Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A reading of Vasily Grossman’s two novels

A Dystopian Lebanese Thriller

The BBC , unsurprisingly, ignored that El-Saadawi was anti-capitalist and belonged to  the “historical socialist-feminists,” (her own words). Wikipedia admin deleted my edit when I added with a source that El-Saadawi was anti-capitalist and  socialist. I guess they want her to fit in the neoliberal feminism. But, “ after the military take-over, El Saadawi began to defend the regime of the former military chief and current president Abdul Fatah al-Sisi and his human rights violations, many of her former comrades-in-arms felt compelled to break with her. El Saadawi accused the Western media of running a smear campaign against Sisi.” Women, Egypt and Religion Life and times via her writings Meet Egypt’s most radical woman The many lives of Nawaal El-Saadaawi

My comments on the article below. I think the writer has missed some fundamental aspects/features of what has happened: The class dynamic and the weakness of the movement and its lack of radicalism. Its inability to generate a leader (compare that with Venezuela and Bolivia, for example, or the twentieth century revolutionary movements). The role of the middle class in Egypt (for a change first then with the military after for the sake of ‘stability’) A stability endorsed and sought for by foreign powers, regional and Western. During the uprisings there was not a single occupation of a key governmental building or financial institution. Occupying squares and marching do not shift the balance of power. Indecisiveness invited aggression by the state and other forces to size the moment. It is inaccurate to say the regime in Egypt was overthrown. Even in Tunisia it wasn’t. In the two cases, the head of the regime was removed and an internal restructuring among the factions took place, pres

From an old article I have selected some points that are still relevant today after 10 years of the beginning of the Tunisian ‘revolution’. In fact, the situation today is worse than in 2014. None of the social aspirations that sparked its December 2010 uprising have been fulfilled. Was bringing the Islamists into the political fold a gamble that paid off? Yes for those who maintained that their coming to power would not be irreversible. Yes also for their enemies, who predicted that once they were in power, they would reveal their obsession with identity and religion, and the limitations of their economic and social policy. “With [the Islamists] we are pre-Adam Smith and David Ricardo,” Hamma Hammami, spokesman for the leftwing Popular Front, told me. ‘The Muslim Brothers’ political economy is a rent-based economy; it’s about parallel trade. It isn’t about production, or wealth creation; it isn’t about agriculture, industry or infrastructure; and it isn’t about reorganising education

The Syrian Revolution Between the Politics of Life and the Geopolitics of Death

Two views on China: Esteban Mercatante argues that China is capitalist while Richard Smith says it is not. The Contours of Capitalism in China Why China isn’t Capitalist

“We have to break bourgeois right”

People’s own struggle achieves in months what NGOs cannot achieve (or hinders to achieve) for decades. Activists react as Sudan ditches “Islamist laws” A background 

The twentieth-century question is back. We saw it in the Arab uprisings from Tunisia to Algeria and Sudan, in Occupy, in Greece, in France, etc. And we see it now in the U.S. " The rebellion [in the U.S.] has accomplished more in two weeks than have decades of slow, incremental electoralism." —Ahmed Kanna

When billionaires talk about 'revolution', they mean how to prevent threats to the system Talking about revolution, but proposing reform

Can the Arab uprisings move towards a successful revolution?

Return to Revolution

The German film-maker Thomas Heise sets out to challenge the official script of events. He recalls that when the demonstrators, overshadowed by Tiananmen Square, shouted “we are one people”, they were speaking not to West Germans — as was later claimed — but to police surrounding the demonstration. “This is the reality they want to suppress”, he says, “this moment in time when ordinary people put themselves on the line to speak about themselves. We’re not meant to remember that. We celebrate the Wall falling but not the fact that a sovereign people took it upon itself to fill a power gap. Nor how, following that, it was more about annexation than reunification. Law and order was re-established by destroying utopia. The Federal Republic could not allow a sovereign people to exist in a part of Germany because it would not have itself survived. The Wall was opened to prevent revolution.” The myth of German reunification

I recommend Revolution Without Revolutionaries (Chapter 1) and  

"In China today, what is now referred to as 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' looks a lot like plain old capitalism, in which the vast majority of people in the society work, and their labor is exploited by a tiny minority who own. Xi Jinping earned a PhD in Marxist ideology, and can therefore  speak loquaciously  commemorating Marx’s two hundredth birthday, but still say nothing of substance in regards to how China is actually run. The Western media still treats the country like the old bogeyman of Communist dictatorships, but the opposite is true: the country is a capitalist dictatorship. China reports lifting 750 million people out of poverty, and there is no denying that living standards have increased significantly since 1949. Despite this, inequality is massive..." Indeed. How odd the word socialism is in "socialism with Chinese characteristics"! The Chinese Revolution at Seventy

The Nokdu Flower A drama about the Donghak Peasant Revolution that took place in late 19th century Korea. It is a drama, so for some historical background, I recommend you have an overview here . They are 24 parts, but it is worth watching it. Themes include: class struggle, war, betrayal, class, psychology, love, the Japanese occupation of Korea, communistic ideals, loyalty to ideas ...

Hate or anger? By Ernest Bloch

Revolution without Revolutionaries "People may or may not have ideas about revolution for it to happen. For the outbreak of a revolution has little to do with any idea, and even less with a 'theory,' of revolution. Revolutions 'simply' happen. But having or not having ideas about revolution does have critical consequences for the outcome when it actually occurs. Having lived in both Iran and Egypt just prior to their revolutions, I was struck by how different these experiences were. I was enthralled by the Arab Spring's more peaceful, open, pluralistic, and less repressive texture but was perplexed by its nonradical, loosely organised, exposed, and perilous quality." —Asef Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring , 2017, Preface, xi (in paperback ed.) "The speed, spread, and intensity of the recent revolutions extraordinarily unparalleled, while their lack of ideology, lax coordination, and absence of any galv

"Such terms as “proletarian literature” and “proletarian culture” are dangerous, because they erroneously compress the Culture of the future into the narrow limits of the present day. They falsify perspectives, they violate proportions, they distort standards and they cultivate the arrogance of small circles which is most dangerous." — Leon Trotsky, Revolution and Literature , 1924