Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A report by EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency It reminds me of a Belgian student from last year when he said: “We are in the free world.”. Whatever happens in the world a few people will remain fundamentalist liberals unable to question. One in two Muslims in the EU face racism and discrimination in their daily life

Algeria between hope of change and a desire to leave

My introduction: To understand the crisis of the National Health Service, the bad handling of the pandemic*, stagnant economy, weak productivity, a state struggling to invest adequately in the green economy, inability to build enough and affordable houses, expensive rent, decades of poor investment in infrastructure by OECD measures, consumption, and consumerism, driven by debt, Labour/Conservatives capitalist values, one has to look at the economic model of the British economy. In reviewing Brett Christophers’s work, Cédric Durant has provided a good overview of such an economic model of accumulation and its ramifications as well as some criticism of Christophers’s take on capitalism in general and what might replace it. ——— *I doubt it that the recently publish report will ever mention the economic model pursued by Britain for more than four decades and how it played a major role in the infrastructure of health and the well-being of the Brits. ***** Few today will need convincing th...

Another nationalist analysis: the UK as an island. No imperialism, no gaza and Israel, no Ukraine, no nature, no climate change … After the rituals, comes reality

An interview with Malaika Jabali Correction:  “I feature Frida Kahlo, who was a part of the Communist Party.” She was in the Mexican Communist Party, not the American one.

“When someone questions the virtues of Western liberal democracy, back comes the riposte: ‘Why don’t you try North Korea then?’” “On average, [South] Koreans work 1,910 hours a year, one of the highest rates in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), where the average is 1,716 (1,490 in France, 1,349 in Germany). 60% of Korean employees do not take their full holiday allowance as it is, often because they fear for their jobs “ Being a union leader means at some point going to prison,’ said Yang Kyeung-soo, president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), who received a one-year sentence for organising a strike during the pandemic. His union was set up in 1995, and all 12 of his predecessors have also been jailed. In Korea, the official retirement age is 60, but the state pension is only paid from 65 Over-65s make up half the country’s poor. At Seoul airport, US citizens have their own designated immigration channel. The country ‘hosts’  the US...

Mortgages to universal credit claimants

For the first time in its history, the Austrian Communist Party has unexpectedly won a municipal election in the country’s second-largest city, Graz. According to preliminary results, the KPÖ came out on top on Sunday with 29% of the vote, ahead of the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) on 25.7%. “Their success in Graz is down to their focus on local issues -- especially housing policy -- while scaling back any Marxist ideology.” In Berlin, however ,  Germany’s highest court ruled  in favour of capital in April saying  that a cap the local government imposed on rent prices last year was unconstitutional and void.   The rule froze rents for some 90% of Berlin apartments at June 2019 rates for five years. In many cases, existing rents needed to be reduced to conform to the new threshold. After the court ruling, many tenants faced hefty back payments.

A good piece as usual by Joseph Massad. However, I think he is doing a disservice to socialism by calling what existed in the Soviet Union and elsewhere before 1990 a ‘socialist world’. Economic democracy is the missing link in the struggle for human rights

Covid-19 and Urban Marginalisation

‘Defund the Police,’Cancel Rent’ Related How Defund and Disband Became the Demands Books about the power of protest

Sweden in deadlock

"More than seven years after the beginning of the popular uprising in Syria, which increasingly turned into an international war, the causes of this eruption are often forgotten. When they are discussed, the vast majority of authors reduce the uprising to a struggle against authoritarianism while neglecting its socio-economic roots almost entirely." Syria: the social origins of the uprising

In a country that wants to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to others

Parasitism Housing:  "No region in England and Wales is affordable for workers on median salary." — Financial Times , 15 June 2018

England Why are so many young mums struggling with depression?

The number of homeless people dying on the streets or in temporary accommodation in the UK has more than doubled over the past five years to more than one per week. The average age of a rough sleeper when they die is 43, about half the UK life expectancy. Homelessness in Britain

England Is the rent too damn high?

" Contempt is the thread that runs through much of the worst barbarism in today’s Britain." How power operates in modern Britain: with absolute contempt

"In the world's best-run economy, house prices keep falling"