Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Calling it a ‘pre-revolutionary situation’ is an exaggeration, I think. Macronism in peril Original article in French

A must read account with historical background and focus on the women’s movement

“ Two tyrants, Reza Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini focused on policing women’s bodies as the site of their respective ideologies of power and domination, with the bodies of women as the ideological battleground of their patriarchal practices. “What we are witnessing in Iran in the imposition of mandatory veiling is, of course, the reverse of what we see in much of Europe and North America where Muslim women are systematically harassed if they choose to wear the Muslim hijab.  For decades not a single day passes without a racist, misogynist, bigoted violent attack on Muslim women in Europe and the US.” How they became an ideological battleground

“ Sri Lanka —like so many other countries struggling for solvency —remains a colony with administration outsourced to the International Monetary Fund. We still export cheap labor and resources, and import expensive finished goods —the basic colonial model. The country is still divided and conquered by local elites, while real economic control is held abroad. The I.M.F. has extended loans to Sri Lanka 16 times, always with stringent conditions. They just keep restructuring us for further exploitation by creditors.” Sri Lanka Collapsed First, but It Won’ Be the Last By Indrajit Samarajiva  The New York Times,  NYTimes.com   15 August 2022 As a Sri Lankan, watching international news coverage of my country’ economic and political implosion is like showing up at your own funeral, with everybody speculating on how you died. The Western media accuse China of luring us into a debt trap. Tucker Carlson says environmental, social and corporate governance programs killed us. Everyb...

Creating a new military alliance with Israel

A story during the Hungarian uprising against the Stalinist regime and the Soviet invasion in 1956. The movie is not about the uprising itself and it actually never gives a voice to the socialist and democratic demands of Hungarian revolutionaries . Neither of the two characters who exchanged their views about the system represented the revolutionaries.  Trezor (Hungary, 2018 )

But most remain imprisoned or have disappeared

“The insurgents are primarily Muslims from the coastal zone of Cabo Delgado, recruited by local fundamentalist preachers with a basically socialist message - that Sharia, or Islamic law, would bring equality and everyone would share in the coming resource wealth.“ A Peasant Uprising Related Jihadists and the curse of gas and rubies in Mozambique

A good production. “The English have treated this country shamefully. And the rich—my father included have treated the poor worse. The worst slums in Europe, they say.” —Frances O’Flaherty - Frances: “My father says that socialism is the work of the devil.” - Elisabeth: “Sounds like mine. But if poverty is the work of God, I’m with the devil.” Rebellion  

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 educat...

Is the United States on the brink of a civil war? This is what a revolution looks like Origins of the police Related The BBC does it again. Black people are classless. They are just black. Why US protests resonate in the UK

Supported the 2011 uprising from the beginning Fadwa Souleiman May Skaf

The deal with the military means that the uprising has stopped short from becoming a revolution; it means that the balance of forces has tilted more than ever since the begining of the uprising towards the military leadership and genocidal militia; it means a win for the regional reactionary forces such as the Egyptian regime and the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE ; it means that the opposition has not been able to split the army, produce a revolutionary figure and create revolutionary organisations that could continue the struggle.

Muslims, like those of 2011 uprisings before the counter-revolution, and like those in Algeria, are not led by Islamists and are not demanding an Islamic state. Weird, isn't it? Sudan's military rulers  "responded to a draft constitutional document presented to it by a coalition of protest groups and political parties." The Transitional Military Council's leaders said " the document omitted Islamic law , which they said remained the bedrock of all laws."    David Pilling from the Financial Times  wrote: "there is a retro-revolutionary feel to a movement that has both a secular and a syndicalist tinge." I am not opitmistic though when it comes to toppling the regime. There is no strategy to either take over state institutions or build a dual power. The army is still intact and there is no organisation to carry pit an insurrection. Putting pressure would at most achieve modest reforms (see Tunisia). Genuine change requires a radical mo...

Algeria The political economy of regime survival

There are a number of issues that organizations such as the UGTT must contend with, namely the role of government in post-January 14 Tunisia and the allocation of roles between the state, elected officials, political parties, and civil society, ensuring new social and political dynamics achieve the recognition they deserve, and resistance to the neoliberal agenda imposed by the international aid donors. The traditional organizations of Tunisian civil society will have to make progress on all these fronts if they wish to recover their ability to emancipate the people and neutralize financial backers’ attempts to sweep aside the social and economic demands of those who initiated the Revolution of Dignity (and not the “Jasmine Revolution,” as the Nobel Committee put it). The actors leading these new social dynamics have not yet had their last word. Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: The Tunisian Case of UGTT

Egypt removes 25 January 2011 and 30 June 2013 events from school curriculum

"Fishy neoliberalism in Morocco" A more accurate translation of the first slogan is "the people want to overthrow corruption".

U.S. Chris Hedges explains why an uprising is coming

Five films on the modern Arab world