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Rest in Peace, Roger Garaudy!
In one spring almost a decade ago, I was having coffee with two French intellectuals at a Parisian café when we were distracted by a commotion.
Several patrons of the café started moving from their tables as if hit by an invisible hand as an elderly man approached, trying to sit at one of the tables. One of the patrons was shouting: Oh, how it smells ill!
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The forgotten Rohingya
The image of a smiling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi receiving flowers from her supporters is a powerful message of freedom and optimism in Myanmar, the symbol of democracy in a country which has known nothing but authoritarian oppression for decades.
Yet few ask one of the most pressing questions facing Daw Suu Kyi. How will she deal with the Rohingya?
"The Rohingya," you will ask. "Who are they?"
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‘Silent Heroes:’ from ICFJ Anywhere project to international news service
A year ago, three journalists in an ICFJ Anywhere course produced an inspiring story about a Syrian family in Pakistan whose life’s work has been to find jobs – and good incomes – for thousands of their new countrymen.
Now that story has launched an inspiring news service – “Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges” – whose goal is nothing less than ending prejudice. Its aim is to produce many more inspiring stories – about “silent heroes” like the Syrian family who are “building bridges” across cultures – and send them to media around the world which can use them for free.
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Those who support democracy must welcome the rise of political Islam
From Tunisia to Egypt, Islamists are gaining the popular vote. Far from threatening stability, this makes it a real possibility. Ennahda, the Islamic party in Tunisia, won 41% of the seats of the Tunisian constitutional assembly last month, causing consternation in the west. But Ennahda will not be an exception on the Arab scene. Last Friday the Islamic Justice and Development Party took the biggest share of the vote in Morocco and will lead the new coalition government for the first time in history.
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Search for durable Afghanistan peace
The rocky and barren Central Asian state of Afghanistan is a graveyard of optimism. While the US and NATO count down to the withdrawal of their troops, the Taliban militia is shaking the feeble facade of normality in Afghanistan.
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Will the Middle East be the same again?
The Palestinians won't get a state this week. But they will prove – if they get enough votes in the General Assembly and if Mahmoud Abbas does not succumb to his characteristic grovelling in the face of US-Israeli power – that they are worthy of statehood. And they will establish for the Arabs what Israel likes to call – when it is enlarging its colonies on stolen land – "facts on the ground": never again can the United States and Israel snap their fingers and expect the Arabs to click their heels. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East.
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