Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Sarrazin event cancelled
Due to the hard work of campaigners across Europe, the event at which Thilo Sarrazin was due to speak at the LSE today has been cancelled. Congratulations to all those who made the effort to stop his vile message from having a hearing in London.
EDL Appearance on Newsnight Exemplifies Postracialism
Excerpt published on the Muslim Council of Britain site
Ours is a righteous cause,” says Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) of the English Defence League, “Alright, OK,” replies Jeremy Paxman, anchor of BBC2′s flagship news programme Newsnight, “A lot of people are worried, I believe you.
The decision to invite the EDL to appear on Newsnight on February ahead of the its march on Luton planned for February 5, touted as the “the biggest demonstration in its 18-month history” according to The Guardian, was ill-informed. Those interested in engaging in the ‘no platform’ debate may do so. However, what was more striking about the Newsnight appearance was Paxman’s ultimate inability to counter the incendiary, anti-Muslim statements tripping off Lennon’s tongue. Inability or unwillingness? Read the rest of this entry »
Sussex Salon Tonight: ‘Are EU countries right to ban the wearing of religious symbols?’
I will be appearing at this event tonight. If you are in Brighton, please come along although, annoyingly, it clashes with Judith Butler’s lecture at the University of Sussex at 17h00. I have a feeling this will be an event heavily skewed towards the liberal standpoint of the type advocated by Christian Joppke in his book Veil: Mirror of Identity, an approach we critique in our forthcoming book, The Crises of Multiculturalism (with Gavan Titley). Joppe argues in favour of the French ban on the hijab because, to put it bluntly, you have to be illiberal to protect the overarching values if liberalism which bizarrely place freedom on top of its list of priorities. Mainly in reaction to Joan Scott’s excellent 2007 book, The Politics of the Veil, Joppke continually rejects an analysis of the French ban in terms of racism, poo-pooing any such claim as naive and immature. However, what becomes clear is it is the racialised whose freedom is sacrificable in favour of the protection of the right ‘not to be offended by the Other’ of the dominant culture.
All this in light of the English Defence League’s appearance last night on BBC 2′s Newsnight programme and the call from the Muslim Council of Britain to respond to what AbdoolKarim Vakil of the MCB calls an example of how “mainstream politicians irresponsible remarks license and legitimise populist and extremist racism and Islamophobia.”
A longer and more considered to response to that event will appear here tomorrow in juxtaposition to tonight’s Salon debate – let’s see how far away from each other they will be!
Sussex Salon: ‘Are EU countries right to ban the wearing of religious symbols?’
With Belgium and France taking steps to ban the wearing of veils in public places, and some UK hospitals banning the wearing of crucifixes, we ask whether such steps violate human rights or ensure them? Join the debate with a panel including: Anglican vicar, writer and broadcaster Rev. Peter Owen-Jones (Around the World in 80 Faiths), Dr Alana Lentin (The Politics of Diversity in Europe and Racism: A Beginner’s Guide) and Dr Sue Collard (Politics, University of Sussex). Wed 2 Feb 2011, 8pm, Pavilion Theatre
The Crises of Multiculturalism in press
The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age, co-wrtten with Gavan Titley is currently in press and will be published with Zed Books in 2011 with a preface by Gary Younge.
It’s racist, and you know it is…
A young asylum seeker at Mosney Direct Provision Centre in County Meath, Ireland, waits for a decision that will define her life.
Following the Irish government’s plans to move asylum seekers from a detention centre at Mosney, a former Butlins style holiday camp, where they have, despite all the odds, made a home, Gavan Titley responds to a racist article by Ian O’Doherty of the Irish Independent. In the Irish Left Review, Titley argues that,
The genre of new realism translates the culturalist racism of the 1990s for a new era. Based on the false assumption that racism was always about biological difference, rather than a historically shifting form of thinking organised through the modern nation state that fuses biology and culture in systems of power and essential difference, new realism allows exclusion, inequality and hierarchy to be parsed through ideas of irreducible differences and exaggerated threats to our little land and its scarce resources. It frames racism as a moral criticism of ordinary people, rather than as a political critique of how power is distributed and inequality justified. It doesn’t matter if it is coded as ‘culture’, race-thinking remains constant.
Responding with Rage
An article I wrote at the time of the last World Cup in 2006 which resonates with racist nationalism as it is being played with respect to this year’s championship.
What is there left to say about Zinedine Zidane’s already infamous head-butt in the last minutes of the finals of the 2006 World Cup? Articles, blogs and bar room conversation have hashed and rehashed the French captain’s act. He has been damned a traitor and hailed a hero. He has been condemned, understood and forgiven. But the symbolic impact of his charge of rage, his head ramming into the chest of the Italian Matterazzi, “like a bull” (Liberation, July 11), is yet to be fully felt in France.
Many commentators have spoken about Zidane, the son of poor Algerian immigrants from La Castellane in the council houses of Marseille’s Quartier Nord. He is said to be understated, generally humbled by his stardom, unsure of what to do with the adulation that his football prowess has earned him. It is this that endeared him to everyone in France, except of course the supporters of the Front national’s Jean-Marie Le Pen who has repeatedly condemned the make-up of France’s ethnically mixed tricolor national team. The majority even forgive him for not singing the national anthem when it is played at the beginning of matches. He has been, until Sunday’s crucial trespassing, a symbol of all that liberal France hopes for the sons and daughters of the immigrants from the quartiers difficiles (literally the “difficult neighbourhoods of the ill-famed banlieues). He was held up as an example for the kids whose dream it is to become the Zizous of the future: keeping his head down and making a positive contribution to the Republic, rather than burning its schools and jeering at its police. Read the rest of this entry »
Listen to ‘Post-race, post-politics’
You can now listen and watch ‘Post-race, post-politics: the paradoxical rise of culture after multiculturalism’, a paper I recently gave at the University of Toronto in Berlin Conference on “Post-Secular Society as a Transatlantic Model? Migration, Religion and Class in Comparative Perspective” by visiting the Media page.
Judith Buter turns down civil courage award from Berlin Pride
Judith Butler turning down the Civil Courage Award at the Berlin Pride June 19 2010
I must distance myself from this racist complicity
Press Release by SUSPECT on the events of the 19th June, 2010
As Berlin Queer and Trans Activists of Colour and Allies we welcome Judith Butler’s decision to turn down the Zivilcourage Prize awarded by Berlin Pride. We are delighted that a renowned theorist has used her celebrity status to honour queer of colour critiques against racism, war, borders, police violence and apartheid. We especially value her bravery in openly critiquing and scandalising the organisers’ closeness to homonationalist organisations. Her courageous speech is a testimony to her openness for new ideas, and her readiness to engage with our long activist and academic work, which all too often happens under conditions of isolation, precariousness, appropriation and instrumentalisation. Read the rest of this entry »
Racism and the Censorship of Gay Imperialism
by Aren Aizura
I am reprinting the excellent response to the censorship of Out of Place, a book edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake on the interconnections between queerness and raciality. As you will read, the book contains an article, ‘Gay Imperialism’, which critiques what Jasbir Puar for example has termed ‘homonationalism’ and the participation by some gay rights and feminist activists in the perpetuation of Islamophobia through the ‘war on terror’ logic.
The book will not be republished due to an attack by the gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell, who has claimed that he is defamed by the article. The article and the book are an excellent critique of the ways in which discourses of liberation have been subverted in the service of power.
Please read this critique and spread it widely. An interesting comment on his piece and on Peter Tatchell’s stance by Sara Ahmed, author of much interesting work on racism, Islamophobia and ‘diversity’ can be read here.
Read on for Aizura’s article… Read the rest of this entry »
Places left on the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies
Due to a number of deferrals, the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies at Trinity College, Dublin is still accepting applications for 2009-10. Please consult their website