Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

" Since today the workers’ movement is very much weakened and the revolutionary threat non-existent, big capital has no interest in supporting far-right movements and thus the risk of a brown offensive is non-existent. This is, once again, an economistic reading that does not take account of the autonomy of any political phenomenon – electors can, indeed, choose a party that does not have the big bourgeoisie’s backing – and one that seems to ignore the fact that big capital can accommodate to all sorts of political regimes without too much soul-searching. " Ten theses on the far-right in Europe

Iran 1999, 2009, 2011-12, 2018 are episodes which have marked the long crisis of the regime. I wouldn't speculate on any external influence, but, what is evident, is that not only calls for "democracy" and "freedoms", etc led mainly by middle class Iranians have driven those protests, but the socio-economic crisis, coupled with corruption and high inequality, has deepened. 

A book review ... by means of deploying “big data”, neoliberalism has tapped into the psychic realm and exploited it, with the result that, as Han colourfully puts it, “individuals degrade into the genital organs of capital”. Consider that the next time you’re reviewing your Argos purchase, streaming porn or retweeting Paul Mason. Instead of watching over human behaviour, big data’s digital panopticon subjects it to psychopolitical steering. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and the Power of New Technologies And here is what John Lanchester wrote in details a few months ago, You are the product

HSBC, your local lethal bank  Besides its recent crimes in Mexico and Switzerland, here is another one

Algeria New government attack on independent energy union

Why the Western philosophical canon is xenophobic and racist

Syria The picture drawn in this analysis precedes a recent major development: the beginning of an assault by the Syrian regimes and the militias allied to it, with Russian aid from the sky, on Idlib province, the stronghold of the opposition. That is more likely to change the facts on the ground as the opposition begins to lose areas which has controlled for the last two years. Resisting Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham

Hegemony and Resistance in West Asia An interview with John Chalcraft (the London School of Economics)

"Universities are businesses. Students are customers. The more customers, the better the business does. And of course, the best way to retain a customer is to keep her happy. I’d suggest that happiness for students might arise from challenge, from hard work fairly rewarded, or from the acquisition of new skills. But there is of course a quicker route: you keep students happy by not failing them. And then – surprise! – when they graduate they are not literate, or numerate, or knowledgeable enough to perform the work they have been studying for." 'The difficulty is the point'

The industrialization of nostalgia

A balance sheet of Britain's colonial history? “As the project’s own description makes clear, the aim here is to provide a rehabilitation of the British empire as largely a force for moral good, which in turn can be used to justify present-day military interventions.” Oxford University is accused of backing apologists of British colonialism

On Michael Roberts' blog

Austria In my last holiday I met an Austrian woman who was spending 6 weeks in Thailand. She had replaced all of her teeth there. She is chauvinistic, but she claims she is not racist. She thinks that "there are too many Muslims in Austria!" "Muslim men taking welfare money and doing nothing all day long!" "A big damage is taking place". The woman herself is not working and gets 500 per month for her 18-month-old daughter. She has been in Mexico, Peru, Argentina and other countries. She didn't know that Londoners elected a Muslim as a Mayor. (Ko Samui, June 2017) Meanwhile, our close friend Saudi Arabia has been the main criminal behind a one million case of cholera in Yemen (a figure by the ICRC). This is not a bad thing in reality. Less Yemenis will make it to Europe. Therefore, Europeans shouldn't worry too much about the rise of nationalism and neofascism!

"It is interesting to note that the majority of the businessmen were from a Sunni background, with the exception of the inner circle of crony capitalists. According to an analysis published in the Syrian magazine Al-Iqtisad Wa Al-Naql in 2011, from the list of the 100 most important businessmen in Syria, 23 percent of them were children of high officials, or their partners or acting as their “interfaces”; 48 percent were new businessmen, but for the majority they had close and corrupt relationships with the security services; 22 percent were part of the traditional bourgeoisie from before the nationalization policies of the sixties, some of whom also had corrupt relationships with the leaders of the state; and seven per cent had their main business activities outside of Syria. In terms of religious sects, the percentage was the following: 69 per cent were Sunni, 16 percent Alawi, 14 percent were Christians, 1 percent Shia, while there was no Druze, Ismaili or Kurdish presence. It

Another review of  Against the Grain

Apparently, Ahed Tamimi has a history of terrorizing Israeli soldiers (see photo below) and making their lives and the lives of their families unbearable. She was seen in many occasions dragging soldiers at knifepoint, handcuffing them and even kidnapping some of them. She used to deprive the kidnapped soldiers of sleep and water.  Armed with knives, and sometimes with smart stones, she and her known Palestinian gangs occupied some plots of "the promised lands" of "the chosen people" with the intention of converting those plots of land into settlements, with no outcry from the "international comunity".  The Israelis feel so frightened that they cannot even travel outside Israel by sea, land or air. "I feel I am in prison," an Israeli woman told journalists. "The leaders of the free world" have expressed their concern, but said, "Well, this has been going on for decades, but we cannot stop it because the Palestinians are our

Writing history the way it should be written

Sorry, we cannot afford it ! After the Olympics, money spent on bombs, a few billions on the bankers, channelling more wealth to the top, austerity has not saved us much money to house you. Plus, we need to prepare for the second expensive sports event, the Commonwealth Games. Commonwealth my arse!

"While climate change is a disaster for humanity, stopping climate change is a disaster for capital." Burn