Chi Onwurah + Labour's race f'up

Last year I posted on how Diane Abbott must be defended. She had just been discovered by the Daily Mail as having had a relationship in the past with Jeremy Corbyn.

Twitter was flooded with vile, disgusting, debased racist attacks on her. I wrote a post because nobody seemed to be paying any attention to this and I thought someone should.

Who noticed? Practically no one. Outrage was there none. Passed The Twittersphere by. F'all on Comment Is Free.

The whole experience was surreal. Look it up. Yes that actually happened and yes most ignored it / had no clue it was going on.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A year on and another black Labour MP is subjected to vile, disgusting, racist attacks. She is accused of 'playing the race card', an idea whose origins lie in the racist 'Southern Strategy' of the Reagan-era American Republican Party, by a website much of Labour links to.

She does not receive the same sexualised abuse as Abbott but the assault on her is similarly determined to silence a black voice.

Only this time Abbott and other left black voices are silent on her treatment, plus others, not of the far-left, also chime in, trashing her.

One of those black voices is Ahmed Sule. who wrote a fantastic piece about 'playing the race card' last year for Media Diversified, a website/group linked to a key website backing Jeremy Corbyn, The Canary.

Strangely (I jest) he has been silent on Chi Onwurah. In fact if you know of any 'radical' black voices speaking up for Onwurah let me know - they appear absent.

The assault on Onwurah

Onwurah is the black, Northern Labour MP whose criticism of Corbyn has been met with a racist assault - a reality, as with Abbott's, that has gone uncommented upon - as well as a dismissal as somehow her views are imposed upon her.  Like this black woman is a puppet.

For the Corbynites that must-read Canary website hosted an assault by white author James Wright on Onwurah. Tl/DR: the black MP lies.

It cited another white author on Corbyn's history of opposing Apartheid. This has been widely circulated. The reality is that the entire Labour community opposed Apartheid, not just Corbyn. For his work the 'Blairite' Minister Peter Hain was given a medal by the South African government (Corbyn has no such medal). The image circulated of Corbyn comes from a protest organised by a Trotskyist sect, the RCP. that the African National Congress (ANC) in exile opposed.

To shame a black Labour MP Corbyn supporters circulate an image of Corbyn, pretty much, defying the ANC.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can understand defying the ANC but that wasn't what was happening for those circulating that image to trash Onwurah. They were deifying Corbyn. And in sharp and illuminating contrast to a black MP.

The apogee of the reaction to Onwurah criticising Corbyn must be a black Corbyn supporter tweeting that Corbyn is the anti-racist hero. Never mind all those, like Abbott, who fought for representation.

Racial discrimination and racism

At the core of the very serious issue with Labour reaction to Onwurah is her stated concern about racial discrimination.

She says that the treatment of her and another black woman MP could constitute racial discrimination. This is based on how when you have low representation your actions could diminish that even more. Hence you end up discriminating.

It's almost two decades since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. That explained how institutions can be subject to racial discrimination in how they practice. That also said that a claim of racial discrimination should be taken at face value and not automatically dismissed.

Understanding how racial discrimination works in practice is something muggins thought we'd got from all that history.  More fool me.

Cos British media headlines said Onwurah'd accused Corbyn of racism. (This line was swallowed whole by Smith supporter Kevin Meagher, who blogged, against her, at Labour Uncut.)

This is not true. Racism and racial discrimination are not the same issue - and seeing how little this was understood vis Chi made me feel as if nothing had been learnt from the Stephen Lawrence experience or what has followed since. And I was truly shocked to see she got little support - including from her fellow MPs.

So we end up, in 2016, having a black female Labour MP being told her experience is not valid by vast swathes of the party. And how dare you raise your experience as a black woman. And being left to fend for herself by the entire party. Not silenced - ignored. It appears so.

Am back to Abbott and what happened a year ago...

G&d this is truly pathetic ...

Yes discrimination

In her piece today for The Guardian Onwurah underlines that:

"Conflating issues of representation with accusations of racism is one of the ways in which minority voices are silenced."

Corbyn needed to take care in how he treated Labour's few black female representatives. To do otherwise is not 'racism' but 'racial discrimination'. Because Labour has representation problems. Because meaning outcomes. Forgetting who 'they' are. Forgetting what 'they' represent. Forgetting what got 'them' where they are.

Forgetting who 'we' are. Forgetting who he is. Or who he is supposed to be.

Forgetting.

Neglect - competence! - amounts to discrimination. That's her point, as I get it.

It ain't hard to understand yet we have a party which yells at her to STFU.

If Labour 2016 does not understand this, Chi's, basic point then WTF is Labour? And can someone else do some lifting on this than this old queen?

The Corbynite leadership is white male heterosexuals.

If you aint demanding of them cos that you aint nothing. Chi just did. She is something. F'yeah she is.

We can do better. We can do more.

• For more on Jeremy Corbyn's history on Anti-Apartheid see Twll Dun 'The right side of history'

On extremism, jihadism and counter-jihadism

Reblogged with permission from BobFromBrockley.

======

This post is prompted by David Cameron’s recent speech setting out a new agenda on addressing the threat of Islamist violent extremism, and also by the recent launch of a whole series of “counter-jihadi” initiatives on the British right, including the planning of a Mohammed cartoon exhibition in London in September. The latter has been the subject of a report by the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate (HnH). My friend Sarah made some sympathetic criticisms of that report at Harry’s Place, for which she got some sharp criticism on Twitter. This whole topic is one which frequently inflames irrational passions and generates more heat than light. This post, therefore, is an attempt to set out a series of propositions on these issues as an attempt to cut through some of the hysteria.  I didn’t mean for it to get so long!

“Extremism” is not a helpful framing of the problem

 

Cameron frames his approach to Islamism in terms of the wider generic problem of “extremism”, noting that Islamism is just one of many forms of “extremism”, along with that of the far right. Cameron is right to note that other ideologies constitute a threat, and there are certain similarities between the Islamist far right and the British nationalist far right. However, the term “extremism” creates more confusion than it solves, especially when the border between extremism and terrorism is blurred, as it was in Cameron’s speech, and in fact can do damage.

The idea of “extremism” implicitly contrasts these ideologies to the “normal”, acceptable politics of the centre ground, of the mainstream status quo. The concept of “extremism” criminalises the desire for change. It stops us from looking carefully and critically at the ideologies caught in its remit – which closes down debate, imagination and criticism, and stops us from engaging “extremist” ideologies and challenging them politically. The concept of “extremism” can make minor, marginal ideologies seem more dangerous than they often are – and therefore can sometimes make them seem glamourous and exciting. 

 

We know from history that the rubric of “extremism” is most often used against the left. In recent decades, for example, we have seen huge amount of resources put into the policing and surveillance of left-wing politics, with undercover police officers inserted into ecological, anti-fascist and anti-racist movements, sowing havoc and ruining lives. Anti-capitalist groups like Occupy are lumped together with al-Qaeda and the IRA in the category of “domestic extremism”. The language of the guidance on extremism given to universities effectively means that not just jihadism but also anarchism should be excluded from such institutions. We have seen the infiltration and disruption of the campaigns led by the families of victims of racist violence, such as Stephen Lawrence’s; collusion in the blacklisting of union activists; and acts of provocation to push non-violent activists into criminal activity.

Cameron is wrong to think that extremism in general is a conveyer belt to violent extremism and terror

 

Cameron claims that “many [terrorists] were first influenced by what some would call non-violent extremists”; Islamism, he says, “has often sucked people in from non-violence to violence”. This is true, as far is at goes, but it is also true that most followers of “non-violent” extremism do not get “sucked” to jihadist violence, just as most anti-immigrant racists and casual antisemites do not get “sucked” to violent fascism. Not making that clear is problematic. 

 

The evidence-based blogger Anonymous Mugwump has collated all of the research showing very conclusively that there is no necessary or straightforward step from extremism to violent extremism, no single pathway from Islamism to terrorism; his case is pretty conclusive. 

 

(Cameron’s mistaken emphasis on this connection is probably due to the emphasis on the government’s thinking of the thinktank Quilliam, who have long argued, with little evidential basis, that extremism in general leads to violent extremism in particular – although their position,  as Amjad Khan argues here, is more subtle than Cameron’s: non-violent extremism, they say, provides the “mood music” for terrorism.)

 

As Anonymous Mugwump notes, there may well be good reasons to oppose some forms of non-violent extremism – but its connection to terrorism is not one of them. The category of non-violent extremism is basically a form of “pre-crime” or thought crime; making it into a security issue is dangerous because it criminalises beliefs that are not in fact criminally dangerous; it is a licence for authoritarian over-policing, for policing without the consent of communities. As I will argue more fully below, while terrorism is a policing issue, non-violent Islamism is a political issue, which should be challenged politically, by all of us – citizens, communities – and not from above by the state. 

 

Cameron is broadly right to highlight ideology over “root causes”

Racist @Redbull Obama event in Russia

Racism against black people in Russia has been making news lately because of the 2018 World Cup.

The Guardian reports about worries concerning the reception non-white players and supporters could receive in Russia.

A recent report by the Fare network and the Moscow-based Sova Centre for information and analysis has documented 99 racist and far-right displays and 21 racially motivated attacks by Russian football fans during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

“The likelihood of a racist incident [during World Cup 2018] is very high. It’s not just that it might happen but that it happens very often,” said the Sova Centre director, Alexander Verkhovsky, at a panel of Russian and foreign football observers last month to discuss discrimination in Russian football.

Racism in the Russian stands has already drawn the ire of international and Russian authorities in recent months.

Ghanaian news site Starr FM says African concerns are so high they could spark a boycott:

Unlikely occurrence, you think?

Well, think again. It really wouldn't be the first time the Dark Continent would have turned its back on the sport's greatest event. Sixteen African nations boycotted the 1966 edition in protest of a 1964 FIFA ruling that required the three second-round winners from the African zone to enter a play-off round against the winners of the Asian zone in order to win a place at the finals, with the Africans asserting that winning their zone was enough in itself to merit qualification for the finals.

Piara Powar, the executive director of the Football Against Racism in Europe and a member of FIFA's anti-discrimination taskforce, has also said a boycott is a possibility, "and without them there will not be a World Cup in Russia."

Starr FM points out that there are other black players who could boycott outside Africa, in the Americas and in Europe.

Prior to the European football Championships in Ukraine and Poland in 2012 there were very similar concerns about racism. The BBC aired a documentary just before the event which led to calls for fans to stay away.

However the Championships went ahead without any significant incidents. Russia is presumably hoping that it can pull off the same trick, they are talking the talk and have been for a while now. But an incident this week has underlined just how much the international limelight may not shine kindly unless they get serious about racism.

The energy drink Redbull sponsors a 'Flugtag' around the world, including in Russia. It involves groups in costume jumping from height with a contraption over water trying to fly. It's a lot of fun.

But in Russia one of those groups (pictured above) involved a group in blackface with one in an Obama mask chasing a banana. Classic, 'blacks are monkeys' hideous racism that happens all around the world.

Here's a street sign in Lysva, in the Urals from July 2014.(via Mannfred Nyttingnes).

Here's the picture that Irina Rodnina, an MP from Vladimir Putin's United Russia party and a triple Olympic champion figure-skater, posted on Twitter. (She later apologised.)

Last August Moscow police allowed students to project a laser light show depicting Obama fellating an unpeeled banana onto the US Embassy. This sort of imagery is 'normal' and officially allowed, despite Russia have plenty of laws covering racism and 'extremism', so why should the geniuses at Redbull in Russia think twice when they dreamt up a 'Obama Banana' group?

But Redbull is an international brand so what happens in Russia does not stay in Russia. Tell @redbull what you think!

Edited to add: The video has been removed from the Redbull website but a GIF was captured by Nikolay Nikolov.

Edited to add: The Guardian says:

Vadim Shevchenko, a spokesman for Red Bull, denied that the footage was meant to be racist and said the banana chase had not been planned.

Reporter Alec Luhn also notes something I'd forgotten:

Photoshopped memes showing Obama with bananas and calling the US president a monkey have appeared frequently on the Russian internet, including on a site of images often used by paid pro-Kremlin trolls.

Edited to add: Red Bull has now given this statement given to TIME:

The organizers of the Red Bull Flugtag in Russia regret our oversight in allowing these participants to tarnish what was otherwise an enjoyable event. It is never our intention to give a platform which would promote an offensive message. For the future, we will take more effective measures to prevent this sort of thing happening again.

Edited to add: This is what happened to one guy who tried to publicise Redbull's actions in Russia. The company issued a copyright claim to Youtube and as a result he got banned until 2016!

HT: Robert Ustian, Alec Luhn