Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“In the book, Grace Blakeley takes on the world’s most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crises are the result of the economic system we have built – ‘a toxic melding of public and private power’. It’s not a broken system; it’s working exactly as planned. It can’t be fixed. It must be replaced. From Amazon’s attack on employee wages through its domination of regional economies, to how Boeing flies in the face of free markets despite its 737 Max disasters, and from the likes of Henry Ford to Margaret Thatcher,  Blakeley considers the past and present of our current crises  to pinpoint exactly how it all went wrong.”  “The 30-year-old describes her book as a critique of modern capitalism from a Marxist perspective, which isn’t a phrase that major writers on the left tend to attach to themselves these days. Instead of reduced taxation, the Office for National Statistics is forecasting that by 2027-28 the UK will have the highest level of...

Note there is an error here: “In keeping with the patriarchal norms of colonial and Caribbean life, Suzanne’s own ambitions came second to Aimé’s, who eventually became the first president of Senegal.” Aimé Césaire was never a president of any country. I have emailed the editors to rectify it. Uncensoring the subconscious

Act 1 “In a shocking act that has gone viral, a male monarchist desecrated the grave of Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi (the pen name: Gohar Morad), the iconic Iranian leftist writer, by urinating on it in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery. Draped in an Israeli flag, the individual symbolically weaponized Sa’edi’s final resting place—a site sacred to Iranian exiles and the global left—against the very values the writer championed: resistance to tyranny and solidarity with the oppressed.” Act 2 “A break-in at the country home of Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his house graffitied with far-right slogans and a swastika. The troubling attack followed past assassination plots against the French left-wing leader — but international media totally ignored it.”

Any defeat to French imperialism and complicity in genocide is welcomed

Full article is subject to subscription Palestinian women in Israeli prisons have shown remarkable unity, fighting for their rights, often in the face of harsh conditions and mistreatment.

Gaza and censorship Related The new German chauvinism:  An essay in two parts

A recommended read A. Dirk Moses’  The Problems of Genocide  is “an authoritative account of how the concept of genocide came to exclude many forms of mass killing. Western governments were keen to develop a legal definition of the crime that absolved them of their own violent acts, such as the system of lynching and Jim Crow laws in the southern United States and the suppression of colonial rebellions in South Asia, Moses argued. The result was a law that exceptionalized genocide, affixing its threshold of transgression to the events of the Holocaust.” And Israel is considered Western by these Western powers; it is their creation and ‘a democracy’ in a sea of autocracy needs supporting. “‘As long as they can point to any other discernible goal — to subjugate, dispossess, or enslave, or even to lash out and take revenge [add ‘self-defence and ‘reprisal’]— states have a potential alibi against the charge of genocide’, wrote the legal scholar Darryl Li in  Dissent , citing ...

At the end of his book, Yasser Munif asks pwertinent questions that are still relevant today after the collapse of the Assad regime. “In a way, the Syrian uprising announced the demise of Assadist eternity, despite the shortcomings of the revolution. International Relations, as a field of study, exists to maintain hegemonic relations of power. It is utilized to preserve the interests of the state and prevent non-state actors from disrupting the status quo. In the end, mainstream frameworks can become lethal in myriad ways, as the past eight years have amply shown us. The Syrian people were/ are organizing against dictatorship but also struggling against an oppressive world order.  How do people develop a critic of the state while, at the same time they recognize the real power of global institutions, laws, and economies in which their practices are rooted? How do people develop grassroots strategies while at the same time operate within a world order that works against their aspira...

“For context, the number of permanent secretaries who never went to university around this time was zero, says a 2019 report by the Sutton Trust social mobility charity. Most went to one of just two universities, Oxford or Cambridge, as did most senior judges, cabinet ministers and diplomats.  For context again, the share of the general population going to Oxbridge was less than 1 per cent and just 7 per cent went to the private schools that educated most permanent secretaries, top judges and Lords.  For context again, the share of the general population going to Oxbridge was less than 1 per cent and just 7 per cent went to the private schools that educated most permanent secretaries, top judges and Lords.  Education is not the only measure of class. Parents’ occupations matter too. But Gray remains an outlier in a country where a small elite still has a big say in how things are run.  Class can have a bigger effect on your chance of being promoted than gender, ethn...

[The question about Syria is about looking for a pure revolution á la ‘Marxist-Leninist’ or the ‘liberal-democratic’ criteria or it is not a revolution. Nor is it just about the reactionary forces that have destroyed the revolutionary experiment and potentials and they have know claimed its ‘flag’. It is the character and content of the process and what the actors involved envisaged. The early content and character cannot be seen neither in the outlook of those who toppled the regime in December 2024 nor in the one of the regional and international actors that are trying to influence the current outcome and the future of Syria. ] “Syrian revolutionaries like those in Manbij did not speak the dominant academic Western language about social processes and revolutions—either because they could not or were unwilling to. As a result, many journalists and academics have effectively denied them any form of agency. Many Western descriptions present them as mindless fighters who are easily manip...

“Following the fall of the Assad regime, Turkey has become the most important regional actor in the country. By providing support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Ankara’s been consolidating its power over Syria. Turkey’s main objective, other than carrying out forced returns of Syrian refugees and benefiting from future economic opportunities during the reconstruction phase, is to deny Kurdish aspirations for autonomy, and more specifically undermine the AANES [ the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of the North East of Syria] . This would set a precedent for Kurdish self-determination in Turkey… While HTS hasn’t participated in any military confrontations against the SDF in recent weeks, the organisation hasn’t vocalised opposition to the Turkey-led attacks, quite the opposite… In the past, HTS repeatedly supported Turkish offensives against the SDF. It is unlikely that HTS is willing to support the demands of the SDF and AANES, particularly concerning Kurdish national rights. Aft...

History is key to explaining the origins of conflicts, but instead it’s widely used to justify them. Pushing back against distorted narratives, especially official ones, is a constant battle, but a vital one. —Benoît Bréville, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2024