Strong piece in this weekend’s New York Times by Palestinian Omar Barghouti on the logic and increasing power of BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel: The… landslide vote… by the American Studies Association in December to endorse an academic boycott of Israel, coming on the heels of a similar decision by the… Association for Asian-American… Studies, among others,…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
Why the Wikileaks Party visit to Syria was so delusional
My weekly Guardian column is published below: The sight of Australian citizens associated with the WikiLeaks party… sitting and chatting… with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad… during their… recent… “solidarity… mission”, along with their comments about the regime, is a damning indictment on a party that ran a… dismal election campaign… in 2013 and has never bothered to explain… its subsequent collapse. For WikiLeaks supporters…
Wikileaks Party meets Syria's Assad and ignores reality of country
It’s the first day of 2014 and what a way to begin the new year. Today’s Australian newspaper features this story on page one by Jared Owens and Rick Morton. As a Wikileaks supporter since 2006, right from the beginning… (and I remain a public backer of the organisation), it’s tragic to see the Wikileaks Party…
How Western-backed Saudi fundamentalism is causing chaos
One of the great unspoken truths of the 21st century. After this week’s shocking terrorist acts in Russia, it’s possible (though impossible to know) that Saudi Arabia may be behind the carnage (they threatened as much a few months ago). The venerable Patrick Cockburn, writing in the UK Independent, on the ominous signs of sectarian…
Add Saudi, insert extremism, change Syria, bring chaos
What could possibly go wrong (and since when is Saudi Arabia, that US-backed apartheid state in the Middle East, a believer in democracy?). Foreign Policy reports: Saudi Arabia, having largely abandoned hope that the United States will spearhead international efforts to topple the Assad regime, is embarking on a major new effort to train Syrian…
War in Syria exposes gross Western hypocrisy
My following piece appears in the Guardian today: Syrian president Bashar al-Assad wasn’t supposed to survive. Since the uprising began in 2011, it’s been long presumed in western political and media circles that he would be deposed or killed and that a new, more US-friendly autocrat would be installed. This hasn’t happened. We know Russia…
Sri Lanka isn’t a holiday destination for writers. Discuss
How should an artist or writer act in a police state? How should a tourist? What’s the moral response? Here’s a great piece by Jacinda Woodhead in Overland which tackles the thorny questions in a thoughtful way. I was asked to comment: Listening to 3RRR’s… Aural text… on Wednesday, I heard alicia sometimes mention the four-week residency…
If I ruled the world
I was asked by Osman Faruqi, editor of the University of New South Wales student newspaper Tharunka, to write a column: The role of the US hegemony is over. Washington no longer controls the world by charm and force. It’s a multipolar planet with countless centres of power. Wouldn’t this be something to celebrate? In…
BBC happy to promote deluded British narrative of spreading democracy
Typically savvy writing by Medialens: This ideological function was clear in the BBC Newsnight ‘special’ edition on February 26, 2013, titled… ‘Iraq: 10 Years On’. One of the guests on the platform in front of an invited audience was the grandly titled ‘World Affairs Editor’, John Simpson. The veteran journalist has an air of avuncular gravitas,…