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Political Economy
With the Greek Left for a Democratic Europe: Statement by Etienne Balibar and Others
![[Syntagma Square in Athens on 24 February 2011. Image by William Faithful / Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_Syntagma4321.jpg "[Syntagma Square in Athens on 24 February 2011. Image by William Faithful / Flickr]")
[The following statement was issued by philospher Etienne Balibar and signed onto by over 170 public figures in support of the struggle for political and economic democracy in Greece and beyond.] It is clear that the responsibility for the chain of events that in a mere three years has plunged Greece into the abyss lies overwhelmingly with the parties that have held office since 1974. New Democracy (the Right) and PASOK (the Socialists) have not only maintained the system of corruption and privilege they have benefitted from it and enabled Greece's suppliers and creditors to profit considerably from this system while the institutions of the European Community looked the ...
Keep Reading »Blaming Others: A History of Violence in Lebanon
![[A gunman near a burning building during clashes in Tripoli, Lebanon, June 2, 2012. Image by Bilal Hussein/AP Photo. ]](/content_images/3/sm_AP_Lebanon_120602126399.jpg "[A gunman near a burning building during clashes in Tripoli, Lebanon, June 2, 2012. Image by Bilal Hussein/AP Photo. ]")
Violence has defined the seven years since the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But there are ruptures in the now familiar landscape of burning tires; Israel’s abduction of Lebanese citizens, its invasion of the country’s airspace, mounting casualties from Israeli land mine and cluster bombs; the abuse and killing of migrant workers, and the sound of lonely machine gun fire somewhere in the night. This is a list of the most discernible violence in Lebanon this past decade: In 2006 a war with Israel left thousands of civilians dead and almost a million others displaced. In 2007 the Lebanese army, with the vocal support of many Lebanese citizens, ...
Keep Reading »About Last Night
![[Students at Beirut Arab University Participate in International Day of Climate Action; Image From 350.org]](/content_images/3/sm_students.png "[Students at Beirut Arab University Participate in International Day of Climate Action; Image From 350.org]")
Last night the sound of gunfire punctuated the Beirut soundscape. Supporters of the anti-Syrian and majority Sunni Future Movement clashed with members of the pro-Assad and Sunni Majority Arab Movement. The fighting, which was most intense around the Beirut Arab University, continued until the early hours of the morning. The area around the Beirut Arab University is mixed. For the last several decades, “mixed” used to refer to Christian and Muslim co-habitation in this city, but today it is increasingly used to describe areas where Sunni and Shiite Muslims live side by side. This shift, or more accurately this proliferation in categorizing self and other encompassed in ...
Keep Reading »Shock-and-Awe Nation Building: Iraq's Neo-Liberal Reconstruction
![[View of Sadr City in the days preceding the December 2005 Iraqi legislative election. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_SadrCity.jpg "[View of Sadr City in the days preceding the December 2005 Iraqi legislative election. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]")
The Iraqi government’s contractual delivery of Iraqi oil fields to foreign multinationals is perhaps the most consequential long-term economic consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Contracts have been signed, production rights to massive oil fields sold, and a steady stream of propaganda disseminated about Iraqi oil production eventually rivaling that of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The celebratory narrative of Iraq’s expanding oil production has been marketed as an essential component of Iraq’s re-integration into a world economic system that will, we are told, become increasingly dependent on Iraqi oil, much of it waiting to be tapped. The ...
Keep Reading »On the Ground in Basra: An Interview with Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi
![[Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi with colleagues at the 2012 May Day march in Basra. Image from Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq]](/content_images/3/sm_issainterviewhashmeya.jpg "[Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi with colleagues at the 2012 May Day march in Basra. Image from Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq]")
Iraqi unions demonstrated yesterday on May Day 2012 at a difficult historical moment. Still operating without a labor law that sanctions their organizing, and under the consolidation of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s growing police/military powers, their movement faces an array of antagonistic forces. In this wide-ranging discussion with Ali Issa, Basra-based Hashmeya Muhsin al–Saadawi, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq, and the first woman vice-president of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers in Basra, discusses Iraqi security after the US withdrawal, the legacy of the US occupation, the state of union organizing and electricity, and ...
Keep Reading »"There Are Marxists in India?" Prabhat Patnaik on the Global Crisis
![[Prabhat Patnaik speaking at the CESP farwell party in JNU, New Delhi, 2006. Image by SubinDennis, via Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_pp.jpg "[Prabhat Patnaik speaking at the CESP farwell party in JNU, New Delhi, 2006. Image by SubinDennis, via Wikimedia Commons.]")
After an engaging half-hour interview with India’s pre-eminent Marxist economist during a conference at New York University, I told a friend about my one-on-one time with Prabhat Patnaik. “There are Marxists in India?” came the bemused response. “I thought India was the heart of the new capitalism.” Indeed, we hear about India mostly as a rising economic power that is challenging the United States. While there certainly are no shortages of capitalists, there are still lots of Marxists in India, as well as communist parties that have won state elections. Patnaik represents the best thinking and practice of those left traditions—both the academic Marxism that provides a ...
Keep Reading »A Monarchical Affair: From Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula
![[Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in his palace located near Casablanca, Morocco. Image by Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr.]](/content_images/3/sm_Fullscreencapture4102012121732AM.bmp.jpg "[Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in his palace located near Casablanca, Morocco. Image by Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr.]")
When protests in North Africa ousted dictators and began spreading elsewhere in the region, decades-old alliances between the Arab monarchies were strengthened with the common interest of staying in power at all costs. While Morocco’s political and economic ties have historically been predominantly directed toward European markets, Morocco has recently oriented its outlook toward the East, finding common ground with the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. Morocco’s relationship with the monarchies in the Gulf is nothing new. When King Hassan II of Morocco prioritized the acquisition of the Western Saharan territory as the principal objective of his reign, Saudi Arabia ...
Keep Reading »Essential Readings: Reading Lebanon
![[Fifty Lebanese Pounds. Image from Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_3316203986_c1b590f977_z.jpg "[Fifty Lebanese Pounds. Image from Flickr]")
My dissertation studies intersections and impasses between law and citizenship in Lebanon. I do so through examining two phenomena, activism for a secular personal status and/or civil marriage law, and conversion between sects and/or religions in order to make use of different personal status laws—a practice I call “strategic conversion.” Because of this emphasis on law and citizenship, my project is in conversation with literature on secularism and religion, the relationship between law, the state, and nationalism, and practices of citizenship and subjectivity. In addition, I have drawn extensively on archival texts, court documents, and legal texts that detail the ...
Keep Reading »The Syrian Regime's Business Backbone
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_damas.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
Nearly one year into the Syrian uprising, with more than 7,500 Syrians dead, the protracted conflict is not very well understood or reported despite a deluge of writings. Most track fast-moving events without pausing for sober analysis of Syrian politics and society. Early on, the dominant argument was that the regime would quickly collapse; later, it has been that the regime is durable. The long view rarely appears. When it does, alas, it most commonly adduces timeless cultural factors, chiefly sectarianism, to explain the apparent stalemate. No single factor is the secret to understanding the causes of the uprising or its prospects. There is, however, one basic, ...
Keep Reading »How I Would Not Lead the World Bank
![[William Easterly. Image from williameasterly.org]](/content_images/3/sm_williameasterly.png "[William Easterly. Image from williameasterly.org]")
Do not, under any circumstances, pick me. I am gratified by the widespread support that my non-nomination for World Bank president has received. My quest to help end poverty has led me to the ends of the Earth. My accomplishments speak for themselves, having successfully offended every official or interest group in any way connected to the World Bank, even the head of maintenance. I would not lead the World Bank by assembling an expert task force of my fellow social scientists, natural scientists, and random unemployed politicians. I would not ask such a well-qualified expert task force to answer the question "What must we do to end world poverty?" -- ...
Keep Reading »Syrian Pound at 90 per Dollar as Government Intervenes
![[Image from original article on Syria Comment]](/content_images/3/sm_Syrianpound.jpg "[Image from original article on Syria Comment]")
The Central Bank has managed to bring the Syrian pound back down into a manageable trading range. It had plunged to an exchange rate over 100 pounds to a dollar. It is now below 100 to a dollar. How did it do this? Reports are that the central bank sold only 2 million dollars. Yes, only 2 million dollars in order to calm the market. One friend reported paying 113 pounds for a dollar in Aleppo on Wednesday 7 March. On Thursday morning, the pound had risen to a range between 89 and 91 per pound. Six hours later it hit 103. The rate was bouncing all over the place between 85 to 113 per dollar; there was no real price. If the Central Bank can hold the ...
Keep Reading »حلّ التواطؤ، أفق الخروج
![[كاريكاتير للفنان الفلسطيني ناجي العلي]](/content_images/3/sm_325.jpg "[كاريكاتير للفنان الفلسطيني ناجي العلي]")
يسعى هذا المقال إلى إعادة فتح منظومة العلاقات بين فلسطينيّي 48 والنظام الصهيونيّ الاستعماريّ الذي يرزحون تحته منذ أن تَشكَّلَ كدولة عام 1948. وهو إذ يسعى في ذلك، سيقوم بفحص موقع الفلسطينيّين البنيويّ في هرميّة العلاقات الاستعماريّة، أي إنّ ما يهمّنا هنا هم الفلسطينيّون وورطتهم البنيويّة مع /في النظام الصهيونيّ. إنّ قراءة هذه الورطة لا يمكن لها أن تتمّ بمعزل عن سائر أجزاء المجتمع الفلسطينيّ، وإن كانت هذه القراءة، بحدّها الأدنى، ترمي إلى إبراز أوجه التشابه والاختلاف بينهم من حيث تَمَوْضُعهم تجاه النظام الصهيونيّ الاستعماريّ. ونودّ أن نبدأ هذه القراءة ممّا يبدو أنّه يميّز هذه الجماعة من الفلسطينيّين عن سائر المجتمع الفلسطينيّ، وهو التعلّق شبه التامّ المادّيّ الاجتماعيّ لهذه ...
Keep Reading »A Statement of Support on the Greek Left
We write to express our support for the ideals embodied by the Greek left in advance of the election of June 17th as they articulate the requirements for social and economic democracy under conditions of neo-liberalism. We oppose those forms of international pressure currently brought to bear on the people of Greece to cede their popular sovereignty to a European Union that has, until now, reproduced and strengthened social and economic inequalities throughout Europe and extended forms of ...
Keep Reading »The Exit from the Crisis is Left: Main Points of Greece's Syriza Leftist Coalition
[The following is the platform put forth by the Greek political coalition Syriza (an abbreviation for Coalition of the Radical Left) on 9 May 2012. The leftist coalition is currently polling at approximately thirty percent and is expected by some analysts to win in the next elections in Greece.] The Exit from the Crisis is on the Left 1. Creation of a shield to protect society against the crisis Not a single citizen without a guaranteed minimum income or unemployment benefit, medical care, ...
Keep Reading »Critical Perspectives on EBRD "Transition" Investment Priorities in Egypt (Video)
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was created twenty-one years ago with the purpose of supporting the transition to democracy and market economies in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Following the Arab uprisings of 2011, it was tasked by its shareholders, including the United States and the European Union, to assist the "democratic" transitions in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region. Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco are the ...
Keep Reading »Should Tunisia Pay Ben Ali's Debts?
The journalist, uneasy, risked his question: “Do you have any fears that there is perhaps a far left movement coming through these revolutions that perhaps want more closed economies? I mean, there have been a lot of pictures of Guevara.” At a press conference on the Arab Uprisings held in April last year at International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters, then-Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave a reassuring nod in that direction. “It is a good question,” he responded. “A good question. There ...
Keep Reading »The Egyptian Revolution and Neo-Liberal Economics (Video)
The following video report on the demands and struggles surrounding redistributive justice in Egypt before and after the 2011 uprosing was produced by The Real News Network.
Keep Reading »Press Release: "Petition to EU Members of Parliament about Auditing Egyptian Foreign Debt"
[The following press release was issued by the Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt's Debt on 1 April, 2012] The end of the Mubarak dictatorship left Egypt with a heavy legacy of failed economic policies and a misshaped sovereign debt management with projects not necessarily benefiting the vast majority of the Egyptian population. Today, Egypt bears the burden of a public external debt amounting to $35 billion consuming 2/5th of the national budget to service and principal repayment. In 2011, debt service ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Nelly Hanna, Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism (1600-1800)
Nelly Hanna, Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism (1600-1800). Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book, and what particular topics, issues, and literatures does it address? Nelly Hanna (NH): The book is part of a large body of literature that deals with the artisans and guilds of the Ottoman Empire. Scholars have written about artisans in Istanbul, Bursa, Aleppo, and Jerusalem (including Suraiya Faroqhi, Abdul Karim Rafeq, Haim ...
Keep Reading »هوامش سياسية على دفتر أزمة البنزين والسولار
هامش أول ــ مصر ــ مارس ٢٠١٢: أزمة وقود لا يصاحبها مخطط إسقاط مصر. عادت أزمة النقص الحاد فى البنزين والسولار. وكانت مصر قد شهدت أزمة مماثلة قبل شهرين وتحديداً قبيل مظاهرات الاحتفال بالذكرى السنوية الأولى لثورة يناير، والتى تزامنت وقتها مع إعلان عسكري عن مخطط دولي "لإسقاط مصر ومؤسسات الدولة خلال المظاهرات“. الأزمة تعكس نفسها فى طوابير بالمحطات تمتد ٤ كيلومترات وتخنق المرور بالقاهرة، وتطيح بالمخابز البلدية بعد توقف عدد منها عن إنتاج الخبز البلدي المدعوم. الأزمة تضرب فى المحافظات، وتتسبب فى موجة من ...
Keep Reading »Call for Participants: Training for MENA Journalists on EU Aid Post-Arab Spring (16-19 May 2012)
Following the erruption of the Arab uprisings, the European Union has quickly responded by announcing its intention to allegedly assist North African and Middle Eastern countries in their efforts to democratise. One of the main tools proposed for such assistance has been lending by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), originally created to help post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe transition to democracy and market economy. The EBRD, however, has a mixed ...
Keep Reading »Call to National and European MPs: For an Audit of Tunisia's Debts to the EU
[The following statement was issued on 16 March 2012 by a diverse group of European parliamentarians calling for an audit of Tunisia's debt to the European Union.] With dictator Ben Ali ousted from power since 14 January 2011, Tunisia bears the burden of a public external debt amounting to $14.4 bn, which is a major obstacle to the development of the Tunisian people since repayment (capital plus interests) drains on an average an annual sum 6 times larger than the health budget. While Tunisia urgently ...
Keep Reading »Syria’s Currency Plunges, Raising Fears of Economic Chaos and Poverty
The exchange rate of the Syrian pound has reportedly plunged to the 103 range against the dollar at mid-day Wednesday, 7 March 2012, in Damascus. This is a loss of over one hundred percent since the beginning of the uprising. Over the last month, the Syrian pound has begun to weaken significantly which has received little attention. The one hundred mark is an important psychological barrier. Syrian businessmen are taking large losses. Most rely on account receivables when they sell their goods. This ...
Keep Reading »From Greece: Declaration for the Defense of Society and Democracy
[The following statement was issued by a group of Greek academics regarding the ongoing crises in Greece.] Greek society is suffering both from the crisis and the responses to it, which have reached a dead-end. Major social and political institutions that were created with enormous struggles and sacrifices in post-War Greece—social security, the public health care system, public education, public transport, the natural and urban environment, the right to live a safe existence, and various elemental ...
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I’m sorry I didn’t do more or speak up more. I’m sorry I left you behind, alone, bare-chested, to wage this war for the rest of us. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And we drown in Syria, a sea of sorriness.click | email | tweet
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