Features
Arts & Culture, Features, Film & TV - Saturday, August 28, 2010 18:23 - 0 Comments
Film Review: The Infidel
The Infidel is a comedy whose subject matter includes Muslims, Jews, cultural identity, religious intolerance, clerical hypocrisy, political islamism, violent extremism, anti-semitism, media mendacity and plain old-fashioned racism. Upon its release on DVD earlier this month, Hicham Yezza reviews it.
Arts & Culture, Books, Features - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 23:23 - 0 Comments
Book review – Kosovo: The Path to Contested Statehood in the Balkans
Kosovo's quest for independence throughout a turbulent 20th century is the subject of a book that aims to disentangle myths from realities. Omayr Ghani, Ceasefire's Political Editor, is impressed at the scholarship but sceptical of the analysis.
Arts & Culture, Features - Saturday, August 21, 2010 12:09 - 1 Comment
Arts & Culture: Redo Pakistan
With Pakistan now a major item on the news agenda – instability, violence, and recently, of course, the devastating floods – what hope is there for Pakistani artists? Can they hope to address the situation of the country in a way that could possibly make a difference? Is the contemporary art world just too Eurocentric to let them in?
Musab Younis, Ceasefire deputy editor, speaks to the curators of an innovative new art project, ‘Redo Pakistan’, which has issued a call to artists to ‘Declare War Against the Present Time.’
Arts & Culture, Books, Features, Science - Friday, August 20, 2010 23:35 - 2 Comments
Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information
What is reality? Is the universe, ultimately, no more than bits of information?
Physics, and Quantum Theory in particular, have grappled with the fundamental structure of nature's basic building blocks for decades, but the answers remain elusive. Quantum physicist and Ceasefire columnist Sebastian Meznaric takes a look at a new book on the topic and finds it full of intriguing and original insights.
Arts & Culture, Features, Music & Dance, Profiles - Sunday, August 15, 2010 0:13 - 0 Comments
Culture Fix: Robert Chrisgau, doyen of US music critics, retires
After more than 40 years at the top of the music journalism game, Robert Christgau, formerly of the Village Voice and legendary author of the 'Consumer guide' series has this month announced his retirement from writing his weekly column. To mark this end of an era, academic and writer Donal Mac an Eala writes a moving tribute to a unique, encylopedically rich voice in music and cultural criticism.
Columns, Features, Ideas, In Theory - Friday, August 13, 2010 13:30 - 4 Comments
In Theory We come in peace – shoot to kill: On the perils of peacekeeping
The creation of the UN, sixty years ago, has introduced the concept of "international peacekeeping" into the public lexicon. The UN peacekeeping missions are now regular features of news bulletins from conflict zones. And yet, both in its theoretical underpinnings and its practical manifestations, peacekeeping remains a highly problematic idea. Political theorist Andrew Robinson presents the many issues surrounding the idea of peacekeeping, and conducts an impassioned and lucid analysis of how peacekeeping efforts often get things wrong, and what needs to be done to set them right.Features, Ideas, Politics - Wednesday, August 11, 2010 11:02 - 3 Comments
Think Big! In defence of ideology
The protracted aftermath of the worst world recession in living memory has seen not a fundamental questioning of the basic ideological premises of liberal capitalism, but a call for technocratic, ideologically "neutral" solutions instead. Is this another failure of the left to seize the moment and present a credible alternative? Alex Andrews bemoans the growing reticence towards big ideologically-driven programmes and says thinking big is the only thinking worth doing.
Features, Politics, Profiles - Monday, August 9, 2010 17:46 - 4 Comments
Remembering Mahmoud Darwish – How the revolution was written
Two years ago today Palestine’s National Poet, Mahmoud Darwish passed away after a 6-month battle with cancer. He was 67. The ensuing reverberations, of loss and mourning and a sense of things left unsaid continue to resonate to this day. On this second anniversary, Ahmed Masoud, Palestinian academic, writer and theatre director, revisits the astonishing achievements of a literary giant. In particular, he guides us through a crucial period in Darwish’s intellectual journey, namely the years 1950-1971 when he was still living in Israel. It's a fitting homage, celebrating the life of a true humanist and the fighting conscience of a nation.
Features, Short Stories - Saturday, August 7, 2010 12:16 - 1 Comment
Short Story – “Bang crash splat”
In a new exclusive short story by Dave Prescott, a street musician is faced with an unusual audience and finds himself at the centre of a surreal, and unnerving, series of events. A short tale, comic yet sombre, about what happens when intensities come into contact with each other.
Columns, Modern Times, Politics, Profiles - Tuesday, August 3, 2010 10:57 - 6 Comments
Modern Times: Osman Rasul – In Memory
On Sunday, Osman Rasul, a 27-year old Iraqi Kurd who had spent nine years in the inhumane limbo of the asylum bureaucracy leaped to his death from the seventh floor of a Nottingham tower block. Ceasefire Columnist Corin Faife, a friend of Osman's, pays tribute to a "warm, kind, respectful man", crushed by the injustice and cruelty of the Home Office's asylum policy.
