On the second day of August 1978, 3:30pm, at the Cloncurry Merry Muster Rodeo: in Roy Bell’s traveling boxing tent, a small Aboriginal man named Grub climbed into the boxing ring to fight a giant pugilist. Everyone thought Grub would be pulverized. With courage, skill, speed, guile, determination, and self-belief, Grub emerged victorious after three […]
A magnitude 6.6 earthquake strikes Athens. It was 11 at night, I still recall the TV show that was interrupted, the roaring sound, the trembling walls, the panic of evacuation. But also the excitement of not having to go to school and staying outdoors for days in a makeshift camp, a weird block party in […]
The first women’s demonstrations against martial law dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, who usurped power, abrogated the constitution, and hanged the prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Among other draconian acts, he instituted several antiwoman laws. The Women’s Action Forum was formed to challenge and combat these measures.
I remember that day. Neighborhood seemed a little empty. We were out with my brother playing. The air and the sun felt sharp, we enjoyed it. This (sic) is a photo of a scientist, a “liquidator.” I would like to believe that it is Vladimir Shevchenko, the director who filmed Chernobyl some days after the […]
A twelve-year-old girl is walking home from school. She is in uniform and wears black, pointed shoes. She lets herself in with a key, hangs up her coat (drops it?), and turns on the TV. Some time later, her mother gets home from work. The girl says: – I’m not going back there. I’m not […]
January 29, 1987, was an ordinary day in history but a very important day for me: it was on that day that I first emerged from collective life. I went to Hainan Island off Haikou, where I saw the ocean for the first time, realized my country was about to experience huge changes, and began […]
This day marks the beginning of the ongoing Kashmiri Insurgency, rooted in the separatist movement that demands autonomy from India. India continues to use military force to curb the issue, much to its failure. The Kashmir Valley remains one of the most volatile places in the world, with regular clashes between stone-pelting youth and the […]
On August 28, 1990, during Canada’s Oka Crisis, a convoy of seventy-five cars carrying Mohawk women, children, and elders were evacuated from the Kahnawake reserve in fear of an advance by the Canadian army. The path to safety meant driving through a highway underpass, where from above, Canadian citizens were able to bombard them with […]
Though he never had a political orientation, my father worked in Iraq as a propaganda calligrapher. Each time an event or reform happened, he would receive an assignment. He delivered without delay, and the banners would then be hung in the streets of Sulaymaniyah. Sometimes I had the feeling he only held the brush and […]
“The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.” From Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech, Pretoria, May 10, 1994.