Global News and Analysis

Source: The Nation

They potentially face the final two stages of genocide—mass annihilation and erasure from the country’s history.

Irecently met Penny Green to discuss the situation in Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in the perpetration of the horrific crimes carried out against the Rohingya.

A professor of law and globalization and the founding director of the International State Crime Initiative(ISCI) at Queen Mary University of London, Green has been closely monitoring the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar for the past five years. In a 2015 report based on 12 months of field work and over 200 interviews, ISCI found ample evidence that the Rohingya have been subjected to systematic and widespread human-rights violations, including killings, torture, and rape; denial of citizenship; destruction of villages; land confiscation; and forced labor. Citing Daniel Feierstein’s Genocide as Social Practice, which outlines six stages leading to genocide, ISCI claimed that the Myanmar regime had already perpetrated four: (1) stigmatization and dehumanization; (2) harassment, violence, and terror; (3) isolation and segregation; and (4) the systematic weakening of the target group. Now the Rohingya potentially face the final two stages of genocide—mass annihilation and erasure of the group from Myanmar’s history. read more

Source:  BuzzFeed

A cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.”

In August, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville ended in murder, Steve Bannon insisted that “there’s no room in American society” for neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and the KKK.

But an explosive cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News proves that there was plenty of room for those voices on his website.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart courted the alt-right — the insurgent, racist right-wing movement that helped sweep Donald Trump to power. The former White House chief strategist famously remarked that he wanted Breitbart to be “the platform for the alt-right.” read more

Source: Truthout

It is as predictable as any other annual US holiday or commemoration: National mainstream media devote sound bites to Columbus Day and the meaning of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the “New World,” while Columbus Day sales hit the stores. Meanwhile, op-eds and letters to the editor register Indigenous people’s objections to Columbus as worthy of commemoration. In recent Octobers, it seems, asking Indigenous people what they think of Columbus Day has also become a sound bite. read more

Source: Common Dreams

The longest war in modern U.S. history approaches its 16th anniversary Saturday, and so far there is no end in sight. The war in Afghanistan began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., with the promise of vengeance aimed at the Taliban, hosts of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. But that original justification—still as morally questionable now as it was then—has gotten lost amid the open-ended rhetoric of “fighting terrorism.” read more

Source: Boston Review

Editor’s Note: Over the past year, the scholar and activist Vijay Prashad taught a series of nonfiction writing workshops to students, activists, workers, and journalists across India. The workshops sought to develop an ethics and practice of socialist writing to foreground what Prashad calls “the small voices of history.” Here he talks to the poet Mark Nowak, founder of the Worker Writers School in New York City, about the political valence of socialist writing in a time of rampant populism, racism, and xenophobia. This is the second in a series of dialogues between Prashad and Nowak. Their first conversation, The Essentials in Socialist Writing, was published in Jacobin. read more