Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A good piece. We can't go back to normal

One of the things that Corona has exposed The grim crisis in Europe's care homes

War economy? Related: We are not the virus (I don't see though what the figure mentioned refers to: " During a crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people..."

£1bn of taxpayers' cash to help foreign countries buy British arms

"It seem clear that, for whatever reason, Western political systems have proven incapable of responding rationally, in time, to the Coronavirus threat. As Richard Horton writes of the government, overwhelming scientific evidence of an advancing threat did  not  generate the required action: 'For unknown reasons they waited. And watched.’

The article was written on 24 of March. A couple of figures are not up-to-date. Covid-19 Pandemic will change everything—for better or worse

War photography by David Pratt

Without a global orientation, we risk reinforcing the ways that the virus has seamlessly fed into the discursive  political rhetoric  of nativist and xenophobic movements – a politics deeply seeped in authoritarianism, an obsession with border controls, and a ‘my-country first’ national patriotism. This a global pandemic—let's treat it as such

Four interlocking crises highlight the limits of the market

البشرية والوباء والاشتراكية

In English, French and Arabic A pandemic in the shadow of capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination of people and nature

The arguments make sense, but I think it is a silly headline Syria's revenge? What is Syria since 2011, the regimes, the warring factions, the internally displaced, the millions of refugees, the a hundred thousand plus in jails ...? "   In a normal world, great powers would marshal the resources necessary to meet the challenge, leading a global effort of expertise, technology, money, and materiel to save lives everywhere, including in Syria."  When was that "normal time"? Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Myanmar, Ruwanda...? It's some people, some NGOS, local organisations mobilising their resources to help and save lives. Local and global powers have been waging proxy-wars and fuelling conflicts directly and indirectly, with geopolitical calculations of who is an ally and who is not, who serves their interests and who might jeopardise them. "Syria's revenge on the world" will be a second wave of coronavirus

"Our Lives Are Worth More Than Your Profits"

"The unique situation of a global pandemic reinforces the need to advocate for and amplify the voices of the marginalized and disenfranchised.  American-led wars and disastrous foreign policies have decimated health systems, through  war in Iraq  and  Yemen ,  sanctions in Iran  and beyond.  Millions of  refugees live in camps  and unsafe housing  without proper medical care and without the ability to stop the rapid spread of the virus.  Migrant workers in Gulf countries  without legal rights  are under lockdown in crowded facilities.   Vast inequality  decreases many people’s ability to access adequate medical care.  For these reasons, our mission is more vital than ever." —MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project), 26 March 2020

"Spain has a magnificent primary care system, but its hospitals have been hit by a decade of austerity since the financial crisis. It has  only a third of the hospital beds per capita  that are provided by Austria or Germany. Yet that is still more than the UK, New Zealand or the US." How did Spain get its response so wrong?

The fish: "Hello, darling! How are you?" The dog: "Good, but I'm very thirsty!" The fish: "What would you like to drink?" The dog: "The tears of those people who dreamt to live off rents and airbnb."

Factory farming, globalised industry and rapid urbanisation

Comrade Britney Spears?

Nature's wake-up call to complacent civilisation

'As if we were the disease'

Look at the bright side of life: - A drop in air pollution - A drop in wastage - A drop in consumerism (shopoholcolism, mass tourism, etc) - A drop in other types of pollution: noise, littering, "anti-social behaviour" ... - A drop in extracting more wealth from poor countries for capital accumulation and to provide affordable goods in the rich countries. Hopefully, there will be social pressure to invest more on health infrastructure and the well-being of the majority—the working people, the precariat, etc). Maybe it's an opprotunity to change "our way of life". But I am not too optimistic like this writer , for example.

الأوبئة والاستعمار والطب الإمبريالي Epidemics, colonialism and imperialist medecine Related: Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies by David Arnold Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamonds

"Socialism" to save neoliberalism? Related: (from the Financial Times) By a defender of capitalism and "the gains of the free market" in the last decades. "More complex will be the response on welfare and inequality. While the pandemic is not a crisis of capitalism, it highlights the system’s weak spots, most notably around unprotected workers and those on precarious incomes. Many lost jobs will not come back as companies see means and need for leaner operations. For some this will strengthen the case for a universal basic income or a more generous safety net. At the very least we are likely to see demands for more protections for gig workers. The crisis strengthens those who want policy to think of the less fortunate." And this one: " Bailouts will again be needed now , given a  market downturn that mirrors 1929  and an economic contraction likely to be sharper than during the previous financial crisis. But if we want capitalism and libera

Inequality worsens the spread of Coronavirus

A Part of Denmark

On the effects of Coronoavirus and lockdowns, etc. "Now we are being reminded that contemporary capitalism is fuelled, not by financial appropriation, but by labour." —Alex Callinicos, March 2020 The exploited are the creators of wealth.

"Viruses mutate all the time to be sure. But the circumstances in which a mutation becomes life-threatening depend on human actions. But the economic and demographic impacts of the spread of the virus depend upon preexisting cracks and vulnerabilities in the hegemonic economic model. Public authorities and health care systems were almost everywhere caught short-handed. Forty years of  neoliberalism  across North and South America and Europe had left the public totally exposed and ill-prepared to face a public health crisis of this sort, even though previous scares of SARS and Ebola provided abundant warnings as well as cogent lessons as to what would be needed to be done. Corporatist  Big Pharma  has little or no interest in non-remunerative research on infectious diseases (such as the whole class of coronaviruses that have been well-known since the 1960s).  Workforces in most parts of the world have long been socialized to behave as good neoliberal subjects (which means

Mere days after humans were quarantined indoors

Did the US commit war crimes in Afghanistan

This is from the Torygraph!!   This is a liberal view Coronavirus exposes society's fragility 

The economy must come first?

"The United States, the organizers realized, did not have the means to quickly manufacture more essential medical equipment, supplies or medicines, including antiviral medications, needles, syringes, N95 respirators and ventilators, the agency concluded." But the U.S. and other countries found the money and resources to wage wars, increase inequality, fund the IMF, build hundreds of miliatry bases around the world and in the meantime decrease investments in infrastructure and public services. In the U.S. a ruling class and its representaives in government even left tens of millions of American without health insurance. American capitalism has had other priorities. The article blames more Trump and co., but ignores that the problem is structural .  The pandemic is but the catalyst/the trigger/the accelerator for current financial troubles, not the cause. As was warned in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, etc., the Obama Administration’s bailouts were to make rich people

Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis

In the absence of clearer planning, with market mechanisms failing, consumers are only acting rationally in preparing for being confined at home, the authors add. Food rationing required

"Tip of the iceberg" related the enemy of nature  (2nd ed. 2008) by Joel Kovel

The Anti-War Economy

The governor who is fighting a bigger, more lethal "virus" called refugees

What's to be done? Flattening the Coronavirus Curve is not enough

Coronavirus will require us to completely reshape the economy Will it?

Utrecht build car-free district for 12,000 residents

We Need Social Solidarity, Not Just Social Distancing

"It was the virus that did it"

Mike Davis on Coronavirus

تونس 14 مارس 2020

It makes sense for a capitalist system that is stagnating/with very low growth or heading towards a slump and no sight of "a new economy" to resume growth. It would be relieved from "unproductive" people, the "strains" on pensions and elderly care, etc. Consider it part of restructuring! Like with austerity, in "normal" times some/many people have to pay for the economic crisis, shiphoning more wealth to the top 1%, saving the banks, corruption, etc. That was part of the priorities. Now some people have to be "sacrificed" during an exceptional situation. "UK doctors may be forced to decide who to save"

China Bought the West Time with the Coronavirus. The West Squandered it.

"Agribusiness would risk millions of deaths"

Women and "the Iraqi Revolution"

Prisons in the Aegean

Big Pharma can't be trusted to solve Coronavirus

"The dominant feminist project of the past few decades has encouraged us to forget this fact. Proponents of mainstream feminism have worked hard to collapse the myriad feminisms of the world, each rooted in a different political worldview and a different vision of women’s liberation, into one version of feminism that aligns neatly with the preoccupations and proclivities of our for-profit system." Why I'm a feminist

Covid-19 in Britain

“International credit...represents the surest means by which the older capitalist states can keep the emerging ones under their tutelage....” Some of Rosa Luxemburg's insights

The Making of a "Resistance Parliament" and the Challenges Ahead

The Black Pimpernel

Disease, debt and depression

Like other celebrations emptied from their radical content  and has been a "free market" capitalist celebration. "Liberated" women buy flowers harvested by exploited women in Colombia. They feel good and I am sure —even if they think they are not exploited and commodified in the West—they are thinking (I'm being sarcastic) of the conditions of the Indian, Syrian and African women... of those refugees Syrian women, some of them are currently refused entry by Fortress Europe, or of those women harvesting coffee beans or making knickers and outfits suitable for celebrations. According to Oxfam , "The 22 richest men in the world now have more wealth than all the women in Africa. Women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day —a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry." Related Gender pay gap in the UK

The other "virus threatening Europe"

"I'd rather suffer bombs than Assad"

The things headscarves reveal

On capitalist stagnation

السينما التونسية تقتفي آثار المهاجرين