EDITORIAL
A Call to Arms

IN THIS EDITION
The Politics of 'Free Speech'
Putting Academic Freedom and Pedagogy in Context
The Persecution of Ward Churchill
Columbia Undone: The Anatomy of a Controversy
Zionism vs. Intellectual and Political Freedom on American College Campuses
Hindutva and the Politics of "Free Speech"
US Universities Cozy Up to the Sangh
Taking it to the Street
A MODIfied Affair
Domestic Elites - Neoliberal Goondas on a Rampage
Challenging Corporate Callousness and State Indifference: The Ongoing Struggle for Justice in Bhopal!
Campus Activism
People of Color and the Need for Solidarity: Bridging the Divide
Resisting the "Chief"
Call for Submissions

GENERAL
About the Authors
Editorial Collective
Links
Fair Use Notice

YOUTH ACTIVISM
Youth Solidarity Summer
New York: August 2005
Organizing Youth (OY!)
San Fransisco, August 2005
RadDesi Summer
Austin, June 2005
Chingari
Students for Bhopal

PREVIOUS EDITIONS
Volume I
Volume II
Volume III
Volume IV
Volume V
Volume VI
Volume VII

 

 

 

 
 
Putting Academic Freedom and Pedagogy in Context

Chi-ming Yang puts the witch-hunt against Professors Joseph Massad and Ward Churchill into historical and current political context. That the latest attacks are worse than those during the McCarthy era should give us all pause for concern. Chi-ming makes a passionate case for the role of anger in public discourse, something that has always caused discomfort even to liberals from the privileged classes.

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A MODIfied Affair

Biju Mathew gives an insider's account of the mobilization against Narendra Modi. Simultaneously shedding light on the multi-dimensional nature of US imperialism, his article powerfully endorses the power of desi progressive movements.

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People of Color and the Need for Solidarity
Where have the South Asians gone? , Biju Mathew had asked in an earlier article in Samar. This article asks the same question and calls for solidarity across ethnic groups amongst people of color. "You'll be surprised at what can be accomplished that way," she says. The recent students victory at Georgetown university vindicates her optimism.

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The Persecution of Ward Churchill

The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities may be a thing of the past, but the American Council of Trustees and Alumni has taken up where McCarthy left off, Louis Proyect reveals. His account of the gradual capitulation of the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture (at Hamilton College) to right-wing pressure should alert us to the workings of the right wing on academic campuses. Louis also delves at length on the convergence of views between the liberals and those on the Right.

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Domestic Elites - Neoliberal Goondas on a Rampage

Raja Swamy illuminates the hypocrisy embedded in the discourses of liberal postcolonial nationalism.  He does so by comparing the patriotic indignation of the Indian ruling classes over Modi's visa denial, to the inability of this class to express any interest when fellow Indians of the working classes were being stripped off food, housing and health. 

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Resisting the "Chief"
If you follow college sports, "Fighting Illini" would be a name very familiar to you. University of Illinois Professor Francis Boyle put the issue in perspective in his recent article, Why You Should Boo Illinois. We carried an introductory article in our previous issue, Joe Madre gives an update on the struggle against this racist mascot.

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Columbia Undone: The Anatomy of a Controversy

Palestinian advocacy on campuses has always been a risky affair, particularly if you are Muslim. Muslim students, community activists and professors daring to speak out for the Palestinian cause have often been detained under secret evidence. Even as Sami Al-Arian languishes in prison, professors in the Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures Department at Columbia University are the latest targets of the Zionist-neocon axis. Madiha Tahir dissects the workings of the Zionist groups on the Columbia campus.

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Challenging Corporate Callousness and State Indifference: The Ongoing Struggle for Justice in Bhopal!
More than 20 years have passed since the Bhopal gas disaster, and the survivors' struggle for justice continues. Battling state apathy and police brutality, not to mention health disorders due to the disaster, has been a tough ask, but supporters in the US and Britain have helped publicize the issue and keep it in focus. Kamayani Swami and Ryan Bodanyi give an update on activities in the US.

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Zionism vs. Intellectual and Political Freedom on American College Campuses

From Columbia to Urbana-Champaign, the script remains pretty much the same. Except that at UIUC, individual professors are not being harassed but the whole Muslim community is being targeted. A couple of years ago, the student newspaper (Daily Illini) ran a series of anti-Palestinian advertisements stereotyping all Palestinians as violent and bloodthirsty. And now, the DI pays for Zionist propaganda -- its opinion page has become a Zionist bastion where Palestinians are routinely dehumanized. David Green addresses the Zionist infiltration of the academia in his article.

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Hindutva and the Politics of "Free Speech"

Ali Mir exposes the on-going attempts by the Hindu Right to infiltrate the academy to establish a Hindutva vision of culture and identity. From rewriting curriculum and textbooks in India to appealing to culturalist yearnings of the diaspora in the US, the Sangh is on the rampage. As he explains this is based in a rigid and exlusivist logic intent on rewriting history as a Hindutva fantasy. In collusion with these regressive politics, US academic institutions have opened up their arms to these fatal manuevers in the name of "free speech" and multiculturalism.

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US Universities Cozy Up To the Sangh

How - and why - have US universities rapidly nurtured spaces for the amplification of ideologies of hate?  Ra Ravishankar potently contrasts recent cases that saw the censorship of critical thinking to the support provided to Ram Madhav and Narendra Modi by US universities. The contrast makes evident that universities are increasingly supporting right wing interests in co-opting progressive discourses. 

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