Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“1-Syria's new government has told business leaders it will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control, declared Bassel Hamwi, head of the Damascus Chambers of Commerce 2- Bassel Hamwi was just ‘elected’ to this position in November 2024 few weeks before the fall of the Assad’s dynasty . He is also the chairman of the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce. Remnants of the old regime still in top positions… 3- HTS has no alternative to the neoliberal economic system, most probably with business networks gathering new and former business personalities, also to be connected to the new ruling leaders similar to forms of crony capitalism we had in the past in Syria 4- This neoliberal system accompanied with authoritarianism will lead to continued socioeconomic inequalities and impoverishment, which were one of the main causes at the roots of the initial uprising. HTS is a threat to the future o...

“There is still significant uncertainty about who is calling the shots in Syria, and the most crucial information might take years to emerge. The following should therefore be read as an initial sketch of Turkey’s role in the events, subject to modification as new details come to light. But one thing is already certain at this early stage: though the balance of forces has shifted in Erdoğan’s favour for the time being, we can comfortably say that Erdoğanist fantasies about a Turkish imperial restructuring of the region are unfounded. “It is dubious that any real hegemon will emerge from this chaotic turn of events. Nor are we likely to see a free, democratic state or a conclusive partition.”  Indeed . Reactionary forces of different colours and shades are at play .

In short,  “for the political theorist Ali Kadri, imperialist powers and comprador classes use war to gain strategic advantage over their rivals – destroying political challenges to their rule and reaping profits via the defence industry. The reduction of people’s lifespans through a combination of war and austerity also reduces the state’s social responsibilities, as well as popular expectations for the division of the social surplus, allowing elites to appropriate more resources. It is precisely this combination of violence and profiteering, mediated by Washington’s geostrategic interests, that defines the relationship between Pakistan’s rulers and its general population.  In the mid-twentieth century, Pakistani elites, led by the military, discarded industrialization and other development strategies for cheap dollars linked to imperial wars. This, along with Western aid packages, enabled import-driven consumption that placed a serious strain on the country’s balance of paym...

‘Lifelong struggle for free and democratic Syria’

Bassam Haddad on Democracy Now Related Syrians face an uncertain future

Bou Ali Yasin (1942-2000) Sadiq Jalal al-Azm (b. 1934) Hanna Mina (1924-2018)

    يمكن اعتبار سجن صيدنايا ، مجازا لسوريا كلّها، التي صعدت فجأة من السراديب إلى فوق الأرض… Related Syria’s disappeared

“Geostrategically, it is a triumph for Washington and Israel.” —Tari Ali Reminder “The world order, led by the United States, Europe, Russia, Iran and Israel, colluded with double standards to keep the [Syrian] regime alive , while being aware of its brutality over the decades, especially since the revolution in 2011, which it militarized, killing hundreds of thousands and forcing half of the Syrian people to be displaced internally and seek refuge abroad, exceeding 13 million Syrians, making Syria the first country exporting refugees in the world.”  Translated from Arabic Before his demise the UAE and the US, writes the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen “were trying to find incentives for him to break the alliance with Tehran, relaxing sanctions and allowing Assad to continue his international rehabilitation.” Now, in order to further undermine the Russian regime’s influence in the country as well as Iran, the US and the UK consider removing Ha’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the ‘terror list’. Th...

“Recognition of a past without people yielded a centuries-long ‘obsession’ with trying to find the essence of humanity in its supposed origins. More often than not this has taken the form of Western intellectuals projecting their own biases onto the deep past, usually to justify the violence and hierarchies of a world from which they benefit. Eighteenth-century political economy told the story of the progressively efficient use of resources: man ascended from hunter to shepherd to farmer, before realising his true potential as the self-interested merchant of commercial society. Today’s narratives flatter the aspiring coders and venture capitalists of Silicon Valley. For Yuval Noah Harari, the ‘march of civilisation’ has always been driven by the innovations of visionary technocratic elites. “In the early 20 th  century Neanderthals were thought to be ancestors of humans: they ‘served as metonyms for colonial subjects, for Europeans of a past that had been overcome’. Today, the raci...

From an article available to subscribers “In  May 1945, soon after Germany surrendered, the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) asked people which country they felt had contributed the most to its defeat. At the time, respondents were highly conscious of the millions of Soviet troops who had died on the eastern front and their decisive role in weakening the Nazi forces, as well as the United States’ late entry into the war: 57% chose the Soviet Union and only 20% the US. When IFOP asked the same question this year, the ratio was inverted: the US scored 60% against 25% for the Soviet Union. “For many years, D-Day was seen as a relatively minor event…  In 1964 De Gaulle himself refused to attend: ‘Why should I go and commemorate their landings when they were a prelude to a second occupation of France? I won’t do it!’ “That all changed in 1984 amid growing US-Soviet tension…  The countries of the ‘free world’ made a show of unity, presenting themselves as defenders of ...

When my grandmother arrived here, after the Holocaust, the Jewish Agency promised her a house. She had nothing, her entire family was exterminated. She waited for a long time in a tent, in an extremely precarious situation. They then took her to Ajami, in Jaffa, in a beautiful beach house. She saw that on the table there were still the dishes of the Arabs who lived there and who had been kicked away. So she went back to the agency and said, take me back to the tent, I will never do to anyone else what was done to me. This is my legacy, but not everyone made that choice. How could we have become what we opposed? That's the big question. — Hadar Morag, Israeli filmmaker

“ What future for Syria, particularly for democratic aspirations? Looking at HTS and SNA’s policies in the past, they have not encouraged a democratic space to develop, but quite the opposite. They have been authoritarian. No trust should be given to such forces, quite the opposite. “Only the self-organization of popular classes fighting for democratic and progressive demands will create that space and open a path toward actual liberation. Their capacity to do so, however, will have to overcome many obstacles from war fatigue to repression, poverty, and social dislocation. Only the development of civil society’s organizations (not narrowly defined as of NGOs but in a Gramscian sense of popular mass formations outside of the state) such a as trade unions, feminist organizations, local popular associations , etc… can constitute a political and social alternative for a democratic future… Joy and fear are not contradictory feelings for the future of Syria. While it is important to remind ...

A weakened Assad abandoned by allies and Turkey’s pivotal role