Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 “You never understood that we might want a different life than yours, to believe differently, to feel differently, and think differently from you.” —Arminius, Barbarians - last episode

 Jeremy Corbyn: Seize the time! John Molyneux, 29 October 2020 Today’s suspension of Jeremy Corbyn by Keir Starmer  is outrageous but it is also the culmination of a long process that began the moment Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party. From the very first day the British political establishment, led by David Cameron and supported by most of the mainstream media and a considerable section of the Parliamentary Labour Party, set out to discredit and destroy him.  This project had nothing to do with Corbyn’s personal strengths or weaknesses and absolutely nothing to do with anti-semitism,  real or alleged.  The motive was simple and obvious: from the outset they perceived Corbyn and especially those who supported him and were mobilized by him as a threat to their interests, precisely because he had a long record as a socialist, as an anti-racist campaigner, as a defender of workers’ rights and, particularly, as an opponent of war and British imperiali...

This article is also available in French Arabic and Spanish  French Soldiers in the Sahel: A Barely Repressed Colonial Unconscious

Trump “was elected fair and square,” states Hamid Dabashi. I disagree. He was not. Neither were the ones before him. Leaving aside the electoral college’s role, how is it fair election when just to be a mayor of New York you need to be backed by millionaires and billionaires? The power of the different lobbies with heavy money, of individuals and corporations, and the corporate media shapes many outcomes. Money matters a great deal in elections,” Adam Bonica from Standford University said. It’s just that, he believes, when scientists go looking for its impacts, they tend to look in the wrong places. If you focus on general elections, he said, your view is going to be obscured by the fact that 80 to 90 percent of congressional races have outcomes that are effectively predetermined by the district’s partisan makeup — and the people that win those elections are still given (and then must spend) ridiculous sums of money because, again, big donors like to curry favor with candidates they k...

 “ What Macron fears the most is the breakdown of the racial contract. For the more the pressure of liberal forces dismantles the social contract, the more the rulers count on the solidity of the racial contract to continue to link the fate of the white working-class to the bourgeois state. And when the racial contract weakens (i.e. the convergence of postcolonial subjects, the Gilets Jaunes, and other social movements against the police; the Left’s greater understanding of Islamophobia and structural racism; etc.), power panics and is left with only one choice: reinforce the racial contract. This is one of the cardinal functions of the notion of “laïcité,” or secularism, whose meaning shifts according to the ideological needs of the colonial counter-revolution.” Despite Mélenchon’s blunder, I agree with Bouteldja here. Walking the Tight Rope

Why Tunisia, Africa Must Demand French Apology [and Compensation]

 ‘No change for thirty years’

 “ Neither Jean-Luc Mélenchon nor Emmanuel Macron know what  laïcité  [French state secularism] is , yet Macron wants to teach Muslims that “Islam is in crisis.” 

 “ The point I try to make in that article is that the debate on whether Jews should be accorded full political rights in 1840s Prussia presents some striking similarities with the debate on Muslims’ integration into French society today. More precisely, my point is that the French state’s demand that religious minorities (and let’s be frank, Muslims in particular) respect the principle of secularism in the public space is reminiscent of Bruno Bauer’s position on the Jewish Question. Bruno Bauer believed that the Jews deserved to be granted political rights only if they stopped being Jews and embraced Enlightenment thought. In other words, he conceived of political emancipation as a kind of award that individuals receive only if they renounce their own religious identity and embrace the identity that the secular state deems as appropriate. Likewise, the French state demands that Muslims get rid of their religious/cultural practices if they want to show willingness to integrate into...

 A “$400 billion” Iran-China Deal? The View from History

 A review of A People’s Guide to Capitalism

 The myth of the ‘efficient’ private sector has been busted by Covid

Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsular

 One of the best analyses I have read. A historical sociology approach to authoritarian resilience in post-Arab uprising

اضغط/ي على الصورتين لعرض النص كاملا غسان بن خليفة، تونس 23 أوكتوبر 2020

“ Simplistic slogans are now a pillar of nationalism: France is under attack for its values, and all citizens are called to its defence against an amorphous enemy. This enemy is violent because it is Muslim, and so the political logic goes, all Muslims should be regarded with suspicion and any signs of religiosity with fear.” The right to offend Muslims is being weaponised Related It is Macron and his government that are in crisis I am a teacher

 Sex attacks fuel ‘feminist revolution’

 “ As nationalism once again rears its ugly head throughout Europe and the world, and photo manipulation is available to anyone with a smartphone, perhaps Heartfield’s ingenious manner of exposing lies could offer inspiration to a new generation of artists. And even if it doesn't, his iconic images that highlighted the pointless brutality of war and the power of collective resistance remain as powerful and relevant as ever.“ The images that fought the Nazis

 “The west’s hypocritical, counterproductive human rights regime.” Sudan is being rewarded for its revolution with blackmail

“ Some will argue that we should not compare so-called liberal democracies in the West with repressive governments elsewhere in the world. But what did the United States’ status as a liberal democracy do for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and working-class Black America? For that matter, what did Iran’s status as a revolutionary society for the  mostazafin —the dispossessed—do for Asieh Panahi and the residents of her neighborhood as they confronted the bulldozers?“ A Call for Solidarity