Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

His career by Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon Related The West and its cliched view of Iraq Sinan Antoon

  Ramadan Nights

 

How far progress and regression are intertwined 

Defying Fragmentation and the Significance of Unity

Focus on suffering of Syrian women inside and outside of Assad’s prisons

 

in French Algeria 1830-1930

Ben Griffin is an ex-SAS soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The speech was given at Oxford Union, England.

A very good analysis. “ If the analysis of the skewed distribution of consumption, decision-making power, and financial capacity all lead us to the same place, it is not by accident. Where we have arrived is at the analysis of class identities, class relations and class power.” I don’t think one can separate the capitalist mode of production and how exploits and generates things and class. After all, upper classes existed before capitalism. It is what capital and capitalism endows that class today makes it a bigger consumer and destroyer of the environment. Climate, Carbon and Class Related “By far the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world, the report reads like a 4,000-page indictment of humanity's stewardship of the planet. But the document, designed to influence critical policy decisions, is not scheduled for release until February 2022 - too late for crunch UN summits this year on climate, biodiversity and food systems, some sci...

How the Jewish state’s founding ideology shapes it to this day Related Even the liberal Ban Ki-moon is better than the ‘liberals’ in power: “The starting point of a new approach must be to recognise the fundamental asymmetry between the parties. This is not a conflict between equals that can be resolved through bilateral negotiations, confidence-building measures or mutual sequencing of steps — the traditional conflict-resolution tools.  The reality is very different: a powerful state is controlling another people through an open-ended occupation, settling its own people on the land in violation of international law and enforcing a legal regime of institutionalised discrimination. Calls for a return to unconditional bilateral talks every time there is a fresh flare-up in fighting will only serve to perpetuate the status quo if these root causes are not addressed.  What has become increasingly clear in recent years is Israel’s intent to maintain its structural domination a...

“During my days as a student at a progressive school in West Bengal in the 1940s, these questions came into our discussion constantly. They remain important even today, not least because the British empire is often invoked in discussions about successful global governance. It has also been invoked to try to persuade the US to acknowledge its role as the pre-eminent imperial power in the world today...” Amartya Sen on what British rule really did in India Related Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor

The Fog of the Forever War with a Laugh Track

A nation that has often defined its identity against an Other. The US will prefer a China contest to the forever wars

Contrasted Revolutions in Southeast Asia

Why we need to remember the dark chapters of US history  Related The most notorious war crime of the Vietnam era France’s ‘crisis with Islam: 200 years of colonial brutality

A reading list

“Syria is associated with war, terrorism and Islamist extremism. Is it possible to find another thread that links it to other diverse radical struggles in other regions and different times? Can Syria become a point of reference or inspiration for class, subaltern, post-colonialist and anti-liberal struggles around the world? For many people this would be almost unimaginable.” Leila al-Shami: “ It's unfortunate that people in general are unable to learn and study, or even be aware of the lessons from Syria because the presentation of Syria in the West has overwhelmingly been channeled through the discourses that Western culture is already comfortable with.” Land, Revolutions and Lessons from Syria

Five Covid-19 Vaccines

“ The domestication of dissent that NGOs encourage will always lead in a different direction, which is the reaffirmation of the status quo.” NGOism Serves the Status Quo