Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.  The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greate...

The ideologization of war

Via Andrew Burgin 03 February 2021 A resignation letter

 “This Land is Your Land”

Consider this: what if the following comment from [Mark] Twain’s notebook appeared as a boxed quote in history textbooks? Patriotism “is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn’t a foot of land in the world which doesn’t represent the ousting and re-ousting of a long line of successive ‘owners’ who each in turn, as ‘patriots,’ with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of ‘robbers’ who came to steal it and  did —and became swelling-hearted patriots in  their  turn.” What if teachers asked students to write essays agreeing or disagreeing with this idea in high school? Or what if the final exam required students to respond to a comment Twain made in the  North American Review  five years before his death—“the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it”? Mark Twain’s Inconvenient Truths Related: Censoring Mark Twain’s...

Stephen Rosen: “[W]hat is nationalism? And what nationalism is actually Western invention. Imperial China had no nationalism. Where do they get their ideas of nationalism? Well, they got their ideas of nationalism from the Japanese, which emerged as a national state in the 19 [century].  Well, where did the Japanese get their ideas about nationalism, which were then translated into Chinese? They got it from the Germans. So what they imported was a 19th-century version of social Darwinism in which race  is of the fundamental basis of nationality and there are very – when you hear Xi Jinping [a communist/Marxist?] and other Chinese leaders talking about cultural pollution, when you talk about the natural affinity of all Chinese people wherever they are, you begin to worry that there is this submerged, and sometimes not even so, some racialist component.” — The historian Lord Acton put  the case against "nationalism as insanity" in 1862. Bertrand Russell  criticizes n...

Britain, Britons, Brexit, Bonkers ... The conditions are ripe for the biggest backlash imaginable One decline is related to another Why Britain doesn't have a Huawei of its own

If no bases for a ‘new nationalism’ have yet disclosed themselves, why are politicians so desperate to assert one? Could it be because nationalism empowers politicians to police culture? Or, more accurately, to culturalise social questions , which are then policed? Labour and new patriotism

Radu Jude's new film explores dark truths in Romanian history

We know the American war crimes in Iraq, but We may never know if the British committed war crimes there Why? Because the British forces are (almost) perfect.  The last person in Britain to be prosecuted for crimes committed by forces under their command was in 1651 during the civil war.

The memory of the defeated

This is very good! From Somerdale to Skarbimierz

Is France's Marine le Pen far-right? This is a good analysis.

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.... Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.... Finally, [the nation] is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities , pp. 25-6, Verso 2006 ed. No one can be a true nationalist who is incapable of feeling ‘ashamed’ if her s...

" In the land of Law and Justice [political party], anti-intellectualism is king. Polish scientists are aghast at proposed curriculum changes in a new education bill that would downplay evolution theory and climate change and add hours for “patriotic” history lessons. In a Facebook chat, a top equal rights official mused that Polish hotels should not be forced to provide service to black or gay customers. After the official stepped down for unrelated reasons, his successor rej ected an international convention to combat violence against women because it appeared to argue against traditional gender roles. ... "Yet nothing has shocked liberals more than this: After a year in power, Law and Justice is still by far the most popular political party in Poland. It rides atop opinion polls at roughly 36 percent — more than double the popularity of the ousted Civic Platform party."

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

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) " The Good War? Afghanistan in the media ". Listen to columnist Seumas Milne from the Guardian newspaper (UK) speaking in a public meeting organised by Media Workers Against the War and Stop the War Coalition. (Friends Meeting House, London 13 July 2009). Ishmahil Blagrove, a filmmaker and public speaker, speaks about his recent attempt to enter Gaza, his arrest in an Isareli prison, and the aim of the trip which was organised by 21 activists from 11 countries including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mairead Maguire, in order to deliver a cargo of medical aid, toys and building supplies. Labour news from Egypt