits for Arab-Americans as a community, and achieved almost no benefits to the Palestinian people -- even if they have been personally beneficial for the two men themselves. Further, the tactics they have adopted have flouted the very principles that create the basis of the Palestine solidarity movement."The Americanization of Mental Illness - NYTimes.com
"THE IDEA THAT our Western conception of mental health and illness might be shaping the expression of illnesses in other cultures is rarely discussed in the professional literature. Many modern mental-health practitioners and researchers believe that the scientific standing of our drugs, our illness categories and our theories of the mind have put the field beyond the influence of endlessly shifting cultural trends and beliefs. After all, we now have machines that can literally watch the mind at work. We can change the chemistry of the brain in a variety of interesting ways and we can examine DNA sequences for abnormalities. The assumption is that these remarkable scientific advances have allowed modern-day practitioners to avoid the blind spots and cultural biases of their predecessors. "
Op-ed: Egypt’s ugly sectarianism face | Bikya Masr
Good op/ed re: the sectarian violence at Nagaa` Hammadi, though I (Hoda) disagree with the author's claim that there is no institutional discrimination against Copts.
BBC News - Israel to construct barrier along Egyptian border
""I took the decision to close Israel's southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel's Jewish and democratic character," the prime ministers said in a statement."
Hate to burst your bubble, but a democracy for white Ashkenazi Jews only is not a democracy. Also, the Egyptian official quoted who claims that this is merely an "Israeli affair" with no Egyptian participation
is lying; what else do you expect from the same regime that has no problem murdering Sudanese refugees (see: http://norayounis.com/2005/12/30/200830/74/)?Reflections on the GFM by a participant.
BBC News - Egypt tombs suggest free men built pyramids, not slaves
Ancient Egypt makes me (Hoda) yawn, but this is pretty interesting.
A People’s History of Gaza in Cartoons « P U L S E
Review of Joe Sacco's latest comic book; this time, it's on Gaza in the 1950s.
American Policy Towards Israel: All Carrots, No Sticks | KABOBfest
Why I Don’t Shorten My Name « Muslim Reverie
"Quite often, when people look at my name, they squint their eyes and ask me how to pronounce it. I don’t mind if they’re genuinely interested in learning its origin or how to pronounce it, but it really ticks me off when people do one of, but not limited to, the following: give me the “Holy s@#!” face, widen their eyes, drop their jaws, laugh for their own amusement (like, “ho ho ho, that’s an unusual name, I don’t know how in the world I’m going to say that”), and then ask, “Do you go by anything shorter?” It still surprises me that they don’t realize how offensive that question is. Stop and think about it. You are asking someone if they go by a nickname just because you have a tough time saying it. The implication is that your name is incompatible with the Western country you live in and that you – an ethnic and/or religious minority – must “accommodate” the privileged dominant culture by anglicizing your name."
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Linguistic sweatshops
"Like sweatshops the world over the call centres of Pakistan are the new sites for the extension of globalised capitalist market practices and the ideology which underlies them.
They create a virtual reality in which language, accent, names, locations and identities in a hegemonic centre (America) are invested with value which is exchanged for money. However, the process entails greater acquiescence in discourses of western hegemony and alienation from one’s own cultural reality.
The employees accept the philosophy of work, opportunity and business so well that they do not realise that they are being colonised in ways much more drastic and far-reaching than ever before."
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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