Pub Date : 2024-05-24DOI: 10.1177/03063968241253708
Liz Fekete
In this polemic against state policies and sections of the mainstream media in France, Germany, Italy and the UK since 7 October 2023 in relation to Israel/Palestine, the author exposes the ways in which a concerted anti-Palestinian racism interacts with civilisational racism and the criminalisation of international solidarity. The piece, based on speeches and briefings by the author in 2023–24, foregrounds the attack on the Palestinian diaspora in Europe. It focuses on the way a moral panic around shows of solidarity with Palestine have been fomented; the suppression of the works of artists, academics and public figures, including prominent Jewish anti-Zionists, who question official narratives; the equation of solidarity with terrorism and antisemitism and hence a reframing of what constitutes ‘hate crimes’; and the restrictions on the right to protest.
{"title":"Anti-Palestinian racism and the criminalisation of international solidarity in Europe","authors":"Liz Fekete","doi":"10.1177/03063968241253708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241253708","url":null,"abstract":"In this polemic against state policies and sections of the mainstream media in France, Germany, Italy and the UK since 7 October 2023 in relation to Israel/Palestine, the author exposes the ways in which a concerted anti-Palestinian racism interacts with civilisational racism and the criminalisation of international solidarity. The piece, based on speeches and briefings by the author in 2023–24, foregrounds the attack on the Palestinian diaspora in Europe. It focuses on the way a moral panic around shows of solidarity with Palestine have been fomented; the suppression of the works of artists, academics and public figures, including prominent Jewish anti-Zionists, who question official narratives; the equation of solidarity with terrorism and antisemitism and hence a reframing of what constitutes ‘hate crimes’; and the restrictions on the right to protest.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"90 17","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141101301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-11DOI: 10.1177/03063968241247679
Deepa Kumar
Against the view that antecedents to modern racism can be found in medieval Europe’s depictions of Moors, Saracens and the prophet Muhammad, this article demonstrates that representations of Muslims from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries were both respectful and resentful, lacking the kind of coherence necessary to show a pattern of racialisation. Rather than reflecting a structural continuity with the Orientalism that emerged in the nineteenth century, the representations that prevailed were the product of the power interests at play in specific historical and geographical contexts. Certainly, there was prejudice, xenophobia and ethnocentrism, sometimes taking forms that superficially resemble modern racisms. But only with the rise of various European powers as empires in the modern era did it become possible to ideologically and structurally racialise Muslims. Thus, ‘race’ should be seen as a modern development that accompanied the rise of capitalism and European colonialism.
{"title":"Saracens, Moors and Islam: was there a Muslim race in medieval Europe?","authors":"Deepa Kumar","doi":"10.1177/03063968241247679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241247679","url":null,"abstract":"Against the view that antecedents to modern racism can be found in medieval Europe’s depictions of Moors, Saracens and the prophet Muhammad, this article demonstrates that representations of Muslims from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries were both respectful and resentful, lacking the kind of coherence necessary to show a pattern of racialisation. Rather than reflecting a structural continuity with the Orientalism that emerged in the nineteenth century, the representations that prevailed were the product of the power interests at play in specific historical and geographical contexts. Certainly, there was prejudice, xenophobia and ethnocentrism, sometimes taking forms that superficially resemble modern racisms. But only with the rise of various European powers as empires in the modern era did it become possible to ideologically and structurally racialise Muslims. Thus, ‘race’ should be seen as a modern development that accompanied the rise of capitalism and European colonialism.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":" 1218","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140988935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-11DOI: 10.1177/03063968241242743
Leandro Schclarek Mulinari
This article provides a close reading of the Swedish prime minister’s speech to the nation in September 2023 during a spiral of deadly shootings. From a criminological perspective it engages with the relation between policing a crisis and the crafting of a state project. Sweden’s punitive turn stands in sharp contrast to the previous ‘Nordic model’ which was regarded as exceptionally humane. What, asks the author, are the main ideological features of the current Swedish government’s security state project? Theoretically, the article draws from critical contributions on racism and security. The analysis shows that the discourse of the Swedish head of government targets racialised populations, within and without the borders of the nation. The policing of the current crisis should be conceptualised as a race to the bottom − in a dual sense. Firstly, it is a reconfiguration of Sweden’s race relations. Second, it is a drift along a militarisation continuum.
{"title":"Sweden’s race to the bottom: advancing a racial security state","authors":"Leandro Schclarek Mulinari","doi":"10.1177/03063968241242743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241242743","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a close reading of the Swedish prime minister’s speech to the nation in September 2023 during a spiral of deadly shootings. From a criminological perspective it engages with the relation between policing a crisis and the crafting of a state project. Sweden’s punitive turn stands in sharp contrast to the previous ‘Nordic model’ which was regarded as exceptionally humane. What, asks the author, are the main ideological features of the current Swedish government’s security state project? Theoretically, the article draws from critical contributions on racism and security. The analysis shows that the discourse of the Swedish head of government targets racialised populations, within and without the borders of the nation. The policing of the current crisis should be conceptualised as a race to the bottom − in a dual sense. Firstly, it is a reconfiguration of Sweden’s race relations. Second, it is a drift along a militarisation continuum.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":" 32","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140990442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01DOI: 10.1177/03063968241242679
Jeffrey Stanley
In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary, the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change to Indian labourers? The events of the Nil Darpan controversy are well-known to historians but have often been mythologised and misrepresented. The author provides a unique perspective on the events by comparing and contrasting the news media’s coverage of the Nil Darpan controversy, and Bengali theatre and film artists’ reactions to it, using his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the era ranging from 1859 to 1917. This article is based on a lecture given at the annual Fulbright Association Conference in October 2023 held in Denver, Colorado.
{"title":"Nil Darpan: how a mistakenly published play helped force labour reforms in British India","authors":"Jeffrey Stanley","doi":"10.1177/03063968241242679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241242679","url":null,"abstract":"In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary, the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change to Indian labourers? The events of the Nil Darpan controversy are well-known to historians but have often been mythologised and misrepresented. The author provides a unique perspective on the events by comparing and contrasting the news media’s coverage of the Nil Darpan controversy, and Bengali theatre and film artists’ reactions to it, using his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the era ranging from 1859 to 1917. This article is based on a lecture given at the annual Fulbright Association Conference in October 2023 held in Denver, Colorado.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"52 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141045829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-07DOI: 10.1177/03063968241238600
Jerry Harris
Among the mainstream press, western political elites and sections of the Left, China is accused of exploiting the Global South and even being an imperialist power. China argues it is pursuing a ‘win-win’ policy. To explore this question, this article looks at several factors, including labour exploitation, debt, environmental damage and military activity. Imperialism today operates through a vast network of integrated transnational investments and expansive global assembly lines, overseen by a transnational capitalist class. China’s position in the global capitalist system needs to be assessed in this context. It is certainly a major power within that system and its capitalists engage in the super-exploitation of labour, for example in Africa. At the same time, Chinese development loans have so far helped countries in the Global South build infrastructure and reduce neoliberal austerity, even as associated projects have been beset by corruption and environmental harms. China has not yet used its military in imperialist adventures, but it does apply regional pressure and cultivates military relationships with countries where it has investments. Overall, the picture that emerges is complex and contradictory.
{"title":"Is China an imperialist power?","authors":"Jerry Harris","doi":"10.1177/03063968241238600","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241238600","url":null,"abstract":"Among the mainstream press, western political elites and sections of the Left, China is accused of exploiting the Global South and even being an imperialist power. China argues it is pursuing a ‘win-win’ policy. To explore this question, this article looks at several factors, including labour exploitation, debt, environmental damage and military activity. Imperialism today operates through a vast network of integrated transnational investments and expansive global assembly lines, overseen by a transnational capitalist class. China’s position in the global capitalist system needs to be assessed in this context. It is certainly a major power within that system and its capitalists engage in the super-exploitation of labour, for example in Africa. At the same time, Chinese development loans have so far helped countries in the Global South build infrastructure and reduce neoliberal austerity, even as associated projects have been beset by corruption and environmental harms. China has not yet used its military in imperialist adventures, but it does apply regional pressure and cultivates military relationships with countries where it has investments. Overall, the picture that emerges is complex and contradictory.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"3 25","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140733218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1177/03063968241234539
Eithne Quinn
Drill rap lyrics are used regularly by police and prosecutors as evidence against young Black working-class defendants in UK criminal cases. Though this practice is of mounting public concern, its discursive mechanisms remain poorly understood, shrouded by the police and courts. This article exposes and explains state interpretations of drill lyrics in the preparation of serious crime cases. It considers how the state uses violent rap lyrics to build secondary liability in group prosecutions by exploiting drill’s power to invoke stereotypes and mislead the court. The author focuses on a 2020 joint enterprise murder case in London, in which she served as a rap expert, to give a concrete illustration of how the state tries to use rap lyrics of little or no relevance to incriminate. This article contends that rap-facilitated group prosecutions encapsulate processes of racist carcerality – targeting young Black people through their expressive culture – which are in need of concerted challenge and transformational change.
{"title":"Racist inferences and flawed data: drill rap lyrics as criminal evidence in group prosecutions","authors":"Eithne Quinn","doi":"10.1177/03063968241234539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241234539","url":null,"abstract":"Drill rap lyrics are used regularly by police and prosecutors as evidence against young Black working-class defendants in UK criminal cases. Though this practice is of mounting public concern, its discursive mechanisms remain poorly understood, shrouded by the police and courts. This article exposes and explains state interpretations of drill lyrics in the preparation of serious crime cases. It considers how the state uses violent rap lyrics to build secondary liability in group prosecutions by exploiting drill’s power to invoke stereotypes and mislead the court. The author focuses on a 2020 joint enterprise murder case in London, in which she served as a rap expert, to give a concrete illustration of how the state tries to use rap lyrics of little or no relevance to incriminate. This article contends that rap-facilitated group prosecutions encapsulate processes of racist carcerality – targeting young Black people through their expressive culture – which are in need of concerted challenge and transformational change.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"102 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140778953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1177/03063968241238603
Rachel Rosen, S. Khan
Processes for assessing the age of young unaccompanied migrants have been roundly critiqued, with new concerns in the UK being raised about the increasing use of ‘scientific’ approaches. In this article, we suggest that, taking everything into account, analyses do not go far enough, arguing that technical questions of how ‘best’ to assess age or the new incursion of biometric measurements can obscure the political question of what work age does in hostile border regimes. As a result, the underpinning logics of age assessment – an essentialisation of age, ‘race’ and borders – are not only left in place but further augmented. We demonstrate, through a careful curation of assessment reports (that operate through the assertion of truth claims about the body, childhood and time) how such reports draw on and reproduce multiple and intersecting racist imaginaries as they are synthesised with developmental logics around childhood. Age, we argue, is being weaponised in the service of post-racial fantasies in liberal democracies, rising ethnonationalism and state retrenchment from social support.
{"title":"Racialising age in the UK’s border regime: a case for abolishing age assessment","authors":"Rachel Rosen, S. Khan","doi":"10.1177/03063968241238603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241238603","url":null,"abstract":"Processes for assessing the age of young unaccompanied migrants have been roundly critiqued, with new concerns in the UK being raised about the increasing use of ‘scientific’ approaches. In this article, we suggest that, taking everything into account, analyses do not go far enough, arguing that technical questions of how ‘best’ to assess age or the new incursion of biometric measurements can obscure the political question of what work age does in hostile border regimes. As a result, the underpinning logics of age assessment – an essentialisation of age, ‘race’ and borders – are not only left in place but further augmented. We demonstrate, through a careful curation of assessment reports (that operate through the assertion of truth claims about the body, childhood and time) how such reports draw on and reproduce multiple and intersecting racist imaginaries as they are synthesised with developmental logics around childhood. Age, we argue, is being weaponised in the service of post-racial fantasies in liberal democracies, rising ethnonationalism and state retrenchment from social support.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"76 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140249721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1177/03063968241238601
Colin Bossen
In recent years, fears of the ‘great replacement’, popularised by Renaud Camus, warning against a supposed Islamist take-over of France, have motivated White supremacist violence and resulted in mass shootings in Europe, New Zealand and the US. The author shows how this conspiracy theory can be traced back to medieval theological doctrines used to justify the conquest of Muslim lands in Al-Andalus and later refined to warrant the European subjugation of the Indigenous nations of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Through papal authority, the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ bestowed a God-given right on Christian nations to take and control lands, wiping out or confining Indigenous people, to then repopulate countries at will − itself the real racial reversal of settler colonialism. The theological argument is now thoroughly secularised in law in the US. ‘A great replacement’, incorporating the Doctrine of Discovery coupled with eugenicist ideas, can be found in the works of Lothrop Stoddard, and echoes are found even today in utterances from US politicians and on Fox News.
{"title":"Political theology, discovery and the roots of the ‘great replacement’","authors":"Colin Bossen","doi":"10.1177/03063968241238601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968241238601","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, fears of the ‘great replacement’, popularised by Renaud Camus, warning against a supposed Islamist take-over of France, have motivated White supremacist violence and resulted in mass shootings in Europe, New Zealand and the US. The author shows how this conspiracy theory can be traced back to medieval theological doctrines used to justify the conquest of Muslim lands in Al-Andalus and later refined to warrant the European subjugation of the Indigenous nations of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Through papal authority, the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ bestowed a God-given right on Christian nations to take and control lands, wiping out or confining Indigenous people, to then repopulate countries at will − itself the real racial reversal of settler colonialism. The theological argument is now thoroughly secularised in law in the US. ‘A great replacement’, incorporating the Doctrine of Discovery coupled with eugenicist ideas, can be found in the works of Lothrop Stoddard, and echoes are found even today in utterances from US politicians and on Fox News.","PeriodicalId":184842,"journal":{"name":"Race & Class","volume":"62 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140248454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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