The priceless racism of the Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip to European aristocracy is what Donald Trump is to American liberal democracy: an embarrassment - the men who flaunt the ugly truth from under the thin veneer of their bourgeois etiquette.

…. The Duke of Edinburgh has done the world an extraordinary service by being who he is, by staging generous servings of his bigoted disposition and he is retiring happily with having catalogued all or at least most of his priceless inventory for posterity to read and learn….

"You are a woman, aren't you?" (in Kenya after accepting a small gift from a local woman).

"If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed" (to a group of British students during a royal visit to China).

"You can't have been here that long, you haven't got pot belly" (to a Briton he met in Hungary).

"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" (to a wealthy islander in the Cayman Islands).

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test" (to a Scottish driving instructor).

"It looks as if it was put in by an Indian" (referring to an old-fashioned fuse box in a factory near Edinburgh)….

… The Prince is the repository of all the colonial past and all the class privileges of the present. His racist remarks should not be whitewashed or camouflaged. They need to be properly, accurately, and verbatim catalogued in the British Library and made available to future generations of scholars and critical thinkers, anthropologists of the racist foregrounding of European imperialism for careful and close analysis. They are the insignia of an entire semiology of colonial racism in full-blown aristocratic diction. From the rampant racism now dominant in Israel to pernicious xenophobia evident in Trump's America, it's all there: rooted in these unhinged expletives in polite, aristocratic British English.

…… The kind of racism Prince Philip exudes is reminiscent of the very spirit of British and other European imperialism at its height. This is the way the British thought when they ruled India, the French when they ruled Algeria, the Italians when they conquered Libya, the Belgians when they owned Congo. 

…. To be tolerant today means we are convinced by the superiority of our own beliefs but out of the generosity of our spirit and goodness of our heart and the superiority of our civilisation we put up with you, for we have no choice. Both the superiority of belief and the virtue of tolerance are thus attributed to the tolerant culture rather than denied to the barbarity thus tolerated.

Until such time that we reach a point when we do not "tolerate" each other but in fact see the truth and the beauty of the world from each other's perspective, Prince Philip, bless his splendidly racist soul, exposes the hypocrisy of liberal "tolerance". 

There is a beautiful barbarity of truth to Prince Philip's racism, exposing the ugly hypocrisy at the very foundation of "Western civilisation".

full article on aljazeera

New Zealand mosque attacks and the scourge of white supremacy

Shootings at Christchurch mosques are only the latest on a long list of acts of white supremacist terrorism in the West.

Today's New Zealand mosque shootings, which killed at least 49 people and were allegedly carried out by white supremacists, are only the latest on a long list of recent acts of white supremacist terrorism. Despite the growing and constant threat, Western governments have failed to adequately address the danger of white supremacy......

..... The propping up of white supremacy

Political movements may help explain why many Western societies do not take the threat of white supremacy as seriously as they should - many Western political leaders are themselves beholden to white supremacy.

White nationalism has taken firm root in both European and American political mainstreams. In Europe, white nationalists have gained political traction and influenced elections and referendums, including the United Kingdom's 2016 Brexit vote, while in the US, President Donald Trump and numerous Republican politicians have been linked to white supremacy.....

more on aljezeera

Mosque shooter brandished material glorifying Serb nationalism

 Song played in suspect's car before shooting praises convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic.


The Australian suspect who shot dead dozens of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, is believed to have been inspired by historical figures who fought against Muslims, among others, as well as a convicted Serb war criminal responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995.

…. Among the names seen on the weaponry were several Serb military figures, including Milos Obilic, a national hero in Serbian folklore who fought against the Ottomans, most notably in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo when he killed the Ottoman Sultan Murad I.

Military leaders who led uprisings against the Ottoman Empire such as Marko Miljanov Popovic, Novak Vujosevic and Bajo Pivljanin, praised in Serbian epic poetry, were also marked on the assault rifle.

Prior to the shooting, a video on Twitter showed the gunman driving and playing a song honouring Radovan Karadzic, a convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal and first president of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s.

…. Political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic commented on Twitter that the markings on the suspect's rifle were "steeped in toxic, faux-historical narratives about 'defending' white Christendom".

According to Balkan Insight, "Serb nationalists enjoy cult status among many far-right groups in Europe where they are admired for their militancy, extreme Islamophobia and - most importantly - for having put words into action in the 1990s, when Serb nationalist paramilitaries killed thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo."

more on aljazeera

Denationalisation: A punishment reserved for Muslims

 Recent examples of expatriation practices in the UK and Australia demonstrate a glaring anti-Muslim bias.
In the name of "safeguarding" civilisation, the forces waging the "war on terror" have revived a form of punishment once described by the United States Supreme Court as "more primitive than torture": the stripping of citizenship.

…. But despite these extreme effects of expatriation, a number of countries claiming to be the foremost defenders of human rights have enacted laws enabling them to strip citizenship from those they deem "terrorists" or otherwise undesirable, including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada (subsequently revoked) and Australia.

…. The UK's home secretary has almost unfettered discretion to relieve individuals of their British citizenship - no legal trial or conviction necessary - if he or she decides it is "conducive to the public good". 

…. The targeting of Australian Muslim with expatriation measures reflects the prevailing preoccupation with Muslim sources of "ideological extremism" in Australian society. Yet "the attention given to what is represented as Islamic extremism is far out of proportion to its impact in Australian society, which is close to Zero.....

…. The campaign to strip citizenship from so-called "extremists" exposes the "extremism" of the "war on terror" itself - which has progressively normalised the idea that Muslims accused of being dangerous should be "cast out" not only from Western law and politics, but from the ambit of human rights altogether.
full article on aljezeera

Why white supremacists and Hindu nationalists are so alike

White supremacy and Hindu nationalism have common roots going back to the 19th-century idea of the 'Aryan race'.

Over the last few years, especially after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 US presidential election, we have been witnessing the normalisation, and rise, of a white-supremacist, ultranationalist brand of right-wing politics across Europe and the United States. While the shift towards extreme right alarmed many across the world, far-right ideologues of the Trumpian era swiftly found support in a seemingly unlikely place: India. 

…… While an alliance between the Hindu far right and the Western alt-right may appear confounding on the surface, it actually has a long history, going all the way back to the construction of the Aryan race identity, one of the ideological roots of Nazism, in the early 20th century.

In the 1930s, German nationalists embraced the 19th-century theory that Europeans and the original Sanskrit speakers of India who had built the highly developed Sanskrit civilisation - which white supremacists wanted to claim as their own - come from a common Indo-European, or Aryan, ancestor. They subsequently built their racist ideology on the assumed superiority of this "pure" race.

…. However, the current connection between far-right groups in the West and Hindu nationalists is limited neither to Devi's teachings nor the old myth of the Aryan race. 

Today, the two groups share a common goal in eroding the secular character of their respective states and a common "enemy" in Muslim minorities. This is why they often act in coordination and openly support each other. 

…. Hindu nationalism and white supremacy are the two sides of the same coin. For the global movement against racism, white-supremacy and fascism to succeed, anti-fascists across the world need to acknowledge and stand up to the Hind nationalism threat.

Hindus themselves, both in India and abroad, also need to take action and raise their voices against the abuses that are being committed in their names…..

full article to read on aljazeera

India's BJP changes Muslim name of Allahabad to Prayagraj

..... Allahabad, a city of more than one million people in northern Uttar Pradesh (UP) state, will now be known as Prayagraj, a senior official from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told reporters on Tuesday.

…. Its new name, Prayagraj, refers to the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, the site of the Hindu mega-festival Kumbh Mela, which is to take place in January.

….. Onkar Singh, a spokesperson for the opposition Congress party, has previously said the name change diminishes the city's role during India's struggle for independence from the British.

… The city's name change comes amid concern over what critics say is a bid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party to erase the country's diverse history and identity.

… Since Adityanath - a priest who has been accused of inciting violence against India's Muslim minority - was appointed to lead UP last year, he has proposed changing several Mughal-era names of buildings in the state.

more on aljazeera

The irony of Australia's constitutional crisis

As an absurd citizenship crisis rages on in the Australian Parliament, First Nations people and refugees see the irony.

....... If it seems curious that (a) an Australian politician would not have checked their constitutional compliance before seeking public office and (b) nobody else did so throughout Ludlam's nine-year tenure as an elected member of the federal Parliament, the surprise has continued apace: Up to 30 other parliamentarians have since come under scrutiny for possible breach of the rule against dual citizenship and government. Opposition leaders have given senators until December 1 and members of the House of Representatives until December 5 to declare that they are not a citizen of any country other than Australia.

......... Meanwhile, nine officials have resigned or been ruled ineligible.

An 'imagined' community

The criteria for legally belonging to this country, which is enshrined in the Australian constitution, has always been narrow. Australia was founded in 1788 on the fiction that it was once a "terra nullius" (nobody's land). First Nations people, who had sovereign belonging to the land for at least 60,000 years prior, were not permitted to become citizens of the nation until 1967, and the country operated with a "White Australia" migration policy for most of the twentieth century. Under the White Australia policy, marked in particular by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, people of non-European descent were systematically deterred from migrating to Australia.  

weiterlesen auf aljazeera.com

Sohail Daulatzai on Islam, White Supremacy, and the Myth of the Empire of Liberty

There is a great new collection of essays out that tackles a whole range of issues relating to Islam and Muslims, wars, the Palestinian struggle, women’s rights, state terror, drone strikes, 9/11, civil liberties, white supremacy, and on and on. The book is called “With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism and Empire” and it is edited by Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana.

Daulatzai teaches in Film and Media Studies, African American Studies, and Global Middle East Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is also the author of several other books, including “Fifty Years of ‘The Battle of Algiers': Past as Prologue.” He is the curator of the celebrated exhibit Return of the Mecca. On the last episode of Intercepted, we aired an excerpt of our conversation with Daulatzai. Below is the full transcript of that discussion.

full interview in theintercept

How Islamophobia Was Ingrained in America’s Legal System Long Before the War on Terror

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of African Muslims were forcibly brought to the United States to be enslaved. One of them, Omar Ibn Said, from Futa Toro, in modern-day Senegal, chronicled his journey and life under enslavement in a brief 15-page manuscript.

Beydoun traces the beginnings of structural Islamophobia in the United States to Omar Ibn Said’s story, dispelling the pervading myth that it is a new phenomenon that came about only after 9/11 and intensified with the arrival of Trump to the political stage. He convincingly argues that throughout the existence of the United States, there has always been a legal framework in place that defines Islam and Muslim identity as incompatible with Americanness. Beydoun draws on the work of various theorists, including Edward Said and Kimberlé Crenshaw, to define Islamophobia as a structural phenomenon that is not simply rooted in acts of hate from private individuals and impacts Muslims occupying multiple identities, such as queer Muslims and black Muslims, in varying ways.

Much like other notable works on Islamophobia by scholars like Erik Love and Moustafa Bayoumi, Beydoun looks at the scope and impact of domestic “war on terror” legislation in how it racialized Muslims and transformed everyday life within Muslim communities. What he adds with “American Islamophobia” is the terminology and language to describe the demonization of Muslims from the state — and the necessary legal and historical context to understand the depth of structural Islamophobia and the tools needed to dismantle it.

The Intercept interviewed Khaled Beydoun about the experience of Muslim and Christian immigrants from the Middle East in the early 20th century, the roots of a media discourse that otherizes Muslims, and Trump’s continuation of a long heritage of systemic discrimination.

full interview on theintercept

White Supremacy - zur historischen Herkunft US-amerikanischen Rassismus

Exklusivabdruck aus „Manifest Destiny und die Indigenenpolitik der USA“.

von Christina Halwachs
Foto: sebastianosecondi/Shutterstock.com

Die Historikerin Christina Halwachs widmet sich in ihrem aktuellen Buch „Manifest Destiny“ dem historischen Fundament der White-Supremacy-Bewegung in den USA. Manifest Destiny ist eine Doktrin des „unvermeidbaren Schicksals“: Der weiße Mann sei dazu auserkoren, den amerikanischen Kontinent zu unterwerfen – im Namen Gottes und im Namen der Zivilisation. Die Konsequenz für die indigene Bevölkerung ist eine jahrhundertelange Blutspur, die bis in die Gegenwart reicht.
weiterlesen im Rubikon