Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A very engaging review The students were  furious . For the first week of class, they read the polemical first chapter, which argues that human rights are not eternal universal truths, but rather a set of political claims that emerged in the 1970s amid a crisis of the moral authority of communism. They simply would not believe that their own highest ideals dated not to the Bible or “the golden rule” but to the age of disco. As it turned out, the students had a preconceived notion of what it meant to have their preconceived notions challenged, and it did not include historicizing their own moral commitments. This provoked reflection about what historicizing something means and how legitimacy for moral claims is constructed. The Inequality of "Human Rights"

This was written in 1984:  The extent of criticism varies greatly from one part of the Left to another, but there is at least no disposition now to take the Soviet regime as a “model” of socialism: indeed, there is now a widespread disposition on the Left to think of the Soviet regime as an “anti-model.” How could it be otherwise, given some of the most pronounced features of that regime? The socialist project means, and certainly meant for Marx, the subordination of the state to society. Precisely the reverse characterizes the Soviet system. Moreover, the domination of the state in that system is assured by an extremely hierarchical, tightly controlled, and fiercely monopolistic party aided by a formidable police apparatus. Outside the party, there is no political life; and inside the party, such political life as there exists is narrowly circumscribed by what the party leadership permits or ordains — which means that there is not much political life in the party either. Ess

Venezuela "Across town, there is a small supermarket that sells imported products to those who can afford to treat themselves. Most of the clients are foreigners and wealthier Venezuelans . There are even so-called "Boligarchs" - the nickname given to the new oligarchy who have done well under Hugo Chávez's and Nicolás Maduro's "Bolivarian revolution" - who come in to get their fix of foreign produce." A new oligarchy that has done well under Chavez and Maduro. That is what the mainstream media calls "socialism" and they keep repeating it in every article and news item so that you know what you should hate.

"Capitalism has a moral basis, to be free, you have to be capitalist”.  God bless M. T.

First part of an interview with Venezuelan sociologist Edgardo Lander He’s professor emeritus at the Central University of Venezuela, and a fellow of the Transnational Institute. He did his Ph.D. at Harvard University, and he is the author of numerous books and research articles on democracy, the myths of industrialization and economic growth, and left-wing movements in Latin America. There are also some interesting comments at the end.

The Metamorphosis The political education of Mario Vargas Ilosa

“There was this vagueness about the word that just seemed to be not just corruptible but almost inherently corrupt,” says the writer, film-maker and activist. “I was attracted to words like liberation, emancipation, equality, revolution, socialism. Any other word would get my pulse going more than democracy.” For her, democracy was a word imperial America used to sell free markets and push its agenda. Writer and film maker  Astra Taylor on US democracy, socialism and revolution

Education starts at home If you want to know more about socialism, you don't need to look back at the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Look at Venezuela. And if you need to have theoretical and ideological understanding of what socialism is, follow Fox News. I wonder though why the journalist here adds this sentence that demolishes his has arguments against "socialism".  "But no country has ever successfully enacted a system that matches Marx’s vision for the world – a reality even the staunchest Marxist will admit." It is also convenient to call Bernie Sanders, a social democrat, a socialist because it helps the child learn more about the evils of socialism and how to protect the American way of life from it How to get your child say no to socialism

Class was the key for Erik Olin Wright

I have just finished reading The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura, in its English translation. It is a great novel. I wish I could read it in Spanish.

On the 9th of March Noske ordered the Reichswehr to shoot on the spot anything that moved. Then the butchers set about their work. While the facades of houses collapsed under the fire of machine guns and mortars and whole families were buried under the rubble, the proletarians were herded with live fire and bayonets into the schoolyards and stables. Alone, by twos, by threes, in groups: against the wall and shot. At night on the river Spree, the revolvers touched workers’ temples and shot. For weeks the Spree washed up corpses onto the shore. Again and again: “A Spartacist nest has been dug up” and eight human beings shot, thirty shot, thirty four shot, and so it went hour by hour, day and night. The German revolution, 100 years ago

States are no different than warlords. Both seek to dominate, where the only difference is that the former maintains a false air of legitimacy by claiming the monopoly of violence, while the other's violence has not yet appropriated that perverse right. The so-called “general benevolence of democracy” ( De Waal, 2017 ) consequently reflects a testament to the need to placate a population so that it does not revolt against the status quo. Property is the mother of famine

Salama Kaila (1955-2018) A Palestinian Marxist persecuted by the Syrian regime dies in Amman, Jordan An obituary in Arabic

An even at the British Academy, London Radical physics: science, socialism and the paranormal

Then as now I align myself with Orwell's pessimism. "To the British working class, Orwell argued, the massacre of their comrades in Vienna, Berlin, or Madrid had seemed less worthy of their consideration than 'yesterday’s football match.' Even more disappointing to him was the total lack of solidarity that the English working class had shown for “colored” workers in the colonies." Today, despite a tremendous global flow of information of what is happening elsewhere, Orwell's pessimism has an echo when one looks at the extent of the working classes passivity in the "West" before the plunder, inequality, exploitation and ‘Islamophobia’ at home and people's struggle during the Arab uprisings or barbarism in Syrian and Myanmar. " Orwell’s late collaboration with the propaganda apparatus of Western imperialism is a sad, regrettable, and inexcusable fact." I think the following is a good assessment of Orwell. Geroge Orwell and the

"When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, there was hope. He was a man who championed the poor in what has always been a deeply divided society. He was a vibrant and controversial figure who wanted to lead a socialist revolution in Venezuela.  But Chavez was helped by strong commodity prices that funded his ambitious social programmes. With a fall in oil prices, President Maduro has had no such luck - and little of the charisma his predecessor had. During his leadership, the country has fallen into economic decline." ( The BBC ) Yes, strong commodities benefited Venezuela and other countries for a while, but a new socio-economic project cannot be built on a temporary boom or in one country or some "islands". That is impossible in a global capitalist system. The experience of Venezurla has proved that any faltering in the boom affects not only state revenues but also any deepening of popular democracy. And if the new leadership, whatever ideas and ideals it

UK From the archive The Daily Mail and Ralph Miliband

Educating Britain Suffragettes on the BBC:  Omission/filtering/sanitisation: It is scary to know that prominent Suffragettes were socialists. The BBC is celebrating 100 years since women over 30 and "who met minimum property qualifications" won the right to vote in Britain. I have gone through these three pieces and I have noticed deliberate ommision of what is an integral part of some prominent Suffragettes and the Suffragettes movement: socialism, communism, the Independent Labour Party.   Sylvia Pankhurst  is described as "a  vocal pacifist, anti-fascist and anti-colonialist activist."   In   this introduction (click "more"), and  this one ( recommended to teachers!) claims to be tracing "the history of women's movement in Britain" and "how women won the right to vote. Now, compare the above with Emily Davison   "was a  staunch feminist and passionate Christian , and considered that  socialism  was a moral and pol

Rodinson "mobilised Ouzegane’s point of being less concerned about whether Muslim dogmas were true or false, than with seeing Islam principally as a social and political instrument... Rodinson considered Islam as neither a good nor a bad ideology a priori, but rather insisted on the need to produce analyses of the religion that account for its social conditions in which it developed. As he wrote at the beginning of the his book  De Pythagore à Lénine , ‘the best way to comprehend nothing of a phenomenon is to isolate it, and to consider it, from either the interior or the exterior, as if it is the only one of its type." The Thinker and the Militant

Novecento, Bernardo Bertolucci's epic Part 1 Part 2