This live interview with Gilbert Achcar was posted on the Democracy Now website on 24 August 2011. The introduction and rush transcript are by Democracy Now.
Sri Lanka: Country needs a pro-proletariat regime
25 August 2011, byThe simple answer to the victory of the TNA in the north of Sri Lanka, while Mahinda regime won in the south, is national division in the country. Victory of Mahinda in Sinhala areas shows that the Sinhala chauvinist campaign is still strong among the Sinhala village masses.
One year of the BP Blow out
25 August 2011, byIn the years after Hurricane Katrina, I saw New Orleanians suffer from lack of health care. The storm and subsequent flooding caused immediate illness, with infections from the foul flood water and debris. As time passed, ever-present mold exacerbated respiratory conditions and mental health deteriorated in the face of immense stress.
Learn from Japan- say no to nuclear power in South Africa
24 August 2011, byThe unfolding developments in Japan send a strong message to developing countries, in particular, South Africa, not to include nuclear power plants in its future energy plans. More nuclear power must not be included in the Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity (IRP2010). South Africa and Africa as a whole have the best sun in the world to produce solar energy. In addition, South Africa has excellent conditions for developing wind power on a large scale.
Famine: Less land, more hunger
23 August 2011, byThe tragedy of hunger again becomes current news from the food emergency in the Horn of Africa, but famines are a silent daily reality. Worldwide, more than a billion people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have difficulties accessing food. A famine with political causes and responsibility.
The whys of hunger
23 August 2011, byWe live in a world of plenty. Today food is produced for 12,000 million people, according to the Organization of the United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO), when the planet is inhabited by 7,000 people. There is food. So why is one of every seven people in the world going hungry?
The food emergency that affects over 10 million people in the Horn of Africa brings to light a disaster that has nothing natural about it. Droughts, floods, wars … serve to exacerbate a situation of extreme food vulnerability, but they are not the only factors that explain it.
Correct the homophobes
23 August 2011, byOn the last day of May 2011 we celebrated the Equality Court’s hate speech judgment against self-confessed homophobe Jon Qwelane, who now serves as South Africa’s High Commissioner to Uganda. In his July 2008 Sunday Sun column titled ‘Call me names but Gay is not OK’, Qwelane expressed support for Robert Mugabe’s brutal and oppressive treatment of LGBTI people in Zimbabwe. The article was accompanied by a cartoon showing someone in a suit marrying a goat, and it ‘pray[ed] for the day when politicians will rewrite the Constitution’, removing the right to equality therein.
Dropping the last mask of democracy
22 August 2011, by"You should definitely postpone your book launch in Jerusalem," warned a close friend who felt that the planned event for launching my recently published book on the Palestinian-led movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel might be too risky in light of the recently passed Israeli law that effectively bans support for the thriving boycott movement. At the packed bookshop-cafe in occupied East Jerusalem last Thursday, however, the engaged and Italian-coffee scented atmosphere was almost jubilant, as if declaring a collective defiance of Israel’s latest draconian measure.
"What has happened since 15 M has favoured the politicization of society and the opening of new spaces for self-organization and participation".
22 August 2011, byInterview with Josep Maria Antentas, Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), published in the Brazilian electronic journal IHU on-line on August 4, 2011.