Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Wrath of Silence (A Chinese movie. Beware of pop-up windows)

"The British curriculum dedicates plenty of attention to the violence of others - in Nazi Germany or during the American Civil War - and goes into great detail on a few events in medieval and pre-Victorian English history, like the Plague, the Great Fire of London, and the reign of Henry VIII. But a British school would not teach you anything about the brutality of British colonialism." It is time to teach colonial history in British schools

"European citizens, not refugees, behind most terrorist attacks" European Institute of International Studies

Why Redneck Revolt Says Deal With Racism First

U.S. The American workers

At the Barbican, London Farewell to the Welfare State

Tunisie Les diktats du FMI Plus de débit, plus de domination impérialiste

Development In Rodney's view, "the disproportionate weight and importance of even a small African working class offered potentially a more stable base of resistance. But, he emphasizes, that possibility cannot be fully realized as in the “developed” world because production in Africa proceeded on a different path than in Europe. In the latter, the destruction of agrarian and craft economies increased productive capacity through the development of factories and a mass working class. In Africa, he argues, that process was distorted: local craft industry was destroyed, yet large-scale industry was not developed outside of agriculture and extraction, with workers restricted to the lowest-paid, most unskilled work. “Capitalism in the form of colonialism failed to perform in Africa the tasks which it had performed in Europe in changing social relations and liberating the forces of production.”  How Europe underdeveloped Africa: the legacy of Walter Rodney Further reading ...

Democracy Against Capitalism Free ebook (available to download for 24 hours only)

Capitalism, democracy, climate, war, “globalism” and “national statehood” are off the agenda while purists ineffectually worry about the “niceties of national and international asylum law”. Reinventing the Anti-Immigrant Wheel

"Lehmans, animal spirit and the progressives" Note: the word 'progressive' is very questionable and problematic nowadays.

"Worst of all, there is a  growing international consensus  that the regime is the best solution for the devastation it has wrought. The international community is now shifting its focus toward reconstruction, rehabilitating the regime through rewarding those responsible for the country’s devastation, and pressuring refugees to return to a country where their safety is far from assured." Is it impossible that one day, we see that ‘secular’, unveiled wife of Al-Assad in London or Washington, preparing the ground for a full rehabilitation of the regime? The coming assault on Idlib

UK "Bad girls" in Holloway Prison

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

"Western liberals were widely perceived as ‘false friends’, as Conor Cruise O’Brien reported from Africa in the 1960s, and liberalism itself as an ‘ingratiating moral mask which a toughly acquisitive society wears before the world it robs’. Distrust of the Western discourse of human rights was likewise constant and deep. The Indonesian thinker Soedjatmoko challenged its presumption of universal morality, pointing to the global inequalities perpetuated by the champions of human rights. Arundhati Roy spoke in 2004 of an ‘alarming shift of paradigm’: ‘Even among the well-intentioned, the expansive, magnificent concept of justice is gradually being substituted with the reduced, far more fragile discourse of “human rights”’ – a minimalist request, basically, not to be killed, tortured or unjustly imprisoned. As a result, she argued ‘resistance movements in poor countries … view human rights NGOs as modern-day missionaries,’ complicit in the West’s attempt to impose an ‘unjust politica...

Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries: is it safe to return?

Centrists won't save Britain

I feel sad for David Beckham , that hero, icon for millions of British and non-British, a charming prince for many ladies, who missed a knighthood, for tax avoidance. What a horrific punishment!  Let's not question the income of a celebrity or a footballer. They are more important than teachers who are deserting the profession or nurses. How boring Britain would be without celebrities!

Is Iraq steering towards post-sectarianism? I think there is some intellectual laziness in describing some non-traditional/governing parties as "populist". This is the adjective that has been (mis/ab) used in Europe as well. I also think that the support of the protests by the highest Shi'a authority is indicative. It aims at absorbing the anger, but also a move that is aware of the growth of the Sadrist movement. After all, this same authority has been generally complicit for more than a decade and has not mobilised the Shi'a (the majority) for  economic and social rights.

Israeli weapons used against Rohingya Muslims