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Articles by Amir AliSubscribe to Amir Ali

Football, Freedom, and the Arab Spring

Sports and sporting event have always been political, and this is more so in the case of football. The men’s football world cup held in Qatar became an arena where multiple global sociopolitical contradictions were played out and geopolitical issues were brought into focus. After all, football has always been about philosophy, freedom, beauty, art, and democracy.

The Chickens of British Multiculturalism Come Home to Roost

Rishi Sunak’s rise as British Prime Minister, the obsession with immigration, and the continuing dominance of Brexit are instances of the deep-seated problems of British politics, aggravated by over a decade of austerity. The British political establishment shows no signs of the profound political rethinking required in the aftermath of the damaging effects of Brexit.

Aijaz Ahmad (1941–2022)

A tribute to the departed scholar looks at his immense contributions to literary criticism, world politics, and Marxist theory and brings out the consistent underlying thread of principled political commitment to the working-class politics.

 

Of Nationalisms

On Nationalism by Eric Hobsbawm and edited by Donald Sassoon with an introduction, London: Little, Brown, 2021; pp xxvi + 364, `799.

 

A Hundred Years of Israeli Hyper-statehood

Israeli statehood, characterised in this article as a form of “hyper-statehood,” was facilitated by a disappearing British empire and the emergence of United States’ domination. This hyper-statehood has existed at the expense and denial of Palestinian statehood. Drawing historical insights from Rashid Khalidi’s acclaimed book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, this article suggests that unease at Israeli hyper-statehood can only grow in the US and across the world. There will now develop an inevitable movement towards a postnational solution.

 

A ‘Democratic’ Test

Tolerance, Secularization and Democratic Politics in South Asia edited by Humeira Iqtidar and Tanika Sarkar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018; pp ix + 216, £75 (hardcover).

 

Terrorism and Genocide

Two particular forms of violence have become rampant and visible over the last decade: terrorism and ethnic cleansing/genocide. Only by understanding their underpinnings is it possible to respond to this development and counter its consequences.

Nigeria : Fragile Democracy under Stress

Nigeria's recent turbulence has been an outcome of changes in its recent political past. The decision of its northern states to impose the sharia, the Bush administration's war on terror as well as the activities of multinational oil companies in the Niger delta has made Nigeria's fragile democracy look increasingly vulnerable.

Metaphors of Membership

Culture, Space and the NationState: From Sentiment to Structure by Dipankar Gupta; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2000; pp 282, Rs 445.

Durban and After

Having successfully brought up the debate of dalit emancipation at the international level, it is necessary now to firstly contextualise the movement in the rising tide of Hindutva and secondly, within the logic of economic liberalisation. For, the movement for dalit emancipation has arisen as a major political discourse at the same time that Hindutva and economic liberalisation have emerged on the Indian political stage.

UK : Chicken Tikka Multiculturalism

After the summer of recurring racial violence in Britain's northern towns there is a need to rethink the whole idea of multiculturalism as it has evolved over the past two decades. Of particular interest is the relationship between multiculturalism and economic neo-liberalism and a pressing issue is the plight of industrial underclass and the urban blight that ravages Britain's inner city areas.

Evolution of Public Sphere in India

The particular manner in which the public sphere has evolved in India under colonial rule and during the national movement and hence the very nature that it has acquired has made it susceptible to the recent advance of Hindutva. It is in the backdrop of the ambiguities of the national movement, which were partly a result of nationalist responses to colonial rule, that one can understand some of the anomalies in the public sphere as it currently exists in India. In any consideration of the public sphere its relation to the private sphere cannot be neglected for it is in its relation to the private sphere that the public is itself defined and given shape. Institutionalising multiculturalism in the public sphere will involve a renegotiation of the relationship between the two spheres. Ways and means of recreating a public sphere so that it adequately reflects the diversity of the country must be seriously explored.

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