Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“There is no alternative, I concluded. The delusion of democracy was a colonial concoction (a world capitalist ruse) that is now exposed for what it is and over and done with - we've hit a wall with pictures of Trump, Modi, Assad, Sisi, Ayatollah Khamenei, Putin, and the rest of them plastered all over it. This is the case unless, like Hannah Arendt, we make a crucial distinction between freedom from tyranny and liberty to choose a different political system. At this point in history, I have therefore concluded, we are far more invested in freedom from tyranny than harbouring any conviction or trust in liberty to choose a legitimate alternative state. I am now convinced we are far better off understanding what has tormented us and despising it than hoping to achieve what we wish and has historically escaped us.”

A liberal view What people get wrong The use of the analogy

—Siyavash Shahabi  on  March 26, 2025 Recommended  Liberalism – A Counter-History by Domenico Lesurdo

Blinken and co should “talk less about the rules-based international order and more about defending the free world. That is a more accurate and comprehensible description of what western foreign policy is actually about…  As in the cold war and the earlier struggles of the 20th century, the world’s democracies do not need to apologise for being ruthless in defence of free societies.” —Gideon Rahman, Financial Times, 27 May 2024   ‘Democracy’ instead of capitalism or at as, his colleague Martin Wolf calls it, ‘ democratic capitalism ’. Manipulation of history: the 20th century was a struggle netween ‘democracies’ and non-democracies. In fact, the 20th century saw struggles between empires, advanced capitalist state, and movements of national liberations, class struggle in the heart of bourgeois democracies, even struggles against dictatorships such as in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Greece … to overcome capitalism and aiming at establishing genuine democracies. ‘Defending the free ...

“The presidency of Jimmy Carter covering the years 1977 to 1980, seemed  an attempt by one part of the Establishment, that represented in the Democratic  party, to recapture a disillusioned citizenry. But Carter, despite a few gestures  toward black people and the poor, despite talk of ‘human rights’ abroad,  remained within the historic political boundaries of the American system,  protecting corporate wealth and power, maintaining a huge military machine  that drained the national wealth, allying the United States with right-wing  tyrannies abroad. Carter seemed to be the choice of that international group of powerful  influence-wielders—the Trilateral Commission. Two founding members of the  commission, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review—David  Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski—thought Carter was the right person for  the presidential election of 1976 given that ‘the W atergate-plagued Republican  Party was a sur...

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

When referring to the Suharto regime, the BBC deliberately ignored the dark side of the US’s and Britain’s role and their support of the brutal, murderous regime.  “ Yet today Indonesian politics is dominated by the same powerful, wealthy figures who prospered under Suharto.” “Indonesia has had just two directly elected presidents over a 20-year period, both of whom have been moderate, effective and popular, delivering steady economic growth.” It sounds the type of ‘democracy’ we want. After all, Indonesia is the largest ‘Muslim’ country, and that is the type of a ‘Muslim’ country we need to see. But no, “ Indonesia's democracy - the third largest in the world - appears to be in rude health.” We have heard this before: ‘India, the largest democracy in the world’. “ The Indonesian state - built up methodically by Suharto - has survived much. The violent upheavals of the late 1990s, rising jihadist terrorism in the early 2000s that many thought would unravel it, the experiment with d...

Under the header “They mustn’t forget why they struck down Allende,” the magazine announced in October 1973 that: “The junta has been the victim of a campaign of organised hostility in the west as well as of its own mistakes”. The article continued: “Perhaps the imposition of martial law, the mass interrogations and the summary execution of snipers would not have aroused so much criticism if there were a clearer understanding of the events that precipitated the coup.” The magazines Latin American editor Robert Moss would go on to become a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, who  described  Pinochet as Britain’s “staunch, true friend” and praised the former dictator for having “brought democracy to Chile.” The Economist’s and Britain’s role in the coup of 1973 against Allende Related Liberalism at Large The World According to the Economist

A coup at 50

Tech-mythologies

It takes Cristiano Ronaldo around  3 minutes  to earn the weekly salary of  a Saudi worker on the average annual salary of £58,000,  90 seconds  to earn the weekly salary of  a British worker on the average annual salary of £26,000. Ronaldo earns £3.6 million per week.

Clean hands:  Hand washing and car washing will never answer the key question Who speaks: The representative is bound to the existing social order Consolation prize: The metaphysics of sovereignty

A review of Sudan’s Unfinished Democracy Related Historical background To understand fully today’s popular protests, we need to look all the way back to the Sudan’s colonial past. Post-independence conflicts in Sudan were largely caused by ethnic divisions created by the British colonial administration between 1899 and 1956. “Divide and rule” policies pursued by the British continue to haunt contemporary Sudan, both north and south. During most of the colonial period (1899-1956), Sudan was ruled as two Sudans. The British separated the predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking north from the multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and multilingual south. Britian’s “divide-and-rule” policy separated southern Sudanese provinces from the rest of the country and slowed down their economic and social development. The British authorities claimed that the south was not ready to open up to the modern world. At the same time, the British heavily invested in the Arab north, modernizing and liberalizing p...

  Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others. ―  Simone Weil

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 r...