Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A new global credit crunch to come?

It was a different Poland. Yes, it was authoritarian, but it has a sense of international brotherhood. It was not a Poland that joined the imeprialists in destroying Iraq. "The festival was the catalyst for a decades-long series of Polish press photographs showing people of African descent (PAD) visiting and living in Poland. Bartosz Nowicki, a Polish photographer and curator who currently lives in Wales, has spent the past few years researching these archive photos from the period 1955-1989. He recently curated an exhibition,  Afro PRL , which highlighted the long-standing connections between white Poles and PAD, a memory that is often forgotten in contemporary Poland." "Afro-Poland"

Note: I am not from the Socialist Party. It just happens to agree with "Nationalise the Banks."

Pakistan A Marxist in Parliament dominated by feudals and capitalists

If people themselves have been commodified, what is surprising in commodifying citizenship? "Jalal is an Iraqi telecoms executive with fluent English and a Harvard degree. His wife is a surgeon. Well-off by any standards, they have always loved to travel, and have a particular fondness for Lake Como in Italy. But their Iraqi citizenship has often caused them visa problems. So, a few years ago, Jalal (not his real name) and his wife applied to become nationals of a second country: Antigua. After ten months of form-filling and “due diligence” (background checks and the like), they ploughed several hundred thousand dollars into property and a development fund on the Caribbean island, and in return got passports which entitle them to visa-free travel to 130 countries, including most of Europe. They send the citizenship consultant who helped them become Iraqi-Antiguans a card whenever they are in Como, to show their continued gratitude." — the Economist magazine, 02 July 2018 ...

Le défi tunisien

Macron and a law against 'fake news'

The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages. Comrades

"I learned that the Obama administration’s support for the Arab Spring uprisings had been hobbled from the start by internal disagreements over the same issues that now define Trump policy — about the nature of the threat from political Islam, about fidelity to autocratic allies like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and about the difficulty of achieving democratic change in Egypt and the region." The White House and the Strongman See also, It is a pattern

Book review Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis

Radu Jude's new film explores dark truths in Romanian history

"Today's nostalgia has become an engine of nationalism. It thrives on the economic and cultural insecurities thrown up by globalisation. We look backwards for a safe identity."  — Philip Stephens, Financial Times, 26/07/208

The age of post-truth: Adolf Hitler was a victim Netanyahu: Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews An Arab convinced him to "burn them"

The missing profits of nations

England " In Stockton-on-Tees, those living in the wealthier areas can expect to live as much as 18 years longer than those in the more deprived parts of the town. Life expextancy is 64 for a man. That's the same as Ethiopia." They must be those lazy people, smoking and drinking all day and who cannot go on a bike and look for a better job. How are they supposed to be healthy, shopping at wholefood and doing yoga?  Dying young in Stockton – England's most unequal town

عهد تميمي The girl that nearly destroyed the Israeli state 

Syria: Hundreds of detainees died in custody, according to the regime Hundreds??

"‘By mid-2017 Yemen faced total humanitarian disaster, its first famine since the 1940s and the world’s worst cholera epidemic.’ The situation was unprecedented and avoidable: both famine and cholera were ‘the result of a civil war dramatically worsened by foreign intervention'." — Helen Lackner Yemen's turn Note: Tariq Ali's position on Syria has been shameful. 

What a story! Life on the front line

Kurdish struggle "It was the international community of states that abandoned the Kurds. But the word “abandoned” is misleading, for the Kurdish freedom movement in Rojava never counted on international support in the first place. We all knew very well that US support was tactical and that it would conclude as the US pursued its imperialist, profit-driven agenda. We knew that as soon as ISIS, the so-called common enemy, was defeated, the Kurds would be left vulnerable to all manner of hostility." Is the Rojava's Dream at Risk An interview with Dilar Dirik