Posts Tagged with ‘racism’
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UK Tories trying to out-fascist the Golden Dawn
28 Mar 2013
The Golden Dawn, a fascist party with parliamentary representation and jackboots on the streets are a major problem within Greek society. With a substantial presence in the police which covers up their racist violence, they are now turning their attention to other structures of civil society, particularly health and education …
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Petrou Ralli
26 Oct 2012
Last Saturday, I went to visit Petrou Ralli, where the migrants of Athens both claim for asylum and are held in detention. On approaching the building and peering through the gates of an adjacent building, a police guarding the entrance called me over and asked where I wanted to go …
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The Situation of the Migrants
14 Oct 2012
Greece has become an important entry point into Fortress Europe for many people fleeing the physical and economic violence that festers within their home countries, fuelled in many cases by the policies of the EU and its constituent members, yet the situation for migrants within Athens is dire with police …
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Nae Nazis here
01 Sep 2012
The Scottish Defence League (SDL), all twelve of them have been at it again. A wee day outing to Dundee this time, I suppose it gives their communities respite for the day. They came, they were kettled, they shuffled off, I guess Dundee was a bit too far into the …
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Refugees welcome; Racists can fuck off.
17 Jun 2012
Yesterday, a solidarity demo with refugees facing eviction, destitution and deportation was held in Glasgow. The last twelve years have seen a massive shift in Glasgow's demographic since the first asylum seekers were transported up here, shoved onto buses not knowing where they were going and dumped in condemned tower …
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Paris: The Politics of Language Choice
20 May 2012
Two miserable years spent in a French classroom and a further year at college eventually saw me scrape a B grade at GCSE level at the grand old age of 20. Other than a tiny smattering of Russian, that's the only language I speak other than English and I speak …
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Paris: The centre and the periphery
12 May 2012
Arriving at an airport at the outskirts of Paris, it was a long bus ride to arrive in the centre. As we approached Paris, the low and high rises of the banlieues where only partially obscured by steel and perpex barriers that sealed off the motorway, while the leafy avenues …
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Athens: Meeting the Fash
05 May 2012
If Excharia is the stronghold of the Greek antagonistic movement, Ayios Panteleimonas a kilometre or so North, is the base of the fascists. Approaching the square it looks just like any other area of Athens with only half ripped down anti-fascist posters indicating that there may be something unusual about …
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Genital Cutting and Colonial Discourses
23 Apr 2012
Growing up in the 1970s, I didnt have the most politically correct upbringing. A gollywog adorned the jam jar I stared blankly at as I woke up over my morning toast, in school we read "Little Black Sambo" - complete with illustrations, for pleasure I read about how evil Gollywogs …
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Radicalism and Religion
10 Apr 2012
Religion gets a bad press on the Left. Most of the activists I know are non-believers, although many were brought up within religious traditions. While England's schooling system is fractured and has been subject to much change, within Scotland, little change in the educational governance arrangements has taken place. there …
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How to undermine a CIA plot
02 Mar 2012
Laurie Penny had an interesting wee exchange the other day with Mark Crispin Miller. When on asking him why the panel called to discuss Occupy Wall Street was made up of middle aged white males, he responded with reference oto a theory that studies into gender and race had been …
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Scottish Anti-fascist Solidarity
23 Feb 2012Unlike many other European countries, and indeed England at points in its history, Scotland has no significant history of fascist organisation. In the 20s and 30s, while it was in the ascendancy across Europe and a fascist presence was starting to be established in England under Mosley's British Union of …
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Multi-cultural Glasgow
02 Feb 2012
One of the things almost any English visitor to Scotland will notice almost the instant that they get off the train is how "white" our country is. Partly this is because the sun is an infrequent visitor, but compared with England, where almost 10% of the population is of minority …
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Culture and Class
10 Jan 2012
Over on искра/iskra, Kit Withnail has been thinking over the whole "chav" culture and the way in which it is looked down and the snobbery associated with the use of the term. I have problems with the whole "classism"(discrimination on the basis of class) narrative. Class is a relationship to the …
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Kyriarchy and Class
16 Nov 2011
Since discovering the term kyriarchy earlier this year, I've become a big fan. I've always been quite uncomfortable about the inter-relationship between feminism and race, not only with the temptation to "rank the oppressions" (as one wit said on twitter - being feminist and anti-racist is all very well, but …
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Racism, Ethnic Cleansing and Dale Farm
19 Oct 2011
This morning saw the anticipated eviction of Dale Farm. With the failure of the final appeal on Monday, the site was in a state of nervous apprehension. At 7am this morning an £18m operation to clear the area began. All done in the name of greenbelt and planning laws. Before …
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Internationalism in One Small Island
17 Jun 2011
I attended the launch of Coalition of Resistance in Glasgow last week, a fantastic event with a participative format, which was a refreshing change - a few short speeches were followed by lots of practical group discussions among a wide range of activists. It was a great launch, and to help us on our …
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The Proper English
03 Jun 2011As a young teacher in a multicultural school in West London, with a reasonably serious level of interracial conflict among the children, I was asked to deliver a programme of anti-racist education to 13 year old children. As with much of the material that was produced at the time, it …