by AMMAR ALI JAN

Now that the dust has settled after the battle between India and Pakistan – the most significant aerial conflict between the two countries to date – it is worth reflecting on its wider significance. What were its origins and how will it affect the politics of the region? The immediate trigger was the terror attack in Pahalgam carried out by Kashmiri militants in late April, in which 26 tourists were killed. The Indian government accused its Pakistani counterpart of having orchestrated the shooting. Pakistan denied the allegations and offered to launch a joint investigation, but the Indian political class was implacable, and began beating the drum for war. Pakistan’s military high command declared that the country would retaliate against any aggression, raising the possibility of nuclear confrontation. It was not long before the two sides began to exchange fire, leaving 31 dead over the next four days.

The conflict erupted on 7 May, when India fired a barrage of missiles at so-called ‘terrorist sites’ inside Pakistan. More than two dozen civilians were killed, including at least one child. Pakistan’s military responded by deploying Chinese-manufactured J10 aircraft armed with PL-15 missiles – which meant that the conflagration was, on one level at least, a test of the PRC’s military hardware against that of the West. As reports began to circulate that five Indian jets had been downed in the battle, some defence analysts remarked that the real winner of the skirmish was China.  

Both sides immediately claimed victory after this initial round of hostilities. Yet hopes of a swift negotiated settlement were dashed on 8 May, when India sent a large number of Israeli-manufactured drones into Pakistani territory. The Pakistani military claimed it had intercepted nearly all of them before they could damage civilian or military infrastructure. But the onslaught was stepped up two days later, with more Indian drones and missiles hitting densely populated civilian areas in Pakistan’s major cities. At this point the Pakistani military leadership decided to retaliate with aerial and drone strikes of its own, some of which targeted Indian airbases. Talk of nuclear escalation suddenly seemed credible, and panic began to spread. 

Accounts of what happened next are varied. One version suggests that, having thwarted India’s attempt to assert its aerial superiority, Pakistan effectively forced its neighbour to accept a ceasefire. Others claim that Pakistan was feeling cornered and signalled its readiness to use the nuclear option if the conflict persisted, which accelerated talks to end the fighting. Either way, backdoor negotiations with Washington ended up brokering a fragile peace which Donald Trump announced on social media, claiming credit for the deal. In India, critics alleged that the government had buckled under US pressure without achieving any of its war aims. In Pakistan, the atmosphere was euphoric. Many there believe that the Chinese-backed Air Force has now successfully re-established military equilibrium and undermined India’s claim to regional hegemony. 

New Left Review for more

by VIJAY PRASHAD

Israel’s attacks on Iran, backed by the US and EU, violate international law and aim to maintain regional dominance by undermining Iran’s sovereignty, despite Iran’s compliance with nuclear agreements.

Israel’s consistent attacks on Iran since 2023 have all been illegal, violations of the United Nations Charter (1945). Iran is a member state of the United Nations and is therefore a sovereign state in the international order. If Israel had a problem with Iran, there are many mechanisms mandated by international law that permit Israel to bring complaints against Iran.

Thus far, Israel has avoided these international forums because it is clear that it has no case against Iran. Allegations that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, which are constantly raised by the United States, the European Union, and Israel, have been fully investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and found to be unfounded. It is certainly true that Iran has a nuclear energy programme that is within the rules in place through the IAEA, and it is also true that Iran’s clerical establishment has a fatwa (religious edict) in place against the production of nuclear weapons. Despite the IAEA findings and the existence of this fatwa, the West – egged on by Israel – has accepted this irrational idea that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and that Iran is therefore a threat to the international order. Indeed, by its punctual and illegal attacks on Iran, it is Israel that is a threat to the international order.

Over the past decades, Iran has called for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Free Zone, a strange idea coming from a country accused of wanting to build a nuclear weapon. But this idea of the nuclear free zone has been rejected by the West, largely to protect Israel, which has an illegal nuclear weapons programme. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear weapon, although it has never tested it openly nor acknowledged its existence. If Israel was so keen on eliminating any nuclear threat, it should have taken the offer for the creation of a nuclear-free zone heartily.

Neither the Europeans, who so often posture as defenders of international law, nor the United Nations leadership have publicly pushed Israel to adopt this idea because both recognize that this would require Israel, not Iran, to denuclearize. That this is an improbable situation has meant that there has been no movement from the West or from the international institutions to take this idea forward and build an international consensus to develop a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

Israel does not want to build a nuclear-free zone in the region. What Israel wants is to be the sole nuclear power in the region, and therefore to be exactly what it is – namely, the largest United States military base in the world that happens to be the home to a large civilian population. Iran has no ambition to be a nuclear power. But it has an ambition to be a sovereign state that remains committed to justice for the Palestinians. Israel has no problem with the idea of sovereignty per se, but has a problem with any state in the region that commits itself to Palestinian emancipation. If Iran normalized relations with Israel and ceased its opposition to US dominion in the region, then it is likely that Israel would end its opposition to Iran.

Israel and the United States prepared the way

In January 2020, the United States conducted an illegal assassination at Iraq’s Baghdad Airport to kill General Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Soleimani, through the Quds Force, had produced for Iran an insurance policy against further Israeli attacks on the country. The Quds Force is responsible for Iranian military operations outside the boundaries of the country, including building what is called the “Axis of Resistance” that includes the various pro-Iranian governments and non-governmental military forces. These included: Hezbollah in Lebanon, various IRGC groups in Syria that worked with Syrian militia groups, the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, several Palestinian factions in Occupied Palestine, and the Ansar Allah government in Yemen. Without its own nuclear deterrent, Iran required some way to balance the military superiority of Israel and the United States. This deterrence was created by the “Axis of Resistance”, an insurance policy that allowed Iran to let Israel know that if Israel fired at Iran, these groups would rain missiles on Tel Aviv in retaliation.

The assassination of Soleimani began a determined new political and military campaign by the United States, Israel, and their European allies to weaken Iran. Israel and the United States began to punctually strike Iranian logistical bases in Syria and Iraq to weaken Iran’s forward posture and to demoralize the Syrian and Iraqi militia groups that operated against Israeli interests. Israel began to assassinate IRGC military officers in Syria, Iran, and Iraq, a campaign of murder that began to have an impact on the IRGC and the Quds Force.

Taking advantage of its genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel, with full support from the United States and Europe, began to damage the “Axis of Resistance”, Iran’s insurance policy. Israel took its war into Lebanon, with a ruthless bombing campaign that included the assassination of the Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, 2024. This campaign, while it has not totally demolished Hezbollah, has certainly weakened it. Meanwhile, Israel began a regular bombing campaign against the Syrian military positions around Damascus and along the road to Idlib in the north. This bombing campaign, coordinated with the US military and with the US intelligence services, was designed to open the roadway for the entry of the former al-Qaeda fighters into Damascus and to overthrow the government of al-Assad on December 8, 2024. The fall of the al-Assad government dented Iran’s strength across the Levant region (from the Turkish border to the Occupied Palestinian Territory) as well as along the plains from southern Syria to the Iranian border. The consistent campaign by the United States to bomb Yemeni positions further resulted in the loss of Ansar Allah’s heavy equipment (including long-range missiles) that fundamentally threatened Israel.

What this meant was that by early 2025, the Iranian insurance policy against Israel had collapsed. Israel began its march to war, suggesting an attack on Iran was imminent. Such an attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows, would help him in a domestic political fight with the ultra-orthodox parties over the question of a military exemption for their communities; this will prevent his government from falling. Cynical Netanyahu is using genocide and the possibility of a horrendous war with Iran for narrow political ends. But that is not what is motivating this attack. What is motivating this attack is that Israel smells an opportunity to try to overthrow the Iranian government by force.

Peoples Dispatch for more

by DAVID NORTH

This article is an edited version of a tweet that was initially posted on X.

Last year, Chris Hedges advocated self-immolation as a way to protest the Gaza genocide. In his latest demoralized screed, he transfers blame for the crimes of the Israeli-Zionist state and capitalist imperialism to the entire human race. Gaza, he proclaims, proves the futility of any belief in the possibility of human progress.

In support of his insistence of the hopeless state of humanity, he counterpoises what Hedges claims were the pessimistic views of Auguste Blanqui to those of Hegel and Marx.

Hedges writes: “The 19th century socialist Louis-Auguste Blanqui, unlike nearly all of his contemporaries, dismissed the belief central to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, that human history is a linear progression toward equality and greater morality.”

As so often in his previous writings, Hedges demonstrates once again that he understands nothing of the philosophical foundations of Marxism and the materialist conception of history. Neither Hegel or Marx claimed that history is “a linear progression” toward paradise.

Hegel (1770-1831), who witnessed the complex and tragic fate of the French Revolution, famously described history as a “slaughter bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized.” He explained, albeit in an idealist manner, that the historic development of humanity proceeds through contradiction and conflict.

As for Marx and Engels, they wrote in the Communist Manifesto (1847) that the class struggle leads to “the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” They rejected any form of simplistic determinism. Marx and Engels explained that the contradictions of the capitalist system created the objective possibility of socialism. But its realization and the fate of humanity would be decided in struggle.

WSWS for more

by AMIR NAEEM

On 2nd May 2025, in the scorching heat of Turbat, women and children blocked the road at D-Baloch Kech, they demanded, not missing persons or natural resources but the return of missing dead bodies. The dead bodies of three young men (namely Sarbaan, Nabeel, and Zikka) were killed in a clash with Pakistani security forces in Dannuk Kech. The forces took the dead bodies with them. The families continued their resistance, rather than returning the dead bodies of young men, the police, along with other district administration, threatened the families to end the protest.

Balach Baali, brother of Sarbaan, recounted heart-wrenching scenes that unfolded.”  When we became aware of the incident, we approached the authorities and requested that they approach the Frontier Corps (FC) to hand over the dead bodies of our brothers. However, we received no assurance from the authorities. On the second day, we, along with the other families, blocked the roads at two points—Jadgal-e-Daan and Kesaak—and continued our sit-in protest.

Later that evening, a Levies Major, along with the SHO of police, arrived with prisoner vans and threatened the families to end the protest. But we insisted that the FC had not listened to us, and we were left with no option but to block the roads. We told them, “Don’t come to us—go and talk to the authorities. Ask them to hand over the bodies so we can bury them according to our customs, in our own time and place.”

That evening, no one came—not the AC, DC, police, nor anyone. However, through the death squads, they continued to threaten the protesting families. They tried to forcibly clear the roads by saying, “The FC convoy is coming, and their cars are approaching.” But the entire night passed, and no one came. The second night passed in the same way.

The civil society, the media, the representatives of all political parties, the Turbat press—none of them came during this time.

On the third evening, we decided to silently end the protest. The next morning, we offered absentee funeral prayers. We assigned symbolic graves to each one and buried their memories. 

What unfolded next was inhumane, barbaric, and unethical, The protesting families were shocked and traumatized to find out that their loved ones were buried without proper burial rituals, and even without a shroud (kafan), and that even proper funeral rites were not performed. 

The grieving families gathered  near Taleemi Chowk Graveyard,  to gather more information about their beloved people but once again the the police along with other law enforcement agencies arrived, threatened the families, tried to disperse them however the families exhumed one of the dead bodies later buried him with proper Islamic rites and Baloch customs. 

Balach recalls after some days, “we became aware that three new graves had been dug near Taleemi Chowk in Ahsan Shan Graveyard, and people had seen Zikka’s Balochi chaddar lying on one of the graves.

The families gathered at the graveyard to find out more about the new graves.

The first day, we visited the DC and informed him of the situation. We requested permission to take the dead bodies with us, so we could perform the funeral rites according to our traditions and customs. The DC promised us and asked for two days.

After two days, we visited him again, but he wasn’t in his office. We waited for him and even went to his house, but he wasn’t there either. We haven’t seen him since.

Z Network for more

by B. R. GOWANI

In 1909, the renowned poet Muhammad Iqbal wrote Shikwa or Complaint to Allah <1>. The poem is a lament that Allah has neglected his followers, Muslims, the very people who spread Islam and gave Him global exposure.

A couplet refers to Mahmud Ghazni <2>, an eleventh century ruler, and his “slave” Ayaz:

ek hee saf meiN khaDe ho gaye mahmud o ayAz
na koi bandA rahA aur na koi bandA-nawAz

Muhmmad Iqbal, Shikwa or The Complaint to Allah in Bang-e-Dara, Rekhta

they stood in the same row: Mahmud (the lord) and Ayaz (the slave)

(praying to Allah), no more was there distinction of master and slave

Malik Ayaz, according to Majid Sheikh, was not a slave but was a white European from Georgia who was Mahmud’s “‘lakhtay’, a Pushtun polite word for ‘boy partner.’” According to S. Jabir Raza, there have been many other nobles with the name Ayaz. Many poets and authors, including Jalaluddin Rumi, have written about Ayaz.

Anyways, proceeding forward to this 21st century, Asim Munir and Shehbaz Sharif also rule the area which was once under Mahmud’s rule. Sharif is neither “lakhtay” nor a “slave” of Munir. But nonetheless, the relationship between COAS (Chief of Army Staff) General Munir and Prime Minister Sharif is not even that of equals.

The parliamentary system of government in Pakistan officially endows the most power in the prime minister’s office and all others, including Chief of the Army Staff, work under the premier. However, since the 1950s, military has usurped the power and so the civilian governments rule at the mercy of the army — which gets a significant portion of the country’s budget, but also runs several businesses, and has overthrown and installed governments.

Between May 7 and 10, 2025, India and Pakistan went to war. Both claimed victory. Munir and Sharif thanked Allah for the “victory,” by going to Saudi Arabia in the first week of June to perform Umrah, and to pay homage to the Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or MbS.

Like in Iqbal’s couplet, Munir and Sharif in the picture above, are standing as equal in front of their Allah. But a quick analysis clearly shows the contentment and happiness on them is not equal — more correctly, it is totally missing on Sharif’s face, who seems worried and frustrated. On the other hand, Munir seems very satisfied and delighted.

What was Munir praying to Allah:

“Ya Allah, I am going to thank you but first let me thank my enemy Narendra Damodardas Modi. I am here in Saudi Arabia, at this time, because of him. It’s due to him that my reputation, that was on a downward trajectory, suddenly picked up and went so high that I have now become a hero in Pakistan. Allah, you won’t believe but I feel like a superman, I have so much power. Please Allah, don’t be scared of me — I am not like Ayub Khan <3>.

“Allah, one more thing I have to tell you. Recently, I was made field marshal and was granted the baton of field marshal by President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. I am the second field marshal, Ayub Khan was the first one. Allah, isn’t it strange that both Sharif’s and Zardari’s parties [Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan People’s Party] have suffered at the hands of the army and yet they’re giving me more prestige. I tell you, now any if these two guys try to be clever with me, I’m going to use this very baton to spank their rears. By the way, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, Imran Khan, is already rotting in prison.

“Now Allah, before I part, I should thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

(Munir received an invitation to attend the US army’s 250th anniversary on June 14, 2025. He is going to attend King Trump’s extravaganza. He must be feeling very happy but will also be very worried because commercial-animal that Trump is, will push him to be on the US side instead on China’s side.)

What was Shehbaz praying to Allah:

“Ya Allah, what is happening in your world? Why is it that I can’t exercise my due power as a prime minister? You can see the worry on my face, I can’t even close my eyes or at least pretend to close while offering prayers. Allah, look at this guy standing next to me — he seems to be in a post orgasmic state — calm, relaxed, and satiated.

In 1959, Ayub Khan became Pakistan’s first field marshal and now Munir has become one. Everyone knows, the minute my government will try to carve our own policy, he’ll shove the baton we awarded him, up my you know what.

Allah, please guide me as to how can we get rid of him. Should we put a case of mangoes in his plane or find some other way?” Please!

Notes

<1> Several poems of Iqbal in Urdu with English translation are at Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Khushwant Singh, journalist and author, translated both “Complaint” and “Answer” in a book form with introduction and can be found here. See also Frances W. Pritchett critiquing Singh’s couple of stanzas.

<2> Extremist Hindus use many excuses to discriminate against Muslims. One of those excuses is Muslim invader Mehmud Ghazni’s raid of temple of Somanatha and destruction of an idol in 1026 CE But that lacks historical truth. See eminent historian Romila Thapar’s “Somanatha and Mahmud,” in Frontline magazine.

<3> In the 1960s, during military dictator Field Marshal General Ayub Khan’s rule, a joke circulated about Ayub’s love for power. On the Day of Judgement, Pakistan’s leaders lined up to see Allah. Allah would rise from his throne and pat Pakistani leaders but would not arise when Ayub Khan came. A question was raised as to why? Allah’s reply: “He would have grabbed my throne.”

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

by ANDREW LAWLER

Exploring ancient people’s shifting beliefs about rearing and eating pigs

Pork accounts for more than a third of the world’s meat, making pigs among the planet’s most widely consumed animals. They are also widely reviled: For about two billion people, eating pork is explicitly prohibited. The Hebrew Bible and the Islamic Koran both forbid adherents from eating pig flesh, and this ban is one of humanity’s most deeply entrenched dietary restrictions. For centuries, scholars have struggled to find a satisfying explanation for this widespread taboo. “There are an amazing number of misconceptions people continue to have about pigs,” says archaeologist Max Price of Durham University, who is among a small group of scholars scouring both modern excavation reports and ancient tablets for clues about the rise and fall of pork consumption in the ancient Near East. “That makes this research both frustrating and fascinating.”

Among the most surprising finds is that the inhabitants of the earliest cities of the Bronze Age (3500–1200 b.c.) were enthusiastic pig eaters, and that even later Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.) residents of Jerusalem enjoyed the occasional pork feast. Yet despite a wealth of data and new techniques including ancient DNA analysis, archaeologists still wrestle with many porcine mysteries, including why the once plentiful animal gradually became scarce long before religious taboos were enacted. Ultimately, the tale of the pig in the ancient Near East reveals how humans thrived in the first cities, the ways in which economic inequality shaped early urban societies, and the important role that diet played in defining ethnic groups and distinguishing friend from foe.

Archaeology for more

FATOU CISSE interviewed by SASHA ARTAMONOVA

A new Malian film takes on the tradition of forced marriage with humor, intimacy, and defiance—reimagining African cinema as both tribute and rupture.

On November 7, 2024, elegantly dressed guests filled Magic Cinéma (formerly Babemba) in Bamako, Mali, for the highly anticipated premiere of Furu, the debut narrative feature by Fatou Cissé. Cissé, a rising star of Malian cinema, first captured international attention with her 2022 documentary Hommage d’une fille à son père, a moving tribute to her late father, the legendary filmmaker Souleymane Cissé. It was met with acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the classics section.

In Furu, a bold tragicomedy, Cissé tackles the pervasive issue of forced marriage in Mali. Through the intertwined stories of two women, the director explores the tensions between tradition and modernity. Since the mid-twentieth century, marriage customs in African societies have undergone gradual and far-reaching transformations; however, furu ye wajibi ye (“marriage is an obligation”) remains a deeply rooted belief. Furu reveals how this enduring sense of duty takes a heavy toll on young men and women across both rural and urban Mali.

Drawing on real stories experienced by women she knows, Cissé weaves a fictional narrative that shines a light on the lived struggles of Malian women. With Furu, she not only fights for their rights but also extends her father’s legacy by engaging with his seminal works—in particular, Den Muso, the elder Cissé’s 1975 film which exposed social injustices faced by women in Malian society. Both films follow young girls caught in the grip of a patriarchal society who, instead of receiving support, are punished by their communities—in the name of tradition and in service to maintaining the social order.

During the evening screening of Furu, the audience—especially young women—responded with enthusiasm. They laughed, applauded, and audibly supported the film’s protagonists, Tou and Ami, as they navigated moments of tension, irony, and defiance. Cissé weaves humor into key scenes, particularly in the dynamic between Ami and her mother and grandmother, all involved in the generational craft of producing traditional Malian bogolan fabrics. Their spirited exchanges highlight generational divides with warmth and wit. Similarly, the interactions between Tou and her much older husband—whom she was forced to marry by her father to protect the family’s honor after Tou became pregnant out of wedlock—are portrayed with a touch of irony. These lighter moments offer brief respite from the film’s heavy themes and allow viewers to connect more deeply with the young women at its center. At the end of the film, as the credits rolled, a 27-year-old male friend who had recently been forced into marriage by his family confided to me that he was deeply moved. He spoke of the injustice faced by young people like himself, deprived of opportunities—such as education and career development—because of family decisions to arrange marriages for economic gain.

Two weeks after the premiere, I met Cissé at the office of her production company, Sisé Filmu, in Bamako to discuss Furu, her inspirations, the challenges of making her first narrative feature film, and what it means to carry forward the legacy of her father—who would pass away just four months later. Like Cissé’s debut, Furu is headed to the Croisette: The feature will be screened at the Pavillon Afriques after it premieres tonight in New York at the African Film Festival.

SA

How did you come up with the idea to make a film about forced marriage? Why did you think it was relevant?

FC

Mariage forcé is a subject that concerns nearly all young girls in Bamako. Marriage is an obligation. If you’re not married, it’s seen as blasphemy—even I went through it when I was young. It’s unfortunate to say, but that’s the reality. Women are still treated like slaves who must always be submissive, especially by their mothers and the older women who went through the same problems and internalized them. They can’t break free. They believe it’s good for the rest of us.

SA

They insist on arranging marriages?

FC

They insist, so it continues. They believe by virtue of that your children will be blessed, will be protected or become rich. That’s the mentality people have here, and it’s tragic. So, Furu was really made to trigger that red button. Elders—especially grandmothers and mothers—should be protecting us from the fathers. But if they themselves side with the fathers, then the young girl—she’s lost. She no longer knows what to do.

I heard a story about a woman who no longer wanted to stay with her husband, because he kept beating her. She went to seek refuge with her parents. Her parents told her, “No, you’re married now, so you don’t belong here anymore. It’s over. Your place is with your husband. Go back to him.” The woman chose death. She threw herself into the water with her baby strapped to her back. She chose to die with her child rather than return to her husband—all because her parents, even though they knew what she was going through, insisted she go back to the marriage.

There are lines in my film that are taken directly from real life. There are gestures, actions that truly happened. Everything in my film is rooted in reality and shaped through fiction. Because for me, above all, my goal is to convey a message through real events.

Africa is a Country for more

by EDWARD SAID

“In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”

BLACK AGENDA REPORT introdution

The zionist terrorist entity does not act alone. Over the 600 days of the genocide of the Palestinians, the United States has shipped 800 planeloads , carrying more than 90,000 tons of missiles, bombs, and military equipment, to the zionist entity. The Europeans have added to this repertoire of mass killing, sending thousands of shipments of armaments while providing military surveillance, targeting assistance, and political cover. This robust and unwavering support from the US and Europe reminds us that the ongoing genocide is the historical and geographical extension of the white western imperial project; zionism is imperialism’s incestuous spawn.

This is not a new claim. That the zionist entity is a western imperial proxy in West Asia operating as a settler colony against the indigenous Palestinian population is generally accepted. But what does it really mean to understand the contours of the intertwined legacy of zionism and imperialism? For legendary Palestinian scholar and activist Edward Said, this question was key. Said understood that until we understand the relationship of zionism and imperialism, “in their full historical richness,” we risk not only exceptionalizing the current instance of brutal violence, but also sequestering Palestine from the broader struggle for  global liberation against the white west.

In “The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism,” an essay published in Gazelle Review of Literature on the Middle East in 1977,  Said argued that zionism is a “degraded repetition of European imperialism,” and that the zionist project for Palestine was formulated in the same terms as the Europeans used for territorial expansion. For Said, however, what is most significant about the white western imperial project is less its practice of territorial expansion than its intellectual apparatus of classification. This apparatus of classification serves as justification for savage practices of colonial control and extermination. Said writes: “Zionism and imperialism draw on each other; each in its own way, they sit at the very centre of Western intellectual and political culture… of a political and scientific will to domination over the so-called coloured, non-European peoples of the Third World.” It is precisely this western intellectual and political culture that created the space both for the european dehumanization of the rest of the world and for the current racist zionist rhetoric against Palestinians, a rhetoric that justifies genocide.

As one of the most recognizable Palestinian Americans writing on the “Palestine Question,” Said’s activism and scholarship is well known. But we argue that it is important to return to this remarkable essay because, as Said rightly argues, “the struggle against imperialism and racism is a civilizational struggle, and we cannot wage it successfully unless we understand its systems of ideas and where they originate.”

We reprint Edward Said’s “The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism” below.

The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism

by Edward Said

Both as a system of social, political, and cultural oppression, and as a vision of the world, imperialism has been common in all ages. Most cultures, at the moment of their dominance, have tried to impose their will upon other, weaker cultures. Invariably, imperialism promotes a peculiar and even an esoteric mythology. Some of its myths include the vows that a strong culture is a superior one, that reality itself can be altered at will in order to create ‘natural’ hierarchies, that the dominant nation belongs to a master race, and so forth. All of these ideas are to be found in one form or another during the zenith of all the great European and Asian and American empires.

Yet during the nineteenth century imperialism acquired a new and strong form, and it is during the history of nineteenth-century European intellectual culture that one will find the common origins of imperialism and Zionism, origins that precede [Theodor] Herzl and the colonization of Palestine in the 1880s. Very briefly, I should like to sketch the intellectual roots of imperialism and Zionism, because, I think, as victims of both, we have not taken enough note of the history, the methodology, and the epistemology of the great systems of oppression that still affect us today and that are the legacy of nineteenth-century political and cultural thought. For until we see them in their full historical richness, we will make the mistake of thinking that racism is a recent thing, or that it is a passing, relatively young phenomena which will go away. The fact is, as I hope to show, that Zionism and imperialism draw on each other; each in its own way, they sit at the very centre of Western intellectual and political culture; and they are facts, not of immorality of injustice, but of a political and scientific will to domination over the so-called coloured, non-European peoples of the Third World. The struggle against imperialism and racism is a civilizational struggle, and we cannot wage it successfully unless we understand its systems of ideas and where they originate. Only then can we struggle scientifically against them.

The period of the rise of modern imperialism, of which Zionism is a part, goes further back than 1870, which is when Hobson and Arendt said that it began. As a system of through, modern European imperialism is rooted in the early nineteenth century – its span of greatest influence coincides exactly with the period of vast territorial acquisition by the great European powers. We must remember that, between 1815 and 1918, Europe’s colonial empires in Asia and Africa and Latin America increased from 35% of the total surface of the earth to 85% of it. What we must ask now are the following questions: first, what were the principal characteristics of European imperialism? And, second, how did Zionism arise organically out of the system, and the very visions of, European imperialism?

Black Agenda Report for more

by SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY

It doesn’t behove the stature of an Indian prime minister to deploy such racist language about any community, whether Indian or not. Why you could consider a course correction.

Dear Mr Prime Minister, 

I saw a video from a public speech delivered by you in your home state of Gujarat on Tuesday, May 27. To say the least, I, as a person from Northeast India, am still numb at your references to “small eyes” and with “eyes that don’t even open”.

Before I come to why, let me take this opportunity to convey to you that far from Gujarat, in my family home in Assam, ever since my school days, I have seen a sizeable photo of a certain Gujarati hanging on a wall of the drawing room. Every godhuli (dusk), an incense stick is stuck on to the photo frame by my father, just after he finishes the same ritual on all the frames containing various gods and goddesses hung across the house, while reciting his evening mantras. I am proud to say here, that the Gujarati prayed in my family is none other than the Mahatma – Mahatma Gandhi.

My father, now 93, still continues the daily ritual. He also never forgets to tell any first-time visitor with a tinge of pride that the Mahatma, during his maiden trip to Assam in 1921, had also paid a short visit to his now over-a-century-old family house. My grandfather was one of the first in that Upper Assam town to have signed up for a Congress membership at the call of the Mahatma then to fight the foreign powers, and yes, to refuse foreign goods too. 

Prime Minister, I am sure you are aware of the great Naga freedom fighter Rani Gaidinliu. When there was no advocate to fight the case mounted against her by the British, my grandfather had traveled a challenging path all the way to the Rangoon high court with a set of fellow Nagas to fight for her release from jail. In a country under foreign powers then, it was no surprise that the advocate was also jailed along with Gaidinliu, a young accused then who had the gumption to stand up to the colonial powers for converting fellow Nagas to Christianity from their religion, Heraka. That fight, by the way, had made our first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru bestow on Gaidinliu the prefix to her name, Rani (queen), as we know her today, and call her a freedom fighter. 

These references, particularly to the Father of the Nation, are only to underline that the connections that we form with powerful leaders and change-makers who may belong to another region or community, just keeps alive the unity and solidarity of the people of this huge country that we are all part of, and so proud of. Tiny, daily rituals carried out in houses like mine also acknowledge that we may know little about a region that the leader or change-maker comes from or their people, but, as the constitution says, we are the same people – no matter how large or small the size of our eyes are (irrespective of race and creed, remember?). 

Prime Minister, like several from the Northeast, I too have lived on those lines. I happened to choose a partner from outside the region. I never looked at the size of his eyes, and I am sure, he didn’t either. Let me tell you, what we saw in each other’s eyes was the same – love and respect.  

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