Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“The connection between the human condition and labour is frequently forgotten, and for me was always so important. At 16, I went down a coal mine in Derbyshire and spent a day on the coal face – just watching the miners. It had a profound effect.” What did it make you feel? “Respect,” he says quietly. “Just respect. There are two kinds. Respect to do with ceremony – what happens when you visit the House of Lords. And a completely different respect associated with danger.” He says: “This is not a prescription for others, but when I look back on my life I think it’s very significant I never went to a university. I refused to go. Lots of people were pushing me and I said, ‘No. I don’t want to’, because those years at university form a whole way of thinking.” And you feel free from that? “Yes.” John Berger: 'If I'm s storyteller, it's because I listen'

Trade is no longer rising

When Western governments, "NGOs", CIA, etc pour money and agents in some countries to influence elections outcomes and make sure that the winner is their ally, does no make it to the news headlines, but considered conspiracy theory. When suddenly something is unearthed because there are elelection in a Western country and rivals are at each others' throes, then it is news. “I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.” Hillary Clinton, 2006

In Chinatown, London: Swoop and rescue 

Hundreds of migrants dead? the BBC. Well, Let them Drown

هل تعرفون القتلى جميعا؟

How Britain Destroyed the Palestinian Homeland

"The Assad regime has become a representative of the internal First World in Syria, the Syrian whites. I think the elites in the West find Bashar al-Assad more palatable than other potential interlocutors. He wears expensive suits and has a necktie, and, ultimately, these elites prefer a fascist with a necktie to a fascist with a beard. Meanwhile, they don’t see us, the Syrian people. Those who are trying to own the politics of their own country have been rendered invisible." Syria's "Voice of Conscience" Has a Message for the West

A Dr.  preaching neo-orientalism, imperialism and patronizing other countries , brandishing an empty term ("democracy) of the West, i.e. the capitalist, imperialist democracy of the Western powers that we have seen in practice not only in wars and occupations, but in IMF adjustment programmes, in global capitalism's uneven development, in plunder by corporations, in NGOs working with repressive regimes and perpetuating power structure, in Western powers working with local regimes in aborting, diverting or co-opting uprisings or confining it to the parliamentary capitalist democracy, oppression within the undemocratic European Union itself, level of corruption on an unprecedented scale, driving down wages, undermining unions (even banning people from joining a union), gambling with pensions, corporatization of education, undermining academic freedom, a development of an oligarchy and a mediaocracy, depolitization, passivity and narcissism, a plague called identity politics ins...

In a foundational work of medical literature, The Welfare of Bodies and Souls (Kitāb maṣāliḥ al- abdān wa al-anfus) of Abū Zayd al-Balkhī (849–943), we find the author stating:  "The best drink that humans, through their reason and understanding, have devised a means of producing, is the refined grape-drink among whose properties is that it intoxicates [al-sharāb al-ʿinabī al-raqīq alladhī min ṭabʿi-hi al-iskār]. It is, of all beverages, the most noble in essence, most superior in composition, and most beneficial—if taken in moderation, and not to excess." Abū Zayd is, of course, speaking of grape-wine. "The benefit of a substance to the body lies in what the substance provides the body by way of health and strength, whereas its bene t to the soul lies in what the substance provides the soul by way of happiness and ani- mation: for these two things—I mean: health and happiness—are the end to which all people strive in this world; and they are not found together in...