History

Juan Cole, “International Liberation and Nonviolent Noncooperation: Martin Luther King and Afro-Asia” (Video)

The nonviolent activism of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is associated in the minds of many primarily with the Civil Rights Movement against institutionalized racism in Jim Crow America. King was, however, a keen observer of decolonization and the awakening of colonized peoples in Afro-Asia to aspirations for self-determination. This anti-colonial perspective led to […]

Antisemitism

On the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz: Remembering the Muslims who Rescued Jews

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Special to Informed Comment) – As the world marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it is important to remember those who put their own and their families safety in jeopardy in order to save Jewish lives including Arabs and Muslims. The heroic acts made by Muslims in order to save Jewish […]

Antisemitism

Auschwitz 75 years on: preserving survivors’ voices and listening to those of their children

The Conversation

By Sara Jones | – In December 2019, four people were shot dead at a kosher market in New Jersey, a horrific knife attack was perpetrated at a rabbi’s home in a New York suburb, and antisemitic graffiti was daubed on a synagogue and several shops in north London. Despite what many might think, antisemitism […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Killing of Gen. Soleimani evokes Dark Themes of Martyrdom in Shiite Islam

The Conversation

By Deina Abdelkader | – Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who promoted the religious and political influence of the Iranian regime across the Middle East with covert military operations, was an important figure in the Iranian government. But that’s not the only reason his targeted killing by the United States has elicited explosive grief and outrage in […]

Archaeology

Trump’s Twitter threat to destroy Iran’s cultural sites was a historic mistake

The Conversation

By David J. Wasserstein | – Be careful of the company you keep. In a threat delivered over Twitter on Jan. 4, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is prepared to “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD” culturally important targets in Iran should the country retaliate for the American killing of its top general. […]

Environment

Did Undersea Volcanoes Hasten Fall of Eastern Rome and Pave way for Rise of Islam?

The Watchers

By Julie Celestial ( The Watchers) – Researchers presented underwater volcanism as a new interpretation of why the sky mysteriously went dark for over a year beginning 536 A.D., with some parts of Europe and Asia seeing the Sun for only about four hours a day and accounts saying the Sun gave no more light […]

Christianity

Knights Templar: still loved by conspiracy theorists 900 years on

The Conversation

By Patrick Masters | – On Christmas Day, 1119, the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin II persuaded a group of French knights led by Hugh de Payne II to save their souls by protecting pilgrims travelling the Holy Land. And so the Order of the Knights Templar was formed. This revolutionary order of knights lived as […]

Colonialism

When an Imperial U.S. first Tried to Crush a Muslim Movement: Massacres in the Philippines

Danny Sjursen

(Tomdispatch.com) – For a decade and a half, the U.S. Army waged war on fierce tribal Muslims in a remote land. Sound familiar? As it happens, that war unfolded half a world away from the Greater Middle East and more than a century ago in the southernmost islands of the Philippines. Back then, American soldiers […]

Christianity

White Anxiety and Imperial Christianity: The GOP Pathologies that Twin them with Trump

Rebecca Gordon

(Tomdispatch.com ) – On the Thursday of the second week of the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara had a special guest on his weekly podcast, Carl Bernstein. It was Bernstein, with fellow Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, whose reporting broke open the story of how the Committee to Re-elect the […]