ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE UK – ‘TOMMY ROBINSON’ IS A SYMPTOM NOT THE PROBLEM

Posted on August 10, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 2016 London Mayoral Elections, Akala, Alex Jones, alt-right, anti racism, anti-fascism, Baroness Warso, bbc, bigotry, Boris Johnson, British Muslims, child abuse, contempt of court, court system, demonstration, Donald Trump, EDL, extremism, Ezra Levant, far right, fascism, featured, fox news, freedom of speech, Geert Wilders, hatred, islamophobia, Katy Hopkins, law, LBC, london, Matthew d'Ancona, Nazir Afzal, Nigel Farage, Owen Jones, prevent, racism, Raheem Kassam, Richard Price, sadiq khan, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Steve Bannon, tommy robinson, Tories, Tory Islamophobia, Tory racism, war on terror.

by Scott McLaughlan

Content warning: mentions Islamophobia, racism, paedophilia, sexual abuse, fascism

The sentencing in May this year of Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (stage name ‘Tommy Robinson’) to 13 months for contempt of court has caused quite a reaction from his fellows on the far right. On Saturday 9th June, an estimated 15,000 people turned out for a mass rally in London in support of Yaxley-Lennon, Trump and ‘free speech’. The sinister focal point of the rally was to link rape and child sexual exploitation with migration and Islam.

REFUGEE SOLIDARITY IN THE FACE OF THE RISING FAR RIGHT

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged activism, Are you Syrious, Calais, Chios, Chris Jarvis, Dublin Convention, Enoch Powell, EU, featured, government, grassroots, Greece, Italy, lobby, migrant, migration, NGO, Owen Jones, populism, pressure, racism, Refugee Rights Europe, refugees, right wing, Shoufu Collective, turkey, uk, volunteer.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

Owen Jones recently pointed out that the far right is now at its strongest since the 1930s. A horrifying reality of today’s populist Europe. These groups have been unfailingly and cynically opportunistic in using terrorist attacks in Europe to galvanize hatred against Muslims, whilst presenting themselves as protecting white European innocents from the depravity of the Qu’ran, or simply as “not racist” concerned citizens who feel that we should help “our own” (read: white) homeless before helping others. This mindset has contributed to the election of far right governments in Poland, Hungary and Italy and demonstrates that we should not view these groups as fringe street-movements – they are effecting political change with horrifying efficiency through influencing voters.

Mainstream media is in on this, of course. As Chris Jarvis wrote in October 2016, the media’s reaction to refugees and migrants has been nothing short of inflammatory. The influence of mistruths presented in the media has led to vilification of refugees and migrants. In our failure to protect vulnerable people who are unable to seek protection in their country of origin, we have failed to learn history’s lesson. Enoch Powell would be proud of us. We should all be fucking ashamed of ourselves.Continue Reading

FUCK YOU, MR PRESIDENT

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged baby, Balloon, corbyn, demo, demonstration, direct action, EDL, featured, freedom, london, march, may, non violent, Owen Jones, Pacific, palestine, protest, resist, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, StopTrump, SWP, tme travel, tommy robinson, Trump, uk.

by Zoe Harding

I wanted to go to the Trump protests so I could say I did. Whatever the final ending of Trump’s story turns out to be – peaceful impeachment or nuclear armageddon – it’s got such disturbing parallels to past dictators already that I get the impression he’s going to be spoken of alongside the great bastards of the last century. It’s getting to the point where I’m starting to wonder why time travellers haven’t started popping up to shoot him. In the world we live in, where photos of crowd size are already a disputed quantity rather than a piece of evidence, and mass protests are a fact of life, I still wanted to say I’d tried to express my feelings about wotsit Hitler and his cadre of bastards.Continue Reading

50 YEARS – HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME?

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives, Student and tagged Against The Law, bbc, capital, crime, decriminalisation of homosexuality, discrimination, gay capital, gay men, gay privilege, gay rights, hate crime, homophobia, inclusivity, LGBT+, lgbt+ rights, Marianna Valverde, media, media bias, misrepresentation, oppression, Owen Jones, Peckham, population, positivity, privilege, Richard Taulke-Johnson, sensationalism, sex, Sexual Offences Act, statistics, Stonewall, The Guardian, uk, universities, yougov, young people.

by Alex Powell

CW: mentions homophobia and homophobic abuse

Last week marked 50 years since the Sexual Offences Act 1967 entered into law, in the first step towards the decriminalisation of homosexuality. There’s been a great deal of coverage of this milestone in British media, including some brilliant, informative TV programming (I highly recommend the BBC’s drama ‘Against the Law’). But it is Owen Jones’s recent Guardian column ‘Hatred of LGBTQ people still infects society. It’s no time to celebrate’ that seems to have been most prominent. Jones’ arguments are certainly justified, but commentary like his risks misrepresenting the situation that now faces LGBT+ people in this country. It’s not all bad.

CORBYN CAN ONLY BE PM IF HE LEARNS FROM SMITH

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Brexit, british politics, corbyn, jeremy corbyn, Labour, labour leadership, labour party, media, NEC, new industrial revoluation, Owen Jones, owen smith, Pfizer, PLP, Smith, theresa may, uk.

by Natasha Senior

We have now entered the world of post-truth politics where satire has died because reality is beyond farcical. Remember a while back when that cabinet minister half-arsed her job? Instead of spending taxpayers’ money on something worthwhile she rolled out some vans with ‘go home‘ billboards, in a completely misguided attempt to get ‘illegal’ immigrants to leave. She then quickly had to reel them back in after realising it actually looked a little xenophobic (and also because it was the stupidest idea ever).

Despite this and numerous other examples of May’s sheer incompetence in government, she assumed the role of Prime Minister on a technicality and the ineptitude of her opponents. I suppose I am thankful she got the job rather than them (but only in the sense I’d be thankful if I’d lost only all my extremities to frostbite instead of succumbing to hypothermia). Despite this and her complete lack of a vision for the future of Britain, other than the fact that “Brexit means Brexit”, and given her party has absolutely no mandate to carry out anything at this point, the Conservatives still sit 16 points ahead of Labour in the polls. That is a terrifying reality.

LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged another angry voice, bicuriosity, Bill O'Reilly, britain first, church, daesh, drug abuse, equal marriage, gun, gun control, heterosexist, heterosexual, homelessness, homophobia, individualism, islamophobia, Jo Cox, left wing, LGBT+, liberal, lone wolf, lone wolves, marriage, media, mental health, monogamy, murdoch, Muslim, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Owen Jones, queer, race, religion, right wing, same sex, scapegoating, sex work, sexuality, state, suicide, xenophobia.

by Joshua Ekin

Content warning: mentions suicide, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, mass shooting, murder

A massacre in an LGBT+ space, by a Muslim, with a legal gun, and alleged connections to Daesh. It’s easy to see how contemporary American anxieties converge in the political aftermath of the Orlando shooting. The media response to this — the largest massacre in modern American history — exposes how truth is controlled by the present political regime.

For those who do not spend their days fretting about radical social discourse, homophobia can be difficult to define. Before Obama legalised same-sex marriage federally, it dominated the media conversation, establishing rights as the fulcrum of group empowerment. While the LGBT+ movement focused on this, statistics revealed that LGBT+ kids across the world were entering sex-work and committing suicide at an alarming rate. If such statistics were ever mentioned, it was to bolster marriage as the unequivocal endowment being denied to the LGBT+ community. The institution Australian Marriage Equality claims that the ‘higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, early school leaving, conflict with peers and parents and suicide ideation [are] all directly related to the discrimination.’ Marx might have called this ‘bridal false-consciousness.’Continue Reading

THEPEWPEWLIFE AND WHY I’M HOPELESSLY ANGRY

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged #thePewPewLife, America, Boston Marathon, Colion Noir, daesh, FBI, firearms, Florida, G4S, gay bar, gun, gun law, gun sales, gunners, guns, homophobia, islamophobia, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Latinx, LGBT+, lgbtQ+, Mark Longhurst, mass shooting, massacre, Mateen, non-binary, NRA, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Owen Jones, POC, police, Rick Scott, Sky News, Smith and Wesson and Ruger, US.

by Zoe Harding

Content warning: mentions mass shooting, homophobia, Islamophobia.

As you know, on Sunday a homophobic mass-murderer killed 49 people and seriously wounded 53 others in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He used a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle, took hostages and was only finally killed when the Orlando police rammed the wall of the club with an armoured vehicle and forced him to come out, before gunning him down.

News media and political statements have been full of Islamophobic vitriol and scaremongering. Owen Jones walked off Sky News after deciding he was sick of listening to Mark Longhurst and Julia Hartley-Brewer trying to downplay the homophobic aspects of shooting up a gay club in favour of a more anti-Daesh approach — despite the attack not yet being confirmed either way if in any way connected to Daesh. As Julian Canlas commented for The Norwich Radical, ‘It is not just an ‘Orlando nightclub massacre’. It is an Orlando lgbtQ+ Latinx nightclub massacre.’ Florida governor Rick Scott suggested that the best thing one could do to aid victims of the shooting was pray, and dodged questions about what could be done to stop further shootings— the NRA logo practically glistening behind his eyes. Continue Reading

WE’RE HERE. WE’RE QUEER. AND WE MATTER: THE HIDDEN FACE OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged anti-Muslim, Bathroom Bill, cisgender, colourblind, disabled, equality, erasure, gay nightclub, genderblind, hate crime, hate crimes, heterosexual, homophobia, identity, intersectionality, Islam, Latinx, lgbt, lgbtQ+, media, mental health, Muslim, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, NCAVP, New Orleans, non-binary, oppression, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Owen Jones, people of colour, POC, privilege, Pulse, queer, racism, religion, Sky News, suicide, terrorism, tolerance, Upstairs Lounge, US, US congress, western society, women.

by Julian Ignacio Canlas

Content warning: mentions racism, homophobia, suicide, arson, massacre, mental health

On June 12^th 2016, a mass shooting happened at Pulse, gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, USA. 49 people were killed and 52 injured, mostly of Latinx descent. Across the world, lgbtQ+ communities and allies have been organising vigils and other events to express support and condolences.

‘Look, you don’t understand this because you’re not gay,’ Owen Jones said, before storming out of a Sky News debate on the massacre, after the two presenters refused to see the incident in a lgbtQ+ context.Continue Reading

THE FORCE AWAKENS: GROWING SUPPORT FOR RIGHT AND LEFT WING POLITICIANS

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Donald Trump, far left, far right, jedi, jeremy corbyn, left wing, Owen Jones, politics, radical, rebellion, right wing, sith, star wars, TFA, uk, United States.

By Josh Wilson

In Star Wars there are (arguably) three major factions; the Jedi, the Sith and the Galactic Republic. The Jedi strive for peace and harmony in the galaxy, whereas the Sith work for personal gain and power over others. The Republic is a democratically run institution that attempts to foster trade and good relations between planets and species.

In politics there are also three major groups; the far Left, the far Right and Centrists. The far Left work for economic equality through state implemented wealth redistribution. The far Right tend to use divisive and racist policies to create growth for a minority of people and to solidify their economic and political power. Centrists, who can often be seen to lean to the left or the right, tend to argue for free markets, promotion of trade and limited state intervention.

THE GREEK CRISIS: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged austerity, economics, EU, EU referendum, Greece, greek crisis, IMF, krugman, Owen Jones, stiqlitz, stock markets, strike action, Syriza.

by Josh Wilson

The Greek financial crisis has done what all news stories do when they do not have an abrupt or exciting ending. It has faded from the homepages of all major news websites, to a small box down the page a bit and eventually only being found by using the search bar. Out of sight, out of mind as the saying goes, but it was just a month ago that Greece voted on whether to accept austerity measures and have since been systematically ignored by their government and international creditors.

In that crucial referendum on whether to accept or reject further cuts to services and higher taxes in order to release bailout funds, 61.3 per cent of people voted against austerity. Yet just days after this democratic exercise, it was shown to be nothing more than a democratic sham.Continue Reading

Owen Jones

ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE UK – ‘TOMMY ROBINSON’ IS A SYMPTOM NOT THE PROBLEM

REFUGEE SOLIDARITY IN THE FACE OF THE RISING FAR RIGHT

FUCK YOU, MR PRESIDENT

50 YEARS – HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME?

CORBYN CAN ONLY BE PM IF HE LEARNS FROM SMITH

LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS

THEPEWPEWLIFE AND WHY I’M HOPELESSLY ANGRY

WE’RE HERE. WE’RE QUEER. AND WE MATTER: THE HIDDEN FACE OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

THE FORCE AWAKENS: GROWING SUPPORT FOR RIGHT AND LEFT WING POLITICIANS

THE GREEK CRISIS: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

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