Rock, Reaction and Revolution

President of Burkina Faso . Burkina Faso’s Captain Ibrahim Traoré has emerged as one of Africa’s most consequential and controversial figures since seizing power in a 2022 coup. Amidst the mounting insecurity and frustration over the failure of the pro-Western governments, Traore gained public support to topple the government in 2022. Traoré’s rise evokes memories of another revolutionary figure, Thomas Sankara, the legendary “African Che Guevara” who led Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987 before falling victim to a France-backed assassination. Traoré’s rhetoric, his youthful energy, and his determination to forge a new path for his nation resonate with Sankara’s revolutionary spirit. Like the majority of African nations, Burkina Faso is threatened and exploited by France, the USA, and their Western allies; the country is subject to Islamist insurgencies. But as Sankara tried forty years ago, will he use extreme socialist policies to change Burkina Faso from the inside out, or will he just...

Photo by  Ahmed Abu Hameeda  on  Unsplash In the long history of Palestine, there was a time when the resistance was not shaped by guns but by pens, ideas, and voices. Some poets, writers, diplomats, and intellectuals gave the Palestinian struggle for freedom its cultural strength and political vision. They wrote words so that the whole world could feel the pain of a Palestinian and understand what it is like to be in an occupied land. In the 1970s, Israel systematically targeted and assassinated several of these intellectuals. The aim was to silence the brains of resistance and leave the movement without its most powerful voices. Five of the most prominent among them were Wael Zwaiter, Ghassan Kanafani, Kamal Nasser, Ezzedine Kalak, and Naim Khader. Each was killed far from the land they belonged to, yet each left a legacy that no bullet or bomb could erase. Let’s talk about these freedom fighters. 1. Ghassan Kanafani — Ghassan Kanafani via  Palestine Po...

Album Cover art featuring Bird on Money (1981) by Jean-Michel Basquiat/©RCA Records April 2020. I remember that morning clearly. I didn’t get out of bed. I wasn’t sad, just… blank. Everything felt heavy. Everything felt suspended, fragile. A pandemic had devoured the world. And in that strange stillness, two things were new. I had just started talking to someone who would later become the first love of my life, and that same day, The Strokes released their new album, The New Abnormal. Before that, I didn’t even like The Strokes. I tried listening to them back in 2017 and couldn’t connect. Maybe I was too young. But in 2019, I heard Bad Decisions, and it got stuck in my head for weeks. It was catchy, a little nostalgic, and a little sad. That song made me curious about what was coming next, so I waited for the album. And that morning, for some reason, I decided to give it a try. The opening track, The Adults Are Talking, cracked me open. That opening riff, Julian’s voice… an...