Welcome to the website of M. Shahid Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University. Browse the navigation menus on the left to view his writings on pressing political, social, and economic issues of our time.

Most Recent Works:

The Zionist Stratagem | August 16, 2008

As a self-defined movement for the national ‘liberation’ of European Jews, Zionism had an anomalous relationship with its perennial Other, the Gentile nations, from whom it wanted the Jews to secede and become a distinct nation under a Jewish state.

The Zionists did not define Europe’s Gentile nations as the adversary they would have to oppose, and against whom they would struggle, to secure the rights of Jews to emerge as a distinct nation.

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Hizbullah: Has Israel Met Its Match? | April 14, 2008

On January 31, 2008, when the Winograd Commission submitted its final report on the Second Lebanese War of July 2006, this was a first in Israeli history: a report on why the Israeli military had failed in a war.

The Winograd Commission offers a quite honest appraisal of some aspects of the July 2006 War. [1] It acknowledges that it was “a serious missed opportunity.” Israel had “initiated a long war, which ended without its clear military victory (italics added).” The Commission notes that a militia “of a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East, which enjoyed full air superiority and size and technology advantages.” Nothing could reverse Israel’s handicaps: not even a massive ground offensive launched in the last days of the war.

Yet, after this clear-headed assessment, the Commission stumbles.

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Benazir Bhutto: A Pakistani Tragedy | January 2, 2008

On December 27, a little more than two months after her return to Pakistan from years of exile, Benazir Bhutto was killed while leaving the grounds of Liaquat Bagh after addressing a rally of party faithfuls. Daughter of the charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, possessing some charisma of her own, driven, talented, but lacking higher aspirations, the career of Pakistan’s best-loved political leader had been cut short by unknown assassins. She was still young at 53.

Did Benazir Bhutto’s life have to end this way?

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Islam Now, China Then: Any Parallels? | July 24, 2007

On some days, a glance at the leading stories in the Western media strongly suggests that Muslims everywhere, of all stripes, have gone berserk. It appears that Muslims have lost their minds.

In any week, we are confronted with reports of Islamic suicide attacks against Western targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Western countries themselves; terrorists foiled before they could act; terrorist attacks gone awry; terrorists indicted; terrorists convicted; terrorists tortured; terrorist suspects kidnapped by CIA; or warnings of new terrorist attacks against Western targets.

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Pakistan’s Mercenary Elites | October 9, 2007

In Pakistan today we encounter a paradox crying for an explanation; it is a paradox, moreover, whose exploration can bring some clarity to the predicament of the Islamicate today.

In January 2002, when President George Bush defined his near-term agenda for waging wars, he fixed his sights on Iraq, Iran and North Korea: the ‘axis of evil,’ marked for regime change. These countries were targeted – we were told – because they were developing ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ In the case of Iraq and Iran, this was only a cover. More likely, the two countries were targeted because they opposed Israeli hegemony. Perhaps, too, the US wanted their oil.

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The Zionist Question | September 21, 2007

In recent times, no nationalist project has been so completely mythologized by its partisans as Zionism. In the construction of nearly all aspects of its history, the official Zionist narrative is often at variance – even complete variance – with the facts as they are known to the rest of the world: and, more recently, even as they have been documented by some Zionist historians.

Yet few Zionists would deny one central fact of their history: and that is the history of violence that has attended the insertion of Jewish colons into the Middle East. The history of the Zionist movement in Palestine – it can scarcely be disputed – has been attended by violence between the Jewish settlers and the Palestinians; it has led to unending conflicts between Arab societies and Israel; and these conflicts continue to draw Western powers, especially the United States since 1945, into ever widening clashes with the Islamic world.

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"War on Terrorism" : A Lecture At American University, Washington D.C.

A talk delivered at a conference on "Islamic Law in the West," at Washington College of Law, American University, on Feb. 2, 2007. Click this link to download the .MP3 file.

New Book by M. Shahid Alam: Is There an Islamic Problem?

Real Men Go to Tehran | January 2007

The United States and Israel have been itching to go to Tehran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. That Revolution was a strategic setback for both powers. It overthrew the Iranian monarchy, a great friend of the US and Israel, and brought to power the Shi'ite Mullahs, who saw themselves as the legitimate heirs of the Prophet's legacy, and, therefore, the true defenders of Islam.

As a result, the Iranian Revolution was certain to clash with both the US and Israel, as well as their client states in the Arab world. Israel was unacceptable because it was an alien intrusion that had displaced a Muslim people: it was a foreign implant in the Islamic heartland. But the US was the greater antagonist. On its own account, through Israel, and on the behalf of Israel, it sought to keep the Middle East firmly bound in the chains of American hegemony.

The US-Israeli hegemony over the Middle East had won a great victory in 1978. At Camp David, the leading Arab country, Egypt, chose to surrender its leadership of the Arab world, and signed a separate 'peace' with Israel. This freed Israel to pursue its plans to annex the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights, and to project unchecked power over the entire region. The Arab world could now be squeezed between Israel in the West and Iran to the East, the twin pillars of US hegemony over the region's peoples and resources.

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The Clash Thesis: A Failing Ideology? | August 26, 2004

Instantly, instinctively, and unrelentingly, the American establishment has framed the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the language of a clash of civilizations. The Islamic terrorists attacked America because they hate our highest values, our freedoms, our way of life, our civilization...

This then is the ideology of America's establishment as it wages its "war against terror." The Muslims attacked America because they hate who we are. They want to destroy us because they hate our freedom, our opportunities, our democratic institutions, our way of life, our Judeo-Christian heritage. It is a hatred that is civilizational. It is rooted in the illiberal, intolerant, misogynist, anti-modernist, and anti-scientific culture of Muslims and their religion. This thesis is now spun a thousand times every day by America's politicians, press and pundits.

This ideology of the clash of civilizations is multi-layered. First, it seeks to explain to Americans and the rest of the world why the United States and the rest of the world must wage this war against terror. Secondly, the clash thesis ­ long championed by Zionist ideologues inside and outside Israel ­ is a device for Americanizing the war Israel has waged against the Palestinians and Arabs. Thirdly, the war against terror is itself a cover which the United States is using to establish a more muscular control over the world.

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Published in Counterpunch | Common Dreams

A Comic Apology | May 07, 2004

"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern."
- George Bush, April 30, 2004 [1]

This happens rarely--very rarely. An apology from the President of the United States, not for personal lapses, but for the rare slippage in the workings of America's virtuous, divinely blessed, civilizing mission to the benighted world...

Day after day, the mandarins and media in this country work tirelessly, cleverly, to project an image of an America that protects freedoms at home and abroad; an America that has time and again shed its blood to rid foreign lands of murderous tyrannies; an America that cares, that responds with alacrity to famines and calamities abroad; an American that contributes men, money and ideas to bring prosperity to the backward races; an America that has patiently served as an honest broker in the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.

As a result, year after year, most Americans are kept in the dark, unaware of the actual, the real America--the only kind seen by much of the rest of the world. This is the America that daily employs its might to mangle the lives of hundreds of millions, that pushes a globalization that devastates the economies of the Third World, that instructs and arms foreign tyrannies to terrorize their own people, that aids and abets an Israeli machine that is determined to extirpate the Palestinians. This America acts in the name of freedom, in any way that it sees fit and necessary, to keep the world safe for American capital. However, this dark side of America is nearly completely, nearly always, whitewashed by the myth-making powers of America's elites.

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Published in Counterpunch | Muslim Wakeup

World's Greatest Country? | March 23, 2004

On March 21, 2003, as I headed home, a day after the United States formally invaded Iraq, I ran into a colleague from Northeastern University--a professor of the humanities--at the Ruggles train station in Boston. I was aware of his political inclinations, and he of mine, from previous encounters. Still, I thought we were on friendly terms.

"I bet you oppose the war," he greeted me, as I approached him.

"Not at all," I shot back, " I wish to see Iraq liberated as much as you."

Although, it was only the second day of the war, and the bombs and missiles were accurately on target, it appeared that the tension leading up to the war had taken their toll on our colleague's nerve. He snapped at my banter. Agitated, he began to poke his finger in my face, while lecturing me about how "thankful" I should be about living in "the world's greatest country ever." Luckily, my train arrived on time--for which I am thankful--saving me from an unhinged patriot's harangue.

This was not my first encounter with the overzealous patriotism that often dominates political discourse in the United States; and not only among members of the zany right. All too often, politicians rally their audience with inflated claims of American greatness. The United States is "the greatest country in the world." At other times, it is "the greatest country ever," "the greatest country ever conceived," or "the greatest country in the history of mankind." When the exuberance soars, America also "kicks ass!"

Nearly as often, one hears of the United States as the great Samaritan: second to none at 'civilizing' half-breed races. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, the United States is the "the last best hope of mankind," no less. More frequently, it is "the shining beacon on the hill." Recently, John Kerry, Democratic Presidential candidate, roused students at UCLA, "I believe we can bring a real victory in the War on Terror. I believe we must, not only for ourselves but for all who look to America as the last best hope of earth." I have to wonder if the Vietnamese civilians killed by Kerry and his crew also looked upon them as "the last best hope of earth." [4]

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Published in Counterpunch | Scoop

A Muslim Sage Visits the US | September 26, 2003

Two years after September 11, 2001, when the righteous indignation of Americans at the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had cooled a bit, five Ivy League colleges decided to invite a Muslim sage to talk to them about why such horrible things were done to Americans.

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Published in Counterpunch | Dissident Voice

Is The United States a "Terrorist Magnet"?| August 07, 2003

Is it possible that a single metaphor, one that has dropped from the lips of a serving American general, can offer some forbidden insights into the dynamics of America's relations with the Islamic world?

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Published in Counterpunch | MediaMonitors | View Acrobat PDF version here.

Economics:

A Short History of the Global Economy Since 1800 | June 20, 2003

This is a short history of the global economy since 1800. It is about the system of global capitalism that took shape once the British economy went 'underground' and began to draw its energy and, increasingly, its raw materials from mineral resources.

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