Book Review
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The Path from Alienation to Exploitation
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Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism is still relevant today, as many of the issues he identified remain unresolved. In particular, Marx’s analysis of the exploitative nature of capitalism, in which workers are paid less than the value of their labor, and capitalists profit by appropriating the surplus value created by…
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Migration, Capitalism, and Imperialism:
The Transnational Vision of C. L. R. James•
C. L. R. James, also known as Cyril Lionel Robert James, was a Trinidadian-British Marxist theorist, historian, and cultural critic who made significant contributions to the study of colonialism, slavery, and the African diaspora. Born in 1901, James spent much of his life traveling and writing, and his ideas have…
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Iran: The Construction of a National Identity
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A critical study of how Iranian nationalism, itself largely influenced by Orientalist scholarship first undertaken by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has shaped modern conceptions of Iran and Iranian identity, as well as narratives of Iranian history, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction…
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The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
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The story contained in the ancient petrous bone is one of continuous movement – ancient people around the world mixing and merging. Physical differences, like skin color or height, are simply the shifting modifications of the human body reacting to different environments. Rather than homo sapiens, a more fitting name…
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Smuggling as a Collective Enterprise
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Bringing migrants to the Ethiopia-Djibouti border is not a simple task as there are several checkpoints along this migration route. Smugglers carefully work with different actors. They may secure support from border agents at various checkpoints, or they may use diverse transport strategies. Smugglers often transport migrants during the night,…
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From Refugees to Clandestines
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Contemporary refugees in Greece are often viewed in negative and hostile terms. They are seen to represent a burden on the host country, and a particular source of discontent arises when refugees are perceived to have a better life than some of the Greeks themselves. While it is to the…
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Iranian students for Freedom and Equality
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The 4 December 2007 (13 Azar 1386) protest rally to commemorate national Student Day (16 Azar) on the campus of the University of Tehran marked the last public manifestation of the leftist student movement known as Students for Freedom and Equality (aka DAB, acronym for Daneshjuyan-e Azadikhah va Barabaritalab; literally,…
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The Demon-Haunted World
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In our modern world, the basis for this kind of critical thinking should be laid in school. Unfortunately, however, the quality of science education, and the quality of grade school in general, has suffered a sharp decline in recent decades.
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Iran; from Democratic Revolution to Islamist Counterrevolution
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If you are a true internationalist you should support struggles against capitalism and authoritarianism wherever they occur in the world. Maybe you have more leverage to support struggles against your own state, but regardless of that you should do your best at least to speak out against oppression.
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Society didn’t Develop in a Linear Fashion
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We like to think that prehistoric humans were simpler than we are. We might even think they were stupid – think cavemen and -women dragging clubs around and gnawing raw meat. Of course, these depictions are far from accurate. The Flintstones is not a documentary. But these ideas point to…
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Nice Racism!
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Nice racists like to think of racism as a problem everyone relates to as individuals. By that logic, some white people are racist while others aren’t. But there’s no opt-out clause when it comes to benefiting from systemic racism as a white person. Whatever your personal story is, the privileges…
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Gender apartheid in the Middle East
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While the legal reform of Islamic gender relations is certainly possible and necessary, they will not put an end to the patriarchal regime. From a Marxist-feminist perspective, patriarchy is a social system; it is not a product of misbehavior, misunderstanding, or mis-education, although all of these may be present in…
