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Recent content by Mike Marqusee

“Existential” threat (11 Jan 2009)
The recent offensive in Gaza shows that it’s the Palestinians, not Israelis, who are besieged, isolated and vulnerable, writes Mike Marqusee.

Marching amid the 50,000 protesters in London bearing witness against the Israeli offensive on Gaza, I spotted a hand-made placard inscribed with the words of the radical Brazilian educator Paolo Freire: “Washing one’s hands of the confli ct between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

It was meant as a rebuke to the British government and others who have stood aside as Israel has ass

Obama and the spectre of race (3 Sep 2008)

It's a paradox. Barack Obama's candidacy is hailed as “historic” for the very sound reason that he is the first African-American to become the presidential nominee of a major party. In a country whose history is permeated by race, that's clearly a significant event, at the least a huge symbolic breakthrough.

Zionism and the Palestinians (3 Jun 2008)

Israel’s 60th birthday is being celebrated lavishly in Britain. The programme includes a gala fund-raising dinner at Windsor Castle in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh, a variety show at Wembley Stadium and street parades in London and Manchester.

Meanwhile, Palestinians and their supporters will be recalling the same event in entirely different tones, without the benefit of state support or vast sums of money.

No sanctuary this (20 Apr 2008)
The current British policy aims to deter future asylum seekers by punishing those presently in the country.

Despite an average of 40 violent deaths a day in recent weeks, Iraq, the British Home office insists, is a safe place. Accordingly, 1,400 Iraqi asylum seekers have received letters informing them that they must return home or face homelessness and destitution in Britain. Those who agree to go back will be required to sign a waiver accepting that the U.K. government bears no responsibility for what happens to them or their families after their return.

1968 The Mysterious Chemistry of Social Change (17 Apr 2008)
The last thing the legacy of 1968 needs is nostalgic commemoration, writes Mike Marqusee. Even as it was happening, it was being packaged for consumption. Nor should we celebrate it in the name of some abstract spirit of resistance. It was a year of contradictions and confusions, many of which continue to confront anyone who wants to take part in a movement for radical change.

Year Zero

1968 saw more young Americans drawn to the left than any time since the 1930s.

The great catastrophe (21 Mar 2008)
The facts of the Nakba (catastrophe) are now well documented and beyond dispute. Yet Nakba denial remains widespread, and is as vile as denial of any other historic crime.

In the coming months, the same event will be commemorated by two different groups in starkly contrasting fashions.

May 15 sees the 60th anniversary of the birth of the State of Israel.

The first time I was called a self-hating Jew (4 Mar 2008)
It was America in the 1960s, and his parents were civil rights activists who encouraged their children to speak their minds. Until, aged 14, Mike Marqusee criticised Israel. In this extract from his new book, he recalls his father's fury

The first person to call me a self-hating Jew was my father. It was in the autumn of 1967. Dad was 39, a successful businessman who was also, along with my mother, active in the US civil rights and anti-war movements.

From Vietnam to Iraq (31 Jan 2008)

THIS week marks the 40th anniversary of an event that seemed to turn the world upside down. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, soldiers of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the army of North Vietnam launched what came to be known as the Tet offensive against the US military and its local allies.

The insurgents struck simultaneously across the country, targeting more than 100 cities and towns in what the historian Stanley Karnow describes as an offensive 'of extraordinary intensity and astonishing scope ...

Tet 40 years on (28 Jan 2008)
The death toll after the US defeat in Vietnam 40 years ago is a terrifying pointer for the Iraq retreat

Versions of the article below appeared in The Guardian and The Hindu

This week marks the 40th anniversary of an event that seemed to turn the world upside down.

Strange way to choose a president (14 Jan 2008)
The U.S. Constitution, as is evident from the presidential primaries, needs modernisation.

The world looks on at the U.S. presidential primaries with a mix of hopes and fears, and not a little bemusement.

The road to the White House is serpentine, its course laid out by an amalgam of federal and State law, constitutional interpretation by the courts, party regulations, custom, and media imperatives. In the horse race that ensues, presentation and positioning easily trump policy.

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