Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

So far, the major imperialist states supporting Israel in its genocidal war have not acted the way they did against ISIS when the latter killed ‘Westerners’. A friend, an ally, a state that is a European colonial creation, one that shares some similarities with the history of the Western colonial, racist and white supremacist history, and a very important geopolitical regime for imperialism in the region is still allowed to kill ‘Westerners’/Western nationals’ . ‘The price is worth it’. After a period of blackouts, the BBC is publishing what cannot be ignored. The criminals are heartbroken upon hearing of the death of three aid workers.

“Welcome to the wackier side of geoengineering - deliberately intervening in the Earth's climate system to try to counteract the damage we have done to it .” We? Historical responsibility for climate change is at the heart of debates over climate justice The fault of humanity? The 1% emit more than double of the poorest half of humanity Climate breakdown responsibility

When referring to the Suharto regime, the BBC deliberately ignored the dark side of the US’s and Britain’s role and their support of the brutal, murderous regime.  “ Yet today Indonesian politics is dominated by the same powerful, wealthy figures who prospered under Suharto.” “Indonesia has had just two directly elected presidents over a 20-year period, both of whom have been moderate, effective and popular, delivering steady economic growth.” It sounds the type of ‘democracy’ we want. After all, Indonesia is the largest ‘Muslim’ country, and that is the type of a ‘Muslim’ country we need to see. But no, “ Indonesia's democracy - the third largest in the world - appears to be in rude health.” We have heard this before: ‘India, the largest democracy in the world’. “ The Indonesian state - built up methodically by Suharto - has survived much. The violent upheavals of the late 1990s, rising jihadist terrorism in the early 2000s that many thought would unravel it, the experiment with d

The BBC drenching the conflict and the war in Yemen in (neo-)orientalist narrative. After all, the Houthis are directly attacking ‘our interest’ and interrupting ‘the free market’ as well as they might slow down the Israeli terror and destruction.  " They [the Houthis] are generally more war-like, violent and cruel ," says Edmund Fitton-Brown, who was UK ambassador to Yemen from 2015-17.  "I encountered astonishing instances of brutality in Aden and Taiz. The Houthis consider themselves an elite from an elite (the Zaidi sect). Some of their casual viciousness towards Sunni civilians in central and southern Yemen has been remarkable: a readiness to deploy snipers and kill non-combatants for fun." Now let’s compare that to the narrative deployed to describe the Australian elite troops in Afghanistan: “And it wasn't just that these alleged executions took place, it was the manner of impunity by which they happened. In fact, according to the report, there was an air

The BBC probably never mentioned John Pilger before until he died. Using google, one cannot find his name on the BBC.  I did not always agree with Pilger’s way of reporting, but he was one of those who opened my mind to how I should relate to and analyse the corporate media and how crimes and complicities are hidden or ignored. That was the time Chomsky's and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media fell in my hands. Here is something the British Broadcasting Corporation and Jessica Murray of the Guardian have deliberately, in their usual selectivity, ignored to mention: The War on Democracy   The War On Democracy (English subtitles) from John Pilger on Vimeo .

Similar to the previous propaganda and disinformation by Western propagandists such the one about ‘Islam’, ‘reforming Islam’, etc., Western propagandists have continued to wage another battle of disinformation – the one against the Palestinian resistance. “ Here are the top 10 propaganda points western media were pushing on behalf of their favourite settler-colony”

From  a BBC correspondent based in Beirut, Rami Ruhayem, to the Director General of the BBC, Tim Davie, voicing ‘the gravest possible concerns’ about BBC coverage of unfolding events in Gaza .

I wish leftists, and a few revolutionary leftists, covered, analysed, and spilled as much ink on the oppression of Palestinians as on the slaughter of Syrians by the Assad regime. Debunking myths and ‘the Western’ media and politicians’s complicity in crime. “Hamas’s attack in southern Israel, however grimly, predictably brutal, was not an ‘ invasion’  as it has widely been reported. During the Great March of Return – 2018-2019 – both  “the BBC and Westminster politicians referred to this as ‘ border   violence’.  So did the international press from the  New York Times  to the  Globe and Mail .” The purpose of asserting that there is a border between Israel and Gaza is to euphemise [sic] Israeli violence, and to represent the aggressor as engaging in self-defence. Gaza is not a nation-state. It is not even an ‘ open-air prison’  as is often said. It is a fortified ghetto controlled by the state of Israel… The occupying power, the aggressor, the purveyor of racist  apartheid  – is not m

BBC: Hamas attack on Israel. Middle East Eye: Palestinian attack on Israel. That is expected from the BBC. Watch how little sympathy and concern there will be from the West for the many Palestinian men, women and children who are killed once again by Israel. Their immense suffering will be obscured, and justified, by the term "Israeli retaliation ". —Jonathan Cook Related Blood and Religion - The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State   (Pluto Press 2006). Interview with Jonathan Cook, a former staff journalist of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, from Nazareth, Israel.   >>  Listen to Jonathan Cook . How Israel went from helping create Hamas to bombing it My interview with Khaled Hrub , author of  A Beginner’s Guide to Hamas

A list of songs which have been banned by the BBC over the years

I don’t expect from Andrew Harding and the BBC’s international editor to add a bit of historical context, mainly the working of political economy of the 200 years that emerged in Western Europe then imposed on the rest of the world.  “ After all, Western nations have, for decades, devoted significant energy and cash towards supporting health services, businesses and governments across the continent.”  Putting aside the difference between nation and state and who really did what they did in particular contexts and conjunctures, the obvious is that why then Africa is still in a dire situation. The explanation, people like Harding would like us to put forward, is the same we have heard hundreds of times before: ‘It is their fault, those Africans’, ‘it is in their culture’, ‘they don’t know how to implement the right capitalism’… Harding would be more satisfied if he added NGOs, ‘aid’, ‘free market’, ‘human rights’, etc. Note also how in the title both China and Russia already have one uni

“ Anyone who has read Widgery’s report on Bloody Sunday or Hutton’s report on David Kelly will recognize the methodology at work. Instead of beginning with the evidence and proceeding step by step until you reach a set of conclusions, you begin with the conclusions you want to reach and torture the evidence until it signs a full confession. This methodology can be used to condemn the innocent just as easily as it can be used to absolve the guilty.” Lawfare in the UK

Another of the BBC’s failures I would say. 20 years on and the Corporation feels it must repeat a lie. The intelligence argument is an argument that reinforces the belief among many that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The BBC is actually reinforces a lie. It is an argument to justify past and present British involvements in wars and conflicts: “our intention has always been the intention of a good player that supports ‘democracy’ and ‘freedoms’ all over the world.” Removing geopolitics, the political economy and American hegemony and ‘imperial’ functioning , help provide a narrow picture that reinforces the belief in the government and the ideology behind  interventions, ‘regime change’, aid, etc. The fact is that Britain is a junior player and has material and geopolitical interests with the US, the decisive power. A criminal needs an alibi . That is what happened prior the invasion of Iraq. Previous criminal actions also required alibis. Think of British support of Saddam in Th

Why doesn’t the BBC put this in its Business section rather than in Tech? And even a blond girl did not prevent it! Heartless! TikTok, tick tock, tick tock …

Imperial Encore  a text that should be on the reading list of anyone interested in colonialism, material culture as a tool of empire and attempts to extend imperialism through the use of soft power. Review of  Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire

Contrary to Western corporate media reports, the protests in Iran are not simply about the “morality police”—they represent a rejection of the structural social, political, and juridical relations that systematically reproduce capitalist patriarchy combined with Islamist codes. Hijab has nothing to do with “women’s culture” in the Middle East, as some postcolonial thinkers imply. In the context of the Islamic Republic, Hijab is a method of class domination, an integral part of capitalist patriarchy, and must be criticized without compromise. Corporate media in the West (for example, the BBC Persian and Iran International) as well as celebrity activists like Masih Alinejad (who work with the most conservative forces in the United States, those in favor of prohibiting abortion and “regime change” via military intervention) are doing their best to promote the reactionary trends within the movement, reducing the whole problem to the question of “human rights.”  They mispresent the social r

An Extinction Rebellion that cannot rebel. A Trade Union Congress that bows in front of class rule. An excellent article by Chris Hedges Related

No tears to shed over a woman who was part and parcel of an imperialist criminal state. “[Madeleine]  Albright was also champion of Nato expansion , overseeing the addition of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1999 - a move whose repercussions are being keenly felt today.” On May 12, 1996, Albright defended  UN sanctions against Iraq  on a  60 Minutes  segment  in which  Lesley Stahl  asked her, "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" and Albright replied, "We think the price is worth it." In the context of the 1998 Iraq campaign, Albright expressed another justification , saying, "But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."  In 2014, a released diplomatic cable  revealed  that as amba

Has the fear of a wider war made the BBC acknowledge the Western imperialism’s role?  “But the dark energy that drives Vladimir Putin is the other side of that coin. He saw Russia diminished, humiliated and stripped of what he saw as its right to a buffer zone of subordinate states.