Defining Racism1

My scorn for people who care too much about anti-white racism is not because I am part of the “you can’t be racist to a white person” crowd (anymore).

Because then you have to redefine racism. It can get convoluted very quickly. This redefining of racism becomes like throwing a dart then drawing the target around it after the fact. You can be racist to a white person. In fact, I have an issue with anti-racists who conflate character with identity. The focus should be structural issues2.

When we claim that concepts, like race, are entirely socially constructed, and we define those concepts entirely based on power dynamics, we cannot reconcile competing ideas when power structures are complex.

Consider:

• if a Black non-Muslim and a Brown Muslim disagreed, then who is right? (Bearing in mind that when we define race and racism according to power structures, then Islamophobia is considered a racism.)

• an anti-queer Brown Muslim and a racist white queer (because the hate isn’t one sided, contrary to what is claimed. Just because those who don’t hate queers have been holding our tongue in the moment of queer persecution, it doesn’t mean that there are not legitimate grievances). Who is right?

On the one hand, the categorisation of “racial” differences is socially constructed and to the interests of empire. So how race is understood is to political and economic interests. On the other hand, claiming that those understandings have no basis in reality seems a bit far-fetched. The average Algerian looks different to the average English who looks different to the average Nigerian.

I don’t have to adopt Enlightenment understandings of social justice to navigate anti-Muslimness or anti-Arabness or any other social issue. I have my own understandings, thank you very much.

You can be racist to a white person.

But that racism isn’t structural.

Structural Racism3

Have you noticed that the people who care so deeply about anti-white racism have absolutely nothing (at best) to say when:

• black people are seven times more likely to be killed in police custody compared to white people in the UK according to 2023 data.

• Tommy Robinson and his ilk mobilise against “Asian grooming gangs”. It didn’t age well. That energy from the mass media is much less for the bad man prince who is walking free instead of behind bars— where he belongs. The media and the likes of Tommy Robinson don’t care about these horrible issues and the bad people who view everyone else as slaves- they only care depending on the profile of the victim and perpetrator. It’s a disservice to victims who don’t fit that profile. All victims of this sort of thing should see justice. And if I’m being vague and not thorough, it’s because I’m not out here trying to derail my day by spending 30 minutes thoroughly researching Epstein.

• Muslims are criminalised for dissenting against the imperialism which impacts their own families4- racial statistics aren’t available for PREVENT. So I’m resorting to speaking anecdotally. From what I have seen, Arabs and South Asians are more likely to be perceived as extremists. Whether that is because that imperialism is more personal to them so they are more likely to speak out, or racism per se— I don’t know.

• non-whites have a much harder time finding employment.

I Don’t Believe In Whataboutism

Even when it suits me to believe in the concept.

What moves you to speak and what doesn’t move you to speak indicates one’s priorities. And if you have nothing to say— at best— about structural racism (i.e. that racism embedded in legislation and to the interests of influential actors), but lose your cool when a white person is told that they can’t cook… ask yourself what your priority is.

Your priority is not anti-racism.

• my series on the 1945 Algerian Genocide went live. Check it out if you haven’t already (it took me three months of researching)!

• 4 more pages of Devils on Stallions (the Sudan zine) went live;

• two more chapters of A Nottingham Zine for Palestine went live, featuring a conversation with Uncle (a Palestinian-Ukranian Uncle who resisted during the First Intifada. Also author of It Is War or The Strong Are Shameless);

• towards the end of July, I finally decided to believe everyone telling me to stop being an art churning machine TvT.

Devils on Stallions

In previous political zines that I made, I spelled out facts of political situations as I see them. That has its place, as seen in Joe Sacco's work for instance. But with this comic, I wanted to integrate these realities through both art and writing as themes.

The name of the comic is based on the word "Janjaweed"- meaning "Devils on Horseback". The Janjaweed are an armed group in Sudan which produced the RSF, which is currently committing genocide in Sudan (and the Sudanese Armed Forces which are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity). The RSF is funded by the United Arab Emirates, although the Emirates deny it. I replaced the word Horseback with Stallions because Stallions is more bougie and carries connotations of nobility (which is juxtaposed with devils).

Also I've included gold leaf as a visual theme: the UAE's largest export and source of wealth is its gold markets, despite the UAE having no gold mines. Instead, this gold is smuggled by Sudan from mines which the RSF controls.

I’m new to learning about Sudan. Reflecting on how art carries visual meanings put my perfectionism and procrastination on steroids. But my motto is doing a good job in real life is better than perfect just in my head. I am currently reading more about Sudan’s 2019 revolution which sparked this genocidal war. If you have any good books to recommend, please don’t hesitate to mention them!

A Nottingham Zine for Palestine 2

I Am No Longer A Homo Churn-Art-omicus

Yeah after finishing therapy I realised that really I shouldn’t have been pushing myself anywhere near as much as I did this past year. I am finally listening to what my body was telling me the whole time. I guess working on art all the time helped me get through undiagnosed illness, but I’ve treated it now and trying to get back on my feet. I am now believing what my body is telling me, but miss the productivity that I enjoyed while being a triggered PTSD-wreck.

After everything that has happened in the past three years, I hope that we Muslims can stop calling anti-Islam a racism. This essay isn’t meant to be intensive or rigorous— just unfiltered.

But what do I meant by racism?

I would define racism as the view that people are inferior because of their lineage. Yet, lineages are mixed anyway and race is a social construct, which shows that racism isn’t a product of biology but rather something that we are socialised into. In this vein, racism is frequently to the interests of the state and transnational actors, which is different to someone just being mean. In other words, capitalism is racial. Consider how the GDP per capita of countries today occurs along a roughly white-supremacist continuum (I am using this as a rough illustration- I’m assuming that the reader has a similar understanding that racism is not just organic and interpersonal. Proving this point that it’s structural would be a total thesis and I’m not about to write that lol).

You can convert into Islam but you can’t convert into a different lineage. In fact, trying to do the latter would cause extreme offence. So claiming that being Muslim is a race reads as a little inconsistent.

In these brief reflections, I will focus on one anti-Muslim legislation in the UK just to illustrate my point. I’m talking about the prevent programme, which has seen nursery kids reported for mispronouncing cucumber (thought to mean cookerbomb) and for having a parent who plays fortnight (his dad has “guns and bombs in his shed”). Yeah— sounds like something someone would make up as a joke.

The Prevent programme is a mandatory piece of legislation that says that it aims to pre-emptively stop terrorism by addressing “the personal, ideological, and social factors which make people more susceptible to radicalisation”. Radicalisation is not really clearly defined, and it remains difficult to empirically prove the effectiveness of the programme when it is pre-criminal. Additionally, one may ask: would such radicalising factors include the economic and political violence of racial capitalism?

Spoiler alert: they do feature. Just in a way that criminalises dissent.

One category of radical in this programme is the Islamist radical. In 2023/2024, 23% of referrals made were for what is called Islamist radicalisation, despite British Muslims making up 6% of the UK population. In 2016/2017, it was 61%.

Islamist usually means someone who takes inspiration from Islam in all aspects of their life, more particularly in the political sphere. Yet, this term is applied selectively. When a Muslim leader is democratically elected while drawing on Islam, such as in Egypt, they are Islamists. Yet, those who draw on Islam or another religion to justify coups and bloodbaths1 or genocidal aggression are considered neither Islamists/ a Jewish version of the label, nor radicals. So it’s not really about drawing on Islam, or any religion, in politics or killing innocents- really it’s about the interests of the state.

This is not surprising at this big apocalyptic year of 2026; we have all seen the British state criminalise those trying to stop killing of babies, whereas those who snipe infants in the head, chest, and elsewhere are protected2. Those criminalised are overwhelmingly white and non-Muslim, so really it wasn’t the race or Muslimness per se that was ever the problem. If you’re Arab and even if you wear hijab, you won’t actually run into that many problems in the UK if you stay apolitical (which hijab has meanings in a way that a race doesn’t).

Muslims were more likely at some point to dissent, especially if their family bear the brunt of racial empire. We mistook that repression as racism rather than a logical result of opposing the state anywhere.

Before anyone get too happy, anti-Muslim hate is still bad- it’s tied to justifying empire and that’s what makes it the problem. It’s just not a racism. Racist is not the only bad thing that someone can be.

How anti-Islam and anti-Muslim hate are conceptualised is important because it shapes how Muslims understand the reactions that they receive and how they show up.

So I hope that we can retire that understanding already.

What are your thoughts? These are very much off-the-top of my head reflections that are not intended to be thoroughly researched. If you have philosophical, historical, macro-political or other micro-political reflections please don’t hesitate to comment.

Growing up Muslim, I knew the virtues of fasting in Islam. There are so many:

• attaining mindfulnes of Allah.

  يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ ١٨٣

  You who believe, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may be mindful of God.

  The Cow (2:183)

• fasting expiates afflictions

  Hudhaifa said, “I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, ‘The affliction of a person in his property, family and neighbors is expiated by his prayers, fasting, and giving in charity.”

  Sahih al-Bukhari 1895

• the gates of paradise open in Ramadan, while the gates of Hell are closed, and the shayateen (plural of shaytan) are locked up. People usually think of an evil djinn when they refer to shaytan, but Surah An-Nas/the Qur’anic chapter titled Mankind indicates that evil prompters can be humans too. That includes the evil prompting of the self.

But, I could never understand why the act of not eating or drinking per se linked to mindfulness of Allah- it actually felt like the opposite with the hanger and lack of energy.

And, okay, it expiates afflictions. I didn’t understand why, but I guess I don’t have to.

The final point was the dealbreaker though. After the first week of spiritual high and motivation ended, I felt like I was actually my worst self in Ramadan. Which sucks, because it’s not even a devil inciting me to do that. It’s all me.😔

This feeling of not having reached my full potential in Ramadan, and having actually been a worse version of myself, has often led me to fast voluntarily after Ramadan over the years. Then the same thing would happen- it would bring out the worst in me so I would stop.

Recently I have been reading about the subconscious and trying to better myself. I won’t overshare on the internet. But I want to change some associations that I have that only float to the surface when I’m stressed.

I’ll fast to induce the stress, I thought to myself.

…

Then it all clicked.

It is not the literal act of abstaining from food and drink that has all these virtues. Rather, the opportunity to intentionally induce the worst of yourself carries immense potential for improving oneself spiritually and as a person.

That is why fasting is so virtuous.

(If this was of benefit, please make a duaa for me. And if it was obvious to you the whole time, please try not to patronise. The connection between abstaining from food and drink and attaining mindfulness of Allah was never clear to me growing up.)

My Grandma Taught Herself How To Read And Write In Old Age

Aforementioned literal interpretations on this topic predate colonialism. However, I believe that colonialism (and slavery) put these superstitions on steroids.

Forget analysing metabolism, neurochemistry, cell biology, etc in the labs. Forget delving into the unseen world of the subconscious. These communities were deindustrialised by colonialism and slavery, and were subject to explicit policies of illiteracy, in some cases. Most Algerian elders, for example, don’t know how to read or write to begin with (thanks France).

So imagine this: colonised communities would hear of someone mean burning a spell around their kind daughter-in-law; now she is experiencing heart-breaking fertility issues. Or someone sexually abused an innocent; now they’re behaving in ways they wouldn’t usually. That abused, sensitive person; they’re hearing voices.

The hex summoned a demon to literally physically dislodge the foetus. The immoral abuser cast an envious curse onto the abused, like lasers shooting from their eyes. And that sensitive young man? Well, he actually saw the demon, for Allah’s sake!

It’s not substance poisoning- thousands of years of practice which produced the knowledge of how to impact the body in specific ways. It’s not the hypersexuality that unfortunately keeps too many abused under the shadows of the past. It’s not illness in the brain.

It’s a djinn.

Finding Out That There Are Other Interpretations… Plus Undiagnosed PTD

So last year, I had undiagnosed PTSD. My belief in these superstitions was partly a reason for my diagnosis taking so long.

(Also medical bureaucracy in Qatar that forced me to go private. Before that was the state of the NHS. The NHS can only afford to care if they see a potential serial killer and national inquiry in you. And I don’t blame selfless NHS workers either. I blame capitalism. Also, I blame the same politicians who opened the NHS’ data wide for Palanatir’s grubby hands to rummage through our sensitive information.)

Anyway, one day my mum decided to break it to me that there are nonliteral interpretations to the Qur’anic ayahs (verses) and Prophetic hadiths (sayings) that talk about magic and evil eye. I lost the document, but such interpretations conceive of magic as mind games, for instance. At the crux of “good” magic is psychology and herbal remedies. At the crux of “bad” magic is mind games, manipulation, and poisoning.

(By the way, if there is material, undisputable evidence that someone is poisoning people, I consider that a criminal offence. I would say that if the whole village hates you, there must be truth to what they’re saying surely lmao but that would be unfair. That was just misogyny and medieval European paranoia… Eve and Satan and the snake and all. I believe that magic, to help or to harm, should be studied both psychologically and in the labs. For instance, by extracting substances from potions and seeing their impact on cell cultures. In my blog, there is no endorsement of poisoning mice, plus verbally abusing them for good measure, just to conclude that “consuming decomposing flesh caused the mice to die”. )

I digress.

This revelation by my mum that a djinn was not harassing me caused so much defensiveness in me.

But, in the end, disposing of those beliefs helped me to seek help for my symptoms. I finally got a diagnosis and am being treated. (Plus I concentrate more in my worship, because the worship is centred around my love of Allah rather than dispelling evil spirits.)

But Why The Defensiveness?

It’s a theme that whenever I doubt that other are being haunted (with the intention of helping), they become just as defensive as I once was. I think at the crux of it is helplessness. The person knows intuitively that the behaviour is not their fault, but with ignorance of health issues, telling someone that it’s not a djinn can feel like an accusation of moral failure.

For example, when PTSD is undiagnosed, moments of relived trauma and catastrophising can seem like just being an awful person who is grumpy and exaggerates i.e. is not credible. It’s becomes a moral failing.

The person sees that the behaviour is not their fault. And they’re often right- it’s not their fault. But the reason that it’s not their fault is because they are ill. Not because a djinn is bothering them.

It’s not their fault.

They did not decide to go through trauma that could not be processed, and to relive it daily.

They did not decide to be substance poisoned and have fertility problems. They did not decide to live under the shadow of sexual abuse. They did not decide to be hurt so severely that they lost contact with reality.

But realising that it’s not a djinn is not the same as moral blame. In Islam, everyone is tested and assessed by Allah swt according to their unique circumstances.

Refusing to blame the djinn is empowering.

You have the power to be careful about substances that you take around malicious people. You can seek psychological help. You can seek medical help.

Those are just my rambling reflections about the defensiveness when someone refuses to believe in supernatural phenomena as they are conceived by literalist interpretations. When someone says “it’s not a djinn”, the suffering hear “it’s your fault.”

And it isn’t.

But you have more power than you think in overcoming whatever is haunting you.

This month:

• I finally made a start on making the fundraising zine for Sudan;

• I found out that an art piece that I made fundraised £528.73/1000AUD for Sudanese families in an auction with Sawtal Sudan Australia (pray that Allah swt accepts it from me🥲), and

• I started analysing my art psychologically… maybe I should start on spiritually too.

I’ve been writing up my series on the 1945 Algerian Genocide for my other publication, Echoes from Algeria. So I haven’t had as much time for art.

Devils on Stallions: A Sudan Zine

It’s live on Webtoons! (Only one page so far)

For context, I’ve been wanting to make this zine for ages. Ages being a year and a half minimum. But it got delayed by my changing countries of residence, by my getting ill, and by my artistic improvement.

Fundraising

This was the painting which raised so much alhamdulillah!

It depicts two sisters, one braiding the other’s hair lovingly in a sunrise. Sudanese hair braiding reflects a girl or woman’s age, marital status, ethnicity, and so on. Unfortunately, I could only find Northern examples of hair styles (it was the same with Devils on Stallions- I mostly found Northern cultural elements) despite having actively searched for the cultural practices of Sudan in all its diversity (for both the paintings and zine).

I hope that Allah swt accepts it.🥲

Art As A Window

Apparently drawing what you’re feeling when you are triggered helps with processing negative experiences that are stored in your nervous system, rather than simply assigning new meanings to them logically (because logic switches off during fight-or-flight, which is common in PTSD). It’s really cathartic. Also I find that analysing what I draw in this state has helped me make sense of some very difficult experiences. When words fails, drawings depict meanings, feelings, and dynamics that you intuitively know in your nervous system. Obviously, I won’t share those drawings, but it helped me reach sharp realisations about some experiences that I previously had and which kept me in the shadows.

I would try analysing my art spiritually, but that is more difficult TvT If anyone would know how to go about something like that, please share!

You can check the first page of the comic here:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/devils-on-stallions/list?title_no=1153648
https://globalcomix.com/c/devils-on-stallions

I’m currently researching what I would describe as France’s genocidal massacres in Guelma, Setif, and Kherrata on the weeks following 8 May 1945 (tune in for a more thorough article series). I’m at a stage where I’ve mapped out the rough gist of the argument, but am running into a wall with my literature review. Most of the Western articles engaging with (and denying) this genocide are French. I wish during times like this that I was further along in my French language learning journey.

Growing up, I spoke Modern Standard Arabic, but learning a language via your parents only takes you so far. As a teenager, my Modern Standard Arabic was conversational, and my darija/Algerian Arabic was limited to:

Weshrak? Labas. Hamdoullah.

So as a teenager, when faced with the decision of either professionalising my Modern Standard Arabic and essentially learning darija from near scratch, or spending that time and energy to learn French, it was a no brainer. Modern Standard Arabic and darija any day.

I am grateful for that decision- without it, I wouldn’t be able to engage at a higher level with diverse Arabised people, or speak to Algerian elders who usually only speak darija about their first hand experiences.

(Although I wish that I could find structured resources to learn my ancestral language of Tamazight in all its diversity. Even thinking about it brings a feeling of heaviness in my eyes, despite being grateful to be Muslim and to understand the Qur’an.)

But now I am learning French, but nowhere near the level that I need to know what it is that is being said about this genocidal massacre.

I remember mentioning to some that I dislike having to learn French because I’m Algerian, and being met with thinly veiled scorn.

“Language learning is good for the brain!”

“If you learn a people’s language, you can protect yourself from their harm.”

Okay, the second argument has merit.

Yet, somehow I feel that my point wasn’t really understood. Partly because I expressed it poorly. But also partly because of ignorance around Algeria’s history.

Algeria experienced a blood thirsty French settler colonial presence whereby Algeria was considered a part of France. Thus, Algerian identity was considered French (except third class and bearing the brunt of apartheid if you were an indigenous1 Algerian Muslim).

Learning languages is an important skill, and certainly important in situations like what I face where one needs to advocate for themselves. However, to suggest that I have to learn French because I am Algerian becomes a matter of identity at that point. It becomes that I am French as an Algerian.

The number of times I have had Muslims keenly ask me, “Oh you’re Algerian? Do you speak French?!🤩🤩” is quite simply appalling. It is only that much more appalling when I respond that I focused on improving my Arabic (and it is more professional compared to the average British Arab). Only to be met with scorn, “Well, yes. Obviously.”

If you are a Muslim who has done this, ask yourself and answer yourself honestly, if you would ask this upon meeting a Palestinian:

“Oh you’re Palestinian? Do you speak Hewbrew?!🤩🤩”

I think we all know the answer.

For those who missed my April update because I didn’t send out an email, I decided to start compiling my art posts into one monthly post. I felt like it would be less like spam that way.

This month, I:

• attended the Doha International Book Fair. The Qatar branch of the International Union of Muslim Scholars reached out to me to hand out my art at the fair :) ~;

• felt the benefits of 15 minutes of meditation and dhikr/remembrance before drawing sessions;

• figured out the structure of my article series on the Algerian Genocide in 1945. I just need to support it with more thorough facts and branch out my readings, which is what I plan to spend this month doing, God-willing,

• and — spoiler alert — I had PTSD the whole time.

Doha International Book Fair

I was really honoured to meet so many Palestinians through this art stand with both Palestine and Sudan prints as well as a booklet of A Nottingham Zine for Palestine (updated)~

So many of the Palestinians that I met personally knew the martyred AlZebda family that the comic was in honour of. One very warm auntie listened attentively to everything that I said then told a guy who came up to marry me😱That’s a tad mortifying in Algerian culture, but it’s okay, it’s okay. She was a cute auntie <3 She was being friendly~

I drew this painting of the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the winter on the spot- it took around 3 hours. And I’m honoured that it raised 50QAR (about £10) to support my dear friend in Gaza, whose trauma fuels so many others’ opulence and who is owed reparations.

A Nottingham Zine for Palestine: Updated

Having a connection from the International Union of Muslim Scholars reach out for the Book Fair gave me a deadline to complete the chapter that I was working on of A Nottingham Zine for Palestine. That zine project began when I was visiting the pro-Palestine student encampment at the University of Nottingham back in 2024. It was a beautiful space full of principled activists.

There, the students and I spoke in greater depth with Palestinian-Ukrainian Uncle Adeeb Shaheen, who kindly agreed to have a recorded conversation with me. We spoke for an hour about his experiences of resisting during the First Intifada and other experiences. It was a beautiful time, under that British summer sun, surrounded by forest, listening to his lucid reflections. It took some time to illustrate those reflections, and I am very grateful for his patience with my fulfilling my promise.

So by the time the fair happened, I managed to finish my second chapter contribution, add the first chapter by a fellow artist and principled activist, Berwyn Mure, and format it into a zine booklet. I really hope that this project can be beneficial in centring Palestinian voices, and in fundraising (still figuring out the logistics of that now that I live in the Qatar). Currently I am working on my third chapter contribution then the zine will be ready as Volume 2, rather than a simple mixed update.

Meditation & Dhikr

For around two months now, I have started the habit of meditating and sketching anything for 15 minutes before my real art sessions. I would say the sacred names of Allah, or call on Allah to help me in my art.

I really felt the difference. The first painting that I made with this method made such a difference that I was complimented by a family member who only compliments my work once every blue moon. And by that I mean maybe once every one or two years when I reach a breakthrough.

Psychologically, it helps remove my perfectionistic expectations and anxiety of making bad art to meditate. This kind of perfectionism and anxiety can lead my art to be too careful and therefore too rigid and stagnant. But when I do this dhikr, I feel unblocked and I feel like I make breakthroughs.

It also makes my anxiety sink to the bottom, and that allows me to feel more clear as I draw. Which brings me onto the next topic…

I Have Single-Event PTSD

The diagnosis was a relief. Maybe diagnosis isn’t the right word, as it suggests that I was even aware, which I wasn’t. Before the diagnosis, I just ploughed through my projects with the mindset that “I can’t be on sick leave forever. I’ll work on projects whatever the weather”. If I knew that I had PTSD, I would have forgiven myself to take breaks and look after myself. And I can do that now.

When I became triggered, I would sketch how I felt. I wouldn’t do this for others, or to create something beautiful, but just to get out onto paper the visceral memories that remained with me of my horrible undergraduate studies. I would then analyse what those visceral memories sketched onto paper communicated. It is this exercise that helped me truly realise that sexual abuse wasn’t my fault.

Apparently, art therapy is helpful for PTSD (although not a substitute for professional help like EMDR). PTSD is more about your nervous system than logic- when you are triggered, your logic switches off, so approaches that deal with the nervous system tend to be more effective in treating it. So, apparently, such cathartic art is even more helpful than talking therapy because it helps you process visceral experiences within your nervous system rather than just logically assigning new meanings to them by talking.

Anyway, that was my month~

During April, I worked on many projects. I’m working on:

• a Nottingham Zine for Palestine Volume Two (Volume One is available to read for free online);

• a zine meant to fundraise and raise awareness of Sudan called Devils on Stallions (it’s the one that I’ve put the most time into this montht, but this stage is only legible to me so it didn’t make it to the collage);

• plein air painting;

• conceptual sketches for different projects (what could they be, I wonder?!),

• and, of course, researching the Algerian Genocide (when I research it, I both want to stop from how distressing and intellectually demanding it is, but also I feel like I have to do it, and at the best of my abilities too).

Being Intentional About The Philosophy Behind My Art

After having social science professors look over my art, I realised that art is so much more than just the visual technique. There is a social science, philosophy, and psychology behind what is communicated.

• This fact is one of the reasons that I am very hesitant to share projects for Palestine that I have previously completed, even though I completed them to the best of my artistic and political abilities at the time. These projects include The Soul of my Soul, and my contribution to the collaborative A Nottingham Zine for Palestine Volume One. If it was just that my artistic skills had moved on, I would be able to showcase them more.

  But, at the time, I was deeply inspired by general artwork that I see around about Palestine (also I was moderately depressed and severely anxious when I made them), so the colours were muted and a bit… well… lifeless.

  But when I compare this visual depiction to how Palestinians depict themselves, it’s a completely different story. Sliman Mansour, Irina and Maher Naji, so many Palestinian artists. They use beautiful colours, and sometimes also dull ones, but in a multifaceted way rather than one that reeks of “Palestine is a desert and Israel made it bloom” (and, of course, desert is used pejoratively by colonisers who are not indigenous to the desert, and hold nothing but scorn for non-European landscapes).

  I’m a big believer in centring Palestinian voices, and I’ve recently learned that that includes visually. I’ve also learned to analyse the visual just as much as I do the written.

  

• I have also been trying to analyse the philosophical dimensions behind characters, their clothing, their architecture, and so on. For example, with clothing, many Muslim-majority countries’ clothes have a strong presence of floral motifs because of the belief that is dominant in many Sunni cultures that depicting living beings is haraam (Islamically forbidden). For a deep analysis of Islamic philosophy, I recommend this series by Abbas on Substack- the meaning behind geometric patterns prevalent in Islamic art suddenly make sense!). Another example is with architecture. One conceptual sketch is inspired by The Six Grandfathers mountain in Turtle Island which was considered sacred by indigenous people. European settlers carved the faces of the Founding Fathers onto it, much like the owner of cattle would inhumanely brand a cow. It really reflects a sense of ownership and sovereignty in regards to land and generally. So I’m trying to think about these questions more in worldbuilding.

Juggling Multiple Projects

I wanted to do a project about Sudan that not only fundraised, but also was a true ode to its people. But then my art skills developed and so the project has taken a lot longer than anticipated to complete to the level that I aspire to.

I’m also deeply honoured to be illustrating Uncle Adeeb Shaheen’s reflections of his resistance and solitary confinement during the First Intifada (depicted in the middle panel and to the right in the collage). I really could learn from his insight forever!

These two are completely charitable works, but then I’ve realised that I need to also tell stories of other projects that I’ve wanted to tell for a while.

Friends and family often get surprised and even treat me like a miskeena (poor thing) when I mention that I make zero money off of my fundraisers and that they entirely go to charity. It comes from a place of caring about me, but it makes me deeply uncomfortable! I consider it a true honour to raise awareness and fundraise for these causes, and also I view it as a blessed thing to engage in. :)

In Islamic belief, the duaa (call to Allah) of the oppressed has no barrier between them and Allah. Usually this is understood as “don’t oppress in case they make duaa against you”. But I have learned other interpretations through experience. I have a friend in Gaza who is a true inspiration to me having interacted with her closely, and no less in her critical moment that none of us can imagine going through. She made duaa for me and when I tell you all of my own troubles began to make sense and I finally experienced relieved (relevant to the next section)! Maybe that hadith about the duaa of the oppressed also means that when someone is oppressed, that trying your best to alleviate their oppression, however modest your capabilities may be, will come back to you in strange ways.

On juggling many projects, I’m a bit of a workaholic. I think it comes from seeing my family working so hard. I think that’s where my allergy to rest comes from, even though I have medical reasons to rest.

I Started EMDR

Hence my rants on notes, which I often delete… Because logically I’ve moved on from my trauma, but with certain triggers, I’m back to old, binary thought patterns that may have made sense in that specific case years ago, but don’t anymore. I’m trying my best not to be contagious with negativity.

So many friends and kind people online have sent me best wishes, and even offered to listen when I need it. But I respectfully declined on the second point because these things are contagious, and I’ve learned enough coping mechanisms now. It’s different to when the trauma just happened. I try my best to manage my own triggers now. But, at the same time, it’s just been so heartwarming to receive the outpouring of kind messages wishing me well with this therapy. Tl;dr I’m rich. :)

My Reflections Outside Ethics

• “Using AI to generate art robs the joy of the process”

  It does. However, someone could arguably say the same about photography which has morphed into its own art form. That’s not a moral argument.

• “You’ll lose it if you don’t use it”

  Certainly.

• “You won’t learn new skills”

  I do not entirely agree on this point. If someone becomes dependent on AI and uses it mindlessly, then, yes, this point is true. But AI can be used as a tool to develop your skills. For example, by inputting your work and asking for feedback with thoughtful instructions, the AI feedback may allow you to see outside of your voice. This usage is not a replacement for learning a skill, but it can help you to see the forest for the trees and to then take action to learn skills that you would not otherwise.

On Ethics

• “Generative AI is plagiaristic”

  There is a famous and highly regarded book among artists- Steal Like An Artist. It argues that original concepts do not exist and that our art is a result of what we ‘consume’ (not just art wise). What we consume is argued to cumulatively shape our voice and style. I agree with this characterisation of voice and style. We are in a sense inputting the styles of other artists, as well as philosophies, experiences, music, and so on, to create our own art, which can be done in an ‘original’ or plagiaristic way.

  Similarly, my view is that generative AI can be used in an ‘original’ or plagiaristic way depending on the instructions given to it. I do not view it as inherently plagiaristic. Yes, this is contentious in the art community. But as someone who struggles to find work myself, I just think that it’s important to be accurate and honest when the witch-hunts around AI usage arise. I view a lot of these witch-hunts and the emotional charge around them as motivated by economic reasons. That’s fine. Not starving to death is a valid concern. But my request would be to just be honest with yourself and others about the reason. My personal stance on AI being trained using my art is that I would be okay with it if it were not for the lack of regulations around plagiarism- maybe non-Eurocentric perspectives will be input into training it.

• “AI uses a lot of water and damages the environment”

  This point is the point that most troubles me.

  In my religion, I will be asked how I treated the planet on the Day of Judgement. I dabbled in vegetarianism and veganism at some point (and did quite well until I had medical reasons to stop). The hadith (saying) of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, is that if you were to wash before praying, as Muslims do, not to waste the water, even if you were in front of a river.

  So this point on environmental damage troubles me.

Having studied genetics and what was essentially international relations formally, I am keenly aware that orthodoxies within supposedly objective fields are often informed by funding and serve interests of powerful actos. So I disagree with Hank here that “expertise is so important”. It isn’t. Informing yourself is what is most important.

Why I Am Asking

I am not asking so as to begin an abstract discussion, but rather because I am genuinely trying to reach an ethical conclusion on this point.

I would be lying if I said that I have never used AI before. None of my art that is available has used AI at all. However in the past few weeks, I have used Claude for some projects in a non-generative capacity. That is to say that I asked it to extensively describe a master’s artistic process, produce a timeline for me, and produce prompts for me around particular topics for me to answer. I do not view it as my duty to inform others of this type of usage, in the same way that I would not be obliged if I found a prompt list through a Google search. The ideas, the creative brainstorming, the research, the storyline, the characters, the style, the thought behind the creative decisions, and more… those are all mine.

But I am a very honest person and cannot stand the witch-hunts around this topic within the art community. So I state it plainly. In fact, the reason that I began to use AI in this capacity was because of those very witch-hunts. They are unconvincing, and that is to say less!

We all have different personalities. I despise being abused into doing something. Abusing me out of something just makes me more sure to do it. I literally preferred developing psychotic depression due to being racially and sexually abused for my hijab (crudely expressed) rather than to take it off and have the abuse stop. However, these concerns about AI and the environment sincerely trouble me in terms of my religious duties. And I do listen to convincing feedback.

I know that there are so many educated people here with such unique perspectives which is why I am asking. Needless to say, I will be doing my own research (and might update with a Substack article when I do- I’ve just been a bit busy researching the Algerian Genocide that my family survived. I feel simultaneously like it is difficult to read, but also like I have to read. I have to research it. It’s going to be a three part series, insha’Allah).

The point is I would love to hear feedback, and I do genuinely edit my position when convinced. But if you’re going to be abusive, just know that I’m not someone who gets abused out of my position.

What are your thoughts on AI, generally but also in relation to ethics?

I’ve been reflecting on what it means for someone to be kind.

It’s a sentiment that I see often (and it associates not asserting the majority of boundaries with selfishness and weakness). I have to say that I disagree with it. I view this definition as individualistic and a Eurocentric generalisation.

I come from a collectivist culture shaped by Islamic belief. In this culture, there is a concept called taghaaful. It’s where you consciously and intentionally pretend not to notice when someone phrases something awkwardly, where someone steps on your toes a little. This practice is rooted in the reality of having to live closely with others, but also in the acknowledgement of your own fallibility, and your ability to step on others’ toes.

(This taghaaful isn’t the same thing as enabling abuse- which occurs in individualistic cultures too, for the record).

When you pretend not to notice disrespect from others as someone from a collectivist culture, it’s something you practice on autopilot. You don’t really grasp the philosophical frameworks underpinning it and different frameworks that underpin different modes of thinking and interpretation.

So it was a culture shock for me growing up in the UK when my pretending not to notice would invite targeted abuse in a way that I did not feel in my (admittedly shorter time) in collectivist cultures.

I’ve realised that the problem was a difference of interpretation. Unfortunately within an individualist culture, feigning ignorance was more likely to be interpreted as weakness, and therefore invited abuse in a way that didn’t seem to be the case so far for me in the new culture that I live in where there are other possible interpretations.

Sure, racism is part of it (abused, passive North African woman). But it’s not entirely that- it’s a difference in philosophical frameworks. This targeted abuse in the UK reduced when I unlearned taghaaful, although my phenotype remained the same.

That’s why I am a little wary of the definition of kindness that differentiates kindness and being nice. I prefer this definition:

Introduction

My experience as a Muslim in the UK, or in the anglosphere, often mirrored international developments. I remember being treated as stupid and uniquely oppressed during the period of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in the early-2000s1.

Post 9/11, Muslims believed in dialogue. But all the efforts of International Hijab Day and the sittings with English Christians who are generally staunch Zionists anyway went out the window with the rise of ISIS. With the beheaded babies lies. And with the justifications for the war on Iran.

This article contends that that strategy of assuming ignorance and clarifying misunderstandings about the status of women in Islam was a load of rubbish. We don’t need to convince the people of the United States and its allies that we are not oppressed by our religion.

These supporters of the crusades2 are free to regard Muslim women with scorn.

Because Muslim Women are free to regard them with scorn right back.

Iran

Yeah.😬

Qatar

I was initially shocked to see this depiction of Qatari women as helpless and uniquely oppressed within the pro-Palestine movement. Then I remembered that some in this movement only manage to see past the propaganda when they see an olive child with their internal organs spilling out. So I kick myself for having had expectations3.

The key word here is uniquely.

Qatar is behind in some regards, and wrong in others.

But they also ban certain profitable types of exploitation that occur under questionable dynamics of consent, and you are safe to walk as a woman at 11pm without someone so much as staring at you. (And, no, my criticism here is not levelled at addicts. I hope you can get help if that is you. My criticism is directed towards a) people who profit from this trading in flesh, b) people who normalise it, and c) some who only seemed to care when these industries proved harmful to the consumer.)

Qatar is ahead in some regards, but y’all are too busy turning your nose up at their olive skin to see it.

Malaysia and Indonesia

The first to ban Grok. Need I say more?

But Islam Is A Religion, Not A Race! I Can Harass Muslim Women Minding Their Goddamn Business However I Please

Yes, Islam is a religion.

So?

Are you even aware that racial classification does not align with genetic diversity? Racism is a function of empire, not biology. Certain narratives about Islam are also tied to empire rather than genuine inquiry (need I highlight Richard Dawkins and his chummy relationship with Epstein?). This paragraph isn’t to say that anti-Islam and anti-Muslim hate are racisms. I don’t believe that they are. But the narratives are tied to empire, and that’s what makes it objectionable.

We’ve Exhausted The Channels of Dialogue

Edward Said delineated the relationship between knowledge of Islam and Empire in his seminal Orientalism way back in 1978.

Lila Abu-Lughod wrote her Do Muslim Women Need Saving? in 2013.

The problem isn’t ignorance.

It’s your scorn for anything remotely melanated.

You’re Free To Disagree With Islam

You think Islam is patriarchal?

That’s fine.

Freedom of religion. Freedom of belief.

But just ask yourself next time that you feel the need to harass a visibly Muslim woman, or, Allah forbid, want to bomb save her, if you would do the same for a woman in a miniskirt or a bikini.

Be honest with yourself.

We all know the answer.

STRICTLY, PLEASE ENSURE MEDICAL CONSULTATION AND SUPERVISION BEFORE MAKING CHANGES TO YOUR MEDICAL OR PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH PLAN. THIS POST IS JUST ABOUT MY PERSONAL JOURNEY AND REFLECTIONS SO FAR, AND WHAT HAS WORKED *SO FAR* IN MY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Summary

Never change your medical or health plan without professional guidance and supervision.

I’m not a doctor or psychologist. My specialities are genetics then international relations.

This post shares reflections from my journey, and is not all there is to be said.

Everyone’s journey is individual based on their history and circumstances. These histories and journeys inform their diagnosis, recovery, and recommendations.

My history and circumstances were of chronic stress over years and my psychosis symptoms persisted in cooccurrence with that chronic stress. This contrasts with psychosis symptoms happening with one, big, horrific incident, and having the space to leave in a few months.

Psychiatry can be old-school vs new-school. The former believes that psychosis overwhelmingly means taking medication for the rest of your life and considers therapy not to be helpful in psychosis recovery. The latter places more hope on recovery and understands the importance of therapy.

While it can contribute to severe mental illness and other illnesses, I believe that genetics is overstated as a factor. The environment can also be causative, and not a mere trigger. Genetic susceptibility is not black and white. We are all more genetically susceptible to some illnesses and less so others. The same people can go through the same stress and develop different outcomes. I believe that there is an element of genetic susceptibility in what the outcome is. However, to claim that illness is inevitable is to the interests of pharmaceutical companies that fund research across a variety of fields. This genetic research is often methodologically questionable. I haven’t looked at scientific research in other fields like neuroscience, biology, and so on.

However, medication helped me move on from trauma, excel in my studies, rebuild social relationships, and stop living under the shadow of the past. Medication compliance is important- never stop them cold-turkey. It’ll damage your brain.

Antipsychotics have side effects. They’re considered physically unhealthy.

You can ask your doctor to change to a more tolerable medication, although it will take time for your body to adapt to the new one. Side effects may turn up in the transition period that won’t later on once your body settles down with the new one.

Try to be patient with the medication. There’s always good in what may seem bad, and bad in what may seem good.

Never change your medication dosage without medical supervision. I reduced my medication by splitting the 5mg tablet and alternating dosages on different days. The exact method is outlined in the article and is to taper off your body from the drug. This tapering is to reduce the impact of withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms can be increased by many factors, like psychological trauma. Implement a support plan for yourself as you reduce. Alternating dosages may exacerbate side effect.

Therapy helps with psychosis. There are different types of therapy.

Physical health impacts mental health.

Reading Qur’an and memorising it has helped with my recovery. I don’t believe in exorcism.

There is likely a lot more to discuss that isn’t relevant to my specific experience.

Why I’m Writing This Post

I’ve always been open about my psychosis recovery just because I don’t view it as something to be ashamed of- the same way as if I had diabetes. Although that openness has come with challenges, I have also had friends tell me that my openness has increased their awareness about psychiatric illness. Which I love.

As I have gotten better and further into my recovery journey, friends who are earlier in their recovery have asked me questions as someone who’d been there, done that. Often, they would mention that they’d hesitated to reach out so as not to burden me.

So I just thought to compile a summary of my reflections in this article. Maybe it will help someone.

My Limits

I’m not a doctor or a psychologist.

However, at the same time, I am not ignorant about biology, or the impact of politics and economics on understandings of health. My specialities are a bachelor level understanding of human genetics, and a master level understanding of, what was in practice, the field of international relations.

So I’m not equipped to provide medical advice, least of blanket advice that isn’t specialised to the individual’s history and multifaceted circumstances. But I can share my reflections as they relate to my personal history and circumstances.

My Personal Background

The causes of my psychosis were chronic low- to high-level stress, so my symptoms lasted longer than if it had been an extreme but singular event with space to recover after the fact. These longer-lasting symptoms meant that I was initially told that I had paranoid schizophrenia and that I would take medication for the rest of my life.

But then I was blessed to have an amazing doctor who had hope for mentally ill people, and was aware of the social context of health.

She said that my case was ambiguous, and that she would diagnose me with psychosis and see whether the cause was schizophrenia or depression when the time to reduce medication came.

Nature vs Nurture

After my diagnosis, I wrote my essay about the causes of schizophrenia.

Most things are substantially genetic.

That was what I walked away thinking after reading the orthodoxy within the field from prestigious journals like Nature. This orthodoxy claimed that schizophrenia was overwhelmingly genetically caused and that the environment is merely a trigger. I had trouble aligning that hegemonic consensus with my experiences, and it felt like a further burial of my reality.

Yet, many of the older studies were methodologically questionable. And the newer ones? Simply associative- we all know that association does not equal causation.

Years later, I rewrote an article on what is called schizophrenia, this time taking into account how social factors inform science (if I could rewrite it, then I would take into account the role of thoughts and mindset, i.e. psychology).

Such social factors include the intertwinement of old methods with eugenics, and new methods with pharmaceutical funding.

I wouldn’t trust a pharmaceutical company directly telling me how I’m just genetically messed up, and should cough up for their drugs for the rest of my life now. Equally, I don’t trust scientists funded by those same companies.

Reflections On Medication

• Medication has its place

I have always complied with medication because stopping your medication cold-turkey can damage your brain. Never reduce except with medical supervision and guidance.

Medication has strong benefits. With medication, my mental health improved, I excelled in my studies, and reformed my social relationships.

It helped me move on.

• It has side effects though

Psychosis medication is strongly associated with metabolic illness, i.e. poor physical health. While association does not prove causation, I definitely noticed that when I began taking medication, I put on weight with less food and was hungrier. And as I now reduce a (mild) medication, I notice that I am less hungry, put on weight less easily, and am more energetic.

You can ask your doctor to change your medication if your current one is too intolerable. But they all have side effects. You have to be patient- it’s a good trait to have. C’est la vie.

There is also a case to be made for psychological and behavioural reasons for the poor physical health associated with severe psychiatric illnesses like psychosis (comfort eating, not cooking nutritious food, hormone changes from stress, and so on).

But it was clear to me that there was a causal component, and I decided to take the medication but only as much as I needed. My open minded doctor told me that we could try reducing completely.

• When reduction time came- i.e. answering the post title

I was patient with the side effects and eventually, after much professional therapy, it was time to reduce.

Initially, I reduced the way those who were on medication for only six months reduced, even though I’d been on the medication for years. That is by reducing 5mg every two months. It worked for the first 5mg reduction, but in the second I became unwell. I had to pause.

I thought that I was relapsing. But there is emerging medical advice that the symptoms that come with reduction could be either relapse of illness or withdrawal symptoms as your body adjusts to absence of drugs. And it’s not clear which is which without time.

Psychological Considerations

It is absurd to me when I hear psychiatrists claiming that therapy and the power of thoughts and attitudes don’t help with psychosis. This absurdity is especially when there is evidence of thoughts and attitudes impacting physical health, let alone the explicitly mental. The suggestion is also contradictory to my experience.

The subconscious is a strange and mostly unseen place.

There are different kinds of therapy. Do your research on them according to what may help in your specific scenario. Here is my non-expert understanding of some of them:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps challenge negative thought patterns- I found it helpful in removing the negative. There is a CBT-grounded self-help series of books which I found helpful for residual negative thoughts that persisted after my professional sessions. I wouldn’t recommend self-help for deeply traumatised people as the reactions to triggers can be quite strong.

• Psychotherapy is a talking therapy that goes deep into the subconscious, compared to counselling which is a shallow form of support.

• Eye-movement desensitisation is a form of therapy that helps you process unprocessed memories. It’s helpful for PTSD.

The point is there are so many therapies. I would recommend making notes in sessions, and applying techniques to make yourself emotionally independent once the sessions are over.

Physical Considerations

Managing side effects

Apart from general advice on eating nutritious food, exercising, sleeping enough, and so on, I believe that intermittent fasting is very helpful. I do dry fasts (Islamic ones). I avoid water fasts let alone two week fasts. If you feel like you need two weeks of not eating to manage physical side effects then maybe the root cause isn’t your insulin level (like psychological triggers, for instance).

Dry fasts exacerbate my anxiety when I am already feeling upset. There are some instances where I felt that these non-Ramadan fasts were too anxiety inducing or that maybe my body wasn’t reacting well to it, so I finished it (for religious reasons), then waited for the weather to cool or for my anxiety to reduce before trying again.

However, the keto diet physiologically mimics fasting, and has been demonstrated to heal treatment-resistant schizophrenics and help them come off of their medications. When the diet was stopped, the symptoms returned. The point is fasting has a lot of health benefits including mental clarity once you get used to it.

Sometimes, there are medical reasons not to fast. Please speak to your doctor.

Spirituality

I try to consistently do bitesize, Islamic practices daily. I definitely notice the difference when I don’t read my morning 15 pages of Qur’an. I don’t know why.

A secular version of a contemplative practice might be meditation- that is actually better evidenced in what I’ve seen of the scientific literature (in English). I try to stay away from quacks like Joe Dispenza.

On exorcism

Exorcism is a superstition that was put on steroids for Muslims because we were colonised and made illiterate, so couldn’t explain things scientifically.

At the same time, Europeans colonising and enslaving non-Europeans and Black people respectively propelled the Western industrialisation and scientific and technological revolutions.

Conclusion

I hate to tell people what to do. I’m not a doctor or a psychologist. But these are just reflections of my own journey. If I was economically challenged, or didn’t have supportive family and friends, this post may look different.

And, yes, I’ve added a Christian song. Poems and songs about God always touch me, even if the artist is from a different way of life and beliefs.

This post is about why I hate the European Union, and why any anti-racist should also hate the EU.

I discuss how the EU is a capitalist bloc that screws European and non-Europeans workers over.

The sooner we stop weaponising my identities to silence conversations on it, the better.

Post-War Keynesianism

Following the worldwide economic collapse and mass unemployment of the Great Depression during the 1930’s, and especially after the Second World War, capitalism as Keynesianism dominated economic theory and policy. This Keynesian dominance lasted until the 1970’s.

Keynesianism posits that the most important driving factor in the economy is measured as the sum of the spending by households, businesses, and the government. It suggests that government spending in times of economic difficulty is the best approach to pull the economy out of recession.

Keynesian economics was a factor in informing the logic of the welfare state in Britain, which gave it the much cherished National Health Service (NHS) among other safety nets.

This era of the NHS is often considered the golden age… to the poor in Britain. Maybe this characterisation would be different to South Asians, for example. They’d had the blood and resources leeched out of them only decades prior.

Their exploited life force funded that golden era.

Neoliberalism

During the 1980’s, the economy began to be reshaped along neoliberal lines.

Neoliberalism is an economic theory that favours freedom of the market, i.e. economic freedom. This economic freedom of the market is achieved through:

• Increased competition of businesses and workers. This increased competition is achieved by deregulation, and the opening up of domestic markets to foreign markets (globalisation). For example, this globalisation can manifest in reducing tariffs. Tariffs are taxes on imports or exports that are meant to protect domestic workers from competition.

• The retreat of the state. Less welfare and public spending by the government. More selling of state-owned assets or services to the private sector (for instance, the NHS and its free service compared to private hospitals centred around profit and running as businesses).

Neoliberalism is closely intertwined with globalisation. By globalisation I mean that international economies are integrated and that businesses are liberated from the control of the state. This globalisation is different to trade and financial flows merely extending over national borders.

The Sovereign Transnational Corporation

The independence and power of the transnational corporation on the international stage is demonstrated by the tensions between Apple, an American transnational company, and the American state. The Trump Administration has repeatedly said that it wants Apple’s production to move to United States. This demand is to reduce dependence on China and to provide jobs for American workers.

The Trump Administration has succeeded in changing Apple’s sites of production from China to India and Vietnam by increasing taxes on products imported from China.

However, the mighty, sovereign Apple has yet to locate the sites of its production to the United States.

The European Union Is Overwhelmingly Neoliberal

Both internally, within Europe, and externally, in the EU’s relationship to other countries.

The push for this neoliberal orientation during the 1980’s to the interests of transnational corporations is traced well in Bastiaan van Apeldoorn’s book, mentioned in the recommended readings.

The EU’s overwhelmingly neoliberal orientation is manifest through its ‘greatest achievement’: the Single Market. This Single Market is held up by the four freedoms, which are the freedom of movement for goods, people, services, and capital.

They’re Stealing Our Jobs!

I characterise the EU as overwhelmingly neoliberal because there is always resistance by workers, especially in precarious sectors. This resistance is seen within Europe, for example in the agricultural sector and the subsidising of farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy.

Resistance from farmers within this precarious sector is seen in the protests to the EU-Mercosur agreement, which hopes to open the market, between the EU on the one hand, and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay on the other. It plans to achieve this by removing tariffs on the overwhelming majority of bilateral trade (taxes on imports or exports meant to protect domestic workers from competition).

Alongside externally restructuring other economies along neoliberal lines, this freedom of goods, people, services, and capital is at the crux of the conversation on Western worker rights.

This legitimate grievance is often constructed as such: “they’re stealing our jobs!”

This characterisation of grievances on capitalism, and more particularly neoliberal capitalism as it relates to the Western worker, crudely and scornfully flattens pressing questions of exploitation.

But that’s no worries. It’s a two-way street.

Those capitalists favouring a free market can also be construed as such:

The Western Worker Is Not An Angel

There are other conversations to be had about the Western worker- Christian nationalism, and its absurd inconsistencies. How many Western workers’ concern is not anti-capitalism, but rather that they are not feasting on its spoils as much as they’d like to.

The narcissism of many Western worker’s is a topic for another day.

The failure of democracy is a topic for another day- they are not all racists, just as many middle and upper classes are racist.

The sheer insufferableness of many pro-immigration supposed anti-racists is a topic for another day. They hijack pro-immigration talking points from “look, you’re the ones who displaced us to begin with”, to “listen here, you toothless, STI-infested racist- immigration is good for the economy”.

However, my primary scorn is for the EU.

I’ve discussed elsewhere about how European corporations and the EU seized my country’s tragedy for profit and control of my people’s resources.

The European Union is not about welcoming immigration and different cultures, and being open minded.

It’s about openness of the market.

It’s a capitalist economic bloc, more particularly a neoliberal one, to the interests of these transnational corporations.

I hope that we can stop treating it like your friendly German doctor who is shockingly candid and hates expressing emotions.

Recommended readings

• Globalisation and European Integration. The internal and external dimensions of neoliberal restructuring, by Andreas Bieler (a chapter in Globalisation and European integration: Critical approaches to regional order and international relations, by the editors Peter Nousios, Henk Overbeek, and Andreas Tsolakis).

• Towards a global ruling class? Globalization and the transnational capitalist class, by William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris.

• Transnational capitalism and the struggle over European Integration, by Bastiaan van Apeldoorn.

It’s been a while since A Nottingham Zine for Palestine: Volume One!

It was a collaborative initiative to raise awareness about Palestine and funds for PalMed Europe, and is also available to read for free online.

The initiative was in memory of Dr. Said AlZebda, Ikram Ghanem, and their three children, Ezzedine, Intisar, and Sumaya AlZebda who were martyred in late 2023 by Israeli airstrikes. May Allah swt illuminate their graves.

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We’re coming back with Volume Two- illustrating the reflections of Palestinian-Ukrainian Uncle Adeeb Shaheen, whose experiences are also available to read in his memoir, ‘It Is War! or The Strong Are Shameless’.

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Music by Clavier Clavier from Pixabay.