Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Just compare how the media has been reporting about suicide bombings in Tunisia where one person was killed and  the 80 migrants killed "by the evil Mediterranean sea"

"The border in this sense is a very recent, twentieth century form of racial sovereignty. It is no more inevitable or natural than the existence of concentration camps. The fact, however, that it feels natural, that it has achieved the appearance of 'the way things are', that it seems inevitable, is an indication of how powerful the ideology is." The border as political fantasy

State violence Crammed into cells and forced to drink from the toilet in Syrian prisons? No, in American detention centres. "callous indifference to human life that is normalised among agents", [and among those who knew about and those who pretended that did not know about it.] Note: here too the dentention centres are called 'concentration camps'. I disagree with that. I think one should read about the British concentraion camps and the Nazi ones, for example, before using such an inaccurate comparison.  However, given that we are not in Syria or Libya, but in the richest country on earth [though not per capita] and, as the report states, it is not a problem of resources, and with all her bragging of "freedoms", "helping to liberate" Iraqis and Venezuelans, among others, it is an act of barbarism to treat vulnerable people in such a way. But should we wonder? Just look at the American prisons, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib ... Crammed into c

Reminding Europe of its responsibility is central to Hirzel’s work. “We should be ashamed. We’re hypocrites – talking about human rights, calling it ‘the boat of innocents’. But if they had survived we would have called it ‘the boat of illegal immigrants’. They’re just doing what people have done for all of humanity – when they need to, they move.  Sinking Without Trace

Civilisation "Denmark plans to house the country’s most unwelcome foreigners in a most unwelcoming place: a tiny, hard-to-reach island that now holds the laboratories, stables and crematory of a center for researching contagious animal diseases. As if to make the message clearer, one of the two ferries that serve the island is called the Virus." Denmark: Virusing migrants

“This is the supposed ‘natural condition’ of mankind, in which everyone is at war with everyone else, much as Thomas Hobbes described in his ‘Leviathan’, during the middle of the seventeenth century. But the state of nature is not in fact a ‘natural’ condition; it is a historical conjuncture”  Notes on Syria and the Coming Global Thanatocracy

In a recent article, former World Bank chief economist, Branko Milanovic reckoned there were two curses for European capital: immigration and rising inequality.   “The fact that the European Union is so prosperous and peaceful, compared both to its Eastern neighbors (Ukraine, Moldova, the Balkans, Turkey) and more importantly compared to the Middle East and Africa means that it is an excellent emigration destination. Not only is the income gap between the “core” Europe of the former EU15 and the Middle East and Africa huge, it has grown. Today, West European GDP per capita is just shy of $40,000 international dollars; sub-Saharan’s GDP per capita is $3,500 (the gap of about 11 to 1). In 1970, Western Europe’s GDP per capita was $18,000, sub-Saharan, $2,600 (the gap of 7 to 1). Since people in Africa can multiply their incomes by ten times by migrating to Europe, it is hardly surprising that, despite all the obstacles that Europe has recently began placing in the way of the migrants, t

At least 48 migrants died after their boat capsized off the eastern coast of Tunisia Kylie Minogue and Taylor Swift have expressed their sadness and love, and urged "a radical solution against the trafficking of people and a change in the socio-economic global system that kills people looking for a better life."

University of Cambridge: Modern Day Slavery Mastermind. Public issue Draft A 311-page report!

England On Owen Jones' Doncaster day out

French farmer on trial for helpng migrants across the Italian border See also Let them drown

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

"Its perhaps understandable why xenophobic rhetoric appealed to some Brexit supporters.  Resolution’s Bell  found that even though pro-Brexit voters weren't from places that had  ​recently  gotten poorer since the mass immigration wave, they were from places that had  ​historically  been poor — going back to the 1980s. These people have good reasons to be angry about the status quo. They’re looking for someone to blame, and immigrants are an easy scapegoat." "Irrational Xenophobia, not Real Economic Grievances" Here is what is missing in the analysis above: Support for UKIP "is even higher among the self-employed and business owners than the working class, and that is quite high even in the professional and managerial classes, who because are their substantial numbers actually provide the biggest bloc of UKIP’s class-based support . For all of these reasons the Conservatives, not Labour, have most to fear from UKIP ... Working class voters are a li

I salute MSF! Let Them Drown The Violence of Othering in a Warming World