Much of North Korea’s population is starving, yet its government pours money into missile and nuclear programs. Such behavior seems to be the height of irrationality. But North Korea is only following the international community’s – especially America’s – example.
Arthur Waskow is a rabbi who founded and directs The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, a prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American life that brings Jewish and other spiritual thought and practice to bear on seeking peace, pursuing justice, healing the earth, and celebrating community.
ynthia P. Schneider teaches, publishes, and organizes initiatives in the field of cultural diplomacy, with a focus on relations with the Muslim world. She co-directs the Muslims on Screen and Television (MOST) initiative, leads the Arts and Culture Initiative within the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and teaches courses in diplomacy and culture in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Farid Panjwani is an assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations in London. He has a background in Islamic Studies, philosophy of education, and international development and has published widely on these topics.
Wajahat Ali is a playwright, lawyer, and political commentator. His play, The Domestic Crusaders, made its Off Broadway premiere at the Nuyorican Poets Café in 2009 and was published by McSweeney'slast year.
Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst based in Washington, DC. Niki Akhavan is an Iranian-American professor of media studies at Catholic University. They talked with FPIF about the roots of Islamophobia, how anti-Islamic sentiment has shaped U.S. foreign policy, and the relationship between faith and violence.
Arun Kundnani is a British writer and human rights activist. He is the former editor of Race and Class, published by the Institute of Race Relations in London, and is currently an Open Society Institute fellow. In 2009, he wrote Spooked: How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism, which explored the effects of the Prevent program, the British counter-radicalism… Continue reading Interview with Arun Kundnani
Focal Points, February 25, 2011 Some animals should be endangered. Consider the V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane, costs more than a $100 million apiece,killed 30 personnel in crashesduring its development stage, and survived four attempts by none other than Dick Cheney to deep-six the… Continue reading One Creature That Deserves Extinction: the V-22 Osprey
In our special focus on Islamophobia, FPIF talks with Phyllis Bennis: activist, analyst, and writer on Middle East and UN issues for many years. Here she discusses how anti-Muslim sentiment has shaped U.S. perceptions of the democratic uprisings taking place in the Middle East today.
Massoud Shadjareh is the chair and Arzu Merali the director of research of theIslamic Human Rights Commission in London, which was established in 1997. They talked with FPIF in December about Islamophobia in the United Kingdom, the rise of the far right, and the Prevent Terrorism initiative of the British government.
Juan Cole is a professor history at the University of Michigan and the author of Engaging the Muslim World. His blog, Informed Comment, is a go-to resource for analysis of U.S. and Middle Eastern policy. Here he talks with FPIF's John Feffer about Egypt, Islamofascism, and "America anxiety" in the Muslim world.
John Esposito is a professor of religion, international affairs, and Islamic studies at Georgetown University. He is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and the author of numerous books including The Islamic Threat: Myth or Realityand The Future of Islam.
Korean Quarterly, Spring 2011
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il consolidated communist rule. Czech leader Vaclav fought against corrupt communists. Yet they had some things in common, besides dying a week before Christmas. They both abandoned careers in the arts to become reluctant politicians, and they stabilized their respective countries during difficult times. Kim Jong Il ruled in the… Continue reading Two Cold War Milestones
For the last two decades, U.S. administrations have come in like a lion and out like a lamb with their policies on North Korea. Determined to demonstrate Washington’s resolve, U.S. presidents have played hardball with Pyongyang in an effort to precipitate regime change or at least bully the intransigent country into knuckling under. When this… Continue reading North Korea on the Verge of a New Era
More than a decade ago, I sat down with the head of the academy of architecture in Pyongyang. The school was housed in a large, drafty building in the center of North Korea’s capital. Students were building models out of cardboard and wood. A few were in front of state-of-the-art desktops using the computer-aided design… Continue reading Architects of Change
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Czech leader Vaclav Havel occupied the opposite ends of the political continuum. One fought against the corrupt communist powers; the other consolidated communist rule. One tried to inject morality into the practice of politics while the other pursued political ends with little or no reference to morality. Having… Continue reading Two Leaders, Two Deaths
I decided to wait a couple weeks just to make sure. So far, so good. Citizens went to the polls in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt. A plurality of voters threw their support behind Islamist parties. I take a look outside. The sky is still intact. Still, there is no shortage of Chicken Littles. After Islamist… Continue reading The New Chicken Littles
Several years ago, I wrote an article about Burmese cooking. My editor at the magazine inserted a sentence at the end of the piece that read something like this: “And there has never been a better time to visit Burma and sample its delicious cuisine.” I immediately called up the editor and explained that, yes,… Continue reading Appeasement Complex
It’s not the topic of George Packer’s latest essay that’s particularly surprising. Inequality, he writes, is undermining democracy. Progressives have been hammering home this message for years if not decades. Nor is the choice of publication necessarily a shocker. Foreign Affairs is the flagship publication of the elite that runs American foreign policy. But it… Continue reading Occupy Foreign Affairs
Someday soon, you’ll be checking your new Clear Skies app as a routine part of your preparations to go out for the evening. First, you’ll look at your smart gizmo to read your latest email to make sure there hasn’t been any change in plans. A quick glance at Facebook lets you see who’ll be… Continue reading Droning On
Europe has always been a rather tenuous concept. A rump continent, Europe represented the barbarous hinterlands for the Greeks and Romans. The first use of the term “European” occurred in a chronicle describing the forces of Charles the Hammer that turned back the northward advance of Islam at the battle of Tours in 732. Long… Continue reading Is Europe Over?
His name was on the lips of everyone I talked with in South Korea last week. As an underdog with little name recognition but a long history of progressive organizing, he came from behind late last month to become the new mayor of Seoul. Remember his name. Park Won Soon is perhaps the first politician… Continue reading Seoul Salvation
It has been like a cross between a suspense and a horror movie. If the committee doesn’t come up with a compromise by the Thanksgiving deadline, the axes will come out. Perhaps only Washington insiders appreciate the suspense. As for the horror part, the blood will flow only later and largely out of sight of… Continue reading Breaking Down Bases
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 become the “next Afghanistan.” Then there was the border between Brazil, Argentina, and… Continue reading Target: Africa
Barack Obama was green when he entered the Oval Office. He was a relative newcomer to politics. He was also the most successful fundraiser in presidential history, hauling in more green than the two Democratic and Republican candidates in 2004 combined. And he was, more or less, an environmentalist. Back in 2004, Amanda Little dug… Continue reading The Ungreening of Obama
Tyrants are ruthless. They throw people in jail, execute them without trial, suppress the press. They can rule for decades. They can attempt to set up dynasties. But in the modern age, tyrants have a shelf life. We live in an age of activism, and tyrants are always looking over the shoulder to make sure… Continue reading Wall Street (Unlike)
It’s easy to make fun of Michele Bachmann: her history gaffes, her Christian extremism, her ludicrous political positions. Journalists, though, would be sad to see her leave the Republican primary race, since she can be reliably counted on to make an outrageous statement to enliven a slow news day. Last week, for instance, she blamed… Continue reading Fear of an Islamic Planet
U.S. democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East have been based on a bizarre notion: that U.S. society can serve as a model for the region. Talk about a tough sell. Congress is a bruising rugby scrum, and the U.S. economy is a shambles. U.S. warplanes and drones target Muslims abroad, and Islamophobia permeates the… Continue reading Dale Carnegie of the Middle East
Living in Japan in the late 1990s, I was struck by the sheer number and variety of manga or comic books. You could go to a manga store and find an entire aisle devoted to your particular genre: golf manga, comics about the Japanese yakuza (mafia), mecha that focus exclusively on giant robots. Name your… Continue reading Graphic Foreign Policy