Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

UK From the archive The Daily Mail and Ralph Miliband

"The world at a fascist moment" "Fascist"? Not even "neo-fascist? I have also noticed that there is no questioning of "democracy", the one used in the mainstream discourse.

With the inability of the state to invest, large-scale plunder has taken place. Also, complicity in crimes with the U.S. Anti-corruption is symptomatic of a deeper problem. Neither side of the political spectrum ever bucks their shared Atlanticist bent. In late 2014 Romania’s growing European diaspora propelled Klaus Iohannis—a nonentity in national politics, but heralded as an efficient German by the mythologizing middle classes. In 1990, 86 per cent of Romanians went to the polls; in 2008 and again in 2017, a mere 39 per cent. Once the badlands of neoliberal Europe, Romania has become its bustling frontier. "The Romanian banking system was taken over by Société Générale, Raiffeisen and the Erste Group. Its energy sector fell to Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung of Vienna and České Energetické Závody of Prague. Its steel manufacturing went to Mittal, its timber production to the Schweighofer Group, its national automobile, the Dacia, to Renault. Much of what ...

Dr. Al-Rahabi blames the stereotyping problem on an international patriarchal system that especially harms women in the developing nations—and that is much bigger than the Syrian media. She points to the United Nations as an example. It “pictures Syrian women as powerless victims without highlighting our active role inside Syria or neighboring countries where there are plenty of bright examples [of] … Syrian women’s work,” she says. Both sides in Syrian conflict use media to stereotype women

UK The centenary of the RAF The firestorm that created Germany's Nagasaki

"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind" 
— Jiddu Krishnamurty

"Isn't UK mainstream culture extraordinarily sick in allowing Johnson (and May and Cameron etc) to bomb and starve the MidEast's poorest country for 3 years *with impunity* while one comment [about the burka-wearing women] sets off a storm of protest?" — Mark Curtis "Allowing"? They have been arming a friend, the Saudi monarchy, and a high court has sanctioned the arms sale. That means it's been "a democracy decision!"

"In practicing social civility, you keep silent about things you know clearly but which you should not say and do not say." — Richard Sennett Some of the consequences of the above: - self- censorship (especially in "democracies") - you shouldn't say things which make people uncomfortable - you might affect the business you are tied to - fear, repression of free expression - persistence of "do-not-judge-me" armour

The Case for Universal Basic Services I wonder how this is applicable to or could be implemented in poor countries.

"It’s good that people become enraged when Israel kills, imprisons and besieges Palestinians. They should be enraged. But when those same people ignore or make excuses for Assad killing, imprisoning, torturing and besieging Palestinians, it becomes clear that they aren’t actually interested in Palestinians, and certainly not in human rights."  — Qunfuz

On veiling or unveiling, again France Choice?

Imperialism, globalisation and the profitability of labour

Indeed. She is blond and doesn't wear a headscarf . 

"Such “dialogue” is promoted to deflect pressure from Israel and leave the status quo that the BDS movement seeks to change – Israeli occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid – intact." How the Israel lobby is using Own Jones

Egyptian Novelist Salwa Bakr dares to say it aloud on revolution's successes and failures

Confessions of a foreigner Scratch beneath the surface... I am a person who engages only in matters of substance and matters which the British generally don't like to talk about or feel uncomfortable when they hear them. It disturbs their faith. Here are two examples:  1. I made a mistake the other day and has a chat with an English. A woman openly said to me: "a language teacher must not express his/her political/cultural views in class. "What about freedom of speech," I asked. She went silent then she said: "but you are a language teacher, why should you talk about other things?" I asked whether what she said had anything to do with the fact that students are considered customers and my views might annoy/upset them, unlike in other countries where students do not pay £9,000+ for their higher education. She agreed, but still opposed me expressing my views in class.  This is not an isolated case in my life in London. A couple of years agao I upset ...

Educating Britain I have just read this book. The following excerpts are no replacement in reading the whole account. Excerpts From John Newsinger’s  The Blood Never Dried, A People’s History of the British Empire

London "It is easy to see why. When the far right starts attacking books, alarm bells ring for anyone who wants to live in a democratic society. In May 1933 the German student union, a Nazi organisation, initiated the mass public burning of books in an attempt to “purify” society and rid it of “un-German” influences. Tens of thousands of volumes were hauled from libraries and archives and burned in public squares. Among the first to be burned were books by socialists and communists such as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Friedrich Engels and Bertolt Brecht, and novelists including  John Dos Passos , Jack London, Maxim Gorky, Franz Kafka and Upton Sinclair. Books by all of these authors can be found on the shelves of Bookmarks today." When the far-right targets books

"In East-Central Europe, and especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, an anti-immigrant left has formed that is conscious and proud of how it departs from received images (allegedly received from the West) of the left as the defender of marginalized peoples and cultures. In attacking the “multiculturalism” that liberal elites have championed, this anti-multicultural left positions itself as the defender of the hard-working nation against dangerous outsiders, both rich and poor. [T]he anti-multicultural left accepts, once again, the terms set by that liberalism which it sees as its chief competitor. The central principle of liberalism is the principle of separation—the insistence on looking only at one sphere of social reality at a time, and on looking at entities within these spheres as separate entities pursuing separate interests. The anti-multicultural left likewise takes each aspect of the system separately, rejecting out of hand internationalist talk of interconnecti...

"The Syrian war is over, and America lost"

Iran: Protesters Burn Religious School as Tensions Mount

Portugal The legacy of slavery and the taboo of racism

The Corbyn Project A modest, but not negligible project. Weak on foreign affairs and defence.