In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance.
As long as the Pentagon bankrolls the Pakistan army to fight its wars, and NATO troops remain in Afghanistan, there will be quarrels, charges of infidelity, a reduction in the household allowance, perhaps a separation - but a divorce? Never.
To dissociate politicians from capitalists is slightly disingenuous, to put it mildly. U.S. lawmakers are competitive and auction themselves to the highest bidder via the lobby system.
When I arrived to study at Oxford in October 1963, the bohemian style was black plastic or leather jackets for women and black leather or navy donkey jackets for men. I stuck to cavalry twills and a duffle coat, at least for a few months.
The patchwork political landscape of the Arab world - the client monarchies, degenerated nationalist dictatorships, and the imperial petrol stations known as the Gulf states - was the outcome of an intensive experience of Anglo-French colonialism.
'Theogony' should be read before the great Homeric epics because it gives an account of the cosmology that is taken for granted by Homer. It does for paganism what the Old Testament attempted to do for monotheism.
I am not insulted by billions of Christians, Muslims and Jews believing there is a God and praying to this nonexistent deity on a regular basis.
The human voice deployed to recite the Vedas and later aid the temple dancers was paramount before any instruments emerged.
In January 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations in response to Cuban nationalisation of U.S.-owned sugar plantations, banks and businesses.
We were constantly appealing for funds from readers when I edited 'The Black Dwarf' in 1968-69.
I am fully aware of the concept of political revolutions. After all, that is what we hoped might happen in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, but what actually happened was capitalist restoration.
History rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away.
In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction.
Scotland's political identity was destroyed, and a huge Scottish emigration to North America followed the brutal Highland clearances. These included every layer of Scottish society, not just the remnants of the defeated clans.
I am, in general, favourable to activism and social movements and hostile to graft and corruption.
The cinematic language and interior destiny of each Iranian film-maker is different. The international influences on them vary from Rossellini to Fellini, Akira Kurosawa to Hou Hsiao-hsien, but there is a strong sense of solidarity.
Indian classical music was born when time barely existed. It developed further within the structures of royal courts and a system of patronage where the ruler or the feudal master determined all.
Poland, after the First World War, was beset by chaos, disorder, and a foolish incursion by the Red Army, which helped to produce the ultra-nationalist military dictatorship of General Pilsudski.
The genealogy of fictional characters can become an obsession, like train-spotting, and should be firmly resisted.
The Greek city-states politicised citizen and subject, creating institutions that were way ahead of anything in China or India. The politicians of antiquity exercised a political and military, if not economic, hegemony on the culture as a whole. The idea of democracy was first born and practised here.
