Published in Dawn September 28th, 2016
THE US elections have stoked excitement and fear among all, in and outside the country. The liberals hate Trump whom they think is dangerous and reckless and backed by uncouth rednecks; they say he would play havoc with civil rights if in power. A white Democrat American said (jokingly) to me that she would seek political asylum in Pakistan if Trump won.
Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2016
WHILE mainstream America goes through the frenzy of the November elections speculating and forecasting among co-workers, debating and fighting among friends and family, glued to social media, waiting for the first presidential general election debate thousands of Native Americans from all over the country have travelled to and gathered in North Dakota to put up a strong fight for their rights to water and their ancestral land, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2016
“I knew that my portion of the American galaxy, where bodies were enslaved by a tenacious gravity, was black and that the other, liberated portion was not.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates
WHILE everything appears to have changed for the better, almost gleaming, in the US this summer of 2016, what stays the same, I feel, is the status of African-Americans: you see black people as usher boys, janitors, guards, cleaners, salesmen. You find more black homeless people sitting in the parks and shabbily dressed, obese, sad-looking women on the streets. Indeed, when you read the 40th Status of Black America report, your observation is validated: the 2016 Equality Index of Black America stands at 72.2 per cent. Continue reading
Published in Dawn on August 11 2016
I HAD come to believe that the gloom that surrounds trade unionism in my part of the world was a global phenomenon, and that collective bargaining negotiations were dying practices. Not so in New York.
The public transit union, called Local 100, which represents 42,000 workers and retirees of the city’s public transportation system (subway, buses and surface trains), is currently gearing up its campaign for a new charter of demands with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), due in January 2017. The union holds elections every three years and negotiates a collective bargaining contract every five. In the first week of August, the union held a two-day workshop to discuss campaign strategy in order to win a fair deal.
Zeenat Hisam 