Month: May 2016

Symbolic graves for victims of the war’s May 2009 final stages in and around Mullivaikal. Seven years on from the brutal ending to Sri Lanka’s civil war, here is some moving footage from one of comemmorations now finally allowed to take part in Mullivaikal and around the Tamil North (follow the Twitter link) 7 years on, these comemmorations still the reality for so many in #lka https://t.co/cnE3QqYB3z — Mark Salter (@marsal61) May 20, 2016

Soviet History Returns – to Eurovision 2016 Ukraine’s Eurovision 2016 entry: ‘1844’, a powerful song about Stalin’s deportations of Crimean Tartars that year in revenge for their perceived collaboration with the Nazis. It’s sung partly in the Tartar language by Jamala,,who is herself of Tartar origin. All in all, can’t imagine Moscow is too pleased about this one.

Illustration: Zohar Lazar Here’s a brilliant, chastening dissection of Trump’s tyranny-in-the-making from Andrew Sullivan, writing in the New York Magazine  It’s framed by a searing analysis of how US democracy got itself into a place where such a thing as a Trump election victory was even conceivable. Democracies end when they are too democratic.And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny. Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine, 2 May 2016 As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage… More