by Sara Ahmed

Sara Ahmed

Peter Tatchell invites us to find evidence of ‘my Islamaphobia, racism or support for imperialist wars or the “war on terror”‘ in the articles that can be downloaded from his website. I would like to say that a brief glance at some of these articles shows some very serious problems in terms of the employment of racialised vocabularies for example in: Their Multiculturalism and Ours; Why has the left gone soft on human rights?; The New Dark Ages (you don’t need to read Frantz Fanon to discuss the problem with the use of the very term ‘the new dark ages’ though Fanon, as always would help) and Islamic Fundamentalism in Britain. I don’t have the time in this brief informal response for the call to respond to go through all of the problems with these pieces, for example, with how some of the critiques of ‘universal human rights’ discourse which have been an important part of LGBT, feminist, socialist as well as anti-racist histories are represented as ‘going soft’. I do intend to offer a systematic critique of some of the terms of the arguments used in due course, which I will publish where they can downloaded, in the interests of sustaining and enabling a debate. But I do want to question here how Mr Tatchell is responding to the critique, and even to the critique of the response to the critique (offered by very thoughtful and careful pieces of writing such as the one offered by Aren Aizura). Critiques of racism are reduced and misheard as personal attacks, which is what blocks a hearing of the critique. In the end, the situation becomes re-coded as a question of individual reputation and good will: we lose the chance to attend to the politics of the original critique.We need to reflect on what we are talking about when we are talking about racism. Racism in speech does not simply depend on the explicit articulation of ideas of racial superiority but often works given that such associations do not need to be made explicit. So for example politicians might use a qualifier ‘this is not a war against Islam’ and then use repeatedly terms like ‘Islamic terrorists’ which work to associate Islam with terror through the mere proximity of the words: the repetition of that proximity makes the association ‘essential’. In other words, proximities becomes attributes ( they become ‘sticky’ as I suggested in my book, The Cultural Politics of Emotion). The process of attribution is in turn bound up with the justification of action, especially in cases where actions are presented as moral whilst involving force (war on terror becomes about freedom from oppression/violence, or even liberation from the oppressors, where freedom resides here, ‘in us’, oppression resides there, ‘with them’). So some forms of violence becomes represented as intrinsic to some forms of culture, and not to others (violence ‘here’ would be individual or exceptional rather that something that can be attributed to ‘us’).

One of the hardest aspects of this process is how even languages of liberation and freedom, which we might assume to be ‘our languages’, to be oppositional, to be about challenging dominant norms and making possible new forms of flourishing, can be used in this process: freedom can be what ‘we’ have or even what we are. Other critics have pointed out how the language of freedom can be a technology for distinguishing ‘an us’ from ‘a them’: from Judith Butler, to Jasbir Puar, to Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem, the authors of the article whose passing from print we are right to mourn. When governments justify war on the grounds of freedom from oppressive gender regimes, it helps to recognise that theses justifications have a history, to refuse to hear them as in any way ‘new’. As Gayatri Spivak taught us, empire itself was justified in these terms, with a description that remains extraordinary for its precision: ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’. Homophobia too can be exercised as what ‘the others’ needs liberating from; it too can become attributed to others, and thus an attribute of others (homophobia can be seen as intrinsic to Islam but homophobia in the West would be seen as extrinsic, as an individual problem or a problem with individuals). The language of sexual freedom and sexual rights can thus be exercised as if they are political gift (imperial histories are those in which force is narrated as gift). When freedom or rights becomes a justification for war and empire, they become cultural attributes: what we have, what we give them, what we must force them to have. To become aware of this process is not to withdraw from a commitment to freedoms, but it must mean acquiring a certain caution about turning our commitments into our own attributes or even ego ideals (as if we as activists know in advance what is good or right for ourselves or for others).

I am calling for a recognition of how racism in speech can employ the languages of freedom, which conceal the violence of its mark (note the recent uses of freedom of speech to justify the freedom of some to articulate racist views, or the reduction of freedom of speech to ‘freedom to be offensive’). When we are dealing with language and power we are dealing with how power often does not reveal itself: power becomes the capacity not simply to regulate speech but to generate ideas through proximity: freedom for example is put near certain other categories, giving them both value and force. My own work on Islamaphobia for instance has looked at how ‘being hurt or offended’ by racism becomes seen as the ‘problem’ of Muslims who don’t integrate, such that Islam becomes what offends our freedom, what challenges our freedom to be offensive. None of these associations have to become articulated as a viewpoints, nothing has to be explicitly said.

It might be helpful to point out that homophobic speech can also work like this, by withdrawing from the necessity to articulate a viewpoint: for example, someone does not have to be anti-gay by saying ‘all gays are paedophiles’ or ‘all gays endanger the well-being of our children’, all they need to do is put the category of paedophilia ‘near’ to the category of homosexual to create this effect. Or note how if a lesbian or gay person is involved in child abuse, the category of lesbian or gay will be made explicit in media reporting, which becomes an implicit invitation to make queerness part of the problem of the abuse: but a heterosexual person will be involved in child abuse (much more commonly) and their heterosexuality will not be brought up in the description, which allows heterosexuality to disappear from the scene of abuse. The way in which problems are presented makes some people and not others into problems (this again involves a process of attribution: you make the attributes of x essential to the problem). A critical and complex understanding of language and power is needed to get at this mechanism. We must take the time we need to get at this.

It is my view that Mr Tatchell’s writings on Islam and multiculturalism repeat and reproduce many ‘problematic proximities’ between Islam and violence, and thus participate in the culture of Islamaphobia. It is because this culture exists that we must take care not to reproduce its effects. I refuse the call to express solidarity with such work. I would also say that the apologies given to Mr Tatchell are a symptom of the problem rather than a solution. One of the most problematic texts I have read in many years is in fact the apology produced by Raw Nerve: which helps to reveal what is going on in the situation better than anything (it not only grossly caricatures the original argument, but it actually represents those critiqued as the ones to whom we should be grateful, who should receive our thanks). Still we can do things with problems: some texts in their problematic associations can help us understand the world we are. As Audre Lorde (an early black lesbian feminist critic of racism and imperialism in both the women’s movement and in lesbian and gay politics) taught me: we need to struggle to find better ways of describing what goes on in our world, which means staying proximate to the scenes of its violence.

I am aware that if there is any response to my comments it is likely that it will be to expose their error. But even if that is the case, its worth putting these words down. We all need to get words out there, words that attempt to offer new descriptions, to give us the possibility of imagining new worlds. Words can be offered as signs of hope: they get passed around; they can become lines that connect us, in the political struggle for other worlds.

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…

Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation. One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008. An edited collection examining intersections between race and sexuality in the United Kingdom, Out of Place joins Jasbir Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages as a key contribution to this debate. Alongside other contributions in Out of Place, the
chapter “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror”, by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem pointed to the continuing deployment of queerness as a symbol of “freedom” to rationalise the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and future wars in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to rationalise restrictive and racist immigration policies in “Western” or “liberal” nations. “Gay Imperialism” uses the work of activist Peter Tatchell, founder of Outrage!, as an example of how white gay activists can become complicit with this agenda by painting Islam as inherently homophobic and misogynist, and appointing themselves as the saviours of non-white queers.

On September 7th, Raw Nerve Books declared Out of Place to be out of print, removed it from circulation and sale, and issued an online apology to Peter Tatchell. Presumably this is the result of threats of legal action by Tatchell and Outrage!. The apology quotes its own publication to apologise for what it accepts as defamatory statements and misrepresentation of Tatchell and Outrage! by Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem. These include:
a) that Tatchell is “Islamaphobic” and “part of the Islamaphobia industry”
b) that Tatchell is “racist”
c) that Tatchell “sling[s] mud onto Muslim communities”

As one sees if one reads “Gay Imperialism”, these so-called accusations are all taken grossly out of context and reduce the complexity of Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem’s argument. The apology continues by obsequiously praising Tatchell and Outrage!’s “anti-racist” work, and making further accusations against a number of African LGBT activists, who had refused to work with Tatchell precisely because of his paternalistic attitude, and who are cited in “Gay Imperialism”.

It seems likely that Tatchell’s lawyers presented Raw Nerve with an already-written apology and asked them to sign and publish it. Tatchell is notoriously litigious. He is equally notorious for staging highly publicised, “one man” actions that appear to have just as much to do with his public image as a gay celebrity activist as any political work. However, Tatchell himself is not important here. What is important is
that this critique is evidently so threatening to Tatchell and to the book’s publishers that it must be removed from circulation, and the authors must be condemned as liars.

This incident proves something about how difficult it is to do anti-racist work. Pointing out racism, no matter how carefully we might phrase it and no matter which arguments we have about the use of the word ‘racism’, is often perceived as a personal and individual affront. Those so accused often appear to find it wounding or traumatic — psychically wounding, but more importantly, wounding to their public image. “How dare you accuse me of racism? I am not racist; I have lots of friends who are people of color!” goes the cliched defensive response we are all familiar with. This way, the person or organisation critiqued can escape engaging with the content of the critique and put the burden of proof back on the person who raised the issue. It is not coincidental that the person making a critique of racism is often non-white, deploying old colonial stereotypes that people of colour are untrustworthy ingrates who don’t know what’s good for them. This problem of white, “well-intentioned” activists ignoring or actively silencing the desires of the people they profess to help in order to maintain the myth of their own generous self-sacrifice is endemic to many struggles: feminist anti-”trafficking” activism; indigenous land and rights struggles; migration activism; the backlash against the wearing of hijab by Muslim women in France and elsewhere, and on and on. The only way it might ever stop is for its perpetrators to acknowledge their role.

Meanwhile a really amazing book is being censored. The authors of the chapter and the editors of Out of Place are unable to comment due to UK libel law. It’s unlikely that Raw Nerve will reissue the book, even if the editors wanted this. Meanwhile the authors’ reputations are themselves besmirched. There are several things you can do about this situation:

1. Circulate this and your own commentary among your friends, companeros, colleagues.
2. Circulate “Gay Imperialism” — a PDF is online here

Please pass this around, respond, send it to other listservs and read the other statements written about the censorship of Out of Place:

“Out of Place, Out of Print: On the Censorship of the First Queerness/Raciality Collection in Britain” by Johanna Rothe, Monthly Review,
“On the Censorship of ‘Gay Imperialism’ and Out of Place”, X:Talk website

Aren Aizura is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Gender Studies of Indiana University, Bloomington.

Nick Griffin was right about one thing: Churchill would have felt at home in the BNP.

The appearance of Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nartional Party, on BBC Question Time on October 22, 2009 has led to massive debate across the UK. Those in favour of freedom of speech advocated for Griffin to be allowed on the programme in the interests of exposing him. Those opposing said that there should be no platform for fascists and that Griffin and the BNP would only benefit from the publicity, no matter what was actually debated. I agree with the latter position and have always done so. Rare words of sense were written by Gary Younge in the Guardian reminding us that the other panelists, in particular Jack Straw, as the representative of New Labour is as guilty (if not more so) of encouraging racism in Britain as Griffin, especially considering Straw’s incendiary 2007 remarks on the niqab and the direct link between this and rising Islamophobia.

The panelists on Question Time were literally falling over themselves to show themselves to be tolerant and non-racist in the face of Griffin’s blatant racism. However, the mechanisms they chose to do this by resorted to the tried and tested recourse to patriotism (critiqued by Paul Gilroy in There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack with regards the Anti-Nazi Leagues in 1987).Griffin was asked to comment on his statement that “If Churchill were alive today, his own place would be in the British National Party.” This led to outrage expressed by the other panelists who accused the BNP of hijacking Churchill as its own. But the uncomfortable truth is that Griffin is right: if Churchill were alive he would share the beliefs of the BNP because he did so in his day. It is a delusion to think that Britain fought the Second World War because it oposed racism. Churchill, in particular, was a eugenicist, having drafted the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, the only law on eugenics to be passed through the British parliament (albeit never out into effect).

Griffin said on Question Time that “Churchill in his younger days was extremely critical of fundamentalist Islam.” Whereas it may not have been called that in Churchill’s day, according to winstonchurchill.org:

Churchill’s view was reinforced by his experiences as a young British officer serving, and fighting, in Arab and Muslim lands, and in South Africa. Like most of his contemporaries, family and friends, he regarded races as different, racial characteristics as signs of the maturity of a society, and racial purity as endangered not only by other races but by mental weaknesses within a race. As a young politician in Britain entering Parliament in 1901, Churchill saw what were then known as the “feeble-minded” and the “insane” as a threat to the prosperity, vigour and virility of British society.

“The improvement of the British breed is my aim in life,” Winston Churchill wrote to his cousin Ivor Guest on 19 January 1899, shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday. A fuller account of his abhorrent beliefs can be read here.

Suffice is to conclude that a reversion to British patriotism and dubious figures such as Churchill as a means of tackling the abhorrence of the far-right has and will never be sufficient. Having been said, it is hardly surprising that this – along with blatant anti-immigration one-upmanship – was the only tactic employed by the Griffin pathetic QT co-panelists (with the exception of the only non-politican, Bonnie Greer).

As Klein notes in conclusion, the right in the US has already decided that Obama is a ‘reverse racist’ that wants to use public finance to redirect funds directly to minorities and away from whites. Nothing could be further from the truth, but,

No matter how race-neutral Obama tries to be, his actions will be viewed by a large part of the country through the lens of its racial obsessions. So, since even his most modest, Band-Aid measures are going to be greeted as if he is waging a full-on race war, Obama has little to lose by using this brief political window actually to heal a few of the country’s racial wounds.

Read the whole article here

My bookshelves

I am currently in the proces of uploading my publications using Issuu. If you visit this page,you can view, download or print the journal article or book chapter you would like. This is a slow process, so bear with me while I get them all online. For your information, there is also a full list of publicationsfor download. Comments welcome.

MPHIL IN ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

The MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, founded in 1997, is now in its tenth year. This unique postgraduate programme, which offers specialist theoretical training in issues relating to ‘race’, immigration and ethnicity in Irish, European and global contexts, is well placed in Ireland -where ethnic conflicts have been central to the construction of Irish identities. Although Ireland, traditionally a country of emigration, is increasingly an immigration destination, indigenous ethnic minorities, such as Travellers, black-Irish people and Jews, have a history of racialisation in the Irish context, despite the fact that only recently has racism become part of the political agenda with the immigration of asylum seekers, refugees and labour migrants since the early 1990s.

The MPhil is run by the Department of Sociology whose members have extensive research and publishing record in this area. Upon successful completion, this full-time programme grants students a postgraduate degree of Masters of Philosophy in Ethnic and Racial Studies. The 12-months programme begins in October each year, and consists of two full-year core courses, seven one-term courses and a dissertation. In addition, the programme hosts seminar series, workshops and international conferences.

The programme attracts an ethnically diverse international student body and our graduates play key roles in research and policy organisations in Ireland and globally; many have continued to PhD research.

Over the years the programme has hosted many key scholars in this area, including Prof Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds; Prof David Theo Goldberg, University of California; Prof Philomena Essed, University of Amsterdam; Prof Noel Ignatiev, Massachussetts College of Art; Prof Luke Gibbons, University of Notre Dame, Prof Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara; Robbie McVeigh, Derry

APPLICATIONS AND DEADLINES:

We are still accepting applications. Applications for ALL taught postgrasduate courses must be submitted to Graduate Admissions online through www.pac.ie/tcd

For further details please contact:

Dr Ronit Lentin
Head of Department, Sociology / Course coordinator, MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies
Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin
tel: 353 1 8962766, email: rlentin@tcd.ie
www.ethnicracialstudies.net
http://people.tcd.ie/rlentin

An interesting aid for teaching the problems of racelesness, post-racialism and colour-blindness to students. I will be using this in my first lecture for undergraduates who will doubtless be asking whether racism isn’t a thing of the past with the election of Obama. Although this is clearly a bigger issue in the US, the Obama election has had an enormous effect on the consideration of racism in the West more generally. Although we obviously cannout simply adapt US realities to different national contexts, the issue of post-race is as alive and well in Europe as it is in North America, the difference is only that it is not discussed in those terms because race in the post-war era was not considered central to what it means to be European.

In the town of Capriate San Gervasio, kebab shops, phone shops, as well as pubs and bars of “an ethnic characteristic” are to be outlawed from the town centre. It isn’t racist, said the Councillor responsible for commerce and security, it is merely that there are few parking spaces in the centre and that those used by these businesses would end up clogging the entire town. As The Bergamo News points out, the same does not seem to apply to shops, bars and restaurants owned by ‘real Italians’.

The burkini, already causing scandal in France this week, also made headlines in Italy where, according to Il Manifesto, a burkini-clad bather was forced to leave a swimming pool in Verona due to the complaints of mothers that she was scaring their children. When questioned about the matter, Silva Polo, responsible for the municipal pools in Verona, claimed that the woman was infringing no rule by wearing her burkini. She expressed regret that the woman had never returned to the pool where she has every right to swim. Moreover, the case occurred several months ago but has only now reached the press. This demonstrates precisely how the panics about ‘multiculturalism gone wild’ circulates with situations that occur in one country very quickly being made reality in another.

For more on Questioning the European ‘crisis of multiculturalism’, please click here.

Shah Rukh Khan, the cheesiest but most loved Bollywood actor was detained at Newark Airport because of his name on August 15th: Indian Independence Day. Ironically, he was in the US to promote his new movie, My Name is Khan, which is about racial profiling!

Wajahat Ali points out,

the extent to which racial profiling and exaggerated security screening take place in the US for its darker and more “ethnic” citizens with “Muslim” surnames. US officials repeatedly deny these examinations are based on race or religion despite the overwhelming statistics that suggest otherwise.

Read the rest of his article here.

Sometimes it’s funny how you come across something that tallies completely with what you are thinking/writing at the moment. This video speak to the paper I am writing now on ‘Post-race, post-politics: the paradoxical rise of culture after multiculturalism’. Excerpts to come and comments welcome on the writing in progress. For now. enjoy the video… More at http://twitter.com/jsmooth995