Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 The Living Wage and State Law

  Stuck between Chinese persecution and US imperialism

  In a country where the head of state and its acolytes want to “reform Islam”. And in one of the elite institutions that produces the cadres of the state. “Under French law, a rape charge is only possible if there is proof of "force, threat, violence or surprise" - otherwise it is tried as the lesser offence of sexual assault. That applies to children as well, as France has no legal age of consent.” Sexual abuse in France

A very good piece by Chris Hedge. Where Liberalism Goes to Die

 A very good piece. “Better?” I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? “Better never means better for everyone,” he says. “It always means worse, for some.”   – Margaret Atwood,  The Handmaid’s Tale (Re)creating disaster risks

 How unscientific is the labour theory of value?

The historian and broadcaster Michael Wood, a professor of public history at the University of Manchester, says: “Everything that is going on at the moment, it seems to me, all links together.”   History has seen great civilisations in China, India and across Eurasia, “but they’ve not caused these crises that we are living through now, and nor has the African world. “You know what happened? Roughly 500 years ago, these small, aggressive maritime powers on the shores of Europe went across the world with their technology and created their empires by sea. “And I think what we are seeing now can all be interpreted in the light of the post-imperial [age].”  Other societies may now be enthusiastic participants, but it was not they who created western industrial capitalism, he argues . Related Anti-capitalist politics

 The Imaginary Separatism of Salafist Women

 Thank you, Edward! And rest in peace.

Saudi-led coalition loses its grip

From Tragedy to Farce For a Nobel Prize for War

 Meyhane bar culture under threat

From the Torygraph . When the ruling class gets anxious. The word ‘extremism’ has been used by someone from JP Morgan! ‘Business elites fear a revolution is at hand’

I vividly remember the night when my father, who had been watching TV, woke me up: “Nèdeem, look, look, they started bombing Iraq.” But the price was worth it then as after in order to liberate the Kuwaiti oil. When Al-Amiriya shelter was smartly bombed "...the British and other governments of the democratic and liberal world, so far from protesting (Saddam Hussein's regime which killed several thousands of his citizens with poison-gas bombs), kept quiet and did their best to keep their citizens in the dark, as they encouraged their businessmen to sell Saddam more arms including the equipment to gas more of his citizens. They were not outraged, until he did something genuinely insupportable...he attacked the oil fields thought vital by the USA." Eric Hobsbawm, On History , p. 350