ali ridha khan

academic | filmmaker | writes, thinks about the politics of emotion, aesthetics and happiness |

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On the Burden of Proof

A Response to Qibla's June 16 Statement

Jun 13 • ali ridha khan

After the Spell: Zohran Mamdani and the Speed of Betrayal

When we first wrote about Zohran Mamdani, our focus was not personalities but the dynamics of power—specifically, how power cloaks itself in solidarity…

Apr 23 • ali ridha khan and Joshua

Software as Sovereignty

On Palantir's Manifesto and the Return of Civilisational War

Apr 22 • ali ridha khan

When the Law Becomes a Weapon

The Malema Judgment and the Ascendance of White Supremacy

Apr 21 • ali ridha khan

No Normal Sport in an Abnormal Society

The anti-apartheid sports movement popularised a slogan in the 1970s and 1980s that remains unmatched: no normal sport in an abnormal society. The South…

Apr 2 • ali ridha khan

The Framework has Teeth. Use them.

Necropolitics is not a synonym for injustice. Invoking Mbembe without deploying him doesn’t deepen the analysis of Cape Town’s spatial crisis — it…

Mar 27 • ali ridha khan

Law Is Not Symmetry

On What DIRCO Got Right, and What It Still Owes Us

Mar 6 • ali ridha khan

The Liberal Rot Inside the Left

What corrodes the Left today is not simply the Right.

Mar 4 • ali ridha khan

How Liberalism Disarms the Left

What corrodes the Left today is not simply the Right.

Mar 4 • ali ridha khan

The Gulf’s Moment of Decision

Sovereignty in the Gulf now depends on whether hosting foreign military power protects stability - or transforms the region into the battlefield it…

Feb 28 • ali ridha khan