May 2019
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Why Pakistan is Middle Eastern
Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, with Egypt as a control for rural, low-income societies, the author argues Pakistan scores like Egypt and unlike India on individualism, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence, and…
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Live blogging – Rethinking Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Live notes from a Cambridge lecture rethinking the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The speaker argues it was a seminal Cold War moment, that Afghanistan has been made and unmade repeatedly,…
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This is why Pakistan is a shit country-
Prompted by restaurants closed in Lahore during Ramadan, the author calls Pakistan an oppressive society, argues that blaming Zia ul-Haq misses the nature of Pakistan’s Islam, and claims religion there…
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Hollywood’s rising South Asian Starlet
A short note on Jameela Jamil’s rise in Hollywood, adding that casteism affects far more people than Islamist terror and that readers who demand evidence when he attacks caste show…
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Browncast Ep 36: Karl Smith, Communist to neoliberal
On Browncast Episode 36, Bloomberg columnist and former economist Karl Smith, raised in an orthodox Marxist family and now a nonpartisan neoliberal, discusses his experience as a black American intellectual,…
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Live Blogging – Brahmin Identity in Modern India
Live notes from a Cambridge lecture on Brahmin identity. Points include Brahmins as a traditional elite like samurai, social capital aiding adaptation, and a ‘Brahmin double’ by which Tamil Brahmins…
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When Brahmins get treated like Dalits; the world listens
Responding to an Instagram post, the author argues that white people must learn more about race, but asks how many upper-caste Indians would let their children play with Dalits, and…
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A Quick Question- when did Hindus revenge themselves?
The author asks when before 1947 Hindus or Sikhs took revenge on Muslims in mass violence comparable to Direct Action Day, to test whether the Muslim League’s fear of Hindu-majority…
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Islamic Extremists, Human Rights and Evangelical Christians
Asks whether Sri Lanka and similar small states will become the frontline between an Islamic caliphate and a Western human-rights and Evangelical empire, arguing that US-led wars justified by human…
