Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Brexit "More ugly historical ironies may yet waylay Britain on its treacherous road to Brexit. But it is safe to say that a long-cossetted British ruling class has finally come to the end of itself as it was." "The British ruling class amd Brexit"

"Unless we, as a government, are prepared to act vigourously and take strong measures to combat the insidious propaganda of the extremists we are bound to have something very like rebellion in India before long... You say what you like about not holding India by the sword, but you have held it by the sword for 100 years and when you give up the sword you will be turned out. You must keep the sword ready to hand and in case of trouble or rebellion use it relentlessly. [Edwin Samuel] Montagu calls it terrorism, so it is and in dealing with natives of all classes you have to use terrorism whether you like it or not." —General Henry Rawlinson, commander-in-chief in India, quoted by John Newsinger, The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire,  Bookmarks Publications 2006, pp. 113-14

Surprise! Surprise! These Palestinians are really depriving many people of a few things. BCRI reversed their decision to award Dr. Angela Davis the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award Also in Arabic

"They are either fanatics, or victims who need our support." Class struggle in Tunisia: A general strike today called for by the UGTT "Tunisia is under pressure from the  International Monetary Fund  (IMF) to freeze public sector wages as part of reforms to help reduce the country's budget deficit." Rise of cost of living, IMF's imperialism, global capitalist competition ... Tunisian "revolution": 2011-2019 Further readings - Debt, the IMF and the World Bank by Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet  - The People Want by Gilbert Achcar

“Turkey’s authoritarian turn is often portrayed as a by-product of President Erdoğan’s vainglorious personality or as the inherent telos of political Islam. But rather than signifying a stock competition between religion and secularism or between Islam and the West, the current fault lines in Turkey, as in much of the world, are emblematic of a slow-moving structural breakdown and reordering of the global capitalist system and the resurgence of nationalist, nativist and authoritarian politics in response to this." Middle East Report (288) editorial

“Intrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals.” – John Berger 100th anniversary of the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg

The local and the globa l Göran Therborn employs a very interesting approach. I recommend the following articles: - Class in the 21st Century (2012) - New Masses (2014) - Age of Progress? (2016) - Dynamics of Inequality (2017) Note: you may not find free access to all of the articles unless you have a subscription.

A public event in London: a book launch World in Crisis

The present has a background Example: a champion of "middle-class America" and "middle-class values", a fighter against "aliens" Wasn't Bill Clinton a darling for Liberals and Neoliberals alike? Further reading “ The Obama administration has deported more people than any other president’s administration in history. In fact, they have deported more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century.”

I'm surprised to see this on El País . I'm not surprised to see the distortion in calling Rosa Luxemburg a 'pacifist.' De su vasta producción teórica destacan los temas que forman parte de su legado y que constituyen lo que, una vez muerta Rosa, se denominó “luxemburguismo”, una escuela marxista de características propias: su pacifismo, su lucha contra el revisionismo y la defensa de la democracia en el seno de la revolución. But which "democracy" Luxemburg fought for? Bourgeois democracy? "In the event of war threatening to break out, it is the duty of the workers and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved to do everything possible to prevent the out break of war by taking suitable measures, which can, of course, be changed or intensified in accordance with the exacerbation of the class struggle and the general political situation. Should war break out nevertheless, it is their duty to advocate its speedy end and to utilis...

The BBC: ignoring criminal consequences of an era In its " Russia's bitter taste of capitalism ", there is an omission of the major consequence of the restoration of capitalism in Russia and the USSR, which is that  the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union took more lives than the Iraq and Syrian wars put together : 1.9 million excess deaths in Russia alone in 1990–95; around 4 million for the  USSR in the 1990s.  Sources:  – Vladimir Shkolnikov and Giovanni Andrea, "Population Crisis and Rising Mortality in Transitional Russia’, in Cornia and Renato Paniccià, eds,  "The Mortality Crisis in Transitional Economies", Oxford 2000, p. 256; Michael Marmot,  "The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longevity", New York 2004, p. 196. –  Jospeh Stiglitz's Globalisation and Its Discontents, 2002 Then add the plunder of the wealth and the rise of the oligarchs. Compare that with the way the BBC deals wi...

"Tolerance"? To explore ... Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire

Something I was surprised to discover. Political rights for foreigners

Here is an argument published by foreignpolicy.com exactly a year ago: One mistaken reason to avoid attacking North Korea is the fear of direct retaliation. The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly claimed that North Korea already has ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads that can reach as far as the United States. But this is almost certainly an exaggeration, or rather an anticipation of a future that could still be averted by prompt action. It’s true that North Korea could retaliate for any attack by using its conventional rocket artillery against the South Korean capital of Seoul and its surroundings, where almost 20 million inhabitants live within 35 miles of the armistice line. U.S. military officers have cited the fear of a “sea of fire” to justify inaction. But this vulnerability should not paralyze U.S. policy for one simple reason: It is very largely self-inflicted. [G]iven South Korea’s deliberate inaction over many years, any damage ultimately done to Seoul...

England: the rule of capital and corporate university "Up to a quarter of students in England are doing degrees that will not give them sufficient earnings to justify the cost of their loans, a think tank says. The centre-right group urges ministers to cut places on those courses offering little financial return and increase those in post-18 technical education." The centre-right group is obviously a defender of capital running universities and determining what education should students pursue. Instead of scrapping fees or make higher education almost free like in most countries, the solution is to scrap places because they are not marketable. The purpose is to create a debt-enslaved, pliable workforce.

The British yellow vests are of a different stock

"Capitalism is killing us" Translated to Arabic as "The capitalist terrorism ... How modern life is killing us without blood"  الإرهاب الرأسمالي ... هكذا تقتلنا الحياة الحديثة دون دماء

من الأرشيف المجلس البلدي

England "Shandor, 48, became homeless after falling behind on his rent following an accident at work." 48 years old and doesn't own a home! What has he been doing in his life? Why didn't he get a university degree and a good job? Why hasn't worked hard, not taking two jobs, not riding a bike looking for a third one, or, at least, why hasn't he managed to take a mortgage and work for a bank for 20/30 years? What is the difference between him and those refugees who come to our country for our milk and honey and our "generous benefits system", and make it unsustainable, dragging productivity down? He should be banished to Libya or Russia and his boy taken into custody!  England needs three million new social homes, a report says What about the developers, speculators, and the house prices? Three millions homes means a fall in the house prices, and a house after all, is not built to live in, but a place to make profits from, attract oligarchies,...