We should be interested to note too that the statue of him which was torn down was not erected until 1846 – some 174 years after his death, during the reign of Victoria – ‘the famine queen.’ Statues are rarely set up to celebrate people. Even though it is a person on the pedestal, if it were the case that great people were memorialised in this way simply because of their greatness or their contribution to their community, city, or nation, we would not be able to move for statues. There just is not enough bronze in the world. Such statues are erected to glorify ideas and ideals...
This Is Not Good Enough
Right-wing populist governments with designs on capturing the state and fascism, such as Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s are, are bringing home the shock doctrine consecutive US and British governments have employed on their foreign interventionist adventures since the US-backed coup and military takeover of Chile in 1973. This is the neoliberal dream; to see powerful and cohesive democracies softened up by truncheons, rent asunder by socio-economic division, and fractured into thousands of squabbling factions of the oppressed.
The Grouse Beater Accusation
Antisemitism – the hatred of Jews – is real. It is a real form of racism. As, arguably, Europe’s oldest racism, antisemitism is pervasive throughout western society. As it affects all of society it is unarguably true that there are anti-Semites and people who, for whatever reason, pass on anti-Semitic ideas, conspiracies, and opinions within the SNP and the wider independence movement – as these entities reflect broader society. But Fiona Robertson is right, we need a better definition than is to be found in the dictionary. How then do we define this particular racism?
Understanding ‘Muslim Grooming Gangs’
The grooming of vulnerable children for sexual exploitation is an undeniable reality, and it is a fact that in most of the cases uncovered in England the majority of the perpetrators have been men from British-Pakistani backgrounds. But to limit our analysis of this crime to the criminals’ religions and ethnicities singularly fails to grasp the true nature and scope of the problem. It ignores the facts that most sex offenders who commit crimes against children are lone white males and that organised grooming for sexual exploitation is nothing new.
The Trojan Mare: Islamophobic Racism and Muslim Women
Public discussion and media emphasis since 9/11 (2001), switching racial discourse from diverse racial signifiers to Islam, has been found to bear down heavily upon Muslim women. This essay will examine the use of women and the female body in Islamophobia as it is evidenced primarily in Ireland, critically analysing it through the framework of Said’s Orientalism, the Racial State of Goldberg, and Yuval-Davis’ thesis of women as the reproducers of the nation.
Unionists: Scotland’s Racist Snowmen
Well nothing that Graeme said was racist. He’s playing the game. His racism, like the racist watermelon references across the water, is encoded in the image. Chemical Ali – or “Comical Humza Yousaf” as Graeme labels this image – is a symbol of Middle Eastern tyranny, and as such plays on the white supremacist trope of the Crusades – a symbol used also by the Nazis. It is a holophrastic reminder in that it is a visual cue pointing to a whole package of meanings. This is the enemy; the dark skinned Muslim enemy who poses a threat to “our heroes” – our white, Western, Christian, crusader heroes.
We Need Safe Spaces
One response to this has been the creation of the “safe space,” a concept that routinely excites these right wing vloggers into apoplectic frothiness. What right, they ask, do these “snowflakes” have to a space of their own where they do not need to put up with our constant stream of vitriol and bile? They have presented the safe space as some sort of spatial free pass within the academy, the college, and the university, where the delicate can ride through towards graduation without anything they might find upsetting, offensive, or “triggering.”
Mark Meechan: Fighting for Free Speech in Scotland?
There is absolutely no question that this video is racist, and it can do nothing but put his motives for teaching his partner’s pug to give a Nazi salute and respond to “Gas the Jews” in a starker, uglier light. Mark Meechan comes across as an expert at doing himself no favours. On the one hand he is trying his best to convince a judge that his video was a joke and that he is a comedian, and then on the other he is making racist parodies and linking up with Tommy Robinson at Rebel Media to advocate freedom of speech. Yes, you read that right – Tommy Robinson.
Random Public Journal 