by B. R. GOWANI

many people I come across complain about

• wars
• hatred
• poverty
• phobias
• violence
• inflation
• misogyny
• inequality
• intolerance
• anti–LGBTIQ
• communalism
• …

then they all ask:

will things change:

I have to say “yes, thing will change”

because that’s what they want to hear

but then I can’t delude them

I clarify:

“the way events are happening in the Trumpverse

“things will change for the worse”

their hopes are dashed

but at least they know the reality

how each will cope, I don’t know

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by SAGOR HASNATH

I am a student of business, trained to see the world through the discipline’s analytic frame. From that vantage point, politics can resemble commerce. It can be seen as an exercise in offering services to prospective clients and persuading an audience.

With that perspective in mind, I set out to approach this election as a business case study. My intention is to examine the promotional strategies, competitive advantages and structural shortcomings of the BNP and Jamaat, and to draw lessons that may be useful to business owners and brand practitioners. 

Because this is an academic exercise, readers will inevitably find points open to debate. I would encourage, however, that it be read as analysis rather than advocacy. 

Though written primarily for fellow business observers, it may also offer political practitioners insights as they refine their future strategies.

What stood out most on the campaign trail was the stark disparity in brand visibility between the BNP and the Jamaat alliance. By my estimation, the difference was considerable—perhaps as wide as a ratio of 10 to 2. 

The BNP appeared dominant across nearly every physical touchpoint. Booths, banners, posters and manpower.

In modern markets, a superior product alone rarely guarantees success. Visibility and availability play decisive roles in consumer choice. 

Large corporations understand this well. They invest heavily to secure prominent shelf space, position products at eye level and ensure their presence in high-traffic retail environments. 

These decisions are rooted in careful calculations about human behavior.

This dynamic often reinforces itself. Smaller brands, constrained by limited resources, struggle to invest in visibility. Without visibility, they fail to grow. And without growth, they remain unable to invest. 

It is a self-perpetuating cycle familiar to anyone who studies market competition. This election, in many ways, illustrated that same principle.

The lesson is not abstract for me. At Beefwala—the restaurant brand that I run—we long took a casual approach to visibility, preferring the romance of being a “hidden gem.” 

We assumed that a strong product would draw customers on its own merit. As a result, we neglected even the basics: clear road signage and a visible presence. This election has forced me to reconsider. Quality alone is not sufficient. 

Visibility, too, requires deliberate investment.

Online vs real life

The contrast between online and offline strategy was equally striking. 

Jamaat demonstrated formidable strength in the digital arena. Its supporters produced a steady stream of short-form videos, coordinated social media activity and memorable campaign songs. Online, their presence was unmistakable.

Yet on the ground, the balance shifted. The BNP relied on scale and physical engagement. Its workers canvassed neighborhoods, staffed booths and maintained a visible, continuous presence. 

The party’s offline infrastructure appeared broader and more persistent.

This divergence suggests a miscalculation common in both politics and business: overestimating the reach of digital engagement while underestimating the enduring importance of physical presence. 

The result was not merely a difference in tactics, but in perception. Where one side dominated screens, the other dominated streets. 

And in markets, as in elections, presence often shapes outcome.

There is, however, a warning here for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Its victory was more fragile than it appeared. The reason the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami was able to challenge it at all was the BNP’s anemic digital presence. 

Politics, like business, punishes those who misread the direction of momentum. If the BNP learns to capture public sentiment online with the same discipline it demonstrated offline, its dominance could harden into something far more durable.

The larger lesson is unmistakable though. Online activism alone is insufficient. Offline machinery alone is insufficient. Power now belongs to those who integrate both. 

Businesses that rely exclusively on digital channels expose themselves to sudden disruption. Those that remain stubbornly analog surrender vast, expanding markets. 

The same is true in politics. Hybrid strength is no longer optional. It is the price of relevance.

Bangla Outlook for more

by BRIAN BASSANIO

Despite demographic marginalisation and cultural retreat, Hindu sacred music continues to live in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, the Hindu minority lives largely in Sindh and southern Punjab, with smaller pockets in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There are estimated to be over five million Hindus (including both Jati and Scheduled Caste communities), making them the largest non-Muslim minority in the country.

Jati groups such as Brahmins, Rajputs, Thakurs, Lohanas, and Maheshwaris tend to be more urban and influential, often active in business, medicine, or law. Scheduled Castes, legally designated in the mid-twentieth century, include Meghwar, Kolhi, Bheel, Oad, Bagri, Balmiki, and others.

They are the majority of Pakistan’s Hindus, yet they face layered disadvantage: religion places them at the margins of the national majority, and caste places them at the margins of Hindu society itself. Seats reserved for Hindus in government rarely reflect this lower-caste majority, and literacy among Scheduled Caste women remains among the lowest in South Asia.

Among the cultural traditions affected by these social and political pressures is Hindu sacred music. It has deep roots in the Indus region. The ancient concept of nada brahma, the idea that creation itself is sonic, still informs devotional practice.

The foundations of Hindu music lie in Vedic literature, where syllabic chanting, melody, and movement coalesced into sangeeta. Over time, the Bhakti movement widened participation to all communities through vernacular song, and its poetic aesthetics, described through raas theory, shaped emotional and spiritual expression.

Before 1947, the region experienced centuries of mutual cultural influence among Hindus and Muslims, producing a shared artistic environment sometimes described as Ganga Jamuna Tehzeeb. In this setting, musical identities were porous and devotional repertoires travelled across communities.

Partition disrupted that world. State policies after independence, combined with broader social prejudice, pushed overtly Hindu cultural forms out of mainstream public life. These dynamics did not erase sacred music but changed how it lived.

The Express Tribune for more

by ELISA CHIA

SINGAPORE – Oxford University Press has declared “rage bait” as its 2025 Word of the Year, while Dictionary.com cast its vote for “6 7” and Collin’s Dictionary chose “vibe coding”.

These selections offer a compelling snapshot of prevailing cultural and social trends, particularly among the young digital-native generation, over the past year.

You may have overheard your children saying these very words, perhaps leaving you with a momentary sense of frustration as you struggled to follow their conversation.

Navigating the rapidly evolving vocabulary of youth can feel like deciphering an entirely new language.

But do not worry, the following chat has been decoded to help you “gain aura” (slang for boost one’s cool factor) with your children.

Lucas: Bruh, Jennie just posted that “I study only two hours a day” video again.

Zoey: That’s 100 per cent rage bait.
(Rage bait: Posting online content just to make people mad and argue in the comments, thereby driving up engagement and traffic.)

Lucas: Exactly. She’s just trying to aura farm at this point.
(Aura farm: Act confident or mysterious online to gain clout or admiration.)

Zoey: But it’s working for her. She is just vibe coding chill energy while everyone in the comments is like “teach me your ways”.
(Vibe coding: Creating an app or website using artificial intelligence. But among teens, it can mean doing something to evoke a certain mood.)

Lucas: Facts. Meanwhile, I post one chill pic and get two likes – one’s you and one’s mum.

Zoey: No cap, that’s a flop era moment right there.
(No cap: For real, not lying. Flop era: A phase when you are not doing well or not getting attention.)

Lucas: 6 7
(6 7: Pronounced “six sevennn”, not sixty-seven. Largely a playful sign-off or an acknowledgement without a concrete meaning, while some say it means “so-so”.)

Straits Times for more

EDITORS, THE BLACK AGENDA REVIEW

“The Poor People’s Campaign is the greatest single challenge ever unleashed upon our colonial system.”

Revisiting the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson’s essay “Resurrection City: The Dream… the Accomplishments” in the hours after his death is to encounter a morose nostalgia – and, quickly following, an acute rage. “Resurrection City” was published in Ebony magazine in October 1968. In the essay, Reverend Jackson recounts the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., before his April 4, 1968 assassination, for a political program focussing on poverty, economic injustice, and the profound and violent class differences — the brutal divisions between rich and poor — cutting across racial lines in the United States. King’s vision resulted in the Poor People’s Campaign. 

Under the leadership of Reverend Ralph Abernathy and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Poor People’s Campaign joined with a cross-racial alliance of advocates for the poor and working class organizations to carry out Dr. King’s vision of an occupation of the US Capitol’s National Mall to make visible the plight of the poor to the US government. Groups organized caravans from all over the US to travel to Washington DC. They began arriving in Washington on May 5th. On May 13th at an opening ceremony, Dr. Abernathy dedicated the site as “Resurrection City, U.S.A.” and construction of the wood dwellings began. The encampment had about 3000 dwellings and more than 50,000 people lived on the site – in the heart of the US government.

Resurrection City is probably better remembered for its quick death than for its short life. It lasted but forty-two days. Media coverage focussed on its internal political difficulties, the apparent failure of its progressive vision for economic reform, and the near-Biblical storms that turned it into a city of mud and wood and frustrated dreams.

Yet in his Ebony essay, Reverend Jackson, dismisses the easy criticisms, along with the one-dimensional and slanted media coverage. He instead pointed to Resurrection City’s accomplishments: its gathering of disparate racial groups of poor people and its attempts to center economics and class as the unifying force of US politics over narrow sectional and racial interests.

It is striking to read the Reverend Jackson of 1968. His personality and politics have been flattened and caricatured in the intervening years: after his two candidacies of the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party (1984 and 1988), with the control of the party by the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council and the rise of Bill Clinton, and, especially as Obama engulfed Black politics. Yet, of course, Reverend Jackson was also both the product of a movement and a bellwether of the times. To read in Ebony magazine of all places his progressive demands for jobs and economic justice, his attacks on militarism, imperialism, and oligarchy, and his advocacy of inter-racial alliance suggests something of a long-lost era in US politics. Hence the nostalgia, but also the anger: what has happened to US politics, to Black politics, in the intervening decades has been nothing short of disastrous.

Jackson’s “Resurrection City” is a document of a lost politics — a politics that needs to rise from the dead. We reprint it below.

Resurrection City: The Dream…The Accomplishments

by JESSE JACKSON

From May to July the Poor People’s Campaign converged on Washington, D.C., to challenge the nation’s economic structure to address the problems of poverty in America. Much has been written and filmed about the campaign, but now I want to submit my reflections on this phase of the struggle for human rights.

From its inception in the mind of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the forceful closing of Resurrection City, the Poor People’s Campaign had an awesome task: to help the nation determine its priorities. In Birmingham, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference challenged America’s priorities in relationship to its social structure. In Selma, that challenge was extended to the political structure. Finally, the time came to raise the economic issues to the conscience of the nation.

America had been alerted that 40 million people, a full one-fifth of the world’s richest nation, were living below the poverty level.

Buried midst the tons of information was the fact that 30,000 jobs were being lost to the labor market each week by technological advances. In order to meet the growing anxiety of the American people, the Poor People’s Campaign took up the burden of raising the issue of poverty to the surface of our national conscience and to expose its devastation in the lives of millions of poor people.

Someone had to cry out for justice in a land that has placed priority on profits rather than persons.

Someone had to ring out with clear moral authority that 10 million people went to bed each night suffering physical destruction from malnutrition to acute starvation.

Someone had to say that not only do we need jobs but that we also need a redefinition of work.

Someone had to plead for a quality in life that offered wages, but more importantly, fulfillment.

Someone had to demand that involuntary starvation should be a punishable crime in a land of surplus and waste.

But so often only the incidentals of the Campaign were communicated to the nation. Such incidents included the record downpour of rain and the resulting mud in Resurrection City. The care of the mule train, the mire and the inherent confusion in a massive task of building a city of many ethnic groups were amplified or printed out of proportion by the news media. Thus the general level of the nation’s insensitivity and unawareness was in part attributable to a press that deals often in sensationalism, personalities and in protecting big business. And the press preferred to print apparent feelings about the death of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy rather than focus upon the issues damning the poor to hungering insignificance. Thus a nation largely uninformed was challenged to judge the personal behavior of poor people rather than the collective behavior of the Congress.

Given the press preferences for problems of process rather than the purpose of the Poor People’s Campaign, the adversaries of the poor exploded those problems out of proportion in order to avoid the issues of inequity in our economic structure. From mud to personality differences in Resurrection City occupied their time rather than the cries for food, jobs and opportunity that brought Resurrection City into being. But a new idea was moving from the excitement of conception to the fermentation and growth to the laboring pains of anguish when moments of history yield forth new life.

GATHERING THE POOR

What was the difficulty? The pain involved pulling together all of America’s poor: the Indians, the Puerto Ricans, the Mexican-Americans, the poor whites, the poor [B]lacks — each of whom had been taught that the others were enemies. Historical circumstances forced each group apart and structured in each disrespect for the other. We had been so obsessed with competing with one another for the few jobs and privileges at the bottom of the economy that we dared not threaten our status with too much public or political identification. We thought competition was our most effective tool, when cooperation is our real challenge. Many of us had analyzed our problem to be simply race, when, in reality, race is only a part of the problem. Class is another part of the problem. There is an inherent contempt that the economic system holds for the suppressed at the bottom of the economy. Yet the economy of the nation rests upon the shoulders of the oppressed.

The first meetings of these different ethnic groups were exciting but tense. The groups were full of fear and mistrust of one another. Each group felt that it had a monopoly on pain and suffering. So meetings were long as we bore with one another’s sermons on the effects of particular aches and pains. This was a period of anxiety when each group began learning to appreciate the other, to gather information about the other.

With our [B]lack-white analysis few of us realized that there are more poor whites in numbers than poor [B]lacks. But in percentages, more [B]lacks are poor than whites. Few of us really understood the insignificant role relegated to the poor white class by the rich white class. We realized that [B]lacks are a despised caste within the poor class. But at least we were a caste which the system calculated to make us suffer but allow us to live. While [B]lacks were slated to be ground up by the economic system based upon slavery, and eliminated as the technological development of the system rendered them unnecessary, the ultimate destiny of [B]lacks was genocide spread from generation to generation. Seldom do we realize that [B]lack capitulation to the tyranny of the slave system provided us the means to struggle for our survival midst our suffering and our destiny to die. White people concluded that “a good nigger was an obedient nigger,” and they taught us that obedience was better than sacrifice. Thus, we developed survival techniques that included acting docile and meek even though we always felt differently. Uncle Tomism because for us an involuntary state of existence developed for survival.

At the same time, America’s Indians were destined to instant genocide, tribe by tribe, day by day. The Indians, with their strong sense of identity and pride, were confronted by the forces of tyranny invading their lands and homes. They remained anti-colonialist and contended that their land had been taken, and for this they were driven from their homes to reservations in the desert regions to die rather than in ghettos or colonies to work. So anti-colonial were their actions that white people concluded that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Another technique used upon [B]lacks, but not upon other poor minorities, was social integration. We integrated from pain and brutality and humiliation, not toward joy and fulfillment. Blacks have never been covetous of the talents or souls of white folks. Only whites’ privileged status and social protection appealed to [B]lacks. Our total uprooting and separation from our tribes, languages, culture and land is the fundamental reason for our actions. As [B]lacks we were taken from our land and brought here. We experienced the whites as rapists of our dignity. On the other hand, the Indians’ sense of nationhood, or peoplehood, is responsible for their collective behavior for freedom or death. The Indians and the Mexican-Americans experienced the Europeans as rapists of their land.

In Resurrection City the poor whites began to see how they had been used as tools of the economic system to keep other minority groups in check. Perhaps the poor whites were the most tricked of all the poor in that they are in the same economy class as the others. Their problems are basically the same, in fact as ours: a need for food, jobs, medicine and schools. However, they were given police rights over “niggers,” a plan which satisfies their sick egos but does not deal with any of their basic problems.

It was in our wallowing together in the mud of Resurrection City that we were allowed to hear, to feel and to see each other for the first time in our American experience. This vast task of acculturation, of pulling the poor together as a way of amassing economic, political and labor power, was the great vision of Dr. King.

Black Agenda Report for more

by FARID PANJWANI

“he top 10% own three-quarters of global wealth, while the bottom half holds only 2%.” So states the World Inequality Report 2026. Can democracy survive when capitalism concentrates wealth so drastically?

The belief that democracy and capitalism are natural allies is as widespread as it is inaccurate. To see this, one has only to observe capitalist accumulation under authoritarian political arrangements. The UAE is just one such example. Why then does this belief persist?

Democracy and capitalism often journey together — until they don’t. To a point, they do support each other. This is why it is not easy to find democracies without capitalism. Think of a society, poor and authoritarian, that then undergoes a revolutionary change that makes it both democratic and capitalist. For a while, the two wo­­uld go together. Democracy would bring freedom and political equality; capitalism would bring resources.

Even Marx acknowledged that capitalism creates ‘colossal productive forces’. The growing middle class would demand greater freedoms and consumption, thereby strengthening both democracy and capitalism. For some time, prosperity and empowerment would rise together.

But this harmonious co-existence would soon wear off. Democracy is about political equality. Capitalism, by design, needs economic inequality. The two would eventually collide. In time, the wealth generated by capitalism starts to pool in fewer and fewer pockets. Growth continues, distribution falters. Tensions begin to appear.

Democracy is about political equality. Capitalism, by design, needs economic inequality.

This concentration is not just financial. Being rich doesn’t just mean plush houses or private jets. It means connections and information, as the wealthy form exclusive social ties, venture together, share insights and tastes, thus increasing their collective purse. French sociologist Bourdieu has called this social capital, “aggregate of actual or potential resources” that bring tangible benefits. High-profile events such as the Ambani wedding illustrate how this transformation happens. But the process does not stop here.

Social capital soon becomes political capital, with the wealthy getting access to the political class, who make laws. The role of the corporate lobby and campaign funding is well documented. These are some of the ways in which wealth buys political influence. Elon Musk’s access to and authority in the White House was an example of the political power wealth can bring. Consequently, economic values of capitalism start to prevail over the political ideals of democracy, human rights and political equality, as the market dictates the state.

Dawn for more

by C. J. POLYCHRONIOU

ICE tactics are designed to instill fear in people and create chaos in communities as part of an overarching strategy aimed to silence opposition to Trump’s overall domestic agenda and let citizens know that this is the dawn of a new era.

Exactly a year ago today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. He took over a nation with strong imperialistic tendencies and a democratic polity but with widespread illiberal features throughout its history and, in less than a year, succeeded in establishing a 21st-century US variant of fascism while espousing a lawless world order.

The successful transition of the United States from an imperial republic to what could be best described as imperial proto-fascism was achieved due to the ease with which the Trump administration weakened the country’s institutions meant to restrain power and the massive support that it received, and continues to receive, from the nation’s oligarchy. There are thus eerie similarities between Trump’s United States and the rise of Italian fascism and German Nazism, and none more so than those between Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Mussolini’s Squadristi and Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA), respectively.

Fascism, the most reactionary regime of oligopolistic and decaying capitalism, has always relied on violent paramilitary groups to intimidate political opponents and spread fear across society. In Italy, in 1919, Benito Mussolini formed a paramilitary squad of war veterans called Blackshirts (or squadristi) whose primary goal was to terrorize fascism’s political opponents, mainly the socialists and the communists. By the early 1920s, the squadristi had wiped out the Italian left and destroyed Italian democracy. In Germany, in 1921, Adolf Hitler established the SA, known as the Brownshirts due to their brown uniforms. They were street thugs who used violent intimidation against opponents of National Socialism and assaulted non-Aryan citizens, particularly Jewish citizens. Blackshirts and Brownshirts acted with impunity as the regular uniformed police in both Italy and Germany turned a blind eye to their thuggish tactics.

Violent paramilitary groups were seen by fascists as essential tools in the struggle to uproot the previous sociopolitical and cultural order and pave the way for the success of fascism’s ultimate goals and objectives, which are to promote extreme nationalism and do away with democratic liberties and implement policies without legal or political restraints while dehumanizing those labeled as “the enemy.” Under fascism, propaganda and violence work in unity in order to secure conformity and subdue the opposition.

Common Dreams for more

by SULEYMAN KARAN

A coordinated rebellion is quietly reshaping global finance – one that aims not just to escape dollar tyranny, but to bury it.

“American hegemony helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes … We participated in the rituals and largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality … This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos 2026

The era of the dollar’s unchallenged global supremacy is fraying at the edges. What was once a cornerstone of global finance and trade is now a contested domain, as a growing number of states search for alternatives to the currency long used to enforce western diktats. The US dollar’s centrality to cross-border transactions and its role as the world’s reserve currency are no longer guaranteed – and this shift is no longer theoretical.

For decades, the dollar served as a universal medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. But these benefits came with steep costs. The system’s dependence on a single state’s policies and its reliance on intermediary conversions generated layers of risk and friction. Today, those risks have become obstacles to the expansion of global trade. And as emerging economies gain confidence and weight, Washington is being forced to cede its monetary throne.

The dollar still reigns, but its grip is loosening

The dollar continues to dominate cross-border transactions, whether in current accounts or financial markets. It remains a trusted store of value for both institutional investors and individuals. But the tide is turning. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks and private capital have steadily reduced their dollar holdings, redirecting value into gold and other tangible assets.

While the dollar is still used for standardizing global accounting, the utility of artificial intelligence (AI) and technological innovation now allows for currency baskets – like those composed of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) – to easily substitute many of the dollar’s functions. In short, the era when no credible alternative existed is over.

The Cradle for more

by BEHROOZ GHAMARI TABRIZI

On June 12, 2025, for the first time after more than twenty years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors passed a resolution declaring that Tehran was breaching its non-proliferation obligations. The day after, on June 13, Israeli warplanes began a campaign of bombing Tehran and other major Iranian cities. With the help of their proxies inside the country, they assassinated top military commanders, killed leading nuclear scientists at their residence along with their families, bombed the cabinet meeting in Tehran, wounding the President, indiscriminately shelled urban residential areas, and even targeted Evin prison where most political prisoners are incarcerated.  The U.S. offered intelligence, refueled their jetfighters in mid-air, and finally entered the war directly by bombing the Iranian nuclear enrichment sites with bunker buster weapons.

This unprovoked Israeli attack happened in the midst of seemingly constructive negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in Rome and Muscat. The Friday the 13^th attack happened just before the two countries were to meet on Sunday the 15^th to finalize a framework for further agreements on the Iranian enrichment program. In all close to 1000 people were killed in the Israeli attacks, thousands injured, and hundreds of families lost their homes.

There is no solid evidence whether the IAEA board coordinated the release of their report with the Israelis. But the suspicious choreography of the timing of the report’s release with the Israeli attacks affords credibility to the Islamic Republic’s claims that some of the IAEA inspectors spied for Israel. In its report, the IAEA excavated questions from twenty years earlier about highly enriched particles found in three Iranian sites. The case for the Iranian noncompliance is primarily based on the Agency’s conclusion “that these undeclared locations were part of an undeclared, structured programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s, and that some of these activities used undeclared nuclear material” (my emphasis). Obfuscated in the report was the fact that the IAES has found no evidence of any weaponization program or military component in the Iranian nuclear activities. It was only a few days after the attacks that the IAEA’s Director General, Rafael Grossi, reiterated that “Iran has not been actively pursuing a nuclear weapon since 2003.”

Counterpunch for more