Netanyahu’s failed attempt to replace Shin Bet’s chief violates longstanding Israeli political taboos, as the apartheid state’s internal power struggle spirals to a new level of crisis while Gaza burns, writes RAMZY BAROUD
What can we learn from Freedom, a landmark magazine of the cold war era?
During the height of McCarthyist repression in the US, black rights legends Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham launched a publication that drew the anti-imperialist connections that others feared to make, writes ROGER McKENZIE

IN A vain attempt to tidy up my clothes at home I came across a T-shirt emblazoned with “Always be yourself. But if you can’t be yourself, be Paul Robeson. Always be Paul Robeson.”
I’m not sure where I got this T-shirt but Robeson has always been one of the great inspirations of my life. He even had his feet firmly planted in two of my other great loves of music and sport. His bass-baritone voice was awe-inspiring especially for me with his rendition of Ole Man River.
Robeson was also — as I am sure many will know — a great athlete, particularly in American football where he was a college great. A feat all the more inspiring because of the way he overcame the racism that surrounded him which sought to block his progress.
More from this author

ROGER McKENZIE writes about late boxing legend Foreman’s legacy, from his part in Rumble in the Jungle to becoming world heavyweight champion at 45

The Guyanese scholar’s groundbreaking work revealed how Europe deliberately underdeveloped Africa while using its resources and people to fuel Western capitalism, writes ROGER MCKENZIE

China’s huge growth and trade success have driven the expansion of the Brics alliance — now is a good time for the global South to rediscover 1955’s historic Bandung conference, and learn its lessons, writes ROGER McKENZIE

The revolutions in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso against the old colonial powers are seldom understood in terms of Africans’ own agency and their rejection of the imperialist humiliation thrust upon them, writes ROGER McKENZIE