I have started writing what would be a regular column for Muslim Views, a newspaper based in Cape Town. The column will deal specifically with global issues that affect Islam and the Muslim world, and muslim-majority countries like Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, and, of course, the people of Palestine. I will…
Category: Culture
The Palestine Art Corner: Outdoor Gallery of Wall Art in Kota Bharu
The outdoor Palestine Art Gallery brings the suffering of Palestinians to the public in an alley in, Jalan Dato’ Pati, in Kota Bharu, in Malaysia.
Review: Kabut Berduri (Borderless Fog)
I can’t be completely objective about Kabut Berduri (Borderless Fog), an Indonesian film by Edwin, with Putri Marino as the lead protagonist, Sanja Arunika, who is sent from Jakarta to Borneo to investigate a strange set of murders where one victim’s severed head is found the body of the other. Set, as it is, where…
Review: Notes about a book
A short video clip about a chapter in the book, Coloured: How Classification Became Culture, slipped into my TikTok feed yesterday. In the chapter, the writers, Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel stated that “Trevor Noah is not coloured”. I don’t intend to review the book, here. I turned down a formal request to review the book…
The Hill of the Skull: A brief commentary and notes about a photo essay
The Hill of the Skull is a book-length photo-essay by Jeremy Bassetti, a “writer, photographer and educator,” and Professor at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida in the USA. With the text and photographs, Bassetti tracks his journey to a sacred mountain in Quillacollo, Bolivia as part of his academic research on mountain cultures, ostensibly to get an understanding of…
Predictions of US collapse are premature and misdirected
I have been writing about the decline of the USA and related issue for a few years, now, without resorting schadenfreude or dancing on the grave of that country. (See here, here and here) That would be silly. My approach has not been “anti-American”. It has always had to do with at least two things, both of which are…