#novarafm

[viralradio]

#NovaraFM: Trash Cultures by Novara Media http://ift.tt/2npgwhL

[dagwolf]

This week Ash Sarkar and Wail Qasim discuss the changing landscape of contemporary racism and the rise of Islamophobia. V good discussion. Recommended.

[piercepenniless]

Concerning Europe

Last Friday, Aaron and I were joined by Lindsey German and Marina Prentoulis to discuss the EU and the forthcoming referendum. You can listen to the discussion here:

My thinking has not changed significantly from that outlined at the end of this essay, which takes in a number of the broader dynamics in Europe at the moment:

“On virtually every significant matter, the British political establishment and state agree with their European counterparts, and it is because of such agreement that very minimal political choice exists in this referendum – between a British state and an ECB-led Europe committed to the same political vision with some cosmetic differences. The section of the left in the UK advocating for exit (‘lexit’) suggests that to remain would be to reconfirm British adherence to the neoliberal direction of the Union since Maastricht. But to look at the vote as a plebiscite on neoliberalism requires that the two options be clear and distinct: either neoliberal membership or anti-neoliberal exit. Instead, we are offered continuing membership in a neoliberal project, or an exit predicated on neoliberal arguments, offering ‘freedoms’ keyed to business deregulation, and tied to a range of other reactionary measures, especially on migration. In this context, it is fatuous to imagine a constellation of minoritarian left-wing groups will be able to fundamentally change the political orientation of an exit, still more ludicrous to imagine it will act as a ‘red flare’ of hope from the north to the Mediterranean left to follow in Britain’s wake. Neither option is in itself ‘anti-neoliberal’, nor can they be made so by wishing.”

That is not to say that I find particularly convincing any case made for a transformation of the European institutions, or the various hand-waving solutions around democratisation – as I outline in the essay, democratisation sounds simple, but simple translation of national parliamentary models to a grander scale runs into problems. This difficulty is what gives plausibility to many of the anti-democratic fictions propagated by EU theorists and technocrats (‘collusive’ or ‘nonmajoritarian’ democracy being their names.) But I think it should also be understood in a wider context of shifts in the role and nature of the state and its institutions over the past half-century, shifts that are not easily reversible by regress to any isolated national model. Any democratic settlement in Europe would need at the very least to address the disaggregation and depoliticisation of economic policy from the ‘contestable’ into the merely ‘technical’ zone of governance. (Peter Mair’s chapter on the EU in Ruling the Void remains perceptive on these shifts.)

The immediacy and scale of the migrant crisis, and the balance of political forces in Europe, are what incline me toward a ‘remain’ vote. It seems inarguable that an exit vote will strengthen the hand of racist and isolationist movements in the short term. Nor does it seem clear to me that the UN and its agencies is any better a vehicle for resettlement than the EU is: possibly the only international body less effective and more insulated than the union, and whose agencies have pursued a policy of containment, encampment and return since at least Albright’s tenure in Washington. (The gradual derogation of the Convention and Protocol governing the status of displaced persons is a story for another time, but the de facto cancellation of rights to resettlement and political status ought to be of concern here.) It also struck me that during discussion, Lindsey outlined a narrative on racism which is familiar ground for the left: racism is essentially a function of deprivation and insecurity, and finds most fertile ground in communities effectively abandoned by mainstream politics. The conditions which give racism its attraction would be transformed by any Left political project and thus it would lose most if not all of its allure. I think there is much to be said for this explanation. (A similar division of the country is visible in cleavages on the referendum, as Jeremy Cliffe notes, while rather dancing around the word ‘class’.) But what worries me about it is that it tends to minimise how central and tenacious racism is to British political life, how deeply articulated it is into government and its agencies, and overstates the simplicity of its solution. After all, panic about ‘bogus asylum seekers’ is not a new phenomenon, it was a regular feature of government policy and tabloid scares in the Blair era as well. The task of changing that political common sense is a large and difficult one, and will not be achieved merely by asserting that the reality is (or could be) different; it is hard to see how a vote for exit in a political climate of fear over migration, a long-cherished hope of UKIP and other far-right movements, does anything to change that. For an example of one of the more toxic framings of that common sense, we should look to Denmark. It isn’t the headlines alone that should shock us – barbaric though the seizure of jewellery and effects is – but the politics underneath them. Støjberg’s law effectively creates asylum ghettoes and restricts rights to resettlement and family reunification quite severely. Support for these policies crosses the political spectrum: Social Democrat support was essential to the passing of the new law. The referendum held at the end of last year on security cooperation with the EU was defeated by strong popular suspicion that it would bring Denmark into closer harmony with Europe’s asylum and migration policy. Yet the Danish case, beyond a strongly integrationist nationalism, rests on a popular affection for the welfare state combined with an acute sense that it is fragile and overloaded. In such a case, the priority of citizen over non-citizen, along with fears of parasitic racial others, becomes a recurrent part of the politics even of parties with left-ish heritage. It is not hard to see how a similar matter may play out here. In short – do listen to our discussion. As I suggest at the end, my private suspicion is that the EU will break itself over migration, but the terms and direction of that break are sent nowhere good by British exit. I have yet to hear any convincing suggestion the migrant crisis can be dealt with through any other body, though like our discussants I’m sceptical of the ability of the EU to reach alignment on it either.

[farfromfoucault]

(via https://soundcloud.com/novaramedia/another-pride-is-possible?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=tumblr)

[resourcesforradicals]

Mental Health, Capitalism, Care (podcast)

Capitalism’s effects on mental health, and how to care for each other under a reactionary government. Backed up by some solid articles:

7 Ways to Support Friends When They’re Mentally Unwell

Mental Health Under Neoliberalism – 5 Ways Work Drives Us Crazy

Talking Therapy: 8 Thoughts on How We Talk About Mental Health

Protest, Police Violence and Mental Health Care: 7 Things You Need to Know

See also the politics of mental health series e.g. Activists talk mental health.

[piercepenniless]

Women in Dark Times

This week, I was joined on the show by Jacqueline Rose and Nina Power. We were discussing, broadly, some of the themes raised in Rose's new book Women in Dark Times. The discussion takes in dissidence, power, violence, revenge and justice, as well as Rosa Luxemburg, Charlotte Salomon, Marilyn Monroe and Hannah Arendt. I recommend it. You may listen to the show above or on our site. Some of the thinking in Rose's book will, I hope, come to play in something I am currently writing, a brief(ish) essay on Electra and politics. Watch this space.