Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"A key aspect of the current crisis—one which is regularly understated, if not  effaced  entirely—is the complicity of those of us residing in the global North in the collective punishment of over 81 million Iranians through and by means of one of the most comprehensive and unrelenting sanctions regimes in modern history." An interjection on the Western left's response to the recent protests in Iran

Iran " Putin, Assad, Hezbollah and all their cheerleaders in the alt-right and Stalinist left are already trying to smear the protests as pro-imperialist. The revolt shows, once again, that Stalinism is not a dead issue in the progressive movement, and that its remaining advocates want only an authoritarian “anti-imperialist” regime to support." Good! I completely agree with that. However, Paul Mason has drawn a fair picture until he messed it up with this: "But their rhetorical support does not delegitimise the mass upsurge, nor does it mean the EU and Western democratic countries should stand back and ignore the repression." Is he appealling to the EU and Western imperialist states to do something? I don't understand these type of leftist journalists who instead of appealing to progressives, trade unions, ordinary people, they talk to the criminal states which have been pursuing criminal, hypocritical policies for their own geopolitical interests. Th...

One should add the folowing: even if we don't talk about the responsibility of the Western imperialist states in laying the foundation/condition of what is happing now in parts of the Arab world, one should at least mention the responsibility of those very same states in selling instruments of death right now to states like Saudi Arabia and Israel.  One also should mention the complicity of the people in the US, Britain, France, Germany, etc for allowing the sale of arms.  Disavowal

The "leftists" admirers of Assad's Syria

Via Joey Husseini Ayoub Middle East Eye asked me to write an op-ed on what's become an all-too-familiar theme following some of the (ongoing) exchanges between the folks at The Electronic Intifada and folks active in the Syria solidarity movement. To be quite honest with you, I got tired of writing the same thing. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time I write this - in fact you can see it as an extension of my piece for Raseef22 رصيفــ22  - and I know people who have written more than I have - emphasizing especially the work of Leila Al Shami and, obviously, the folks over at الجمهورية al-Jumhuriya like Yassin Al Haj Saleh and Yassin Swehat, all of whom have done infinitely more than I have.  It's frustrating, but here's one more.  I added quotes by Jesse Williams given that so much of the power narrative is being dominated by Americans (as usual, making this even more annoying) in the hope that American comrades would be able to challenge the narrative from with...