05 August 2023
From Mizrahi Jews to the Apartheid State
My purpose here is simple – to get you to listen to the 54-minute Middle East Eye interview with Oxford historian Avi Shlaim. The first part concerns Shlaim’s biography and the second, as the title suggests, captures his view as an Israeli historian of the current protests and the future of the Israeli state. How did a Jewish boy born…
17 February 2023
Iran's 2022 Protests: Women Stand Up
On September 16, 2022, the Iranian morality police arrested a 22-year-old Kurdish woman visiting relatives in Teheran likely because her hijab had slipped a bit over her head, showing some hair. Three days later, Mahsa Amini died in police custody, presumably from the beatings she received. Within days, dozens of Iranian cities in all parts of the country exploded in…
16 November 2022
The First R20: Indonesia Confronts Saudi Autocracy
As you know, the G20 represents the twenty most powerful economies of the world and it meets every year. With a rotating leadership, Indonesia is the 2022 convener this month, and President Joko Widodo has insisted that President Vladimir Putin attend (he did not in the end). Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had walked out of the G20 ministers conference…
18 August 2022
Religion's Precipitous Decline
I rarely get so absorbed by a book I’m reading. But I could hardly put down Ronald F. Inglehart’s 2021 book (Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing it, and What Comes Next?). An emeritus professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Inglehart is the “Founding President of the World Values Survey Association, which since 1981 has repeatedly surveyed…