Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

One name, many lives

Israel has reached an unimaginable peak of evil. And indeed many people all over the world find it hard to imagine that this is so… The only possible conclusion must be that Israeli evil has nothing to do with Judaism and that what is manifested in Israeli behavior is not Jewishness. It is pure colonialist, nationalist and chauvinistic racism and should be treated as such.“ — Nurit Peled-Elhanan , Israeli academic and author

“We are living through a moment when the ‘F’ word is no longer taboo and the threat of fascism lurks everywhere.”  Alberto Toscano “reminds us that liberalism is no enemy of fascism , and fascists flower in the hot house of capitalism.”

This will not happen soon, Cori, especially when accommodating voices, if not complicit ones, of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are betraying their own principles. But in exposing the crimes and the complicity in crimes of power and wealth,   words of defiance against nefarious outfits   are always needed.

The mainstream press has been afraid to say this directly and succinctly.  As it was argued when Trump lost to Biden, Trumpism is here to stay even if it looses to Harris.

“The Western world’s last settler-colonial regime, committed to an ideology born in nineteenth-century Europe, remains remarkably adept at diffusing a story that erases Palestinian humanity,  including in the realm of higher education . Most students, however, no longer buy this Eurocentric erasure – nor does most of the global population.”

As ever, the ‘legitimate concerns’ brigade includes a well-heeled faction of the lumpencommentariat, such as Carole Malone, Matthew Goodwin, Dan Wootton and Allison Pearson. Notably, however, these ‘concerns’ aren’t about the ‘bread and butter’ issues that many leftists seem to think will defuse racist agitation: as I’ve said many times before, it isn’t the economy, stupid. What the two recent moral panics have in common is the coprological image of matter out of place: borders and boundaries eroding and people being were they ought not to be. As was proven when the court revealed that the suspect is a British minor and the riots persisted, it doesn’t matter what ‘the facts’ are: we can’t ‘fact-check’ this phenomenon into oblivion. It would be instructive to ask one of these ‘whiteness’ or ‘Englishness’ rioters what they would have done had the suspect been white. One of the rationalisations of rioters claiming not to be racist was that, because the suspect killed children, he was not ...

“ Europe’s military arsenal is not well prepared for war  … because for the last thirty years we thought that war was not coming back to Europe.”  But has war ever left Europe?

Excellent! Is there continuity? Useful artifacts for understanding the imperialist worldview

“ Why do the majority of Western mainstream media outlets continue to adopt and defend the Israeli narrative? Why is there a tendency towards dehumanising Palestinians and placing disproportionate blame upon them for current events? What interests do Western mainstream media organisations have in maintaining this type of coverage?”

At issue is not an accidental, negligible or ‘unfortunate’ streak of racism in the works of a stellar European philosopher.

An interview with Malaika Jabali Correction:  “I feature Frida Kahlo, who was a part of the Communist Party.” She was in the Mexican Communist Party, not the American one.

“In The New Age of Empire: How Colonialism and Racism Still Rule the World , Kehinde Andrews explores how the intellectual, political and economic frameworks inherited from colonialism are still governing today’s world, resulting in a new age of empire that perpetuates racism, white supremacy and global economic inequalities.”

So many Germans did ignore the genocide against the Jews. So many stood by when the Rwanda genocide was taking place. So many have ignored the Rohingya genocide. Responses to genocide are often determined by where the crime is committed, and what the victims look like .

 But why a British actor as Fanon? Related A review of Concerning Violence

Support for the brutal, indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza finds its roots in the historical context of western settler-colonialism

“The fact that the Western media only uses the register of violence to speak on Palestine feeds on a co lonial, racist, patriarchal, and capitalist discourse that aims to justify the Israeli settler colonial erasure of Palestine. While violence against the Palestinians is specific, it does not occur in isolation from what is happening elsewhere in the world. Black and brown people are racialized everywhere in Europe and North America, and that racialization contributes to the demonization of Palestinian people.” What ‘the West’, and its media, work tirelessly to hide

"There was a wave of racist videos on social media. I was seeing such disgusting posts. So I was already worried such an upsurge of anger could only result in violence …  What was shocking was finding myself in the minority, defending basic principles against violence and racism," says Ms Bribri. Not a single hint to the EU’s responsibility  and as if such a violence was disconnected from another violence.

Another example of the fragmentation of modern social thought : marginalisation, ghettoisation, inequality, unemployment, class … do not feature in this good article as an answer to the ‘why’ in the title, and it gives the impression that a ‘Muslim’ is not affected by those socio-economic phenomena along racism, ‘Islamophobia’ and police violence. Update: Alain Gabon responded to a question I had sent to him with the following: The Middle East Eye  editorial policy “dictates that a piece must be read in 5 mns and be easy reading, due to the fact everybody reads online on their cells these days).”  “Rather than a repetition  of History ,” wrote Gabon in his draft article, “all those  interrelated events —the murder of the Arabic youth, the  banlieues  riots recalling those of 2005, and this new legal discrimination against the ‘ hijabeuses ’— a re different  symptoms  of the  same long , deep, and structural problem s  that France—its va...

The UN has accused France's security forces of systemic racism. Poor French suburbs catch media attention when they are in flames Related Reading Britain’s 2011 riots