Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Granting immunity to Netanyahu and co.

No news here, but a norm France’s double standard

Europe’s longest-held political prisoner

NGOs use tax-free donations to fund Israeli military equipment Révélations : comment nos impôts financent des drones pour l'armée israélienne

“At the heart of Peterson’s book is a counterargument to traditional narratives of postwar social reform. The very same rhetoric that justified the construction of a supposed top-down progressive modernity after 1945 was simultaneously used to justify the entrenchment of colonial rule in North Africa .”

“Abdourahmane Ridouane’s deportation is not an ancillary phenomenon. It is a logical part of the inner workings of a system developed long before 7 October and whose vindictive activities continue despite the present political crisis. The power structure uses all available means and finds new justifications in current political events, be it public security during the Olympics or the repression of anti-Semitism - both perfectly legitimate.” A state that has a monopoly on the use of violence and uses it at home and abroad (imperialistically), finds scapegoats in its rule and divide policy and in its distraction from the social, racial and class issues. It manufactures an ‘enemy within’ and nurtures the far-right ideology. It goes as far as passing legislations akin to ones passed by a police state - example: the ban on wearing of the headscarf. When a French student last year admitted that he would be complicit in oppression if after university he would be working with the IMF, whe...

Algeria between hope of change and a desire to leave

“The Sahel – like the Horn, where the Gulf-led proxy war in Yemen is spilling over – is  at the centre of what some are calling the ‘new scramble for Africa ’.”  However, the recent events in Tinzaouaten suggest “that private military companies and militias are no panacea, and that after the failures of French stabilisation missions, they too will likely struggle to realise their interests in the region.”

They don’t only tacitly support killing of Palestinians, they create the circumstances of a killing machine at home then they put the blame on someone else.

“There is is still the idea today that   the history of colonisation is peripheral and not part of the national narrative ." “In secondary school, colonial questions are widely tackled, but they are diluted in broader themes, where they appear as secondary sequences.”

“Let there be no mistake:  French officialdom is complicit with what is going on in Gaza. Justifying the ongoing genocide, it has given credence, along with the MPs of the ruling majority and often those of the right-wing opposition and the far right too – but also at times the left – all the arguments used to vindicate Benyamin Netanyahu’s government. Economic sanctions, symbolic measures to remove the offending flag from the public eye, athletic boycott in view of the coming Olympics, a weapons embargo, all of these is only used against Russia. When 35% of the country’s exports come to Europe, the use of that economic lever is not even threatened; no more than the suspension of arms deliveries, or their components (the exact value of France’s exports of these is not known) or munitions; nor the slightest attempt to make them obey international law by sanctioning the French firms present in the occupied territories, like Carrefour or Alstom.” Yet the writers could repeat the clich...

Excellent! I don’t agree with Lordon’s optimism though. 

“Bonapartism has reemerged stronger than before. In Macron it assumes a classic form. The right of the Rassemblement National and the left of La France insoumise (the ‘extremes’, in the parlance of the quality press) balance one another, while the radical centre – the  bourgeois bloc  anatomized by Serge Halimi – is free to pursue its own interests, while also claiming to protect the dignity of the nation, wider humanity and now the ecosphere itself. A remarkable political formula, as [Gaetano] Mosca would have put it.” A bonapartist solution

It is not Europe but some of Europe. “In essence, the EU and major member states have thrown their lot in with one of the most brutal and repressive dictatorships in the Middle East, standing firmly against the democratic aspirations of Egyptians. This policy has garnered mass profits for European corporations and states , at the expense of the Egyptian poor and middle classes.” Related A window into Egyptian general’s past

“Two researchers from Stanford University, Vasiliki Fouka and Aala Abdelgadir, documented and analysed the ban's consequences in 2019. They found that the ban hurt Muslim girls' ability to complete their education and obstructed their access to the labour market. It doubled the gap between the percentage of non-Muslim and Muslim girls completing their secondary education in favour of the former.” Like hypocrisy, double-standard, complicity, racism, commodification, etc, the ban on the headscarf has been normalised . Related The law on theheadscarf The imaginary separatism of salafist women

Speaking over the radio from Cairo, Ben Barka issued a rousing declaration, denouncing the Moroccan government’s ‘grave treason, not only to the dynamic Algerian Revolution, but, in general, to all Arab revolutions in favor of liberty, socialism, and unity, and to the world national liberation movement in its entirety.’ He  called instead  for Moroccans to paralyze ‘the criminal hands that have appropriated power and that are armed, financed, and led by the imperialists.’ His murder by agents of the Moroccan king with help from France and Israel was a major blow to socialist forces throughout the Arab world . Successive French presidents from De Gaulle to Emmanuel Macron have persistently obstructed justice in the name of  secret défense , a perfectly legal and very effective means of covering up state crimes. By the end of the following decade [1970s], Che Guevara, Henri Curiel, and Amílcar Cabral, key figures in the development of the tricontinental movement, had all be...

“It is … urgent to re-examine the Derna tragedy in light of a long history of colonialism, confiscation of natural resources and destruction of living and non-living things for Western hegemonic purposes via war and militarism.” Related When you hear the buzzwords ‘our way of life’, ‘our values’, ‘democracy or authoritarianism’, not to mention ‘there is a jungle over there’ (Josep Borrell), ‘wasps in the Middle East’ (Thomas Friedman), ‘terrorism’, etc. think of this: The Imperial Mode of Living

In English and en français The Gaza tragedy calls to mind the history of anti-Arab racism in Marseille

Naïve and instrumentalised

“It cannot be the same tribute. A life is a life and one life is equivalent to another but there are victims of terrorism and victims of war. Being a victim of terrorism means being attacked as a French person or as a defender of a way of life. A collateral victim, you are in war… it's not of the same nature.”  — Former French president François Hollande It a whole neocolonial racist mindset. Fascists encouraged a distinction between members of the nation who merited protection and outsiders who deserved rough handling. One of the most sensational cases of Nazi violence before power was the murder of a communist laborer of Polish descent in the town of Potempa, in Silesia, by five SA men in August 1932. It became sensational when the killers’ death sentences were commuted, under Nazi pressure, to life imprisonment. Party theorist Alfred Rosenberg took the occasion to underscore the difference between “bourgeois justice,” according to which “one Polish Communist has the same weighti...