Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 Workers and Change

 and the freedom of believers

The author here does not consider the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Ennahda in Tunisia, for instance, part of the counter-revolution–socially and economically. He does not mention how and why they got support from the major imperialist powers, either. It is also a liberal journalistic piece that does not mention the class character of the Islamist parties even once. The end of political Islam as we know it

 Atkinson, to my surprise, has echoed some of I what have personally experienced in England: the intolerance of people to my views and criticism and even their opposition to my free speech. Repression without a police state.

A picture about Hong Kong, which incorporates sociology, political economy and international relations in one short piece is rare to find. A must read. Hong Kong's resistance

Since the  establishment  of the High Council for Cyber Security in December 2014, the [Egyptian] regime has acquired increasingly sophisticated technological capabilities, used unprecedented measures to block internet activity, passed restrictive internet legislation and now surveils users and censors content on a scale never seen before. Much of this has been facilitated by Western companies, states and regional allies who have been more than happy to sell potentially repressive technologies to the authoritarian regime, emboldening Sisi’s attempts to eliminate freedom of expression in Egypt. As the regime  continues  in its “fight against existing and potential spaces where dissent might be possible,” the digital realm has become an increasingly important space for both dissent and its subsequent arrest. Egypt's Arrested Digital Spaces

Turkey Release jailed construction workers

This is unprecedented. I'm very shocked and surprised! And these academics have always been using their most effective tools at their disposal: letters and petitions. "UK puts money before human rights in Egypt"

"Orteguista ,  rather than Sandinista ,  [is]  a linguistic distinction that has become a common indicator of Ortega’s divorce from the FSLN’s founding values. Where the Sandinista Front was established as socialist, the Ortega government has  privatized  Nicaraguan industries and made welfare services contingent upon party allegiance." Activists speak out about Nicaragua's crackdowns

Syrian actress May Scaff An icon Syrian leftist who opposed Assad's regime dies in Paris

Migration "The metaphor of Fortress Europe thus represents a highly sophisticated construction—far more so than the fortified continent of World War Two. Its lines of fortification are mobile and teem with electronic surveillance devices, reinforcing an arsenal of repression centred round the weapons of bureaucracy and fear. Its walls are semi-permeable, designed not simply to exclude but to filter entrance in a highly restrictive way, constantly fabricating and modifying systems of hierarchical categorization, of which the distinction between ‘refugees’—acceptable, but only in limited numbers—and ‘economic migrants’, illegitimate and thus illegalized, is only one example. It operates by establishing compacts with other states or agencies, outsourcing functions of coercion, detention, surveillance and control." — Stathis Kouvelakis

"The central point is this: identities are fluid, constantly defined and redefined through economic and political struggles. The predominance of ethnic and sectarian conflict is a phenomenon that itself needs to be explained — not assumed to be an unavoidable driver of discord." The Tribalist Trap Syria as an example Note that the author while generalizing when talking about "Western-backed regimes", failed to say that in the case of Syria the regime is a Russian- and Iranian-backed regime.

This should be a novel in my reading list The Art of Critique in Victor Serge's Midnight in the Century

"The melancholy songs of Pashaei represent the gloomy mood of a generation that feels it has got the blues. This “blue generation” feels cheated by a corrupt autocracy and has little faith in existing political ideologies. The main distinguishing feature of their political sensibility is the lack of any form of emotional attachment or sense of belonging to the political institutions or culture of post-revolutionary Iran. The blue generation inscribes itself in the short temporality of the last ten to fifteen years, therefore its experience of post revolutionary Iran has been of rampant corruption, lack of social freedoms, government inefficiency, religious tyranny, and curtailment of basic individual rights." A "Blue" Generation and Protests in Iran

Egypt: Sisi's balls

Foucault's  History of Sexuality : A Marxist Engagement

Missing is the role of the economic growth or lack of it in South Africa Zuma is not the only problem

"[I]f  grievance led explanations for the timing of the 2011 Arab Spring are correct, then the scope conditions for another mass uprising are seemingly in place." On the breadline in Sisi's Egypt

Confession d'un tortionnaire du régime du Ben Ali

"The Arab uprisings were followed by a great deal of bitter violence, repression, counter-revolution, and cynical regional and international great power manipulation. On the other hand, these uprisings showed that ‘presidents-for-life’ and parts of regimes could be overthrown or substantially threatened by ‘people power’ – a fundamental innovation on the post-colonial stage in the MENA region. They have exposed the bankruptcy and violence of command and control structures that rely solely on violence and coercion. They have drawn attention to the importance of trans-local, transregional and transnational forms of politics. They have also underlined the importance in the MENA region of the question of radically democratic, de-centralized, and leaderful organizing — its possibilities and limits." — John Chalcraft The Middle East: an interview with J. Chalcraft