Anti-feminist actor sparks protests by pop culture community

Leela Ford writes that Anti-feminist actor sparks protests by pop culture community.

[Adam Baldwin] has continued to use the hashtag [(#gamergate)] for other tweets promoting the idea that feminism is trying to destroy male gaming culture, among other things. The hashtag became popular among sections of the gaming community who were taking up the cause of a movement that Baldwin claims is about "ethics in games journalism".

However, the movement turned very quickly into a misogynistic attack on women in the gaming industry after a number of feminist critiques were released exposing sexism in the industry.

Baldwin proceeded to tweet personal information of Quinn and another game developer Brianna Wu, which was used by his supporters to send threats to the women. Baldwin then accused Wu of lying about being driven from her home amid safety concerns. He also accused another woman, Anita Sarkeesian of being hysterical after receiving messages threatening violence and rape.

Wu has publicly supported the petition by spreading the link on twitter while calling Adam Baldwin a “sexist bully”. She also tweeted her own feelings on the issue saying: “Something geek culture is struggling with is making the culture open to women. I think Adam Baldwin is the complete opposite of this goal.”

Baldwin is a self-professed conservative who prides himself on speaking up against what he believes are “social justice liberals” trying to silence his “dissent” and “destroy [his] personhood”. In another one of his Twitter crusades last year, he said that gay marriage would lead to incest for tax benefits.

Emphasis Mine

Feminism is a credible threat to to the patriarchy as it should be. Exposing sexism is a vital task for feminists. Without debate around what constitutes sexism, feminism cannot advance.

Those who derive their identity from the patriarchy are rightly threatened by this exposure. Thus, they respond by the only means they know how: threats of rape and other violence. Then they are dismayed when their apparently “normal” behaviour is called out as vile and reprehensible. This is how the patriarchy has always responded.

Again I reiterate my thesis as expounded in “I am not Charlie Hebdo”—freedom of speech is not an absolute right. Those, like Baldwin and the rest of the #GamerGate community, do not have freedom of speech because they are using speech to threaten and oppress others. While those, like Wu and Sarkeesian, do have the right to free speech because they are fighting against the oppression of the patriarchy.

Read more!

France jails people for irony

Ali Abunimah writes France jails people for irony.

This incident sums up the sheer hypocrisy of France’s national mood. Anything mocking and denigrating Islam and Muslims is venerated as courageous free speech, while anything mocking those who engage in such denigration — even using the same techniques — can get you locked up.

…

It may seem surprising that French authorities can charge and jail people so quickly. These summary trials and long custodial terms are the result of a change in the law in November in which the charge of “defending terrorism” became a criminal offence subject to fast-track trials.

France’s Human Rights League recently said that when the change in the law was being debated, it had “demonstrated that it would be ineffective for security, dangerous for liberties and damaging to the credibility of the justice system”.

The group said that the slew of summary convictions of “drunks and fools” vindicated its warnings. Many of these people are now likely to end up on the state’s planned “anti-terrorist register.”

Musician and author charged

Prosecutions for expression do not take place only under the “defending terrorism” law. This week the rapper Saidou of the band Z.E.P. and the sociologist Said Bouamama will be indicted in Lille for “public insult” and “incitement to discrimination, hate, or violence”.

The prosecution was brought by a right-wing nationalist group, as MR Zine reports, because of Said’s book Fuck France and a Z.E.P. song with the same title.

The song’s refrain states: “Fuck France and its colonialist past, its paternalist smells, stenches, and reflexes. Fuck France and its imperialist history, its capitalist walls, fortresses and delusions.”

Z.E.P., ironically, stands for “Zone d’expression populaire” — Popular Expression Zone.

It is only a matter of time before these laws are used with renewed vigour against a whole range of speech that might upset the French state, especially those who advocate for Palestinian rights and for the boycott of Israel.

Emphasis Mine

So, free speech is part of white privilege.

Read more!

After Paris attacks: Less freedom, more war?

Liam Flenady writes that After Paris attacks: Less freedom, more war?.

Much of the Left inside France have been reluctant to criticise Charlie Hebdo itself, and have not sought to challenge the “Je suis Charlie” slogan.

The magazine is politically mixed and represents different things to different people. It has often been hyper-criticalof the far right, anti-immigrant National Front, but at the same time its “provocative” portrayals of Muslims and of the prophet Mohammed clearly draw upon racist tropes and seems intent on tapping into a general Islamophobic cultural milieu.

The view that Charlie Hebdo is not racist since it also satirises Christianity and French politicians fails to recognise the objective power structures that exist in our societies, which fundamentally determine how the cartoons are viewed.

The front cover of the first edition of Charlie Hebdo since the attack, released on January 14, continues the publication’s poor record, depicting a racially stereotypical image of the prophet Mohammed holding up a “Je suis Charlie” sign, with the headline reading “All is forgiven.”

Guardian journalist Joseph Harker remarked: “In depicting the prophet Muhammad it is deliberately offending the vast majority of muslims around the world.”

In the aftermath of the bloodshed, however, critiquing Charlie Hebdo is not the main task of the day. It can become a distraction from the real issue of how to respond to the attacks.

Instead, in a time when anti-war and anti-imperialist movements in the West are struggling to reassert, the response of the international left to the attacks should be to challenge the mainstream narrative of mere “tolerance” and “Western values”.

Instead, the left should point out that the ongoing imperialist wars and interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere, as well as structural injustices within Western societies, are largely to blame for the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

This must be combined with a defence of freedom of speech and democracy that both condemns the killers and Western government attempts to exploit the violence to push its own undemocratic agenda.

Emphasis Mine

Freedom of speech is a vital, political necessity for the oppressed minorities. Their voices must be heard. Their needs must be addressed.

However, freedom of speech for the oppressors is a tool of subjudgation.

This is the inherent contradiction in the ideal of freedom of speech.

Historically, freedom of speech was a privilege granted by the rulers.

In ancient Rome, the plebian tribunes had this freedom granted after bitter civil strife. Yet, this freedom was not absolute as the rulers would murder outspoken tribunes with immunity when the tribunes went too far.

At the dawn of Capitalism, this freedom became a right because the nascent capitalist class needed to draw the workers and peasants into the fight against the feudal overlords. Even then, this right was negated by murder and execution as in the fate of Camille Desmoulins, the editor and publisher of Le Vieux Cordelier.

With the victory of the capitalist class, this right was withdrawn from the workers and peasants through legal restrictions and monetary constraints. The legal attack started with the libel laws, then with the sedition laws, and finally with the ant-terrorism laws. The monetary restrictions concern the capital needed to run a press, and to maintain journalists.

Papers, such as GreenLeft Weekly, maintain themselves through subscribers, street sales, and through donations. If you are able, please support GLW here.

Read more!

Charlie Hebdo & French ‘Secularism’: Does it really just privilege White Christians?

Mayanthi Fernando reflects on Charlie Hebdo & French ‘Secularism’: Does it really just privilege White Christians?.

Rather than stemming from Muslims’ rejection of Frenchness, then, the supposed impossibility of being a Muslim and being a French citizen is largely generated by the contradictions of French secularism and French citizenship and by the majority’s inability to conceive of Muslims as French.

We should not deny the horror of January 6. But, in its aftermath, rather than uncritically reaffirm French national identity and wring our hands about Muslims’ refusal to integrate, we should use this moment of reflection to understand the various ways in which Muslims are consistently excluded from the nation, and to reassess the narrow bases of what it means to be French.

Emphasis Mine

White privilege is invisible to white people. They cannot see that their lives are based on racism. They would rather think that their position in society is based on some other atrribute: hard work, intellectual superiority, innate goodness.

Yet these other attributes reinforce racial stereotypes. They encourage to think of other races as being lazy, intellectual inferior, or innately bad. This reasoning follows from the obvious reality that white people have the good things of life while the non-whites do not.

Since white people believe that the system is fair, the fact that non-whites do not have the good things of life means that the non-whites do not deserve them.

Yet the non-white people see the system as unfair because they do work hard, study hard, and be on extremely good behaviour. And still they are denied the good things of life. They see the lies of the white people's system every day.

How, then, to get white people to see that they do live a life of privilege based on their skin colour? There is no immediate material benefit to doing so because many white people will lose out in a completely fair system.

The best solution would be for white people to voluntarily give up their privileges in the spirit of justice. But this will take an enormous amount of spiritual growth for a lot of people.

Read more!

Fundamentalism for Dummies: The Paris Terrorists’ Ignorance and Poverty

Akil N. Awan decries Fundamentalism for Dummies: The Paris Terrorists’ Ignorance and Poverty.

Cherif Kouachi’s lawyer described his client in 2005 as “a confused chameleon.” This is an apt description of the identity crisis commonly experienced by many jihadists, and can be explained through a process I call dual cultural alterity—essentially a double alienation from both minority (ethnic or parental) culture, and majority (mainstream or host society) culture, as a result of being unable or unwilling to fulfill either group’s normative expectations. This can lead to the cultural schizophrenia that Cherif’s lawyer describes, and is likely to inspire feelings of uprootedness and a lack of belonging.

Consequently, in the absence of an appealing cultural paradigm from either parents or mainstream society, religion becomes, by default, the principal anchor of identity. Religion provides an emphatic rejoinder to the identity offered by Western society, which these individuals feel has already rejected them anyway, and it is easy to understand why. In France, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons reflected a broader palpable rise in anti-Muslim and anti-immigration sentiment. Leaving aside the lampooning of religious figures, many cartoons depicted ordinary French Muslims and other minority groups in a way that was at best, tasteless, and at worst, revelatory of an underlying French racism that is implicitly tolerated. The magazine once depicted French justice minister Christiane Taubira, who is black, as a monkey (although later claiming it was mocking her detractors).

Emphasis Mine

Capitalist society reduces workers to human resources who are hired and fired at will. Unless an individual fulfils a function within society, they do not exist. Unemployment is oblivion.

This is on top of the alienation that originates in the selling of labour power by the worker: the worker does not own what they create by their labour. Their identity and self-worth is sucked dry by the Capitalist production process. The worker cannot say, “I made this”. Thus even if one were to gain employment, one is spent by the continual demand to produce.

For those who are excluded by racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, disability, etc., the quest for identity through other means than work and cultural participation becomes paramount. They may create a sub-culture like bikies, Goths, Emos, Furries, etc. which satisfies the need for identity and belonging. Or, they may gravitate to crime, or to groups that resist the dominant culture.

Instead, the answer lies in changing the Capitalist society into another that is accepting of all people. People are accepted for being human—not because they are rich, white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied, employed, etc.. This means we have to eventually move away from workers selling their labour-power to something different.

Read more!

I am not Charlie Hebdo

I am not Charlie Hebdo.

For a western magazine, like Charlie Hebdo, to attack Islam through satire is to agree with the imperial project of the West. Islam is a minority religion in the West. None of the ruling elites within the West embrace Islam. Islam is not associated with political power within the West.

It is however associated with an oppressed minority within the West. These people are vilified in the press, insulted and attacked in the streets, and are subject to police harassment. They are oppressed by power in the West.

In Islamic countries, Islam is both a tool of oppression and a means of resistance. It is tool of oppression because religious law is used to crush dissent against the government. But it is a tool of resistance against the imperial powers by giving the people the language and will to resist the military incursions and invasions by the Western powers.

For me as an Australian to satirise Islam to give aid and comfort to the imperialist exploitation of Islamic countries. I am not being oppressed by an Islamic government, nor am I in any danger of being so.

I see oppression by a Capitalist government that uses Christianity, not Islam, to justify its actions. Thus, it is fit and proper to attack the Christians for allowing their religion to be used as a means of keeping power.

Press freedom is not an absolute right. It is a necessity for those resisting oppression. It is an abuse of privilege for those who support and enable oppression.

Read more!

Freedom's supporters

Chris Dillow looks for Freedom's supporters.

Herein, though, lies my question. Where are the real, honest, defenders of freedom?

We'll obviously not find them in the police or security services who forever want to expand their powers. Nor are the main political parties unequivocally on the side of freedom. The coalition, like New Labour, has actually increased the number of new criminal offences. And the next election is likely to be a competition for who can most restrict freedom of movement. Nor should we expect companies to support freedom. Those bloggers who have criticized newspapers for not reprinting Charlie Hebdo's cartoons miss the point - that people become bosses by surrendering principle to pragmatism, which is no basis for a vigorous defence of freedom. More generally, as Nick says, companies use libel laws to suppress critics.

It's in this context that we should remember one of Marx's insights. Ideals, he thought, triumph not because of their intellectual strength but because of their political power: capitalism, he thought, would be overthrown not by sweet reason but by the power of the working class. The problem that we supporters of freedom have is that whilst we have right on our side, we don't have might.

Emphasis Mine

In the class war against Capitalism, we should always remember whose side we are on. We should be wary when the Capitalists cry out for the freedom of the press. We should what their agenda is.

The ideological superstructure of the Capitalist system, of which the press is a part, exists to preserve and defend the Capitalist system. The press continually extols the virtues and saving grace of Capitalism, follows the heroics of the Capitalists, wonder at their titantic battles. We are to be mesmerised by the wonders of Capitalism.

Capitalism can do no wrong, but it is a fragile thing for any interference results in malfunctioning of the system. And any criticism also threatens the system by upsetting the delicate natures of these heroic and valiant Capitalists.

But we should remember that freedom of the press means freedom to attack the enemies of Capitalism. But this does mean that the enemies of Capitalism have the same freedom to attack Capitalism.

The weapons used against the critics are economic, political, and police. The economic ones include deny employment to political cartoonists, like Ted Rall, and suppressing their work from being published. The political and police tactics include equating criticism with terrorism.

It is up to people like us to:

1. Support Ted Rall
2. Support Green Left Weekly

Read more!