Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Revealing the human side of the Syrian revolution/war

“ The oil world I inhabited brought together geopolitics and the everyday. It was material and dirty, and bloody and wracked by wars, coups d’état and revolutions. It was a world wrought by political struggle on the streets and at the diplomatic table. Corporations, universities and security apparatuses all had a finger in the pie. And along with the people who worked the oilfields and filled the streets during demonstrations they changed the world in perceptible ways, sometimes suddenly and monumentally, as when Middle East and Latin American leaders negotiated better oil deals for their countries; sometimes gradually, through a series of unintended consequences.” A review of Disorder : Hard Times in the 21st Century by Helen Thompson Laleh Khalili’s critique highlights good missing points in Thompsons’ book. However, Khalili never mentions capital and profit and their role in shaping geopolitics. We blitzed it Related Carbon Democracy

Money, rights, violence

"This kind of neoliberal urbanization is happening in many parts of the world. But when you start doing it in a place like Dubai where there are not that many neighborhoods with history, you are pretty much getting rid of any connection to your past, even if that connection is tenuous and that past is not an extended past like you have in other cities. It’s a central loss. And it’s happening in the Gulf and in other parts of Dubai. I think this should be an important area for research—why this is being done, why there is no resistance against that. The developer who is doing this project, Meraas, is a private company. But it is owned by Dubai’s ruling family, so they are basically operating as a private developer but with access to all that land." Urban loss in the shadow of the Gulf urbanity

A ruling class that has allowed all this and squandered wealth at home and abroad (enriching Western cities, for example), while their Arab-Muslim brothers and sisters suffer under economic development, poverty and different sorts of oppression, should be overthrown. The next Arab revolution must be socio-economic or it will not change the fundamental. Dubai's upper middle-class  

I couldn't finish reading this. I was holding myself not to throw up. The return of Dubai's ultimate folly

Dubai's Labor Camps from 1950 to 2008