Author: mara.ahmed

What steps will the American government take?

As Paola Bacchetta points out, ‘Italy has suspended everyone’s mortgage and utility bills. France is canceling all utility bills and letting everyone ride public transport for free. Spain has nationalized all private hospitals and medical staff. In Denmark, to deal with the corona economic fallout the State will cover 75% of wages of workers who have been let off, and companies will cover the other 25%.’

Also, in Norway, the government said it would remove the three-day waiting period between the point at which companies stop paying employees’ salaries and the time unemployment benefits begin, to help keep the income of those laid off stable.

What steps will the American government take besides injected $1.5 trillion into the financial system and supporting airlines and cruise ships? Because, you know, corporations are people too.

What Role Did Sexism Play in Warren’s Failed Presidential Bid?

absolutely brilliant analysis of warren’s failed campaign which starts with an astute comparison to hillary clinton’s presidential bid (she won by 3 million popular votes). sexism alone does not explain warren’s dismal performance in the primaries. i wanted to quote something from the article, but there’s so much there that i couldn’t pick one or two paragraphs. pls read. thank u Deepa Kumar and Patrick Barrett. More here.

panic and shortages

i am not an alarmist and i like to take things as they come, so today i went to wegmans for my weekly shopping and it was freaky. all the meat is gone, most of the canned goods, no cooking oil, no rice, no pasta, no garbage bags. i didn’t check the TP situation. this is extreme. people should buy what they need. it’s irresponsible to create shortages, as some might actually need that food right now. urgently. also, when people are gripped with fear, those in power will, inevitably, institute harsh authoritarian measures and trample on rights and protections. the process started a long time ago in the US, but this latest crisis (much like the war on terror) will allow robber barons and their state/defense machine to go into overdrive. let’s remember the shock doctrine and use our own calm common sense and compassion in the weeks to come. it will make all the difference.

Biden Wins, Sanders Lags: Naomi Klein & Alicia Garza on Calls to Shut Down Primaries

Naomi Klein: And so, one of the things that’s happening — and this is why we so desperately need the debate — is while it is true that a bunch of losing candidates in the Democratic primary have endorsed Joe Biden, reality keeps endorsing Bernie Sanders. That is true for Medicare for All, and we’re going to be hearing from NNU and Alicia Garza more on that, because it is the care sector, it is nurses and home care workers, who are on the frontlines of this crisis, and we are seeing the living argument for why we need everybody to have health insurance, everybody to have paid sick leave. But instead of that, we have the Trump administration talking about cutting the payroll tax, which of course is a backdoor way of cutting Social Security and then privatizing Social Security. So it is extremely relevant that Joe Biden has a decades-long track record of trying to cut Social Security in a bipartisan way. More here.

dinner at maysaa’s

last night my beautiful friend Maysaa treated us to some exquisite iraqi, syrian and lebanese food. gorgeous salads to start with (fattoush and tabbouleh), kibbeh, dolma mahshi (stuffed onions) and dolmas made with grape leaves, fatayer with cheese, spinach and meat, and finally rice and qeema (a stew with chickpeas and ground beef, traditionally served during muharram). for dessert, we had warbat which reminded me of baklava (just as crispy, filled with custard or pistachios, walnuts, and almonds), and halawet el jibn (made with cheese dough, filled with cream, drenched in sugar syrup and rose water) – to die for. what a feast and what wonderful conversation. thank u so much maysaa and mazin.

‘books sandwiched in’ at wood library

spoke about ‘citizen: an america lyric,’ part of ‘books sandwiched in’ at wood library in #canandaigua today. discussed the book (with a clip from an interview with claudia rankine), the idea of #microaggressions, the toll they take on the body, and how my film #TheInjuredBody was inspired by the book. shared some clips from the film and explained how dance, the muscular contraction of the body, and breathing are important themes in the film. the Q & A was particularly lively with some resistance to microaggressions i shared as examples. will write more about that. but the library’s director realized how such convos were badly needed, and asked for names of activists and speakers. i guess that’s a step forward. here i am with jenny goodemote the library’s executive director.

international women’s day 2020

instead of mollycoddling privileged white women, on this international women’s day, let’s lift the voices of the most marginalized and courageous. let’s pledge solidarity to the women of shaheen bagh in india, to indigenous women here, in canada and south america, to the women of the black lives matter movement, to arab feminists and revolutionaries fighting patriarchy as well as imperial wars, to women struggling for prison abolition and immigration reform, to kashmiri women, palestinian women, uighur and rohingya women who continue to resist, to women from the senegal, chad, kenya and south africa fighting for the world’s oceans, to the women of chile, mexico and bolivia, to all our powerful sisters across the globe, we see u – we will sink or swim together. 

universal healthcare over empty representation

i understand that warren supporters are disappointed, i would be too if someone i believed in and campaigned for didn’t get the votes to stay in the race. but some of the tributes to warren that i am seeing on social media are ridiculous. like this one: ‘one day, some day, maybe this nation will be worthy of elizabeth warren. this is not that day.’

for real? i am sorry (and i know this will be unpopular) but i have to call out nonsense when i see it. i understand that warren is a woman and that, in and of itself, is a challenge. trust me, all women can ‘feel’ that in their bodies. but at the end of the day, i will vote for universal healthcare over gender. i will do it every single time.

universal healthcare is the foundation on which we build an egalitarian society and that’s particularly important to me as a woman and poc.

also, sanders might be an old white man (as warren supporters like to describe him) but he’s also jewish, not the most privileged group of people in the world historically. as a muslim woman, as a religious minority, as someone who is used to my people being constantly orientalized, othered and attacked, i’d love to see the american presidency open up that way and embrace the kind of socialist reform that i associate closely with islam.

i don’t think our nation (whatever that means) is not worthy of warren, rather we, as human beings, are certainly worthy of medicare for all.