Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Humans facing violence at home and violence abroad Just replace each of the photographs by stories of animals and they would see showers of millions of likes and messages of solidarity and tears. A Polish taxi-driver told me today that the priority is to Christian and skilled Ukrainians coming to Poland, not to Syrians, for example. I refrained from telling him: You are right. What would the Polish gain from "Syrian infidels with backward culture and backward religion? Wasn't the Polish regime part of the imperialist 2003 invasion of Iraq? Who made the situation there worse? Why did we get such a wave of refugees in the past few years? And I hope the ordinary Polish have gained something from their government's adventure in joining that criminal invasion and destruction.  Today the Polish government is rewriting history, including criminalising anyone who says that some Polish were involved in the Nazi extermination of the Jews on Polish soil. I managed to tell hi

2019 presidential elections A funny photo of the liberal candidad Mohamed Abbou with the slogan, "A Strong and Just State". Two unachievable objectives. There are two women running for the presidency.

Portraits of the Kurdish Struggle

Britain "It was conflict inside the Tory party that led to the current political paralysis, a fact that Johnson wants the public to forget. In an insightful TV documentary made by the former Tory Minister Michael Portillo, party grandees explain that the Tory party is the oldest and most successful ruling party in the world. It ruled before the majority of British people had the right to vote, and it crystalized its power and philosophy in the period of an expanding British Empire.  However, as the Empire ended in the wake of two world wars, the British ruling class, its elite school networks, its aristocracy, its landowners, its bankers, and its large capitalist barons, could no longer rule in the old way. And during the same period popular reverence and respect for the elite faded away.  After WWII, British capitalism was forced to submit to the sway of American global power. Britain became the staunchest U.S. ally and pursued economic policies that came to be known a

Britain “The scorn which the angry young men hurled at the establishment was a class resentment but one devoid of any class consciousness,” feminist Lynne Segal writes perceptively in  Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy . In the decades that followed, shaped by race riots, feminism, Thatcherism, the miners’ strike and the collapse of heavy industry and trade unionism, working-class solidarity appeared to fracture. The rise of what’s now called identity politics began. From the the Blitz to Brexit "While in 1931 10% of married women  were in work, that rose sharply to 21% in 1951 and 47% in 1972 It is interesting to draw a c omparison here . If in an industrial power like Britain, an Empire, with 200 years of capitalist development, women became half of the workforce only in early 1970s, how should one analyse the condition of women in Africa and the Middle East? Why Arab women, for example, do not in total terms make half of the workforce? Does that have somethi

The Infiltrator

Not bad as an account of hypocrisy, backed by quotes. It is inaccurate though to say that America faced a threat by Japan, the Soviet Union, or al-Qaida. That too, like today's fear of refugees (and Muslims), was the manufactured fear of the "cold war". Never in its history the US faced a threat. This is a myth in International Relations realism studies as well. The like of John Mearsheimer made such arguments in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics . Why states like the German and the Canadian welcomed refugees recently should be expanded and grounded into a bigger picture: The main German drive has been be demography (That was well-highlighted by Stratfor in 2015). Other reasons include historical guilt and the recent financial terrorism inflicted on Greece. It is not because some Syrians have blue eyes or a girl carrying a picture of Merkel. It is the very same German state that is selling weapons to the UAE, fuelling the killing of civilians in Yemen and selling su

"Big thieves hang small ones." —a Czech proverb If you steal millions you get bonuses and you are among "our betters"; you are a wealth creator. When you mismanage, we bail you out with taxpayers money. If you plunder or help plunder a whole country, it is called "development" or protecting an ally. We even give you asylum in three months. If you steal $50 dollars, you spend (at least) 36 years in prison . For stealing $1, you need to afford a $12,000 bail . And it is even worse of you are a poor person of colour. If you steal a £3.50-pack of bottled water or a pack of chewing gum, you get 6 months prison sentence. (Britain 2011) And when the  world’s top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn in 2015  (the latest year available) – more than the entire economies of Namibia, the Bahamas or Nicaragua, it was not consideed theft, but "a fairly-determined market income."

"When the next financial crisis comes – and it will come because, like earthquakes, only the when and how severe is ultimately up for debate – it seems all but inevitable that once again the public will be called upon to step in and bailout the big financial institutions. There is, however, another option. Instead of panic-driven handouts to corporations and temporary quasi-nationalizations, a plan should be in place for cleanly and transparently taking failing financial corporations into genuine public ownership. Ultimately repurposing them, and shifting their activities away from financialization, speculation, and extraction and towards supporting healthy, prosperous, and equitable local economies as well as a sustainable planet." Buyouts, not bailouts: public banks as a solution to the next crisis

Facebook and Policing the War of Narratives