Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Venezuela's crazy economics I wonder though what is this "international community" that is holding a solution to the disaster in a world dominated by a hegemon, international capital, and a continuing rise of far-right regimes.  Is the author speaking about the same "international community" that should have done something about the slaughter in Syria, the genocide in Myanmar, the detsruction in Libya, or the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, one of the worst in moder history?

Venezuela Maduro is supported by authoritarian China and Russia. The opposition is supported by the "democratic" U.S., Canada, a "democratically-elected" neofascist in Brazil, and the like. A coup should be OK then. Then they could claim it was a "humanitarian intervention" by "the free world" in the interest of "the Venezuelan people", i.e. the oligarchs and the "middle class". I wonder though how the American imperialists support a coup without having the army on their side. The 2002-US-supported coup almost escalated to a civil war.

"Human bone" in Primark's sock Workers in Asia and else where are sending a message: "we are exploited to the bone so that you could afford what we make."

"We do not want communists in Brazil" Anticommunism without communism

Britain Be careful with what you advocate.  Even for half-baked solutions, the market fundamentalists would ditch you out

Davos and the ‘liberal order’

"Order prevails in the Arab world"

???

لا بديل من إسقاط الأسد… بين الشعار والواقع

Italy and France A row that exposes both hypocrisy and truth Further reading: -  How poor countries develop rich countries by Jason Hickel (LSE) - How Europe underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney - Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century  by John Smith

"The key to understanding contemporary authoritarianism in Morocco lies thus not only in the monarchy as a core institution, in its religious authority or its neopatrimonial power and its clientilistic networks, but also in the class projects of urban renewal, slum upgrading, poverty alleviation, gentrification, structural adjustment, market liberalization, foreign capital investment, and the creation of a good business climate. Instead of focusing on how much power the monarchy possesses, the book tries to capture how methods and techniques of government and rule have changed within the context of our contemporary global situation. The creation of a "good business climate" became key for the ways in which authoritarianism transformed and the ways in which the interests of ruling domestic elites and global economic elites increasingly intertwined. The central arguments of this book contradict this popular mythification of the Moroccan exception. I argue that the ref...

Admission of lack of integration is the best part I like in this review. "I loved the  New Enclosure  as an account of the operation of government under the imperative of neoliberalism. But what I craved was a deeper integration with economic history. "I think Brett does a great job of making clear that his entire argument is operating within self-imposed limits. It is an analysis of the realm of government and governmental discourse. As such it makes a huge contribution. It provides a frame within which many other histories can be written. But reading Brett has left me worrying about the sanitizing effect of this kind of methodological choice. It has left me worrying because, as I am all too aware, the same criticism can be made of my book  Crashed ." Christophers'  The New Enclosure

Mainstream cinema Is it gettinng "history wrong" or is it deliberate distortion?

التحولات الجنسية كنتيجة للقهر في المنطقة العربية "Sexual transformations as a result of oppression in the Arab region" One of the sources used by the author to write this article is  Zigmunt Bauman's  Liquid Love .

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