Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A MERIP’s online event 

An article behind a pay wall , but you still get the gist. “Over the last 50 years, France has sold arms to some of the world’s most brutally repressive governments. In the 1970s its customer list included South Africa’s apartheid regime, Argentina’s junta, Franco’s Spain and the Greek colonels. Today its preferred clients are Saudi Arabia and Abdel Fattah al-Sissi’s Egypt.”

Persecuted Muslims in a far away country not in the heart of Europe. Are they important? Do they serve a political or a geopolitical purpose? Have they been involved in a violent attack on ‘us’? Rohingya sue Facebook for $150bn over Myanmar hate speech

“ Loin du grand complot imaginé par France Inter , la crise biélorusse s’explique surtout par la loi, plus élémentaire, de l’effet boomerang. En matière d’immigration, l’Union européenne ne cesse de pratiquer le chantage et le marchandage. Elle subordonne son «   aide au développement   » à la signature d’accords de «   réadmission   », qui lui permettront d’expulser plus facilement les clandestins. Elle menace de ne plus accorder de visas aux États qui renâclent. Elle paie la Turquie pour retenir les quatre millions de réfugiés du Proche-Orient, le Maroc pour protéger Ceuta et Melilla, la Libye pour bloquer les départs en Méditerranée, le Niger pour cadenasser la voie saharienne.”

 صراع داخل حزب العمال

“Like others before me, I am honest about it: Yes, I oppress French citizens, but for ‘France’s interests’ – French capital and geopolitics interests – I also engage in crimes with others.” The same soft hand smile that destroys migrant camps and drive the vulnerable into the sea.  French voters: “It is Russian; it is Belarus; it is the smugglers. We will vote for you to stop Le Pen.” There are bad authoritarian regimes, e.g. Alexander Lukashenko’s, and there are good ones. Are there any principled positions? No. As a French woman I knew told me once in 2000: “seulement les ânes ne changent pas ses principes [only donkeys do no change their principles]. The actions and positions of French imperialism partly dictated by  its dependence on oil . Today France get around 20% of its oil from Saudi Arabia thus its special relationship with the Middle Eastern monarchy and it gets about 12% of oil from Nigeria thus its interest in ‘stabilising’ the Sahel. In fact, around a third of o...

“The truth of the matter is, it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change.” –Joe Biden The failure of neoliberalism has undercut U.S. capitalism’s ability to compete within—and by extension dominate—the world system. That is why there is broad support among business elites and the political establishment for Biden’s turn and why it is a dangerous illusion to present it as a concession to the Left. His imperialist Keynesianism is designed to re-cohere a deeply divided nation, rehabilitate the foundations of U.S. capitalism, and reassert U.S. hegemony over the world state system—especially against China, its rising imperial rival. Biden’s proposed expansion of welfare state spending will do little to mitigate the profound social inequalities of the U.S. As Susan Watkins argues, if enacted the plans will not even bring the U.S. welfare state up to the current level of those in Europe, which thems...

The extension of vaccine privilege outside the West is not an act of charity

Violence against the unwanted, the unwashed, the invaders, the illegal

A good summary by Avi Shlaim . He skipped the origin of Hamas though, particularly the role of Israel in its creation.

  نظرية في الإخضاع

Webinar: a conversation with the authors of the dossier The Arab Uprisings - A Decade of Struggle

“The UN has forecast that Afghanistan’s gross domestic product will contract 20 per cent within a year following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, representing one of the worst economic meltdowns in history. Such a contraction took five years of civil war in Syria to achieve, and was expected to worsen to 30 per cent next year. The UNDP said aid accounted for as much as 80 per cent of budget expenditure. The UNDP estimates that the loss of female employment could cost up to $1bn, or 5 per cent, of GDP, and slash productivity.” Source: the Financial  Times

Can a poor country establish democratic socialism? Would imperialism, especially American imperialism, tolerate it at its backyard? Is Honduras an alternative to the Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ or is it just a continuation of changing horses between the right and the left? One of the good outcomes in Honduras is a confirmation that the question is not about more ‘women’ occupying high positions in state and government, but about the colour, the ideology and socio-economic programme of the ‘woman’. “I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neoliberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption.”  – Xiomara Castro

‘What the Belarus regime is doing is basically human trafficking,’ a French government spokesman said on 10 November. A few days later, interior minister Gérald Darmanin ordered French police to dismantle the migrant camps outside Calais and Grande-Synthe; they slashed the tents with knives. And on 24 November, 27 migrants drowned trying to cross the Channel. Is that a crime difficult to solve?

A very good piece! UK Brexiteers’ libertarian goal

Bring class struggle back in

Dunkirk’s camps

Caution: This is not to say that blowbacks are exclusively consequences of external forces – Israel and Western powers. Local socio-economic context as well as political factors and balance of forces also played a role, converged or intersected with external players. How Israel went from creating Hamas to bombing it Related My interview with Khaled Hrub , author of  A Beginner’s Guide to Hamas

What might he say about today’s pandemic?