Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

If common sense is as much an interpretation of the immediacies of experience, a gloss on them, as are myth, painting, epistemology, or whatever, then it is, like them, historically constructed and, like them, subjected to historically defined standards of judgment. It can be questioned, disputed, affirmed, developed, formalized, contemplated, even taught, and it can vary dramatically from one people to the next. It is, in short, a cultural system, though not usually a very tightly integrated one, and it rests on the same basis that any other such system rests; the conviction by those whose possession it is of its value and validity. Here, as elsewhere, things are what you make of them. — Clifford Gertz

“The myth of ‘Western values’ died in Gaza. Myths do not die. They are debunked or refuted. They often persist for a long time and are adaped to new contexts; they are part of a belief system. I remember well after Iraq and Afghanistan how people invoked ‘democracy’ and ‘Western values’ in a way not dissimilar from what the Bushes and Blairs and later the Obamas and Bidens articulated them. Recently, a student at the ‘best’ European university in social sciences told me that the myth of sectarianism in the Middle Ast is still being repeated. A white liberal, ‘MeeToo’ English woman what Russia was doing in Ukraine was ‘a Russian thing. It's in their history’. Zelenskyy's recent rise in ‘popularity’ among many is built upon ‘the myth of Western values’ defending Ukraine against an authoritarian Russian regime. Myths are strentghned through amnesia. History is brushed aside and Pavlovian conditioning is enforced.  We should remember how the emergence of ISIS was analysed. How ...

Myth 1: Trump put pressure on Netanyahu. That has been depicted by many as if it was him who arm-twisted the Israeli genocidal leader to put an end to the war. Myth 2: The depiction of the current truce as a victory for Hamas. by  Gilbert Achcar

Myth 1: Trump put pressure on Netanyahu. That has been depicted by many as if it was him who arm-twisted the Israeli genocidal leader to put an end to the war. Myth 2: The depiction of the current truce as a victory for Hamas.  أسطورتان متعلقتان بوقف إطلاق النار في غزّة 

  A liberal approach that ignores class, inequality and uneven capitalist development in the EU and the undemocratic nature of its structure and rule. “ Van Middelaar leaves little doubt of the much lower regard in which he holds the Commission, a useful but humdrum factory of rules, and the Parliament, a windy cavern of words. The Council, by contrast, is the seat of authoritative decisions. The Commission and the Parliament are given to utopian temptations of European federalism, for which he barely hides his scorn… How then does the Council reach its decisions? Behind closed doors, in deliberations of which no minutes are kept, that issue in announcements under the seal of consensus. Van Middelaar supplies a graphic, if tactful, description of the psychological and political mechanisms that generate such consensus. That it is reached far beyond any popular say in the matters so decided, in conclaves where no public gaze is admitted, is not cause for any particular complaint o...

     Source: wikipedia “The United States in particular, but also Germany, will forever be closely associated with this unrelenting slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children, a slaughter that both countries continue to underwrite materially and diplomatically. The German government, led by its feminist foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, demands ‘humanitarian pauses’ as an alternative to peace, after which the killings are to continue until ‘Hamas’, prepared for death by a free UNRWA meal, will finally be ‘rooted out’. The Gaza massacre risks turning Israel into one of the most hated countries in the world, together with Germany – which unlike the US is solidly united behind the Netanyahu government…” Wolfgang Streeck on submarines, nuclear weapons, ‘the Samson option’, myths as a source of power. Related Israel’s ‘self-defense’

An Israeli liberal: Only a few acknowledged that the father’s story of return, redemption and liberation was also a story of conquest, displacement, oppression and death. Yaron Ezrahi ,  Rubber Bullets, Power and Conscience in Modern Israel, 1996 I would say there is probably a mistranslation. Instead of ‘Only a few’ I think the author meant ‘Only few’. Related – from my radio show archive Occupied Minds - A Journey through the Israeli Psyche (Pluto Books, 2006). An interview with Arthur Neslen The impracticality of a two-state solution. Overcoming Zionism: an interview with Joel Kovel The Colonial Drama of Israel-Palestine The Myths of Zionism – an interview with John Rose in 2008

Precious words written more than four decades ago, but they are still relevant. “So, if I may bring to bear upon your problems the opinion of a foreigner – a foreigner who knows your history and the social and cultural structures of your countries well, but a foreigner nonetheless, however sympathetic to your aspirations – I would like to make an appeal. Firstly, I appeal for lucidity. Myths may be useful for certain mobilizations, but they end up by mystifying, blinding and misleading the very people who manipulate them. To retreat into myths, especially the use of the past to elucidate today’s problems, is another sign of weakness. If forceful ideas are needed to guide action, let them be as close to reality as possible. Secondly, I appeal for open-mindedness. I have already said that societies which turn in on themselves and on their particular problems are dying, static societies. Living, progressive, dynamic societies are not afraid to borrow in order to get down to the task of fo...

“Far from the world being swept by a wave of rationality, historical accuracy and universality, the very turmoil produced by [capitalist] globalisation, by the collapse and discrediting of the dominant radical ideologies of the twentieth century, of left and right, and by a world where violence in many unexpected forms is prevalent, has led to a strengthening of myth and emotional claims. We are aware, through the work of sociologists and students of nationalism, of the role of such myths in mobilising people and enabling them to make sense of their complex and often bewildering lives. Hence we can recognise that the more rapidly the world changes, and the more interaction and conflict there are between peoples, the more potent these ideas become.”  –Fred Halliday,  100 Myths About the Middle East , 2005, pp. 14-15 Some of the myths  “ The Middle East is, in some fundamental way, ‘different’ from the rest of the world and has to be understood in terms distinct from other ...

  Gaddafi’s Libya Has Never Existed

Separating science from the social and political, the BBC attempts to debunk myths adopted by the far right, but it ignores that the main perpetuators of racism are established institutions, domestically and globally, which lay down the conditions and grounds of racist behavious, the corporate media and political parties that play the "immigration card", especially in times of crisis of capitalism. The mainstream liberal ideology that claims inclusiveness in the name of "free market liberalism" but practises exclusion in employment, through Fortress Europe, and through the forms of "development" (e.g. uneven development), cultural essentialism, the nation state that embodies superiority and nationalism of the "imagined community" (including selective history and filtered school curricula and how "the West" and the white 'race' got welathier and more powerful) and the fear of the Other and the fostering of the irrational in an...

Summary: An argument for better taxation to reduce inequality. A couple of arguments refuting myths. However, there is no word about exploitation, the real source of inequality, which is also, paradoxically, the source of human advance. The argument that huge inequality is a consequence of bad taxation is a myth that the author reiterates. Inequality already takes place and is reproduced through property ownership and during the relations of production, i.e. before taxation itself. Consent and acquiescence play a role in accepting inequality. Agreed. And that is the power of ideology to legitimate inequality and gloss over exploitation. "The idea that rising inequality is inevitable begins to look like a convenient myth, one that allows us to avoid thinking about another possibility: that through our electoral choices and decisions in daily life we have supported rising inequality, or at least acquiesced in it. Admittedly, that assumes we know about it. Surveys in the UK an...

"It is imperative to ask why and how this obscure Canadian academic, who insists that gender and class hierarchies are ordained by nature and validated by science, has suddenly come to be hailed as the West’s most influential public intellectual." Jordan Peterson and Fascist Mysticism

Poppies, patriots and pro-Brexit propaganda: Revisiting the myths of Britain's past

Sunday between noon and 1pm (GMT) 104.4 FM (London) or http://www.resonancefm.com/ worldwide In The Myths of Zionism John Rose shows how "Zionism, a powerful political force, is based in mythology; ancient, medieval and modern. Rose argues that, as Zionism is a living political force, these myths have been used to justify very real and political ends – namely, the expulsion and continuing persecution of the Palestinians." Pakistan - "unravelling of the democratic farce." Mai Ghossoub (1952-2007): Anti-establishment, anti-war, ardently feminist and a lover of literature, art, jazz and belly dancing, she became an internationally acc­laimed writer, playwright, poet and sculptress.