Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Decolonisation for the author does not include decolonising global capitalism, putting an end to - wealth accumulation in the hands of a few - obscene inequality - unequal exchange and monopoly of technology, - uneven development, - overthrowing of dictatorships/bourgeois classes in poor” and “developing” countries”, - debt, - imposition of economic programmes such as privatisation, etc. The author thinks ending discrimination and “reparations and restitution” will bring about decolonisation without touching the structure of the existent ownership and power relations. Colonialism made the modern world. Let’s remake it.

Hinting to economic and political domination/oppression without linking class to race, blurs and even hides what you call “structural” in any society.  Remember how the conflicts in Iraq and Syria have been mainly treated as sectarianism . That is what the following analysis does. There are black capitalists and black people who believe in the morals and ideas of the bourgeoisie. There are black imperialists and the recent example in the US is the most obvious. Then there is global power relations that perpetuates racism and class oppression. A black person in an A country could be oppressed racially and economically by the national ruling class and the country itself is dominated by Western imperialism, which perpetuates those oppressive class and racial relations globally. Any attempt to break out of such domination (see the recent experience of Latin America and Egypt, for example) is met by fierce opposition, sabotage or cooption by Western imperialism. Power and Exclusion ...

Boris, the Russian oligarchs and Page 3 model

Wealth or Income?

Genocide in Libya The book specifically recovers the hidden history of the fascist Italian concentration camps in Libya.

“We coup whoever we wants,” says Elon Musk

Black Saudi on African Migration and Slavery

“Analysts have thus far tended to ignore those Arabs who support the political project in north and east Syria. Several observers have amplified the voices of those Arabs who are critical of it, perhaps because that narrative fits more easily into the simple trope of sectarianism.” Arabs Across Syria Join the Kurdish-Led Syrian Democratic Forces

As of 27 July 2020, UK tops the list of countries with the highest deaths per thousand people.

UK’s [the West’s] dance with the Kremlin comes home to roost

How calling someone a “class reductionist” became a lefty insult

  لا لتوظيف التسامح الديني كمطية  للتطبيع مع الكيان الصهيوني Using “religious tolerance” as a springboard to normalisation with the Israeli state

Consider this: what if the following comment from [Mark] Twain’s notebook appeared as a boxed quote in history textbooks? Patriotism “is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn’t a foot of land in the world which doesn’t represent the ousting and re-ousting of a long line of successive ‘owners’ who each in turn, as ‘patriots,’ with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of ‘robbers’ who came to steal it and  did —and became swelling-hearted patriots in  their  turn.” What if teachers asked students to write essays agreeing or disagreeing with this idea in high school? Or what if the final exam required students to respond to a comment Twain made in the  North American Review  five years before his death—“the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it”? Mark Twain’s Inconvenient Truths Related: Censoring Mark Twain’s...

The Ministry of Health: your son died of coronavirus. The family of the deceased: no, he died of a heart attack. The Ministry: And what was the cause of the heart attack? The family: he accumulated too much debt. The Ministry: Why did he get so much in debt? The family: Because he was made unemployed. The Ministry: Why was he made unemployed? The family: Because of coronavirus. The Ministry: That’s what we’ve said! Translated from Moroccan Arabic. Source: Tarik Benziade on Facebook

How an armed group “polices” Black Lives Matter protests

When Neoliberalism Hijacked Human Rights

Racism in a country without race

Class and the Parable of an Environmental Victory