Tag: Barbara Nimri Aziz
It’s Wrong, Wrong, Wrong May 28, B Nimri Aziz
It’s Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. So Reprehensible, So Urgent, It Needs Repeating. by B Nimri Aziz. by BN Aziz 05/28/25 “Starving children”, if you didn’t deduce the urgent it. (No illustrations necessary.) Starving Palestinians – of all ages. Not really new, but the report of their growing numbers might push the barest fact into a day’s ...
Gaza Walks by B Nimri Aziz
“Walking, Waiting, Wondering, Walking Again – On Orders” April 21, 2025 by B Nimri Aziz “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk”is thetitle of a soon-to-be-released film featuring photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the most recent of more than 208 assassinated Gazan journalists. With no prior knowledge of this film’s content, I knew it must emanate ...
A Fly on the Wall of the Oval Office 02.4.25 by B Nimri Aziz
Appropriately benevolent-looking, Netanyahu didn’t need to utter a word. He watched passively but attentively while the dauntless U.S. president announced plans for Gaza at their February 4th press conference. Only a fly on the wall was privy to their private exchange beforehand. The Bibi: “I’ve often been received in this room; today will surely surpass ...
Bulldozers and Bombs Jan 14/25 by B Nimri Aziz
Bulldozers and Bombs Jan 14/25 by B Nimri Aziz Bulldozers, those agile, yellow caterpillar-track hoes, we watch transforming towns, farms, deserts and suburbs worldwide. But how many of us have seen an Israeli bulldozer at work? Many Palestinians for certain, as they rush this way and that to grab furnishings, documents and clothes from their ...
My holiday wishes to all: let’s try to use what freedoms we have left to help free others. Dec 24/24. By BNimri Aziz
Does Uhuru, ‘freedom’ in Swahili, apply in the United States? It depends. It depends on how the First Amendment is interpreted; it depends on how cunningly the term terrorism is applied in these tenuous fearsome times; it depends on how determinedly people fight to protect and restore their democracy. Doubtless, a few institutions committed to ...
Aziz’ latest Commentary: Buried under the Genocide Debate
Buried under the Genocide Debate: Desecrated Graves. Feb 5/24 by BN Aziz It’s hard to imagine this happening in modern times. Even an assault on a single grave is a criminal act in a civilized (sic) country. The very idea is reviled everywhere. So what about Israel’s ongoing assaults on Palestinian cemeteries across Gaza? The ...
In Harm’s Way- Comments on the War Against Palestine.
Dec. 5, 2023 In Harm's Way. by BNimri Aziz What’s the world’s fascination with dead, dying and orphaned children? Wait, before you condemn what seems to be callousness. My point is this: our focus is to the exclusion of those children’s fathers, uncles and big brothers? Intentional or not. Fascination or fixation, it’s basically the ...
MK– Mandela’s Secret Army A Film by Osvalde Lewat Reviewed by B Nimri Aziz Nov16/23
Revolutionaries are sometimes forgotten, despite their mission having been successful. Their struggle over, it’s often condensed to a single heroic figure, recast by history into a pacifist and a statesman. Nelson Mandela, for example. Revolutionaries unable to overthrow their oppressor or if they build a state that doesn’t comply with western interests, are dismissed as ...
Your War or My War
Your War or My War. By B. Nimri Aziz October 11, 2023 “We Are at War!” declares the Israeli leadership. Oh really? Do Israelis and their allies count only bombings and armored tank attacks as war? Then what have Israeli troops been doing daily and ceaselessly as they storm into West Bank neighborhoods, killing, terrorizing ...
Julian Assange Needs a Break
From Where Will the Breakthrough Come for Julian Assange? September 13.23 by Barbara Nimri Aziz Julian Assange is still imprisoned; journalism’s future is still in jeopardy. Delegates from Australia’s parliament are headed to Washington to appeal to the U.S. Congress on behalf of the Wikileaks founder. While anyone who recognizes the injustice of Washington’s insistence ...
Safety and Security Disappearing Even in New York’s Bucolic Catskills
Safe and secure? Or stressed and scared? by BNimri Aziz Aug 30, 2023 “Why don’t you just report it to the town council, with a photo of that cluttered yard,” I suggested to a neighbor complaining of piles of junk abandoned on an incomplete construction site beside her house. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that”, she ...
Nepal’s Political Theater Is Driving Its Citizens Away
Political Theater in Nepal Is Driving Citizen FlightBy Barbara Nimri Aziz 07/13/23 With unwelcome regularity, every few months Kathmandu Valley experiences a nationally watched theatrical production. This month’s will surely be unrivalled. Yet, each new production seems to outdo the last in commercial evaluations and the celebrity of its leading actors. At the same time ...
A Shortened Conversation about Malcolm X on Juneteenth
A Shortened Conversation About Malcolm X. by B Nimri Aziz. June 19/2023 “I’ve been rereading The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, I volunteered. It was a spontaneous announcement after Jim, my neighbor, and I puzzled over the forthcoming Juneteenth holiday, unsure precisely what it signified. (I eventually offered my more or less accurate explanation without an ...
A Reality Check on Our Polarized Lives (From My Radiology Exam) B. Nimri Aziz, May 24, 2023
Arriving for my bone density test at a downstate New York hospital, I’m delighted to again find Belinda in Radiology. When she does my annual mammogram, I learn more than about cancer. Although she readily shares her own breast cancer experience as she prepares her half-million-dollar machine. How she delights in describing its new features. ...
Syria, Alas. Is There Reason for Optimism?
Syria, Alas: Is There Reason for Optimism? We have a stingy agreement from most Arab League countries that Syria, one of its founding members, one of the area’s strongest Arab nationalist members, one whose policy has been the most uncompromising toward Israel, is readmitted to that capricious club. This assembly, however august, is hardly a ...
Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela Revisited. April 24, 2023 by B Nimri Aziz
It was only when I started reading a collection of this remarkable African leader’s prison letters (records from 1962 to 1990) gathered in a judiciously edited 600-page book that I began to grasp the powerful character behind the freedom fighter, prisoner and South African president. Many of us have seen the films “Long Walk to ...
Where Should Palestinians Search for Justice? By B Nimri Aziz
A London hospital removes Palestinian children’s art because it upset some patients. Meanwhile, seemingly unassociated, far away in The West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians men, women and children are being ‘removed’ from their homes through a daily sustained process of genocidal cleansing. So abundant are the grievances of Palestinians, so relentless the attacks on their ...
Syria Held Hostage by U.S.A. and its Allies. By BNimri Aziz 02/12/23
Perhaps the most agonizing experience for a family, for any bystander, even for humanitarian professionals, is a double tragedy—a death or calamity where they are refused access, where they are forced to helplessly witness suffering, unable to offer succor. This is surely what faces millions of able-bodied Syrians today. It affects Syrians within the stricken ...
Menacing Winter Wonder–from my window
Menacing Winter Wonder. February 6, 2023 by BNimri Aziz Those images from the December blizzard engulfing Buffalo in upstate New York were shocking. Hard to grasp the reality. That ghostliness was not only from the icy, white shroud covering everything. There were also the deaths of citizens who ventured outside, or who simply couldn’t get ...
What Was That Biden Said About Ending the War? By B Nimri Aziz, Jan 30, 2023
Commentators are busy speculating how the American president’s promise – endorsed by the country as enthusiastically as Zelensky himself– of M1 Abram tanks to Ukraine will affect the war that grinds on in Ukraine. Many assume that gifts of fighter jets will follow shortly. What disturbs me is the semantics of Biden’s announcement of the ...
Treachery to Some; Opportunism to Others—Horse-trading in the U.S. Congress. by B Nimri Aziz 01.15.23
Jacobin author Neal Meyer has pointed out what I too was thinking. The Left, indeed all of today’s Democrats, would do well to view as a lesson in politics, the successful far-right GOP strategy to bend House-Speaker-in-waiting McCarthy to their will. Liberal commentators watching the horse-trading on the House floor earlier this month, suggested their ...
Will BritRoyal Problems Persist through 2023 and Beyond?
Do Meghan and Harry Really Believe They Control the Narrative? by BNAziz Jan 6/2023 My sister in Canada once had an ardent although not excessive interest in British royalty. She's followed successive generations of The Windsors from the 1940s into the 21st Century. Now, she says, that’s over. First she refused to indulge the latest ...
Liberty for Julian Assange–Join Me in My 2023 New Year Resolution
from BNimri Aziz-- New Year wishes to my friends-- my new book is in press, so I can resume short commentaries, starting with my personal invitation for you to join Julian Assange's supporters. More work is needed. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s vindication seems-- maybe, perhaps, imaginably—achievable. It’s enough for me to publish my singular New ...
Nepal: it’s place in a future US-China crisis ?
The formidable peaks stretching across the north of Nepal (or Tibet in the south of China depending on your perspective) have up to now provided sufficient deterrence to military confrontation. With new technology that can easily surpass geographic barriers and with the growing threat of China beyond India to include the USA, the Himalayas hold ...
One of Syria’s Nameless, Unaccounted for …
There Was A Young Man from Dara'a (Syria, 2011-.... ?) by BN Aziz 02/04/22 Dara’a, Syria was the hometown of Khalid. In the years leading up to 2011, he lived between there and Damascus. He was in his 3rd year studying sociology at Damascus University. He shared a sparely furnished apartment in a working-class neighborhood ...
Poet and Artist Etel Adnan: The Guggenheim Literary Celebration Is Flawed
Esteemed Poet and Artist Etel Adnan Might Well Inquire about Her Missing Arab Companions, as Her Outstanding New York Exhibition Draws to a Close. Jan 8/2022 by B Nimri Aziz There are perhaps five million Arabs who identify as Americans, our earliest ancestors having arrived here almost two centuries ago. Many more Arab immigrants reside ...
New Arab film reviews by Barbara
https://barbaranimri.com/2021/09/tunisian-films-new-and-noteworthy/ Noteworthy, New Tunisian Films. Sept 2/21 by BNimri Aziz “A Son” and “She Had a Dream”, both from Tunisia, are among new productions distributed in the U.S. this fall through Art Mattan’s African Diaspora International Film Festivals. The compelling plot of “A Son” opens with the Ben Youssef family picnicking among friends in the ...
“The next road is always ahead” Oprah Winfrey by B. Nimri Aziz
Stumbling onto clips of “Back Love’ produced by Oprah’s OWN network, then recalling those pre-2020 election town halls Oprah hosted, I have to say what her work reveals about our so-called-progressive media: it’s damn elitist!
BNAziz remembers Nawal El-Saadawi (1931-2021) R.I.P
https://barbaranimri.com/2021/03/nawal-el-saadawi-1931-2021-radical-feminist-writer-critic/ I often quote one highly memorable statement by Nawal El-Saadawi-- a bold and brilliant retort to a question put to her by an NPR radio host many years ago. A lesson for me, but for others too. I was accompanying the Egyptian writer to the Manhattan studio of the national radio network, and sat ...
It’s Only a Lawn Sign; Well, Perhaps Far More. by B. Nimri Aziz November 2/2020
RIP Robert Fisk-- an extraordinary, exemplary journalist; he demonstrated the power of really good writing It’s Only a Lawn Sign; Well, Perhaps Far More. by B. Nimri Aziz November 2/2020 With quarrels raging over disappearing campaign lawn signs, rattled American liberals may now appreciate how being ‘a minority’ feels. Desecration and theft of lawn signs ...
What Can Americans Learn from New York’s Shrewd Governor, Andrew Cuomo? By B. Nimri Aziz, 10/28, 2020
Day 240 of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US; anxious New Yorkers are again invited to hear about changing conditions in their state and what the governor’s doing to protect them. Monday’s press briefing must be his 150th review of the stubborn unsettling disease.
Mocking Birds in This 2020 Spring by B. Nimri Aziz May 20/2020
Our seas and rivers look cleaner; our air feels fresher, quieter; our streets and roadways are abandoned. Panic shopping for household supplies has passed, only to be replaced by lines of mothers and fathers at food banks while UberEats and Grubhub hand-deliver to others at any cost. In U.S. detention camps, miserable crowds are shamelessly ...
Have Nepal’s People Managed a Healthy Breakthrough in the Covid-19 Crisis? By B. Nimri Aziz 04/25/2020
“We’re all going to die!” This feeble appeal came in a Facebook phone call with B. Thapa from deep within Nepal’s eastern hills. Our conversation was in early March when news headlines from Italy and the U.S. began to alarm Nepalis. With no information about the spread of the disease in his country, this schoolteacher ...
Reconsider High-Risk Granpas and Sanctions-SurvivingImmigrants as Untapped Resources by BNAziz April 02, 2020
We have a natural impulse to extend protection to the very young and to the old first; we offer sympathy and succor to traumatized refugees too. That’s reasonable. Our seniors and our children require attention as the most vulnerable; immigrants need support in unfamiliar surroundings. Professors speaking about historical precedents for the COVID-19 emergency invoke ...
Kaia Rolle: handcuffed and Arrested in America by Barbara Nimri Aziz
Kaia Rolle, Handcuffed and Arrested at 6—How Many More, and for How Long is This America? I want to never forget this child, or the thousands of US law enforcement officers like those in this episode who daily commit crimes similar to that against Kaia. B. Nimri Aziz While fretting over refugee children in freezing ...
Being a Democrat—Ugh by B. Nimri Aziz
It’s a rough time to be a Democrat. Notwithstanding the impotent Senate Minority. Not those ill-fated bills championed as victories by House Democrats only to be spurned by the upper chamber; not smug, elitist party fundraisers; not funding strategists and millionaire celebrity donors; not even bumbling Iowa Democratic party officials. I mean this forlorn orphaned ...
The Power of Our Human Voice, from Marconi to Woods Hole, MA. by B. Nimri Aziz July 12, 2019
Heard “Trader Joe’s” podcast yet? I don’t know who might listen to a 22-minute corporate ad. But, given how cool podcasts have become: hey, that sounds inviting. The idea is also an implicit endorsement for radio-- because that’s where podcasting originated. Yes. I don’t want to disenchant young progressives for whom podcasts are their go-to ...
Intimacies From An Awful War. “For Sama” by Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts, reviewed by BN Aziz
July 25, 2019 If you think you’ve seen enough of conflict, especially the war in Syria, you haven’t. From love of nation and loathing of military rule, from inchoate hope of redemption and improbable determination, indebted to lost friends and seeded in the birth of your child, comes an intimate demonstration of how war happens ...
Independence Rethink – any day is good to search American history
A few moments of holiday time can be useful to review some history we may think are well known. Here are two events to add to our repertoire of notifications and reflections in connection with US Independence Day. from columnist Robert Hennelly-- facts to remember about New Jersey state history. https://www.insidernj.com/flow-ebb-liberty-njs-lost-history/ NJ women had the ...
Abu Graib at Home in America. by B. Nimri Aziz July 4, 2019
“This is not what America is about” argues a reporter referring to revelations of misogynist, violent, racist behavior by employees of the U.S. Border Patrol ‘guarding’ migrants held in detention centers. Sorry Mr. Thompson (Propublica journalist who broke this story); THIS IS what America is about-- administrative abuse of vulnerable people, i.e. women, men and ...
The Problem of Our Self-proclaimed Progressives by BNimri Aziz June 12/19
“You can’t fatten the pig on market day.” Quoting an Australian electoral strategist, Guardian journalist Gary Younge warns “You can’t go around producing anti-immigration mugs, pathologising Muslims and demonising asylum seekers for a decade and then expect a warm a reception for open borders in the few months before a referendum…. “Sooner or later, progressives ...
Arab Women at Work– Simone Fattal’ NY Exhibition. by B Nimri Aziz
Retrospective Exhibition of Simone Fatal-- MoMA PS1, NY Even in New York, it’s not often one has an opportunity to view a sculpture exhibit on the scale of Simone Fattal’s 50-year retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art PS 1. It’s a splendid assemblage of work—247 items— from a prolific artist generously distributed over spacious ...
The Ever Dependable Bully on Embassy Row; Venezuela and Iraq Are No Longer Worlds Apart. May 26/19 by B Nimri Aziz
The Ever Dependable Bully on Embassy Row; Venezuela and Iraq Are No Longer Worlds Apart. May 26/19 by B Nimri Aziz Embassy raided; citizens starved by sanctions; coveted oil resources targeted--again. The United States is still punishing Iran for the 1979 takeover of its ‘sacred’ premises, its embassy in Tehran. By contrast, when American authorities ...
A Novel We Can All Relate To–The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami– by B Nimri Aziz. May 15, 2019
America is still discovering itself. The rise of Donald Trump alerted those citizens who held that they alone defined our culture and values to the existence of a significant population holding very different views-- and the will to back a candidate who might speak for them. (Thus, the most unlikely candidate entered the White House.) ...
Assange or Khashoggi: Whither Journalistic Standards? by B. Nimri Aziz
April blog https://www.counterpunch.org/.../just-another-spring-in-progress/ May1, 2019 Assange or Khashoggi: Whither Journalistic Standards? by B. Nimri Aziz During the media frenzy, diplomatic flurry and widespread speculations around a hitherto marginal Saudi journalist’s apparently grizzly demise in Istanbul’s Saudi consulate last October, my thoughts stayed with the deathly silence that had fallen around Wikileaks’ founder and director. Information ...
Snow, Roads, Birds and Plows blog by B Nimri Aziz Jan. 31/19
Shrugging off what’s called cabin fever, I depart, slowly, to test my car and traction on the roadway. I follow the country road along the Beaverkill River to town. A mile out, I notice something unusual—cars standing in front of each of two neighbors’ houses. I regularly pass these houses. I know that their owners ...
For Those Of Us Who Believe by BNimri Aziz Sept 30/18
For those of us who watched with innocence, then passion, then consternation, the results of the 1991 senate hearing for supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas; for those who championed film stars, then ordinary women daring, finally, to call out Harvey Weinstein and a stream of male predators; for those who watched with confidence the rise ...
How Many More Women Are There? by BN Aziz
Sept 23/18 How many more women await our discoveries? My question is not related to ongoing exposés of sexual abuse suffered by women under a culture of male privilege and dominance-- the culture known by the new trope #MeToo. What concerns me here is a seemingly unrelated silence and need for exposure, namely accomplishments of ...
I Really Can’t Cast Your Ballot for You, Ma’am by BN Aziz
“The fight of my life…”; ”Republicans take a sledgehammer to Medicare…”; “Triple your impact to STOP…”; “Lowering our chance…”; “What’s at stake? Everything…”; “Last chance…”; “Numbers don't lie…”; “They’re scared we’ll win...”, warns yet another slogan, and on and on. As if to say: “We (the Democratic Party) are scared, and we want you to ...
Literature Can Displace Anthropology
When I was well into my career as an anthropologist specializing in Himalayan peoples, I came across an historical episode concerning two no-longer living but obviously brilliant women who had performed remarkable political feats in the early 20th century. I undertook to uncover their stories, determined first because, inspired by feminist revelations, I myself was ...
Dearborn Blog 