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

CULTURAL CRITICISM AND YOUTUBE RANTS – PART 2

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Adorno, cultural criticism, Cultural Marxism, featured, intellectual labour, Labour, manual labour, menial labour, postmodernism, right wing, skeptic youtubers, workers, Youtube.

by Eli Lambe

In Part One, I looked at how right-wing Youtubers use and abuse the idea of freedom of speech in constructing their worldview, and the connection between their celebration of abusive behaviour and feelings of humiliation. I used Adorno’s Cultural Criticism and Society to frame my observations. In this part, I will look at divisions within the workforce and how this creates vulnerabilities to right wing punditry – still using Adorno as a frame.

Adorno argues that labour is divided into “manual” and “intellectual” labour. However “manual” labour encompasses a lot more than working with your hands. It’s probably more accurate to use “menial” labour, which includes factory, construction, custodial and agricultural labour (what is usually covered by manual) as well as the huge number of exploitative customer service, food service and sales jobs. These distinctions are sometimes blurry, and stink of classist value judgements, but can still provide a useful way of addressing structural divisions and how those divisions impact on solidarity and belief.

THE RIGHT ARE RUNNING SCARED – A RESPONSE TO TOM WELSH

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academia, academic work, academics, access, alternative facts, capitalists, career, Chris Hanretty, City AM, commentary, education, elitism, experts, free market, GE17, general election, graduates, HE policy, higher education, historians, hyperbole, hypocrisy, inequality, Institute of Economic Affairs, jeremy corbyn, King's College London, Labour, left wing, marketisation, Michael Gove, no platforming, Oxford University, policy, private universities, privatisation, research, right wing, safe spaces, sensationalism, socialism, student debt, Taxpayers' Alliance, The Telegraph, Times Higher Education, Tom Welsh, Tories, tuition fees, u-turn, UEA, uk, universities, voters.

by Robyn Banks

In the midst of right-wing confusion about Jeremy Corbyn’s continuing support amongst the young, following a supposed u-turn on his flagship policy to scrap student debt, Tom Welsh of the Telegraph has unveiled a new thesis: the left will continue its resurgence so long as too many go to university*. His argument is as ridiculous as the title makes it sound, and his article is full of claims that are absurd, patronising and completely unsupported.

POLITICS & CULTURE – THE AMIEL & MELBURN SEMINAR 2017

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Inter|national and tagged 7 Days, academia, access, activism, alpha male, alt-right, alternative media, Annie Kelly, anti-feminism, art, Athina Karatzogianni, Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust, Chardine Taylor-Stone, class, corruption, critique, culture, culture war, curricula, digital culture, direct action, disillusionment, economics, education, fake news, far right, fascism, feminism, feminist allies, future generations, GE17, higher education, history, holding power to account, ideology, inequality, inheritance, Jo Littler, Judies, knowledge, language, mainstream media, male psyche, marxism, media representation, meritocracy, Michael Rustin, Milo Yiannopolous, Mod, Mod women, modernity, music, neo nazi, neoliberalism, peer-pressure, politics, Politics & Culture Seminar, politics of difference, progress, progress narrative, progressive media, public education, punk, Punk women, representation, Rhian E Jones, right wing, Rosalind Delmar, Roshi Naidoo, Skinhead, Skinhead women, social exclusion, social media, social mobility, socialism, society, strike action, subcultures, talent, Teddy Girls, tenant strike, trust, universities, working class movement, young people, Zahra Dalilah.

by Gunnar Eigener and Rowan Gavin

CW: mentions misogyny, anti-feminism, neo-nazism

Earlier this month, a writer and an editor from the Radical took part in the Amiel & Melburn Trust’s annual residential seminar. The Trust’s aims are “to advance public education, learning and knowledge in all aspects of the philosophy of Marxism, the history of socialism, and the working-class movement’. This year, the topic of the seminar was ‘Politics & Culture’, and the various intertwinings and intersections thereof. What follows are thoughts and reactions about the seminar from our contributors.

UKIP: THE ORIGINAL RADICALS

Posted on June 18, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged anti-establishment, Brexit, change, Chris Hanretty, clive lewis, EU, GE2017, general election, left wing, Norman Lamb, norwich, politics, progressive, radical, right wing, UEA, UKIP.

by James Anthony

Following the recent elections both locally in Norfolk and nationally at Westminster, many of us will have been enjoying the demise of the entity we all know as ‘UKIP’ – the United Kingdom Independence Party. With many realising that their main objective of leaving the European Union has been all but completed, the electorate have decisively rejected their flimsy, populist, far right manifesto and consigned the party to the history books.

It’s hard to believe that they were ever a considerable electoral force, this year picking up just under 2% of the vote, losing all of their incumbent 145 local councillors and their only seat in parliament less than twelve months after their referendum victory. UKIP campaigners were keen to talk about voters returning to them, but this clearly didn’t materialise.Continue Reading

CORBYN’S STANCE ON IMMIGRATION IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged anti immigration, Brexit, corbyn, electability, free movement of people, immigration, internationalism, jeremy corbyn, Labour heartlands, labour party, liberal media, media, nuance, progressive alternative, racism, right wing, social cohesion, UKIP, xenophobia.

by Natasha Senior

Content warning: mentions racism and xenophobia

It has been a disappointing folly from the start that the progressive parties of Britain should keep relentlessly droning on about how immigration has had a net-positive impact on average wages. This remark, whilst true, is misleading and falls on deaf ears. The immigration problem is not simply a phantom created by the xenophobic right. As I have argued in a previous article, it is a real, tangible issue born of companies’ exploitation of free movement of people, an utter disregard for the dignity of labour and lack of social cohesion. This requires, not the reactionary response of cutting immigration itself, that right-wing parties have been pushing for years, but a progressive alternative that addresses the issue without feeding into the venomous narrative. This is what the Labour Party are offering.Continue Reading

THE LEFT’S IMAGE PROBLEM

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #dumpstarwars, #killallmen, 4chan, american politics, Brexit, darth vader, Donald Trump, fascism, feminism, fury road, homophobia, internet, LGBT+, lgbt+ rights, mad max, misogyny, Perspectives, racism, resist, resistance, right wing, Rogue One, star wars, the left, transphobia, uk politics.

by Zoe Harding

We have an image problem, you and I – yeah, you and I. Us. Lefties. Radicals. The chances are – if you’re reading this site – that you’re fairly left-wing. You’re a general believer in the doctrine of ‘don’t be a dick to other people’ with the sub-clause of avoiding ‘fuck you, got mine’, even if our specific approaches to doing so differ. I’ll be speaking in very general terms in this article, because I have 1000 words to work with.

WHAT SHOULD THE LEFT DO TO COUNTER THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL RIGHT?

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Adam Smith, America, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, Donald Trump, idealism, identity politics, invisible hand, jeremy corbyn, left wing, liberal, liberal culture, liberals, media, Pauline Hanson, political right, pragmatism, President, refugees, right wing, rise, society, stability, syrian refugees, the man in the high castle, working class.

by Faizal Nor Izham

We live in turbulent times. Just months after Britain decided to leave the EU, as well as the recurring popularity of Australian anti-immigration pundit Pauline Hanson, it was now America’s turn to tread down a similar right-wing path — this time by electing everyone’s favourite media darling, Donald Trump, as President.

As President. Of the United States. Oh how far we’ve sunk.

But is there actually a rational reason for wanting to elect a racist, scare-mongering serial womaniser out of sheer desperation of the times we’re living in? Or maybe there are other things everyday people are getting fed up of as well. Perhaps people have even become jaded with liberal culture as well. Nowadays it is often a shallow parody of its former self. It’s often hollow, intellectually-sterile, idealistic, immobile and sometimes even commercialised in the media.Continue Reading

PRETENSION IS A SCOURGE

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 23 Things They Don’t Tell you About Capitalism, academia, bourgeois, Brexit, Britain, capitalism, civil unrest, Deptford, disenfranchisement, economy, education, finance, general election, gentrification, grassroots, ha-Joon Chang, Leave, Lionel Shriver, london, middle class, party politics, prejudice, Remain, respect, right wing, shoreditch, uk, underprivileged, Universal Basic Income, We Need to Talk About Kevin, working class, youth.

by Sunetra Senior

On Friday June 23rd 2016, millions of us woke up to the rattling reality of a momentous decision: the pound had plummeted to a 31-year low, our young people had lost the right to live and work nearby abroad, and oh yes – the UK as we knew it was now officially in a state of civil conflict. But this isn’t going to be another article about how we should respect the people who voted Leave – though of course we should – nor one that commiserates upon how we’ve tragically lost touch with the ‘underprivileged and disadvantaged’ of us, for the simple fact that it is the sole circulation – and indulgence of – such statements that is fanning the right-wing heat blowing an insidious hole through our country.

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

right wing

REFUGEE SOLIDARITY IN THE FACE OF THE RISING FAR RIGHT

CULTURAL CRITICISM AND YOUTUBE RANTS – PART 2

THE RIGHT ARE RUNNING SCARED – A RESPONSE TO TOM WELSH

UKIP: THE ORIGINAL RADICALS

THE LEFT’S IMAGE PROBLEM

WHAT SHOULD THE LEFT DO TO COUNTER THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL RIGHT?

PRETENSION IS A SCOURGE

LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS

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