NM's blog

This technology is simultaneously a tool, a medium, a cultural form, an epistemic instrument, and a site of value formation—much as Raymond Williams once  described television , but with far less stability. You cannot slot it into a single sphere and manage it from the outside.  Treating technology as a purely instrumental sphere that politics steers from outside is not just naïve; it blinds us to where power now sits.  This is very thought-provoking. Related Activists's actions against datacentres

Myanmar does not have imperialist powers behind her like Israel has . Thus their hypocritical position.

“Just as Crusoe could procure a sword for himself, we are equally entitled to assume that one fine morning Friday might appear with a loaded revolver in his hand, and then the whole ‘force’ relationship is inverted. Friday commands and it is Crusoe who has to drudge . . . So, then, the revolver triumphs over the sword; and this will probably make even the most childish axiomatician comprehend that force is no mere act of the will, but requires very real preliminary conditions before it can come into operation, that is to say, instruments, the more perfect of which vanquish the less perfect; moreover, that these instruments have to be produced, which also implies that the producer of more perfect instruments of force, vulgo arms, vanquishes the producer of the less perfect instrument, and that, in a word, the triumph of force is based on the production of arms, and this in turn on production in general—therefore on ‘economic power’, on the ‘economic order’, on the material means which f...

Free journalists now

A critical review of Paige Arthur's   Unfinished Projects: Decolonization and the Philosophy of  Jean-Paul Sartre (2010) Alexander Zevin, Critique of Neo-colonial Reason, NLR, July-August 2011 Excerpts There is no shortage of either scholarly or popular works on Jean-Paul Sartre,  or on the intellectuals with whom he sparred in post-war France. Yet if the number of studies continues to expand, the themes they treat tend, at the  same time, to narrow: friendships, paramours and quarrels are laced into  larger, moralizing narratives of alleged Sartrean backsliding on camps in the Soviet Union and show trials under its client regimes in Eastern Europe. This tradition found its own shrill champion in Tony Judt, whose Past Imperfect ( 1992) dwelt on the silence or complicity of intellectuals in and outside the  PCF  who, ‘in the name of the proletarian and the class struggle made a daily  contribution to the legitimation of the enslavement of the sat...

“Let’s take a good look at ourselves, if we have the courage, and let’s see what has become of us. “First of all we must confront an unexpected sight: the striptease of our humanism. Not a pretty sight in its nakedness: nothing but a dishonest ideology, an exquisite justification for plundering; its tokens of sympathy and affectation, alibis for our acts of aggression. The pacifists are a fine sight: neither victims nor torturers! Come now! If you are not a victim when the government you voted for and the army your young brothers served in, commits “genocide,” without hesitation or remorse then, you are undoubtedly a torturer. And if you choose to be a victim, risking one or two days in prison, you are simply trying to take the easy way out. But you can’t; there is no way out. Get this into your head: if violence were only a thing of the future, if exploitation and oppression never existed on earth, perhaps displays of nonviolence might relieve the conflict. But if the entire regime, e...

The UK is engaged in a war to protect the Saudi oil . Related Britain relies heavily on capital inflows from the Arabian Gulf to manage structural trade deficits, stabilize its currency, and finance vital national infrastructure.  Total investment assets and liabilities between the UK and  Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)  states reached roughly  $643 billion (£485 billion) . This deep financial interdependence stems from the Gulf's massive sovereign wealth funds recycling oil-generated revenues (petrodollars) back into Western economies. Britain runs a persistent and large structural trade deficit. It requires external capital inflows to fill the financial gap and balance its books .  Gulf funds hold multi-billion-pound stakes in essential British transport and infrastructure, including  Heathrow Airport and London's  Thames Gateway Docks . AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain’

Over there is like here, neither better nor worse. But I am from here, just as the date palm standing in the courtyard of our house has grown in our house and not in anyone else's. ... And the fact that they came to our land — does it mean that we should poison our present and our future? Like all invaders throughout history, they had to leave sooner or later. ... We now speak their language without either guilt or gratitude. —Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

Salaam wants the state to play a key role in development through public investment. Yet, in the case of Syria, she should have explained where would the capital for investment come from: IMF and debt, loan conditions, China, expropriation…? “Advocates of economic liberalism argue that free trade promotes competition, efficiency, and growth. However, this argument often ignores a basic reality: countries do not compete under equal conditions. Producers operate with vastly different levels of infrastructure, access to finance, technology, energy costs, institutional efficiency, and government support. What may appear as free competition is often competition between unequal economies.” Syria's economic liberalisation trap

“Among local people so fervently opposed to corporate culture, the end of the landmark coffeeshop on the corner of Charilaou Trikoupi and Kallidromiou streets is also part of a concerted effort to alter the neighbourhood’s traditional leftwing identity.”

The academic and author has a travel ban imposed on him by the UK government . Related Malm's books and contributions

'The red mujtahid'

The debate is not simply “reform or revolution,” but rather: “ social liberalism, reformism, or revolution .” Available also in French La gauche, une ambiguïté historique fondamentale

Prominent Iranian exiles now cheer on Trump and Netanyahu’s destruction of their homeland .

Thomas Piketty: “ The current protest highlights what is undoubtedly the most glaring failure of the current government: a catastrophic and unprecedented 20% drop in the budget per student since 2017.” Note that in France around 75% of students are enrolled in public universities and institutions. Related France’s pouvoir d’achat crisis [ French public universities are grappling with an estimated €8 billion shortfall, which has pushed nearly all 75 public institutions into deficit budgets]. Clarification: Roberts refers to the 75 core universities, not to all public universities, which are 160.

It's up to you. As long as you think you're white, there is no hope for you. As long as you think you're white, I'm going to be forced to think I'm black. — James Baldwin

“Neither China nor Russia today offers an ideological alternative to the existing order. As capitalist, oligarchic, extractivist states, they are fully integrated into the postwar global economic architecture.” The writers forget the inherent contradictions in capitalism that determine cooperation and conflict. China, not Russia, represents an economic and technological threat to the Western capitalist expansion (share of markets, extraction of resources, capital accumulation, etc), which in turn affects the social and economic relations in Western societies (domestic social conflicts). The threat of China is enough to create conflict between states. No ideological alternative is required. The writers seem to ignore the economic relative decline the major Western countries have been experiencing (in productivity, living standard, infrastructure, growth…) and how that impacts on the states's imperialist policies. In search of new geopolitics Le Monde diplomatique , October 2026 Exce...

“Both the socialist government and the opposition are accused of selling off the country’s riches to the highest bidder and opening it up to a level of corruption that undermines any prospect of development. As in Serbia, the European Union’s silence (and complicity) has not discouraged a youth determined to take its destiny into its own hands.” Le Monde diplomatique , October 2026 Excerpts Until recently, Albania’s mountains, olive groves, unspoiled beaches and historical remains (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman) attracted an adventurous breed of tourist, very different from the sybarites who want luxury resorts. ‘Despite the lack of infrastructure, and sometimes even roads, Albanians have developed a tourism offer based on hospitality, agricultural produce and tradition. The big luxury complexes are now threatening this fragile economy,’ says architect and urban planner Doriana Musaj. The Trump-Kushners’ project takes advantage of a 2015 law on strategic investment in Albania which provide...