1.) Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is Iraq 2003
Alexander, of The Ruh of Brown Folks, writes an excellent rebuttal to Juan Cole’s claims that the recent western imperialist invasion of Libya is “different” than the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Alexander points out the following:
The same Libyan people that rose up against Qaddafi also railed against foreign intervention. Those that did call for a no-fly zone did not call to be bombed, which is is happening now – and the US military admits it has trouble identifying civilians, which has led to some (like Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League) decrying the invasion for killing Libyan civilians. It’s disingenuous to conflate the popular movement against Qaddafi with a popular movement in support of the US/UN invasion. There were also Iraqis that supported the 2003 invasion, and Saddam was probably opposed by a majority of Iraqis, but the invasion itself was overwhelmingly unpopular.
2.) Decolonial Feminism & the Privilege of Solidarity
Houria Bouteldja, “the spokesperson for the political party organized by people of color in France called Les Indigenes de la Republique,” stresses on the importance of decolonizing feminism and speaks on the question of Islamic feminism.
How to legitimize Islamic feminism? For me, it legitimizes itself. It doesn’t have to pass a feminist exam. The simple fact that Muslim women have taken it up to demand their rights and their dignity is enough for it to be fully recognized. I know, as result of my intimate knowledge of women from the Maghreb and in the diaspora, that “the-submissive-woman” does not exist. She was invented. I know women that are dominated. Submissive ones are rarer!
3. Dr. Sunera Thobani: Multiculturalism displaces anti-racism, upholds white supremacy
Restructure! highlights on Dr. Sunera Thobani’s important talk on multiculturalism in Canada and how the mainstream discourse on multiculturalism has been very effective in silencing anti-racist politics:
Multiculturalism has allowed for certain communities – people of colour – to be constructed as cultural communities. Their culture is defined in very Orientalist and colonial ways – as static, they will always be that, they have always been that. Culture has now become the only space from which people of colour can actually have participation in national political life; it’s through this discourse of multiculturalism. And what it has done very successfully is it has displaced an a…nti-racist discourse.
And multiculturalism is the dominant discourse now through which all of us have to, are forced to, articulate our politics. And I think multiculturalism has, in that way, it’s done a big disservice. Because it has just silenced anti-racist discourse and anti-racist politics in this country, which now has been defined as an extreme kind of politics. And meanwhile, the deeply-embedded racial inequalities in Canadian society continue to be reproduced. And multiculturalism masks them, it glosses them over, and it has become a policy of governing and managing communities of colour, so that those politics only get articulated in the name of culture, and culture is defined in highly patriarchal terms.
4.The Absence of “Political Correctness”
Amy, of Daughter of Guidance, writes a fantastic piece on why the term “political correctness” needs to be eliminated from our vocabulary. The term is just a pathetic attempt to legitimize racism and bigotry!
Now, verbal attacks on Muslims have become commonplace in today’s political discourse, but the effect of bigotry disguised as truth has spread. Take, for example, the video posted by UCLA student Alexandra Wallace in which she criticizes …the ‘manners’ of her peers (specifically, Asian students in the library.) She starts her rant by saying ‘So we know that I’m not the most politically correct person so don’t take this offensively.’ In other words, she admits that she’s about to be very offensive but defends herself by saying she’s just not politically correct. As if that’s a legitimate excuse. And shouldn’t it be? After all, that’s what so many politicians are doing when they attack Muslims, blacks, or poor people.
