Reflections on Revolution
On Bastille Day in France, and in the wake of the assassination of Karzai’s brother in Afghanistan, Julia McLean takes a look at revolutions and their aftermaths.
The Big Death: Reactions to the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
Osama Bin Laden is dead — and just as his life has caused us to ask some big questions, so too has his death.
The President’s Warning Speech: Eisenhower’s Words Still True
If you are at all concerned with where the United States is headed these days, or if you shake your head as to why partisan bickering is destroying a once-great nation, check out the speech US President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered some 50 years ago.
Egypt: Lessons in Democracy
The current struggle in Egypt—the center of Arab media, scholarship, and culture—has enormous ramifications for the region as a whole. The predominantly young secular activists who initiated the struggle reject not only the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak but also conservative Islamist leaders; they have put together a broad coalition of young and old, Muslim and Christian, poor and middle class to challenge a brutal corrupt regime which has held power for nearly thirty years. Like-minded civil society activists are organizing elsewhere. Indeed, 2011 could be to the Arab world what 1989 was to Eastern Europe.
A Woman’s Place – Aung San Suu Kyi Released But Not Free
The ruling junta in Mynmar has just completed elections this week which once again illegitimately returned them to power held only by the violence of the gun. Their release of Aung San Suu Kyi after the elections is an attempt to gain some measure of legitimacy from the west; but it won’t work of course.
A Poppy for My Father
Dad was asked why he was fighting Japan and he answered something like, “I didn’t sign up to fight you, I signed up to fight Hitler.” On that note, he was given a wry smile and promptly sent from the hut.
An Unlikely Friendship: The German Girl and the Candy Bomber
At Remembrance Day, a story from postwar Berlin that may surprise you, a reminder that small gestures and acts of kindness — a child’s letter, a quick decision, two sticks of gum — can have unexpected, far-reaching results. At this time … Read more →
The Flowers of Sacrifice
Once I saw the hole a bullet made in the human body. He was a Vietnam veteran and he told me I could touch it, stick my finger in the scar-tissued tunnel it left beneath his rib. Forty one years later I still remember my panic…
November 11 – Remembering Those Who Stayed Behind
As a wounded world began the year of 1946, the cloud of destruction and sorrow that had claimed Europe was lifting. Instead of horrific stories and traumatized soldiers, Doris was seeing hopeful faces and happy jubilation everywhere on the streets of England. The excited war brides in particular started Doris thinking about her desperate decision to end her relationship with the man she truly did love. Was it too late?
Why We Should All See a Concentration Camp
As Star Weiss visits the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany, she is visited by many questions: “Would I have risked my family’s safety by speaking out, or trying to help prisoners escape? Or would I have remained on the sidelines, averting my eyes and convincing myself that those nice SS men who played on our town sports teams and added music to our festivals were really just engaged in training activities behind the walls of a well-run prison?”
Recent Comments