Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

" Turning and turning in the widening gyre   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;   Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;   Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,   The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;   The best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats No, the Centre can still hold. The economic and political order since the 1980s, a form capitalism, has been accepted and supported by centre-right and centre-left governments of the same regime. The two movements which has opposed that order are now stigmatised as "populism". The revolutionary left is weak and divided.  Despite the crises (economic, social, theoretical, and political), Brexit, Trump, refugees, etc. there is no real threat to the established order to compel the Centre to resort to the fascist or semi-fascist forces. No, the general crisis can still be managed by the Liberal centre without us

Mutations of fascism

" The fake anti-élitism of today (and this may be the origin of this mind-boggling verbiage about ‘populism’ that clearly doesn’t exist) is directed at the egalitarians, especially at that odd species we might call ‘liberal egalitarians’ some of whom are just modest social democrats." This is a good piece: The mystery of 'populism' finally unveiled

"Disaster Islamism"

Walter Benjamin states that "the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realise that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against fascism." In other words, all class society is a permanent state of emergency in which the rulers are always under threat. Fascism is thus not some sort of breakdown of tradition but a continuation of traditional class rule by other means. Overcoming it thus requires not just anti-fascist attitudes but also a destruction of its roots in class oppression. Or, as Horkheimer put it in 1939: "If you don't want to talk about capitalism then you had better keep quiet about fascism."  

France Fscism by another name

" Hitler's disdain for the complacency of the 'old' bourgeoisie was life-long. But he honoured thrusting meritocrats. Notably, one of Hitler's early and long-standing heroes was the United States automobile magnate, Henry Ford, whom he lauded for his entrepreneurial brilliance and rabid anti-Semitism . Indeed, the Führer celebrated the entrepreneur as a bearer of racial superiority in any national population , and had nothing but contempt for democ­racy in the economy. For example, Hitler rebuked Otto Strasser, an anti-free-market Nazi, in 1930: 'The capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and on the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead.' Faced with the prospect of social turmoil or even Communist revolution, the German middle classes were willing to be cajoled by Hitler. The Protestant theolo­gian, Paul Tillich, writing in 1933, anxiously observed the bourgeoisie ready

Nicos Poulantzas: "The inability of any class or class fraction to impose its hegemony is what characterizes the conjuncture of fascism; that is, ultimately, the inability of the alliance in power to overcome its intensified contradictions of its own accord."

" As [Walter] Benjamin pointed out, fascism gave the masses an opportunity to “express themselves,” but only by abdicating themselves. This is true not only of fascism, but is endemic in modern politics."

Trump and Fascism. A View from the Past A historian's analysis

What the American Left Doesn't Understand About Fascism

The Scientific Assassination of a Sexual Revolutionary: How America Interrupted Wilhelm Reich's Orgasmic Utopia

Between 'Sultanism' and Liberal Democracy: The Peculiarities of a Failed Coup in Turkey

Poppies, patriots and pro-Brexit propaganda: Revisiting the myths of Britain's past

"Today´s ruling classes are not threatened from within. Thus, they can do what even fascists wouldn’t dare to do. They are smashing real wages, pensions, welfare systems, public schools, free healthcare, cheap public transport, cheap social housing and so on. Who will stop the ruling class?" " These are middle class movements that fear and despise the lower classes and the poor. They are open partisans of the class society – class warriors from above. They aren’t proposing anything new, they are just defending the repression, the exploitation and the injustice of today. Look at the situation in Poland or in Hungary. Have these societies had become more generous, more cohesive, and more collectivist at least within the white middle class? Of  course not. This is just rhetoric." " Look at people like David Cameron, François Hollande, Miloš Zeman. These people have no idea, they’re just blundering around. This is really serious. Then look at all the decadence

Liberals and Trumpism Why I'm Not a Liberal

"A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us."  — W. H. Auden   Some of the books I have read and I recommend: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 by Khaled El-Rouayheb Brutal Friendship - The West and the Arab Elite by Saïd K. Aburish Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States by Adam Hanieh Islam in Liberalism by Joseph Massad Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong What is Islam? by Shahab Ahmed Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad Egypt: Spies, Soldiers and Statesmen by Hazem Kandil Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher Inside the Brotherhood by Hazem Kandil, 2015 Debt, The IMF, and The world Bank, Éric Toussaint and Damien Millet, 2010 Man's Fate (or La Condition Humaine) by Andre Malraux 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell Three Penny Opera by Bertolt Brecht The Autumn of the Patriarch by G. G. Marquez The Slave Trade by Hugh