Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

while my country was being ripped apart by coronavirus

“With  Charles VIII’s siege of Naples, not one scourge but two entered Italy. Before 1494, Syphilis probably did not exist in Europe; returnees from Columbus’ first voyage from America, who had contracted the disease in America, very likely introduced the disease to Spain. Spanish mercenaries at the siege of Naples (1494-5) suffered an epidemic that almost certainly syphilis , whence it spread throughout the continent. As the plague spread, the French called it ‘Neapolitan disease’, while Neapolitans preferred to call it ‘the French disease’.” —Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States – AD 990-1992 , 1992, p. 77 “A number of scholars have commented on how diseases ‘becomes adjectival’ since the late 1980s when Susan Sontag first highlighted how epidemics become a proxy for social disorder when metaphors are applied to them and ‘the horror of the disease is imposed on other things’. More recently, in a book that examined the legacies of plague in literature, theory and film,

Why economic recovery from coronavirus is widening the wealth gap

As of 27 July 2020, UK tops the list of countries with the highest deaths per thousand people.

“[ P]rogressives remain fixated on how to revive the world that engendered the present disorder. They constructed and managed that world, and it flattered their self-image as the rational vanguard of the species. It is only to be expected that they should yearn for the return of their now bankrupt authority. Yet few aspects of the contemporary scene are more laughably grotesque than defunct politicians and advisers demanding a return to the politics of competence and expertise that produced the dysfunctional euro, the ruinous Iraq War, the financial crisis, anarchy in Libya and the regime of globalisation that is currently collapsing.” State of the nation - we are entering a new age of disorder

Queer Festival postponed due to coronavirus I think the writer is not aware of the following fact:  The anti-homosexuality law is not a religious-based law. "As noted by Tunisian Law Professor Sana Ben Achour,  the criminalization of homosexuality  in Tunisia began with the passage of 1913 Penal Code, imposed by colonial authorities during the French protectorate. Previous iterations of the Tunisian penal code, such as the Qanun Al Jinayat Wal Ahkam Al Urfya (قانون الجنايات والأحكام العرفية), issued in 1860’s  under the Husainid dynasty , included no provisions criminalizing homosexuality..." [like in today's South Korea's constitution, for example] In the 1860s by the way Tunisians were Muslims! A similar law was passed by the French in Lebanon. Similar policies were either passed or encouraged by Victorians in the colonies. Even Muslim writers adopted the Victorian language of "perversion" in their literature. The British criminalised homosexu

Who does coronavirus kill?

How lives were destroyed under cover of lockdown

"The evidence suggests that this coronavirus does not discriminate, but highlights existing discriminations. The continued prevalence of ideas about race today – despite the lack of any scientific basis – shows how these ideas can mutate to provide justification for the power structures that have ordered our society since the 18th century." Genetics is not why BAME* people die of coronavirus BAME: Black and Minority Ethnic

Is it a coincidence that the two pioneer states of the most aggressive form of "neoliberal" capitalism at home and abroad in the last 40 years or so are so far the most affected by the coronavirus? How the Anglo-American model failed to tackle the coronavirus

What is behind the coronavirus nursing catastrophe?

A left of liberal argument Should we be scared o the coronavirus debt mountain?

The future of the Hirak movement

Doctors and activists face threats for reporting on coronavirus Take note though that according to WHO, Russia in 2013 had 8.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people. Germany had 8.3 me France 6.5. In 2016 Russia had 4 physicians per 1,000 people. Germany had 4.2 and France 3.2.

Young Afghani women building ventilators from car parts

In a  speech on Brexit  in Greenwich on 3 February, he made clear his views on Wuhan-style lockdowns. “We are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric,” he said, “when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage. “Then, at that moment, humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion of the right of the populations of the Earth to buy and sell freely among each other.” Britain's [and others'] response to coronavirus

Talking about Johnson Related "Structural racism in our society"?

Americans, coronavirus and conspiracy theories Turks and conspiracy theories Myths and lies in the Middle East

"Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France,  Ireland  and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE)." Half of coronavirus deaths happen in care homes

Immigrant UK doctors died from coronavirus Related Bloody Foreigners, a book by Robert Winder