Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

An interview with Malaika Jabali Correction:  “I feature Frida Kahlo, who was a part of the Communist Party.” She was in the Mexican Communist Party, not the American one.

A good review , especially that it questions the authors’ ‘alternative’ and its limitations.

An entire academic industry has developed around attempting to explain the apparent persistence and durability of Middle East authoritarianism. Much of this has been heavily Eurocentric, seeking some kind of intrinsic “obedience to authority” inherent to the “Arab mind.” Some authors have focused on the impact of religion, tracing authoritarian rule to the heavy influence of Islam, and the fact that “twentieth-century Muslim political leaders often have styles and use strategies that are very similar to those instituted by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia some 1400 years ago. The history of the region is thus characteristically recounted as a long-standing struggle between the “authoritarian state” and “economic and political liberalization. Instead of viewing the Arab uprisings as protests against the “free market” economic policies long championed by Western institutions in the region, they were framed as essentially political in nature. The state/civil society dichotomy serves to “con

“At a very simple level, that means one of the pleasures of reading the  Manifesto  is that it’s beautiful. It’s remarkable. Whether one agrees or not with some of its claims and its positions, it is just a joy to read this incantatory prose. Marshall Berman famously really stresses this, and it’s something that even critics of Marx will often allow. This is a remarkable piece of almost apocalyptic literature. If you read it critically, of course, but also generously and thoughtfully, you may gain, as I did, a great deal more out of it politically and intellectually than you might assume if you only think of it as an introductory text.” China Miéville’s stimulating reading of The Manifesto and its authors

Highlights from Jason Hickel 1)  Compensation for atmospheric appropriation .  This is my top highlight. We show that rich countries have already dramatically exceeded their fair-shares of the carbon budget for 1.5 ° C and 2 ° C and are rapidly appropriating the fair-shares of others, forcing them to mitigate faster than would otherwise be required. In a scenario where all countries aim for zero emissions by 2050, rich countries will owe $192 trillion to global South countries in compensation for atmospheric appropriation. In  Nature Sustainability . 2)  Climate change and racial justice .  Rich countries and elites are overwhelmingly responsible for excess emissions, but communities in the global South—and Indigenous and racially minoritized groups within nations—face a disproportionate burden of illness and mortality due to climate change. The climate crisis is a process of atmospheric colonization, and the consequences are playing out along colonial lines. Make sure to check out the

A book review Warning: it is a long review, but scathing “Why, after all, is there so little to be found in  PDCI [ The Politics of Decolonial Investigations ]   — and generally throughout the decolonial screeds of Mignolo — concerning the specifics of colonialism itself, its material basis and conditions, not to mention the actual, practically inexhaustible details of its historiography, anti-colonial movements proving no exception to this rule? Whatever the deeper reasons for it, this factual deficit is crucial to the critique and critical decipherment of the jargon of decoloniality — almost as if its terminological extravagances and redundancies and its flat-out rhetorical hubris were ironic compensation for an underlying historical vacuum. Part of the answer will no doubt also reflect the typically contemporary and cosmopolitan purview of more vernacular calls to “decolonize.” While, as a slogan, the latter does not necessarily ignore the historical impact of colonialism on questio

After reading Serfati’s analysis, I would consider his essay as an introduction to why the French state and its ruling class act the way they do at home and abroad . France has maintained a major role on the international scene, especially militarily, despite experiencing a relative decline in world economic power since the 1990s. In 2011, it ranked fifth in terms of military spending and sixth in terms of arms exports. It is a major zone of capital accumulation in the world economy and is centrally integrated into the global dynamics of economic, political, and military power. The overall closeness of elites in state institutions and large transnational corporations. French TNCs are increasingly dependent on profits earned in emerging or peripheral economies. when analysing the role of France in Africa, one must consider an interrelated set of economic, geopolitical, and domestic socio-political drivers. In 2009, France ranked third as a trading partner with Africa as a continent, beh

According to Unicef UK, Every day, 14-year-old Tenasoa, who has lost the use of her legs, works in a mine to earn money for her family. "I don't know the origin of her disability,” explains her mother. “She has to work because it allows us to increase our income.” In Madagascar, about 10,000 children work in the mica mining sector . Mica is commonly found in products such as cosmetics, paints and electronics – and mining it requires people to work in dangerous conditions underground. Long-term exposure to mica dust can irritate the lungs and cause irreversible fibrosis that causes blood to be coughed up. In the mine where Tenasoa works, she sorts and cleans 2 kilogrammes of mica per day. Forty children work in the mine. They labour for seven days a week, with no access to school or health services. The dry, rocky landscape leaves few other ways to make a living. As one of the elders says, "If we don't work, we don't eat, it's very simple. Men, women and childr

There is a focus on capitalism in the UK .  I don’t understand what Michael Roberts means by three socio-economic systems. Is it not capitalism the socio-economic system of our era?

“If profitability is threatened, reforms must go.” Roberts should have added: but the state intervenes to maintain stability in society because absence of reforms sharpens class struggle. In orde to save capitalism, the capitalist state initiates reforms even if those reforms are minor or undermined in a later stage. The debate continues …

Among the 150-plus photographs, images of Latin America, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent appear hardly at all and usually as a foil or kitschy reflection of Euro-American modernity. North Korea, the kitschiest foil of them all, appears as many times as the entire African continent. For all our differences, [the exhibition ] Civilisation seems to preach, we people of the world are essentially the same, and we’re all trying to make the best of life within the inescapable confines of US-exported late capitalism.

The article is available in four languages. This should be a guide to anyone who wants to study religion in general and Islam in particular . 1. “The impossibility of writing the history of a religion as an autonomous entity without considering the economic, social and political dynamics at work. 2. The relative autonomy of religion vis-à-vis social issues. In other words, ideology translates into its own language the contradictions that run through society. 3.  There is not one Islam, transcendent, ahistorical, but several very different Islams, transformed by the historical conditions in which they flourished; these Islams are ideologies, it would therefore be methodologically erroneous and politically ineffectual or even dangerous to regard it as the main motor of economic phenomena.” 4.  The politicisation of Islam and the development of Islamic fundamentalism are the fateful results of the subjugation of Muslim countries by the capitalist powers of Europe. This subjugation impeded

“Years of impunity for Israeli crimes against civilians have bred a culture of disregard for international law.” Alice Speri on The Intercept follows the mainstream – delusional belief and misleading – concept of ‘international law’. As a counter-argument I have chosen a selection from Between Equal Rights “The debate between jurists is not whether this or that action is a reprisal and therefore illegal, but whether reprisals as a category are illegal. Here, the importance of ‘authoritative’ decision is key. After all, the majority of writers agree that reprisals are illegal. However, as long as Israel, for example, is able to interpret reprisals as legal, openly to claim its activities as reprisals, and to be a strong enough power (with the US’s support) to defeat or silence any dissenters, then it is nonsensical to claim that reprisals are functionally illegal. The same unresolvably structured arguments – again with the weight of opinion against the US – have been batted back and for

The wrong kind of secularism

Danny Katch: “Socialism is a society whose top priority is meeting all of its people’s needs, ranging from food, shelter, and health care, to art, culture, and companionship. In contrast, capitalism only cares about any of that basic human necessities stuff to the extent that money can be made of it.” Nathan J. Robinson: “ Because it’s not that capitalism never produces food—you can go to the grocery store—it’s not that capitalism never produces any kind of shelter—you can rent an apartment—it is that it provides it to the extent that money can be made off it, and the moment those human imperatives of the basic needs conflict with the money being made, the money will come above basic needs.” I do not think that is a full explanation; I think it is partially accurate because it forgets that capitalism also provides certain things and maintains others – erosion but not the dismantling of the welfare system, for example – to keep the social peace, and thus the system protects itself from

It is a good summary. “ With the husk of revolutionary language retained, capitalism has encircled the very idea of leftist transformation. Pepsi may have  figured out how to create a resurrectionist Pepsi Generation in the 1960s , but now brands conjure group identities from inchoate public feelings by tailoring messages towards those who want to feel radical; Buzzfeed structured its entire business model around this approach for more than a decade. Change without change.” You may only to create an account to read the article.

Someone has just mentioned Singapore comparing its economic development with some Arab countries. So, I felt I should add a note to an old post . Referring to a capitalist country with a small population  – 2 million in 1970 and 2.4 million in 1980 when  Singapore’s economic development was apace – is not a good way of comparing countries. “ Only 7  years after its independence (1972), Singapore had become a  foreign investment magnet .  More than one-fourth of Singapore's manufacturing firms partnered with or were owned by a foreign entity.  The majority  of the investors came from the United States and Japan.  The country also achieved a  double-digit economic growth rate every year.” For internal and external reasons countries like Tunisia (the one my interlocutor compared to Singapore), Morocco, Syria and Egypt did not enjoy such foreign funding.  In 2022, Singapore was ranked 139th out of 180 nations by  Reporters Without Borders  on the global  Press Freedom Index .  Freedom

A very good summary

This is very stimulating and requires focus, and the exchanges are also very engaging. I couldn’t read everything although the topic is so important to most of us.