There is no legitimate reason for banning the veil, leaving us only with the illegitimate reason no one calling for the ban wants to reveal – racism. No sooner is this said than some idiot leaps into the discussion with that pearl of wisdom: “Islam isn’t a race.” No it’s not, but no one dispensing this nugget of knowledge and no one attacking the “burka” can tell us much about Islam the religion. Shahadah, Salah, Zakat, Sawm, and Hajj – the Pillars of Islam – are mysteries to them. Their assault is not an assault on Islam qua Islam, but on Muslims qua racialised others.
The Road to Hell
In this broken democracy – which is no democracy at all – seats are won and power secured in a loop; the media manufactures fears and blames powerless, invariably foreign, scapegoats and the careerists bang the drum of security and ethno-nationalism. This is the state of politics in the United Kingdom today. It is much the same across Europe and even more so over the Atlantic in the United States. Democracy in any meaningful sense has died and we are right now in the rapid descent into the abyss of totalitarianism and fascism – both coming a-creeping like saviours.
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.
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.”
Meghan Markle: An Unsuitable Royal Wife?
I wish her well – she needs it. She can do much better for herself. She’s about to marry the royal dud. This is wee Harry the hero who went to war for the cameras, who honoured his brothers and sisters in arms by wearing a Nazi uniform, and who has a thing for class-A narcotics and hired affection. He’s a shite example of a human being, but then the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But yeah, “she’s unsuitable.”
Tory Sleaze: Just Power Playing with Itself
Opinions are split on much of the goings on reported in the so-called dirty dossier of Tory MPs' antics published by Guido Fawkes – funny that I’m writing this on the 5 November. Some of it is awful, of course. There is no question that getting “handsy” or being otherwise “inappropriate” with women – especially when one is in a position of power – is disgusting. But how bad is it, really, that the Prime Minister's deputy has been allegedly pleasuring himself to pornographic images online?
The Gospel According to Jacob Rees-Mogg
Jacob Rees-Mogg, on the other hand, is the real McCoy. He is full fat, and he might well be Britain’s first Catholic Prime Minister. In the main this is to be welcomed. In 2017 there should be no religious bar of any kind on any elected position. I would still argue that a Catholic should not be monarch, but that’s because I am of the opinion no one should be monarch.
Random Public Journal 