Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

If you attempt to erase the peculiarities and individuality of life by violence, then life itself must suffocate.  —Life And Fate by Vasily Grossman

Union busting at Ryanair

Some of this reminds me of how five or six years ago in a class of seven students in a UK elite university three of them (two Germans and one British) were in favour of a "benevolent dictator" (in the Arab context). The bloody horrors of Pinochet showed how capitalism will react when it's threatened

A short video about COVID19 crisis, its origins and its remedy (more details in the synopsis below). Video is produced by the North African Food Sovereignty Network and has English subtitles (settings: caption ON). Synopsis Capitalist production penetrates brutally to the depths of the earth and disturbs the balance that allows society to live in harmony with its environment. This is the concern of the North African Network for Food Sovereignty as it works towards alternatives to agribusinesses which have aggravated food dependency but have also caused major disruptions in our ecosystems, ultimately leading to epidemics such as Covid-19.

John McDonnell, Labour Party: I have been a member of the Labour Party and involved in politics for over 45 years.  I have spent these years as a campaigner in my local community and nationally for what I consider to be basic rights- the right to a decent roof over your head in a safe, secure, clean, green environment, a good quality truly creative education, a job and income you can live on, trade union rights at work and an NHS fully funded in public hands so that we receive the treatment we need when s ick.  Throughout the New Labour years, Jeremy and I stayed in the Labour Party and fought for socialism. That meant in 2015 we were there when our chance came. We suffered a defeat in December. But not because of our policies. Public ownership, ending tuition fees and reversing NHS privatisation are all hugely popular. They're all still Labour Party Policy, as is the Green New Deal, and we need to organise to keep it that way. Party members can be forgiven for feeling demo...

Ireland 1916 The movie is available on putlockers.fm

This is excellent. Beyond the Plague State

The armed forces are abusive institutions. They target the poorest and most vulnerable young people for recruitment, brutalise them through military training, deploy them in wars that fuel poverty and destruction in other parts of the world, and often dump them back into poverty when they leave." —Simon Hill Labour leader accused of 'erasing history in Armed Forces Day message

Alain Gresh removes Political Economy from History. He also separates the "Enlightenment" from barbarism (e.g. slavery, colonialism, etc) that co-existed with it. The West's selective reading of history

Queer Festival postponed due to coronavirus I think the writer is not aware of the following fact:  The anti-homosexuality law is not a religious-based law. "As noted by Tunisian Law Professor Sana Ben Achour,  the criminalization of homosexuality  in Tunisia began with the passage of 1913 Penal Code, imposed by colonial authorities during the French protectorate. Previous iterations of the Tunisian penal code, such as the Qanun Al Jinayat Wal Ahkam Al Urfya (قانون الجنايات والأحكام العرفية), issued in 1860’s  under the Husainid dynasty , included no provisions criminalizing homosexuality..." [like in today's South Korea's constitution, for example] In the 1860s by the way Tunisians were Muslims! A similar law was passed by the French in Lebanon. Similar policies were either passed or encouraged by Victorians in the colonies. Even Muslim writers adopted the Victorian language of "perversion" in their literature. The British criminalised homosexu...

"This is a generation of Spaniards raised in the wake of the civil war, hardened from living through an oppressive dictatorship." It's sad when human beings die out of negligence. I think though that the sentence above is irrelevant. Many of the elderly people who died where workers who helped create wealth for the present generation. We don't know whether they were oppressed under Franco's dictatorship. Many Spaniards after all supported that dictatorship . How Spain shamed itself

"The state of a nation’s public services, from its health system all the way to its toilets, tells you a lot about its priorities. As with so many aspects of our society, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed to many what was already obvious to plenty: that after 40 years of neoliberalism and a  decade of Tory austerity , Britain is a place in which private interest trumps public comfort." Blaming exclusively the Tories, absolves [(New) Labour. The same things applies to encroachment on public spaces like pavements by businesses, lack of benches, closures of water fountains, etc. The business of England is business. Thus the sluggishness of the government to impose earlier restrictions and a lockdown to minimise the spread of coronavirus. What does the lack of public toilets say about the country?

Toppling George Washington and the myth of American democracy Related Winston Churchill and the use of chemical weapons Controversies of Churchill's career 

Against amnesia: one of his criminal acts   His words from Feb. 17, 1998, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff: '“people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals…And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the  missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq…a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed…But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect peace and se...

As evictions, both legal and illegal, ramp up in the United States they are likely to disproportionately impact a population that has already been devastated by the coronavirus - African Americans. Before the pandemic, research showed that of the 2.3 million evictions that take place each year (about four per minute), they disproportionately impacted black families, particularly low-income, black women. In 17 states, black women are twice as likely to be evicted as white renters, according to statistics from the American Civil Liberties Union. Why the country is expecting an 'avalanche' of evictions

How can we remember what we do not know? France's history wars

A free ebook Black Women Lives' in Britain

Britain's persistent racism cannot simply explained by its imeprial history Related: Britain: imperial nostalgia

Zeef Sternhell (1935-2020) Israel's left has no future  (2009)

"We are quick to label the Reading attack terrorism"