Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

In short,  “for the political theorist Ali Kadri, imperialist powers and comprador classes use war to gain strategic advantage over their rivals – destroying political challenges to their rule and reaping profits via the defence industry. The reduction of people’s lifespans through a combination of war and austerity also reduces the state’s social responsibilities, as well as popular expectations for the division of the social surplus, allowing elites to appropriate more resources. It is precisely this combination of violence and profiteering, mediated by Washington’s geostrategic interests, that defines the relationship between Pakistan’s rulers and its general population.  In the mid-twentieth century, Pakistani elites, led by the military, discarded industrialization and other development strategies for cheap dollars linked to imperial wars. This, along with Western aid packages, enabled import-driven consumption that placed a serious strain on the country’s balance of paym...

Well, the appeal would not resonate with a few of my students who want to work in institutions such as the IMF. They think of job prospects, but a few also believe that the IMF is still one of those institutions that could help ‘development’. Students at the age of 20 to 25 who have enrolled in elite institutions and who have only begun to know about the world, have an interest in believing in such a ‘liberal institution’ of imperialist domination.  Hardly any of those students has ever systematically studied the historical and global working of the capitalist system. On the contrary, even when they are introduced to an alternative, they cannot escape thinking of whether the alternative conflicts with their professional ambitions/careers in managing the system. Public Administration, for instance, is one of the disciplines they enrol in. Ironically, although I don’t have data to support my argument, a few of them end up in debt if the parents are not able to pay the full fees thus ...

“Far from being caused by personal rivalry, this conflict is rooted in the long history of the region and Sudan’s never-ending economic and social crisis. The conflict between the North and the South claimed between half a million and a million lives from 1955 to 2002. And herein lies the cause of the fighting tearing Sudan apart. To understand it requires going back to 2011. The secession of South Sudan and the rise of guerrilla movements within the North’s Muslim populations had weakened President Omar al-Bashir’s authority. His increasingly unpopular Islamist regime had been in power since the coup of June 1989 and was rotten with corruption. The regime sent the Janjaweed to fight in Yemen on behalf of the Saudis – who paid handsomely – and then tasked them with repressing the northern guerrillas of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), first in Darfur and then throughout the country. From the day after the coup, there were obvious tensions between the two forces, e...

available in 5 languages The eleven  BRICS  countries now control nearly 20% of the  IMF ’s capital, in other words, the equivalent in voting power.

“Speaking to the BBC, the city's health director, Hatem Al-Sharif, said more than 700 unidentified people, including young children, have been buried in unmarked graves on the outskirts of Sfax since the beginning of this year.” a Sudanese man, Adel Adbullah, said: "I fled from war. I don't think I will see any worse at sea than I already have. I have nothing to lose ."

From 2021 Rich countries drained $152tn from the global South since 1960

Protests come as resistance to austerity is growing internationally

“ Western governments don’t have to do much to make the world a better place — in fact, all they have to do is stop what they’re doing.” I wonder why though one has to conclude an article with an indirect appeal to those very same regimes they condemn. US sanctions killing Afghans

“ The international financial press has trotted out the usual boilerplate in its attempt to explain this instability, asserting that African countries cannot manage their own affairs and that Western institutions must swoop in to rescue them. Once again, as the refrain goes, it’s a question of the West’s benevolence in contrast to Africa’s violence and corruption.” “ Political crises in Africa are always an opportunity for Western capitalist economies to set the conditions for more free market measures, more free movement of capital, and more privatization.” “Every  new government finds itself with a list of policies that must be implemented in order to receive the benefit of the IMF, the World Bank, and bilateral aid.” “ The scene is the same no matter which government is in power. Even if a regime falls, the neocolonial extractive model doesn’t.” “Because they’re detached from the real needs of their populations, elites in Africa are facilitating this precarity and poverty and in...

 A very good approach! And in case one has not realised yet that the IMF and the World Bank impose policies with “criminal outcomes” – the words are Eric Toussaint’s and Damien Millet’s – this is a must read . The difference is that the crime here is part of a long destruction of nature for profit and capital accumulation. Related Crimes Against Nature Building in wood

Paying the price of the alliance with the army Related Sudan is being rewarded for its revolution with blackmail People’s own struggle achieves in months what NGOs cannot achieve (or hinders to achieve) for decades. Activists react ad Sudan ditches “Islamist laws” A background 

The Lebanese oligarchy and it’s free market global partners

From Sykes-Picot to a dysfunctional ‘democtacy’

Blasphemy Wars

The IMF is Hollowing out Pakistan’s Sovereignty

A New Consensus?

 A very good piece. “Better?” I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? “Better never means better for everyone,” he says. “It always means worse, for some.”   – Margaret Atwood,  The Handmaid’s Tale (Re)creating disaster risks

 A guide to students

 In memory of Patrice Lumumba

 Dispossession and imperialism repackaged as ‘feeding the world’