Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The Meaning of Israel's Massive House Demolition in East Jerusalem Related: My interview with Jeff Halper in June 2008

In Russia, the Fight is Alive

Stray Dogs By Tsai Ming-Liang

" A pact between M5s and the PD carries all manner of dangers for Italy. Should a deal between them prove impossible, the country faces early elections and a likely huge mandate for Salvini. This would finalise the Lega’s capture of the conservative middle classes, while reducing Berlusconi’s old party, Forza Italia, to a mere rump entity after its quarter-century domination of the right. Victory would also propel the Lega’s march into the once hostile southern regions." Oh, those "middle classes", the engine of progress!    Why Italy is heading for crisis once more

2019 presidential elections in Tunisia The lines below are from Reuters (21 August 2019) and what is between brackets is mine. The struggling economy is at the top of many voters' priorities and Ennahda [the Islamist Party usually dubbed "moderate" in the Western mainstream media which defines what "democracy" is and where it exists and doesn't exist] and other secularists [whatever that means] support market-oriented reforms urged on Tunisia by the International Monetary Fund [in order to industrialise the country and make it propserous and competitive with South Korea, Italy and Taiwan] but strongly resisted by unions and the population [who think they know their interests better than the IMF and World Bank men and women do]. And [Nabil] Karoui [a media tycoon, "Tunisian's Berlusconi"], backed by his Nesma TV station, has positioned himself as champion of the poor in the neglected hinterland outside the capital -- Ennahda's strongh

Vassal States "So Macron is worried that Britain might become a vassal state of the US. Which planet has he been on these last four decades and more? A process that began in 1956 after the Suez debacle was lovingly completed by Thatcher and Blair. Britain has been a fully-fledged vassal for a long time. And France, especially under Jospin and Hollande, was/is moving in the same way. Militarily, ideologically, culturally the US dominates most of Europe. Britain's vassal status is enshrined on many levels and partially explains the hysteria that greeted Corbyn's election as Leader of the Labour Party and the non-stop attempts to denigrate and defeat him, of which the 'anti-semitism' campaign is the most recent. Even Corbyn will find it very difficult to break the shackles." —Tariq Ali, 22 August 2019

"In September 2017 a YouGov poll commissioned by the Arab News and the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding illustrated worrying attitudes and misunderstandings of Arabs and Muslims in Britain. Of the 2142 British voters polled in the survey, 63% stated that they believe Arabs have failed to integrate themselves into British Society, and 41% believed that their presence has not been beneficial. Despite these strong opinions, 81% admitted that they knew little or nothing about the region." (The British Arab Centre) 
Is it surprising? 
To my life experience in Britain, it is not. The sheer level of prejudice and lack of knowledge is horrifying. One begins with "oh, you don't look Arab!" Arabs are only brown-skinned people she thought. Another was when an educated person who told me in 2010, when I mentioned Edward Said and Orientalist views, "that was long time ago." Presumably because she felt we were living in a triumphing lib