NM's blog

“Under the banner of " patriotic tech ", this new bloc is building the infrastructure of control—clouds, AI, finance, drones, satellites—an integrated system we call  the Authoritarian Stack.  It is faster, ideological, and fully privatized: a regime where corporate boards, not public law, set the rules…. “The revolving door no longer spins between government and industry—it locks them together into a new architecture of power .  “Unlike old authoritarianism built on fear and force, this new system rules through code, capital, and infrastructure — making resistance feel architecturally impossible.” Once again 'capitalism' is delinked from 'democracy'. In listing the capitalist companies and individuals, the author use the word democracy seperate from capitalism, implying that we have had 'democracy' (nit capitalist democracy), but now it is under threat. 

In the words of Suwaileh, “Sonallah Ibrahim’s refusal to accept state prizes became as much a part of his public identity as his novels. He remained, to the end, ‘spotless as the white of a shroud’ — a metaphor as much for moral integrity as for finality .” Related The Egyptian novel in the sixties Ogres and orientalism

“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 of...

Paul Freire’s legacy

The Tunisian-British partnership TuNur hopes to build one of the world’s largest thermodynamic solar plants here, on collective lands once home to nomadic groups. TuNur plans to fulfil this ambition by building the world’s largest solar plant. Behind the name are a handful of well-known investors from the City of London who have taken a lively interest in the promise of green finance With persistently high oil prices and mounting supply challenges, Europe has pragmatically tried to speed its transition to lower-cost renewables ‒ by outsourcing. It covets the bountiful sunlight of its southernmost Mediterranean neighbours whose solar potential is among the highest in the world. The country, ensnared in a financial crisis, is struggling to achieve its climate objectives. Many foreign investors are hungry for its solar supply – mostly for export to the North. The electricity-generating mirrors may look green, but they reek of an extractivist Europe greedy for its neighbours’ resources – a...

“The idea of the book arose from my interest in writing about the body and its relationship to surrounding spaces . It explores the political, intellectual, and organizational state of paralysis that has afflicted Egyptian society due to the oppression of the current regime.”

Domenico Losurdo’s new book I have read and I recommend Losurdo’s  Liberalism – A Counter-History . A book praised even by the Financial Times Related Losurdo on social-political struggle Interview on opendemocracy

Amit Dave/Reuters via merip.org “ Karim’s experience is the product of an evolving strategic partnership between India and Israel , where an increasingly overt convergence of interests and ideology has led to both states tangibly supporting one another in working towards their respective political and economic ambitions. Through this partnership, state repression in Indian-occupied territories is not an exclusively Indian project. It has become part of a broader network, linking India to the Israeli state and its own colonial project.”

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

The book still speaks about today’s America

"Russia's problem is our system. A system was created here that created such a person [as Putin]. The question of the West's role in creating this system is a very serious one.” — Grigory Yavlinsky

The best a analysis I have read so far. Straining under its own contradictions

‘Arab Spring’

Webinar: a conversation with the authors of the dossier The Arab Uprisings - A Decade of Struggle

A decade of struggles Credit: Transnational Institute

“ I think we need a reconsideration of the whole of the post-1945 period, which is an era in which both authoritarian and semi-democratic governments across the region engaged in massive arms acquisition and then deployed many—in some cases most—of those weapons against their own populations. We usually see this as a process of violent decolonization and then an equally violent postcolonial descent into either authoritarianism or fractured forms of democracy, which is a pattern that of course we can identify elsewhere in the world as well. But actually, when we look through this lens of mass violence, we can see that there are many ways in which this is not a period of decolonization at all. It is a period of  recolonization : a recalibration and a recasting of empire into new shapes, in which superpowers control spaces by combining economic dominance with a deliberate flooding of weaponry in the relevant territory, alongside the careful—and sometimes not so careful—creation of spe...

“What relevance does it have for you or me that a long-dead French thinker believed neoliberalism offered a possible escape hatch from the particular problems of normative power? “Do Not Ask me Who I am”

Reflections on Mass Protests and Uprisings in the “Arab World” A diverse panel. The advantage of a recorded meeting is that you could always select what you want to listen to. Each person spoke for only 10 minutes. Although I listened to all of it, I liked more the approach of the last two speakers: Hanieh and Khalidi.

 Workers and Change

The Syrian Revolution Between the Politics of Life and the Geopolitics of Death