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" La force et le consentement sont les deux fondements de la conduite des Etats modernes, les deux piliers d’une hégémonie. Quand le consentement vient à manquer — comme ce fut par exemple le cas en 2011 dans le monde arabe —, les conditions sont réunies pour le renversement du pouvoir en place." Gramsci, une pensée devenue monde
"Today on the Western Front,” the German sociologist Max Weber wrote in September 1917, there “stands a dross of African and Asiatic savages and all the world’s rabble of thieves and lumpens.” Weber was referring to the millions of Indian, African, Arab, Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers and labourers, who were then fighting with British and French forces in Europe, as well as in several ancillary theatres of the  first world war . Faced with manpower shortages, British imperialists had recruited up to 1.4 million Indian soldiers. France enlisted nearly 500,000 troops from its colonies in Africa and Indochina. Nearly 400,000 African Americans were also inducted into US forces. The first world war’s truly unknown soldiers are these non-white combatants.   Ho Chi Minh, who spent much of the war in Europe, denounced what he saw as the press-ganging of subordinate peoples. Before the start of the Great War, Ho wrote, they were seen as “nothing but dirty Negroes … good for no more t
"What Assad needs in order to survive ...  is, someday, the end of resistance," says Valerie Szybala, executive director of the Syria Institute. "The only way he can get that, in certain places — certainly strategic ones like Damascus — is by repopulating them with people who will not oppose him." "Plan to rebuild Syria could be a recipe for another war"
We are hearing and reading a lot just now about a war for civilization. In some vague, ill-designed manner we are led to believe that the great empires of Europe have suddenly been seized with chivalrous desire to right the wrongs of mankind, and have sallied forth to war, giving their noblest blood and greatest measures to the task of furthering the cause of civilization.  James Connolly, A War for Civilization, 1915 Armistice Day How the civilised celeberate slaughter, selectively. Western-centric, arrogant and even xenophobic. The elites that sent millions to their death for the ruling classes geopolitical and imperialist interests , organise show annually every 11 November. Other people make money from selling poppies. It is also about how much the nation-state and nationalism have made us immune not only in front of barbarism (carried out by "the civilised" or by "the backward people"), but also towards human solidarity with the dead. Those who were k
"The regime's parties, in the hands of the EU"  have dismantled "social rights, through labour reforms, gag laws, attacks on the Catalan language". Independence of Catalonia would provide a chance to cope with "unfettered capitalism". However, independence alone would not be enough. A struggle would revolve around the "constitutional process". A struggle for a Catalan constitution in the interest of the working class. A struggle against "certain Catalan economic elites who intend to implement a constitutional process from a conservative base". And a struggle against the European Union itself. Catalonia: A Democratic Opportunity
The so-called impartiality of a liberal. "Churchill held opinions that would disbar him f rom political office today - despicable yes, but surely massively outweighed by the scale of his accomplishments." Seeing the dismantling of the empire against his will, killing of the Greek resistance, advocating the use of poison gas against recalcitrant tribes, praising Mussolini for being the greatest legislator in Europe, his racism, etc were just opinions and very small things compared to his "accomplishments". " If we were to denude Britain of all the statues of dead politicians and soldiers who held a few views we now find problematic, the country would be littered with unoccupied plinths." Does that mean there is a lack of people who could have statues, people who were progressives? There are only representative of a bloody and colonial past. "Pity the country that needs heroes." Statues like those of Churchill, Rhodes and Havelock celebr
Labour movements and popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt Joel Beinin explains what happened. He begins with the dire situation in Egypt today.
"Unfortunately, the revolution in the West did not materialise.  While the planned economy succeeded in transforming the lives of millions, Russia was isolated, surrounded and very quickly the regime itself degenerated into a totalitarian dictatorship and finally into a corrupt capitalist autocracy far from the aims of the revolution of 1917." The Russian Revolution — some economic notes and The Russian Revolution of October 1917 Should we regret the Russian Revolution?
When the celebrated Saudi-Jordanian novelist Abdel-Rahman Munif was asked why he named his literary masterpiece on the rise of the petro-modernist cities of the Gulf  Cities of Salt , he replied: By Cities of Salt, I meant cities that grew suddenly in an unnatural and extraordinary way, not as a result of a long historical accumulation that led to their expansion, but more as a kind of explosion due to sudden wealth. This wealth (oil) has led to inflated cities that have become like balloons that can explode and end once they touch something sharp. The same applies to salt. Although it is necessary for life, humans, and all creatures, any increase in its quantity  . . . life becomes unsustainable. This is what is expected of the cities of salt.  . . . When floods come to them, when electricity is cut off, or when you experience real difficulties of one kind or another, we will discover that these cities are fragile places ill fit to be modern cradles for human life and betterment.
" Les classes moyennes sont donc structurellement destinées à vivre entre espérance et déception, entre enthousiasme et désenchantement, dans un système qui par nature ne peut qu’engendrer et exacerber des revendications qu’il ne peut satisfaire totalement. La logique objective de leur condition conduit les petits-bourgeois à développer deux sortes d’attentes. Les unes, proportionnées aux capitaux dont ils disposent réellement, les aspirations orthodoxes si l’on peut dire, ont toute chance de recevoir satisfaction, ce qui a pour effet de renforcer l’adhésion et d’alimenter le consensus. Les autres, les aspirations hérétiques, exorbitantes par rapport aux capitaux réels, ont toute probabilité d’être rejetées comme d’irrecevables prétentions, ce qui a pour effet d’attiser la frustration et d’alimenter la contestation." Le double jeu des classes moyennes