Jeremy Harding is a contributing editor at the LRB. His books include Border Vigils: Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World and Mother Country, a memoir. His essay collection, Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-Colonial Imagination, was published in March.
Last month’s release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks raised some eyebrows in France. Le Monde, one of the selected press outlets in the latest syndication, posed as the honest, bustling broker, in the manner of the Guardian. But Le Figaro (right of centre) got on its high horse to denounce the leaks and even Libération (left of centre) saddled up the donkey. What...
Two things we can learn about Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara from the US embassy in Rabat, courtesy of Wikileaks: 1) it’s a source of personal revenue for Moroccan army officers but 2) everything’s fine really.
One of the striking traditions of Remembrance Sunday is the wreath that the Foreign Office lays at the Cenotaph. All the other wreaths are made at the British Legion's Poppy Factory, but the FCO's is supplied from Kew. It represents the flora of Britain's overseas territories, so this year, for example, it contains Bermuda snowberry, slipper spurge (Anguilla), myrtle (Gibraltar), moss (British Antarctic), boxwood (St Helena), parrot's plantain (Virgin Islands) and tussock grass (the Falklands). This year the focus is on veterans of Korea, who headed the march past on the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
The two agreements struck by Britain and France on defence co-operation this week have not brought citizens out on the streets of Paris. There were worries – expressions of anger even – about Sarkozy’s decision to take France back into Nato’s integrated command structure last year, but this is different. The fresh-faced Cameron and the embattled, less rosy-cheeked Sarkozy are like two sons whose parents have frittered away their family fortunes: they must now find common cause and drastic economies, which means moving in together if they wish to remain in the ritzy part of town reserved for big military spenders.
At the military academy in Saint-Cyr, which he entered in 1908, Charles de Gaulle was known as ‘the great asparagus’. But aside from the fact that he stood six feet four in his socks it was his character that drew attention: he was rebellious yet aloof, sceptical yet sure of himself. Not everyone admired his manner and his height could be a nuisance. In 1940, when engine failure...
Jeremy Harding talks to Tom about the long and resilient reign of King Hassan II of Morocco, and its repressive measures, as described in a new book by Aziz BineBine, who suffered 18 years of brutal detention...
Jeremy Harding discusses the politics of migration.
Elaine Mokhtefi talks to Jeremy Harding about her time working in Algeria in the 1960s when she met Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver.
In his latest book Heaven on Earth art historian T.J. Clark draws on examples from Giotto to Picasso to provide an exciting new history of the depiction of the divine. He talks to LRB contributing editor...
Jeremy Harding and Adam Shatz look back at their pieces for the LRB reporting from North Africa and the Middle East.
Jeremy Harding examines the work of Malian portrait photographer Seydou Keïta and the lively collaboration between himself and his sitters in the years before Mail’s independence.
Jeremy Harding talks about the politics of migration and the battle at Europe’s borders.
‘In olden times, which is when God was deciding what blessings he would give to the countries he was creating, after a long while he finally got to Angola and he asked Gabriel his angel to...
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