Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 ” هل تغيّر النظام في سوريا حقّا؟ أقدّر أنّ السوريّين لا يزالون ينتظرون، إذ يفترض في تغيير النظام أن يفضي إلى تفكيك كافّة أشكال القمع والفساد، وإلى إقامة العدل والمساواة بين الجنسين… بالرغم من أنّ السلطة في المجتمعات الحديثة اخترقت الاجتماعي أو هي صاغته على صورتها ومثالها، كما يقول أهل الفلسفة؛ فقد وسمتنا علاقات السوق والطبقات الاجتماعيّة بميسمها، حتى صرنا نعيد بوعي أو دونه إنتاج علاقات «القوّة الرأسمالية». وهذا يعني أنّ السلطة لا تتحكّم فينا من خارج فحسب، وإنّما هي تتسلّل إلى داخل حياتنا الاجتماعيّة أيضا، وتسيطر عليها. وصحيح ما يلاحظه علماء الاجتماع من ظواهر تكاد تكون عالميّة، وهي أنّ البشر هم اليوم أكثر تشتتًا حيث الشعور بـ«الفردانيّة» هو الذي يهيمن عليهم …“

“[S]ectors of the populist or neo-Stalinist Left lament the fall of the Assad dictatorship . They present it — along with the rest of the “Axis of Resistance” led by the reactionary Iranian regime — as a progressive and anti-imperialist alternative. Some argue that the enemies of our enemy should be our allies, because they challenge ‘Western hegemony’. This completely ignores the class character of these powers. Rather than supporting the Palestinian cause or that of other oppressed people, these forces seek to oppose the reordering of the region for the further benefit of Israel and the United States because that would push them to the margins; at the same time they reconcile themselves with the pro-imperialist monarchies of the Gulf.”

“Human intelligence is among the most fragile things in nature. It doesn’t take much to distract it, suppress it, or even annihilate it.” Television “conditions our minds to apprehend the world through fragmented pictures and forces other media to orient themselves in that direction. A culture does not have to force scholars to flee to render them impotent. A culture does not have to burn books to assure that they will not be read . . . There are other ways to achieve stupidity.” —Neil Postman,  Conscientious Objections , 1988 A confirmation of what some of us have already observed.  Notice the FT’s columnist invoke of a ‘positive’ aspect of implementing AI: productivity and ‘helping restore middle class heart’. The impact on capitalism’s performance is what should be our concern, according to such a view.

[The following is a crucial historical analysis focusing on nationalism. With the demise of the Ba’ath nationalism in Syria, are we witnessing a triumph of a version of Islamist nationalism? Is it an emancipatory nationalism, a nationalism subordinated to class, social justice, women liberation, or just another instrumentalist nationalism – a bourgeois nationalism of the state veiled in religion and led by pious ‘middle men’ at the service of neocolonial powers and capital?]   Nation Against State: Popular Nationalism and the Syrian Uprising (1) [The Bourgeoisie has] come to power in the name of a narrow nationalism […]; they will prove themselves incapable of triumphantly putting into practice a programme with even a minimum humanist content […]. —Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963) The current Syrian revolts “One, one, one, the Syrian people are one!” In 2011, this was one of the most popular chants during protests. Syrians used it to counter the sectarian discourse o...

“With the destruction of the Egyptian opposition and almost daily acts of state terror against the slightest sign or gesture of dissent, a repetition of the 2011 domino effect is unlikely - at least in the short run.” Sisi’s “popularity among all social classes in Egypt, including sections of big capital, has hit rock bottom. “Unlike his predecessors,  Sisi is ruling solely by coercion and  has eviscerated the civil society  and political institutions that manufacture some necessary level of consent, which is crucial for the endurance of the regime and the state.” [I have reordered the sentences] The Egyptian regime, argues Hossam al-Hamalawy , sufferes from a crisis of hegemony, continuously dependent on foreign money and complicit in genocide. 

The geography of death in Aleppo (3) Fixed checkpoints and mobile militias A taxonomy of checkpoints The checkpoint is one of the most important technologies of death that the Syrian forces use in urban spaces. Their function is to segment the city into smaller sectors that are easier to control. There are different types of checkpoints in Aleppo that vary in size, the types of weaponry used, and their dangerousness. The large checkpoints with heavy weaponry, such as tanks or armored personnel carriers, are usually deployed at strategic points such as the entrance of the city or nearby security branches or military facilities. While most checkpoints are fixed, some of them are mobile and move to locations unexpected by the enemy. In addition, the regime deployed many checkpoints within west Aleppo to segment the territory and control the circulation of the population. The largest checkpoints, however, are in the buffer zones, the spaces between the regime and opposition. Their function...

The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class , What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More

The geography of death in Aleppo (2) The protests and grassroots movement in Aleppo Aleppans organized their first protest on March 25, 2011, just a few days after the initial demonstrations in Damascus and Dara’a. Aleppo shopkeepers organized two successful general strikes in June.30 June 30 became known as the “Volcano of Aleppo,” and protests took to the streets in at least ten different locations. A few weeks later, on August 17, protesters reached Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, Aleppo’s Tahrir Square, in large numbers for the first time. The largest protest to date, however, was during the burial of Aleppo’s Mufti, Ibrahim al-Salqini, on September 6, 2011, when protesters marched in the Old City and chanted “Better death than humiliation!” At that point, protests, many of which were spontaneous, were organized on a daily basis at Aleppo University. Lawyers and the Bar Association issued a statement to denounce the violence of the regime, and held a protest at the Palace of Justice th...