Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“As ill-defined as the term might be, in the cultural sphere the real value of the Global South is to open a space for decolonising conversations, articulating the kind of hybridity and complexity of modern identity that a nationality cannot, a conversation held far from the old imperialist orders of the Northern hemisphere. A utopian geography that may never be real but can serve a purpose.” A series of upcoming biennials promise to explore the art of the ‘Global South’

“ Ms. Manthay and the other uninvited settlers are part of the Landless Workers Movement, perhaps the world’s largest Marxist-inspired movement operating within a democracy and, after 40 years of sometimes bloody land occupations, a major political, social and cultural force in Brazil. The movement, led by activists who call themselves militants, organizes hundreds of thousands of Brazil’s poor to take unused land from the rich, settle it and farm it, often as large collectives. They are reversing, they say, the deep inequality fed by Brazil’s historically uneven distribution of land. While leftists embrace the cause — the movement’s red hats depicting a couple holding a machete aloft have become commonplace at hipster bars — many Brazilians view it as communist and criminal. That has created a dilemma for the new leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a longtime movement supporter who is now trying to build bridges in Congress and the powerful agriculture industry. Across Latin

An interview with Cihan Tugal 

A very illuminating essay. The myth of the ‘national bourgeoisie’

Historical responsibility for climate change is at the heart of debates over climate justice

 1960’s covert activities in Latin America

As of 27 July 2020, UK tops the list of countries with the highest deaths per thousand people.

Poverty, not just populists, to blame for Covid-19's impact

Some of this reminds me of how five or six years ago in a class of seven students in a UK elite university three of them (two Germans and one British) were in favour of a "benevolent dictator" (in the Arab context). The bloody horrors of Pinochet showed how capitalism will react when it's threatened

For years those who spoke about how the American state directly and indirectly established a 'world order' through violence and blood were, and still are, dismissed as anti-Americans, attacked as lunatic leftists, or apologists for the crimes of 'communism'. Now some of the empire's violence can be explicitly painted on the New York Times pages. We are really living in interesting times! The 'Liberal World Order' Was Built With Blood Related Are We ISIS? How the West won

How 'Jakarta' Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing

Toni Morrison To be a good writer matters. To know on what side you are on also matters, and in some cases it is more important than being a good writer. "Sad to read that Toni Morrison has passed away. Last met her and her son in Paraty, Brazil at a literary festival some years ago. While we were there Israel launched a serious attack on Gaza. A Palestinian poet an Egyptian novelist and myself wrote a short manifesto denouncing Israel in sharp language that would have failed the Labour Party test. Toni was the first to sign despite Christopher Hitchens attempt to stop her and others. Before I spoke I read out our statement and names of those who had signed it to loud applause. Met her again in New York and warned that Obama would be a huge disappointment to people like her. She wouldn't hear any of this, alas." —Tariq Ali, 06 August 2019

Bringing Gender to the Forefront of the Trade Union Movement

"Revolutionary Cycles Are Contagious"

"We do not want communists in Brazil" Anticommunism without communism

"Lopéz Obrador is a bigger threat to liberal democracy than Bolsonaro," says an FT headline. For the defenders of capital nowadays even a social democrat, an Obrador in Mexico or a Corbyn in the UK, is a threat to capitalism. It shows how fundamentalist the bourgeoisie has become. It also demonstrates that despite the recent events since 2006 and a possibility of an another recession, the global bourgeosie feels triumphant.

Brazil A long walk to betrayal by the Workers' Party has spawned a far-right shift. It was also due to the Venezuela's experiment with its compromise with the capitalists and failure to deepen democracy, genuine democracy. It seem that the reformist left, not just conservatism and socio-economic crisis, that opens the way to the far-right.

The coming crime wars

I have just finished reading Late Victorian Holocausts El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World It is an execellent book .  Some passages in chapter 8 are not easy and require some scientific knowledge of the field, but most of the book is a very good read.

Pentecostalism "The attractiveness of this cosmology lies in its seductive promise: that demons — not politics — are to blame for the world’s troubles. And that they can be vanquished through prayer." The spirit of late capitalism