Realisation that these malevolent incompetent bastards are deadly, but there is much khayr in the mix, and that over-dismissal is deadly too.
23.12.20
20.12.20
[New Word] Gelatinated
That feeling when there's something you won't be able to have the pleasure of consuming, in this life.
1.11.20
Embarking upon a (Bengal) Famine Remembrance Month
More than 71 years ago millions of souls in Bengal were starved to death, past skin and bones. I do not believe that we collectively know and honour their humiliation and suffering in our spiritual, educational, creative and political lives.
Racist colonial indifference and impoverishment of our ancestor's lives from the British Occupation, pettier power games, commercial interests and ecological issues collided to produce the greatest regional loss of life in considerable time. Many of the powerful structures and patterns at work during that Bengal Famine live on - the utter disregard for our people's lives displayed by government machines, corporate profiteering and the fear and close memory of destitution that have shaped features in our upbringings.
As the coronavirus threatens the lives of elders with closer personal access to those times, political despair grows deeper and the threats of human accelerated Climate destabilisation continue to manifest, the golden thread of our transformative process must be to build new and productive learning capacities and dispositions.
White British Remembrances of war dead perform a role in the reproduction of a certain self image. My reflection isn't to call for the inclusion of colonially indentured fighters in that self-image but to address the wounds and scar tissues of colonial savagery, always.
So, at every staging ground on our journey, of formal education or otherwise, let us open our books and hearts at the Bengal Famine page of 1943
23.7.20
[New Word] ASlashing
A method by which a wide alliance of capital and colonial actors ensures political, economic and racial supremacy over you and those who dare challenge its unassailability.
See also, The Trope-a-Dope Technique
18.5.20
Covid Adaptation I
If over the next weeks and months we seek and commit to adapting the way we live and learn we will be safer.
Building practical social infrastructure
People around the world have been rendered disorganised and controllable by government lockdown politics. But we must find ways of organising and developing new methods of doing things together and relating.
HomeSchooling training
Most of us didn't tool ourselves up for this, but there are lots of resources and opportunities to share, sharpen and design in this space. There will be a discontinuity to the academic rhythm this year, prepare for it and use it to glide our learning relationships into a better place and mitigate the humanity deficit of most online provision.
Diary
Keep a diary about every interaction you have with public authorities, about your own experiments and experiences. It will be vital reflective leaning personally and record. e.g. In the UK, what are your schools telling you, what has your experience of 111, the GP , housing authorities and others been like?
Vitamin D
Yes, big doses. It wont wash away racism or move you to a bigger house, but its cheap and there are lots of benefits to it.
Dietary Transformation
Hard but battling every comorbidity has multiple benefits and the biggest wars are in the head. I am told that Type 2 Diabetes is possible to reverse, especially if you are early on. Obviously this is even harder with older people. eg. Substituting brown rice for white rice. Shifting from south asian diet to mediterranean one.
Improving cleaning regimes
Far UVC is showing promise in becoming a relatively safe anti covid light source. Indoor Air quality improvers and instrumentation are particularly advanced in Asian cities and quite available.
Compensating the imperilled.
Every cleaner, deliverer, driver, child minder, carer and tenant should be accorded increasing pay ( decreasing rent) , rahmah , protection and respect.
Just distribution of adaptation load.
A lot of these things could end up increasing the load on women, but that should be preempted. In the sense of the most marginalised having the biggest adaptation load, this is sadly the truth, but it can be mitigated by creative collectivism which is what community-wide adaptation is and why point 1 is where it is.
Building practical social infrastructure
People around the world have been rendered disorganised and controllable by government lockdown politics. But we must find ways of organising and developing new methods of doing things together and relating.
HomeSchooling training
Most of us didn't tool ourselves up for this, but there are lots of resources and opportunities to share, sharpen and design in this space. There will be a discontinuity to the academic rhythm this year, prepare for it and use it to glide our learning relationships into a better place and mitigate the humanity deficit of most online provision.
Diary
Keep a diary about every interaction you have with public authorities, about your own experiments and experiences. It will be vital reflective leaning personally and record. e.g. In the UK, what are your schools telling you, what has your experience of 111, the GP , housing authorities and others been like?
Vitamin D
Yes, big doses. It wont wash away racism or move you to a bigger house, but its cheap and there are lots of benefits to it.
Dietary Transformation
Hard but battling every comorbidity has multiple benefits and the biggest wars are in the head. I am told that Type 2 Diabetes is possible to reverse, especially if you are early on. Obviously this is even harder with older people. eg. Substituting brown rice for white rice. Shifting from south asian diet to mediterranean one.
Improving cleaning regimes
Far UVC is showing promise in becoming a relatively safe anti covid light source. Indoor Air quality improvers and instrumentation are particularly advanced in Asian cities and quite available.
Compensating the imperilled.
Every cleaner, deliverer, driver, child minder, carer and tenant should be accorded increasing pay ( decreasing rent) , rahmah , protection and respect.
Just distribution of adaptation load.
A lot of these things could end up increasing the load on women, but that should be preempted. In the sense of the most marginalised having the biggest adaptation load, this is sadly the truth, but it can be mitigated by creative collectivism which is what community-wide adaptation is and why point 1 is where it is.
16.5.20
Ummahspectral Adaptation through Covidtude
Looking the wrong way down the colonial gun barrel, we can report that .... STOP oPRESS, White Supremacy Capitalism is deadly. Some must unravel that story in statistically significant detail just so we might have good sport watching white wingers try to wash them away with recommendations of socially distanced cod liver oil wrestling.
Unsafe in the knowledge that public, private and academic authorities will look out for themselves, we find ourselves in even greater need of a distributed and autonomous ummahstructures of dialogical learning and transformation. It is hard with complex life load to keep our ears, minds and hands open to changing threats, possibilities and even basic information. But that needs to happen anyway so best commit.
Oh Knower of Subtleties, Truly Majestic, Fashioner of Form and Everlasting, raise the victims of this disaster, console the mourning and teach us.
Unsafe in the knowledge that public, private and academic authorities will look out for themselves, we find ourselves in even greater need of a distributed and autonomous ummahstructures of dialogical learning and transformation. It is hard with complex life load to keep our ears, minds and hands open to changing threats, possibilities and even basic information. But that needs to happen anyway so best commit.
Oh Knower of Subtleties, Truly Majestic, Fashioner of Form and Everlasting, raise the victims of this disaster, console the mourning and teach us.
30.3.20
Covid-tude Resources Page
This is a resource page to help (me, maybe you?) navigate the knowledge ecology out there, synthesise and enact the best guidance, hidayat.
So many people are losing loved ones, falling ill themselves and we are generally being shielded/manipulated/harmed by non-neutral actors and structures responding to the emergence of this bewildering, deadly virus, in an already busy hazardscape.
It is like a huge involuntary Adaptation case study in the presence of collective grief, only its RealTime and cloaked in codes, uncertainties and contingencies.
Heart goes out to people in tough accommodation situations, the displaced, poor, elderly, at risk and all combinations. One particular Puzzle is adjusting policy and practices to enable the safety of multigenerational (at least three generations) families in cramped accommodation. Self isolation policy is murabbicidal for people in this group.
As well as regular disinfecting, good ventilation and extreme family self discipline we need well thought through and flexible options as well as enabling conditions for swift innovation.
Some questions
Why is the pricing of 'halal' (not tayeb) meat so high on the agenda of people?
What home adaptations are possible to make self isolation possible in such circumstances?
How many grandparent-children-grandchildren situations of crampedness are there in the country?
How might private and state sectors collaborate for rehousing solutions?
How adaptable are we going to be through this?
How are and how will coronitude combine with preventitude and climitude?
How have we contributed to our own non-adaptability and vulnerability?
Learning Resources
Dr John Campbell is an really wise educator who launches videos quite frequently that are accessible and informative in a multigenerational way.
3Blue1Brown is an epic youtube channel about physics and maths, which has prepared a very enchanting visual 'treat' called Simulating an epidemic.
Modelling Studies that have hit the news
Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID- 19 mortality and healthcare demand from the Imperial College COVID 19 Response Team
Fundamental principles of epidemic spread highlight the immediate need for large-scale serological surveys to assess the stage of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, Laurenco et al AKA the Oxford One
Technical "fixes"
Soap
UVC light is lethal to viruses like Covid-19, but its harmful for untrained humans to handle and specific testing has a long way to go. UV light has a history as a germicide and a modern day air purifiers using this technique can be found if you can find and afford them (scale of cost hundreds of £). Emerging REHVA guidance suggests they may be of some use in breathing areas, but the industrial airconditioning lobby would say that right? In any case, public authorities, banks and hospital are using UVC lamps to disinfect public transport.
Socio-technical wisdoms
Sheila Jasanoff interview on Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution
Institutional Resources
UK Coronavirus Death Map from Health Service Journal
So many people are losing loved ones, falling ill themselves and we are generally being shielded/manipulated/harmed by non-neutral actors and structures responding to the emergence of this bewildering, deadly virus, in an already busy hazardscape.
It is like a huge involuntary Adaptation case study in the presence of collective grief, only its RealTime and cloaked in codes, uncertainties and contingencies.
Heart goes out to people in tough accommodation situations, the displaced, poor, elderly, at risk and all combinations. One particular Puzzle is adjusting policy and practices to enable the safety of multigenerational (at least three generations) families in cramped accommodation. Self isolation policy is murabbicidal for people in this group.
As well as regular disinfecting, good ventilation and extreme family self discipline we need well thought through and flexible options as well as enabling conditions for swift innovation.
Some questions
Why is the pricing of 'halal' (not tayeb) meat so high on the agenda of people?
What home adaptations are possible to make self isolation possible in such circumstances?
How many grandparent-children-grandchildren situations of crampedness are there in the country?
How might private and state sectors collaborate for rehousing solutions?
How adaptable are we going to be through this?
How are and how will coronitude combine with preventitude and climitude?
How have we contributed to our own non-adaptability and vulnerability?
Learning Resources
Dr John Campbell is an really wise educator who launches videos quite frequently that are accessible and informative in a multigenerational way.
3Blue1Brown is an epic youtube channel about physics and maths, which has prepared a very enchanting visual 'treat' called Simulating an epidemic.
Modelling Studies that have hit the news
Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID- 19 mortality and healthcare demand from the Imperial College COVID 19 Response Team
Fundamental principles of epidemic spread highlight the immediate need for large-scale serological surveys to assess the stage of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, Laurenco et al AKA the Oxford One
Technical "fixes"
Soap
UVC light is lethal to viruses like Covid-19, but its harmful for untrained humans to handle and specific testing has a long way to go. UV light has a history as a germicide and a modern day air purifiers using this technique can be found if you can find and afford them (scale of cost hundreds of £). Emerging REHVA guidance suggests they may be of some use in breathing areas, but the industrial airconditioning lobby would say that right? In any case, public authorities, banks and hospital are using UVC lamps to disinfect public transport.
Socio-technical wisdoms
Sheila Jasanoff interview on Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution
Institutional Resources
UK Coronavirus Death Map from Health Service Journal
World Health Organisation
Society of Critical Care Medicine
Oxford COVID 19 Evidence Service
Society of Critical Care Medicine
Oxford COVID 19 Evidence Service
REHVA COVID 19 Guidance - Federation of European Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Associations
CIBSE Journal - Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers
CIBSE Journal - Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers
17.3.20
[New Word] Wancle
That brand of entitled humour rooted in anti auntyness, devaluation of their spirit, labour and a confidence that another Wancle will laugh.
3.3.20
All rise the Muslims of Dinia
It is a crying shame that the Muslim Communities of Britain's responses to the outrageous crimes of the Indian Government, its goons and supporters has not been wiser, stronger, more vibrant and courageous. It is really disgusting to see so many ignocratic thank-Jinnah-we-aren't-Indian hot takes from the alleged followers of the best of creation on Mark's Zuckerbook.
This poem about the situation, "All will be Remembered" by Aamir Aziz is quite electric.
bismIlla
The violence being meted out to Muslims in India is historic, systemic and varies in its deadliness across its valleys and plains, from Assam on the Bangladesh border, to Kashmir in the North West and now very vividly, Delhi once a thriving heart of Islamicate civilisation in the region.
As our brother outside the Indian Consular Office in Birmingham reminded us, Modi is the rule not the exception, Nehru presided over horrid ethnic cleansing in Jammu and Gandhi was as bloody minded and uncreative at times.
So solidarity to the families and communities and heros of the situation. May the vulnerable reach situational and structural safety, and may the martyrs be raised in the hearts of green birds in lanterns by the throne of the All Mighty, All Hearing, All Seeing, Avenging and Protecting Friend.
May every physical, intellectual, communicative and nonsecular act of solidarity be made with utmost success.
With ummahtic disasters like this we see eachother's faults features quite clearly. We see self promoting 'anti colonial' ( yet Congress) warrior intellectuals like Shashi Tharoor objecting to Muslim people affirming their existence as Muslims with public pronouncements of the statements that define them as Muslims. Meanwhile up and coming academic Neha Shah started a really crucial community excavation of the British East African Hindus.
What to do is harder, but switching off from a passive mode and into a serious social learning and organising one is beneficial. [ I will expand on these resources with tie iA]
Listening
Listen to unmediated voices from the front, its easier these days. Folks in India be careful with social media practices lest Sanghis trap you. Yes Arundhati Roy writes very well in English, but she's really not a proxy for sisterhood and brotherhood.
The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) Database is a startlingly awesome and data rich project hosted online here and on Mark's Zuckerbook here.
Alliances
Study, then affect the alliances (loud, quieter and unspoken) that excuse and empower this tyranny, divest from them, then build ever growing and deepening circles of solidarity.
Petitioning
Petition all kinds of power-holder over the situation, even white ones. There should be more widely organised evidence gathering, calls for immediate deployment of UN Observer force and a freeze on the UK assets and movements of Delhi Police and identified others. There is plenty for those who stick themselves up the arses of the British Establishment to be busy with
Transformation
Bros in Bamboo Houses under canon fire sharpen each other. It goes without saying and doesn't detract from the intense suffering and fear people are feeling to recognise there is a pressing need to challenge the reflections of this ultra-nationalist crap ( with caste features) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
It is always easier to point out another's crime than one's bosses, but moral authority is gained by tackling one's own demons simultaneously. But there's pragmatic reasons too, a lot of the institutions inflict and benefit from violence in the same ways. Chief of Police and in charge of Dhaka Massacre 2013, Benazir Ahmed was promoted shortly after the massacre and cover up. The US government showered the police force with 'Special Events Training' and Muslim of the House Baroness Warsi did bugger all. As well as the securocrats though, the media and NGO class of Bangladesh and the West were actively involved in the dehumanisation of the traditional Islamic Bangladeshi schooling network, which was unable to challenge the demonisation at the international level.
This poem about the situation, "All will be Remembered" by Aamir Aziz is quite electric.
bismIlla
The violence being meted out to Muslims in India is historic, systemic and varies in its deadliness across its valleys and plains, from Assam on the Bangladesh border, to Kashmir in the North West and now very vividly, Delhi once a thriving heart of Islamicate civilisation in the region.
As our brother outside the Indian Consular Office in Birmingham reminded us, Modi is the rule not the exception, Nehru presided over horrid ethnic cleansing in Jammu and Gandhi was as bloody minded and uncreative at times.
So solidarity to the families and communities and heros of the situation. May the vulnerable reach situational and structural safety, and may the martyrs be raised in the hearts of green birds in lanterns by the throne of the All Mighty, All Hearing, All Seeing, Avenging and Protecting Friend.
May every physical, intellectual, communicative and nonsecular act of solidarity be made with utmost success.
With ummahtic disasters like this we see eachother's
What to do is harder, but switching off from a passive mode and into a serious social learning and organising one is beneficial. [ I will expand on these resources with tie iA]
Listening
Listen to unmediated voices from the front, its easier these days. Folks in India be careful with social media practices lest Sanghis trap you. Yes Arundhati Roy writes very well in English, but she's really not a proxy for sisterhood and brotherhood.
The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) Database is a startlingly awesome and data rich project hosted online here and on Mark's Zuckerbook here.
Violence against religious minorities in India though not new but over the past few these violence has taken an increasingly political and institutional character in the changed socio-political landscape post-2014. DOTO Database is a non-profit documentation center based in Delhi, documenting incidents of hate-crimes since 2014 against religious minorities(Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi, Buddhists and Zoroastrians) in India.
Most importantly, we seek to entrench community-based reporting and intervention through a common documentation platform for civil society of marginalized groups: DOTO database. A platform that addresses both immediate and long-term issues related to the systemic violation of fundamental rights, erosion of constitutional values and the organization and deployment of ‘hate’.
Alliances
Study, then affect the alliances (loud, quieter and unspoken) that excuse and empower this tyranny, divest from them, then build ever growing and deepening circles of solidarity.
Petitioning
Petition all kinds of power-holder over the situation, even white ones. There should be more widely organised evidence gathering, calls for immediate deployment of UN Observer force and a freeze on the UK assets and movements of Delhi Police and identified others. There is plenty for those who stick themselves up the arses of the British Establishment to be busy with
Transformation
Bros in Bamboo Houses under canon fire sharpen each other. It goes without saying and doesn't detract from the intense suffering and fear people are feeling to recognise there is a pressing need to challenge the reflections of this ultra-nationalist crap ( with caste features) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
It is always easier to point out another's crime than one's bosses, but moral authority is gained by tackling one's own demons simultaneously. But there's pragmatic reasons too, a lot of the institutions inflict and benefit from violence in the same ways. Chief of Police and in charge of Dhaka Massacre 2013, Benazir Ahmed was promoted shortly after the massacre and cover up. The US government showered the police force with 'Special Events Training' and Muslim of the House Baroness Warsi did bugger all. As well as the securocrats though, the media and NGO class of Bangladesh and the West were actively involved in the dehumanisation of the traditional Islamic Bangladeshi schooling network, which was unable to challenge the demonisation at the international level.
On the other hand, what we have come to know from the Delhi case is that Shaheenbagh has had different resources, far wider alliances and different strategies to hand. Muslims in Assam and Kashmir have different immediate actions still. Kashmir being cloaked in state enforced silence, Assam in wider societal ignorance. And decolonial duas to all of them.
...and finally
For goodness sake, concerning India don't let unreconstructed Pakistani nationalism do any of the talking.
...and finally
For goodness sake, concerning India don't let unreconstructed Pakistani nationalism do any of the talking.
26.2.20
11.2.20
Shamima-nama
Sajid Javid,
Bus driver-er bachcha,
Killed the child of a lost begum of Bethnal Green.
A round of applause for the soon to become Chancellorwallah.
Citizen stripping,
Systematic unpeopling,
From the udder of parliaments,
Through the Brahminocracy of Dinia,
Devilapement programmes galore,
To the burning cinders of Arakan.
Get over your issues of shame and blame,
Bhodro Bogeymen and Bogeywomen,
Affirm our enduring existence, resist and thrive.
So that the Mulberry orchard grows strong
Bus driver-er bachcha,
Killed the child of a lost begum of Bethnal Green.
A round of applause for the soon to become Chancellorwallah.
Citizen stripping,
Systematic unpeopling,
From the udder of parliaments,
Through the Brahminocracy of Dinia,
Devilapement programmes galore,
To the burning cinders of Arakan.
Get over your issues of shame and blame,
Bhodro Bogeymen and Bogeywomen,
Affirm our enduring existence, resist and thrive.
So that the Mulberry orchard grows strong
4.1.20
Isn't it time we talked about Tareque?
Last week we marked International Vote Churi Day. The first anniversary of the most ridiculously rigged election in Bangladesh to date.
Opposition groups remain unable to make a dent in the power of the one party state, while the multitudes of oppressed Rohingya, Bengal Muslims in Assam wider India not to mention Uighurs China languish without security, dignity and opportunity.
It's shit being in a politically poor position however there is no need to be an absolutely useless, no negatively useful sack of shit in such circumstances.
Which is why I wonder why Tarique Rahman, the son of Ex PM of Bangladesh, resident of the UK, and the movement he represents the dregs of remains unchallenged in diaspora.
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