August 2011
18 posts
Bitter Memories of Ongoing Inequality →
by Akkas Al-Ali
‘They were greedy teenagers looking for freebies, we were told. Melanie Phillips asked whether the ‘liberal intelligentsia’ (liberalism being a synonym for multiculturalism, itself a synonym for immigration) were to blame. Paul Routledge pointed his finger at rap music. What they were really asking was: ‘Is it because they’re Black?’’
How the Riots Are Being Made About Race →
‘The desperation with which many liberals are attempting to make the post-riots story non-racial is testament to the success of postracialism in making us believe that ‘real’ racism is a thing of the past. Hence, for many David Starkey’s outbursts on Newsnight were utterly beyond the pale. However, beyond the fact that Starkey was merely giving voice to the beliefs of many of those who...
Der Spiegel Article
Alana was interviewed for Der Spiegel on the #UK Riots. Text in German below. For the record, she was misquoted as saying that ‘EDL members rather take the broom hitting someone’s head than to use it for cleaning up’. Clearly that doesn’t make any sense. Rather she argued that with the EDL’s background in football hooliganism the organisation’s claim that they...
Richard Seymour and Darcus Howe on Democracy Now... →
LONDON'S BURNING: A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF URBAN...
(Hal Austin is an editor of the Financial Times. Barbadian, he is the most senior journalist of Caribbean origin in the United Kingdom) It is too early to give a definitive assessment of the London Uprisings over the weekend, but there are nevertheless two key lessons that have emerged. The first and most important is the social breakdown that can take place when the police force has become...
Zygmunt Bauman on Consumerism Coming Home to Roost →
‘These are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers.’
Contextualizing Violence by Hana Riaz →
‘… demanding justice and equality is never pretty, easy or comfortable particularly when you are up against White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. It becomes less about how this demand is made, and more about why and what we do next. In light of the historical amnesia Britain perpetually suffers from, I don’t think we should ever forget that when we remember Tottenham...
Tottenham: Neoliberal Riots and the Possibility of... →
‘… capitalism is looting the public sphere’
Map of the #UK Riots →
Kenan Malik on the #UK Riots. →
A few quick responses to Kenan Malik’s ‘Five Quick Points About the Riots’
He is right in part.
1. The riots are not about race but in that they mainly involve young people of colour they ARE about race.
2. The riots are not going to solved by recourse to ‘community leaders’ but in that ‘communities’ are being namechecked they will be made about the...
Zizek on Breivik →
When he writes on these issues, Zizek is always so anxious to deliver the killer, counter-intuitive reading that he frequently, well, less than gets with boring old empirical stuff. His reading of Pim Fortuyn here would be helped by actually reading what he wrote and said about liberalism, political correctness and the problem of tolerance.
Bullets lodged in police radio were police issue... →
Guardian is now reporting that the bullet lodged in the police radio, alleged to have been fired by Mark Duggan in an ‘exchange of fire’, is a ‘police issue bullet’, “These are very distinct as the Metropolitan Police uses dum dum type hollowed out bullets designed not to pass through an object.”
Italy Edges Towards Burqa Ban →
Belgium has a federal crisis but banned the burqa. Italy is in political-economic meltdown but ‘edges closer’. Glad they all have their priorities straight…
Tottenham Riots: This could happen in a dozen... →
Pictures of Tottenham Riots, London August 6 2011 →
