Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The New York Times' first article about Hitler's rise is absolutely stunning

' Cultural Marxism': a uniting theory for rightwingers who love to play the victim

I laughed when I read this: " The good news is that the Pentagon is wiping out Somali insurgents on the ground and from the air. The bad news is that al-Shabab keeps coming back stronger."  — Foreignpolicy.com, March 11

The Middle East: a summary " Military primacy, and the routine use of deadly military force, remains the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The 2015 nuclear non-proliferation accord with Iran represents a rare yet fleeting bright moment for diplomacy in a region where wars—in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—and the mass displacement of peoples continue unchecked. The United States has done much to precipitate the violence through its unjustifiable and destructive 2003 invasion of Iraq. Today the Obama administration abets the devastation from the air and by arming, directly or indirectly, its weak and embattled client governments. These include Iraq, the Saudi-backed forces seeking to regain control of a barely functioning Yemeni state, a shifting cast of Islamic militants fighting the Assad regime in Syria, and the Kurdish forces fighting the most infamous of the insurgencies, the Islamic State. A host of other outsiders including Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel,

Egypt Running on Empty "The 2011 uprising did not create the mess—the decisions of powerful actors did. Pining for the status quo ante, the elites failed to meet the most basic popular demands; now they are trying to contain the lingering tensions while building a new regime amidst intense competition among old regime figures and newer entrants. These struggles, in addition to the structural fiscal weakness of the state and the poor economy, generate fears of a polity coming undone and explain the viciousness of the backlash. Is it a house of cards? Many Egyptian observers say that no amount of aid from the Gulf, US diplomatic cover and police brutality can keep the state running. More than one person openly told me that Sisi might be overthrown, despite the huge investments and grand spectacles that went into putting him on the wobbling throne, and despite his attempts to place his sons high up in intelligence agencies. It is a bold prognostication. Yet one need only read t

Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East

Fusillez Sartre  ou "Parce qu’elle est le partenaire indispensable des indigènes, la gauche est leur adversaire premier."

Syria: the people return to the streets against Assad Danish children’s rights activist stands trial for people trafficking

According to the World Health Organization definition, the UK no longer has a NHS See also Plunder:  Sale of the Century: The Privatisation Scam Social justice: Chief Executives Earn 183 Times More Than Workers London : The City That Ate Itself Private Island (a book): what happened to Britain in the last 20 years

Glenn Greenwald  shows  why Clinton is in no position to be lecturing Sanders: Vehement opposition to Reagan’s covert wars in Central America, as well as to the sadistic and senseless embargo of Cuba, were once  standard liberal positions . As my colleague Jeremy Scahill, observing the reaction of Clinton supporters during the debate, put it in  a series of tweets : “The US sponsored death squads that massacred countless central and Latin Americans, murdered nuns and priests, assassinated an Archbishop. I bet commie Sanders was even against Reagan’s humanitarian mining of Nicaraguan waters & supported subsequent war crimes judgement vs. US. Have any of these Hillarybots heard of the Contra death squads? Or is it just that whatever Hillary says must be defended at all costs? The Hillarybots attacking Sanders over Nicaragua should be ashamed of themselves.” CIA Covert Operations and US Interventions Since WWII (A documentary in 15 parts)

في استخدام "الإسلام" كإيديولوجيا تسلطية

Colombia  Free academic and unionist  Miguel Ángel Beltrán

Organised robbery: "It's our way of life" and "our traditions"

Europe Without the Union "One of the countries most pleased with the new arrangements will be the United Kingdom, assuming it  can hold itself together long enough to enjoy them . Having dedicated much of the last millennium to keeping the Continent divided and playing one side off another, the United Kingdom was forced to join the European Union once the organization's unity was truly unquestionable. With a Continent divided once more, the United Kingdom will be able to return to its preferred long-term strategy, maintaining a balance of power while at the same time attempting to develop a trade network that mixes regional with global."

British imperialism

Liam Fox, here is the UK history our readers want to remind you of Apart from no mention of - the carving of the Middle East, which Britain was a major player in  - the coups in the Middle East and Britain's role in them. - Britain's role in the birth of Saudi Arabia and the long support to this day - Britain's close relations with the Israel, which is a colonial, criminal state - the subjugation of fifth of the world by the Empire and what entailed of plunder, killing, torture, humiliatiom , etc. - Britain has a history celebrated by statues of criminals and imperialists hailed as heroes: Rhodes, Churchill the racist, Havelock ... Churchill advocated the use of poison gas against what he called "recalcitrant Arabs". He treated the Indians with a similar racism. - the so-called neutrality position it took during the Spanish civil war - the support and arming of other dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa - the support of some Islamist organisations

" The Syrian Revolution Is Not a Holy War " Putin and Assad claim Syria's opposition threatens religious minorities. This besieged city's struggle proves otherwise. "Before the uprising, Daraya was a sleepy middle-class suburb for Damascus residents. By 2011, it had become an epicenter of peaceful protests, as thousands   marched in the streets calling  for Assad to step down from power. As a member of the Syrian Christian community, I was overwhelmed with excitement to join this grassroots people’s movement that called for democracy, freedom and rights for all Syrians, no matter our differences. Syrians were united then. The church bells rang in Daraya in solidarity with the protesters. From their balconies in the narrow streets, Syrian Christians showered protesters below with rice and flowers. They marched hand in hand. A holy war, this was not. By 2012, the Assad regime intensified its armed crackdown against the unarmed protesters in Daraya. A

The 'Taharrush' Connection: Xenophobia, Islamophobia,  and Sexual Violence in Germany and  Beyond

" The Marxism of the 1970s that I encountered as a student seemed dry and abstract to me. There was no life in it, only structures and definitions, and "laws" of which I could not make sense. I had come to social science because I was curious to see what the world out there was like, the world of real people. It was only later, much later, that I discovered Marx the economic historian, the keen observer of the American civil war, the passionate political analyst of French politics. As much life, easily, as in Weber or Barrington Moore! Right now I am becoming more familiar with American Marxists writing in the 1950s and 1960s — and am deeply impressed with the farsightedness of their analysis. Working on my 2009 book taught me that the historical agnosticism of most of academic social science — its refusal to recognize and theorize endogenous evolutionary movement in social formations — was its biggest deficiency, and was the cause of most of it being as boring as

Sex Tourism is Sexualized Imperialism

"Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad." — Frankie Boyle Mad Max and the End of the World American Sniper (or Hollywood at War)

Techno-fascism in the 21 century

The Greek grandmothers  (the BBC) " When a Syrian mother arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos, drenched and struggling to feed her baby, three grandmothers, or  yiayiades  stepped in. Militsa Kamvisi, 83, gave the baby a bottle of milk while she and her friends sang a lullaby. The photo , taken by Lefteris Partsalis in October, immediately went viral and there was a flood of admiration for the "three grannies and a baby" on Twitter.  "Thank goodness," said one tweet, "there are the grandmothers of Lesbos who are able to wash away our shame." The photo reflects the strength, courage and down-to-earth attitude Greeks associate with yiayiades, many of whom have lived through a world war, a civil war, a dictatorship and now a financial crisis. In today's Greece it is often their pensions and positive approach that keep entire families going.  Grandma Militsa has said she does not think her response was anything extraordinary. As a child

الارهاب ليس لعنة من السماء بل هو حالة اجتماعية (سياسية، اقتصادية، ثقافية....)، والارهابيون ليسوا كائنات فضائية تهاجم كوكب الأرض، بل تجمعات مصالح تماما مثلها مثل كل تجمعات المصالح التي تتخذ أشكالا مختلفة (دولة، حلف، شركة مساهمة.....). فالدولة مثلا هي، من وجهة نظر تاريخية، ليست سوى تجمع ارهابي منظم في مواجهة كل ما يمكن أن يهدد المصالح العامة للطبقة السائدة. والتحالفات العسكرية والسياسية والاقتصادية الاقليمية والدولية ليست سوى مراكز قوى ارهابية في مواجهة أقطاب إرهابية منافسة، في نظام دولي قائم على حرب المنافسة... وهكذا فالارهاب هو في الواقع نظام الأشياء في عالمنا المعاصر وليس حكرا على مجموعات أو أفراد... أما الصاق كل شرور هذا النظام الرأسمالي العالمي في تنظيمات مسماة إرهابية إنما هدفه تبييض "الوجه الرسمي" لهذا النظام وإقناع ضحاياه بالاحتماء به في مواجهة خطر تتم صناعته على مقاس الترعيب الدائم من أجل السيطرة الدائمة... محمد مثلوثي، تونس 08 مارس 2016

"Previous research indicates that political conservatism is associated with epistemic needs for structure and certainty (Jost et al., 2003) and that nouns elicit clearer and more definite perceptions of reality than other parts of speech (Carnaghi et al., 2008). We therefore hypothesized that conservatives would exhibit preferences for nouns (vs. verbs and adjectives), insofar as nouns are better suited to satisfy epistemic needs. In Study 1, we observed that social conservatism was associated with noun preferences in Polish and that personal need for structure accounted for the association between ideology and grammatical preferences. In Study 2, conducted in Arabic, social conservatism was associated with a preference for the use of nominal sentences (composed of nouns only) over verbal sentences (which included verbs and adjectives). In Study 3, we found that more conservative U.S. presidents used greater proportions of nouns in major speeches, and this effect was related to i

Tunisia: "Complicity between Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda" "For even though purely economic and social questions were at the origin of the revolution, over the past five years, public debate has focused on the place of religion in society and on demands for freedom... Five years on, disappointment is rampant. The economy continues to flounder:  the rate of growth for 2015 is 0.5 percent. To stimulate the economy, Beji Caïd Essebsi came up with a law meant to promote economic reconciliation. Ostensibly, the idea was to favor investments by restoring confidence. In fact, it was meant to suspend the prosecution of business executives for fraudulent activities under the Ben Ali regime.  For many Tunisians, this law, not yet approved by parliament, looks more like an amnesty, a whitewashing of corrupt practices. All the more so as the break with the past did not happen and the DCR networks, which had been keeping a low profile, are active again under the cover of Nidaa Tou

Reporting — and mis-reporting — ISIS The case of Patrick Cockburn et al.

Liam Fox, here is the UK history our readers want to remind you of Apart from no mention of - the carving of the Middle East, which Britain was a major player in - the coups in the Middle East - Britain's role in the birth of Saudi Arabia and the long support to this day - Britain's close relations with the Israel, which is a colonial, criminal state - the so-called neutrality position it took during the Spanish civil war - the support and arming of other dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa - the support of Saddam Hussein and the Syrian regime as well as the Gulf theocracies - the support of Pinochet, Suharto, and others - the participation of the war on Iraq and the occupation of the country and the consequences of that barbarism: IS, the biggest refugee crisis since WWII and probably the biggest omission by the Guardian is: The Bengal Famine

Britain, the BBC today: Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said there was evidence IS was "trying to build bigger attacks" globally, and the UK was among its targets. He said IS had expanded its ambitions from smaller-scale targets to attacks on "Western lifestyle". IS is trying to get supporters who have received military training in Syria into northern Europe to stage attacks, he added. Mr Rowley said psychologists were being deployed to work with counter-terrorism units because of increasing concern that people with mental health problems were being radicalised. My comment : I find this as utter incompetence and poor analysis by the so-called Intelligence Services. I have never been in Syria and I don't have any mental health problem yet I am radicalized. 

Forget Sykes-Pikot. It's the t reaty of Sèvres That Explains the Modern Middle East " There’s no doubt that Europeans were happy to create borders that conformed to their own interests whenever they could get away with it. But the failure of Sèvres proves that that sometimes they couldn’t. When European statesmen tried to redraw the map of Anatolia, their efforts were forcefully defeated. In the Middle East, by contrast, Europeans succeeded in  imposing borders  because they had the military power to prevail over the people resisting them. Had the Syrian nationalist  Yusuf al-‘Azma , another mustachioed Ottoman army officer, replicated Ataturk’s military success and defeated the French at the  Battle of Maysalun , European plans for the Levant would have gone the way of Sèvres. Would different borders have made the Middle East more stable, or perhaps less prone to sectarian violence?   Not necessarily.   But looking at history through the lens of the Sèvres treaty sugges

How the Workers Became Muslims (a book) “In this beautifully written and brilliantly argued book, Ferruh Yilmaz shows how moral panics and political mobilizations against Muslim ‘difference’ function in western nations to obscure pervasive oppressions of race and class. Drawing deftly on advanced currents in studies of communication and cultural studies,  How the Workers Became Muslims  demonstrates the dynamism of discourse as a social force. Yilmaz reveals how the prevailing categories and classifications that are deployed in political discourse deliberately direct attention toward conflicts over cultural norms and values in order to deflect attention away from material and political conflicts over resources and rights. This book shows how anti-Muslim mobilizations are not merely manifestations of cultural racism and Islamophobia, but rather key tools for the perpetuation of class dominance and the occlusion of class conflicts.” —George Lipsitz, author of  How Racism Takes Place.

" Capital has no particular interest in full employment; to maintain discipline among its workforce it needs an industrial reserve army. One can add that capital has no interest in productivity or growth per se either, as long as low growth and lagging productivity are accompanied by rising profits as a result of a declining wage share. Given the current distribution of power under global capitalism, I see the possibility of a return to full employment only in regional niches privileged by a favorable resource endowment, including inherited productive institutions, and a good fit with the (changing) demands of global markets. But even there the advance of robotics and artificial intelligence may make for a bad surprise among those who place their bet on serving as a new middle class of the global economy, performing its relatively well-paid managerial, engineering, and design jobs while the satanic mills of the factories of the Manchester era have long relocated to Bangladesh

Ilan Pappe demolishing "the peace process" The settler colonial model is accurate because it captures the spirit of Zionism from 1882 to the present: a project to settle the land and deal with the indigenous people by a process of “elimination and dehumanization.”

Poland: "The liberal intelligenstia are responsible for this situation"

"Dedicated to the victims of local and foreign terror in Syria" Baba Amru , a piece by the Iraqi 'ud player Naseer Shamma.

A revival of competing beliefs has polarized Chinese society [the full article requires free registration] "Chinese society is apparently rediscovering, or at least re-prioritizing, its moral and ideological cravings. Over the past several years, ideological forces and divisions have moved back to the center of Chinese political and social life, and ideological tensions among Chinese elite are now arguably higher than at any point since the immediate aftermath of the 1989 protests. The image of a “ post-ideological ” China has become increasingly outdated. In China today, the signs of an ideological revival are everywhere. Most visibly, a number of icons, long thought dead, have made prominent and in some cases highly successful resurrections in national political rhetoric.  In fact, one could just as plausibly argue that the party has played a reactive role, rather than a proactive one: its ideological campaigns to revive figures such as Mao and Confucius reflect intellec

US student debt: Lessons to last a lifetime

Why some Muslim voters are betting on Donald Trump

Notes on the great Syrian exodus