It’s one thing denouncing extremism among Muslims, between Sunnis and Shias, and against the Christian minority of Iraq but what of the Catholic church’s involvement in the construction, maintenance and corruption of white supremacy across the world..?
#JustSaying #PointFingers3PointBack
This isn’t the usual kind of post, I can barely muster a fuck these days but I can’t let such a major glitch in the matrix go without a mention.
South Asian families are often shamed for the way you marry the family, not the person and how manipulative these patriarchal structures can be. Elders feign the onset of a heart attack if all else fails, and the deceitfulness and drama add to the stereotype white people have of our communities, as being highly emotional and irrational. I cannot have been the only one to draw a comparison yet again between the Asian diaspora and the British royal family. Loathe as I am to give them any attention, you can hardly bloody avoid them these days. All other news seems to have evaporated as I find myself increasingly feeling like I am an audience member in a Shrek sequel, forced to join in because I am just a drawing in someone else’s narrative. It’s fucking unsettling but what choice do we have?
The palace has tried to manipulate the outlaws Harry and Meghan into delaying their Oprah interview. I don’t know where they are as of this moment (I have been enthusiastically avoiding technology since I read about it a couple of days ago) but what a farce.
FWIW I think Prince Philip died a very long time ago but they embalmed him and just roll him out whenever they want to appeal to ~certain~ sections of the British population, IYKWIM. What better way to make the wayward woke contingent of The Family squirm than pit them against HRH the (Greek cousin fudging) fascist Phil and let the Great British public decide? Cos that’s always gone so well in the past.
If they decide to finally announce his death you can bet it’ll all be Meghan’s fault. Just like everything else. For this reason alone they should ignore all the ‘pleas’ and not pander to any threats.
Can we start calling the Royal Family’s rolling commentary on the affairs of Harry and Meghan what it is?
The legal definition for domestic abuse is not limited to the spouse but all family members. It can even be extended in circumstances where there is no blood connection but the parties are living in a domestic set up. It is not limited to physical abuse, mental and emotional abuse are in fact more common than the former.
The harassment and haranguing of Harry and Meghan must be triggering for many in the Asian diaspora, so many of us have been in a similar situation and if we have not, we can see how unfair it is to tar an entire continent with the same brush when the most elite of British families has the approval of the state and population to go as low as they dare. The Royal family may decline comment occasionally but the newspapers owned and run by distant cousins of the queen indirectly harass the couple on behalf of their sovereign. At this stage we mere plebs would be entitled to an injunction, a non molestation order which would prohibit the abusers from intimidating, harassing or approaching the victim. This would also cover indirect contact, such as the mainstream media in their virtue signalling to their betters (who knows, there might be a knighthood in it). They clearly haven’t learnt from Diana and despite all their promises to be better they have doubled down in their efforts to make life miserable for her son. Familial scripts tend to repeat until we consciously unravel them and make them stop, so I doubt I am alone when I say I fear for the couple.
Why shouldn’t Meghan Markle be entitled to the same protections as the rest of us? The drip fed commentary from the queen makes any decent person cringe, what is it any of your business – your maj – what they get up to? Why are you stoking the fire, your hoity toityness? Leave them alone. If you really can’t mind your own and need a project to while away your golden years, how about holding that child rapist son of yours to account?
But then I guess we’d lose the essence of what really makes Britain British.. casual racism and unchallenged child sex abuse.
I can still remember the seating arrangements for our family film nights. Earlier in the day Granddad would pop down to the local video shop and pick up 2 or 3 of the latest Bollywood hits at 50p each and we’d hold on to them for the weekend, often replaying the songs once we’d seen the film, and recording them on to cassette tapes to listen to in our own time. We’d share bags of nuts and seeds and pass round mithai, a sweet confectionary consumed throughout the subcontinent, in our own diy cinema, with the adults sat on sofas and in armchairs and we children scattered around their feet. It was a family tradition to pile in at the end of a week and sit huddled together in this way, and I enjoyed the closeness of it more than the actual entertainment, because although I understood Hindi, I veered towards western culture and not my own.
My grandparents however, seemed to be swept up by it all. One of my earliest memories is watching them watching Mughal e Azam, a film unbeknownst to me at the time to be a depiction of my own damn ancestors. They had tears in their eyes as they repeated the dialogue and exclaimed in wonder at the first full scene in technicolor. Their daughter, my aunt would explain to me many years later that this was their only connection to a motherland that had rejected them, and allowed them an opportunity to feel things they had long buried and could not verbalise for all the intergenerational trauma. Through Bollywood they could reconnect with their neighbours, those folks they had lived with in relative peace before the British cracked open their divisions and poured fire onto them (as a Muslim, I only had beef for the first time aged 15 in the UK because as a community we had never eaten it ‘back home’ out of respect for others and then never bothered to take it up here). I’d always known how to speak Hindi, and only came to question how I’d learnt as an adult well into my 30s, whereupon I discovered the dialect that I spoke at home, that was so easily dismissed and ridiculed by other South Asians was in fact a handy tool in understanding them. It is the South Asian equivalent of the English language in Europe with its French and Germanic roots, and was devised by my ancestors for ease of communication.
I understood other South Asians but they did not understand me. I recognised parts of their culture as being identical to my own whereas they saw me as completely alien. I realised this would have been a deliberate ploy, to destroy any idea of my ancestors being worthy or valued.
It’s only recently that I’ve come to the conclusion that India doesn’t need me as an ally. It would sooner see me beaten to death. As a teenager my best friend was a Hindu Gujerati girl whose mother was an out and proud bigot and took every opportunity to bully my sister and I. I’d grown up bowing and scraping and apologising for something I didn’t understand, this lowly status on account of my Pakistani roots and as uncomfortable as that grown ass woman made me, as a 15 year old, I’d laugh it off and pretend it didn’t hurt. It was her daughter that loved to drink and meet up with boys but her mother scapegoated us, because we were the product of a broken family and Muslim. Her son groomed me for a number of years before it culminated in an attack, a thing that only happened apparently because I hadn’t stayed away. They blamed us even when it was their fault and this seems to sum up the relationship between India and Pakistan, partition didn’t come about as a result of Muslim uppityness but the very real fear that western backed Hindustan would commit a genocide against Muslims and it was for their safety that a border was drawn.
I don’t think India should ever have been carved up and by an Englishman at that, but I surely understand why many Muslims stand by it. That’s not the only reason, at least not anymore. The emergence of the Hindutva far right in India has been a frightening revelation for many, not least those who have been targeted by Modi’s paid goons. From the plight of Kashmiri Muslims to the attacks in Delhi at the start of 2020, I was reminded of the times growing up where I’d met Muslims who proudly identified as Indian, who’d sneer at us and our ancestors for embracing Pakistan. They looked down their noses at us just like everyone else, because Pakistan was the world’s toilet and Pakistanis fair game. I thought about them first when India set about turning on its proud Indian Muslims, and how history proves time and time again, India cares nothing for its minorities. Ironically this is a line meted out by Modi stans on social media, whenever they want to tear Pakistan another one, they roll off its track record with religious minorities for whom persecution is the norm. It is possible to exist in a world where all states are corrupt and guilty of crimes committed against their most marginalised citizens but this wouldn’t serve the propagandists.
People like Kangana Ranaut, a Bollywood actress who like many of her peers and colleagues backed up the Indian government’s extremist Hindutva agenda. With her huge platform she could have brought to attention the struggle of Indian farmers, now 5 months, 3 weeks and 5 days into it, but instead chose to slut shame another star with a huge platform, Rihanna, for doing it instead of her. Ranaut proudly presents herself as the pious right wing Hindu worshipper in stark contrast to an image of Rihanna where she is almost naked, bringing her leftist political views into it, suggesting somehow that leftism equates to immorality, revealing a lot about herself in the process. Ranaut thinks bodies are inherently shameful, and that’s her problem. I saw a happy Rihanna performing for her fans, something that Ranaut herself has form for, but perhaps she was not happy about it. That’s another issue for her to examine in her own time, but the hypocrisy should be concerning to us all. What sets them apart? Could it be some of that anti blackness poking its beak through a veneer of respectability Ranuat maintains in a white supremacist world, of which she is a card carrying member?
Bollywood has a lot to answer for. From its appalling anti black Beyonce lyrics to the kowtowing to fascism demonstrated to us by its stars, old and new, it is not worthy of our love and attention. They have shunned the underdog, dismissed pleas from their fan bases to cover the news not only affecting India but with repercussions for the entire world, because India is a mass producer of goods. People like Rihanna who are class conscious will immediately empathise with those power seeks to oppress. Only oppressors come out in defence of oppressors, as has been clear to see in the numerous rape and death threats levelled at not just Rihanna, but also Greta Thunberg when she reiterated her support for the farmers. They’re burning effigies of women in India, and Kanagan Ranuat has nothing to say about that. They’re praising Chris Brown for being a domestic abuser, because far right Hindus are nasty as hell.
My grandparents would have been devastated to see their favourite acting dynasties acting out in such hateful ways, they’d have been ashamed to have ever brought into the illusion of solidarity it presented with classics such as Amar, Akbar, Anthony, and how far its stars have fallen from grace. I’m glad they’re not here to see it, and for this I am also enraged.
Boycott Bollywood, the whole rotten lot.
The far right stormed the US capitol last night, and the army wasn’t called in. The far right breached the barricades, armed to the teeth but 5-0 didn’t kill the lot. This is white privilege, this is white supremacy in action, and liberals everywhere are lying if they say they haven’t always known it is this way. Neoliberals or centrists have spent a decade minimising the threat from the far right by drawing false equivalences between the left and right, and how we come together in a horseshoe. They have prolonged the trauma for many without power or justice, specifically those of us on the left, who wouldn’t dream of invading a public building for fear of violent action, perhaps even death, if we are black. This denial of justice is its own kind of violence.
Where’s your horseshoe now, JK and Charlie et al? I thought I was the far left to which they referred to as being just as bad as our oppressors, then I came across the likes of Ian Bone and Piers Corbyn, this weird intersection of leftist anarchism and white privilege and with it the entitlement they take for granted. I guess they look similar to the far right, they have the same gammon-y skin, they point a lot, and sometimes they froth a little at the mouth, and might even feel so emboldened as to approach the children of fascist politicians and bully them, but this is not the far left I know, they are not my comrades. However, even if they were, there is no rising death toll attributed to them. They are ridiculed by all, the mainstream press and even their own side, they are about as threatening as Change UK or whatever they’re calling themselves now, they are powerful only in their heads.
If the protesters had been antifa as has been asserted by a number of right wing commentators scenes would have more closely resembled Waco instead of a CIA coup. Amazingly only 4 people lost their lives, one confirmed fascist and another 3 who are said to have died from medical emergencies (heart attacks?). We all know, including the liberals, that this is because the police and protesters are one in the same. They did not feel threatened, as they do when there is a black person in the vicinity, especially if that black person has done well for themselves. Centrists identify with the far right because they also look the same, and care about the same things, they can empathise with their position. They wilfuly choose to ignore the balance of harm and power and control dynamics, we are not all on the same starting block, but to acknowledge this would be to accept nobody gets to where they are because they are a special unique snowflake but because they are privileged and lucky.
It is time to hold neoliberals to account for the many ways in which they have stifled leftists for challenging fascists. They labelled us the real bullies and oppressors for treating others the way they had been treating us, choosing to ignore the power imbalances that ensure we always lose. We might say a controversial thing but we are criminalised for it. We might shout at an MP and spend time behind bars for the hubris, meanwhile the far right have killed people and promise to kill even more, yet they are only just being held to account by social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, when they let fascists run amok for over a decade, menacing minorities with promises of a race war (meanwhile I was permanently suspended for racism against Priti Patel, when I said I rejected right wing Asians, being Asian myself and left wing..).
Let’s hope they haven’t left it too late eh?
Many years ago I was in a relationship with an Asian in the media. I met lots of other Asians in the media through him. In fact I met him through another Asian in the media, Sunny Hundal, via his Asians in media forum. Much like any other setting in which I encountered middle class Asians, it was full of stuffy self important chaache who peered down their nose at you if they happened to notice you at all.
Not that I wanted to be noticed, for the vultures out there, I do not write this post because I am ‘just jealous’ I ‘didn’t make it’ in their world, I tend not to aspire to positions that require me to bow and scrape for basic human decency. I do not believe in hierarchies and this is far from an egalitarian society, nepotism reigns supreme. In fact the ex I refer to started his career with Eastern Eye newspaper – the longest standing and most widely read of all Asian media in the UK back then – despite a 2:2 in his classic arts degree. His mum got him the job, putting in a good word as the paper’s resident agony aunt. His best friends would tell me I was smarter than him (he didn’t like that) and I had 5 long years to see it for myself.
We might not know exactly how smart or deserving we are, but we know where we are in relation to everyone else, and this world does not reward intellect or aptitude, but keepers of the status quo. If you were an Asian in the media in 2013 what were you doing with yourself? Were you standing in solidarity with brown and black activists calling out racism in the mainstream or were you propping up their oppressors? Sunny Hundal certainly stuck the boot in when he was pulled up on his bullshit. Sathnam Sanghera too, blocking me in record time for calling out his wishy washy steeped in white supremacy centrist bullshit (he was defending islamophobe David Aaronovitch iirc). Nikesh Shukla hasn’t ever interacted with me online but he wouldn’t given he was best buds (in his mind) with the aforementioned ex. In fact Shukla has form for problematic af media friends. He was alerted to the allegations made against Riz Ahmed, and walked away convinced Ahmed was the real victim. I wonder what the law of averages is for Nikesh, how many of your friends have to be alleged perpetrators before you start believing their accusers? They do say you are the company you keep.
I started writing this following a post on a Brown History account, which featured a film short narrated by Riz Ahmed. My initial comments were deleted, where I queried whether it was right to give Ahmed air time when allegations are still outstanding. The Ahmed stans insulted my mum and mocked me for using blogs as sources but unbeknownst to them, I am actually in touch with someone who was there the last time it came up, and did speak to victims and was aware of the extent to which it was being covered up. There is this belief that pulling up any Asian in the mainstream will mean curtains for the entire community, but you know what? I’m alright with that. Why would you want to be part of a system that tokenises and selects minorities who toe the party line on the subject of race? I can only imagine the racist ‘jokes’ they’ve let slide for their place at the gilded table. They lap up the whole ‘you’re not like the others’ nonsense, and to be fair, they’re not, they’re self serving cowards. Ahmed’s numerous victims are unwilling to go on the record because it will mean the end for their careers and reputations, and some even fear for their lives. That is the reality when seeking justice for the crimes of a rich and famous man, and why so many do not; they can and will destroy you. They close ranks, and protect each other, and there isn’t an innocent one among them, the recent Hasan Minhaj revelations did not surprise me in the least. If they’re not doing it, they know who is, and they haven’t done a thing about it. These folks genuinely believe they’ve earned the right to treat people like shit.
Where were the community leaders and representatives of Asian media, and tokens in the mainstream when their friends and colleagues were calling us the real racists for calling them out on their inherent prejudices? We put these people on their pedestals, consuming their frankly rubbish offerings in the spirit of desi solidarity but you can bet it wouldn’t be reciprocated if the tables were turned, because they do not rock the boat, they are band wagon jumpers.
I’m sick of rewarding them, aren’t you?
You can bet 45 is ruing the day he decided to appear on The Apprentice. With ‘You’re Fired’ trending on Twitter and the familia Trump thus far unable or unwilling to react to the news they are no longer relevant, the world is breathing a collective sigh of relief, that tomorrow might be a brighter day. One can only hope warrants are being drawn up to this end and justice will prevail but if the past few days are anything to go by we’re in for a long wait.
On this side of the pond our own HLew is getting her long overdue comeuppance. Ubisoft had featured her in one of their game podcasts as a character known simply as ‘Helen’ who “discusses the creeping threat of fascism (!) in the game’s world and how it’s worked in the past as a political ideology” but they removed her after discovering some of her bigoted past comments. Perhaps she’s just not very clever but transphobia is a precursor to fascism, long before the Jews were sent to their deaths, the Nazis rounded up queers and non cis individuals who were organised into groups and branded with a mark to denote their anomalous gender identity. This made it easier to eventually round them up and kill them. I commend Ubisoft for their actions but am left wondering when she will be held to account for her racism too. It was people like Helen Lewis and her protege Laurie Penny who minimised the threat of fascism, enabling it by affording fascists a platform whilst simultaneously attacking any and all who objected to their dangerous behaviour.
Predictably the commentariat have gone after Ubisoft with a dogpile, many of them senior staff at their respective papers, an action that in the past would have threatened their victim’s livelihoods, as it did for many, but might not hold as much weight now, in a post Trump universe.
And if that wasn’t the best news you’ve had in 2020, a silver lining to a story that has had me massaging my temples in despair, the mounting cost to the fur trade following the culling of 17 million minks in Denmark owing to a covid mutation where it passed from human to mink and back again, with over 200 people infected currently. One strain in particular is a cause for concern as it is less sensitive to antibodies and will affect vaccine development. As disgusted as I was to learn there is still such a demand for fur, I admire nature for getting her own back. Scientists say that mink farming will only make the pandemic worse so here’s hoping we can put an end to it altogether, for the sake of the human race.
Otherwise, happy apocalypse and cheers!
*Maybe the coronavirus is Muslim, the way it’s threatening to cancel Christmas an’ that.
On Monday 2nd November Harry Vaughan, son of Jake Vaughan (a clerk for the House of Lords) was handed a prison sentence of 2 years, suspended for 2 years (meaning there will be no time served).
His crimes? Possession of bomb making manuals, membership of a neo nazi forum, possession of media containing depictions of child abuse, 4200 images and 302 files on satanism, antisemitism, and neo nazism. He also uploaded images to promote terrorist organisation and applied to join another terrorist group. On a scale of terrorists, he’s right up there with American school shooters but just like them, law enforcement makes excuses for their murderous intentions, proving yet again that the justice system is a racist endeavour bent on upholding white supremacy.
Contrast the handling of this extremely dangerous individual’s case with that of Osime Brown, a 21 year old autistic black man who was sentenced to 5 years in prison under joint enterprise legislation which disproportionately criminalises BME people for crimes they do not personally commit but may have been able to prevent. He witnessed his friends stealing a phone and despite witnesses coming forward to say he did try to stop them, he was locked away nonetheless. He is now being threatened with deportation, having arrived in the UK from Jamaica aged 4. Sadly we cannot deport white criminals anywhere.
At a time when antisemitism is the cause du jour, maliciously and untruthfully ending careers for socialist politicians, you would think the British justice system would have come down on raving antisemite Harry like a ton of bricks. Instead we have senior ranking plod appealing for compassion and understanding in the case of this neo nazi. This is white privilege, showing off white supremacy for the injustice it is, to dodge punishment for the most deplorable of crimes and even try and manipulate the masses into feeling sympathy for a white supremacist terrorist!
The British system is a joke. Harry Vaughan is one tiny cog in a global white supremacist fascist network that has been menacing minorities and marginalised groups for almost a decade and in that time, law enforcement has been nonexistent. This is because a high percentage of coppers are also white supremacists and they are the gatekeepers to justice. In fact most white people believe in white supremacy, which is why even Guardian writers like Grace Dent were gunning for Shamima Begum’s head on a pike.
Britain is inherently racist (there is no denying this now) and the law is an ass. If the law ceases to protect us, then the contract to serve and protect is nonexistent, as is our duty to comply.
They know they’re losing, they know their movement is worthless but they have control of the media and the power to manipulate perceptions.
Now is the time to grow your local Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements.
Take control of the narrative, stop buying newspapers, create your own mediums, take your power back.
Lawmakers with a conscience, make race hate illegal again.
Comrades, don’t give them the space to breathe.
Solidarity.
If you’ve been on social media today you will have seen #CancelNetflix trending. I’m all for cancelling problematic culture, especially those capitalising on it, but my gut instinct tells me this a strawman fallacy, even though I have not seen the offending material. I don’t need to, a cursory glance at the protagonists tells me all I need to know.
When you have the far right taking a stand against paedophilia you know you’re hovering over the rabbit hole. When you have supporters of pussy grabbing Lolita express patrons decrying the crime of child sex abuse, what are we supposed to think exactly? I’ve skim read bits and pieces about the film Cuties, it was directed by a woc and was never intended to titillate. It has been misrepresented, deliberately misconstrued by white critics, and the far right are running with it.
How dare they?
Jeffrey Epstein is a distant memory, his presidential pal looks set for another term even though he is an incestuous rapist, cheer-led by nasty fascists both sides of the pond. Let’s go after a woc film maker though yes? What a timely distraction from the steaming pile of shit that is murderous white supremacist America. The absolute gall of these ghouls to weaponise child protection, they do not give a legitimate fuck about victims of sex abuse, and they hurt every last one of us when they manipulate perceptions like this. As a survivor of sex abuse, I am apoplectic.
Were Paul Watson or Raheem Kassam as disgusted by the incarceration of Mexican babies, some of whom were sexually abused by American border officials? Course the fuck not. The far right is teeming with child rapists, it is how they revel in their power, to be the most deplorable and retain their legions of sheeple. So powerful they can destroy all that is sacred and avoid scrutiny, whilst occupying the upper echelons of power, and committing abuses right under our noses.
This stance against Netflix is the far right flexing its coercive power.
If they were at all bothered by the sexualisation of children they wouldn’t have a nonce for a president in America and they wouldn’t racialise child sex abusers as they have done in the UK.
Whenever the far right pretends to care (fullstop) we should all pause and question what they are trying to distract us from.
