Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

But not the real thing Related Discovery of 92 naked migrants at Greece-Turkey border

More of the honest European politicians

Central Banks as weapons

  Obituary

The nation state is anti-human.

Published in June 2018. It is against amnesia and absolving this or that government. How we all colluded in Fortress Europe Related In reality, “there is a  striking discrepancy between the lack  of feeling aroused  by the deaths of tens of thousands of human beings—in their majority anonymous, unrecorded by the authorities and denied the dignity of a proper burial—with that excited by, say, the 1,000 lives lost in the crossing from East to West Germany during the Cold War. There is one obvious explanation: an African, an Arab or an Afghani who drowns in the Mediterranean, in flight from war, oppression or extreme poverty, is not seen as a human being in the same way as the Germans who were trying to flee ‘communism’ and were hailed as martyrs for liberty. In that sense, the border regime is an extension of the history of colonialism and domination that Europe and the West have exercised over the rest of the world, and to which ‘the construction  of Europe’ now adds ...

Alain Gresh removes Political Economy from History. He also separates the "Enlightenment" from barbarism (e.g. slavery, colonialism, etc) that co-existed with it. The West's selective reading of history

When the camera wa a weapon of imperialism. And when it still is Related " I write as an African, a black man living in America. I am every day subject to the many microaggressions of American racism. I also write this as an American, enjoying the many privileges that the American passport affords and that residence in this country makes possible. I involve myself in this critique of privilege: my own privileges of class, gender, and sexuality are insufficiently examined. My cell phone was likely manufactured by poorly treated workers in a Chinese factory. The coltan in the phone can probably be traced to the conflict-riven Congo. I don't fool myself that I am not implicated in these transnational networks of oppressive practices." — Teju Cole

The euro's corona crisis

Where children "want to die" Let's get "Brexit done" before they die.

"Just three and a half years after the signing of the refugee deal, these camps have become symbols of Europe's failure to protect those who knocked on its door for help. These camps, with Moria chief among them, are now places where already traumatised people are stripped off their dignity." The invisible violence of Europe's refugees camps

"Civilised" Europe

Greece A very short summary: Capital and a pro-capital oligarchic party presided over a crisis. A leftist party capitalised on that, but capitulated before the power of capital then implemented what it was imposed on Greece by the institutions of capital. Now the old pro-capital party is back in town. You cannot get a full and more beautiful citcle than that. "Greece is a small and weak capitalist economy; it cannot succeed without success in the rest of Europe; and that applies to a socialist Greece too.  But at least the Greek people would be in control of their own capital assets and labour allocation." What decides "success" within global capitalism is productivity. Greece can never be France or Germany unless its economic productivity matches the French or German one. And it is not about working long hours; it is about what technology and machines employed. Completing the vicious circle

The Last Note A movies by Pantelis Voulgaris (It will play after closing two or three pop up windows)

The return of fasicsm in Europe

"Varoufakis explains how he gradually convinced Tsipras, Pappas, and Dragasakis not to follow the orientation adopted by Syriza in 2012, then in 2014. He explains that along with them, he worked out a new orientation that was not discussed within Syriza and was different from the one Syriza ran on during the January 2015 campaign. And that orientation was to lead, at best, to failure, and at worst to capitulation." Varoufakis Account of the Greek Crisis: A Self-Incrimination

Lack of democracy, Lack of solidarity,  Lack of a bold approach to the capitalist state  From today’s perspective, it can easily be argued that Syriza’s attempt at achieving real change not only failed miserably; it also inflicted a major blow to the Left’s credibility on an international scale and " Despite election promises to end military cooperation with Israel, Tsipras maintained and even expanded this cooperation. Tsipras has referred to Jerusalem as “Israel’s capital”, something not even the United States have dared to do and, needless to say, a slap in the face of millions of Greeks in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The architect of Syriza’s foreign policy, the “left nationalist” foreign minister Nikos Kotzias, is a true practitioner of Henry Kissinger’s  realpolitik , constructing strategic alliances with the Israel state, the Egyptian junta and any other regional player perceived to be against Turkey, no matter how vicious and ruthless..." " ...

Varoufakis "speaks of how great it was to have the support of Larry Summers, Norman Lamont, and other figures on the Right, but it was support for whom, for what, and in whose class interests? Class analysis is far from the foreground of the picture sketched out here. Closed rooms and class war

" In breaking the Greek Resistance, the British had precipitated a civil war that would last — in open or latent forms — for some thirty years, with a brief lull between 1963 and 1965. It would only end with the fall of the colonels’ dictatorship in 1974. This “coup in Athens” reminds us that through its history, modern Greece has only enjoyed a very limited sovereignty. This, indeed, is its painful experience once again today." How Churchill broke the Greek resistance

Another crime by that man on the five-pound note How Churchill broke the Greek resistance