Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Bullying and hostile environment made a Sussex University professor resign . Related

A region warming twice as much as the rest of the world

A very good approach. Semitism and Islamophobia as parallel manifestations of contemporary racism

Teetering on the brink of economic collapse

Strikes, civil disobedience and blockades

A déjà-vu? Many Afghans, and some foreign analysts, believe Isis-K is being supported by foreign forces, such as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI wants leverage to persuade the Taliban to co-operate in suppressing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a jihadist insurgency that has targeted the Pakistan government. Others suspect US intelligence agencies, anti-Taliban warlords and even former members of the Afghan army of collaborating with Isis-K. “We know there are intelligence agencies and networks supporting Isis-K to challenge and create problems for the Taliban government,” Haqpal said. In India, government and intelligence officials have suggested that inter-Taliban rivalry — between the Haqqani network and a powerful Kandahar faction led by Mullah Baradar, the deputy prime minister — is stoking the violence. “There is clear factionalism in the Taliban,” an Indian intelligence source said. “It is possible that one faction is supporting the Isis-K to wipe out the dominance o...

This  article requires individual or institutional subscription. Here is an excerpt: “ The West’s focus on armed violence gets in the way of understanding the phenomena of radicalisation and the commission of acts in its name. It presupposes a continuum between religious radicalisation, proclamation of jihad and international terrorism, as though going from the first to the third stage were inevitable, and conversely, as though international terrorism   created   local jihadism. Such reasoning leads to any reference to sharia law and any call for holy war being read as a precursor to global attacks. In this view, Islamist movements’ supposed proximity to terrorism is the sole criterion for determining western policy towards them. This proximity is defined on a scale of intensity that measures references to religion as much as — if not more than — actual acts of violence: the more Islamist groups mention sharia and the more they challenge the policies of the great powers,...

“The Tunisian media regulator has shut down Nesma TV and religious station Quran radio for failing to provide a full broadcasting licence.   The two stations are known to be critical of President Kais Saied after his decision to suspend parliament in July.  Nesma TV is owned by former presidential candidate and media mogul Nabil Karoui who has been jailed in Algeria after fleeing Tunisia.  Meanwhile Quran radio is owned by opposition MP Said Jaziri. Earlier this month the authorities shut down Zitouna TV which is known to be close to Enahdha - an influential political party which is openly critical of Mr Saied. Zitouna’s TV host, Amer Ayad, had also been arrested and jailed for reading a poem about dictators on air.” Source: the BBC

A visual history

1. A saying attributed to Saint-Juste:  “ Those who make revolutions by halves do nothing but dig their own tombs.“ What applies to Egypt and Syrian, applies to Sudan.  2. The call by two Sudanese trade unions for a general strike must be supported. 3. The general strike must go beyond stopping the economic machine and challenging the military; it must create organs of power. A crucial revolutionary action the revolting Sudanese did not create two years ago. 4. The compromise with the military was a plunder. 5. No trust in the foreign powers that call for the release of “the civilian leaders.” They are for a compromise and ‘peaceful’ arrangement. They are the same powers supporting the Egyptian dictatorship and supported the recent coup in Bolivia. The same powers that talk about ‘civilian rule”, send the IMF and the World Bank to prolong the life of the current regimes and perpetuate the conditions that breed social conflicts, uprisings, migration, etc. My comment from July 2...

Imagine for a second the reverse: the troops are chasing animals on the beach. What would the reaction of the ‘civilised’ world be?

Reactionary intellectual class

Trenchant! The book’s  most passionate following in the metropolitan countries is within those sectors of the university intelligentsia which either originate in the ethnic minorities or affiliate themselves ideologically with the academic sections of those minorities. . . . These [immigrants] who came as graduate students and then joined the faculties, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, tended to come from upper classes in their home countries. In the process of relocating themselves in the metropolitan countries they needed documents of their assertion, proof that they had always been oppressed.... What the upwardly mobile professionals in this new immigration needed were narratives of oppression that would get them preferential treatment, reserved jobs, higher salaries in the social position they already occupied: namely, as middle-class professionals, mostly male. For such purposes,  Orientalism  was the perfect narrative. Aijaz Ahmad, Orientalism and A...

Degrowth economics

Every Thai foreign worker has been sexually abused

Is the world poor, or unjust?

A lot has been written about the film The Battle of Algiers. This article not only does not answer its own question, but it erases the struggle of the Algerians and the Arabs in general since 2010-11.  “What relevance does The Battle of Algiers hold today, 55 years after it was first released?” When we speak about the film’s relevance today, we speak about Black Lives Matter and Occupy? How appalling! Naomi Joseph has ignored the Arab uprisings of 2010/11 and 2019. The latter year is of the Algerian uprising. How does the movie relate to neo-colonialism as contrasted to colonialism?  Is France today a neo-colonial power in Algeria, in the Sahel, and other places?  Is there anything uttered by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, relevant and echos what is in the film? Do the reactions of the French ruling class, the media, the intelligentsia, and a large section of the population in the aftermath of the violent attacks in France in 2015 and afterwards reveal a continui...

"واقفون في أحذيتنا" كأننا أشباح ـ 1 ـ  مازال اللصوص  هنا بيننا "ينظمون عملية موتنا بالمجان" ـ 2 ـ  كل الأحداث أصبحت بصورة ما عابرة ومؤقتة ولا قيمة لها في وعيينا ولا ينتظرها منا غير النسيان  كل شيء أصبح  قابلا للنسيان  لقد تعودنا على النسيان أقوالنا مواقفنا مبادئنا أحلامنا  لقد صرنا نَمُرُّ على كل شيء مرور الكرام وكأننا لسنا هنا وكأن الأمور كلها لا تعنينا  لقد صرنا نمر على مآسينا كما أنها لم تقع ... نمر على مشاكلنا كأنها لم تعد ترافقنا أينما توجهنا نمر على الحاضر وكأنه ليس حاضرنا  نمر على جراحنا ونشيح النظر عنها ونسد أنوفنا عن عفونتها التي ترافقنا وتنتشر أينما حللنا نمر حتى على موتنا ونتناسى  لقد صرنا ننسى ولا نبالي  لقد صرنا نتوهم أننا هنا والآن ونحيا  كم صرنا نَدَعُ الأمور للمجهول  كم صرنا نستوطن المجهول والعجز واللامبالاة فينا لقد صار كل شيء فينا لا يشبه سوى الموت والعدم  كل شيء من حولنا يتحرك يتململ يكسر القشرة  الطبيعة تتغير فصولُها السماء تُمْطِرُ الأرض تُغَيِّرُ  قِشْرَتَها الأشجارُ تُثْمِرُ الطيور تُه...

I like this movie albeit not all of is based on real events. A VPN is recommended before accessing the site.

I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries— the realists of a larger reality . Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art.  We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings.  … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. ...  The name of our beautiful reward is ...

The problem goes back to before the pandemic. 80 million household struggle to stay warm

Welcome to Britain!

Shutdown Related Pro-market thinking: ministers want it to survive Covid

التراث في فكر حسن حنفي

Powell's name represents a dramatic twist in the annals of US imperial ideology

Factory farms of disease

 Iraqis will ‘not shed tears’ for 2003 invasion architect Politely anguished war criminal

Different interpretations aside. The Quran says: "You [Muslims] are the best ummah [nation] brought out for Mankind.”  [3:110]. The Jews believe that they are the ‘chosen people’. The Torah says: “ Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me from all the peoples, for all the earth is mine.” Exodus 19:5. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “ The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth.” Resignation speech , May 2007 The richest 1% alone capture nearly 25% of world GDP, according to the World Inequality Database.  That’s more than the GDP of 169 countries combined , including Norway, Argentina, all of the Middle East and the entire continent of Africa.  They are THE CHOSEN PEOPLE .

I have read this and it is a good summary . You need an institutional subscription though.

خط في الرمال

Ariz and Fielding: "Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. ·'It's what I want. It's what you want."  But the horses didn't want it-they swerved apart; the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap. and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices, " No, not yet," and the sky said, "No, not there." — E. M. Forster, A Passage to India , New York, Har­court, Brace & Co., 1952, p. 322.

Not according to the former Pesi CEO

“At the root of this is the American obsession with self-reliance, which makes it more acceptable to applaud an individual for working himself to death than to argue that an individual working himself to death is evidence of a flawed economic system.” … Working yourself to death

“Language is politics and politics is power. This is why the misuse of language is particularly disturbing, especially when the innocent and vulnerable pay the price.“ Europe’s self-serving politics on refugees

 Some Saudis, some Arabs and tourists. No alcohol yet though! Saudi women in ‘bikini’ and beach parties in Jedda

Lines of succession

The generals “will do us better than the old gang” Related The Killing Season. A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965 – 66

“The question is: if humanity is to be defended, who must do the defending, how, and with which consequences? Beyond humanity, if life on earth is to thrive or survive, who or what must take responsibility for what appears to be an impending catastrophe?” The logic of humanitarian intervention

“ French left-wing parties, who were in opposition at the time, have also come in for criticism for not condemning the massacre. They have been seen as complicit in the cover-up given that they filed a law suit against the police for opening fire on mainly French anti-war protesters, killing seven, a few months later, and yet remained silent about the massacre of Algerians.” How a massacre of Algerians in Paris was covered up Related "Whenever the West is attacked and our innocents are killed, we usually wipe the memory bank. Thus, when reporters told us that the 129 dead in Paris represented the worst atrocity in France since the Second World War, they failed to mention the 1961 Paris massacre of up to 200 Algerians participating in an illegal march against France’s savage colonial war in Algeria. Most were murdered by the French police, many were tortured in the Palais des Sports and their bodies thrown into the Seine. The French only admit...

Revolutionary art reminds us of the world we want to see

‘I am not even seen as a person’

I am in the fourth episode and I already agree with Mike.  Squid Game 

Fighting for unpaid wages in pandemic’s shadow

Built on the bodies of slaves

Undocumented Tunisian migrants

Rodinson argues that both in its traditions and history Islam was no more and no less able to control borrowing, lending, interest rates, merchant entrepreneurs than any other religious program; the stereotypes of Islamic submission to God's will, or Islamic belief in predetermination, have played little part either in the acquisition of Islamic wealth or in its administration. Islam was frequently a way ruling classes had of keeping their power, and Rodinson suggests that this is as likely to be true now as it has been historically. Maxime Rodinson explains the mysterious Near East

Capitalism’s ‘rosy dawn’

Taken together with its partly controlled territories overseas, Britain is instrumental in the worldwide concealment of cash and assets. It is, as a member of the ruling Conservative Party  said  last week, “the money laundering capital of the world.” And the City of London, its gilded financial center, is at the system’s core. The City of London is hiding the world’s stolen money

Take up the White Man’s burden– Send forth the best ye breed– Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; On fluttered folk and wild– Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. – Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” Kipling and British imperialism

The good Muslims are those we can do business with. Related "The UK's National Crime Agency would not comment on any current investigation but told the BBC that organised crime syndicates laundered hundreds of billions of pounds a year through London, mainly through complicated company structures." The tentacles of the Italian mafia

“‘The world still has plenty of superrich people. Indeed, overall, the superrich are likely to emerge from the crisis in better financial shape than anyone else.’ Therefore, crucially, ‘the reservoir of wealth to fund philanthrocapitalism is still there.’ This self-fulfilling cycle—capitalism creates wealth, and thereby inequality, and thereby the conditions for the rich to spend surplus money on helping the poor, without ever alleviating poverty—dates back (Bishop points out) to the Renaissance, when both capitalism and philanthropy were born.” Charitable giving among the super-rich has one goal, and it isn't to change the world

Accused of war crimes, but they will get a fresh start in the US

“Without knowing the fate of Arrakis and Paul, the current  Dune  appears no different from  Lawrence of Arabia  (1962): the story of a proud if uncivilised people born in a coarse if rich terrain who await a white messiah to grant them the peace and freedom that colonising forces have long denied. While the  Dune  saga starts as an allegory for colonisation, it ends as a warning against man-made ecological development and the danger of inherited myths.” Interstellar epic avoids Middle East cliches

“Hell Joseon” or capitalist hell

Empires et esclavage

Then immortalised it on film

  You are the product

Who ordered the killing of Basra activists?

The Islamist sector and the humanitarian NGOs

“A Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United is close to being agreed.  Approval from the Premier League could possibly come in the next 24 hours after a consortium proved the Saudi state would not have control of the club.  Instead the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is set to provide 80% of funds for the £300m deal, will be seen as separate to the state and therefore allow the takeover to pass the Premier League owners' and directors' test.” — the BBC “The  Public Investment Fund  is the  sovereign wealth fund  of  Saudi Arabia . It is among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with total estimated assets of at least $500 billion.  It was created in 1971 for the purpose of investing funds on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. It has been characterized as among the least transparent sovereign wealth funds in the world. In 2016, the  Wall Street Journal  noted that none of the fund's investments were named.” —...

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Did what Bertrand Russell say in 1916 still relevant today? “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” —  Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 13: Freedom in Society.

Historical responsibility for climate change is at the heart of debates over climate justice

Paying the price of the alliance with the army Related Sudan is being rewarded for its revolution with blackmail People’s own struggle achieves in months what NGOs cannot achieve (or hinders to achieve) for decades. Activists react ad Sudan ditches “Islamist laws” A background 

Vision stéréotypée et exclusion de l’histoire sociale et économique

A detailed article but too much political science, almost nothing about Iraqi capitalism and why it is not providing. Note that there are no classes anymore in Iraq; no economic institutions and capitalists; no form of economic development; no rate of profit; no foreign capital; no IMF…   In a long article by two journalists about the Sadrist movement and “the most powerful man in Iraq,” there is no word about the man’s economic programme! The word economy itself does not feature at all.  U.S. enemy and friend of Iran? Related Iraq’s “March for Reforms”

The Lebanese oligarchy and it’s free market global partners

No surprise here

From February (in four languages) Back to business as usual

What is behind the obsession?

The crisis boils down to the form of British capitalism. “It still seems more likely that Japan and Britain will secure enough gas, in the same way they secured enough coronavirus vaccines, by the expedient of poorer countries not getting enough. But for Britain the price crisis will be harsh. Free market fanaticism combines with the brutal practice of making the poorest citizens pay a disproportionate share of the cost of funding the transition to zero-carbon energy.” On the boil Related Why India is on the brink of a power crisis

What a scandal!         Lebanon 2021       UK 2021

“ The apogee of the secret state in purposefully hiding information from the public in the postwar period was necessary for sculpting an official narrative about British imperialism and its war efforts divorced from the truth of its brutality. Imperialists were often all too aware that if the true nature of their mission was exposed it would also undermine the image of liberal democracy that was deployed to distinguish the West from authoritarian regimes.” State secrecy and destruction of historical records

By Sargon Boulus