Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Egyptian Novelist Salwa Bakr dares to say it aloud on revolution's successes and failures

Spain The new government have little room to maneuver economically as they have agreed to carry over the existing PP budget for the next year as well as to respect the European Union’s fiscal rules. It is also highly unlikely they can repeal the PP’s labor reforms as this would require the support of right-wing regional nationalists. And so in terms of improving the material conditions of the working class, it will be complicated to pass any substantive measures. In reality Sánchez is a social liberal, a descendant of Tony Blair and Gerhard Schoeder’s  Third Way . He did win back the PSOE leadership [after a palace coup against him eighteen months ago] by appealing to the desire of his party’s members for a more left-wing line, but he never really believed in it himself. He should not be underestimated politically. He is extremely ambitious and determined but is more like a Macron or Albert Rivera — an empty vessel onto which you can project various ideological elements. At

Nancy Fraser: Marxism and feminism

Very good! I recommend it to "Westerners" and non-Westerners.

Feminism is about injustice. It’s about tackling injustice whenever you see it. Pop art and patriarchy or خرابيش نسوية

Spain and beyond The BBC reporting on "the feminist strike in Spain": The 8 March Commission is behind the strike. Its manifesto calls for "a society free of sexist oppression, exploitation and violence" and says: "We do not accept worse working conditions, nor being paid less than men for the same work. Yes, this opens possibilities, but  1. The socialist origins of Women's Day (Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin) have be rediscovered. 2. The neoliberal capitalism has coopted and contained the emanciptaory movement. 3. Even adjectives like "radical" and "revolutionary" have been emptied of their meanings. 4. There should be no illusion that the Beyonces , the Jolies, the Obamas , the Clintons, the Mays, and the marketing of Malala, or the colouring of the elite, could be part of a real change to "end sexist oppression, exploitation and violence". They have been perpetuating the commodification of women. 5. The fundamental

With Whites, Jews, and Us, Houria Bouteldja launches a scathing critique of the European Left from an indigenous anti-colonial perspective, reflecting on Frantz Fanon's political legacy, the republican pact, the Shoah, the creation of Israel, feminism, and the fate of postcolonial immigration in the West in the age of rising anti-immigrant populism. Drawing upon such prominent voices as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Jean Genet, she issues a polemical call for a militant anti-racism grounded in the concept of revolutionary love. Such love will not come without significant discomfort for whites, and without necessary provocation. Bouteldja challenges widespread assumptions among the Left in the United States and Europe - that anti-Semitism plays any role in Arab - Israeli conflicts, for example, or that philo-Semitism doesn't in itself embody an oppressive position; that feminism or postcolonialist theory is free of colonialism; that integrationalism is a solution rather than a

Capitalism's crisis of care and an excellent analysis here From progressive neoliberalism to Trump — and beyond

Caliban and the Witch

One of the main problems with the disciplinary quality of contemporary academia is the way in which the fragmentation of disciplines carries over into a fragmentation of analysis. Despite the best efforts of well-intentioned intellectual laborers everywhere, “interdisciplinarity” rarely succeeds in its aims, often remaining littlemore than the sum of its parts. Reading Social Reproduction into Reading Capital

"The point I try to make in that article is that the debate on whether Jews should be accorded full political rights in 1840s Prussia presents some striking similarities with the debate on Muslims’ integration into French society today. More precisely, my point is that the French state’s demand that religious minorities (and let’s be frank, Muslims in particular) respect the principle of secularism in the public space is reminiscent of Bruno Bauer’s position on the Jewish Question. Bruno Bauer believed that the Jews deserved to be granted political rights only if they stopped being Jews and embraced Enlightenment thought. In other words, he conceived of political emancipation as a kind of award that individuals receive only if they renounce their own religious identity and embrace the identity that the secular state deems as appropriate. Likewise, the French state demands that Muslims get rid of their religious/cultural practices if they want to show willingness to integrate into

The sweatshop feminists

Verso Feminist Classics

Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil Published in 2002, but ...