Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“The tyranny of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, or other Arab regimes pales compared to the extreme brutality of Saddam Hussein’s and the Assad family’s regimes. I hold no grudge against a leftist Tunisian, Moroccan, or Algerian unaware of the extent of Syria’s violence. However, I do reproach those who know but remain silent . My dear friend the social psychologist Azzam Amin, famously referred to this group as the ‘barrel bomb left’— those who support Assad’s use of barrel bombs on Syrian civilians.”

An interview with the editor of the book Samer S. Shehata

Hassan Hamdan / Mahdi Amel 

“What is clear … is that greater recognition must be given to the way Western concepts (religion, political, secular, temporal) reflect specific historical developments, and cannot be applied as a set of universal categories or natural domains.” What is political Islam?

I have not read most of these articles . I will be exploring their approach in the coming days.

The author here does not consider the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Ennahda in Tunisia, for instance, part of the counter-revolution–socially and economically. He does not mention how and why they got support from the major imperialist powers, either. It is also a liberal journalistic piece that does not mention the class character of the Islamist parties even once. The end of political Islam as we know it

Excerpts “The ideological character of the uprisings went through a similar evolution. In the early stages, the revolutionaries fashioned themselves as belonging to a post-ideological movement. In reality, though, they were as ideological as any political movement — but their worldview simply mirrored international liberal norms, a doctrine so thoroughly internalized that it seemed like common sense. The movements for democracy were articulated through an individualistic, rights-based discourse, with a special emphasis on human rights. Among the revolutionary leadership, there was almost no talk of substantive equality, wealth redistribution, or property relations. The liberal revolutionaries appealed to the “international community,” which usually meant the Western powers. To understand what happened, we must grapple with the changing social structure in the Arab world over the previous four decades. Both liberal and left explanations fall short because they ignore the role of cla...