Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Olivier Roy on "Islamic radicalism" Some good points, but the title of this interview smells bad. I think Roy dealt with some areas of the subject. "The root causes are still there". I don't think he has elaborated on these root causes. "Radicalism", it seems, does not apply to the "Western" states. There are a few  political, economic and cultural features which characterise some Western states as "radicals". I wonder what Roy thinks of the structural violence of the state (Karen Armstrong).  I am a "radicalised" person, but not for the reasons he thinks. Was it just that one day, I got up and wanted radicalism as Roy says? That's nonsense, I'm afraid, and he would make a very bad doctor.

Pakistan The winners are the non-voters. "Khan claims he wants to ‘depoliticise’ the police and establish ‘law and order’ in a violent crime-ridden society; to ‘improve health and education’ through bringing health insurance to 70% of the population. Yet in no way is Khan sympathetic to the interests of Pakistan’s working class or rural farmers.  He is set to follow the dictates of the IMF as the ‘solution’ for Pakistan’s continuing economic failure.  And that means his policy ‘aspirations’ will never be met." It's not cricket See also Khan is only a player in the circus run by Pakistan's military

The struggle for democracy in Morocco

"In Britain, there was more emphasis on the language of economics, specifically the ‘supply side’ idea that the interests of investors and entrepreneurs were paramount. As the theory behind Thatcherism had it, government services shrink everybody’s incentives to produce, compete and invest. They reduce the motivation for businesses to deliver services, and ordinary people’s desire to work. Toughness, even pain, performs an important moral and psychological function in pushing people to come up with solutions. Pain  works . Only pain forces people to adapt and innovate. In practice that may mean all sorts of things: migrating, reskilling, sacrificing weekends or family time, selling property, the ‘gig economy’ and so on. The productiveness of pain is a central conservative belief, whose expression might be economic, but whose logic is deeply moralistic." — William Davis

Tunisia "There is an obvious correlation between drivers of migration and origin of migrants, as the June 2 sea accident showed. Many of the victims in the drowning were identified as originating from the country's south including Gabes, Medenine and Tataouine. Marked by a long history of economic and political marginalisation and frustration since before the 2011 revolution, these regions have continued to suffer." And the IMF continue to impose its criminal diktats Marginalisation driving Tunisians to migrant boats

Syrian actress May Scaff An icon Syrian leftist who opposed Assad's regime dies in Paris

"[T]he dominance of western culture, and its globalisation through this dominance, should not be confused with universalism. Just because a particular discipline or a discourse is accepted or practised throughout the world, it does not mean that discipline or discourse is universally valid and applicable to all societies. After all ... burgers and coke are eaten and drunk throughout the world but one would hardly classify them as universally embraced, healthy and acceptable food : what the presence of burgers and coke in every city and town in the world demonstrate is not their universality but the power and dominance of the culture that produced them. The same logic applies to disciplines and discourses."  — Ziauddin Sardar