NM's blog

A selection from a long interview The most productive way to understand fascism —an approach that allows us to think about both historical fascisms and twenty-first-century neo-fascisms — is to start with fascism’s social and political project, which stems from its worldview (rather than a doctrine  per se ). This ideological core is what endures, despite the different strategies used, which represent forms of adaptation to the particular and changing political circumstances and cultural contexts.  This worldview can be encapsulated in a set of elements which are in ways also articulated with each other: An obsession with decline, decadence and the decomposition of a community considered to be organic and fixed … A civilisational and/or racial paranoia that makes it possible to connect this decline to the presence on ‘our’ soil of immigrants, minorities and groups considered fundamentally alien… Hatred of equality and of all movements that push for it… The idea that a national...

“[T]he problem begins the moment we assume that a person’s political behavior can be predicted from their religion or culture. He calls this habit of thinking culture talk : the assumption that if someone is Muslim, their politics, morality, and whether they are dangerous or harmless must somehow come from Islam. In this framework, people are no longer judged by what they actually do, but by a label placed on them in advance.”

The essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things The original text: L'essence d'une nation est que tous les individus aient beaucoup de choses en commun, et aussi que tous aient oublié bien des choses. —Ernest Renan French philosopher and historian Ernest Renan in  his famous 1882 Sorbonne lecture,  Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?  (What is a Nation?),

“ How can one of the most resource-rich countries on earth remain trapped in poverty, instability, and hunger? “Too often, the focus falls exclusively on local militias, corruption, or insecurity, while much less attention is paid to the broader economic system that profits from Congolese resources.” I sent a comment to the editor. There is a crucial factor missing. Were  there classes after for al independence. If the structures of powers largely remained, what was/were the social/class(es) that perpetuated those power structures? Why did the nationalisations (not mentioned once in the article) of the 1960d and 1970s fail?  Related “The central question at stake here may be posed like this: why have the processes of accumulation failed to produce a consolidation of capital, an economically powerful ruling class and sustained patterns of national investment? The standard explanations—low demographic pressure, reliance on primary commodities, deterioration in the terms of trad...

What was Iraq before 2003? Related Arguing that Iraq experienced a half-century of democratic rule before Saddam Hussein rests primarily on the political framework established under the  Kingdom of Iraq   from 1921 to 1958. During this era, the nation operated under a constitutional monarchy featuring an elected legislature and a relatively free press, laying the groundwork for multiparty political competition.  [1, 2]  The basis for this argument relies on several key historical and political elements: Constitutional Framework:  The Iraqi Constitution of 1925 established Iraq as a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, consisting of an appointed Senate and an elected House of Representatives.  [3]  Multiparty Elections:  Between 1925 and the fall of the monarchy in 1958, Iraq held ten general parliamentary elections. These elections facilitated a multi-party system with competing factions, political parties, and independe...

Question to Google AI: Why do Desert Warrior characters speak English in the movie although Saudi Arabia has heavily funded it? Is that the alternative SA is proposing? Is it not mainly a drive and an attempt to rival Egypt that has produced so many history dramas and movies in Arabic? The choice to film  Desert Warrior  in English—despite its heavy Saudi funding—is not an "alternative"  Saudi Arabia  is proposing to Arabic cinema, but a  deliberate Trojan Horse strategy to break into the global mainstream .  [1, 2]  Your observation about the regional rivalry is spot on. For decades,  Egypt  has been the undisputed "Hollywood of the Middle East," holding an absolute monopoly on Arabic-language historical epics and pop culture. Saudi Arabia's decision to bypass the Arabic language entirely with its flagship movie is a direct attempt to leapfrog  Egypt's  domestic dominance by playing on a completely different, global chessboard. ...

It should be The Character of the British Regime under Starmer, for Britain is not Labour or the regime. “Labour approved more arms sales than the Conservatives permitted over the previous four years…  [W]e cannot accuse Starmer of ‘inaction’ or ‘complicity’. For he is not a bystander, but a perpetrator…  [A]n adamantine commitment to upholding the interests of the powerful which sanctions even the most intense forms of violence, including the crime of genocide. “Rather than trying to resolve the war in Ukraine, Starmer proposed a major provocation: sending UK troops to the front line as part of a ‘coalition of the willing’. Rather than calming tensions with China, his government inflamed them by announcing that it is ‘ready to fight’ in the Pacific.” Palestine Action. “ The decree is without precedent in British history. Never before has the state taken such extreme measures to eradicate a protest movement. “During his time in office, environmentalists have reportedly receive...

Excerpts The coup in August 2020 was welcomed by a population tired of the corruption and incompetence of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s government.  But the new regime grew increasingly hardline and eventually banned political parties in May 2025. Most opposition figures are now in exile, notably the imam Mahmoud Dicko, who leads from Algiers the Coalition of Forces for the Republic, set up in December 2025, and the communist Oumar Mariko, president of the now dissolved African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence party, who tried unsuccessfully to mediate with JNIM to secure the release of 17 hostages in March 2026. Even so, the regime still retains some popular support. ‘The jihadists have failed to stir up the population as they’d hoped,’ says Senegalese journalist Abdou Khadre Cissé. Spending on military equipment and security is draining state finances, prompting new taxes on mobile phone top-ups and money transfers via phone. In jihadist-dominated areas, people endure rackete...

 Briefly… In the last 30 years (since June 1996),   eight   UK Prime Ministers have resigned from office. “While it is historically rare for a major political party to lose power without a resignation, the UK has experienced a highly volatile period of leadership turnover, particularly over the last decade. “The high number of UK Prime Minister resignations over the last 30 years—particularly the rapid succession of six departures over the last decade—is rooted in  chronic economic stagnation, deep societal divisions triggered by Brexit, and the collapsing quality of public services.” (Google AI search results)

“The ‘last wave’ of nationalisms, most of them in the colonial territories of Asia and Africa, was in its origins a response to the new-style global imperialism made possible by the achievements of industrial capitalism. As Marx put it in his inimitable way: ‘The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole face of the globe.’ But capitalism had also, not least by its dissemination of print, helped to create popular, vernacular-based nationalisms in Europe, which to different degrees undermined the age-old dynastic principle, and egged into self-naturalization every dynasty positioned to do so. Official nationalism – weld of the new national and old dynastic principles (the British Empire) – led in turn to what, for convenience, one can call ‘Russification’ in the extra-European colonies. This ideological tendency meshed neatly with practical exigencies. The late-nineteenth-century empires were too large and too far-flung to be ruled by a...

Richard Seymour  pictures what the  BBC cannot picture . – Once again, Ulster’s peace-loving bampots determined that such violence could only have been brought to Northern Ireland by brown-skinned interlopers. Never mind that the province has its own gory history of  knife violence . Never mind that Ogilvie himself had previously been  tortured  by a gang linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force, the loyalist paramilitaries that murdered Catholics with the  collusion  of the British state during the “Troubles.” – To an extent, as Séamas O’Reilly  argues  in the  New Statesman , this is a new expression of old violence: loyalists in Northern Ireland have decades of experience in burning people out of their homes and violently policing community purity. – Among all demographics in Northern Ireland, Catholic or Protestant, young or old, anti-immigrant racism is  pervasive . – Far from “two tier policing” disadvantaging whites, the evidence...

  Palestinian “struggle today continues to be one between a collaborationist PA and a pro-liberation resistance intent on ending settler-colonialism.” Related Google AI summary of the number killed, wounded or sent into exile. The figure of 8,000 Palestinians killed in 1939 alone [ as mentioned by Massad ] is  not historically accurate , but it closely mirrors the total estimated casualties suffered by the Palestinian Arab population across the entirety of the  Great Arab Revolt (1936–1939) .  [1]  Historical data from British archives, Palestinian historians, and independent researchers outline a more precise breakdown of the casualties and dynamics of this period. Total Casualties of the Arab Revolt (1936–1939) The Great Arab Revolt was a nationalist uprising against British colonial rule and its support for Zionist immigration. The cumulative death toll for Palestinians over the three-year uprising is generally accepted by historians to be around  5,000...