Islamophobia is rising – and Britain’s politicians have been dangerously complacent in tackling it
Mainstream figures have been enabling anti-Muslim racism, creating the ideal conditions for the rise of hard-right political parties.
There are two kinds of antiracism. Only one works, and it has nothing to do with ‘diversity training’
While liberal antiracists argue over vocabulary, radicals take direct action – which is the only way to change the system In news that ought to please antiracist campaigners everywhere, just recently everybody seems to be talking about antiracism. Chief executives such as Larry Fink of BlackRock, one of the most powerful financial companies in the…
The hidden class politics of the UK’s immigration debate
Liberals preach cultural tolerance to the working classes while inflicting death-by-policy on migrants Government ministers warned of an influx of migrants overwhelming public services. Newspaper headlines declared war on imagined armies of welfare cheats invading Britain through easily penetrated borders. Plans to build accommodation centres for asylum seekers were abandoned in the face of local…
Eda Seyhan: How elites use the pandemic to secure their power
Governments around the world have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand their powers. Populations have been divided on the basis of race and class into those deserving of protection and those perceived as risky and to be controlled. Migrants, refugees, precarious workers, and racialized groups have faced vulnerability and repression. Many Western liberals,…
From Fanon to ventilators: fighting for our right to breathe
To neoliberal states, the pandemic is a racialized security threat and a market opportunity. Our fight is for the right to breathe — in every sense. Ruling elites are pursuing the convergence of two dreams in their response to COVID-19: a state dream and a market dream. The state dream entails emptying public space of…
In a Foreign Land: the new popular racism
Published in October 2001, this paper explores the new common sense racism emerging through media and political discourses of asylum, particularly linked to the policy of dispersing asylum seekers out of London to other parts of England. Focusing on the ways in which an attitude of multicultural tolerance towards some racialised groups, seen as ‘settled’, appeared to…