Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

" Attempting to ‘save’ the national economy to make things better for its inhabitants, for example, by calling for import controls or other forms of government regulation, is a reactionary policy. Firstly, it endorses the existing power of the national capitalist state to determine what will happen. Secondly, it raises national salvation above solidarity with people in other countries who are facing similar problems. This is particularly an issue for progressive people in the imperialist countries that have a dominant position in the world economy. If radicals make any concessions to those who are seeking to defend their privileges in a bankrupt system, rather than to show how the system is indeed bankrupt and must be overthrown, then they have only a short step from this to supporting imperialist aggression. The records of many wars stand in evidence." — Tony Norfield, author of The City: London and the Power of Global Financ e . (Verso 2016)

'Deschooling Society'

'Democratic Confederalism' or 'Counter-revolution'?

Chomsky and his Critics " I have read Noam Chomsky for years and translated a book of his after my release from prison. I also helped translate a book about him. Not once have I seen in all his abundant work anything in reference to the Syrian people’s feelings about the Assads’ colonialism. He may have mentioned in passing something about the brutality and tyranny of the Assad regime, but that was it. All his views revolved around the United States and Israel. He doesn’t see us. He sees the Palestinians to some extent. Three years ago a few Syrian and Lebanese friends met with him in Beirut. The man knows very little and didn’t seem compelled to listen to his mostly young interlocutors. And it looked like he was irritated with them after the meeting because, instead of them listening to his views, they expressed theirs. I am talking here about a man with indisputable courage and morals, but the traditional Western left is incomparably less courageous and ethical than that in t

Aleppo is our Guernica — and some are cheering on the Luftwaffe

Meet the volunteer taking care of hundreds of lost children in the Calais Jungle

On this day in 1991

Yemeni photographers fight despair and trauma of war

"...  I wrote an article analysing the state of Arab culture before the Arab revolutions. It appears that the Arab world and its culture are facing three major problems or problematic situations that are amorphous and ambiguous. These problems pertain to state, religion, and the West (which, in this context, includes Israel), each of which I call an ogre – because by definition an ogre is a ferocious monster that is not bound by form or rules of conduct. And that makes living amongst ogres a constant struggle for today’s Arabs, especially Syrians, Palestinians, and Iraqis. I think that constructing forms – of rules, concepts, and principles – to discipline those entities is what we hope to achieve through literacy and public service. Let it be clear that I do not mean that the state is in itself a monster, or that Islam is a monster, or the modern West is one. I mean that, in this context, these are transformed into formless and lawless entities which now wield power in our regio

The Fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism

"The Bank of England’s governor points out that, in this situation, all you can do is for individual countries to try and restart their economies through structural measures, not monetary ones. Since they can’t borrow and spend their way out of the crisis, they have to “reform” their way out of it. But how? Carney does not spell out the details but in the G20 parlance, the main tools in the toolkit of “structural reform” are ripping up labour protections, privatising public assets, cutting business taxes, boosting state investment – and direction of investment – into the major industries and projects, and privatising education. Naturally, in all countries where this is tried it provokes resistance, and is therefore done gradually. But Carney points out doing things slowly does not work, because austerity, low growth, high debts and falling wages feed off each other." Paul Mason blogging for Channel4

Morocco: Reinstate Said Elahirech, stop attacking union rights

Iran: Release teacher union leader Esmail Abdi

Chomsky: Trump’s rise fueled by same societal ‘breakdown’ that birthed Hitler

The Two Zizeks   "The Other Zizek asserts the very specific European experience of modernity as the norm to be emulated; colonialism as the cleansing force that brought this modernity to benighted and backward societies, and Revolutionary Terror as sacred and unavoidable."

Ogres and Orientalism

Abraham Lincoln: "Labor Is the Superior of Capital" "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration..." 

"[I]f  it is argued that England, the very heartland of imperialism, is also that national terrain which seems to have been the least propitious for the development of any indigenous modernism,  then that is surely also relevant for our present topic ."

Crony capitalism Branson, The Stuntman

" In the absence of unforeseen reversals for ISIS and its many associated groups, the 'war on terror' in its current incarnation is set to escalate and indeed last well into the 2020s." — Paul Rogers, opendemocracy.net, 19 February 2016 Since "the war on terror" (read the war of terror) has been waged by states, Western and non-Western, for the last 15 years, it is this Terror that is the main terrorism, with its different features, which breeds more terrorism and makes it endless.  "Endless War?  Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'" (Pluto Books 2006) by David Keen. Keen explores how winning war is rarely an end in itself; rather, war tends to be part of a wider political and economic game that is consistent with strengthening the enemy. Keen devises a radical framework for analysing an unending war project, where the "war on terror" is an extension of the Cold War. An interview .