Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Death is Hard Labour by Khaled Khalifa 2019 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literature The novel is available in its original Arabic

The new socialism of fools

The Lebanese uprising continues

Separating science from the social and political, the BBC attempts to debunk myths adopted by the far right, but it ignores that the main perpetuators of racism are established institutions, domestically and globally, which lay down the conditions and grounds of racist behavious, the corporate media and political parties that play the "immigration card", especially in times of crisis of capitalism. The mainstream liberal ideology that claims inclusiveness in the name of "free market liberalism" but practises exclusion in employment, through Fortress Europe, and through the forms of "development" (e.g. uneven development), cultural essentialism, the nation state that embodies superiority and nationalism of the "imagined community" (including selective history and filtered school curricula and how "the West" and the white 'race' got welathier and more powerful) and the fear of the Other and the fostering of the irrational in an...

إذا أردنا محمود درويش

The revenge of the middle-class anti-elitist

Just as the Protestant work ethic can be construed as an ideology propagated by the bourgeoisie and inculcated into the working classes, the current discourse of love and happiness at work undoubtedly finds its greatest resonance within the professional and managerial classes. But just as the work ethic in the U.S. today circulates widely in the culture — as well as among employers, public officials, and policymakers — as an unquestioned value, the mandate to love our work and be happy with it is arguably becoming increasingly hegemonic as a cultural script and normative ideal. How do we make ourselves happy and in love with our job? Here is a typical response: add new responsibilities, get more involved, learn additional skills, add qualifications, and upgrade your game (Hannon 2015, 22, 152-153). Happiness at work, “a mindset that allows you to maximize performance and achieve your potential,” is, as is often repeated, “strongly related to productivity” (Pryce-Jones 2010, 4, 10). ...

The fat tail risk

Whatever "growth" means nowadays amid the destruction of the environment, according to the Trade Union Congress the UK has experienced The worst decade for growth in two centuries

"Freedom without constraints" or the American definition of freedom  by a conservative who sounds liberal

Muqtada al-Sadr's double game

Britain complicit in the crushing of Iran's Tudeh party

How the commodification of knowledge is creating a new age of colonialism

Palestinians have indeed 'missed an opportunity'

Clause IV: the enduring controversy

  Nature fights back

"Dissatisfaction with democracy"

"The good thing about the developments of the past two or three years is that most demonstrations have avoided using sectarian slogans. A new sense of what it means to be an Iraqi has emerged, one that isn’t characterised by affiliation to a particular confession or group. That’s really important. The political parties’ sectarian discourse is obsolete. They no longer have any way of scaring the people. That’s why they’re using bullets. They don’t have anything else left." The West and its cliched view of Iraq

“A German student has to  learn about the Holocaust , so, too, should every British student understand and face  Britain’s role in colonialism  and slavery." "It's time we're taught the downsides of our past in order to stop mistakes being repeated." (!) This is naïve. The Empire's plunder, subjugation and atrocities were not "mistakes." They were integral of the political economy of an empire. Read all about it Suggested reading: The Blood Never Dried by John Newsinger Inglorious Empire by Shashi Thahroor British Gulag (the British empire in Kenya)   by Caroline Elkins

When universities are businesses relying on supply and demand The School of Oriental and African Studies, London