Twin monuments of our moral and aesthetic imagination: Hamid Dabashi remembers Egyptian intellectual Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd, who died last week, and filmmaker Youssef Chahine*
I have been privileged to know many great Egyptians in my life, the dearest (...)
Few things are as sad to see as reactionary libertarians attempting to hijack popular movements against oppression, writes Hamid Dabashi*
They say when León Trotsky was about to sign the peace treaty between Russia and Germany at the end of World (...)
American pundits who pontificate on the internal affairs of others only reveal themselves as irrelevant and ridiculous, writes Hamid Dabashi*
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I (...)
Contemporary Israeli cinema gives some hope that Israeli society will soon confront, or is confronting, the violence Zionism has done not only to others but also to Israelis, writes Hamid Dabashi*
The consecutive appearance of three major Israeli (...)
In the light of recent suppression of opposition in Iran, Hamid Dabashi reviews the effects of the Islamic Revolution
These are the times that try men's souls . . . . Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, (...)
The greatest success of barbarity is when it dictates the terms of all opposition to it, writes Hamid Dabashi*
These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the (...)
In frightening repetition, shadowy figures are lining up, as they did before the US invasion of Iraq, to cry the carrion call of the Islamic Republic of Iran, writes Hamid Dabashi*
On Wednesday 22 July 2009, the US House of Representatives Foreign (...)
The point of no return has been passed: Iran's violent theocratic tyranny is now facing the people, and it will lose, writes Hamid Dabashi*
Ma bi-shomarim / We are countless
-- Slogan of the Green Movement in Iran
Within minutes of the picture of a (...)
Who are and who promoted these leftist intellectuals who question the social uprising of the people in Iran, asks Hamid Dabashi*
When a political groundswell like the Iranian presidential election of June 2009 and its aftermath happen, the (...)
Arab analysis of the crisis in Iran reveals more about latent defeated mentalities than the crisis itself, writes Hamid Dabashi*
In his astute take on the current electoral crisis in Iran ('An alternative reading', Al-Ahram Weekly, 25 June-1 July (...)
The Iranian elections show that the people's democratic will can no longer be held in, writes Hamid Dabashi*
Khonak an qomarbazi keh bebakht har cheh budash,
Benamand hichash ella havas e qomar e digar.
[Lucky that gambler who lost all he had,
Left (...)
Regardless of their integrity, Iran's elections -- and even their aftermath -- are the fundamental democratic and collective expression US hawks and Zionists fear most, writes Hamid Dabashi*
"A messianic apocalyptic cult..."
-- Israeli Prime (...)
The problem with Obama's speech, more than its whitewashing of US imperial actions, is that it takes as given that a clash of civilisations is occurring, writes Hamid Dabashi*
In a million years no one would have imagined that a president of the (...)
The first 100 days over, Obama is looking more and more like Bush, writes Hamid Dabashi*
Two crucial decisions by President Barack Obama in mid- May 2009 mark a turning point in his young presidency when earlier signs coalesce and are driven home. (...)
The present massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the Israeli military proves that Israel is now not only morally bankrupt but also militarily clueless, argues Hamid Dabashi*
Writing under circumstances in which Palestinian women and children (...)
A cathartic moment, a sudden change of vista and a vision of hope -- the election of Barack Obama as the next US president was all these things, despite some ominous signs of things to come, writes Hamid Dabashi*
On Tuesday, 4 November 2008 at 6:57 (...)
In his 4 June speech to the American Israeli Political Action Committee, Democratic Party candidate Barack betrayed the hopes that had been invested in him, writes Hamid Dabashi*
The evening of Tuesday 3 June 2008 will go down in history as one of (...)
On 22 April 2008, , candidate for the Democratic Party nomination in the upcoming US presidential elections, threatened "to totally obliterate" the Iranian people, fully demonstrating the bankruptcy of her campaign, writes Hamid Dabashi*
In the wake (...)
At a time when Obama's moral voice was most needed, the reach of his wings proved to be cautiously perforated on an AIPAC line, writes Hamid Dabashi*
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the (...)
Hamid Dabashi comments on a meeting of minds
Let's, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator . . . . I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the (...)
Hamid Dabashi* writes on pride, prejudice, Persia and other empires
FOR THE WORLD AT LARGE, the sign "300" may not mean much beyond a mere number placed solemnly between a double quotation marks. But given the prevalent Hollywood hegemony over the (...)
As the world waits to see if US/Israel will attack Iran, Hamid Dabashi examines the state of war this game of waiting has generated
Once again the drums of war are roaring in Washington DC. Once again the signs and signals of a pending US/Israeli (...)
The key question in drawing any enduring lesson from Lebanon in the aftermath of July 2006 Israeli savagery is how do we read the phenomenon called Hizbullah, argues Hamid Dabashi
Lebanon has always been the postcard picture of what is fundamentally (...)
The battlefront of Lebanon against Israel has an inroad that will generate a national liberation movement, akin to that in Palestine. Both, argues Hamid Dabashi, are more likely to export democracy back to Iran than to import an Islamic Republic (...)
Lacking internal support or external legitimacy, writes Hamid Dabashi*, the US empire now banks on a pedigree of comprador intellectuals, homeless minds and guns for hire
IN THE COURSE OF the US presidential election of 2004, during the final round (...)