Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

On this day in 1991

Yemeni photographers fight despair and trauma of war

"...  I wrote an article analysing the state of Arab culture before the Arab revolutions. It appears that the Arab world and its culture are facing three major problems or problematic situations that are amorphous and ambiguous. These problems pertain to state, religion, and the West (which, in this context, includes Israel), each of which I call an ogre – because by definition an ogre is a ferocious monster that is not bound by form or rules of conduct. And that makes living amongst ogres a constant struggle for today’s Arabs, especially Syrians, Palestinians, and Iraqis. I think that constructing forms – of rules, concepts, and principles – to discipline those entities is what we hope to achieve through literacy and public service. Let it be clear that I do not mean that the state is in itself a monster, or that Islam is a monster, or the modern West is one. I mean that, in this context, these are transformed into formless and lawless entities which now wield power in our regio...

The Fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism

"The Bank of England’s governor points out that, in this situation, all you can do is for individual countries to try and restart their economies through structural measures, not monetary ones. Since they can’t borrow and spend their way out of the crisis, they have to “reform” their way out of it. But how? Carney does not spell out the details but in the G20 parlance, the main tools in the toolkit of “structural reform” are ripping up labour protections, privatising public assets, cutting business taxes, boosting state investment – and direction of investment – into the major industries and projects, and privatising education. Naturally, in all countries where this is tried it provokes resistance, and is therefore done gradually. But Carney points out doing things slowly does not work, because austerity, low growth, high debts and falling wages feed off each other." Paul Mason blogging for Channel4

Morocco: Reinstate Said Elahirech, stop attacking union rights

Iran: Release teacher union leader Esmail Abdi

Chomsky: Trump’s rise fueled by same societal ‘breakdown’ that birthed Hitler

The Two Zizeks   "The Other Zizek asserts the very specific European experience of modernity as the norm to be emulated; colonialism as the cleansing force that brought this modernity to benighted and backward societies, and Revolutionary Terror as sacred and unavoidable."

Ogres and Orientalism

Abraham Lincoln: "Labor Is the Superior of Capital" "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration..." 

"[I]f  it is argued that England, the very heartland of imperialism, is also that national terrain which seems to have been the least propitious for the development of any indigenous modernism,  then that is surely also relevant for our present topic ."

Crony capitalism Branson, The Stuntman

" In the absence of unforeseen reversals for ISIS and its many associated groups, the 'war on terror' in its current incarnation is set to escalate and indeed last well into the 2020s." — Paul Rogers, opendemocracy.net, 19 February 2016 Since "the war on terror" (read the war of terror) has been waged by states, Western and non-Western, for the last 15 years, it is this Terror that is the main terrorism, with its different features, which breeds more terrorism and makes it endless.  "Endless War?  Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'" (Pluto Books 2006) by David Keen. Keen explores how winning war is rarely an end in itself; rather, war tends to be part of a wider political and economic game that is consistent with strengthening the enemy. Keen devises a radical framework for analysing an unending war project, where the "war on terror" is an extension of the Cold War. An interview .

The City: London and the Global Power of Finance   (Verso, April 2016)  “Tony Norfield has provided a strikingly original take on the international financial system by placing it systematically within the world imperialist structure of power. He rejects the currently fashionable path of interpreting the ascent of finance by looking at how the leading financial sector agents, operating by way of banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and the like, manipulate the political-economic game to increase their own personal wealth, while downplaying any useful economic functions they might be fulfilling. He insists, on the contrary, that finance be understood as a form of power deriving from the economic-cum political capacity to compete at the highest levels of global capitalism, which simultaneously endows a limited group of countries and corporations disproportionate access to the world’s resources and operates as the system’s indispensable nerve center. Norfield’s unusual c...

Was Tagore anti-national? Will India not disown him? " And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not everlasting."

The late Umberto Eco: " Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority."

Yes, a historian can be an apologist for state crimes

Une lettre d'un journaliste américain à Kamel Daoud

لماذا يتواصل المشروع النيوليبيرالي في المنطقة العربية؟

"Thanks to ... three kingdoms – Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran – the policies of the powerful international powers have prioritised stability: thus effectively sponsoring the states’ transformation into security agencies, and permitting them to eradicate their subjects if they get out of hand, and not interfering with the internal matters of the dynasties and juntas which rule over their citizens’ lives. This prioritisation of stability has benefited despotic regimes, including the Assad regime, and has never been in the interest of the populace and their demands and political activities. Isn’t this, rather, the most important source of the antiquated, which controls all other sources? Overall, the fast-moving current of antiquation that is engulfing us all appears to be a result of three springs merging into one: the spring of religion, which offers legitimacy to existing and soon-to-exist despotic authorities; the spring of despotic states that receive assistance and legiti...

Imperialism must be seen, and systemically analysed, within the problematic of a coordination between political phenomena - violence, domination, control, state power, class - and economic phenomena - the market, investment, exploitation, capital expansion and profit, finance, crisis.

Syria and the World: Reactionarism is Back and Progressing It is a good piece, but saying reactionarism is back is not accurate. It has never left us. In fact, the last 40 years or so have seen reactionarism by the big powers, which has laid down the socio-economic conjuncture and the geopolitical context of more reactionarism.

The Birth of Boko Haram

Honourng Britain's past? Which past? " It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria." — Hilar Benn, 02 Decemer 2015 The arrogance of the imperialists who are nostalgic to the empire in competition with the Americans, the Russians, the French ...

Britain: the war on the elderly

Ruthless and Sober in Syria