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...

When Only God Can See

Against Amnesia The experience of violence by a stronger party has historically turned victims into terrorists. That's what happens to peoples and nations. When they are battered, they hit back. State terror very often breeds collective terror. –Eqbal Ahmed, 1998 [Ahmed though does not explicitly include the state terrorism of Western states. He merely talks about the how US ‘promotes terrorism’, for instance.] From a transcript of a talk by Eqbal Ahmed University of Colorado, Boulder, on 12 October 1998 “By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring, and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the Western world. At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started to be described, by 1944-45, as 'freedom fighters.' Then from 1969 to 1990 the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, occupied the center stage as the terrorist organization. Yasir Arafat has been described repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, Willi...

In exchange for a bailout from the IMF

Does Kissinger require rehabilitation? Related Henry Kissinger in the Middle East

Excerpts Political parties’ coercive activities make their support essential to doing business as their members maintain discipline in the factories. Pakistan’s textile industry, which employs 15 million people and contributes 8.5% of its GDP, has emerged stronger from the [pandemic] crisis; foreign sales, which represent more than 60% of Pakistan’s total exports, broke all records in 2021-22 ($19bn). Pakistan’s brand of industrial capitalism is likely to mount a strong immune response to any trouble ahead. Its ability to overcome crises throughout its history is not just down to its adaptability or even state subsidies. It’s mainly due to an extensive repressive apparatus, and civil and military authorities’ tolerance of employers’ illegal practices. [In the textile sector] ‘modernisation’ includes the feminisation of the workforce, which for cultural reasons is less advanced than in other Asian countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.  Pakistani women, supposedly ‘more c...

“ There are too many whose idea of ‘critical’ is limited to saying some development was problematic but some was quite good, if only there had been more of that ‘good’ development. The most stunning imperial formation was that the War in Afghanistan was unquestionable–whether as an act of revenge and/or care (for Afghan women). The friend/enemy distinction has been marked on to women’s bodies playing out in a fundamentalist logic of either supporting education or not supporting education, supporting the Taliban or condemning them. The Kite Runner  made everyone feel they knew Afghanistan. Like white people who watched the TV serial  The Wire  that came out about the same time as the beginning of the US war and occupation of Afghanistan.  Suddenly white liberals felt they knew the deep struggles of racialized people in Baltimore, and elsewhere, because they watched  The Wire , and liked the character Omar. The critique was only of the withdrawal, not of the ...

A déjà-vu? Many Afghans, and some foreign analysts, believe Isis-K is being supported by foreign forces, such as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI wants leverage to persuade the Taliban to co-operate in suppressing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a jihadist insurgency that has targeted the Pakistan government. Others suspect US intelligence agencies, anti-Taliban warlords and even former members of the Afghan army of collaborating with Isis-K. “We know there are intelligence agencies and networks supporting Isis-K to challenge and create problems for the Taliban government,” Haqpal said. In India, government and intelligence officials have suggested that inter-Taliban rivalry — between the Haqqani network and a powerful Kandahar faction led by Mullah Baradar, the deputy prime minister — is stoking the violence. “There is clear factionalism in the Taliban,” an Indian intelligence source said. “It is possible that one faction is supporting the Isis-K to wipe out the dominance o...

“ The Costs of War Project is analytically conservative. Unlike several nongovernmental surveys over the years, it does not conduct epidemiological studies to determine the true lethality of the war – such as deaths from war-shattered public health systems, lack of access to clean water, war-prompted displacement, and other indirect but real consequences of conflict. Instead, the project only counts  direct  death. The authors acknowledge the shortcomings of this approach.” Over 900,000 People Dead, a ‘Vast Undercount,’ and $8 Trillion Looted 

The military and the economy in Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey

The IMF is Hollowing out Pakistan’s Sovereignty

“ Debates about blasphemy and apostasy laws among Muslims are naturally influenced by international affairs. Across the globe, Muslim minorities – including the Palestinians, Chechens of Russia, Kashmiris of India,   Rohingya   of Myanmar and   Uighurs   of China – have experienced severe persecution. No other religion is so widely targeted in so many different countries. Alongside persecution are those  Western policies  that discriminate against Muslims, such as laws prohibiting headscarves in schools.” Two Muslims identify with each other regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. That is their ‘imagined community’. In addition, many Muslims regarded the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq as a ‘wars on Islam’. It is a socio-psychological question when we see them support executing an apostate or wanting the implementation of shari’s laws. Thus authoritarian regimes in alliance of Muslim sc holars find support among many when it comes to blasphemy and aposta...

  Who inspired whom?

A terrible covid-19 response forced doctors onto hunger strike

Pakistan Karachi hotel workers' struggle for a trade union

"It is thus a combination of economics, culture, religion, resources, and strategic location that drive the current repression of the Uyghur; the economic interests of Middle East countries prevent them from raising this issue with China." The Ongoing Persecutions of China's Uyghurs

Trailing ... The Mujahidin, Taliban and the CIA  (wikipedia) Sleeping with the devil (the Washington Post) The CIA and Islamic fundamentalism   (Weekly Worker) How the Taliban got their way in Afghanistan (the New York Times, a review of Ahmed Rashid's Taliban ) Political Islam in the service of imperialism (Samir Amin)

Pakistan A Marxist in Parliament dominated by feudals and capitalists

How the British convinced Hidus that Muslims were despots and religious invaders

Like the carving of the Arab countries, here is another criminal legacy of the British Empire: "British judge Cyril Radcliffe was brought in to draw up the border between India and Pakistan. It meant cutting two of India's most powerful and populous provinces in half; Punjab and Bengal. Radcliffe had never been to India before and never returned. This rushed partition would have repercussions for decades to come." The Partition of India and Pakistan