Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Mourning the Loss of the Berber Troubadour Idir

Webinar – The “Arab Spring” Lives On: Uprisings in times of a pandemic Friday 12 June 2020 at 4pm  (CES T, Amsterdam time) . Register here:  https://bit.ly/3h7zrWk Ten years ago, the Arab uprisings were celebrated as world changing events. The emancipatory experience was so contagious that people were inspired all over the world. Occupiers from London to Wall Street and the Indignados were proud to “Walk like an Egyptian”. The revolutionary process that has swept North Africa and West Asia, driven by demands for bread, freedom, dignity and social justice, has seen ups and downs, gains and setbacks, which materialized in a liberal democratic transition in Tunisia and bloody counter-revolutions and imperialist interventions in other countries. This led some pundits to pronounce a death sentence on the so-called “Arab Spring”. A decade on, this protracted revolutionary process is well into the second wave of revolt, triggered by the same features of governance and political e

When the camera wa a weapon of imperialism. And when it still is Related " I write as an African, a black man living in America. I am every day subject to the many microaggressions of American racism. I also write this as an American, enjoying the many privileges that the American passport affords and that residence in this country makes possible. I involve myself in this critique of privilege: my own privileges of class, gender, and sexuality are insufficiently examined. My cell phone was likely manufactured by poorly treated workers in a Chinese factory. The coltan in the phone can probably be traced to the conflict-riven Congo. I don't fool myself that I am not implicated in these transnational networks of oppressive practices." — Teju Cole

A good summary "Arab Workers and the Struggle for Democracy" Related The article above lacks a radical appraisal

On VE Day French Colonists Launched a Massacre in Algeria

An interview with Gilbert Achcar Pandemic and oil crisis could make second Arab spring return with a vengeance Related The seasons after the Arab spring

The future of the Hirak movement

Can the Arab uprisings move towards a successful revolution?

How the West made Arabs and Berbers into races

Return to Revolution

Extractivism and resistance in North Africa A paper available in Arabic, French and English

The Hirak movement in Algeria: its achievements, predicament and limitations

Algeria Here is one of the reasons that the Algerian protest movement is unable to carry out a revolution: The protesters "call for" and "demand" . That is not what the history of revolutions inform us about how to "remove a ruling elite."   Here are some conditions: A regime has to face a mounting pressure that makes it implode from inside. A revolutionary movement that paralyses the economic machine through a general strike. A split in the military/winning of a significant section of the armed forces. The regional and foreign intervention is weak or unable to prolong or co-opt the revolutionary movement. On the contrary, favourable international conditions have to exist. That is absent today. The movement has a strong mass support because the majority/at least a coalition of social strata, including a section of the middle classs, not only desire change, but also believe in the viability and achievability of an alternative. The movement p

"Now that the Algerian masses have gained their streets back, many obstacles lay ahead. This regime is perhaps one of the most entrenched in the region that, with a small fix, could again fill its pockets and co-opt large swaths of the population, oppositional forces, and maintain discipline within its own ranks. If oil prices don’t bounce back soon, Algerian elites could still attract new investments in the oil sector that could fill state coffers with enough cash to reinstate the whole chain again to its pre-2014 levels. Like most people around them, Algerians have very little organizational power. This has shown people across the region that  sudden outbursts  could carry a protest this far at best. That Algerians have still poured into the streets in larger numbers every Friday since February 22 is impressive. However, it would be a mistake to expect hundreds of thousands of people to show up to protest indefinitely. Some popular organization has to emerge now and presen

Algeria An interview with Hamza Hamouchene

The recent events in Algeria and Sudan are more or less similar to what happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.  How do we account for the dynamics of transition... that lie somewhere in between, where powerful revolutionary mobilisation forced dictators to abdicate [or removed] but fail[ed] to capture the governmental [state] power, thus leaving the interests and institutions of the old order largely unaltered? How should we read the logic of transition in such political upheavals that were both revolutionary and nonrevolutionary, reflecting both transition to democracy and revolutionary desires for economic distribution, social inclusion and cultural recognition? —Asef Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring , 2017, p. 209 I do not believe, as so many disillusioned or broken by actual revolution have come to believe, that the suffering can be laid to the charge of the revolution alone, and that we must avoid revolution if we are to avoid sufferin

Two extremist, radicalised, Algerian women from the Revolutionary Spartacist League of World Revolution, Genuine Democracy and Global Justice are conspiring on how to overthrow the regime! Source: Journal el Bilad, 15 March 2019

Algeria The political economy of regime survival

Algeria Many Algerians taking part in the on-going social-political movement are crazy and uneducated. They speak about "a colonialism that has been oppressing them for decades." They don't know that in prestigious universities in the West students are taught about "Post-colonialism" and "Development". Algerians should learn from "the highly educated" Westerners and stop blaming the Other for their ills. The Other has been trying to help them in all sorts of manners: "aid, loans, NGOs, weapons, support of regime to guarantee stability, bying their resources at fair price, spreading liberal values," etc. Algerians should learn from the "experts" and listen to the heads of international institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. الدول العربية  بحاجة الى ثورات حقيقية لا لتغيير ما يسمى رئيس الدولة، بل لاجتثاث الدولة العميقة  واستخبارات وعسكر وحيتان المال والنفوذ الخارجي، بحاجة إلى ثورات  لإنجاز الاستقلال الحقيقي عن ا