Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

More were afraid to speak out and more will speak about a form of oppression. Médecins Sans Frontiére is ‘institutionally racist’

The Inequality of Human Rights

Sisi government "the most repressive" in Egyptian history

Covid-19 Exposes the Weakness of a Major Theory Used to Justify Capitalism

Via Michael Roberts The hypocrisy of ideology of the superiority of the rich and greedy, as propounded by the philiosopher Ayn Rand has been exposed. Ayn Rand has been followed as a guru for free markets, laisser faire and the rich's right to rule by the likes of Alan Greenspan, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul in the US. In a 1962 essay, Rand wrote of seventeenth century French businessmen: “They knew that government ‘help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution, and that the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.” But now the Ayn Rand Institute has accepted state bailout funding of up to $1m from the Trump administration. The Institute commented: "We will take it unapologetically, because the principle here is: justice, "adding that as "the government has no wealth of its own…. It can only redistribute the wealth of others." Related Ayn Rand, Pope Francis and the philosophy o...

The Harper’s Letter and Our Extremely Narrow, Self-Serving Definition of Cancel Culture Related The Coddling of the Elites

“I  was astonished to learn, first of all, that members of the secret Arab nationalist group Fatat had read President Woodrow Wilson’s political textbook,  The State.  Second, I was also fascinated to discover how closely Prince Faisal worked with Sheikh Rashid Rida. His presence in Damascus and his central role in drafting a democratic constitution have not been previously studied. Third, I realized that the constitution drafted at Damascus disestablished Islam eight years before Ataturk did so in Turkey. Syrian Arabs did so through peaceful negotiation, not by crushing the religious class. Finally, I was horrified to learn that the French deliberately mistranslated the constitution to make Article 1 read “Islam is the religion of the state” and so to suggest that the Syrian Arab Kingdom was a theocracy intolerant of Christians. In fact, Article 1 read “Islam is the religion of the King,” not the state, precisely because Congress delegates rejected an Ottoman-style reli...

The illusion of 'post-racial' United States

The Australian way

Cartographies of Baltic labour resistance

Sweatshops and monoposony power 

What is 'post-capitalism'? [a critique]

رغم كلّ رأيناه من الدولة الأمريكية في حقنا (إغراقنا بالديون وفرض شروط اقتصادية وسياسية وتواجد عسكري متزايد على أرضنا) وفي حقّ أشقائنا بالبلدان العربية (احتلال ليبيا والتسبب في حرب أهلية، احتلال جزء من سوريا وتجويع شعبها، الدعم المتزايد للكيان الصهيوني وفرض "صفقة القرن"، تواصل التدخل العسكري في العراق، دعم الحرب السعودية على اليمن، التدخل في شؤون لبنان والخ)، ورغم ما رأيناه من جرائم وعدوان حول العالم (حصار فنزويلا وإيران والتآمر عليها، حصار كوبا، كوريا الشمالية، دعم أنظمة فاشية  في الهند والبرازيل والفيلبين والسعودية وعقوبات ضد الصين والخ)،  ورغم رأيناه من انتهاكات لحرية التعبير والاعلام (ملاحقة جوليان أسانج وماننيج والتجسس عبر الأنترنات على الناشطين) ولحقوق الانسان في ومأ نفسها (آخرها الجرائم العنصرية المتواصلة ضدّ السود واللاتينيين والسكان الأصليين والتمييز ضد العرب والمسلمين منذ 11 سبتمبر)  ووهذا بدون الحديث عن سياسات التفقير والتهميش (اللي تفسر ارتفاع الاصابات بكورونا في صفوف السود الفقراء مثلا) وسياسات التسلح وبيع الأسلحة والانسحاب من اتفاقيات الحدّ من التسلّح ...

A very good movie. Free to watch on putlockers.fm (Patience required with pop up windows)

    Hampton Institute

Mourning the Loss of the Berber Troubadour Idir

Poverty, not just populists, to blame for Covid-19's impact

What systemic really means

"Civilsation" means that it  is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have a  time limit  on detention. "The UK once welcomed refugees – now we detain them indefinitely"

"As destructive as the legacies of the Paris Protocol have been for the PA’s fiscal health, its current insolvency cannot be reduced to the misdeeds of Israel alone. Another major problem is the PA’s local revenue generation efforts.  The PA’s woeful performance in terms of local revenue generation ultimately derives from the class biases, ideological delusion and rampant corruption that have undergirded the Palestinian national project ever since its reterritorialization within the Occupied Territories (if not before). These pillars of the contemporary political economy were laid down at the foundation of the PA, when the political party Fatah’s returning heroes opted to cede development planning and economic management to World Bank technocrats and a narrow coterie of business elites, the majority of whom had accumulated their fortunes while exiled in the petromonarchies of the Gulf. Provided ideological cover by PLO and Fatah leader Yasser Arafat’s axiomatic assertion that s...