Debunking the "Islamisation" myth

Via Five Chinese Crackers, I find that Edmund Standing has produced a report called "Debunking the Islamisation myth" (PDF). It is well worth a read.

There are issues with the report. 5cc mentions Standing's naiveté in believing the press about "white liberal do-gooders," though from my own perspective it's the lack of class analysis and the vague, civic nationalist undercurrent that is most worrying.

Nevertheless, the conclusion is worth quoting as it is a point I have made before;

The widespread acceptance of the ‘Islamisation’ myth illustrates the ascendancy of cultural pessimism in the West, at a time in which we actually have more to be happy about than at any other period in history. In the past hundred years, overall living standards and wealth have increased greatly in the West. We no longer live in fear of diseases such as diphtheria, polio, and typhoid; tap water is safe to drink; good sanitation is the norm; cheap food is widely available; life expectancy has risen hugely from 45 years for males and 49 years for females in 1901; all children receive an education; overseas travel is no longer something just for the rich. Yes, of course there are many problems in society, but at what period in human history has that ever not been the case? Each new generation seems to look back to its childhood as a better time, or to an idealised past in which things supposedly ‘weren’t so bad’. Yet, objectively speaking, no period in human history has been as good as the one we currently live in.

There will always be cultural pessimism, and there will always be those who want to turn back the clock. Indeed, we Brits seem to be experts at holding a gloomy view of the world. The ‘Islamisation’ myth is based in an outlook of despair, an almost apocalyptic fear that an old world is dying and a terrible new age is dawning, but in this there is nothing new. As noted earlier in this text, theatre, poetry, books, novels, newspapers, photography, the music hall, television, and so on, have all been seen by successive generations of pessimists as harbingers of doom.

Today’s pessimists, when they’re not engaged in attacking many of the same things that have been attacked for centuries, are busy working themselves into a frenzy about ‘Islamisation’ and the death of the West. Yet, as I hope I have demonstrated, such panic is not rationally grounded. Islam is not a powerful global force on the verge of ‘taking over’ Britain. Muslims are not a powerful group in society, or indeed in the world as a whole, and besides, the majority of Muslims in Britain have no interest in creating an Islamic State and imposing Sharia law, even if they did have the power to do so.

That the ‘Islamisation’ myth is growing in popularity should be of concern to those who seek a more rational world. It is not the irrationalism of Islam that poses the greatest threat (or even any significant threat) to Britain, but rather the growth of a culture of despair, for despair creates an environment in which the irrational, the violent, and the oppressive really can flourish. Undoubtedly, the pace at which change progresses is dizzying for many, and the collapse of some of the old institutions such as the Church that once gave society a unified narrative has created something of a void, as has a loss of faith in the political process.

However, the answer to a rapidly changing world is not to sink into despair and perversely comforting myths of grand conspiracies and inner enemies. Anyone with an awareness of Twentieth Century history should know where a society based on belief in hidden powers and scheming minorities can end up.

Through thousands of years of wars, plagues, and natural disasters, Britain has survived and stood tall. Despite losing more than a million of its citizens in two world wars, Britain has survived and prospered. Are we now to seriously believe that Britain is finished because a religious minority, many of whom are poor and powerless, and very few of whom are found at the heart of our economy and our political process, has arrived on our shores? And are we to seriously believe that the majority of the population has a collective death wish and will idly sit by and allow a handful of religious fascists led by the likes of Anjem Choudary take over the country and create an Islamic State? Is this what we have come to?

The ‘Islamisation’ myth is fallacious, dangerous, and pathetic. Islam is not taking over Britain, nor will Britain ever be an Islamic State. The extremists can scream their mantra ‘Islam will dominate the world’ as much as they like, but in fact it can’t, and it won’t.

It's just a shame that, due to the propaganda model under which the media functions, the vast majority of people will never even hear this argument made.

There's no "honour" in killing for morality

From yesterday's Independent, Robert Fisk offers this powerful dispatch;

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the "honour" of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women's groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe.

A 10-month investigation by The Independent in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank has unearthed terrifying details of murder most foul. Men are also killed for "honour" and, despite its identification by journalists as a largely Muslim practice, Christian and Hindu communities have stooped to the same crimes. Indeed, the "honour" (or ird) of families, communities and tribes transcends religion and human mercy. But voluntary women's groups, human rights organisations, Amnesty International and news archives suggest that the slaughter of the innocent for "dishonouring" their families is increasing by the year. 

Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders but media freedoms in these countries may over-compensate for the secrecy which surrounds "honour" killings in Egypt – which untruthfully claims there are none – and other Middle East nations in the Gulf and the Levant. But honour crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations. Security authorities and courts across much of the Middle East have connived in reducing or abrogating prison sentences for the family murder of women, often classifying them as suicides to prevent prosecutions. 

It is difficult to remain unemotional at the vast and detailed catalogue of these crimes. How should one react to a man – this has happened in both Jordan and Egypt – who rapes his own daughter and then, when she becomes pregnant, kills her to save the "honour" of his family? Or the Turkish father and grandfather of a 16-year-old girl, Medine Mehmi, in the province of Adiyaman, who was buried alive beneath a chicken coop in February for "befriending boys"? Her body was found 40 days later, in a sitting position and with her hands tied. 

Or Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, 13, who in Somalia in 2008, in front of a thousand people, was dragged to a hole in the ground – all the while screaming, "I'm not going – don't kill me" – then buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men for adultery? After 10 minutes, she was dug up, found to be still alive and put back in the hole for further stoning. Her crime? She had been raped by three men and, fatally, her family decided to report the facts to the Al-Shabab militia that runs Kismayo. Or the Al-Shabab Islamic "judge" in the same country who announced the 2009 stoning to death of a woman – the second of its kind the same year – for having an affair? Her boyfriend received a mere 100 lashes. 

Or the young woman found in a drainage ditch near Daharki in Pakistan, "honour" killed by her family as she gave birth to her second child, her nose, ears and lips chopped off before being axed to death, her first infant lying dead among her clothes, her newborn's torso still in her womb, its head already emerging from her body? She was badly decomposed; the local police were asked to bury her. Women carried the three to a grave, but a Muslim cleric refused to say prayers for her because it was "irreligious" to participate in the namaz-e-janaza prayers for "a cursed woman and her illegitimate children". 

So terrible are the details of these "honour" killings, and so many are the women who have been slaughtered, that the story of each one might turn horror into banality. But lest these acts – and the names of the victims, when we are able to discover them – be forgotten, here are the sufferings of a mere handful of women over the past decade, selected at random, country by country, crime after crime.

The list which follows makes truly astounding, and horrifying reading. The article which accompanies it, telling the story of a rape-victim called Hanan, goes beyond heart-rending.

It is important to note, as Fisk does, that this doesn't boil down to one religion or one country. Rather, it "must be recognised as a mass crime, a tradition of family savagery that brooks no merciful intervention, no state law, rarely any remorse." And it shows how far the movement for women's liberation still has to go.

Is there a solution? That is much harder to say. The key element of campaigning must be to put pressure on the legal systems which allow such crimes to go unpunished. But, as Fisk details in a follow-up report today, it is not an easy path to tread.

Our moral outrage will not stop these unspeakable crimes. But, as in so many areas, consciousness raising and solidarity make vital support mechanisms. The more people who make themselves aware of what is going on, the less that those campaigning and suffering do not do so under the weight of global ignorance.

The Independent's investigation into "honour" crimes continues tomorrow and Thursday. Everybody who professes concern for human rights, womens' rights, and equality would do well to read them.

"Ground Zero Mosque" - the height of absurdity in America's "culture wars"

When the English Defence League descend upon Bradford tomorrow, many are worried that the event will ignite racial tensions in the city. In New York, in the controversy surrounding the so-called "ground zero mosque," they've already exploded.

Student Michael Enright allegedly slashed taxi driver Ahmed Sharif's throat after asking if he was having a good Ramadan. A disturbing incident in itself, it comes amid ever more heated rows.

On Monday, the city saw opposing groups of protesters face each other over the issue. Opponents chanted "No mosque, no way" as supporters responded with "Say no to racist fear". In the anti-mosque gathering, protesters rounded on a man they thought was Muslim because he was wearing a skull cap.

The backdrop to all this are the plans to turn a makeshift place of worship in lower Manhattan into an Islamic cultural centre. Upon completion it will be known as Park51.

The project, upon completion, will contain the following facilities;

• outstanding recreation spaces and fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court)
• a 500-seat auditorium
• a restaurant and culinary school
• cultural amenities including exhibitions
• education programs
• a library, reading room and art studios
• childcare servicea mosque, intended to be run separately from Park51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community
• a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all

The mosque, as you can see, is only a part of the "ground zero mosque," and will in fact be run separately from the main project. Moreover, despite the inflammatory title it has earned, it is not at ground zero.

Charlie Brooker makes this point with more than a degree of relish;

To get to the Cordoba Centre from Ground Zero, you'd have to walk in the opposite direction for two blocks, before turning a corner and walking a bit more. The journey should take roughly two minutes, or possibly slightly longer if you're heading an angry mob who can't hear your directions over the sound of their own enraged bellowing.

Perhaps spatial reality functions differently on the other side of the Atlantic, but here in London, something that is "two minutes' walk and round a corner" from something else isn't actually "in" the same place at all. I once had a poo in a pub about two minutes' walk from Buckingham Palace. I was not subsequently arrested and charged with crapping directly onto the Queen's pillow. That's how "distance" works in Britain. It's also how distance works in America, of course, but some people are currently pretending it doesn't, for daft political ends.

And yet, still, "ground zero" gets tagged on as an identifier not only by the protesters and right-wing demagogues, but by the media. Even the BBC, deemed by complete fucking idiots to be biased to the left, talks of the "Ground Zero Islamic centre." Which just reinforces the nonsense.

As a result, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 will be marked by reactionary idiots opposing a "mega mosque" which is more a product of their imaginations than anything else.

It should come as little surprise that the key organiser of this event - Pamela Gellar - is an avowed supporter of the English Defence League. Her organisations, the Freedom Defence Initiative (FDI) and Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA), are the group's closest analogues stateside.

So, what to do about them? The problem is that, even more so than here in Britain, they are able to demonstrate and march without effective opposition.

As mentioned earlier, the recent anti-mosque protest which saw reactionaries turn on a man for his choice of attire was met with an opposition demo. However, this was organised at the last minute and paled in comparison to the enormous stage-show on offer from the other side.

At the same time, the politics of the counter-demonstration were vague at best. Class consciousness is nowhere near as prevalent in America, and as a result it is easier for people to become drawn into reactionary movements. Moreover, that reaction is far more likely to take a constitutionalist form than a white nationalist form.

Whilst fascism turns the working class against one another on the basis of race and nationality, American constitutionalism uses the rhetoric of freedom to turn working people directly against their own interests. The Tea Party movement is a case in point.

Events such as the anti-mosque protests, of course, are where the lines get blurred. However, whilst it would be safe to say that identity politics are being used to distract from more pressing realities, it would equally be safe to say that the vast majority of those amongst the crowds aren't racists, fascists, or white nationalists. Their flag-waving patriotism and belief in freedom as defined by the right is probably genuine.

As such, traditional antifascist tactics will need tweaking to meet the challenge. The stabbing of Ahmed Sharif and the recent protest chaos, as well as a wave of hate incidents around the country, mean that physical opposition remains important.

But alongside this a serious political challenge needs to be made to the reactionaries. Not by liberals defending Barack Obama, or by "anti-racists" whose views are little more than black-and-white slogan-repetition. It has to come from the perspective of ordinary people with a clear, intuitive understanding of the class tensions simmering below the surface of American life.

Otherwise, all we will be able to do is watch as the culture wars consume the politics of class war.

State racism against the Roma in France

At the end of last month, the shooting of a 27-year-old man by police in Grenoble sparked riots. Among other incients, youths torched 50 cars, construction equipment, and two shops.

Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux pledged to quickly restore order. But, in "waging a war against insecurity," he has vowed to tear down illegal Gypsy camps and expel Gypsies from other EU states who break the law.

As euobserver.com reports;

Since Mr Sarkozy's crackdown started on 6 August, over 40 camps affecting some 700 adults and children have been closed, with the government aiming to shut down 300 in total over the coming months. Any illegal immigrants are to be deported to their country of origin.

The president's move against illegal Roma is part of a wider security clampdown that began in the wake of the shooting of a youth by police in the Loire Valley in July. The killing, carried out after the youth committed an armed robbery at a casino, provoked a riot.

Mr Sarkozy subsequently proposed tough new laws, including stripping French nationality from those who attempt to take the life of a police officer, thereby becoming the first French head of state to openly link immigrants and crime.

The proposals have attracted opprobrium from the left of France's political establishment but the action against the Roma camps has also drawn criticism from within the president's centre-right UMP party.

Following the latest raid on Saturday on a camp in an eastern Paris suburb, UMP law-maker Jean-Pierre Grand said the government's policy was "turning disgraceful" and likened the camp evictions to round-ups during World War II.

Mr Grand said he had to react after hearing "that the authorities, arriving very early in the morning, break up families, sending men to one side and women and children on the other, and threatening to separate mothers and children."

He went on to note that these type of evictions do not work, as the Roma tend to regroup later.

Other conservative politicians have also spoken out against the tightening security laws. In an interview with Le Parisien, ex-minister Christin Boutin, president of the UMP-allied Christian Democrat Party (PCD), called for an end to "cultivating fear" and "putting people up against one another."

"Stigmatisation of one or another community exacerbates violence," she noted, adding that many French people have foreign origins, including the president himself, who has a Hungarian background.

The good news comes from the fact that the measures have seen something of a fightback;

Members of France's Roma, Gypsy and traveller minorities blocked a major highway outside Bordeaux on Sunday after hundreds of them were kicked out of an illegal campsite.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government has in recent weeks launched a major and controversial crackdown on the travelling minorities, closing unauthorised camps and expelling foreign-born Gypsies from the country.

Sunday's blockade was the first major counter-protest by the groups, and more than 250 cars, trucks and caravans blocked the Bordeaux bypass and a bridge over the River Garonne in the southwest of the country.

Police and road safety officials said northbound traffic towards Paris was backed up for five kilometres (three miles) and southbound into Bordeaux for two kilometres, causing major disruption on a summer public holiday weekend.

The protestors blocked traffic on the bridge for about five hours before leaving to try to move their caravans onto a sports ground, but were stopped by riot police and several scuffles broke out.

They then reoccupied the bridge for another hour-and-a-half in the evening before leaving.

The United Nations has called attention to the growing problem of racism in France. However, whilst it cites "the absence of true political will," the real problem - as ever - is that said will is focused on demonising minorities for political gain.

If, as seems the case, France wants to follow in Italy's footsteps, then the results could potentially be very bad indeed. Direct action is the Roma's only weapon against a hostile state and a climate of growing racism.

Reflections on the first ever Liverpool Pride

Today turned out to be a much longer day than expected. At 11.30 this morning, I was headed into town with my other half for lunch. Thirteen hours later, we got back home after ending up at Liverpool's first Pride Festival.

The day was vibrant and lively, with an uncompromisingly friendly and fun-filled atmosphere. It has also, undoubtedly, been a stunning commercial success for the city, with a volume of people traffic not seen since Liverpool FC brought home the Champions League trophy. And consistently, through the day.

However, it was also a day of immense contradictions.

It wasn't unusual or unexpected to see the banners of various trade unions and left wing parties alongside the rainbow flags, drag queens, and babies dressed as fairies. Indeed, given the emphasis left-wing politics places on equality, you would expect nothing less. 

However, the "LGBTory" banners caught me off guard. As did Adam Rickitt's headline spot on the main stage, more for his Conservative politics than for his utter obscurity.

The only thing more absurd would have been the presence of "LGBNP" banners, with BNP Crusaders "heart-throb" Joey Smith on the main stage. Nick Griffin's description of gay men kissing as "creepy" will haunt the party for years to come, but "Section 28" has been forgiven and forgotten.

But this was the problem with Liverpool Pride - indeed with Pride events more generally. They represent liberal, rather than radical, queer politics. Which is Johann Hari's point when he says that "irony and narcissism have captured and crippled gay politics."

I have also explored this in more depth previously. My conclusion is the same now as then;

Genuine equality is a prerequisite to genuine liberty. A society in which inherent privilege exists, or in which people's worth is determined by identity rather than ability, is one in which freedom cannot be universal. ... However, something doesn't sit right with the idea that - once civil partnership is called marriage, homosexuals can give blood, and schools have anti-homophobia policies - Britain will be "genuinely equal."

...

Compare, as a case in point, New Labour's supposedly "stunning sweep of progress for gay people" with their appalling record on gay asylum seekers [1, 2, 3, 4]. The number of gay Muslims rendered homeless by family prejudice and the number of gay teenagers rendered homeless through prejudice and domestic violence, speak of societal problems untouched by those concerned only with marriage, adoption, and potentially "offensive" rap lyrics.

...

Reforms are, of course, vital to improving the situation that people face in the present, but we should be under no illusions that the problems of this world can be legislated away. As direct-action group the Radical Homosexual Agenda point out, "the queer liberation groups of the 60s and 70s ... were anti-war, they fought for economic rights and agitated for free speech and a greater vision of democracy." By "downsizing" their dreams, "mainstream LGBTQ groups have forgotten these connections" and have allowed themselves to be contained and neutralised under the auspices of tolerance.

It is time that queer people realised this and started agitating once more.

Pride is a fantastic celebration, and offered me a great excuse to build towards a hangover on Sunday.

 

But this is the point: it is a celebration of how far the LGBTQ movement has come, it is not the movement itself.

Burkhas, state bans, and womens' rights in other cultures

In a rare display of common sense prevailing over authoritarianism, Tory immigration minister Damian Green has said it would be "undesirable" for Britain to follow in the footsteps of France and vote on a burkha ban.

Talking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said that this would run contrary to the conventions of a “tolerant and mutually respectful society.” Though that idea was somewhat undermined by his desire to send a "message around the world that Britain is no longer a soft touch on immigration."

Green's views on immigration aside, as I needn't rehash my opinions on the idea that Britain was ever a "soft touch" on immigration, whether or not to ban the burkha is an interesting question.

Views are rather polarised on this subject. On the conservative and nationalist right, the broad consensus is for a full ban on burkhas, and often goes beyond that to other forms of Islamic dress and even architecture. Whereas liberals, multiculturalists, and Islamic conservatives feel that wearing the burkha is a right or even (in the case of the more hardline amongst the latter group) an obligation.

Which is not to mention the extremes on both sides, fascists and Islamists.

For my part, I find myself in agreement with the assesment offered by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown;

White liberals frame this sinister development in terms of free choice and tolerance. Some write letters to this paper: What is the problem? It is all part of the rich diversity of our nation. They can rise to this challenge, show they are superhuman when it comes to liberty and forbearance. 

They might not be quite so sanguine if their own daughters decided to be fully veiled or their sons became fanatic Islamicists and imposed purdah in the family. Such converts are springing up in Muslim families all over the land. Veils predate Islam and were never an injunction (modesty of attire for men and women is). Cultural protectionism has long been extended to those who came from old colonies, in part to atone for imperial hauteur. Redress was necessary then, not now. 

What about legitimate fears that to criticise vulnerable ethnic and racial groups validates the racism they face? Racism is an evil but should never be used as an alibi to acquit oppressions within black and Asian or religious communities. That cry was used to deter us from exposing forced marriages and dowry deaths and black-upon-black violence. 

Right-wing think tanks and President Sarkozy of France scapegoat Muslims for political gain and British fascists have turned self-inflicted "ethnic" wounds into scarlet propaganda. They do what they always have done. Self-censorship will not stop them but it does stop us from dealing with home-grown problems or articulating objections to reactionary life choices like the burqa. Muslim women who show their hair are becoming an endangered species. We must fight back. Our covered-up sisters do not understand history, politics, struggles, their faith or equality. As Rahila Gupta, campaigner against domestic violence, writes: "This is a cloth that comes soaked in blood. We cannot debate the burqa or the hijab without reference to women in Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia where the wearing of it are heavily policed and any slippages are met with violence." What happened to solidarity? 

Violent enforcement is evident in Britain too. A fully veiled young chemistry graduate once came to my home, her body covered in cuts, tears, bites, bruises, all happily hidden from view. Security and social cohesion are all threatened by this trend – which is growing exponentially. 

As for the pathetic excuse that covering up protects women from male lasciviousness – it hasn't stopped rapists in the most conservative Muslim nations. And what a slur on decent Muslim men, portrayed as sexual predators who cannot look upon a woman without wanting her. 

We communicate with each other with our faces. To deny that interaction is to deny our shared humanity. Unreasonable community or nationalistic expectations disconnect essential bonds. Governments should not accommodate such demands. Naturists can't parade on the streets, go to school or take up jobs unless they cover their nakedness. Why should burqaed women get special consideration? 

Their veils are walls, keeping them in and us out.

Where I disagree is where she says "dress codes can be imposed in public-service interactions for a greater good."

Yes, it is undoubtedly true that "whether opted for by the woman or pushed on her by others, the inherent message of the veiled woman is that femininity is treacherous." I also agree that "the overwhelming argument against the burka ... is that there is such a thing as society."

However, it does not follow from this that the state should have the right to dictate what people can and cannot wear. We need to fight for public consensus, not state sanction.

Alibhai-Brown gives an example of this herself;

A traditional Pakistani friend of mine – who always wears the shalwar kameez – recently refused service from a burka-ed librarian in one of our big libraries. The next time she went in, the face was no longer hidden.

Imposing rules from above inspires an attitude of defiance, as was the case when the headscarf became the symbol of the Iranian revolution. Overtly racist violence or intimidation, such as tearing the veil from peoples' faces, creates a fear which sees the oppressed close ranks with their oppressor against external aggressors.

Raising public awareness, especially in tandem with liberal, reformist, or secular muslim groups, is none of these things. It is about consciousness raising, defiance against patriarchy, and solidarity with women.

In a secular society, people are free to practice the religion of their choosing, but also to not practice religion as they see fit. In a truly free society, the one restriction on liberty is that you cannot harm others or limit their freedoms, because basic human rights are universal.

We cannot shrug off these principles, or our opposition to patriarchy, coercion, and authoritarianism, in the name of "diversity" or "tolerance."

Israel's racist migration policy sees children facing deportation

The following appaling story comes from Al Jazeera;

Children of undocumented migrant workers who were born and have lived their whole lives in Israel are now facing deportation [EPA]

For most children summer is a carefree time. But for the children of Israel's undocumented migrant workers, deportation looms on the horizon.

It has been a hotly contested issue since last July, when the Oz Unit, a strong arm of the interior ministry's population and immigration authority, first hit the streets.

As the state took aim at Israel's 250,000 illegal labourers, 1,200 children were marked for expulsion along with their parents.

The move, a sudden reversal of Israel's long-standing policy against deporting minors, sparked public outrage. Protests and media scrutiny delayed the deportations but only temporarily.

In October, Eli Yishai, the interior minister, indicated that the families would indeed be expelled. The following month, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announced that the children would be allowed to finish the school year.
 
Roei Lachmanovich, a spokesman for Yishai, commented: "The government's decision is that Israel should minimise the number of foreign workers in Israel. It is nothing against those 1,200 children - the decision is against the illegal workers who think getting pregnant gives them permission to stay here."

"There's a way that these parents use the children," Lachmanovich added, accusing the mothers of hiding behind their children to avoid deportation.

Forbidden relationships
But, in fact, many of the women became illegal simply because they gave birth in Israel.

State policy forbids migrant workers from having children in the country. If a woman does, she must send her newborn home. If she keeps her baby in Israel, she loses her work visa.

Romantic relationships are also forbidden for foreign workers. In June, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on the story of Charlene Ramos, a Filipina caregiver with employment and a valid work visa, who faces deportation because she married another migrant labourer.

Hanna Zohar, the director of Kav LaOved, an Israeli NGO that advocates for workers' rights, says: "Israel decided to bring migrant workers. But they are not only workers, they are human beings."

Labourers should not be punished for falling in love or having babies, Zohar argues. Nor should they be expelled for it.

"Deporting children and their family is not humane," she says.

This confirms my point, made in December, that "it is not just Palestinians who suffer under Israel's two-tier labour system."

Then, I wrote how organising pressure had forced Israel's main trade union body - the Histadrut - to alter its racist policy towards migrant workers, if slightly. The task for activists in Israel now is to exert that same pressure against the racist policies of the state, in defence of families being forced out of what is - at the end of it - their home.

I sincerely hope that they succeed.

Canada's indigenous insurgency emerges at G20 protests

Over the past three days, Canada has hosted the G8 and G20 summits. As is to be expected, the focal point of this event has been the protesters.

The mainstream media were keen to report riots, confrontations, and arrests as demonstrations "turn violent" and police cars are set ablaze. Toronto's media cooperative, meanwhile, were more concerned with the police's illegal searches, the often suprious detention of activists, and the house raids conducted without warrants.
 
RNC '08 reported on repressive border controls against journalists. Obstruction of the press culminated today in the assault and arrest of a Guardian journalist.

The biggest overlooked story in this, however, has been the mobilisation of Canada's indigenous peoples. Toronto Community Mobilisation dedicated Thursday's events to indigenous sovereignty, which drew attention to the government "extinguishing Aboriginal and Treaty rights," and how the Tar Sands was "a violation of Aboriginal and Treaty rights, and the most destructive industrial project on earth."

But most of these issues are not reported or discussed in the mainstream media, except sparingly. In particular, the potential of actions by idigenous people to effect real change lacks incisive attention.

An exception to the rule, Jon Elmer of Al Jazeera offers an in-depth analysis;

But with Canadian soldiers, snipers, commandos and police tactical units representing the sharp end of a security budget that is poised to top $1bn, the most significant threat to business as usual for the summit may turn out to be far-flung rural blockades enacted by Canada's long suffering native communities.

"It's a very dangerous situation," said Douglas Bland, a retired Canadian forces lieutenant-colonel who is now the chair of defence management studies at Queen's University.

In recent years in particular, Canada's indigenous communities have shown the will and potential to grind the country's economic lifelines to a halt through strategically placed blockades on the major highways and rail lines that run through native reserves well outside of Canada's urban landscape.

"The Canadian economy is very vulnerable," said Bland.

"More than 25 per cent of our GDP comes from exports of raw materials, but especially oil, natural gas and electricity to the United States."

"It's undefended and undefendable infrastructure, the pipelines and power lines and so on, and it runs through great spaces of open countryside and they run through aboriginal territories.

"It would take a very small number of people very little time to bring [it] down," said Bland, who is the author of a "barely fictionalised" account of native insurgency in Canada, entitled Uprising.

The G8 and G20 are now over, but the issues facing thigenous do not end with a single summit. They are ongoing.

As I have noted previously, Tar Sands is the most pressing, one of several areas worldwide where companies are "reaping huge profits by ravaging the environment, stealing and destroying the land of indigenous peoples, and even driving up the prices for the working class people who serve as essentially captive markets for their products in the west."

If the aim is to stop it, then militancy must take precendence where reformism inevitably fails. And it seems Canada's "insurgency" know this;

In 2007, the Mohawk community at Tyendinaga, 200 kilometres east of Toronto, blocked the trans-continental rail line and Canada's largest highway in protest at the government's failure to address land rights and basic issues of survival within First Nations - including safe drinking water, which the community lacked.

That episode was a hint of the leverage indigenous peoples in Canada possess, as hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo was stalled by simple barricades placed across a rural stretch of the Canadian National railway's mainline between Toronto and Montreal.

"The message resounded," said Shawn Brant, a high profile Mohawk activist involved in the 2007 blockades.

"We are not going to live in abject poverty, to have our children die, to have our women abducted, raped and murdered without any investigations. We are not going to live with the basic indignities that occur to us daily. We would bring them to an end."

In 2007, Brant characterised the blocking of the 401 highway and CN main rail line as a "good test run".

"We showed that we would meet the severity of what was happening to us with a reaction and a plan, a strategy that would be equally as severe," Brant said.

There has been talk in the Canadian military that experiences fighting the Taliban (!) would be "completely relevant to what might happen here," suggestion that militancy would be met with violent suppression.

Brant doesn't seem concerned at this. He insists that "we've created a unity that they don't have the military or policing capabilities to confront."

Nonetheless, they are comrades in struggle and deserve support and solidarity. As the spectacle of the G8 and G20 disappears, we mustn't let the struggle of Canada's indigenous fade into obscurity.

The militant antifascist tradition tells us how to deal with Islamic wingnuts

On Tuesday, a march by the Royal Anglian Regiment was disrupted by Islamist protesters. A previously unheard of group called "Muslims Against Crusades" echoed the actions of the now-defunct Islam4UK, chanting "murderers, murderers," and "British troops go to hell."

This repeat performance was met with more resistance than last time. As the Evening Standard reports "about 100 men — wearing English Defence League T-shirts and shouting “scum”, “Muslim bombers off our streets” and “Allah, Allah, who the f***k is Allah” — surged out of the nearby Barking Dog pub and surrounded the Muslims." The clash ended when the Islamists were driven behind a steel barricade and eventually led away to the train station.

Just as happened in Luton, there has been a massive media outcry.

The Daily Mail led with "into the jaws of hate," describing the Islamists as "screaming hate and brandishing vile placards." The Daily Star insists that, despite no corroboration in other press reports, the group "spat at" the soldiers. The Sun called the protest "sick." Nile Gardiner, writing for the Telegraph, demands that "it’s about time that Muslim leaders in the U.K. actually took a stand and denounced en masse extremists like this, as well as pay tribute to the sacrifice of British forces fighting for the cause of liberty and freedom in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Before anything else, I must repeat the point I made after the Luton protests;

If this is a democracy, then the absolute right to protest anything and to say anything - even if it is offensive, ignorant, or wrong - should be a basic, universal benchmark. If it is not, then we cannot claim to be living in a democracy or to have freedom of speech.

This is not just a point of principle, but of practicality. Islamism doesn't exist because Muslims haven't been told sternly enough they're not allowed to be extremists.

It exists, like nationalism and fascism, because people lack an outlet for very real grievances or concerns. It is a reactionary movement which preys upon those concerns and twists them to suit a divisive and authoritarian agenda.

As with far-right groups like the BNP, censorship only gives them credibility. By playing the card as martyrs to free speech, suppressed by the current system, they are able to appeal to those disenfranchised by that same system. The more we try to deny their opinions a public airing or even ban them from existence, the more their message resonates with those who (for very different reasons) are fed up with the authorities doing the banning.
But if this conservative approach is doomed to failure, so too is the more liberal approach. Trying to reason with so-called "extremists" from the point of view of the dominant power structure is an exercise in futility.

Yet again, we have parallels with antifascism. People aren't drawn to the BNP because the conservative mainstream isn't offering a "moderate" form of fascist policies nor because middle-class liberals haven't shouted at them and called them "nasty" and "racist" loud enough. They are drawn to it because it offers an answer to the problems caused by the dominant political class. That this answer is fascist and built upon racist scapegoating is entirely irrelevant when there is nothing else to replace it with.

Likewise, Muslims don't turn to Islamism because they lack "moderate" forms of the bigotry and cultural imperialism that ideology offers. Nor do they do so because they haven't been told by flag-waving non-Muslims how "evil" it is and that they should "pay tribute to the sacrifice of British forces fighting for the cause of liberty and freedom in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."
The Sun quotes Muslims Against Crusdaes leader Abu Assadullah thus;

We are quite disgusted by the fact these murderers that raped our people are coming back and they are being honoured for doing something wrong. These people have been killing and raping and pillaging in Islamic countries and they should not be welcomed home. As Muslims, we wanted to make a stand.

The families of the soldiers are not the only ones with feelings. We also have feelings, our fellow Muslims are being butchered. Islam is not a violent religion but we will use violence if necessary to defend ourselves. Democracy is failing, that was clear as this year we had a hung parliament. Islam is the alternative.

People in this country are very patriotic. They support Britain even if the country has done something wrong. We want to show that there is an alternative. Sharia law would provide an alternative, it would provide balance in the UK.

People say ‘don’t take it out on the soldiers, they are just doing their jobs’. But how it when Osama Bin Laden blows up a plane or a building he is a terrorist. It is not that he is just doing his job – this is a double standard. They are both killing.

A large part of this argument is dominated by the rhetoric of the batshit crazy.

There is no serious argument for the idea that Osama bin Laden is "just doing his job." He is, after all, an ideological leader of the al-Qaeda network. This was almost certainly not a position offered in the jobs section of the Helmland Echo, and as heir to a vast oil fortune he could more than afford to not be involved in terrorism.

Soldiers, on the other hand, are working class. They have to sell their labour in order to feed and clothe themselves and their families, and it just so happens that their labour has been bought by the armed wing of the state. Are they culpable if, as individuals, they commit attrocities? Absolutely. And, as with the Bloody Sunday inquiry, they should be held accountable. But to say that they are responsible for the war itself, illegal though it may be, is utterly absurd.

But within this rhetoric are more reasonable points which deserve to be addressed. The idea that the military "are being honoured for doing something wrong" will resonate with everyone who has objections to the war.

Organisers and supporters claim that parades and events which honour "our" troops are non-political and separate from the question of whether we should have gone to war. But the idea that soldiers are "fighting for freedom" or are - by virtue of their very uniform - "heroes" is a political statement. Can one fight for freedom in an illegal war of aggression?

That stating the above will be met with instant fury by many "patriots" only emphasises Assadullah's statement that people "support Britain even if the country has done something wrong." This, too, is an area of concern for those alienated from the system or ostracised for being critical of the actions of the state. Organisations like Muslims Against Crusades appear because the only people articulating these concerns add that "Sharia law would provide an alternative, it would provide balance in the UK."

And, of course, this suits the ruling class fine. If those who do dissent are most often pulled into reactionary movements, this means that genuinely radical organisations cannot emerge to challenge the status quo. Moreover, the hatred and fear that such extremists (understandably) evoke fuels the aggressive patriotism that cements the position of those in power.

This is why opposition to Islamism should not come from the state or from "patriots." It should come from ordinary Muslims, not out of a demand for patriotic loyalty but with the support and solidarity of antifascists. Moreover, it has to be couched in the tradition of militant, working class self-defence.

If we are made to choose between the "patriotism" and "extremism," we should strongly reject both.

Rape laws and the callous idiocy of anti-feminism

The new coalition government recently announced that men accused of rape would be granted the same anonymity as their accusers. As well as drawing the misogynistic wingnuts out of the woodwork, foaming, this decision highlights the gross distortionsagainst women in the debate on rape.

Anti-rape campaigners reacted angrilly to the announcement. Women Against Rape called it "an insult," whilst rape victim Jill Saward said it would "send a damaging message." The Guardian further adds that this "would run contrary to the findings of a recent landmark report into rape and the criminal justice system, which recommended that independent research should first be done into the scale and nature of false rape allegations."

A recent survey by Amnesty International found that 30% of the British public felt a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if drunk, 26% thought so if she had been wearing revealing clothing, 34% if she was being flirty, and 22% if she had had many sexual partners. The full report (Word) is shocking, but sadly not surprising.

The right-wing and tabloid media have cultivated this attitude. Stories of false rape accusations outweigh stories of rape on a level completely disproportionate to actual incidence.

To take the Sun as an example, the bias is so overwhelming as to be obvious. "Woman's rape lie led to suicide," "'Too drunk' rape trial: chef Peter Bacon is cleared," and "Jack Tweed: I'm scared to have sex" are just a couple of examples. Their coverage of the new proposals includes an argument in their favour from previously falsely-accused Christine Hamilton, but no corresponding argument against.

To be fair, there are corresponding stories from the point of view of rape victims, but the volume and the editorial weight is clearly tipped towards the stories of women making flase accusations. The Sun's "Woman" section is leading a "Stop Rape Now" campaign, but this appears not to intrude on the propagandistic suggestions that women are making false accusations against men en masse. Indeed, the outrage this way appears to only be against what Whoopi Goldberg qualified as "rape-rape."

Proof in such an utterly batshit-crazy belief lies, as with so many insanities, in the words of Melanie Phillips;

Even before tomorrow's Queen's Speech, our new Lib-Con coalition has achieved a palpable hit. It has upset the feminist Sisterhood.

For this we must all give thanks. After the long years of Labour's Harman Terror, during which extreme man-hating feminism seemed to carry all before it, any sign that common sense may at last be reasserting itself is more than welcome.

...

It is, of course, an article of faith among such activists that women who claim they have been raped never lie because all men accused of rape are guilty.

This despite the steady stream of cases in which men have been found not guilty after the evidence against them has fallen apart in court, either because it is demonstrably false and malicious or merely flimsy and ambiguous.

...

Despite such instances, however, the certainty that all men accused of rape are guilty drove government policy during virtually the whole 13 years of Labour rule.

The cry of feminist activists both in and out of government has been throughout that the rape conviction rate, at a paltry 6 per cent, is too low.

But that figure is deeply misleading because it includes all reports of rape, regardless of whether the prosecution service deems them to be well enough founded to be brought to court.

In fact, of those rape defendants who are tried nearly 60 per cent are convicted  -  a higher conviction rate than for other violent attacks.

Furthermore, many acquittals occur because, with casual sex now so common, it has become much more difficult for a jury to decide beyond reasonable doubt whether the sexual encounter in question was consensual or not.

In other words, juries are simply doing their job properly at a time of profound social change.

Nevertheless, feminist activists claim, perversely, that the acquittal rate demonstrates bias against women  -  and have accordingly tried vindictively to load the judicial dice against men. 

It doesn't take a genius to realise that Mad Mel is, once again, attacking a strawman. The left-wing demons in her head do not often correlate to any kind of reality. It is also misleading, suggesting both that the rape conviction rate is much higher than suggested and that there is an anti-male agenda which ruins the lives of countless falsely accused.

The idea that there is a 60% rape conviction rate is shown up as a nonsense just on the fact that at least 75% of rape victims never go to the police (PDF). That alone tells you that there is something wrong with the way we treat the victims of this most horrendous crime. But there's more. The 60% figure should actually be 58%, coming from the "landmark report" by Baroness Stern mentioned earlier.

And even then it is misleading;

Ministry of Justice records show that in 2008 only 38% of rape cases won a conviction for rape itself. Alternative convictions were generally for offences such as sexual assault or sexual activity with a child under 16 – a much easier charge to prove because consent is not an issue. But they could also include non-sexual crimes such as a violent attack that was part of the incident, although the Crown Prosecution Service said this was highly unlikely to occur.

Alternative convictions could come about because of a plea bargain, where a rape or – more likely – attempted rape charge is dropped after a defendant offers to plead guilty to a lesser sexual offence, or because the jury is given two alternative charges and convicts on the lesser one, acquitting the defendant of rape.

According to the British Crime Survey report, Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2006/07, 1 in 20 women have been raped since they were 16, with 1 in 200 in the 12 months. before the survey. This suggests that 85,000 women in England and Wales are raped each year , equivalent to 230 a day. When the number of men convicted of rape is fewer than 800 a year, the idea that there is "a higher conviction rate [for rape] than for other violent attacks" is ludicrous.

Johann Hari made the point starkly back in 2007;

In Britain today, rape has become an almost unpunished crime. Fly-tipping, shop-lifting, cannabis-smoking - all are dealt with more stringently than forcing a woman into sex and forcing her mind into meltdown.

This sounds impossible, but the cool hard academic studies show it starkly: fewer than 1 in 100 rapists now end up behind bars. A British man has to rape over 50 women before it becomes statistically probable he will be sent to prison. As the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel puts it, "rape might as well be legal".

The reasons lie not just in the attitudes that the Amnesty survey described above found, but in the procedures followed by the legal system. As Hari continues;

At the moment, astonishingly, the first time a raped woman sees the lawyers who are meant to be making her case is when she enters the witness stand. As one friend of mine who went through a rape trial says: "He got a year with his lawyers to polish his performance, and I didn't even get 20 minutes to talk over what had happened to me."

But we can't focus only on the problems in the courtroom, because very few rapists ever get that far. The first time a victim describes her ordeal is very often to a rape hotline, so they are in a unique position to help women go to the police - but many are going bust. In 1985, there were 68 women-only rape crisis centres or helplines in Britain. Today, there are only 32 - and they are closing at a rate of two a month, according to the Survivors Trust.

And if they embolden a woman to come forward? The Crown Prosecution Service has to choose to take the case to court. One sexual liaison officer described in a recent Home Office study how the CPS would drop a case "before even the toxicology reports had come back form the lab", adding, "I just feel that the CPS give up too easily, too soon".

There are thousands of cases to back this claim up. In 1998, a school janitor in Grimsby seized a 15-year-old girl, dragged her into an alley and sexually assaulted her. The CPS didn't pursue it. His name? Ian Huntley.

At this point I should note that I am not calling for hysteria. Having argued strongly against the lynch mob mentality before, I have no intention on going back on that point. However, it should go without saying that we do not face a choice between picking up a pitchfork and treating victims as less than nothing. This is a simple matter of perspective. Yes, if women make false accusations, with malicious intent, there should be consequences. But the need to redress a system in which "rape might as well be legal" is a far more pressing concern.

That this latter, far more widespread, problem is being largely ignored is an inescapable condemnation of both the incumbent government and the media which promotes this agenda.

Since when did opposing Islamism require opposing religious freedom?

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I have absolutely no truck with Islamism - the violent political doctrine derived from the religion of Islam. On here, I called for opposition to Islam4UK when they tried to organise marches in London and in Wootton Bassett. I also, very recently, defended the right of people such as South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone to take the piss out of the Prophet Muhammad.

I say this in the (vain) hope of pre-empting any comments from fascist idiots who would accuse me of appeasing militant Islam, or some other such bollocks. Because, whilst I am strongly opposed to Islamism as a doctrine, I am also strongly opposed to the fascists who play on the fear of Islam to further their agenda.

This condemnation applies equally to the British National Party and the English Defence League. Here, however, I am talking about the EDL's occupation of the proposed site for a new mosque in Dudley.

 According to the report in today's Daily Mail;

Four members of the far-right English Defence League scaled the roof of a derelict building in Dudley, West Midlands, yesterday waving anti-Muslim banners. 

Dozens of protesters gathered at the site on Sunday night after an internet campaign calling upon EDL supporters to attend a protest.

Around 30 masked protesters were ordered off the site as fights broke out. Several EDL members clambered onto the roof of the building earmarked for super mosque development.

A police officer and local teenager were taken to hospital for minor injuries after the clashes.

...

This morning, four men dressed in balaclavas and army fatiques remained on the roof of the old clothing factory where they unfurled banners reading 'No to the burka' and 'no mosque'.

The EDL's website claims the protesters 'have food and water to last them weeks, and a PA system to give speeches'. 

It adds: 'I believe they even have a Playstation. They will be playing the call to prayer to let those who are not bothered by this mosque know what to look forward to.' 

An eyewitness said: 'They're waving England flags and blaring out Islamic music from a loud speaker.'

Chief Inspector Matt Markham from West Midlands Police said: 'We have always facilitated peaceful protests by members of the EDL and other organisations, but we do not welcome this kind of protest.

'Our priorities are to minimise any disruption to the local community in Dudley and to prevent any further incidents of disorder from occurring.

'Our message to anyone thinking of turning up with the intention of causing disorder is not to, as we have police resources available and any such activity will be dealt with swiftly and robustly.'

This protest is redundant in the first instance because the Dudley Muslim Association announced today that the plans for the mosque have been scrapped. They were first rejected in 2007, and on the back of fairly reasonable objections - namely, that Muslims already had a mosque in the town and that the land was designated for employment use - the appeal was bound to be rejected as well.

The EDL are not opposing the mosque on the basis of such logical reasoning. Rather, they are against it on the grounds that it represents the "islamification" of the town and could be a breeding ground for "extremism." The merit of this argument is summed up by the opinion of locals that their protest is "racist" and a "waste of police time."

Extremism - or, more specifically, the doctrine of political Islam - isn't spread by the presence of minarets but by the presence of Islamist ideas. Slogans such as "no more mosques," perceived as an attack on Muslims rather than on Islamists, are only helping those with such ideas to propigate them to an increasingly alienated and beleaguered populace. Allowing people their places of worship, but secularising the school system, would be a much more effective response to this. Not to mention driving the fascists who deliberately confuse Muslims with Islamists as an excuse to riot or to spread their own, equally poisonous, ideology.

As for "Islamification," this is nothing more than a buzzword of the right which means little to nothing. I have previously dissected the paranoid frenzy over Muslim demographics, and it is also worth noting that mosques are not built where there are no Muslims. That is, if there is no demand for them they will not spring up. In the case of Dudley, the pre-existing mosque was not fit for purpose, and allowing them to renovate that made building a new one unneccesary - hence it's scrappage.

As long it is the believers who pay for them, and they do not encroach on homes or on green belt land, there is no reason to oppose the erection of any religious building. This is entirely separate from opposing the violent zealots from said religion, or defending the right to free speech in a secular society. As such, it shows up the EDL's claim to only oppose "militant Islam" as a bald lie.

Sorry ... what?

According to popular consensus, Nick Clegg won the leader's debate. This came as no surprise. Labour's hold on power over the past thirteen years has disillusioned many on the left. The Tories can't disguise the fact that they're still the same vicious, anti-working class party that spawned Thatcher. And the fact that the Lib Dems are more of the same has hardly spread like wildfire.

Also unsurprising was that Clegg's "victory" led to a concerted attack from the other two parties and the right-wing press. The fact that the Daily Mail managed to drag an entire article out of the fact that Clegg fell asleep when his wife went into kabour was particularly amusing. As was the fact that they invoked class, of all things, in another piece of contrived nonsense on the same day. But gutter politics and sheer hypocrisy are exactly what you expect from that paper.

So is racism.

But what did take me aback was the fact that the Mail chose Clegg as a vehicle to promote a race-based theory of who is British that would make fascists like the BNP proud. Whilst attacking Clegg for being posh, which is of course unacceptable if Cameron is the victim, the paper offered this gem;

Despite his Anglo-Saxon name, Nick Clegg is by blood the least British leader of a British political party, the son of a Dutch mother and a half-Russian merchant banker father.

But they weren't done there. They follow this up a day later with "Revealed: The United Nations that make up Nick Clegg." In the print edition, strangely not on offer for the online version, is this question;

His wife is Spanish, his mother Dutch, his father half-Russian and his spin doctor German. Is there ANYTHING British about LibDem leader?

I'll let Sunder Katwala of Next Left respond to this;

Last year, the Daily Mail apologised for their mistake and published my letter, by way of correction, when I challenged their news report criticising the official classification of the British-born children and grandchildren of immigrants as British in immigration statistics.

Today's Mail on Sunday news report suggests some vague sense that English ethnic origins and being British are different things, in reporting Clegg's sensible response to a silly question.

When it was pointed out that he was only a quarter English, he said: ‘Well, biologically...yeah. But I was born here, brought up here, went to school here, and I feel very proud to be British. I have been very fortunate to have different bits to my identity. That’s enriched me.’

Yet Paul Dacre's newspapers have now raised the bar signficantly with today's new Britishness test, in which you are less British if you:

• were born to parents who were born abroad;
• marry somebody from abroad;
• work abroad
• work with anybody from abroad;

Never mind being born abroad yourself. It may be some small sign of progress that I can not imagine the Mail explicitly applying this British "by blood" theory to individual black, Asian or mixed race politicians, like Sayeeda Warsi, Shaun Bailey or Sadiq Khan, to challenge their citizenship or patriotism - though they would all fail it. The fact remains that, among over 4 million non-white British citizens, barely a single one of us could hope to pass the Britishness test which the Mail applies to Mr Clegg, though we are far from alone in that.

He hammers the point home by using the above criteria to question the "Britishness" of everyone from Winston Churchill to Oliver Cromwell.

Frankly, this is overkill. The Mail is a hotbed of vitriolic racism, snobbery, and hypocrisy, and everybody knows that. Whilst they're not openly proclaiming "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" today, they will use slightly more subtle methods to spread much the same message as they did then.

But most people know this, and most people are sensible enough to realise that who you are "by blood" is irrelevant. The only sane response to these articles is "who cares?" But it must be a collective response, because as long as there are people paying attention to this bullshit, there are people utterly distracted from things that actually matter.

I suspect that, rather than smearing a political leader, is the point.

Why class, not race, defines South Africa's turmoil.

In a video provocatively titled "Kill all the Black People," YouTube poster R3NDI3R makes the argument that "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer" - the ANC's anti-apartheid struggle song - is of no relevence to the present and is in fact racist. His argument, strongly worded, seems to have merit. BBC News has reported that "South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) has told its members to refrain from singing the anti-apartheid struggle song "Shoot the Boer"."

Of course, this new development can hardly be attributed to a single man or a single video on YouTube. Racial tensions have been rising recently, and the murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has only further ignited this. "His supporters have blamed ANC youth leader Julius Malema for inflaming the situation by singing the song," as the BBC tells us. Indeed, this is the point of R3NDI3R's rant.

However, it is worth arguing that the issue of this song is nothing more than a distraction.

Not because inflammatory anti-white songs are acceptable, far from it. The controversy surrounding the song represents a distraction because it is superficial. Not only does it fail to strike at the heart of the real injustices of ANC rule in South Africa, which I've covered previously, but also because - as apartheid itself did - it throws up race as a dividing line whilst the country is suffering heavily on the basis of class.

On LibCom, Chris Rodrigues sheds more light on this little-analysed perspective;

A hat tip to Mphutlane wa Bofelo for pointing out the subtext to the ANC’s claim to the “shoot the boer!” song: For is it not the case, as wa Bofelo points out, that the attempt to establish a heritage status for the song locates the struggle in the past? And what of the new songs that the poor sing today? Songs like, “amabhunu amnyama asenzela i -worry” — “black boers cause us worries”. Does this current storm in Julius Malema’s teacup not also divert attention from this reality?

Part of the problem resides in the fact that the media tends to follow the blindingly obvious — in this case, the day-to-day pronouncements of those who hold political office. The body politic is, however, capable of other forms. The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo — the University of the Shack Dwellers — is a case in point. University? Shack dwellers? What kind of politics is this that doesn’t seek parliamentary representation? Still, it’s unforgivable that in a country where protests occur with such frequency — there is no ink spilt analysing contemporary idioms.

Anthems, as the Uruguayan essayist Eduardo Galeano says, are often full of “threats, insults, self-praise, homages to war, and the honourable duty to kill and be killed”. The archetypal Marseillaise, for instance, warns that the Revolution “will water the fields with the impure blood” of the invaders. Terrifying stuff but once institutionalised, as Messrs Malema and Motlanthe are arguing, these songs of death and victory are sentimentalised and tamed. They are no longer sung outside the Bastille but inside the Stade de France. In the ANC’s case — we could draw a distinction between singing near Casspirs, and singing in the vicinity of parking lots full of SUVs.

It is, rather, the adaptation of a song, or a new song sung by the excluded that is, as the philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues in First as Tragedy, Then as Farce — the truly revolutionary anthem. Working from the premise that “universal humanity is visible at the edges” — a phrase he borrows from Susan Buck-Morss — he describes how the newly self-liberated black slaves of Haiti faced down the French soldiers sent to crush their republic, by singing the Marseillaise. As Zizek suggests, in that moment, they were asserting:

“In this battle, we are more French than you, the Frenchmen, are — we stand for the innermost consequences of your revolutionary ideology, the very consequences you were not able to assume.”

Could we not say the same with the “black boers cause us worries”? Not only are the poor demonstrating their non-racialism (a black person can also be a boer — a metaphor for an oppressor), they are simultaneously radicalising, through differentiating class from race, what the ANC’s theorists would call the national democratic revolution.

Indeed, it must be somewhat unsettling for the ANC (as in Zizek’s example, the French), who once held a revolutionary initiative, to hear new analyses of the struggle — like the following from Abahlali:

“It is the community organisations and poor people’s movements who are protesting around the country who are true to the spirit of the struggle against apartheid. The politicians who try to herd the people into stadiums to tell them that the politicians in their cavalcades are the true inheritors of the spirit of that struggle have made themselves our enemies.”

All it seems the ANC can say is that we once sang a seditious song and what is now required is — as represented by our regime — obedience to that heroic heritage. Regrettably, a judicial ruling has breathed new life into what is an anachronistic farce for, as Karl Marx might have said, the ANC “only imagines that it believes in itself and asks the world to share in its fantasy”.

Sixteen years of neo-liberal economics dressed up in leftist drag means that a new generation are singing real songs again. These old-new freedom songs are, routinely, met with rubber bullets. It underscores one of wa Bofelo’s points — that people have always known that “it does not only take a white skin to install or perpetuate a system based on unequal allocation of power and inequitable distribution of wealth and resources”.

Here, however, we enter a more thought-provoking terrain and, again, Zizek is useful. He inverts Marx’s old definition of farce by insisting that “contemporary cynicism” as regards ideology (post-modernism, if you like) only imagines “that we do not “really believe” in our ideology [for] in spite of this imaginary distance, we continue to practice it”.

In other words, is not all this attention on Malema, and on a long-in-the-tooth song, not an illusory fight that both the black and white bourgeoisie would prefer to a real one over, dare we say it, communism of some sort? Is it not that the bourgeoisie believe in capitalism so much that they would rather chose a Janus-faced soap-opera (with its empty posturing and hysterical condemnation) than confront the ideological challenge posed by the new anti-capitalist movements? Is it not the case that a clown prince is (even to the SACP) preferable to a real communist?

A few years ago, the Financial Mail, wrote something particularly telling in regard to the then president-in-waiting. It was in the edition entitled, “Be Afraid”. “It’s not the corruption and rape charges that investors and SA business think about when they think of Zuma,” said feature writer Carol Patton, “it’s the simple fact that he has a far more radical support base than Mbeki”.

That someone could be radical — let alone a class for itself — is the spectre haunting South Africa’s rainbow elites. The “shoot the boer!” song represents then, in a Freudian sense, only a symptomatic return of this repressed fear.

“But what about farm attacks/killings”, someone could ask? Are these not, as AfriForum and the Democratic Alliance assert, a literal enactment of that song?

This question also masks its ideology. We should first ask what a farm attack/killing is? And once both phrases also include the attack/killing of farm workers by farm owners, we should ask what motivates farm owners to attack/kill farm workers? The answer to that question will, no doubt, extend the initial inquiry well beyond the three words of a song.

There is, of course, a more obscure question — one that proves that the blind are leading the blind — and it’s whether the murder of an abusive white supremacist, like Eugene Terre’Blanche, is attributable to others’ “hate speech”?

Let’s stop changing the topic. South Africa has been dubbed “the protest capital of the world”. The recent Kennedy Road attacks, which left two dead and Abahlali activists hiding in safe houses, are harbingers of an intensifying class struggle. As one of its members said: “The ANC regards [Abahlali] — not the other official political parties — as their true opposition, because we are closer to the pain on the ground.”

The situation in South Africa is more intense than elsewhere only because the great injustice that was apartheid only institutionalised the illusion that injustice was entirely based on race, with class playing no part. The ANC have been keen to maintain that illusion, even as it is shattered by the sight of poor blacks rising in protest against rich blacks.

Race is an issue, of course, and will continue to be an issue. But it is not the central one. The end of apartheid did not bring about the end of poverty or injustice. South Africans (or anybody else) will not realise such a goal until they tackle the one issue that subsumes all others. That is, the issue of class.