Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 Angry TV-makers stop release of lauded Iranian documentary The documentary Coup 53   (use “vidoo” option to play)

A very good summary by an athropologist: What is the way forward for Muslims living in the West? I do not think there is a single answer to that question because Muslims in the West are not a single homogeneous group, sociologically or theologically. Nevertheless they are seen, and will continue to be seen, as a minority within the Western nation state. And given the widespread violence perpetrated by heavily armed Western states and lightly armed jihadists (a symbiotic relationship if ever there was one) Muslim minorities in the West will continue to be the object of suspicion and discrimination. Our concern in this matter should not be to find someone to blame but to try to understand the limits of action facing Muslim minorities. The very common suggestion that Muslims should undertake a reform of their own religious tradition to help prevent “Islamic extremist violence” assumes that Muslims constitute a single political subject, that they are entirely self-contained, and that refor

 Another piece using the so-called divide to throw dust and hide the real divide. Red or blue, capital rules. ‘The misunderstood state’

 US approves $23bn advanced arms sale

“Liberal or centre-left governments in Israel and the US, who pushed for a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish majority one, have arguably done settlers a greater service than right-wing hawks... Trump’s team did not change the reality on the ground, but it did dispel the myth that endless rounds of negotiations would result in a Palestinian state.  With Joe Biden’s return to power as president, this myth will lovingly and carefully be restored, like some biblical archaeological find. Israeli settlers will continue the business of cutting down Palestinian olive trees. Israeli courts will continue to dispossess Palestinians of their legal rights to their land. Heads will shake with disapproval in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, but nothing will be done. Many words will be uttered about the justice of the Palestinian cause, safe in the knowledge that it will never see the light of day.” Why Palestinians are not joining the party

“The [Islamic State] group has exploited poverty and unemployment to recruit youth in their fight to establish Islamic rule in the area. Many locals complain that they have benefited little from the province's ruby and gas industries.” In one of the poorest countries on earth. In a country where there is no ‘secularism’, Charlie, or cartoons. In a far far away country

A rentier economy, squanderer of resources, normaliser of Israeli oppression, majority of its population is foreign, 11% of the total population are cotizens, capitalism all over the place, but coexists with a ruling family, stoning, flogging, amputation as punishments, horrible treatment of migrant workers ... A reactionary regime that is now trying to change some of its legislations to please the Israelis and their Western protectors, marshalling a façade of social liberalisation while squashing economic and political rights. Now at least two of barbaric practices, lashing for alcohol consumption and criminalising “fornication”, are going to cease. However, these are not personal freedoms won by the people and it will mostly concern the non-Muslims. Power relations and property ownership in the country are entrenched and would not allow the breaking of social norms. UAE announces relaxing of Islamic laws for personal freedoms