Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

!أنا لا أصلّي أنا أتوضّأ، دون صلاة، وهذي شمالي أعفّ وأطهر ممن يصلّي نهاراً ويسرق في الليل خبز عيالي ... !أنا لا أصوم أنا صائم منذ ستين عام أجوع وآكل لكنني لا أبسمل عن لقمة بالحرام ... أنا لا أزكّي فمن أين لي؟ وحتى لحافي.. قصير على أرجلي؟ — كاظم حجّاج

" With football, by contrast, there can be outbreaks of angry populism, as supporters revolt against the corporate fat cats who muscle in on their clubs; but for the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their crack cocaine. Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham." Football: a dear friend to capitalism

"Britain is a toxic place" I agree from experience, Michael.

" Benzema received less tentative backing from the maverick Socialist politician and former Education Minister Benoît Hamon, who  said  Benzema had “evoked a reality.” We are, he continued, a nation in “denial over the rise of intolerance.” In today’s France, he concluded, “we can all too easily say that we don’t like Benzema because he has the mug of an Arab.” This is the same France, Hamon had no need to add, where former President Nicolas Sarkozy referred to Arab youths as “ scum ” and whose interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, once  joked  that : “One Arab is OK. It’s when there are more that there are problems.” "Does French Soccer Have an Arab Problem?" Related The culturalization of social antagonisms Anti-Muslim Racism from Above and From Below Racism: the achilles heel of middle class liberalism " I sure as hell would not be able to sleep soundly if I thought my fate rested upon the European liberal middle classes."

"War is the continuation of business by other means." — Bertolt Brecht  "War is business and business is good for America," [ Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Israel, and others] "The latest Global Peace Index report finds that the economic impact of violence to the global economy was $13.6 trillion in 2015 in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). This is equivalent to $5 per day for every person on the planet, or 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment (FDI). The toll of violence is typically counted in terms of its human and emotional cost, but the financial damage to the economy is yet another additional factor to consider. When counting the economic impact one must look at the costs of preventing and containing violence, as well as measuring its consequences. This is important because spending on containing violence, while perhaps necessary, is fundamentally economically unproductive. How do you "add up" the cos...

Leading Olympic expert Jules Boykoff takes the 2012 Olympics in London as a case study of corporate greed and popular resistance against Celebration Capitalism .

The development of capitalism has good news for "the developing countries". How the West will continue to rule. " As the next industrial revolution unfolds, the model for economic growth that arose alongside globalization will offer a less certain path toward development. Though new technologies will not completely erase the benefit of cheap labor, they will reduce the number of opportunities countries have to industrialize, diversify and grow their economies." The Rise of Manufacturing Marks the Decline of Globalization

" Fighting the state is hard enough without navigating a maze of middle class entitlement. And as a result these movements fail to offer me anything that can realistically improve my life or make surviving capitalism easier." Nicole Vosper on the Guardian

Europe's Solidarity Crisis: A Perspective from Greece

The Egyptian Satirist Who Inspired a Revolution

Cairo C. 1900-1934 The accurate translation for Arabic meaning of Cairo is "the invincible".

China's 'New Silk Road' into Europe is about more than money

"When 13th century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi  wrote  “See how the polestar is ogling Leo,” he was probably referring to the constellation, not  Titanic  star Leonardo DiCaprio. Or maybe the mystic was augering his legacy’s unfortunate future in the hands of  Gladiator  writer David Franzoni, who is working on a big-budget biopic of the poet, and who wants DiCaprio for the starring role." An article on foreignpolicy.com

Mitterrand's War

Richard Wolff and the Deepening Crisis

Venezuela: Near the End?

Designing for the One Percent

The Mercenaries University

Liberals and Trumpism Why I'm Not a Liberal

Remembering Mohamed Ali Mohamed Ali and the Black Panthers