Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Global turbulence ahead

" My work as a historian has convinced me that ways of thinking about race are the most destructive legacy of Britain’s imperial past. In the wake of the Brexit vote we have witnessed a deeply disturbing   increase in the number of hate crimes  committed  against Poles, Muslims and racial minorities. Globalisation, with all the losses it has brought for so many, has clearly acted as a trigger for this upsurge of rage and resentment, the wish to “take back control” and “secure our borders”. The legacy of slavery is the dehumanisation of others and assumptions of white superiority, as well as terrible disparities of wealth and power. These could not be starker than they are today." The racist ideas of slave owners are still with us today

Dr Hickel (LSE) argues that through the MDGs, the UN has misrepresented the true extent for poverty and hunger. “By massaging the numbers, the UN has created a good news narrative that justifies the present economic order and its logic of growth, liberalisation, privatisation and corporate power." "Challenging the UN good story about poverty and hunger" See also "Neoliberalism ans the end of democracy"

In the so-called 4/5 economy in the world "Wealth of people in their 30s have halved in a decade"

A rare historical photo Congo, 1904

" Servicing warfare and neoliberalism is a terrific path to scholarly eminence. Those who condemn warfare and neoliberalism become uncivil goblins, impenitent radicals, sloppy polemicists, immature agitators, scourges on the good name of the profession. Ruling-class sycophants, meanwhile, don’t encounter trouble for their service to power. It’s the same around the world: dissenters are the ones to get fired, arrested, even murdered. It’s almost comically obvious, and yet plenty of academics persist in recycling the mythological virtues of tone and civility as criteria for fitness as an academic, as if those descriptors are detached from norms of power — as if using a civil tone means you can’t articulate ugly ideas." Six ways to unsettle colleagues and irritate administrators Six ways of resistance, but the eradication of corportae universities should be the solution.

A very good analysis that avoids economic determinism. "But the truth is sometimes uncomfortable. Cultural attitudes aren’t always "caused" by anything else in some immediate or obvious sense. To explain how people "got" to believe in racist and xenophobic status hierarchies is to explain hundreds of years of Western history and the complicated story of how race and national identity were made in the West. As a result of this history, many people value their culture and identity as much as they value economic security. When their vision of the way the world should work is threatened, they see it as a  personal threat . They’re racist because race and hierarchy and group identity have come to play integral roles in how humans understand the world. To deny that is to deny that both identity and the past matter, to assume everything is reducible to some kind of material or economic ultimate cause. History has shown, conclusively, that this is a mistake....

I am almost certain that the 21st century battle for the Middle Earth will be fought between the Burkinists and their allies and the nudists and their allies. Context: there will soon be a park for nudists in Paris.

How the Trumps got rich

An event Technology, Capitalism, Class

Disgusting, nauseating, revoling celebrities

" Beyond the racist and exclusionary borders of Tower Europe, there are other insiduous ways of silencing and marginalising the voices of people from the Global South, namely the Eurocentric framing of discussions, hearing from one or two voices from the Global South at the end of the day (after dinner and wine), not giving enough time to discuss important questions of colonialism and race, etc. I am becoming very pessimistic with everything coming from Europe (or almost). Fanon has been right after all: let's leave this Europe and its ways!" — Hamza Hamouchene

From Jane Austen to Beatrice and Eugenie … the long reach of UK slave-owning families

Syrian activist barred from travel after UK seizes passport at Assad’s request

I disagree with the writer here in using "socialist states" and "stalinist states" to mean the same thing. The analysis, otherwise, is very interesting. The Anti-colonial Origins of Humanitarian Intervention: NGOs, Human Rights and When Humanitarianism Became Imperialism

Putin and Assad are bombing Syrian hospitals on purpose

A talk in London Anwar Shaikh talk on Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises and in New York Marx and Capital: The Concept, the Book, the History