Mark Rizk Farag > Recent Status Updates

"It takes work to realize that no matter what happens in your relationship, no matter what you feel or don’t at the end of the day, no matter if you stay together for life or separate after a few years, you are capable and able to cope with the outcome of your decisions."

The way my people have been treated is nothing short of depressing....

After a brilliant chapter deconstructing the mythology of Oslo, discussing the fragmentation of the Palestinian factions and the status quo, we have a very weak chapter about the Arab spring that lacks nuance and critical thinking.

I guess when each chapter is written by a different author, the quality will be variable.

Utterly heart shattering

This is starting to get good 👀

a brilliant analysis on the failure of the left in the Palestinian resistance and how it led to the rise of Hamas.

The author perhaps, in typical leftist fashion focuses more on ideological shortfalls as opposed to pragmatic errors.

The prospect of a single secular state for Jews and Arabs is so far removed from the present reality in which both sides are supporting more radical and fundamentalist groups...

The linking of Israeli-USA relations and support to US imperialism and economic hegemony in the middle east due to global capitalism is an Interesting point....

Brilliant, if a little slow....

Makes me wonder what I (as a relatively liberal person) would do if I had a child who was extremely socially conservative....

Loving this so far! Am I going to need to get a Philokalia? 👀

Thank God she got out.

Mindfulness fascists is a hilarious phrase and one I didn't expect to see in a textbook like this 😂.

Very refreshing perspective and very engaging style of writing.

Gender dynamics, sexism and misogyny are covered extremely well in this book 🙏🏼

An intelligent main character who is brilliant at statecraft and realpolitick? Damn!

I went into Dovstoevsky seeking the depths of Russian literature and a look into the Russian Soul.

I left with a deep thirst and longing for Eastern Orthodox mysticism and spirituality.

People thought God wanted them to do THIS to other people? I feel physically sick.

The magic system having visual representations of each relationship reminds me of an RPG!

Love the main character's relationship with her brother and her maidservant so far.

One of the most difficult books I have read alongside 'bury my heart at wounded knee', but perhaps that is what makes it all the more important.

This (alongside bury my heart at wounded knee) is easily one of the most difficult books I have read. But perhaps that is why it is so important to read.

'Our Sunni Neighbours would have come to us and tried to help. If they knew what was going to happen to the women, they could have dressed us in all black and taken us with them. They could have just come and told us matter of factly' this is what is going to happen to you' so that we would stop fantasising about being rescued. But they didn't. They made the decision to do nothing.....'

Harrowing to consider.

' "Bush come here..... We had him just after the war to liberate Kuwait so we named him after the American president".'

Ooft that one aged like milk

Had no idea that Calley, a US veteran who killed 22 innocent civilians during the Mai Lai massacre only got 3 years house arrest. That is wild.

The calm before the storm....

Genuinely fascinating and extremely unique as a book.

Follows a similar narrative style to 'Season of Migration to the North' but pulls it off far better.

It is historical fiction, but the history of leftist movements in the middle east is so far removed from the present and so left out of common narrative that it reads like historical fiction.

The fact the author struggles to find traces of it in the present mirrors the experience of the reader.

'there is a stream of things entering into being, and time is a raging torrent; for no sooner does each thing enter our sight than it has been swept away, and another thing is passing in its place, and that too will be swept away.'

'there is a stream of things entering into being, and time is a raging torrent; for no sooner does each thing enter our sight than it has been swept away, and another thing is passing in its place, and that too will be swept away.'

A little close to home for me perhaps.

'We would, over generations get used to small pain and injustice until it became small enough to ignore. I imagine this is why we had come to accept certain insults like our food not being accepted... Even the threat of another firman (geonoicide) was something the Yazidis had gotten used to, although that adjustment was more like a contortion. It hurt.'