Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 ” إن   الناس   يصنعون   تاريخهم   بأيديهم،   ولكن   لا   يصنعونه   على   هواهم .  إنهم   لا   يصنعونه   في   ظروف   يختارونها   هم بأنفسهم   بل   في   ظروفٍ  يُواجَهونَ   بها  ومُعطاة   ومنقولة   لهم   مباشرةً   من   الماضي .  إن   تقاليد   جميع   الأجيال   الغابرة تجثم  كالكابوس   في   أدمغة   الأحياء .  وعندما   يبدو   هؤلاء   منشغلين   فقط   بتغيير   أنفسهم   والأشياء   المحيطة   بهم،   في خلق   شيء   لم   يكن   له   وجود   من   قبل،   عند   ذلك   بالضبط،   في   فترات   الأزمات   الثورية   كهذه   على   وجه   التحديد،  نراهم يلجؤون   في   وجل   وسحر   إلى   استحضار   أرواح   الماضي   لتخدم   مقاصدهم،   ويس...

I think it is a very good review of Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer .

Boris Kagarlitsky

Like other tools, NATO has been an arm of US-led imperialism, and using the liberal language,  acting “as a ratings agency for the European Union in Eastern Europe, declaring countries secure for development and investment. The organization pushed would-be partners to adhere to a liberal, pro-market creed.” Furthermore, “ NATO  has stymied the emergence of any semiautonomous European force capable of independent action... In fact,  NATO  is working exactly as it was designed by  postwar U.S. planners , drawing Europe into a dependency on American power that reduces its room for manoeuvre.” “The war [in Ukraine] serves as a dress rehearsal for U.S. confrontation with China, in which European support cannot be so easily counted on.” And “left parties in Europe, historically critical of militarism and American power, have overwhelmingly enlisted in the defense of the West…” In sum, NATO is about defence of expansion. ********* If Russia sought to divide E...

“ Ms. Manthay and the other uninvited settlers are part of the Landless Workers Movement, perhaps the world’s largest Marxist-inspired movement operating within a democracy and, after 40 years of sometimes bloody land occupations, a major political, social and cultural force in Brazil. The movement, led by activists who call themselves militants, organizes hundreds of thousands of Brazil’s poor to take unused land from the rich, settle it and farm it, often as large collectives. They are reversing, they say, the deep inequality fed by Brazil’s historically uneven distribution of land. While leftists embrace the cause — the movement’s red hats depicting a couple holding a machete aloft have become commonplace at hipster bars — many Brazilians view it as communist and criminal. That has created a dilemma for the new leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a longtime movement supporter who is now trying to build bridges in Congress and the powerful agriculture industry. Across L...

  طبقة حاكمة إقليمية ومصالح متشابكة

An archeological discovery “ The slave trade only began from there in 1663 when King Charles II granted a charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa (later the Royal African Company). He gave it monopoly rights over the trade in human beings. It was only in English hands for another two years before the Dutch seized it but Fort Kormantine played a key role in the initial stages of the slave trade.”

  ملف كبير مفصل عن الوضع في تونس . لا أتفق مع كل ما جاء فيه ولكن المقالات تعطي صورة جيدة. 

Interesting development in this small country , but the geopolitics of it is of a significance in today’s shifting balance of forces. The defeat of French imperialism in the Sahel is welcomed, but having hopes in the Russian regime although understandable is delusional.  It reminds me of some Jordanian Stalinists who have sided with Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. They too are delusional. Related Mapping the Sahel Friends in state terror

“ Anyone who has read Widgery’s report on Bloody Sunday or Hutton’s report on David Kelly will recognize the methodology at work. Instead of beginning with the evidence and proceeding step by step until you reach a set of conclusions, you begin with the conclusions you want to reach and torture the evidence until it signs a full confession. This methodology can be used to condemn the innocent just as easily as it can be used to absolve the guilty.” Lawfare in the UK

  ألمانيا والمملكة المتحدة وفرنسا

Interview with Sevda Karaca Interview with Iskender Bayhan

One of the striking aspects of Boroujerdi's vision is his focus on the history of Iran before Islam, which is counter to the administration and those clerics close to it, who attempt to ignore ancient Persian civilisation. Boroujerdi highlights the significance of the Cyrus cylinder, a sixth century BCE document recognised by the United Nations, which notes that the texts "indicate that everyone is entitled to freedom and choice and that all individuals should respect one another". "I praise the Cyrus cylinder, while some people believe that [there is nothing valuable before Islam]. This is not right," Boroujerdi has said. Cyrus II of Persia  (c. 600-530 BCE), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, founded the Achaemenid Empire, the First Persian Empire. Excavated at Babylon in 1879, the cylinder was inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform on Cyrus's orders. It promotes human rights, tolerance, courage and the respect of minorities. Boroujerdi also defends the Mahsa ...

The International Energy Agency thinks peak oil use is in sight this decade

It is a good summary. “ With the husk of revolutionary language retained, capitalism has encircled the very idea of leftist transformation. Pepsi may have  figured out how to create a resurrectionist Pepsi Generation in the 1960s , but now brands conjure group identities from inchoate public feelings by tailoring messages towards those who want to feel radical; Buzzfeed structured its entire business model around this approach for more than a decade. Change without change.” You may only to create an account to read the article.

Joes Biden has rewarded Abrams with a top appointment

“Sallam interrogates the changing roles of leftists and Islamists in relation to political power in Egypt. Why, for example, did the Islamist movement dominate the political arena in Egypt since the late 1970s? Why, in the era of neoliberal economic assault on the working class, did the Left fail to organize a class politics around economic disenfranchisement? And finally, did autocrats provide Islamist groups with a space for political organization and maneuver denied to those that challenged the state’s economic liberalization schemes? ” The Egyptian Left, “without a mass political movement to lead or organize, became obsessed with culture rather than class war, tailing the state in its fight against “terrorists” and “religious fascists.” This alienated the Left from exactly the social groups that it historically needed to challenge economic and social inequality — a recipe for political irrelevance.” How ironic, and how similar to most of the Western Left! “On the eve of the revolut...

The pandemic may have subsided, but the epidemic of ‘identity culture’ carries on. Reactionary nationalism is openly expressed in comments

“ At its best, the dysfunctional marriage at the centre of the show becomes a metaphor for the US and its foreign policies in the region. At its worst, the show exemplifies how - after two decades of the terror of US militarism under successive administrations, both Republican and Democrat - the fate of millions of Afghans has become a background prop for a romantic comedy to tickle the political fancies of American and British audiences.” American ‘foreign policy’ as a dysfunctional marriage 

  المكانة المتواضعة جدا التي أصبحت تحتلها المسألة النقابية والاجتماعية ككل في الجزائر.