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6 documents
ISIS and the CIA Vie for the Claim to Divinity
Jon Rich
One would be hard-pressed to find evidence for which form of torture is more brutal: immolation or waterboarding. There is little evidence from victims of burning to describe the extent of their pain. Moreover, survivors of immolation generally haven’t experienced drowning in order to decide which is the more violent ending. We have also not seen proof of whether the strategy of self-drowning, in a sea, a river, or a public pool, has been used by Arab Spring protestors, Buddhist Priests, or…
e-flux Journal
Posted: May 1, 2015
Subjects
Violence, Death, Media Critique
The Communal Rift: The State Must be Defended
Jon Rich
The perpetrators of the crime against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo were French citizens. The fact that they are not foreigners is an irony and does not explain much, as many mistakenly perceived, about the factors leading up to the current (historical) moment. The fact that Western cultures see this as a paradoxical trait of modern societies points to a deeper flaw in the structure of modern societies themselves.
For the criminals at hand to qualify as French, one expects all…
e-flux Journal
Posted: February 1, 2015
Category
Migration & Immigration, War & Conflict
Subjects
State & Government, Citizenship, Terrorism
The Bachelor Century: Single Sinners Seeking God’s Job
Jon Rich
The Hymnal
Some out there are passing around a prophecy about Pope Francis that speaks of him as the last Pope of the Catholic Church. After him the sky will shudder and God will bring the flood. This seems to be supported by the Church’s familiar numeric appendage to the Pope’s name: he is the first Francis but not Francis the First. Is it a sign or some papal scheming?
Pope Francis wants to replace the gold cross with one made of wood. He wants to give the church back to the…
e-flux Journal
Posted: September 1, 2013
Category
Religion & Spirituality, War & Conflict, Migration & Immigration
Subjects
Secularism, Christianity
Facebook: A Court of Ignorant, Cruel Judges
Jon Rich
A Lebanese friend who happens to be a writer was telling me recently that he didn’t appreciate the comments posted in response to some of his articles on the internet. He happens to work at a well-known journalistic institution whose website has been suspended in a 1990s internet vortex due to some bureaucratic complications. Although his colleagues often complain about the woeful obscurity of their writing on this website compared to other less serious yet more influential media outlets, he…
e-flux Journal
Posted: October 1, 2012
Category
War & Conflict
Subjects
Social Media, Media theory , Middle East, Violence
The Blood of the Victim: Revolution in Syria and the Birth of the Image-Event
Jon Rich
In March 1993, Kevin Carter took a photo of a starving Sudanese child crawling towards a UN relief camp less than a mile away. A few meters from the weary child stood a vulture, waiting for her death to begin his meal. Birds also must eat, and in southern Sudan they were eating because humans were not. Kevin Carter stood across from the vulture, lit a cigarette, and took his shot. Twenty minutes passed and the bird didn’t move, waiting in its place as the child continued to struggle towards…
e-flux Journal
Posted: June 1, 2011
Category
Photography, Image
Subjects
Photojournalism, Middle East, Media Critique, Revolution, Violence
Camels vs. Google: Revolutions Recreate the Center of the World
Jon Rich
When Google enabled access to Twitter services through landlines in Egypt, the American administration erred on the side of caution. Google is the crown jewel of the American empire, but whereas the American administration manages ideas, Google deals in instruments and communication interfaces. During the revolution in Egypt, such tools proved their ability to animate the global public, while politics reasoned by ideas remains, as of yet, incapable of responding to chronic problems. We may…
e-flux Journal
Posted: March 1, 2011
Category
Internet, Democracy
Subjects
Social Media, Arab Spring, Protests & Demonstrations, Middle East, Revolution, USA