Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Tracing the explosives

Rise in domestic violence Related UK domestic abuse Drop in crimes—a report

Writings on the column: "We want to burn your palaces" "Lebanon is ours" Heading for a meltdown?

" The protests have been remarkable for their territorial reach and the absence of political or sectarian banners in a country often defined by its divisions." Class remains the main determinant. "National unity" is a recipe of ignoring class and perpetuate the status quo in the name of "we are one nation, one people, etc. and let's all work together for Lebanon."

"Impossible to anticipate the spur for rebellion. In Lebanon, it was a tax on the use of WhatsApp; in Chile, it was the rise in subway fares; in Ecuador and in Haiti, it was the cut in fuel subsidies. Each of these conjunctures brought people to the streets and then, as these people flooded the streets, more and more joined them. They did not come for WhatsApp or for subway tokens. They came because they are frustrated, angry that history seems to disregard them as it consistently favours the ruling class." There is something that's ours on the streets and we're going to take it back

"The attack on the band [Mashrou' Leila] in its home country started with a series of threats and accusations of  blasphemy  by Christian fundamentalist groups a few weeks before their August 9 concert in Byblos, a tourist-favourite town north of Beirut that hosts an annual summer festival." 'Blasphemy' laws to punish gay-fronted band See also Activists in Lebanon have long fought to end the use of article 534 of the penal code to prosecute consensual same-sex conduct. The law is a colonial relic,  put in place by the French mandate  in the early 1900s, and punishes “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature” with up to one year in prison. It has at times been enthusiastically wielded to persecute LGBT people, often affecting particularly vulnerable groups including  transgender women  and  Syrian refugees .  Human Rights Watch

In Lebanon: New Waves of Hatred with Little Solidarity

Cinema Trailer followed by an interview Capernaum A film by Nadine Labaki 

Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries: is it safe to return?

Lebanon Good news for feminism! Lebanon is on the right track in "emancipating" women, following the "Western values" of "liberated women" and " our way of life"

An example of the people who have supported Bashar Al-assad's state crimes 

Survivor: Life After Cluster Bomb

Where are Syrian refugees registered?

"How the Syrian civil war has transformed Hezbollah"

Book review: The Political Economy of Hezbollah

Students movements on Lebanese campuses

"[T]he  aspiration of fractions of the Islamic bourgeoisie to strengthen their positions in the power structure, or rather to modify the place they occupy within the confessional political system, in order to better share the hegemony and not to change the system . . . This solution is not actually a solution; it will lead only to a worsening of the crisis of the system." — Mehdi Amel Hezbollah and the Workers

Hizbollah, Syria, and the Arab Uprisings

The Revolutionary Projects of Two Lebanese Communists Note: you may need a free subscription to download the PDFs file.

Life's Longing for Itself: The Art of Adnan Yahya,  An essay by Will Cloughley, MFA (Jan 2016)