sticking with the ndp

a few years ago i had a disagreement with the ndp over their stance on the second durban conference (the letter i wrote can be found here). i vocalised my concerns to jack layton and he called me on the phone to talk about it. we chatted for 20 minutes. we asked questions of each other and had an intense, yet fruitful, exchange. jack thanked me for the conversation. a few months later, after much inter-party debate, the ndp changed their position. i say this now because i want to highlight that i believe jack layton to be a thoughtful politician that reflects on, and sometimes changes, his decisions - a true sign of leadership. moreover, the party's history and current platform reflect many of my hopes for canada - they are anti-war, pro-universal health care, and committed to working towards better environmental policies. their entire platform is available online.

although some of us may long for other possibilities (i.e., more candidate options, different voting systems, or consensus-based revolutions that do not rely on electoral politics, nation-states, or parties at all), the reality is that this election is going to happen. moreover, it is going to have consequences for us. this is not a declaration of defeat. some may be concerned that investing hope or time in elections means siphoning energy that is better placed in autonomous organising at a distance from the state. these folks would rather see us create our own conditions of existence, imagine alternatives to equating sporadic ballot-casting with democracy, and rid ourselves of the hegemony of liberal-democratic state apparati that often violate us as much as they assist us. and i say, right on. i have said these things myself in other places.

however, voting in this election does not preclude the potential to realise these possibilities in the future. but we cannot yet abandon the state-structure as it continues to dominate our daily lives and political imaginations. it is not yet possible to think about broad-based political change without parties and without elections. and i do not think that simply ignoring the process (i.e., the election) will necessarily help in shifting our imaginations away from state-based politics. we are not ready. and so i am not advocating that we abandon these aspirations but that we recognise that, like it or not, one, or some combination of these parties, is going to have a lot of money and decision-making power in its hands for the next four years. i think that if we can ensure that the ndp is a major player in this configuration, we can expect to see a government that reflects the type of leadership and soft-left policies mentioned above. it is not revolutionary, and it certainly does not constitute the climax of our political demands or our imaginative capacities. our energy will not be drained because our energy has endless potential. rather, with an ndp (or ndp imbued) government, we will continue to think, and act, and organise as before, and we can hope that the only left-of-centre mainstream political party in canada can animate the background, legislating in favour of affordable housing, pensions, and the minimum wage while we continue to think and realise other possibilities. while conservative regimes are drafting up and implementing draconian austerity measures in the uk, portugal, italy, ireland, australia, and elsewhere, cracking down on public protest and ramping up cuts to public services, canada has the chance to do something different.

in short, on may 2, and in the words of stumpin' tom, i'm sticking with the NDP.

Beyond Barbarism: David Kato, Uganda, and the American Right

(This story was also published by Truthout on 17 February 2011)

I, like many, am deeply saddened by the news of the violent death of David Kato, a prominent Ugandan LGBTI activist. David was murdered in his home on 26 January in a village near Kampala. Although the motives for his murder are not yet confirmed, it is highly suspected that David was the target of homophobic violence due to his vocal criticism of the proposed Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and LBGTI rights in Uganda more broadly.

The bill, before parliament since 2009, further criminalizes homosexuality (it is already illegal thanks to the combined force of lingering British colonial law and governments’ unwillingness to eradicate it ) making it punishable by fine, imprisonment, and in certain cases, death. It is significant that in late 2010, David’s picture - along with numerous other gay Ugandan activists - was published in Rolling Stone (unconnected to the US magazine) alongside a banner that read “hang them”. In light of David’s murder, appeals have been made by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Behind the Mask, the Africa Regional Dialogue on Sexuality and Geopolitics, Human Rights Watch and others for a full and impartial police investigation into David’s death. This would include an analysis of any possible links to organized violence against LGBTI individuals and communities – a crucial next step in the aftermath of David’s death. However, while identifying the person or people behind David’s murder is of great symbolic significance, it is unlikely that a police investigation will be able to address the larger issue at stake - the complex landscape of homophobic violence in contemporary Uganda.

David was a vocal critic of racist and orientalist readings of Uganda as barbarically backward and hopelessly homophobic. On a trip to the UK last year, David gave a series of talks on the problems with predominantly white gay and queer organizations in the UK painting African countries as blocking the civilizational progress towards the global recognition of LGBTI rights - a road which modern western countries were supposedly paving. For David and his colleagues at SMUG, this overly simplistic perspective of the situation in Uganda erased the ongoing violence that queers continue to experience in the modern western world. David spoke of his shock when he heard stories of gender-queer people being attacked and harassed in London when international gay rights activists in Uganda had portrayed an image of the United Kingdom as the land of the free for LGBTI individuals and communities.

Moreover, David challenged the preconception that somehow homophobia was the ontological property of Africans. Not only was this patently wrong, it also neglected to recognize the campaign of homophobic hatred being pushed by right-wing American church leaders and politicians in Uganda for the past decade. Since 1999, organizations such as the Institute for Religion and Democracy and the Family have been ideologically and economically invested in circulating this narrative as a way of cementing their own political and moral agendas in Uganda. Although most American religious leaders now deny their initial support for anti-gay legislation, David held that these well-funded institutions and individuals (backed in some cases by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR funds) had already helped sow the seeds of homophobic hatred. He challenged the double standard of some gay rights movements to denounce the actions of African nations while ignoring their own governments’ implication in the political, historical, and economic factors of the situation.

As the world learns about the shocking murder of this inspirational young man, there is a danger that it will be inserted along a larger narrative about “homophobic Africa” that perpetuates problematic civilizational discourses of “moderns” vs “pre-moderns”. As cultural critics like Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Jasbir Puar have pointed out, this foundational myth has been the justification for imperialist ventures, colonial intervention, and outright war for centuries, and has particular currency in the contemporary “war on terror”. Gay liberation has successfully been used to bolster the force of the invaders in many contexts, a popular pattern that Puar has termed “homonationalism”. The term describes the resonance between gay rights movements that, for example, deploy narratives of African countries as inherently backward with nationalist mythology used to justify imperial invasion (i.e., saving the women of Afghanistan). These stories mutually enforce each other, building a national imperial project in the name of (supposed) gay liberation. It is my hope that in light of David’s brave intellectual and activist work, international onlookers will not capitulate to the hegemonic propulsion of this narrative by ascribing David’s death to a problem with “Uganda”.

Of course, this is not to deny the agency of the Ugandan government in the worrying escalation of homophobia. President Yoweri Museveni and his parliament need to distance themselves from proposed legislation that further threatens the rights and lives of LGBTI people living in Uganda and to take proactive steps towards greater acceptance of sexual diversity there. But we may also combat the rise in homophobic violence in Uganda by understanding the web of historical, political and economic connections that make up the landscape we are looking at and by putting pressure on those inculcated within it. This, for me, is what David Kato was fighting for.

The state of kettling

(originally posted on Critical Legal Thinking in December 2010...)

The resort to kettling as a preliminary strategy of the London Met has left many of us worried – not to mention cold, hungry, and angry for hours at a time. Those of us who have been subject to the pigpen have many stories to share about being detained for hours on end without medication, proper clothing, food, or communication with outside parties. And we are worried, not just about the growing prevalence of this strategy as a way of forcibly delimiting the spaces of public protest, but also because of its potential effects on the hearts and minds of protestors and other demonstrators-in-the-making.

In several conversations I have had with comrades who’ve been rounded-up on one or more occasions, there has been a recurring theme of concern. These individuals articulate a hesitation about going to future actions for fear of long detainments in (especially as Winter sets in) less than desirable conditions. Of course, one might respond to such concerns with a simple ‘get over it - dress warm and see you on the streets’. There is some important advice to heed in such a retort. Certainly we don’t want to be giving the London Met any credit in scaring us off with their strategies of containment. We could - and will - wait them out any day.

However, as kettling becomes a normalized tactic at large-scale demos, many who would normally be inclined to demonstrate for a few hours talk about staying away for fear of being contained for an entire day. Certainly, the potential deployment of kettling makes it difficult for those with children or other obligations to commit to being on the streets. Moreover, since the normalization of the tactic, I have seen the mere arrival of the would-be kettlers strike fear in people on the streets for fear of arbitrary detention. Now, I am no proponent of liberal democracy but it strikes me that, even on its own terms, the normalization of this strategy has serious consequences for the liberal conception of public dissent.

And Lois Austin agrees with me.

Austin, a demonstrator kettled at Oxford Circus in 2001 during a May Day march, recently challenged the tactic (Austin v Commissioner [2009] UKHL - represented by Christian Khan). Austin argued that the use of kettling was a deprivation of her liberty and constituted a breach of Article 5 of the ECHR. The courts sided with the police in the original case, as well as on appeal and in the House of Lords. In the House of Lords case, Lord Hope claimed “…measures of crowd control will fall outside the area of [Article 5], so long as they are not arbitrary. This means that they must be resorted to in good faith, that they must be proportionate and that they are enforced for no longer than is reasonably necessary” (12). The case has now gone to the ECtHR - along with two other cases represented by Bindmans (Lowenthal and O’Shea) and another by Liberty (Black) - and isn’t expected to be heard for several years. As we wait for the case hearings as well as for the police to act in ‘good faith’, I must point out that holding one’s breath has shown to have seriously adverse health effects on individuals and communities.

Significantly, what the Lords spent considerable time elucidating in Austin was the police force’s need to respond to an “unexpected” threat from protestors who i) did not negotiate their plans with the police, and ii) broadcasted the likelihood of serious property damage. Indeed, the legitimacy of kettling in this instance rested on the understanding of it as a spontaneous reaction, rather than an institutionalized strategy for policing dissent. However, as we see the proliferation of the strategy as normalized tactic, beginning in some cases before demonstrations even begin (see reports from Birkbeck students on the morning of 24 November 2010), the Lords’ reasoning (unsurprisingly) falls short.

Although one might hope that the adverse effects of kettling as a normalized tactic would catch the attention of some Lord almighty (and it may well in the pending Judicial Review investigating the proportionality of the police tactics), the innumerable avenues for clemency available to the police do not inspire hope. In addition to the judges’ justification of the tactic based on the immediacy of the situation, they also legitimized it on the grounds that Austin continued to have access to a megaphone (and therefore her right to freely express her opinions), that there was a potential threat to public safety which only the police could know and monitor at the time, and that it was reasonable, given the actions of some, to detain all. As David Meade argues,

what we see in Austin is effectively collective guilt by association - and the larger the potentially guilty group (that is the larger the numbers of those threatening or becoming violent), the more defensible it is for the police to exercise indiscriminate control. They do not need to make specific allegations of the likelihood of trouble against any one person provided they can identify a cohort they cannot isolate and deal with separately. (Mead [2009] EHRLR: 9)

Not that any of this is new or particularly shocking for most of us. What is significant however, is the prevalence of “guilt-by-association” that circulates in this reasoning, and its resonance with that of the most recent comments made by UK Police Minister Nick Herbert. In an interview with the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow, Herbert warned potential demonstrators of the perils of taking to the streets for the National Day of Action on 9 December 2010. Herbert claims,

anybody joining one of these demonstrations must take care…if you know, having seen the scenes on the previous week, that there is a group of people who are bent on violence, on causing criminal damage, on intimidation, on breaking the law, any of us would think twice, wouldn't we, about whether we wish to be associated with those people” (emphasis mine, Friday 3 December 2010).

Herbert’s opaque comments here are analogous to the amorphous powers of the police themselves – both are driven by vague crypticisms that can be put to use as the wielder (or the wielder’s Staff Sergeant) sees fit. As Walter Benjamin aptly put it in 1921, “the violence of the police is as amorphous as its phantom manifestation (nowhere graspable, everywhere in evidence)”. Given these comments and the judges reasoning in the Austin case, it is likely that “guilt-by-association” will legitimize the use of kettling at upcoming student demonstrations merely as a result of the “violence” at previous demos.

The impulse to seek legal redress against kettling is tempting – indeed, the hopes of finding a thread which would unfurl the tightly woven powers of the police in these instances is enticing. But the fact of the matter is firstly, that cases, reviews, and reports (such as the HMIC Denis O’Connor’s report “Adapting to Protest” ) come after the fact. They have no way of retroactively helping us on the streets when we are dealing with police violence. Secondly, and more foundationally, if such a thread was found, I imagine it would unravel to reveal countless more sweaters, all hand-stitched with loving care by the promises of liberal democracy. These promises, designed to self-legitimize themselves, produce endless justifications for the necessary delimitations of freedom in the name of state security. Here I do not only mean the contemporary experience of governance through securitization, but also the very stability of the state. As we continue to invest our political hopes in these state-sanctioned approaches, we remain dependent on and invested in these promises of liberal-democracy that will continue to allow the police to utilize their powers largely how they see fit.

Kettling is a terrible tactic both for those caught between the police lines, and for those who fear such a fate. But perhaps rather than attempting to frustrate the strategy through legal means, our plan of action should be to show its incapacity to work on the streets. We saw a minor glimpse of this on Wednesday 24 November when police attempted to kettle, sending thousands of demonstrators running in sporadic directions, indirectly creating dozens of anarchic snake marches in central London. These splinter groups may have challenged the aesthetic of the single mob-demonstrations we are used to seeing, but their uncontainability is a real threat to ketling. Perhaps then Herbert’s comments should not be a ‘warning’ to those planning on turning up to the day of action on 9 December, but rather an incitement to creative approaches in rendering kettling an ineffective police tactic.

upping the anti article

what started out as a blog post here, ended up as a full length article in the canadian journal "upping the anti". you can czech it out, along with a bunch of other fab articles, interviews, and letters, here.

while you're at it, why not subscribe to the journal?

getting back in shape

this happens every few years it seems. i have a posting-frenzy and then slowly let my blog die a slow sad death all by its lonesome, only to return to revive it approx. 12 months later. well, here we go again.

in effort to kick start this 2011 revival, im posting some of the things that i've been writing for other blogs, journals, etc...

on defending raw nerve books or white racial solidarity building

on 7 september 2009 raw nerve books announced that the edited collection "Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality" (2008) was out of print alongside a correction and apology to infamous white gay activist peter tatchell. tatchell, for those who dont know, has long been criticized by queer activists of colour and other anti-islamophobic individuals and communities for his liberal human rights discourse which continually demonizes islamic values and practices. for a quick peek go to www.islamophobia-watch.com and search 'tatchell.' in short, tatchell has warned against "...the muslims'...grand plan to promote fundamentalist Islam in Britain. The Islamists want to undermine liberal humanitarian values, which they see as corrupt and decadent". of course tatchell will be the first to point out that he qualifies his claim by asserting that, "Not all Muslims support fundamentalism. Many share our human rights agenda" (www.petertatchell.net).

according to tatchell, muslims - both "fundamentalist" and "moderate" - need to be ushered into the enlightened place of western liberal values. tatchell propagates and extends imperialist islamophobic groundwork by constructing islam as an unchanging, monolithic, homophobic, sexist, and distinctly barbaric worldview. for tatchell, discrimination is inherent to muslim ontology. as a result, muslims are hopelessly backward and need the saving hand of a gay white human rights activist to show them the way towards freedom offered through united nations charters and annual pride parades.

but tatchell is not my point of focus here.

raw nerve books describe themselves as "...an independent, not-for-profit feminist press publishing controversial, under-represented and experimental work." they published the book and then issued it "out of print" after tatchell cried wolf over content in one of the chapters which characterised him as islamophobic. in an apology that could only have been written by tatchell, raw nerve disgustingly retracts such allegations (made by the authors) and then re-frames tatchell as distinctly anti-racist, listing a smattering of work he has done in "africa" (ignoring the 'public statement of warning' written by african lgbti human rights defenders about working with tatchell) and with anti-fascist groups in the uk. might i just say, great "anti-racist" work there tatchell, actively silencing queers of colour who dare challenge your politics.

some have claimed that raw nerve was in a tricky position because of the potential threat of possible legal action* which, if they had had to fight, could have cost them the press itself due to their meager economic positioning. this argument supports raw nerve's decision as a strategic way of ensuring the longevity of other alternative publications that the press will continue to print long after this whole "nasty" affair has blown over. as a result, what we see here is not the "publication of controversial work" but the publication of work that is distinctly not controversial - work that fits the mold of the established white liberal feminist and queer movements. moreover, this is not just the come-to-be-expected institutionalized publication scheme that continually publishes largely white middle class feminist academics. raw nerve actively hung these authors out to dry. and unfortunately for those hoping this will all just go away, this episode stands as a poignant analogy for the close relationship between racism and contemporary queer and feminist politics. dissenting voices of queers of colour are silenced for what is always characterized as the "larger" goals of the "movement". the argument that defends raw nerve books in their decision is part and parcel of a technique of white racial solidarity building.

i started writing this post with the view to discuss the importance of publishers who understand the significance of standing by their authors and of feminist and/or 'alternative' independent publishing for the dissemination of critical dissent. raw nerve claims to operate on these principals but buckled when push came to shove. of course, some may say that we shouldnt expect institutionalized publishers to be anything other than a state apparatus, bowing down to the threat of legal action or monetary pressure in the service of state-endorsed dissent (aka tatchell's liberal human rights discourse). but if we believe in "asking questions that might indeed touch a 'raw nerve'" - which might include challenging white racial solidarity building practices of queer and feminist movements - we must demand it to be so.

for a great response to the censorship, read xtalk's statement.

* tatchell has publicly claimed that he did not threaten raw nerve with libel but merely "objected" to the contents of the chapter in question. the possibility of legal action was purely speculation on these commentators' parts.

harper's doing good work these days

on september 26, 2009, canadian prime minister steve-o harpsies announced to the rest of the suits at the g20 conference in pittsburg, and the AFP who were listening at the door, that canada has "no history of colonialism". he continued, "we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them" (Calgary Herald, 26 Sept 09).

as you can imagine, this has resulted in a few polite letters to the editors of history, penned by folks who would like to diplomatically draw monsieur harper's attention to the few hundred years or so of complex, overlapping, violent, and - significantly - ongoing, colonial history that really is quite quintessentially 'canadian'. but i say, don't censor the poor man - let him speak!

no, this is not a libertarian defense of freedom of speech, bemoaning the waning of individual liberties in the name of political correctness. i stand by the fumbling national mascot for different reasons.

harper's blatant disregard for history and especially for diplomatic relations between communities and individuals who call for institutional attenuation of the legacies (including the ongoing project) of colonialism, exposes the gap between capitalist liberal-democratic promises of good governance and "justice". his outrageousness is a potential catalyst, of which we could use many, in galvanizing a public - or at least a portion of the public - into thinking seriously about the limits of our current social and political organization. maybe his shocking lack of self-awareness and outright denial of history, will drive people into revolt. perhaps communities and individuals will decide they've had enough and dismantle themselves from the current civic terrain, bringing the nation state crashing down with it!

of course, i am giving little stephen jo-jo too much credit. people have been organizing their own social and political communities for a long time now. indeed, they have long-since given up on their faith in those of monarchical lineage and their respective promises. however, i make this point here because as many of us interweb-addicted info-sharers get our little html panties in a knot about harper, we miss out on pointing out that his words have stirred up more discussion about colonialism in canada than we can say about our do-gooding friends (myself included) at say, softer nationalist institutions like the cbc. critiques of harper's outlandishness have a latent republicanism undergirding them that i want to be suspicious of - what exactly are we whining about? would we like him to have a better speech writer so he can poetically avoid mentioning the little blip of bloody violence that is the foundation of the canadian nation-state?

let's face it, harps, or whoever is wearing the crown for the day, is never going to be able to address the history and ongoing project of colonialism outside of a language of liberal-democratic state-talk. so isnt it better that what he does say garners it a little more attention than whatever status-quo settler speak we've come to expect from the state and its colonial apparatuses?