Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Article Western critics too often overlook the contribution of Arab women behind the camera

American (and German) state terror in Afghanistan

In  Zur Kritik der Gewalt (On the Critique of Violence)  Walter Benjamin argues that the intimate relationship of violence and law is twofold. Firstly, violence is the means by which law is instituted and preserved. Secondly, domination (violence under the name of power ( Macht )) is the end of the law: “Law-making is power-making, assumption of power, and to that extent an immediate manifestation of violence” (p. 248). Benjamin distinguishes between lawmaking violence ( rechtsetzend Gewalt ) and law-preserving violence ( rechtserhaltende Gewalt ) on basis of whether the end towards which violence is used as a means is historically acknowledged, i.e., “sanctioned” or “unsanctioned” violence (named respectively “legal ends” and “natural ends”). If violence as a means is directed towards natural ends—as in the case of interstate war where one or more states use violence to ignore historically acknowledged laws such as borders—the violence will be lawmaking. This violence stri...

What sort of a PhD candidate in sociological studies who does mention capitalism and profit, but not the word 'class' even once? Could it be that an editor remove the word from the article? I don't know. Protests – and riots – are rebellion against an unjust system

NATO returns to Libya to challenge Russia

"The evidence suggests that this coronavirus does not discriminate, but highlights existing discriminations. The continued prevalence of ideas about race today – despite the lack of any scientific basis – shows how these ideas can mutate to provide justification for the power structures that have ordered our society since the 18th century." Genetics is not why BAME* people die of coronavirus BAME: Black and Minority Ethnic

In numbers Police killings compared with other countries and cities Related How many black people die in police custody in England and Wales

Excerpts from Tormented Births: Passages to Modernity in Europe and the Middle East/Mashreq By Isam Al-Khafaji (I.B. Tauris 2004)

Tiananmen Square, Beijing Most  estimates  put the death tall between 2700 and 3400. Ra'baa Al-adawiya Square, Cairo Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that "in Ra'baa  Square, "Egyptian security forces carried out one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history" and that "this wasn't merely a case of excessive force or poor training. It was a violent crackdown planned at the highest levels of the Egyptian government." At least 1000 killed . Why does the capitalist media reminds us every year about Tiananmen but not about Ra'baa Square massacre? Today the head of the regime that carried out the massacre in Cairo is embraced and supported by Western regimes. Could it be because the Chinese regime is led by 'communists' and has not liberalised/privatised the 'commanding heights' but the Egyptian one is more capitalist and a stabilising geopolitical ...

A revolt must be against class and race oppression, not just race. A Call to Revolt

Surprise! Surprise! All but one war crimes claim against British soldiers dropped . "We the experienced army with a long experience in running the biggest empire behind us and experienced ruling class, commit war crimes? We went to mesopotamia, we liberated their people, we stabilised the country with our ally the US and Iraqis are now living happier than ever, even adopting our way of life. Iraq today is better than under Saddam Hussein after all. And didn't the war happen long time ago? 

The bourgeois way to show 'respect' to workers       Source: the BBC

The Greek crisis five years on: What Yanis Varoufakis did and didn't do and whether there was an alternative. Are there lessons to be learnt? Who is paying the cost of capitulation? Eric Toussaint's scathing critique of the former finance minister of Greece. Capitulating to Adults

Is the United States on the brink of a civil war? This is what a revolution looks like Origins of the police Related The BBC does it again. Black people are classless. They are just black. Why US protests resonate in the UK

A free ebook The problem is not overpolicing. The problem is policing itself

"Should we blame working-class black people for lashing out at a government and economy designed to repress, exploit, and subdue them; during a pandemic in which capitalism has made it near impossible for them to survive? Should we participate in this ritual condemnation even though our media consistently treats  identical acts of property destruction  by sports fans as simply revelry and exuberance, and corporate looting of working-class communities as business as usual?" We Should Not Condemn Uprising Against Police Murder Like George Floyd's

The BBC : " For three years, Donald Trump presided over a nation of relative peace and prosperity. The crises he faced were largely of his own making, and he confronted them by rallying his supporters and condemning his opponents. Now Trump faces a situation ill-suited to a playbook of division. The US economy has been hobbled by a deadly pandemic. George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer has spread racial unrest across the nation. The public is uncertain and afraid - and increasingly angry." These are circumstances that would test the abilities of even the most skilful leaders. This president, however, risks becoming lost at sea. His public calls for unity and healing have been undermined by a penchant for Twitter name-calling and bellicosity. Message discipline, a valuable attribute at this moment, is not his forte. There may be no easy way to guide the nation through its current peril. Barack Obama's measured coolness did nothing to ...

Cooperation between two terrorist states Where Do Many U.S. Police Departments Train?

"Behind the so-called 'Miracle of Han River" was a brutal and dark reality." South Korea's 1980's 'concentration camp' Related The South Korean economy of today has a background in brutality, the Korean War, a military dictatorship-led development, government-chaebol cooperation , achieving high productivity with acquiring technology and imposing the longest working hours in the world in the 1960s, a big foreign aid (especially from the U.S. and Japan) ...

This is a very engaging paper. Primitive Socialist Accumulation in China: An Alternative View on the Anomalies of Chinese 'Capitalism'

How Western media would cover Minneapolis if it happened in another country

Have we all forgotten about the Iraq war? Related Blackwater's Erik Prince: Iraq, privatising wars, and Trump