philosophy

Picture of Beirut city and Raoushe coastal line

A World Gone Cold, Un Coin de Paradis

~Zulfikar~

A world Gone Cold
By: -Reem Youssef-

In shadows deep where silence reigns,
The cries of many drown in chains,
What once was right now wears a mask,
As apathy becomes our daily task.

Evil walks with a casual grace,
While kindness fades without a trace,
We turn away, our hears grown numb,
As suffering echoes, a distant drum.

Children laugh in sheltered light,
Unaware of the endless night.
Yet guild creeps in like a thief at dawn,
For every joy, a sorrow drawn.

How can we feast while others starve?
Injustice thrives where we should carve
A path of hope, a hand to lend,
But instead, we watch as shadows blend., read more

Reflections on James Bond: Skyfall and the Propaganda of Destruction

~Zulfikar~

My partner and I decided to rewatch all the James Bond movies, starting with the Daniel Craig series and working our way backward.

I know if you’re reading this then you’re probably thinking “why tho…?”

And I can’t really say much besides that we’ve been together for 23 years, and we do stuff like this. I should probably also mention that neither of us are huge James Bond fans. I watched a couple of the Sean Conary ones as a kid, and then the Pierce Brosnan ones with my friends when I was a teenager. I mean…they’re movies, they passed the time and I chilled with friends, can’t really say more than that. read more

Bodies Fall but Ideas Endure

~Zulfikar~

The great Ghassan Kanafani said this. The 36 year old author, and politician, was assassinated along with his 17 year old niece in a car bomb planted by the Israeli Mossad. Yet his ideas, values and virtues, that empowered his will to resist, reverberate decades later. To this day he stands as an insurmountable symbol of strength, sumud (steadfastness), and uncompromising integrity.

On Friday, September 27, 2024, Israel assassinated another powerful figure of the Lebanese Arab resistance and secretary general of Hezb’Allah, Sayed Hasan Nasrallah. Israel’s weapon of choice for murdering Nasrallah was infinitely more barbaric and monstrous than that of any other Arab resistance leader that I can recall; carpet bombing six residential buildings in the Dahiyeh, a small suburb in Beirut Lebanon. read more

‘Martyr’ Doesn’t Really Capture it…

~Zulfikar~

For as long as I can remember, and back from when I was a young child still living in Lebanon, I would hear the word “Shaheed” and “Martyr”. And though I have not stopped hearing those words throughout my whole life, there have certainly been times where I’ve heard them used a lot more. Specifically, social media outlets in the West have a need to sensationalize the word “Martyr” and how it relates to Arabs, and specifically Muslims.

In this post I want to delve a little bit into both the meaning and the translation of the word “Shaheed”, most commonly used and understood in the West as “Martyr”. My hope is that critical analysis of these terms helps to expose the biases and discriminations that arise from misusing them. read more

Hope and Creation…

~Zulfikar~

A long time ago I wrote my Master’s Philosophy thesis on “Aesthetics, Human Freedom, and Technological Rationality”. Thinking back on it now I probably should have come up with a more simple title like “Art, Freedom, and Capitalism”.

I examined the work of two philosophers Friedrich Schiller’s “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man”, and Herbert Marcuse’s “One Dimensional Man”. In short, I was interested in looking at the creative capacities of human beings and how Capitalism basically squashes those capacities. read more

Fight, Flight, or Freeze. What About Grief?

~Zulfikar~

It has been seven months since Israel and the United States have been massacring Palestinians in Gaza. At the same time Israel has been maintaining its occupation in the West Bank and expanding its settlements there. As a matter of fact on March 22, 2024 Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s current finance minister announced that they have seized about 3.8 square miles of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. This land seizure by Israel is the largest one since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to a settlement watchdog group called Peace Now. read more

Thoughts on the U.S. and Israel’s Settler Colonialist Project in the Levant

~Zulfikar~

I’m Lebanese-Syrian. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1980. My mother is Syrian and my father is Lebanese. My family and I have lived through and survived Israel’s war on Lebanon, and the Lebanese civil war, not to mention the wars on and in Syria. I would like to say that I’m no stranger to the politics in my two countries and that whole region, but with how much history there is I always felt like I didn’t know enough.

I grew up in Burj-al-Barajneh, a refugee camp that was set up for Palestinians who were driven out of Palestine by Israel. Palestinians are like family to me, there isn’t much distinction, we lived and grew up together. And though I have never been to Palestine, my love for it is born from the love for my Palestinian friends and family. I unequivocally stand in solidarity with them. read more

“I would (insert hyperbole) for you”

~Zulfikar~

How often do we hear people saying some over the top thing they would do to prove their love or commitment or whatever, towards someone else? I’ve heard people say things like “I would die for you”, “I would jump in front of a car for you”, “I would take a bullet…”, “I would fight anyone…”, “I would do whatever it takes…”. All this said in an effort to show the extremes that someone would go to show how much they care. But do they…? read more

MEAL PREP AND SABOTAGE

~Zulfikar~

A few years back I was up late at on a sunday night, prepping food for the week. I was making a big, delicious pot of chilli. I’m not sure of the exact date, but I do remember it was in the winter. I know this because I make chilli mostly in the winter. And I remember thinking about how much I would rather be sleeping because I had to be up early.

So around 10:30pm I was prepping the ingredients and gathering spices to make an awesome meal to last the week. And I began talking to myself. I told myself “It’s ok, my future self will thank me”. I didn’t know that this thought would unfold into an entire way of life for me. The first part is a bit thick, but stick with me I’m going somewhere good with this. read more