Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Capitalism's crisis of care and an excellent analysis here From progressive neoliberalism to Trump — and beyond

Nouvelles attaques du gouvernement contre un syndicat indépendant

Victor Jara paid hommage to Salvador Allende Sameeh Shukair paid hommage to Abdel Khaliq Mahjub

The Myth of "Populism"

In August 2011 the Syrian regime’s tanks occupied the city centre of Hama after a month-long siege which claimed the lives of more than 200 civilians. This is the famous revolutionary song  Get Out Bashar,   sung by thousands in mass protests  at the heart of Hama weeks before the tanks rolled in and still popular today. The other videos remind us of how it all was before the counterrevolution (with its internal and external forces) took over. (This subtitled version is not the full version)

Sayyid Qutb was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s until his execution by Nasser. He was born "to a smallholding family on the outskirts of Asyut in Upper Egypt. Repulsed at a young age by local clerics who failed to 'simplify religion for the public', Qutb snubbed Azhar [University] and embarked on the path of secular education. Qutb graduated to become a primary schoolteacher on 1933, and assumed a few bureaucratic posts at the Ministry of Education between 1940 and 1952. Unlike the vigorous-looking and socially engaging [Hassan] Banna, [the founder of the the Muslim Brotherhood], Qutb was plangued by poor health, always appearing pale and heavy-eyed, and leading the life of a chronically depressed introvert in the then-desolate district of Helwan, outside the capital [Cairo]. He found solace not in religion, but in literature and sensual poetry, and was quickly drawn to a circle of European-inspired intellectualls, patronized by the tow

Iran " Putin, Assad, Hezbollah and all their cheerleaders in the alt-right and Stalinist left are already trying to smear the protests as pro-imperialist. The revolt shows, once again, that Stalinism is not a dead issue in the progressive movement, and that its remaining advocates want only an authoritarian “anti-imperialist” regime to support." Good! I completely agree with that. However, Paul Mason has drawn a fair picture until he messed it up with this: "But their rhetorical support does not delegitimise the mass upsurge, nor does it mean the EU and Western democratic countries should stand back and ignore the repression." Is he appealling to the EU and Western imperialist states to do something? I don't understand these type of leftist journalists who instead of appealing to progressives, trade unions, ordinary people, they talk to the criminal states which have been pursuing criminal, hypocritical policies for their own geopolitical interests. Th