Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Note: A British nation has never existed. A sharp critique of David Edgerton’s Britain

The pink left has also gained ‘power’ in Chile. Unlike Honduras , the country is the richest in Latin America. Will Boric’s government fare better than the previous leftist governments in the region? I doubt it . “It  is worth remembering the  experiences of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in the Spanish State . Both these parties, with some of the same ideological foundations as the Broad Front in Chile, promised an end to neoliberalism via elections. But once they arrived in government, they implemented many of the  neoliberal policies demanded by the institutions of the ruling class. 

Every year the corporate media reminds us again and again of Tiananmen Square massacre. How many times have we seen the same reporting and commemoration of Egypt’s Rab’a Square? It is probable that the number of those killed in the latter in the span of 12 hours was more than what the Chinese government forces killed between 3 and 4 of June. This is corroborated by Human Rights Watch itself not a leftist organisation or Chinese regime sympathisers. Most estimates cited on Wikipedia give a figure very similar to the number killed in Rab’a Square. Egypt is an ‘ally’. The regime is not a threat to ‘us’. Thus the hypocrisy.

‘Arab Spring’

A good piece! I disagree with the use of ‘post-socialism/communism though. Morris misses to include capitalism in Russia with the global political economy. “We  should  view Russia as just another ‘normal’ country, just not in the optimistic sense  Daniel Treisman and Andrei Shleifer (2005)  predicted: a middle-income country facing typical developmental challenges. Instead, I would contend that Russia is ‘normal’ in ways that reflect its peripheral-as-vanguard authoritarian neoliberalism. Its characteristics are the dominant politics of “austerity” (the phobia of fiscal expansion, a continuously residualizing social state) accompanied by the other disciplining factor of real incomes falling over protracted time periods; limited social mobility and the privatizing of educational opportunity leading to a small plutocratic class or caste; the expansion of indebtedness and precarity in the population; social reproduction as largely responsibilized and privatized; the expansion of the hori

If only Assange had been Navalny

“French politicians spend little time discussing socio-economic issues. The most polarised debates revolve around  culture wars . In France, they focus on immigration, Islam and its alleged threat to  laïcité  and French republican values, culture and education. There are constant attacks on ‘ Islamo-Leftism ’ and ‘ woke culture ’. These strengthen the hand of the far Right, which traditionally thrives on those issues.” A creature of the ‘French establishment’