Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A critique  At a time when a global pandemic has only exacerbated spiraling inequalities, pervasive racism, and xenophobic insurgencies on both sides of the Atlantic, Habermas suggests that humanity already possesses the resources for levelheaded debate oriented toward the common good. Yet a tension persists between Habermas’s political ideals and his historical framework. The gap is not so much one of theory and practice, which Habermas readily acknowledges. Instead, his story’s European origin collides with its universal intent. Habermas insists that postmetaphysical reason—because it refuses to take refuge in foundational certainties—provides a basis for the inter-cultural dialogue necessary to confront global crises of climate change, mass migration, and unregulated markets. But by tracing the emergence of modern rationality solely to a Western, and Christian, learning process, he elides the historical reckoning necessary for any such dialogue. The same problem faced Habermas’

"All the politicians attacking the Bristol iconoclasts for removing the slave-owner Colston's statue---Johnson, Patel, Steer Calmer, Labour's Shadow Home (can't remember his name] and others, share one thing in common. Not a single one of them has called for the reinstatement of the statue. Wonder why? Calmer agrees it shouldn't be there, but numerous governments, Labour and Tory never removed it. Calmer and Johnson would rather it was done 'legally'. (Laughter). Worth remembering that Colston too was a believer in legality. Nothing he did was illegal! Slavery was the law of the land, free trade, etc." —Tariq Ali, 09 June 2020

“A German student has to  learn about the Holocaust , so, too, should every British student understand and face  Britain’s role in colonialism  and slavery." "It's time we're taught the downsides of our past in order to stop mistakes being repeated." (!) This is naïve. The Empire's plunder, subjugation and atrocities were not "mistakes." They were integral of the political economy of an empire. Read all about it Suggested reading: The Blood Never Dried by John Newsinger Inglorious Empire by Shashi Thahroor British Gulag (the British empire in Kenya)   by Caroline Elkins

"Impossible to anticipate the spur for rebellion. In Lebanon, it was a tax on the use of WhatsApp; in Chile, it was the rise in subway fares; in Ecuador and in Haiti, it was the cut in fuel subsidies. Each of these conjunctures brought people to the streets and then, as these people flooded the streets, more and more joined them. They did not come for WhatsApp or for subway tokens. They came because they are frustrated, angry that history seems to disregard them as it consistently favours the ruling class." There is something that's ours on the streets and we're going to take it back

The Taliban of San Francisco

“It is worth noting,” [Martin Luther] King said, “that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. … Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.” Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx (Click on Free view when subscription message pops up)

"Who else would agree to give up a minimum of two hours a week, not counting commuting time, to sit through blood extraction and reinfusion twice, all for a grand total of 50 bucks? The plasma industry that year (2009) made around $10 billion; the same liter of blood I produced for $20 or $30 was worth up to $200, even before it was treated to make medicine.  My first graduate summer was thus the first time I understood the machinations of a capitalist economy, not because I read Marx, but because I experienced its exploitation of my own body, literally." On the Absurdity of Ethical Capitalism

Egypt blackface sketch about Sudanese spotlights racism in region

"We do not want communists in Brazil" Anticommunism without communism

From the history of 'liberalism' or things my American professors at university never told me The famous French political theorist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) who is known for his major work Democracy in America. "In May 1847, noting that the 'Bey of Tunisia' had already abolished the 'odious institution' [of slavery]—which in Muslim countries, by the French liberal's admission, took a 'milder' form—de Tocqueville expressed the opinion that 'we should doubtless only proceed to the abolition of slavery with care and moderation'. De Tocqueville seemed to be ready to accept a compromise even more favourable to the slaveholding South [of the U.S.]. 'As for the policy permitting slavery to develop in a whole portion of the territory where it was hitherto unknown, I will concede ... that one can do nothing but tolerate this existence in the special, current interests of the Union.' [A letter of 13 April 1857]

Educating Britain I have just read this book. The following excerpts are no replacement in reading the whole account. Excerpts From John Newsinger’s  The Blood Never Dried, A People’s History of the British Empire

"Repaying the debt is an essential obstacle to satisfying basic human needs, such as access to clean water, decent food, basic health care, primary education, decent accomodation, and satisfactory infrastructure. Without any doubt, the satisfcation of basic human needs must take priority over all other considerations, be they geopolitical ot financial. From a moral point of view, the rights of creditors, shareholders, or speculators are insignificant in comparison with the fundamental rights of five billion citizens. Debt is one of the main mechanisms through which a new form of economic colonization operates to the detriment of the developing countries. It is one more brick in the edifice of historic abuses, also carried out by the rich countries: slavery, pillage of raw materials and cultural goods, extermination of indigenous populations, and colonial servitude. The time is overdue to replace the logic of domination by the logic of redistribution of wealth in the name of jus

Against the Grain and The beginning of elites, tax, and slavery

W.E.B DuBois on Robert E. Lee

"Since Europeans didn’t always think of themselves as ‘white’, there is good reason to think that race is socially constructed, indeed arbitrary. If the idea of ‘white people’ (and thus every other ‘race’ as well) has a history – and a short one at that – then the concept itself is based less on any kind of biological reality than it is in the variable contingencies of social construction." How 'white people' were invented

Should Washington and Jefferson monuments come down? Yes, and should also Churchill, Havelock, "Clive of India", Thatcher statues and a few others 

The worst things that the US has done have always happened through political institutions and practices - not through strongmen

The Liberal Defense of Murder

" My work as a historian has convinced me that ways of thinking about race are the most destructive legacy of Britain’s imperial past. In the wake of the Brexit vote we have witnessed a deeply disturbing   increase in the number of hate crimes  committed  against Poles, Muslims and racial minorities. Globalisation, with all the losses it has brought for so many, has clearly acted as a trigger for this upsurge of rage and resentment, the wish to “take back control” and “secure our borders”. The legacy of slavery is the dehumanisation of others and assumptions of white superiority, as well as terrible disparities of wealth and power. These could not be starker than they are today." The racist ideas of slave owners are still with us today

From Jane Austen to Beatrice and Eugenie … the long reach of UK slave-owning families