Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A lot is missing here, including the fundamental. When talking about protests or ‘revolutions’ the causes have to be highlighted.  The causes mentioned in the article are not causes by symptoms . There is not even a hint to the shared political economy/the dominant economic model and its operations from economic development to finance to debt to finance to unequal exchange. The protests are not new thus one should have a longer overview stretching decades and summed up in a couple of paragraphs, especially when an article is not a news item, one of ‘Big Question’ as the section is called. 

A list of demands by students has been circulated in an underground press release. Shahidul Alam puts the demands in a broader context and assess their validity and effectiveness.

“ The threat of violence and instability impels the Chinese state to absorb and resolve disputes through legal and bureaucratic channels in which the state has a monopoly on decision-making and space for interest representation. The criminalisation of yinao reflects such state efforts to maintain social stability. However, the adverse impact of this criminalisation [...] suggests that the inability of formal institutions (for example, laws, courts, dispute mediation commissions) to resolve disputes could give rise to more social unrest.”

“A demonstration for equality turned into an all-Jewish, Zionist demonstration advocating for Jewish supremacy in Israel. Once again, demonstrators said: don’t bother us about the occupation. We are dealing here with the judicial system; let’s not confuse the issues - as if the occupation does not overshadow everything and define the Israeli regime more than any of its other components. The hypocrisy and double standards of the Zionist left were once again revealed in all their ugliness.” Zionists only

 

When it comes to the micro and macro the analysis in the article is accurate. However, when it comes to ‘the underlying cause’— ‘neoliberalisation’—it is a mainstream argument. The working of capital and global capital, profitability and capital accumulation—whether by the imperialist states or by Qatar and UAE, for instance—is the underling cause(s). The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the region

Rayya El-Zein has written about how the framework of neoliberal orientalism has built a fantasy about  the Arab rapper . She explained that Western mainstream media are “eager to imagine Arab youth in non-threatening modes of resistance that are directly related to American culture. The rapper speaking truth to power is a very easy character for audiences to imagine; at the same time, he is a totally benign figure that caricatures authoritarian regimes as all the same bad guys.” El-Zein has argued that when the West focuses on creative youth, it does not have to understand how Western powers are complicit. After the Arab uprisings (Part 1) After the Arab uprisings (Part 2)

“No negotiation, no compromise, no partnership” with the military

American women should go to Tunisia or Bahrain to have abortion! Related "I would consider myself a practising Muslim. I try my best to abide by the Quran and the Sunnah [teachings of the Prophet Muhammad]. Based on my faith, I know I did the right thing. I know it was ok for me to have an abortion. Islam gave me that right," Fatima said. " But now this country doesn’t recognise these rights. What will other women like me do?"

  A liberal view. There no global economic-system and it’s crises, there is no uneven development, migration and capital, there is no class, there is no demographic pressures, especially of the youth, no lack of prospects for many, no precarity … Only abstract concepts such as ‘inequality’ and ‘lack of democracy’, without even being able to define what democracy or real democracy is. Asked what defines “real democracy,” Burke admitted it was somewhat subjective: “One person’s democracy is another person’s autocracy.”

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 

A detailed article but too much political science, almost nothing about Iraqi capitalism and why it is not providing. Note that there are no classes anymore in Iraq; no economic institutions and capitalists; no form of economic development; no rate of profit; no foreign capital; no IMF…   In a long article by two journalists about the Sadrist movement and “the most powerful man in Iraq,” there is no word about the man’s economic programme! The word economy itself does not feature at all.  U.S. enemy and friend of Iran? Related Iraq’s “March for Reforms”

The best article I have read so far  about the current situation in Cuba. “When the Cuban government responded with violence to the claims of the people whose interests they are supposed to defend, it acted like any other government anywhere in the world, rather than following the socialist character that once defined the revolution. For some, this is a difficult truth to accept.” “I year for more solidarity from the global left” Related My diary of a visit to Cuba

“ [W]hat is needed is political discussion, revolutionary ideological rearmament, accountability and workers’ democracy.” I don’t think that would be enough. How to feed the people and providing them with a decent standard of leaving is tied up with how developed and productive the economy is and what class re-alignment is possible. In the current circumstances as in the previous decades Cuba as an isolated island with limited resources, lack of technological means and embargo is unable to provide for the majority of its people.

 Putin’s Majority?

We need to remember a decade-long song sung by Western and non-Western media, academics and pundits: “Transitional justice”, “transitional justice”, “transitional justice”, ad nauseam.  As long the ‘revolution’ is not about material equality that threatens class interests at home and the major powers and international institutions interests and domination, is championed and “human rights” and “democracy” are the catch words that must prevail in the same way ‘Arab Spring’ phrase has prevailed. And we can talk about development everyday as long as it is the type of ‘development’ dictated by the same socio-economic system and the same ideology.   A return to the police state?

Here is a good analysis "[W]e can no longer assume that shared identity means a shared commitment to the strategies necessary to improve the lives of a vast majority of black people. Class tensions among African-Americans have produced new fault lines that the romance of racial solidarity simply cannot overcome." The End of Black Politics

What sort of a PhD candidate in sociological studies who does mention capitalism and profit, but not the word 'class' even once? Could it be that an editor remove the word from the article? I don't know. Protests – and riots – are rebellion against an unjust system

Return to Revolution

"Toby Dodge, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and a longtime researcher on Iraq, said the post-2003 system which embedded corruption in the Iraqi state, as well as sectarianism and coercion, was starting to break down – and violence was spiralling as a result. " Oh, but I thought, or I have been told by the media since the invasion of Iraq and the the war in Syria, that sectarianism is inherent and the main issue and that it goes back to post-Mohammed era. Now someone is blaming an imperialist occupation and (re)engineering of the Iraqi society. And a "revolution" is unfolding, i.e. class and social issues have become prevelant.