Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

On the silencing of Trump by tech giants. “Ms Merkel said through her spokesman that the US government should follow Germany’s lead in adopting laws that restrict online incitement, rather than leaving it up to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to make up their own rules.” FT It is also the same German government that attacks those who criticise Israel. Example: the BDS movement in Germany. France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire told France Inter on Monday that he was “shocked” by Twitter’s move. He added: “Digital regulation should not be done by the digital oligarchy itself . . . Regulation of the digital arena is a matter for the sovereign people, governments and the judiciary.” FT France and free speech? No comment. One has only to look at the recent events in the country. John Naughton in Opinion section on the Guardian opined that the silencing of Trump highlights “the authoritarian power of tech giants.” Yes, Mr, Naughton, but you cannot control what you don’t own.  He t

The rise and fall of a sex cult leader

“Since nearly all independent Arab films rely on European capital for finance, productions are usually shaped by what the west expects the Arab world to be, and are ultimately evaluated by western critics with little to no knowledge of the region.” How the ‘Arab Spring’ changed cinema

 Jihad, Empire and the Challenge of Solidarity

He was 98 percent right in what he said 10 months ago.

“Good to see chickens return to the roost. For a decade or more the US has made a practice of claiming that any election where an anti-US president wins the election was fraudulent. The colour revolution scenario is then supposed to go from demonstrations to storming the assembly. We saw this in Ukraine, Bolivia, Venezuela. Biden and the US establishment had no compunction at cheering on those who invaded the Assembly in Ukraine, had no compunction in hailing losers as winners in Venezuela and Bolivia. But if you practice that abroad, do not be surprised if it comes home.” —Paul Cockshott “ Given the United States’ long heritage of imperial control of much of the planet’s wealth, ecological destruction and political decisions, Wednesday’s mobs at the Capitol building should hardly come as a surprise to Americans on the left or the right. In recent history, Americans have shown little resistance to the imperial efforts of the US abroad—from the wars in Korea to Vietnam to Iraq and Afgha

  “ Syria has tended to be analysed through the prism of Western security studies, with its emphasis on Middle Eastern terrorism, or the geopolitics of imperialism. This article, however, looks at events from a grassroots social movements perspective, homing in on revolutionary self-organisation and the impact of Western aid on it. Asad’s counter-revolution has resulted in the largest ever United Nations aid operation, estimated at $30 billion, alongside aid provided bilaterally by the United States, the UK, France and others. Since the 1980s, aid has been channelled increasingly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rather than ­transferred directly to states. Academics use the term “NGOisation” to understand the consequences of this “aid chain” of states, international NGOs (INGOs), diaspora NGOs and local NGOs, in particular the incorporation of autonomous grassroots organisations into the official aid system.  We recognise that humanitarian assistance from the Gulf states h