Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“ Real wealth concentration is about the ownership of productive capital, the means of production and finance. It's big capital (finance and business) that controls the investment, employment and financial decisions of the world.    A dominant core of 147 firms through interlocking stakes in others together control 40% of the wealth in the global network according to the Swiss Institute of Technology.   A total of 737 companies control 80% of it all.   This is the inequality that matters for the functioning of capitalism – the concentrated power of capital. And because inequality of wealth stems from the concentration of the means of production and finance in the hands of a few; and because that ownership structure remains untouched, any increased taxes on wealth will fall short of irreversibly changing the distribution of wealth and income in modern societies.”

U.S. Jim Crow Israeli Apartheid

This is not news; it’s been going going for years. “Rather than selling off the NHS  outright – a decision politicians know would be unpopular – they are instead doing this through the backdoor, by stealth.” The NHS is being privatised by stealth under cover of the pandemic

As France celebrated victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, its army was massacring thousands of civilians in Sétif and Guelma - events that were the real beginning of Algeria’s war of independence. Massacre in Algeria

A Dystopian Lebanese Thriller

  Saqi Books Selections

Tahrir revolutionaries famously chanted for “bread, freedom, and social justice.” Ten years on, hopes for freedom and social justice are quite far from most Egyptians’ minds. The vast majority are far too busy chasing after the daily bread that led off that short list of demands, struggling day in and day out to feed themselves and their families, and desperately trying to cling to what’s left of their basic human dignity, before even that is stripped from them. There is no denying that the situation is bleak. But at least for one night, Egyptians were able to celebrate and take pride in their cultural heritage, even as that too becomes little more than another weapon in the hands of the regime. The Military Mobilisation of History

The lingering fall out from nuclear tests in the Sahara

  Orientalism and Its Afterlives

“Countries that consistently aim for elimination—i.e., maximum action to control SARS-CoV-2 and stop community transmission as quickly as possible—have generally fared better than countries that opt for mitigation. Evidence suggests that countries that opt for rapid action to eliminate SARS-CoV-2—with the strong support of their inhabitants—also better protect their economies and minimise restrictions on civil liberties compared with those that strive for mitigation.” Elimination creates best outcomes

Opposing the  saber-rattling and militarism of the US’s China hawks without downplaying the oppression of the Uyghur

What an FT columnist means by “economic radical on the left” is Keynesians and new Keynesians. The left is winning the economic battle of ideas

America must now lift its knee from the world

The history of protest songs in Tunisia and their link to popular culture

Beautifully written by Gabriel García Márquez in 1987. Let it be known that we knew love

“A Harris Interactive opinion poll for LCI showed 58 per cent of French voters polled supported the military officers who signed the controversial declaration , compared with 42 per cent who were opposed.  Among respondents who said they supported a political party, 86 per cent of RN [ Rassemblement National]  sympathisers backed the soldiers. For the centre-right Les Républicains party, support was at 71 per cent, and even in Macron’s La République en Marche party it was at 46 per cent.”