Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A massacre and one soldier Wrath of the centurions

“Today, India is the largest and most reliable arms purchaser from Israel, accounting for 46 percent of Israel’s global sales. Since 2017, India has been designated a “strategic partner,” participating in the coproducing Israeli weapons.” Port workers insist they want no part in the massacre in Gaza

“By the end of the day American forces had killed 347 to 504 unarmed Vietnamese women, children and old men, and raped 20 women and girls, some as young as 10 years old. The massacre at My Lai was not the only time American troops committed war crimes against Vietnamese civilians, but it was the single worst instance; its severity, its cover-up and the eventual trial of just a handful of the unit’s leaders became a synonym for the entire American war in Vietnam. Rape became such an endemic problem in Charlie Company that one member of its Second Platoon, Michael Bernhardt, assumed that every woman Lieutenant Calley’s platoon came across would be raped within moments. The events at My Lai became public a year later. Several officers were brought to trial in 1971, but only Lieutenant Calley was convicted. He was released from prison in 1974.” Source: The New York Times Wrath of the centurions

A massacre and a cover up

As France celebrated victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, its army was massacring thousands of civilians in Sétif and Guelma - events that were the real beginning of Algeria’s war of independence. Massacre in Algeria

“ This act of communal killing had ideological underpinnings in Nasserism and the brand of Arab nationalism that it propagated, which viewed the nation as an organic, harmonious whole with a clear popular will, rather than a myriad of different social groups with conflicting interests that needed to be mediated.” The writer suggests that the conflicting interests “needed to be mediated” and that “ a deep process of reconciliation” is the solution! Conflicting class interests under an authoritarian repressive regime is to be solved by reconciliation without overthrowing the repressive power relations? And since this goes back to ‘Arab nationalism’ and the type of the regime it has generated, why is it that since the 1950s, and not only in Egypt, ‘mediation’ and ‘reconciliation’ have not materialised? I wonder whether the writer while writing the article had the Arab uprisings in mind and how the regimes and the counter-revolutionary forces destroyed them or the decades of repression, pr...

Katyn

Tiananmen Square, Beijing Most  estimates  put the death tall between 2700 and 3400. Ra'baa Al-adawiya Square, Cairo Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that "in Ra'baa  Square, "Egyptian security forces carried out one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history" and that "this wasn't merely a case of excessive force or poor training. It was a violent crackdown planned at the highest levels of the Egyptian government." At least 1000 killed . Why does the capitalist media reminds us every year about Tiananmen but not about Ra'baa Square massacre? Today the head of the regime that carried out the massacre in Cairo is embraced and supported by Western regimes. Could it be because the Chinese regime is led by 'communists' and has not liberalised/privatised the 'commanding heights' but the Egyptian one is more capitalist and a stabilising geopolitical ...

Condemn one and absolve the rest Related: Are We ISIS?

Review of Geoffrey B. Robinson,  The Killing Season. A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965 – 66 (Princeton University Press, 2018)

Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer

In Kashmir, India is Witnessing its General Dyer Moment

Bare life in Aleppo and in the Mediterranean and "Demystifying the Syrian Conflict" At the time Erdogan receives a Syrian child who got out of Aleppo ...

The Great Libya War Fraud

Egypt This is how a Chatham House fellow reminds us of Rabaa's massacre. No mention of the military and financial support of the Egyptian regime. No mention of the Muslim Brotherhood role in working with the regime and especially with the US and the SCAF from days one so that Mubarak goes, but the regime stays. And calling those criminals in the imperialist camp as "a democratic club" that Egypt is far from is just adding insult to injury.

"Astonishingly, the US mainstream media have barely covered what everyone here calls “the massacre.” Make no mistake: If police in Venezuela had shot down 11 unarmed demonstrators, a pack of American reporters would have raced there." Rebellion spreads in Mexico after police massacre

Life's Longing for Itself: The Art of Adnan Yahya,  An essay by Will Cloughley, MFA (Jan 2016)

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) The presidential elections in Algeria. Review of the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir . Obituary: The violinist and composer Abboud abdel Aal.