Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

In the postcolony, wherein a particular form of power rages, wherein the dominant and the subjugated are specifically linked in one and the same bundle of desire, enthusiasm for the end is often expressed in the language of the religious. One reason why is that the postcolony is a relatively specific form of capture and emasculation of the desire for revolt and the will to struggle.  The enthusiasm for origins thrives by provoking an affect of fear of encountering the other—an encounter that is not always material but is certainly always phantasmatic, and in general traumatic. Indeed, many are concerned that they have preferred others over themselves for a long time. They deem that the matter can no longer be to prefer such others to ourselves. Everything is now about preferring ourselves to others, who, in any case, are scarcely worthy of us, and last, it is about making our object choices settle on those who are like us. The era is therefore one of strong narcissistic bonds. In this

The migrants hunger-strike for legal status

Democracy The idea according to which life in a democracy is fundamentally peaceful, policed, and violence-free (including in the form of war and devastation) does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny.  From their origins, modern democracies have always evinced their tolerance for a certain political violence, including illegal forms of it. They have integrated forms of brutality into their culture, forms borne by a range of private institutions acting on top of the state, whether irregular forces, militias, or other paramilitary or corporatist formations. In eighteenth-century England, plantation owners in the West Indies amassed the money to enable the financing of a nascent culture of taste, art galleries, and cafés—places par excellence of learning civility.  The “civilization of mores” was also made possible thanks to the new forms of wealth accumulation and consumption inaugurated by the colonial adventure... the capacity to create unequal exchange relations became a decisive e

The Other and the Ordeal of the World Can the Other, in light of all that is happening, still be regarded as my fellow creature? The Other’s burden having become too overwhelming, would it not be better for my life to stop being linked to its presence, as much as its to mine? Why must I, despite all opposition, nonetheless look after the other, stand as close as possible to his life if, in return, his only aim is my ruin? If, ultimately, humanity exists only through being in and of the world, can we found a relation with others based on the reciprocal recognition of our common vulnerability and finitude? In a world characterized more than ever by an unequal redistribu- tion of capacities for mobility, and in which the only chance of survival, for many, is to move and to keep on moving, the brutality of borders is now a fundamental given of our time. Today we see the principle of equality being undone by the laws of autochthony and common origin, as well as by divisions within citizensh

Amina Wadud: “Inequality between men and women is contrary to Islam”

  “Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villainy away in one swift tidal wave of blood – a settlement of that hoary debt in proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would be remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the ax compared with lifelong death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could

“ [W]hat is needed is political discussion, revolutionary ideological rearmament, accountability and workers’ democracy.” I don’t think that would be enough. How to feed the people and providing them with a decent standard of leaving is tied up with how developed and productive the economy is and what class re-alignment is possible. In the current circumstances as in the previous decades Cuba as an isolated island with limited resources, lack of technological means and embargo is unable to provide for the majority of its people.

Johnson’s been a ‘culture war’ warrior since the ‘90s

Release Frank García Hernández and his comrades

An antidote to Islamophobia

“Last month, the United Nations voted  overwhelmingly  to call on the United States to lift the embargo. Only the United States and Israel voted no. (Ukraine, Colombia, and Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil were the only abstentions.) And 184 nations voted yes.” I think if the Cuban regime wants to survive both foreign intervention and not being overthrown, it must cease repression and open complete dialogue with all different bodies in the Cuban society. However, given the nature of the regime, I doubt that such a move would happen. The recent examples in Belarus, Egypt and others show that the opposite is usually the case. The US must end its brutal sanctions on Cuba

The Poetics of Human Rights

On the survival of the impossible state

Majidi in Context