A progressive analysis of politics and the arts.
by Jonathan Lee
You would be forgiven for thinking that any England football fan who decides to follow their team to the 2018 FIFA World Cup must be either crazy or a hooligan looking for trouble. UK Police Chiefs, senior MPs, sports experts, and – most perniciously – the British press, have all issued sombre pronouncements warning of the dangers awaiting any English football fan foolish enough to brave the shady hinterland of Mother Russia.Continue Reading
by Zoe Harding
CW: article contains descriptions of the Manchester terrorist attack, racist discourse, links to images of war crimes.
The official threat level after the terror attack in Manchester is back down from Critical to Serious, and the country has started to move on. The news cycle seems to have been slightly shorter, as well; at time of writing the front page of the BBC News website is largely concerned with technical problems at British Airways and I-kid-you-not a cheese rolling competition.
I’d love to say that this particular terrorist incident didn’t incite the usual wave of hate and disgustingly inappropriate coverage that tends to follow such events, including random hate crimes, thundering headlines and political manoeuvring. I’d love to.
But The Daily Mail exists. And The Sun. And the political climate in the UK has become sufficiently toxic that even without those two, the response was nonetheless as unpleasant as any I’ve seen.Continue Reading
David Dao: the 69-year old Asian doctor physically assaulted by a security official, in an oversold United Airlines flight, in a video that went viral. David Dao: an ex-felon, convicted of exchanging prescription drugs for gay sex – his chequered past aired out in a media spectacle. Continue Reading
by Zoe Harding
First up, before we get into the piece, my condolences to the friends and family of those who were killed in Westminster and St Petersburg, and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured. If you personally know anyone hurt or killed in the incident, you might want to leave this article for a few days.
With that in mind, everyone else: what the fuck?Continue Reading
by Olivia Hanks
The debate over Article 50 has brought out sharp divisions in British politics, with Tulip Siddiq’s departure from the Labour front bench potentially the first of several resignations. Jeremy Corbyn’s confirmation that he will impose a three-line whip on Labour MPs to back the triggering of Article 50 has caused discontent within his party and outside it, for its message to the government is: do what you like – we won’t make a fuss.
by anonymous
There’s something darkly comical about Michael Sheen’s intention to abandon acting in favour of defeating the far right. An esteemed actor, deeply immersed in the world of theatre and art, jetting off to Port Talbot to tell working class Welsh people, caught up in a wave of revolt against the ‘metropolitan liberal elite’, what to do. It couldn’t be any more counter-productive if the embodiment of this elitism, Tony Blair himself, had made the journey — although I suppose someone who has played him is good enough.Continue Reading
by Alex Valente
Content warning: mentions racism, xenophobia, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and the general mess that is 2016.
And so the world has suddenly changed, again, seemingly even louder than before. For a lot of people who claim to be interested in following politics, nationally or internationally, the events of the past month can feel like a shock. We’ve all trying to find someone to blame, someone to accuse, someone to stand in front of us as we look in a mirror, and global media has been having a field-day of think-pieces on the issue. But quite frankly, who cares?
We fucked up. We’ve been doing so for a long time. We’ve been doing so with every time we didn’t speak up, stand up, stand in the way of neoliberalism, aggressive capitalism, individualism and their opening the gates to full-on, fully backed racism, xenophobia, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and so many other horrors that not even patriarchy-mythologised Pandora could be blamed for them all.Continue Reading
by Robyn Banks
Is this vague dissent I feel?
Or apathy? Resigned to fates
Predicted, and foodbank meals,
By sociologists and states,Continue Reading
‘You are not alive to please the aesthetic of colonized eyes’
– Ijeoma Umebinyuo
An interesting thing happens when fully-assimilated BME in the West engage in politics, whilst retaining and proudly displaying their multicultural and racial identities as minorities—they become characterised as ‘radical’ and disruptive to the everyday function of society. Here are examples of how various politicking non-white figures have been portrayed:
by Robyn Banks
On the anniversary of VE day this year I tried to drive to the supermarket in my home town and was met by crowds of people in Sunday dress, lining the roads leading up to the war memorial and laying down wreaths of poppies as they waited for the procession, which I could hear approaching even from my car, complete with marching band. They were doing so to honour the soldiers lost in WW2; those who fought for our country, or, more ostensibly, those who fought for ‘freedom’.
There were many causes of the Second World War, but what we remember the Nazis for -the version of history we learn in school- is the holocaust. Children in history classes are taught to denounce a fascist regime which placed one type of person, the ‘true’ Aryan German, who was ‘really’ from Germany on the basis of their fair hair and white skin, in a hierarchy above other types of people who were not as worthy. This list included people who were disabled, gay or mentally ill but focussed mainly on Jews, who were considered to have little or no right to the land they lived in because of their ethnicity and heritage. They were not ‘true’ Germans. And it was freedom from this regime, freedom from persecution and discrimination, that most of us proudly believe we fought for. And it’s this which is epitomised in the phrase “If it weren’t for our brave soldiers, we might all be speaking German now”.
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