Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Postmodernism Some Virgin Atlantic pilots will strike from 22 December to Christmas Day in a dispute over union recognition, reports the BBC. "Union recognition"? What do you need for in the land of milk and honey? In a society of "our values" and (exportable) "liberal democracy", class struggle is outdated and unions mean socialism and communism! After all, our priority is to invest money in space tourism, Richard Branson and Co wanted to say.

Civilisation "The death comes after it was revealed earlier this year that the Harmondsworth site - the largest detention centre in Europe - had  the highest number of self-harm cases  in the UK." An Algerian man "dies" in a detention centre

Isabelle, 41, a single mother, had never taken part in a protest movement before. She works at a sandwich stand at Toulouse airport for the minimum wage – less than €1,200 a month – and her daily shifts begin at 3am. She was among many who had deliberately spoiled her ballot paper in last year’s presidential election final round, unwilling to choose between Macron or the far-right Marine Le Pen. “This is now about so much more than fuel tax,” she said. “We seem to live in a world gone mad where the rich pay next to nothing and the poor are constantly taxed. We’ve had enough of the elite." – Céline: "He [Macron] gave good speeches and I really believed his promises that he would change  France . But not any more.” – L:   "People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, decla...

This piece suffers from some problems, in particular the narrow bourgeois definition of democracy in regards to the "Tunisian exception", but it is worth a read, especially the first part of it that deals with the historical background. Failed dream of political Islam 

A glimpse of the sexualisation of women in Egypt Example: the actress Rania Youssef Cairo Film Festival

The "#BloodSausageGate" A bit of sarcasm: Germany's Interior Ministry has apologised for serving pork sausage at an Islam conference in Berlin last week.  These intolerant Muslims, who keep pouring into our country,  cannot even tolerate a piece of pork! How are they supposed to integrate? As a tolerant white English woman said to a Muslim beggar on a London high street yesterday, "Go back home!"

Our values At these universities, the data showed average salaries of: £52,000 for white academics £38,000 for black academics  £37,000 for academics from an Arab background This means that black and Arab academics at the UK's top universities earn an average 26% less than white colleagues. Ethnic minority academics pay These are universities which claim they are defending "equal rights" and "democracy" (even helping others establish democractic institutions and "democratic values").

France "Populism"? Avoid this word and focus on the processes that have led to revolt. "Populism is the liberals, and some leftists, buzzword.  A reaction to the explosion of inequalities between the super-rich and middle classes

Civilisation "Denmark plans to house the country’s most unwelcome foreigners in a most unwelcoming place: a tiny, hard-to-reach island that now holds the laboratories, stables and crematory of a center for researching contagious animal diseases. As if to make the message clearer, one of the two ferries that serve the island is called the Virus." Denmark: Virusing migrants

Iran: Stop jailing teachers now! A Dutch company bashing workers rights in Bangladesh

  Spain's turn "In every [European] country about ten per cent of the population are secretly fascist bastards." — Paul Mason The (neo)liberals (the free marketeers, the war criminals, the So-called Socialists, the technocrats, the "Democrats", etc, have  created some shit and now someone has to clear it away. 

George Bush Snr.:  Death of another criminal موت مجرم آخر: عن بوش الأب Example 1: The Amiriya shelter bombing A piece by the Iraqi Musician Naseer Shamma Example 2:  Highway of death

Warning! Anyone who links to this article or reads it is anti-Semitic. "The holy of the holies" is untouchable

"The movement later grew to reflect a range of grievances, including the marginalisation of rural areas, high living costs, and general anger at President Macron's economic policies. The protests have no identifiable leadership and gained momentum via social media, encompassing a whole range of participants from the anarchist far left to the nationalist far right, and plenty of moderates in-between." — The bbc online Welcome to French "neoliberalism"!  Note that the liberal  Guardian called the movement "riots".

Financialisation or profitability?

I have read nothing new in this FT review, but it is a good reminder of key actors and legacies. (I got access to the piece after googling the headline below) Britain, America, and the battle of mastery of the Middle East

Austerity (and "neoliberalism") is state violence that provokes violence. England had it in 2011 . Paris riots

"Pension reforms delaying retirement brought outcry from Russians. But Putin keeps  squeezing lower incomes, exempting a wealthy elite close to the Kremlin." —Le Monde Diplomatique, November 2018

"With ... entrenched notions as background, the United states began to waiver on the Huntingtonian notion of clash of civilisation and adopted a new project of pluralizing the one Islam identified by Huntington and his culturalist predecessors while maintaining Christianity as singular. This pluralization of Islam, as Islams, would allow the US to support the emergence of a new 'Islam,' a liberal form of Islam, that is more in tune with US imperial designs, and which would approximate modern Western notions of religions and religious subjectivities, as well as Western liberal citizenship, so as not to be incompatible with the rhetoric of democracy, while at the same time allowing the US to wage war against that other 'Islam' which continues to resist the Western (neo)liberal order."  Joseph Massad, Islam in Liberalism , 2015, p. 59

Surprise! Surprise! MeToo founder: Campaign now 'unrecognisable' Without addressing power structure and power relation in society as a whole, you won't get that far.