Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“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 gallows, reviling his father, and urging the [executioners] to br

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