كارل ماركس – مقالات عن سورية ولبنان، ١٨٦٠

Karl Marx - Articles on Syria and Lebanon, 1860

Bidayat

In his articles on the 1860 events in Syria and Lebanon, Marx exposes French and Russian imperial ambitions behind the pretext of protecting Christians, and reveals the "Arab Kingdom" project.

مقالات عن سورية ولبنان، ١٨٦٠

Articles on Syria and Lebanon, 1860

Bidayat

Translation: Marx in 1860 reveals great-power horse-trading over Syria's corpse — but neglects the internal causes: the collapse of the muqata'ji system and peasant uprisings.

نيرودا بول روبصن

Neruda - Paul Robeson

A translation of Neruda on Paul Robeson: his voice separated from silence as light from darkness—singing for all peoples, triumphant over the silence of rivers that lost their voice from carrying too much blood.

اعجب المخلوقات – ناظم حكمت

The Most Wondrous of Creatures - Nazim Hikmet

A translation of Nazim Hikmet: "Brother," you are like a sheep rushing to the flock when the executioner raises his staff—stranger than a fish that lives in the sea and does not know the sea.

لمس – اكتافيو باث

Touch - Octavio Paz

A translation of Octavio Paz: hands invent another body within the body, and the woman is "beautiful like a revolution of the poor"—the body is the other face of being, time, and life.

To What Extent Does the South African Apartheid Model Apply to Palestine?

Journal of Palestine Studies

A translation: the apartheid model does not automatically apply to Palestine—what actually brought it down was resistance strength on the ground and changed US support, and Palestinian go-it-alone is understandable but detrimental without Arab depth.

بريشت – اسئلة العامل

Brecht - Questions from a Worker

Translation of Brecht: Who built Thebes? Books list kings. Caesar defeated the Gauls — didn't he have a cook? Every decade a great man. Who paid the bill?

جوناثن سويفت – اقتراح متواضع

Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal

Translation: Swift proposes selling Ireland's poor children as food for the rich — the most famous dark satire in literature, and the sharpest critique of colonialism.

خمس أطروحات في الماركسية المعاصرة

Five Theses on Contemporary Marxism

Capitalism, with its deep structural contradictions, does not kill Marxism but renews its necessity, pushing for a re-imagination of revolution and social alternatives.

Revolutions bring down ideas as well!

Heinrich Boll Stiftung

Revolutions do not merely change governments; they shatter the ideologies that made those governments seem permanent and legitimate, and undermine decades of intellectual frameworks that naturalized authoritarian rule.

Hezbollah’s New Political Platform

As-Safir

Translation: Hezbollah abandoned the Islamic state and Wilayat al-Faqih—but its new platform accepts full partnership in the confessional system and its economic conditions. "Order is from faith"—or from serving bankers?

عشر سنوات على غياب ايميه سيزير١٩١٣-٢٠٠٨، عودة الى الوطن الأم

Ten Years Since the Passing of Aime Cesaire (1913-2008): Return to the Motherland

Al-Hurriya Magazine

On the anniversary of Aimé Césaire's passing, the Martiniquais poet and politician evokes his return to the "Native Land," declaring his commitment to be the mouth of sufferings and the lover of his unique people.

For an Arab-Kurdish Federation in Iraq

An-Nahar

Translation: Iraqi federalism should be based on the national divide, not the sectarian one—and the occupation destroyed the state, not just the regime. Kirkuk's oil belongs to all Iraqis.

Breaking with the “National Consensus” – Towards Lebanese-Palestinian Reconciliation

As-Safir

Translation: "I will have no part of the settlement consensus"—it is a fraud manufactured after Taif for scapegoating. Even granting citizenship to all Palestinians would barely change the confessional balance.

The Woes of Confessionalism

As-Safir

Translation of two columns from as-Safir: Yousif Bey Karam said it in 1867—sectarian division invites external domination. The question: "Do we change the system or the people?"

Lebanon on the Brink

As-Safir

Translation from as-Safir after Gemayel's assassination: sectarian division invites external domination since 1867—and when the Lebanese unite, they do so despite the confessional system and against it.

Beirut-Guernica: A City and a Painting

Middle East Report (MERIP)

Parallel to Guernica, Beirut shows how besieged cities transform into concentrated laboratories of modern political crisis, where the contradictions and catastrophes of Arab history are condensed into a single image.

Ahmad uz-Za’tar – A poem by Mahmoud Darwish

Translation: "Let the siege be—my body is the fortress—for I am besieging you"—Darwish's Ahmad uz-Za'tar, translated by Traboulsi.

بيروت ٢٨ – نون والقلم

Beirut 28 - Nun wal-Qalam

A translation of Etel Adnan's poem on the siege of Beirut 1982: "Name your children Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatila so we do not forget"—and poets are called to change the world or stay home.