Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Palestinian-Syrian refugee opens Iraq’s first cat and dog hotel I wonder how many English would like this. Dozens of migrants killed as boats sinks off Syrian coast Good that ‘killed’, not ‘died’, has been used in the headline.

I like d’Eramo. “ while we pursue such extravagant schemes, we are simultaneously condemning this small, singular, fabulous planet of ours to destruction.” Exploiting the cosmos

  Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others. ―  Simone Weil

Thrashed for theorising

 

 

“Could we say … that the prioritization of form is detrimental—almost hostile—to the recollection of context? If we did, we would not be the first. Indeed, formal analysis has often been taken as an anti-political distraction or bourgeois salve for psyches incapable of grasping larger, more worldly contradictions: the small, beautiful thing has always been pitted by critical voices against the forgotten social reality. Still, it seems important to note that form is able to reduce and disarm our awareness of context only because awareness of context is so difficult to maintain; it depends on the comprehension of something intangible and hulking in the background, of that which necessarily exists outside the lines. And the rub: any overarching network of conditions—but especially those of global capitalism—is one we ourselves are implicated in and shaped by. We live and move in the same context that produces the forms we espy. No wonder we would rather see the form by itself. Isolated, i...

“We paid the price twice” for Bashir’s dictatorship, says Amjed Farid, the opposition activist. “We got rid of the tyrant who was supporting terror, through a popular revolution that we paid for with our blood. And now we are paying the price for this tyrant, even though we were his first victims.” “Is this justice?”

The violence in Leicester Related The forsaken ones

Context: The revolution of 1905-1911, the Anglo-Russian active opposition to the revolution, the abdication of a shah and ascendance of another, reactionaries and conservatives continued to promote royalism and the execution of one of them–Fazlullah Nuri*.  “My countrymen I loathe and execrate,   My country is the object of my hate!   I represent the Monarch wise and great,   Who to my hands commits the nation’s fate!   ‘Tis time for breakfast. Put this business through!   Who bids? Who bids? Come Sir, a bid from you!” Quoted in E. G. Browne’s The Press and Poetry of Modern Iran , 1914, Cambridge University Press  * Nuri “was hanged in his turban and cloak, an eloquent tableau of clerical authority subordinated to  profane law. It is a telling commentary on the spread of constitutional ideas that the sentence was endorsed by many of the senior ulema of Iraq, as well as Nuri’s own son, Mahdi, who ‘stood at the foot of the g...

Cancelling the future Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life Related Capitalist Realism - Is There no Alternative?

  وأَنتَ تُعِدُّ فطورك ’ فكِّرْ بغيركَ [ لا تَنْسَ قُوتَ الحمامْ ] وأَنتَ تخوضُ حروبكَ، فكِّر بغيركَ  [لا تَنْسَ مَنْ يطلبون السلامْ] وأَنتَ تُسدِّدُ فاتورةَ الماء، فكِّر بغيركَ [مَنْ يرضَعُون الغمامْ] وأَنتَ تعودُ إلى البيت، بيتِكَ، فكِّرْ بغيركَ [ لا تنس شعب الخيامْ] وأَنت تنام وتُحصي الكواكبَ، فكِّرْ بغيركَ [ ثَمَّةَ مَنْ لم يجد حيّزاً للمنام] وأَنتَ تحرِّرُ نفسك بالاستعارات، فكِّرْ بغيركَ [ مَنْ فَقَدُوا حَقَّهم في الكلامْ] وأَنتَ تفكِّر بالآخرين البعيدين، فكِّرْ بنفسكَ [ قُلْ: ليتني شمعةٌ في الظلامْ]

An Extinction Rebellion that cannot rebel. A Trade Union Congress that bows in front of class rule. An excellent article by Chris Hedges Related

Man must assert his native rights, must say ;  We take from Monarchs’ hand the granted sway;  — Shelley, an English poet     Separating the “human” from the institution, and the “family” from the “monarchy” has long been a successful tactic in preventing searching scrutiny of the institution. She faithfully served the British imperial project Related Insurgent Empire

There are two kinds of philosophy in the world: one of them is to the effect that there is nothing in the world which is ours, so we must remain content with a rag and a mouthful of food. The other is to the effect that everything in the world is beautiful and desirable, that it does and ought to belong to us. It is the second which should be our ideal … as for the first, it is worthless, and we must pay no attention to it.   Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī  (1838/39-1897), quoted in Kedouri’s Afghani and ‘Abduh , p. 15, 1966. Al-afghānī did not conceal his opposition to Ismai’l Pasha [the viceroy of the Ottoman sultan in Egypt], exclaiming in a speech he delivered to the fellahin [peasants] in Alexandria,  ‘Oh! You poor fellah! You break the heart of the earth in order to draw sustenance from it and support your family. Why do you not break the heart of your oppressor? Why do you not break the heart of those who eat the fruit of your labour?’ Ibid., p. 25

Excerpts from The Islamic Enlightenment

So what if Putin likes Dostoyevsky? Related “ Lithuania - together with Latvia, Estonia and Poland - banned all Russian tourists , arguing they should not be enjoying democracy and freedom in Europe while their government attacks those very values in Ukraine.”

From Imamate to the present

  If the queen had apologized for slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism and urged the crown to offer reparations for the millions of lives taken in her/their names, then perhaps I would do the human thing and feel bad. As a Kenyan , I feel nothing. This theater is absurd. Criticism of British empire intensifies Related Dozens of staff at King Charles’s former residence told they could lose jobs

  Táhireh / Qurrat al-Ayn  (1814/17-1852)