Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

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

A big disaster for the Western civilisation: more Muslims will be migrating to Europe in the coming decades. Climate-exodus is expected in the Middle East and North Africa

Abu 'I-Alaa Al-Ma'arri (973-1057), a poet born near Aleppo, Syria We laugh, but inept is our laughter; We should weep and weep sore, Who are shattered like glass, and thereafter Re-molded no more. --- Religion is a "fable invented by the ancients".  So, too, the creeds of man: the one prevails Until the other comes; and this one fails When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world Will always want the latest fairy-tales. --- Among the crumbling ruins of the creeds The Scout upon his camel played his reeds And called out to his people —"Let us hence! The pasture here is full of noxious weeds. --- Hanifs are stumbling, Christians all astray Jews wildered, Magians far on error's way. We mortals are composed of two great schools Enlightened knaves or else religious fools. --- What is religion? A maid kept close that no eye view her; The price of her wedding-gifts and dowry baffles the wooer. Of all the goodly doctrine that I f

Syria The US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan when the war had already been won. The ‘rape of Germany’ by both allied and Soviet forces after the Second World War is indicative of this ‘victorious’ sense of impunity. The effective questioning of why a party would use disproportionate violence against another party betrays an implicit notion that the accused has an interest in not alienating the local population. Ironically, such arguments denying the ‘rape of Germany’ by supporters of the allies would have undoubtedly been repeated in the same terms: “why would our forces do this when we had already won?” Chemical attacks: why would the regime do it since it was "winning the war?"

Nancy Fraser: Marxism and feminism

Jalal Khoury "While the Lebanese theater traces back to the 1800s, specifically to 1848 and to Maroun Nakash, it has evolved in stages. Jalal Khoury helped to pioneer the realist, or modernist, movement from the mid-1960s until his death last December at the age of 84. Considered a trailblazer of modern Lebanese political theater, and banner carrier of the realist school, Jalal Khoury, a playwright, theater director, academic and artistic editor, remained a loyal disciple of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht." Brechtian realist forget by 1967 war, and the birth of modern Lebeanse theater

"The issue is not Sanders' own personal anti-imperialist credentials, nor is critiquing a worthy effort to end a war a holistic condemnation. The issue is the normalisation, without debate, of a "war on terror" that has produced a body count higher than that of the evil it is supposed to counter. Sanders' resolution, excluding this US war from debate on a US-backed war in the same theatre, reflects this." How a Bernie Sanders resolution is normalising "the war on terror"