Girish Daswani

What an evening. Beyond grateful for what we made together.

Lecture available on line for 2 weeks.

This week! Make sure to register online!

YouTube video by Human Stories From Accra with Laughter: An art talk with Bright Ackwerh

Our panel "From Accra with Laughter" is now available. Ghanaian artist Bright Ackwerh speaks about his decade long sociopolitical commentary on Ghana and the African continent. This conversation was sponsored by the Jackman Humanities Institute's Program for the Arts.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFbQ...

OPEN LETTER OPPOSING US MILITARY INCURSIONS AND REAFFIRMING THE CARIBBEAN AS A ZONE OF PEACE We, Caribbean advocates for equality, security and development within and between States, note with grave concern the recent incursions by the U.S. military in the Caribbean Sea. This signifies egreg...

Open letter opposing US military incursions & reaffirming the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. In the words of the late Barbadian PM Errol Barrow, “we are satellites of none,’ and in the words of the late Grenadian PM Maurice Bishop, “we are in nobody’s backyard” docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I wish nothing but misery on the agents who talked to him. Nothing. But. Neverending. MISERY.

This is pretty jaw-dropping stuff.

2/ Far too many powerful Zionist stakeholders- including our college and university administrators, boards of trustees, and boards of regents - are guilty of supporting and enabling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Home - Gaza Tribunal How Tribunal Operates Chambers Steering Committee Administrative & Supportive Units More Updates Finance Calendar

1/ I’m testifying on university complicity in genocide on Saturday, October 25th at the Gaza Tribunal in Istanbul:

gazatribunal.com

Canadian Doctors & Medical Educators in the IOF One went to serve after October 7, 2023

What does it mean for IOF soldiers to teach Medicine in Canadian universities? How aligned is one’s service in an occupation/genocidal army with the Hippocratic oath and with Canadian universities and hospitals commitment to safety, equity and equality? See Sparrows4P 👇
substack.com/home/post/p-...

🐦🔎 Complicit Israeli universities in their own words:
On Oct. 30, 2023, HUJI put out a video on their youtube page entitled "Research During War". In this video, we notably get a sense of how not only Israeli, but also international students play a role in the country's genocidal machinery.

🐦🔎 Quick answer: Deep. Very deep:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

The University of Toronto has made a consistent point of surveilling and disciplining faculty members critical of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

When you read this, it becomes very clear why that is.

Palestine at Canadian Universities: How institutional complicity in colonial genocide is maintained

This is so significant: a new comprehensive report detailing the myriad modalities of Canadian university complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

static1.squarespace.com/static/68bf2...

Sharing an important resource on APR, Islamophobia, and Israeli partnerships on Canadian University campuses -by the Expert Task Force report on genocide complicity and repression of Palestine solidarity at universities across Canada. The report is available at www.institutionalcomplicity.ca.

How embedded within UofT have partnerships with Israeli institutions become? Quick answer: Very, very much.

How deep do UofT's partnerships with Israeli institutions run?

Quick answer: Very, very deep.
sparrows4palestine.substack.com/p/how-deep-d...

UofT has not funded or supported Palestinian scholars-at-risk (like they did for Ukranians feeling Russia). The data suggests that, rather than divesting or cutting ties with Israeli institutions, UofT is hardening its position and increasing collaborations with Israel [3/3]

Sparrows for Palestine provides evidence for a deepening of partnerships between UofT and Israeli universities. And how UofT intends to increase work permit applications for citizens of Israel. Meanwhile UofT has not released a statement on the war crimes perpetrated by Israel in Palestine [2/3]

How embedded within UofT have partnerships with Israeli institutions become? Quick answer: Very, very much.

Rather than limiting or cutting ties with Israeli institutions (which play an important role in providing logistics, manpower, and research to support the genocide) UofT has intensified connections to and collaborations with Israel. See "Sparrows for Palestine" substack.com/home/post/p-... [1/3]

As Alatas writes bebalisma "does not result from absence of knowledge of the subject" but from colonialism. As a result the fool "cannot awaken resistance against injustice." So, the question is: who amongst us has been exhibiting bebalisma these past 2 years of a genocide? 5/

Alatas writes that it is often in times of crisis that bebalisma is exposed. Education has less to do with this trait of bebalisma (since everyone has the opportunity to learn) and more with the inability of the educated to make use of this opportunity (to learn) 4/

Alatas writes"Bebalisma is a parasite of the mind." It "makes educated persons blind at some points in their thinking... those whose minds are dominated by some of all of the traits of bebalisma to the extent that they cannot function to the level required by the demand of the situation" 3/

Bebalisma" allows public commentators, academics, and intellectuals to be hasty in generalising. It has no respect for logic and evidence or capacity for a contextual appraisal of a problem, and arguments are marked by a lack of refinement. When a bebalian writes they are insensitive to facts 2/

In his book "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" Syed Alatas writes about "bebalisma." Derived from the Malay language-"bebal" in Malay means stupid, indolent, stubborn-the concept is meant to convey an attitude of wilful ignorance that coexists with different and diverse ideologies 1/

📖😍🐍 I am absolutely thrilled to announce that my edited volume "The Nile Delta: Histories from Antiquity to the Modern Period" is now available in paperback AND at a 20% discount on CUP's website! 🎊

🌆🌊🏦💥❤️‍🩹 The official poster for "Cities on the Edge: Documenting, Preserving & Teaching Endangered Urban Heritage in Egypt, Sudan and Palestine" workshop is out!
Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at AUC Tahrir + on zoom
rsvp: everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/s...

The Arab countries neighbouring or close to Palestine and Sudan have been one of the biggest disappointments in the starvation and genocidal violence we are witnessing. May all their regimes fall and may their people gain both courage and liberation for all.

I witnessed a Sudanese woman being policed by a non-Sudanese academic for using the phrase "world's largest humanitarian crisis" to describe the situation in Sudan, critiquing the term crisis and it was such a misplaced critique. Reserve that kind of language policing (1/2)

Using anti-imperialist, Decolonial language does not make someone’s analysis anti-imperialist and anti-colonial. Reactionary propaganda can dangerously be cloaked in such language and I’m not talking about the US context here.

Map of gold exports from RSF and SAF controlled areas out of the country (primarily to the UAE).

I recommend reading this report by Dr. Suliman Baldo @SulimanBaldo and Ahmed Soliman on gold and the war in Sudan. It demonstrates that most of the gold extracted from Sudan is ending up in the UAE, including gold mined in SAF controlled areas.

www.chathamhouse.org/sites/defaul...

Canadian universities too should be in Francesca Albanese’s report Canadian university administrators should remember that they too can be held accountable for genocide complicity.

This article argues why Canadian universities should be included in Albanese’s report. UofTs Anthropology department implicated due to connections to “Archaeology of Israel Trust”, which is "set up to make a “significant contribution to the archaeology of Israel""
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...