Cartoonists are modern jesters but, unlike those merrymen of yore, they are no longer safe. It has been traditionally accepted in modern societies that the media play a key role in the way they function. Journalists counteract the abuses of power by governments, frame political issues and are implicitly recognized as being part of the… Continue reading “In Sri Lanka, Cartoonists Take on the Alt-Right”
Authoritarianism, a characteristic of the far-right, has developed anew in the 21st century and has presented itself in multiple guises and in multiple loci to an extent that poses an increased threat and risk to democratic societies. For good or ill, I choose to label this phenomenon as the Alternative Right (Alt-Right), although recognizing that… Continue reading “The New Authoritarianism and the Glorification of Amoral Calculation”
Has the Norwegian police learned anything from its failure in the 2011 Breivik attacks? A recent terror attack at a mosque near Oslo raises important questions about the extent and range of radical right extremism and the Norwegian state response to it. On the 10th of August 2019, the young radical right extremist Philip… Continue reading “Behind Norway’s terrorist attack that was luckily thwarted”
Ethnocentric, sexist and racist ideologies demonstrate why it is important to de-colonise the study and teaching of European culture and history. Recently, Javier Ortega Smith, the leader of Vox, the populist radical right party in Spain, came under scrutiny for language that Spanish Attorney General Luis Navajas called “abominable” and “repulsive” but not a… Continue reading “The ups and downs and clashes of Western civilization”
The radical right has been small, fractious yet persistent in nearly a century of activism at the furthest reaches of the right-wing spectrum. As this collection of primary source documents makes plain, moreover, there are also a number of surprising elements in British fascism that were not observed elsewhere. While there had long been exclusionary,… Continue reading “The Radical Right in Britain”
The All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG) attempted to propose a working definition for Islamophobia. It opened submissions on the definition between May and June 2018 that addressed a range of issues. The consultation process included written submissions from academics, legal experts, and organisations, with community consultations within local communities in Manchester, London,… Continue reading “What’s in a definition? The UK’s emerging quest for a definition of Islamophobia”
Drawing on qualitative interviews, scientific studies and Tell MAMA’s comprehensive database of anti-Muslim attacks, this REPORT provides the first substantive move towards a measurable and objective national definition of anti-Muslim hatred. It first sets the scene by engaging with the body of scientific knowledge already out there on the nature of this form of hatred before… Continue reading “A Working Definition of Anti-Muslim Hatred – Summary”
Britain’s far-right undertow turns hostile currents against ethnic and religious minorities into a tsunami of hatred. Pause a moment to register two unloved anniversaries. This spring marks a decade since the first anti-Muslim street movement, the English Defence League (EDL), emerged on British streets. Slowly but surely, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), now a… Continue reading “The DFLA: a(nother) new UK far right movement?”
Linking hate speech or extreme language with humor looks disturbing, since it is assumed that prejudice, intolerance and fanaticism are humorless per se. Memes have a frequent presence in our daily lives. They flood our timelines on different social media platforms, usually to provide us with a smile. Originally, the term “meme” was coined by… Continue reading “Memes of Hate: Countering Cyber Islamophobia”
Anti-Muslim hate crime, which spikes following terror attacks, is inextricably intertwined with racism. This article has been difficult to write because I was hoping that, in 2019, I would not need to start talking about international terrorism and how it can impact the streets of Britain. Instead, we are focusing on the terrible events that happened… Continue reading “Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Is a New Form of Racism”