An analyst, a political comentator on the uber complex Egyptian and MENA scene. I may not have every answer but I know the questions to ask. When not publishing in Ahram Online, Mada Masr, Daily News Egypt and Muftah I love the dynamic of the short story. If you adore the written word you have come to the right place. Pull up a chair and join me for a cup of literary tea.
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Words Reign Supreme 
Dear Mr. Khalifa,
I am doing my masters dissertation on the Egyptian uprising in 2011. Would it be possible to send you some questions related to the research?
Kind regards,
Rebeka
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Happy to assist Rebecca. Feel free to email me and we can take it from there
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Great. Please can you send me your e-mail
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Amr.khalipha@gmail.com
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salam Amr —thank you for your writings/views particularly over the years…Which makes me wonder if you ever heard of this person and his scholarship work/activism given your views in general between the East and the West on race, oppression, and our movements and the fact that indigenous peoples on Turtle Island (US/Canada) consider this land to be colonized and there that the emphasis ought be on decolonization and which involves an explicit anti-statist and authoritarian critique as opposed to fetishizing the state as a site of liberation or repression— the writer i’m referring to is of Egyptian (arab and african) descent and been involved with a lot of organizing with people of color on Turtle Island, with indigenous, immigrant and african folks and communities….post-colonialism assumes that colonialism is an aftermath which it isn’t given that decolonization in arab and muslim societies never took place…He’s already illuminated the connection between all the aforementioned communities in the East and West —he talks about hypervisibility of blackness globally and the invisibility of it in our communities — he talks about global understandings of indigeneity which is different than ‘indigenous peoples’ …he talks about the need for developing an ethics of disagreements, a politics of friendship, and an ethics of hospitality, the difference between institutionalized and non institutionalized faith that is different too from the concept of ‘religion’ and distinct from ‘spirituality’, as well as the difference between racial/ethnic conceptualizations of whiteness and white assimilation and ‘cultures of whiteness’ which are all ontologically and epistemologically influenced by — the difference between ‘anti-authoritarianism’ and ‘non-authoritarianism’, ‘anti-captialsm and non-captialsit practices’, the role of not only non-hollywoodian characterizations of love, but also mourning and death as opposed to a narcissistic focus on militant joy (from a Fanonian/derridean/foucaultian perspective ….he was involved in the Arab Spring/Islamist Winter and perhaps thinkers as yourself would benefit from his engagement … he talks about colonial understandings of ‘the nation’ and how to decolonize them….His name is mohamed jean veneuse (‘jean veneuse’ is a pseudonym he uses and from my understanding it’s from frantz fanon’s black skins, white masks — hence it’s not his real name) and he’s a self-identifying Muslim anarchist and wrote his MA on the topic of islam and anarchism, their relationships and their resonances. His thesis/due to be published book ‘anarch-islam’ was amongst a reading list created by a group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people who are writers, organizers, teachers, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, and radicals…..http://thenewinquiry.com/features/a-time-for-treason/ …..He wrote an article on arabic which i listed below…He’s currently doing his PhD. on Arab and Muslim gender and sexualities, which is ethnographic based and addressing queer Muslims in both Turtle Island (US/Canada) and Egypt, from what i understand where he was born in Egypt. He’s been involved with movements in turtle island for over 20 years or so and the middle-east uprisings, egypt, but lived all over including having spent time with the indigenous Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico… the issue isn’t just intersectionality but rather decolonizing intersectional theories as well, given that the US & Canada are settler-colonial societies and this is never taken into consideration from the point of view of narrative or analysis….His book on Islam, Anarchism, Indigeneity, colonialism/imperialism to say the least (etc.), comes out relatively soon and is particularly interesting, given the social movement perspectives he takes with an emphasis on what is referred to as Decolonization and Reindigenization with respect to indigenous peoples of the Americas; he talks about anti-blackness within arab and muslim communities but also about ‘cultures of whiteness’ and argues against essentialized and blood quantum politics – he situates BLM within a broader history of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles but also talks about Palestine and indigenous people having to be included in the the narrative of struggles, and how they figure into the ‘War on Terror’ and then develops a strategy for mobilization; i really wish his work would get more attention, especially when the book comes out because it will be very useful for us to be united by a common strategy and vision even if we differ over tactics…Self-determination isn’t just about self-determination when we’re talking about a predominantly a settler population that requires decolonizing given that Turtle Island is the very laboratory experiment for imperial Empire — not to mention activist scholarship that has long rejected that poc and indigenous people struggle for a politics of assimilation and recognition, as that is precisely what informs settler-colonialism and the continuation of oppression brought forth through capitalist-nation-states — the argument here means that we need to organize our communities according to alternative models and outside the capitalist-nation-State framework…Standing rock/DAPL isn’t just about water but about an alternative life for all of us and beyond nation-states …I really wish people would read and educate themselves as opposed to us reinventing the wheel…this fact and argument has been made for a very long time and isn’t an epiphany… i’m surprised that most muslims haven’t engaged his work at all despite that he’s been around …Right now, as i said, he’s working on the biopolitics or the political-economy of queer Muslim gender and sexuality and which is ethnographic based with participants from Egypt and Turtle Island (US/Canada)………..…he also has an article in Arabic that he published last year, titled عن الهيمنة، هيمنة الهيمنة، والأناركية الإسلامية which i attached the link to below …
..1) His thesis titled anarca-Islam quite a few years back (and it is what he calls an anarchic interpretation of islam and islamic interpretation of anarchism) and that is due out as a book this year here: http://theanarchistlibrary. org/library/mohamed-jean- veneuse-anarca-islam the thesis has been transformed into a book to published through akpress & minor compositions… can be found here…http://www.akpress.org/ islam-anarchism.html
2) Here is an article he wrote regarding the June 30th events in Egypt…It’s available here: http://tahriricn.wordpress. com/2013/07/09/egypt-goodbye- welcome-my-revolutionegypt- the-military-the-brotherhood- tamarod/ The article is
3) he also has a blog where he talks about the ethics of hospitality and disagreements between various different social movements and communities seeing that ‘the Left’ doesn’t have an ethics from which it disagrees in conflict resolution mechanisms…his blog is here: http:// mohamedjeanveneuse.blogspot. com
3) Here’s an article in Arabic that he wrote: عن الهيمنة، هيمنة الهيمنة، والأناركية الإسلامية…http://anarchisminarabic.blogspot.ca
4) Here’s a paper he wrote and that got published in an anarchist academic journal regarding Sayyid-Sally (the first official transgendered case in Egypt) — http://www.anarchist- developments.org/index.php/ adcs/article/view/17
really hope you find his work interesting and useful and hope to hear from you when you have time as to what you think…
thank you again for everything you’re all doing and saying…
sincerely,
zaynab
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I’m about to read your blog and articles Middle East Eye as “homework” for my upcoming move to Egypt. Too bad I no longer live in NYC! cheers.
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