On 19 March 2003, the United States declared war on Iraq. Six months later, on 25 September, Edward Wadie Said passed away at the age of 67 in New York City after a decade-long struggle with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. The loss of one of the most elegant minds of...
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Editorial – Nelson Mandela
We publish here a living tribute to Comrade Nelson Mandela. We, as all in South Africa, are aware that he is critically ill and that, by the time this magazine is published, his immensely productive life may have ended. Amandla! stands with his family, the ANC, his...
Who’s going to be the lesser evil in 2012? | by Phil Gasper
The similarities between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are far more striking than their differences Now we know that the presidential election will be a contest between Barack Obama and his GOP rival Mitt Romney. Already liberal pundits, activists in the Democratic...
The late Christopher Hitchens | by Richard Seymour
A review of Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir (Atlantic, 2010), £9.99 Given Hitchens’s political inconsistencies, Hitch-22 is better than it ought to be, a fact which is a consequence of his undeniable talent A petty bourgeois individualist, in his last years...
Obama, imperialism, and capitalism | by Phil Gasper
In foreign policy, the Obama administration has continued what Bush began, argues Phil Gasper I DON’T often read the conservative columnist Ross Douthat in the New York Times, but a week after the Obama administration’s assassination of Osama bin Laden, Douthat for...
21st Century Challenges of Revolt and Dissent: from the Arab Revolts to the “occupy” world movement | by Tariq Ali
Veteran historian, novelist, and activist Tariq Ali spoke to al-Akhbar about the challenges facing the Arab Revolts, the future of US policy in the Middle East following ‘disengagement’ from Iraq, and the significance of the current movement of dissent taking over the...
Inventing Africa: History, Archaeology and Ideas (Pluto, 2011) | by Robin Derricourt
This book questions the assumptions and prejudices that appear as soon as Africa is considered. It opens with three geographical ways of defining Africa, then critiques assumptions made by writers and historians, the views of anthropologists and post-colonial...
Target: Africa | by John Feffer
An informal competition took place during the Bush years for the title of "second front" in the war on terror. Administration officials often referred to Southeast Asia as the next major franchise location for al-Qaeda, with the Philippines in particular slated to...
Gay During Apartheid: Moffie | by André Carl van der Merwe
Never in my reading life have I encountered a scene as tortured as André Carl van der Merwe’s depiction of a rigidly conservative father confronting his son’s homosexuality and recognizing that his son just might, after all, be a human being. Sadly, it’s a little...





