Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Sorrows of the Black City By Mohammed Elfitory

"The prison camps are not just an anomaly from a nativist Trump administration, they are something that has been happening for years and years. I’m not only referring to short-term Border Patrol detention, but also the mass round-up, incarceration, expulsion, and banishment of non-citizens that has been happening in a sustained way in the United States since the 1990s, and through a variety of huge operations before then. And it’s not something that is just limited to the United States. While the concentration camp may vary from country to country, it is one of the cornerstones of a global border system designed to arrest and confine uprooted, displaced, and dispossessed people. Many are on the move because of the current global economic and political system (globalization and the free market neoliberal economic model) that has long privileged the wealthy elite and protected the interests of multinational corporations, all else be damned." Empire of the Borders

Russia A meaningful change in Russia is not coming after/through these coming elections, but there is discontent and there is some dynamic going on. " Society should not perceive the situation as having only the authorities and the liberals, who support the same economic system but are unhappy with corruption. Our task is to show that there is a big role in the democratic process for left ideas and social demands. On the whole, the society tends toward left social democracy. For me personally, that may be too moderate. But in any case, people want social transformations and a mixed economy." The situation on the ground is not allowing more than being "too moderate".  It is also good to be "too moderate"; otherwise, the bulk of Western media and "leaders"  would call you either an extremist or populist! "Russia Needs Its Own Bernie Sanders."

This is a very interesting publication by Oxford. Michael Roberts has reviewed some chapters with a focus on profitability, crises and financialisation. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

Berlin, Germany It seems that the police of the strongest economy in Europe, which exports submarines, trains and surveillance equipments lacks the technologies to make arrests of far-rights criminals! Ferat Kocak believes this is one reason why the violence here has flared up. "This is traditionally a very white middle-class area, but that's now changing, it is becoming more multicultural, with people with different lifestyles. These far-right guys don't feel comfortable with that." I thought the problem was with the uneducated, the unenlightened! Far-right violence in a Berlin district

"The professional who moves to a neighbouring city for work is not usually described as a migrant, and neither is the wealthy businessman who acquires new passports as easily as he moves his money around the world. It is most often applied to those people who fall foul of border control at the frontiers of the rich world, whether that’s in Europe, the US, Australia, South Africa or elsewhere. That’s because the terms that surround migration are inextricably bound up with power, as is the way in which our media organisations choose to disseminate them." How the media contributed to "the migrant crisis"

Bab El-Maqam ("Passion") by Mohamed Malas The story of the film takes place in a conservative neighbourhood in Aleppo, Syria, and with the loming 2003 war on Iraq. The murder of the woman in the film was based on a real event that occurred in 2001.  Very good filming and outstanding acting.

State violence in France and America compared

"The problem with the 'cheap food' system is that, it is only 'cheap' for capital: it really isn't remotely cheap for most of the world's populations of people, animals and plants. It is in fact enormously expensive, and we are beginning to pick up the tab." What, or whom, will we eat? Related article: Capital's hunger in abundance

Guendelsberger lays out in awful detail how a pathological desire for maximum profit over almost all regard for workers has trapped people like rats in circumstances where companies would rather install painkiller vending machines than alter their meat-grinder operations. Low-wage work in America

This is a good picture of Britain's political-economic situation There is a historical background prior to 2016 and the crisis that led to Brexit. "There was now a clear division between those leaders who represented the interests of big business and the City of London wanting ‘free trade’ and a big role in the EU and rank and file Conservatives who    represented small businesses and the narrow nationalist and racist elements in small provincial towns. They wanted no truck with ‘Europe’ and harkened back to ‘good old days’ of a white imperial Britain ploughing its own furrow – something, of course, that had disappeared even before the UK joined the EU. This division was heightened by the bulk of the ‘popular’ press, whose moguls were either Australian-Americans like Rupert Murdoch, or aristocratic empire believers like the Rothermeres or the Barclay brothers." The analysis also includes the impacts of "no-deal Brexit" on business and labour. A crucial ar...

Syria Despite the length of the war and the catastrophes it has brought, the deeper forces behind Syria’s conflict remain poorly understood, even on the Left. The protagonists are too often seen in the culturalist terms of “Sunnis vs. Shias,” or “Islamists vs. Secularists.” Just as often, the war is reduced to pure geopolitics, with the lead actors assumed to be mere proxies for America and its international opponents (or allies). Rarest of all is any developed discussion of the class dynamics that shaped the Syrian state and society even before the 2011 conflict. Yet these had a decisive effect on the uprising and the regime’s ability to withstand it. Grasping these social elements of the conflict is just as important today if we want to understand the Assad regime’s strategy for the “new Syria,” and how it intersects with the plans of his Russian and Syrian allies.

Very interesting development  in Nigeria "Mr Sowore’s Coalition for Revolution movement is calling for Nigerians across the country to take to the streets to demand an end to insecurity. They also want free education and healthcare for all as well as for key economic sectors to be nationalised."

Escape from love

US and Iran, short memories

Three mass shootings in the US in less than a week! Disappointment on the faces of those who expected "Allahu Akbar".

Passport by Mahmoud Darwish

Bringing Gender to the Forefront of the Trade Union Movement

India’s middle class had never before faced a revolt by domestic workers on such a scale. Sandhya Gupta, a resident, told the  New York Times : ‘They are like [a] bone that is stuck in our throats — we can neither swallow them, nor can we spit them out’ India's servants revolt