Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Know your history The question is: why is not that history taught at school in a country that calls itself "free" and "democratic"? That applies to other countries, too, whether French, British, Belgian ... colonial history, Islamic slave trade history, or Japanese and Chinese history, and modern American imperialist history. "It's no surprise that it's still possible to avoid a complete history in favour of a prettier picture of the antebellum South throughout Charleston.

A fascinating story that could make a plot of a novel British soldiers, fresh from fighting Argentina’s fascist junta in the Falklands, were now being asked to help another Latin American military dictatorship eliminate its own opposition activists, by cutting off their arms supply. And incredibly, at some point on the afternoon of Monday 11 April 1983, the British and Belizean authorities agreed to do it. Death of a double agent: British torture and betrayal in 1980s Belize

" The new wave of protests that erupted early this week in Baghdad, in which protesters are demanding dignity, jobs and services, has spread to other southern cities including Basra, Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniyah and Nasiriyah. It has escalated quickly and now includes calls for the 'fall of the regime'." It is interesting to notice another counter-sectarianism evidence. The majority of Iraq's population is Shi'a and the protests are taking place in Shi'a-dominated cities, with anti-Iranian slogans raised and the Iranian flag burnt. When the first Arab uprising erupted in Tunisia in December 2010, one the dominant slogans was: "Jobs are a right you band of thieves." Then came "the people want the overthrow of the regime." The socio-economic revolution in the MENA region is yet to come. And in the absence of radicalism, leadership and strategy, it is going to a be a long and protracted process that the counter-revolutionary forces, i...

Fake tolerance, repression of individual freedoms in the name of a new definition of secularism What makes someone –a white person– in a country originally founded as a settler colonial state identify themselves as "Canadian" and regards a Sikh or a Muslim citizen not "Canadian" ? Canada became a sovereign state less than 100 years ago. Its name is indigenous to some of the people who had inhabited the land.

iPhone workers today are 25 times more exploited than textile workers of 19th century England I do not agree with the authors, who are using a Marxist analysis, on calling Eeastern European countries before 1990 'socialist'. Their labbelling throws dust in readers' eyes.  If those countries were socialist, what do today's socialists are fighting for then? And if those countries were socialist, it is more of an argument for the defenders of capitalism: "if that was socialism, we don't want it." The Rate of Exploitation (The Case of the iPhone) Related: "Sucking up"  (Apple's app and Hong Kong protests)

I would say Political Economy + [International] Sociology. Economic Crisis and the Crisis of Economics

An event in London

The Hirak movement in Algeria: its achievements, predicament and limitations

Worst after the U.S. Sociologically speaking, I wonder whether this has something to do with the England and the U.S.  being the pioneers in implementing an agressive form of capitalism, also known as neoliberalism, that has championed and glorified individualism, narcicism, self-centrism through privatising everytging in the name of "freedom."  The phenomenon is by no means restricted to kids. Mark Fisher's diagnosis is really accurate. England's schools 'worst for cyber-bullying', according to the OECD Related: Life expectancy in the UK

According to this BBC clip, China became communist in 1949 . And we know through schooling, the "cold war", the media, the common people we meet everyday and the experts that China was "communist" until very recently. According to the man in the interview, "there's a long way to go to reach the final goal of building a communist society." Now who should I believe the BBC's journalist or a Chinese 'illiterate', who has never been educated in how to describe socio-economic formations and did not know that "communism" existed in many countries and failed. Could it be that he is just brainwahsed and still believes in an ideal? Here is what the British Academy wrote in an introduction to a conference last year: "2019 will mark the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which aimed to create the world's largest socialist society. " (my emphasis) However, a few lines down we read, "This confe...

Unlike the previous economic recession (the long depression), today almost everyone is predicting a recession in a few months. In 2010 the following question was put to a Nobel Prize winner. – "So what caused the recession if it wasn’t the financial crisis?" – "(Laughs) That’s where economics has always broken down. We don’t know what causes recessions. Now, I’m not a macroeconomist so I don’t feel bad about that. (Laughs again.) We’ve never known. Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity." —Eugene Fama

"The logic of cultural reductionism goes as follows:  Muslim  women are  uniquely  oppressed women.   Their oppression is caused by their society’s uniquely anti-women culture, i.e.  Muslim  culture. This culture is the polar opposite of Western civilization, which, obviously,  allowed  Western women to progress and advance to the point of parity with men. Western women’s oppression (if it exists), is either negligible or is caused by a few, degenerated uncivilized  sub men individuals. In other words, it is not systemic, but interpersonal and racial; resulting from the animalistic predatory Black men and genetically degenerated poor whites. In order to prevent these interpersonal transgressions from these degenerated/uncivilized  sub men individuals, there should be a more robust patriarchal involvement in the national community to protect Western/white women." The Feminist Movement in Saudi Arabia

The End of Anti-Fascism Related: The New Anti-Communism: Rereading the Twentieth-Century

"Civilised" Europe

The Franco-Egyptian Initiative for Rights and Freedoms published a letter to France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, calling on his government to “seriously consider its responsibilities concerning the use of French weapons against peaceful protesters ”. My comment: Why should Macron consider that? Like his predecessors, he is elected democratically to carry out a democratic mandate by millions who believe in capitalist democracy... His predecessors too supported Mubarak's regime in different ways.  Voting democratically for men and women who prop up dictators is part of the democratic tradition. When I go to the ballot box I have a shopping list why I am choosing this or that candidate. Complicity in repression, debt enslaving, and underdevelopment of others perpetuated by the governments who I voted for in the past are not in my shopping list. So, I continue exercising my democratic right. In fact, I am denying the others to have the possibility to gain democractic rights. ...

"Many international commentators continue to present the war in Yemen through the lens of Saudi Arabian intervention or sectarian conflict, [or both]. In essence, Yemeni internal stability has been undermined by widespread political disenfranchisement and socio-economic marginalisation. The Houthis exploited this alienation, which was not merely sectarian – many Zaydi Shiites rejected their message as anachronistic and anti-democratic, while many Sunnis shared their non-sectarian resentments." So far so good. But, like in Syria, it is convenient to give predominance to "sectarianism." It is good for both imperialism and "Western" public consumption. Note: Al-Arabiya is an arm of the Saudi propaganda machine. For that obvious reason there is no mention of the Saudi, and the Emirati, crimes in Yemen. That does not invalidate the analysis that the conflict is originally 'a homegrown affair."  The war in Yemen is a homegrown affair Relate...

Some free ebooks on Verso

"Since the late 1980s, US migration controls have worked to discipline low-wage migrant labor, ensuring the availability of a population of vulnerable, deportable workers for exploitation by US capital. After the 2008 financial crisis, however, the deportation machine kicked into high gear, earning Obama the title of 'Deporter in Chief.' Under Trump, the expansion of the war on migrants has reached dystopic dimensions." Migrants on the Front Lines of Global Class War But if you are "an Iraqi who helped the US military" or from persecuted religious minorities [Rohignyan? I doubt it], you are in .

The Fallagah's fight against the French A documentary

I have just finished reading this great book ( available here ). It is a very good discussion of what capitalism is and the real and possible alternatives. The focus is on the developed capitalist countries. And I agree with Ben Tarnoff when he wrote, reviewing Erik Olin  Wright's last book, that "Wright writes with an unusual combination of clarity, depth and warmth. He engages generously with opposing arguments. He acknowledges difficulty and complexity. He exudes a democratic respect for his reader. Democracy, in fact, is the essence of his socialism. For him, a just society would enact democracy in its deepest sense. He wants a world where everyone has access to the 'material and social means necessary to live a flourishing life” and the opportunity “to participate meaningfully in decisions about things that affect their lives'."