Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

An essay in two parts

 القناع الليبيرالي بين الأمس واليوم 

A must read “The extreme force with which Israel-solidarity is promoted by many German pundits, intellectuals, cultural leaders, party leaders, and left-wing activists isn’t a sign of the power of the pro-Israel consensus in Germany, but rather of its shallowness, and the anxieties and mistrust it provokes in its proponents.” Guilt and complicity in mass murder  (Part I) New German chauvinism (Part 2)

A resource that aims to explore, archive, and celebrate queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture. An interview with Marwan Kaabour and an excerpt from the book

I personally never forget that I was tortured by a police state that was supported by the major Western powers. I was threatened with inserting a baton in my rectum while I was being beaten and completely naked. I remember the names of my torturers, the police station … And it was only for expressing my ideas and being an activist. At the time, others were subjected to even much worse torture. A few were killed.  I too am ‘deeply and gravely concerned’. The Israeli military practice is just one example Related Rape suspects shouldn’t face criminal charges – poll

A lot is missing here, including the fundamental. When talking about protests or ‘revolutions’ the causes have to be highlighted.  The causes mentioned in the article are not causes by symptoms . There is not even a hint to the shared political economy/the dominant economic model and its operations from economic development to finance to debt to finance to unequal exchange. The protests are not new thus one should have a longer overview stretching decades and summed up in a couple of paragraphs, especially when an article is not a news item, one of ‘Big Question’ as the section is called. 

The mainstream press has been afraid to say this directly and succinctly.  As it was argued when Trump lost to Biden, Trumpism is here to stay even if it looses to Harris.

One doesn’t have to agree with all the arguments  in this article , but there are quite valid ones.

  A great irony is that the modern Olympics, first envisioned as an alternative to war, have themselves become a form of low-intensity warfare.           — Mike Davis

“The Western world’s last settler-colonial regime, committed to an ideology born in nineteenth-century Europe, remains remarkably adept at diffusing a story that erases Palestinian humanity,  including in the realm of higher education . Most students, however, no longer buy this Eurocentric erasure – nor does most of the global population.”

‘Telk Qadeya’: A Western world that excludes Palestinians from humans They save sea turtles They kill human animals But this is one issue, and that’s another How to become a white angel? Bear half a conscience Fight for freedom movements Eradicate liberation movements Bestow your compassion and tenderness On the killed according to nationality But this is one issue, and that’s another How to become civilised Abiding by all terms and conditions Make all your words righteous Take trees in your arms Sugar-coat titles and names While an army demolishes a nearby school And when caught red-handed … with blood Say everyone’s a victim But this is one issue, and that’s another How can I believe this world? When it talks about humanity Seeing a mother lamenting her child Who died in a raid … hungry Placing the killers on a par with their victims With all honesty and fairness But this is one issue, and that’s another How can I sleep peacefully? Plugging my ears While a family is buried under the

Harris is pronounced like هرس in Arabic, which means to ground/to crush.  Another face of  liberal imperialism:  Kamala is just like her predecessor s.

Via Tony Morrow on Facebook

As ever, the ‘legitimate concerns’ brigade includes a well-heeled faction of the lumpencommentariat, such as Carole Malone, Matthew Goodwin, Dan Wootton and Allison Pearson. Notably, however, these ‘concerns’ aren’t about the ‘bread and butter’ issues that many leftists seem to think will defuse racist agitation: as I’ve said many times before, it isn’t the economy, stupid. What the two recent moral panics have in common is the coprological image of matter out of place: borders and boundaries eroding and people being were they ought not to be. As was proven when the court revealed that the suspect is a British minor and the riots persisted, it doesn’t matter what ‘the facts’ are: we can’t ‘fact-check’ this phenomenon into oblivion. It would be instructive to ask one of these ‘whiteness’ or ‘Englishness’ rioters what they would have done had the suspect been white. One of the rationalisations of rioters claiming not to be racist was that, because the suspect killed children, he was not

“The violence of the last week has been unusually vicious and frightening, but it does not exist in a vacuum. Fourteen years of Conservative rule have seen minority communities used as a scapegoat for worsening inequality time and time again. The history of institutional racism in Britain goes back much further, but you could begin the most recent version of this story at the introduction of the Hostile Environment, a set of policies that aimed to make Britain feel inhospitable… Labour right must also take its share of responsibility. New Labour helped to embed the Islamophobia of the post-9/11 years, with new, stronger powers of policing and surveillance and campaign literature that demonized asylum seekers. Keir Starmer appears to be taking up this mantle… Just this week, Sarah Edwards, the Labour MP for Tamworth, referred to the town’s Holiday Inn as an “asylum hotel” and said that the town’s people wanted “their hotel back.” Days later it was set alight by the far right.” The same

The modern far-right is not a return to fascism, but  a new and original threat The writer is the author of  Disaster Nationalism The Liberal Defense of Murder

Similarities with the Tunisian uprising in 2008 and the Egypt under Mubarak are there. Related Striking garment workers

A report Related Largest UK pension fund

 The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellowmen, ‘Do not listen to this imposter. — Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Discourse on the Origin of Inequality  (1754) 

A good article by David Wearing The myth of the reforming monarch (pdf file)