Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A passenger on the bus says… Nothing impresses me. Not the radio, the morning newspapers, Or the fortresses on hills. I long for a weep. The bus driver says: Wait until we reach the station,  And weep alone as you can. A lady says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I spoiled my son upon my grave, He enjoyed it and slept without saying goodbye. A university student says: Me neither. Nothing impresses me. I studied archeology without finding An identity in stones. Am I really me? A solider says: Me too.  Nothing impresses me. I guard a ghost that always haunts me. The angry driver replies:  We are close to our last stop,  Get ready to leave. They scream:  We want what is beyond the station, so go. As for me, I say: Drop me here.  I am like them, nothing impresses me. But I am tired from traveling.  —Mahmoud Darwish

A note on the current wave of social media videos in Egypt

"Junket Journalism in the Shadow of Genocide"

It doesn’t take Ariel long to get used to this new world without Palestinians. He and others do feel flashes of regret and fear. A bartender at the nearby Chez George tells Ariel, "Maybe the Arabs will crawl out of every corner like zombies and return to exact revenge." But twenty-four hours after the disappearance, no zombies show up. In fact, "They didn’t find a single drop of blood. They were relieved that the army either wasn’t responsible for the disappearance, or it had executed it perfectly.” The Book of Disappearance Related : Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel 

A new photo album

"Europe's so-called migration crisis can be understood as a fierce and multi-sided transnational social conflict of which racism and racist forces are one part. In order to understand racism in Europe today, then, it is productive to analyse the social struggles and structural contradictions associated with migration and border regimes which are shaped by racism and in turn shape racism's dynamic." The Role of Racism in the European "Migration Crisis" A must read

Why is the French left tearing itself apart over the pertinence of the term “Islamophobia,” even when this is one of the most visible forms of racism in France? No, we don't have the "right to be Islamophobic"

I am free—but Turkey is not

"Most Israelis have never considered the Jordan Valley occupied territory. Ever since our colonialist enterprise began, its settlers have been seen as “residents,” and even as pioneers, while its settlements have been seen as kibbutzim and moshavim – more stellar examples of Zionism. In those settlements there are no prayer shawls and ritual fringes – there are Jewish masters and Thai farm laborers, like in every kibbutz and moshav. Also Palestinian farm laborers who earn shameful, exploitative, criminal wages. The Labor Party, the first and foremost party of occupation, has seen the Jordan Valley as an inseparable part of any agreement ever since the 1967 Allon Plan, which deserves to be remembered and condemned because no other plan has done more to perpetuate the occupation." Please, Bibi, let the annexation begin

We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise,” says Proctor. Even though knowledge is ‘accessible’, it does not mean it is accessed, he warns.   Although for most things this is trivial – like, for example, the boiling point of mercury – but for bigger questions of political and philosophical import, the knowledge people have often comes from faith or tradition, or propaganda, more than anywhere else.”  —Robert Proctor, Science Historian, Standford University, the  BBC, 2016  

Book review "War in Syria: Resolving a Global Conflict" I think Ms Helberg, or the reviewer, is wrong in saying people " took to the streets without ideological blinkers " and among them was Yassin al-Haj Salah. It seems there is a lack of familiarity with Al-Haj Saleh's writings and positions. He is in fact a very ideological Syrian leftist who fought the regime, imprisoned, and he is still ideological leftist and anti-dictatorhsip and anti-imperialist. Dismissing ideology is a phantasy. The question is which ideology and whose interests? Is it progressive or reactionary, or "antiquated" as al-Haj Salah calls it: "Overall, the fast-moving current of antiquation that is engulfing us all appears to be a result of three springs merging into one: the spring of religion, which offers legitimacy to existing and soon-to-exist despotic authorities; the spring of despotic states that receive assistance and legitimacy from a world system cente

"Where's my favourite dictator?"

In Sheffield, UK, they are making "Britain great again"

Protecting Saudi Arabia is part of protecting geo-political allies, which is part of ensuring hegemony of some over others, which is part of enuring the survival of a regime, which is part of ensuring the outflow of capital, which is also part of fueling wars, which is part of "our European way of life", which is part of a long-term hypocrisy and trail of crimes and complicity in crimes.   "President Macron  and Angela Merkel  have signed a secret deal in an attempt to ease Franco-German friction over arms exports, notably to Saudi Arabia. The agreement is designed to stop Berlin from blocking the sale of French weapons that contain German parts to countries with questionable human rights records. There is anger in Paris over Germany’s human rights policy, which the French say is undermining attempts to move towards a common European defence. The row has cast a shadow over efforts by the two countries to relaunch their alliance." The Times online, 16 Septem

Syrian rapper Amir

Alongside the conservative nationalism of the right, which emphasises tradition, religion or ethnicity, there are liberal nationalisms that can be just as powerful and as exclusionary. Think of the way that British governments, from the 1990s on, have made a forceful distinction between deserving and undeserving migrants: for instance, in policing access to the welfare state. Or of the way in which supposedly European values of tolerance and free speech are deployed in order to stigmatise outsiders who, for religious or cultural reasons, are assumed not to share them. 'Protecting the European way of life' from migrants

"Stolen  [by Grace Blakeley] leads the reader through the various periods of Anglo-American capitalist development from 1945 to the Great Recession of 2008-9 and beyond.  And it finishes with some policy proposals to end the thievery with a new (post-financialisation) economic model that will benefit working people. This is compelling stuff. But is Blakeley’s account of the nature of modern Anglo-American capitalism and on the causes of recurring crises in capitalist production correct? An accessible read/economics made simple Theft or exploitation — a review of Grace Blakeley's  Stolen   Related: It's not just profitability