Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“I hope you are doing ok in these tragic times. I wish I could've announced the publication of this book in better times but unfortunately this is the world we live in, a world that we need to transform for the better by our resistance and social and environmental justice struggles, for the sake of humanity and the planet. The book  Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region ,  that I co-edited with my colleague Katie Sandwell has been published with  Pluto Press  in October. It is being sold now at 50% off as part of Pluto's Palestine Liberation reads so hurry and get your copy while the discount is still on.  However, if you prefer to read an online copy, you can find an  open-access   version here .  The book has also been published in Egypt by  Dar Sefsafa  in October 2023 under the title ( تحدّي الرأسمالية الخضراء: العدالة المناخية و الانتقال الطاقي في المنطقة العربية ) and you can also have a look at it  here . A French version with a foc

Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region Related The Arab Uprisings - A Decade of Struggle

The system of genders within sharia, which included the role of women within families and households, was in many respects flexible. It was shaped simultaneously by religious concepts and the pragmatic needs of society. European colonialism transformed this in two ways. It froze sharia requirements, which had until then been subject to various interpretations in different communities, as a uniform set of unchanging ideas. The rigid separation of women from men who were not  mahram  (not related to them) is one example: what had once been a principled guideline with religious connotations was transformed into a legal dictate enforced by coercion. Colonialism then inscribed those ideas into a static set of civil and criminal codes imposed on local societies and enforced by new courts, military orders and government decisions. What had previously been a pluralistic mix of religious norms and informal practices around gender turned into something radically different: a rigid hierarchy of s

A good panorama of the situation in the MENA region. However, I think that there is  too much focus on ‘democracy’ without a single mention of capitalism in a left wing publication. ‘Democracy’ is narrowly defined and although Alaoui highlights the role of counterrevolution, he never grounds ‘democracy’ in a socio-economic revolutionary’ context. The revolution broke out in December 2010 before its spread to other countries raising socio-economic slogans and issues, not ‘democracy’.  ‘Neoliberal’ for of capitalism is meant to be the culprit along the counterrevolutionary forces as if the working of capital itself is not counterrevolutionary. ‘Aid’ replaces debt as mechanism of subjugation. The question (the headline) itself begs the question: what is the relevance of the question since the author clearly speaks about the regimes as the leading force behind the counterrevolution? ‘Popular’ as in ‘popular forces’, ‘popular currents’, ‘popular mobilisation’, etc.  is often repeated in ord

Rayya El-Zein has written about how the framework of neoliberal orientalism has built a fantasy about  the Arab rapper . She explained that Western mainstream media are “eager to imagine Arab youth in non-threatening modes of resistance that are directly related to American culture. The rapper speaking truth to power is a very easy character for audiences to imagine; at the same time, he is a totally benign figure that caricatures authoritarian regimes as all the same bad guys.” El-Zein has argued that when the West focuses on creative youth, it does not have to understand how Western powers are complicit. After the Arab uprisings (Part 1) After the Arab uprisings (Part 2)

“ In short, the political economy of the Abraham Accords may serve as the new anchor of a regional security arrangement that is US-stamped, but no longer necessarily directly backed militarily by a US presence on the ground. They facilitate a region-wide, Israeli-produced surveillance architecture; new flows of weaponry to repressive states known to target civilians; and trade and investment patterns that promise an authoritarian model of prosperity at the expense of the most vulnerable communities of the region. This is, of course, in addition to the violation of the most basic rights of Palestinian and Sahrawi communities.” The empire is changing its strategy Related Israel-Egypt-EU gas deal

 Memorialising Complexities