Islamiphobia, miss-directed anger and the borders that need closing.

The following is a collection of more or less collected thoughts

I am deeply disturbed that the Tories perceive that an islamaphobic attack on Sadiq Khan is a winning strategy in London. In the London I know it will back fire. But there are many Londons.

The strategy seems to have even unified Boris and Cameron.

It is a politics of fear and we deserve a politics of hope.

Whizzing round my twitter feed is the question #whereisthetaxzac?

Creeping into my Facebook page from a number of unexpected corners is 'close the borders'!

Lets pause for a moment of reflection on the monarchs 90th Birthday.

Which group of people by their actions restrict your access to resources, increase and guard their own, drive up the house prices where you live so you are forced to move, contribute little and take much? hand that wealth down to their children who they keep separate and away from everyone else, who do not integrate, don't ride the bus or use local schools? you get where I am going right?

It's cliche but when you point the finger there are four pointing right back at you. Not only have many Tory MP's including Zac Goldsmith shared a platform with the Imam Khan is meant to be ashamed to associate with but a succession of British politicians and our dear monarchy have some very worrying relationships with the powers in Saudi Arabia. 

The problem is not where the fingers point but where they eyes look. Upper class white man points we dutifully follow the finger. Anyone who is not a ruling white man pointing at a ruling white man and our eyes follow the 4 fingers pointing backwards.

Vote Sadiq Khan because London deserves a politics of Hope. We are losing our homes, our schools are being taken away from our local control, our communities are being torn apart and our city will end up desolate and absolutely NOT because of the 'them' we our so afraid of but because of the them who have lived among us for millenia.

I was out canvasing once and we knocked on a woman's door she lived in a house at the edge of a council estate opposite her were some very posh islington houses at a guess 5 - 7 big bedrooms. She assured us she was a life long labour supporter. She was very angry that her daughter could not get a house in islington. the direction of her anger - the woman living next door recently arrived in the country with her children all sleeping 9 to a room. Lift your eyes over the road- there is your reason islington residents can't get islington houses, there are the people who have fundamentally changed the nature of islington and there are the people with spare rooms.

Yes the people over the road may use language in a way that is similar to you, and cook food that you can name and recognize but you sit down at the table with each of these neighbours and you will find you have more common concern with the one next door than the one over the road. That is why the media spend so much time telling you to hate your neighbor, because by the way the media is owned by the people over the road as well. Though they don't want you in there house, they are just trying to make sure you don't notice that they took it from the common good for their personal gain.

My grandparents met in a chaple where they went to worship in their native language, my children are now 4th generation Londoners. That language and culture have in the past been silenced and attacked by the policies and legislation of English governments. (The language is welsh). But London being London provided a community and home. The chaple where they met is now an Ethiopian Chaple. That is my London, that's the london I want to live in.

The Queen who I understand to be very popular is the head of state for 16 different countries (and thats not counting the gaelic nations separately). So before we shout shut our borders can we just consider our historic respect, or lack thereof, of borders?

There are however some borders I would suggest we shut down. Shut down the borders to Non-Dom's if they don't live here they don't live here. Shut the borders to offshore accounts. Shut down Islamophobia, Misogyny, racism. Shut down Capitalism (okay now I've lost half of you!)

Salaam Shalom Peace Heddwch

Why are we teaching children to be fascist?

I had a conversation with my three year old recently that went something like this:

Her: Let's build a castle.

Me: OK

Her: you build it and I do this

She starts to pretend to preen herself in an imaginary mirror. I pile up six pillows 

Her: Do I look pretty mummy?

Me: I think you are pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. You going to climb up?

She eagerly clambers atop the pile

Her: You need to climb my hair cause I can't get down 

Me: Why can't you climb down? 

Her: You need to climb up my hair though.

Me: But that would hurt you, don't you think. I reckon you are clever enough to climb down on your own. 

She climbs down looking pleased with herself

Me: Well done. See you can do it.

Her: Now you be stuck in the tower and I climb up your hair.

Me: But that would hurt if you climbed up my hair.

Her (Stroking my hair) : But it's ok now it's yellow.

Me: Come on let's both climb up

Silliness ensued.

I moved on from the yellow comment because it threw me so much. I would love to know where my daughter picked up in so much detail the story of Rapunzel. I was very glad to have the opportunity to present an alternative reading of the story and as she get's older I'll continue to offer a critique.

But it saddened my soul that we are clearly teaching fascism to three year olds. My three year old thinks it is preferable to have blond hair. Just reflect upon that. Can we please stop telling children these horrific tales of violence and prejudice.

Not a Princess

My daughter (2&1/2) announced yesterday that she was a princess. This was inevitable, but I had not thought it would come so soon. I informed her that she was not and reminded her of her name. She then started singing the wheels on the bus, life moves on fast at 2. But it did make me think I need to pre think some strategies for tackling this one as it continually raises its head over the next few years. 

The timing of this comment was interesting since there is also another child born recently who will not be a princess but will most probably, though finally getting a republic is always a possibility, become a prince. I have to say that along with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett I also feel a slight sense of relief that the royal baby is male and will not have to suffer being a princess.

Anyway in search of advice I went to twitter, and while I received some excellent suggestions much was about how to re-define or reshape what a princess is. I'm not sure I want to. I think I'd rather make being a princess an unattractive option. Also I don't want to lie to my daughter. I am not royal so she will never be a princess. I could say that princess can run around, climb trees, wear trousers, but they can't. Kate cannot wear what she wants, say what she wants, eat what she wants, yesterdays revolting issue of OK proves that. 

Also there is the danger of simply replacing one stereotype with another. I don't know if my daughter will enjoy climbing trees yet and I don't want her confronted with the options of pink princess or 'tom boy' princess. I'd rather she could just be her in any combination of interests and abilities she enjoys. 

It is not just the gender stereotyping of princess that I find so difficult but also the inherent hierarchy we cannot all be princess. As much as I love Brave and watch it with my little one repeatedly I'd much rather it ended with the king abdicating and setting up a democratic co-operative community. 

There is too much, competition, I'm the best, look at me, in children's media and for girls princess seems to be the ultimate expression of that. Princess also teaches our daughters to place the highest value in their appearance to the exclusion of other attributes. And not their appearance for their own enjoyment creativity or self expression, their appearance as measured by how sexually attractive they are to adult men. Which is why I would rather expose princess for what they really are (slowly and in an age appropriate way) than redefine princess as something a little more diverse. 

It's going to be hard work.

My tuppence on intersectionality

Don't bother reading this blog read this and definitely this oh and this oh and this is about why Christianity needs to be intersectional.

I just have two things to say about intersectionality, which I can't spell and to a certain degree don't understand.

1.) I am so grateful for the concept of intersectionality because as a privately educated, white, middle class oxbridge educated woman, who has never experienced violence at the hands of a man I have to honestly say that a lot of times the sort oppression I read about in feminist literature I have no experience of. I am still passionate about feminism. Intersectionality gives me the ability to say - yes I experience oppression as a woman - but I also experience huge levels of privilege, unfair privilege. I don't want to spread my privalege I want to understand how to give it up. How do I change the way I live so that the accident of my birth is no longer oppressive to others. I cannot look to people like me to give me answers.

I'm currently reading 'In Search of Our Mothers Gardens' by Alice Walker. I picked it up at a second hand bookshop cause it looked interesting not because I felt the need to read it (my privilege). What I didn't expect was to find it so emotional a read or so revolutionary. I expected it to be well written and interesting. I didn't expect it to explain to me what it means to be white. The truth is I don't think a white woman could write a book about what it means to be white. Privilege is blind (or often chooses to be). We must not reject criticism of those with less privilege we desperately need to seek it out if we our to find true humanity.

2.) It is nonsense to say that only 'academic' people can understand intersectionality. We all come acros new words all the time. First time I read it I hadn't heard it so I looked it up witch does not take an MA in gender studies. 

I ran a participative workshop recently with some of the most marginalised women in the country. I wanted to explore intersectionality with them as I wanted their perspective - they got it 100% and taught me loads and loads. The workshop wasn't really about explaining intersectionality of oppressions - they understood that in a way no MA or doctorate could ever teach. What it did do was give the problem a name and last time I checked that was a big part of what feminism was about - naming things. 

We mustn't shy away from new words, we should be the ones creating them. 

Privilege blindness is a choice

It is not uncommon for me to get very upset about a policy announcement, action or inaction from the current government. In fact I am starting to feel quiet depressed at the current situation to the point of spending large amounts of my day shouting or wanting to cry.

But today something happened that was so revolting it made even my mild mannered, peaceful husband shout 'what?'  and declare that he was very upset. I am referring of course to the announcement that housing benefit might be withdrawn from those under 25.

I'll be honest I've not read beyond the headlines, I can't bring myself too, I may end up in a quivering wreck on the floor. What upsets me most is that the political classes cannot pretend not to understand what they are doing.

I had an incredibly privileged upbringing, I've done the boarding school thing, I've done the Oxbridge thing, I've done the live at home at 22 thing. I understand that my life experience is not everyone's, I also understand that my life experience is grossly unfair. I choose not to let my privilege blind me. There may be many many things that my privilege makes it hard for me to understand, I am sure I have attitudes and prejudices that are just plain wrong and need changing and challenging, but God blessed me with two ears and I, to the best of my ability, choose to use them to understand the world.

David Cameron studied PPE. He must have been presented with a range of political theories so he has had alternative world views to choose from. He must know it is a possibility that young people on housing benefit are not mealy lazy scroungers.

And all this in the name of austerity. This is where the political classes  are really choosing to remain privilege blind. Spouting off rhetoric about austerity while none of them have to worry about what there children will eat tomorrow, whether they will be able to afford school shoes, how to pay the gas bill and resist the temptation to bye a wide screen TV on credit to paper over the wounds of poverty inflicted on them. They do not know what austerity means yet they use the word like it is everyone else who does not understand.

What struck me recently is that there is not actually less stuff, there's been no harvest failure, no mass loss of crops or livestock (not in uk at least) nothing real has changed since 2008, just economics and politics, just a change in hot air. There is more than enough to go round. The wealth of the richest thousand people in Britian has increased by £30bn more than the deficit and most of them pay significantly less tax as a proportion than the rest of us (with the exception of Dyson and Rowling).

It's all so very very wrong. And Mr. Milliband - I am very upset with you. Here's an idea; how about rather than joining the 'the Eastern Europeans are stealing British jobs' rhetoric you could point out that if we insisted on paying a living wage the 'competition' would disappear and workers would realise that they stood in solidarity with each other wherever they where from and that the real opponent was the powerful. If it is true (and I doubt it) that British workers are losing out on jobs because others will work for less, in worse conditions, then yes we could sort that by preventing people 'coming in' or we could not let employers exploit them then they would have no vested interest in employing them instead of those who have the power not to tolerate abuse. This should be pretty obvious you are called Labour for a reason.

We have not seen levels of inequality like the current ones since Dickensian days. Yes the levels of absolute poverty may be slightly different but inequalitie is huge and is the major problem not the deficit.

So to all politicians I would like to wake up tomorrow and not have to apologise to my daughter for the world she is going to grow up in. Just for a day could you chose to see the world through someone else's eyes. 

Porn 2: Why men should be mad

So I wanted to call this post Feminists: a man's best friend, but someone pointed out to me that it could well be read to infer women are dog's which wouldn't be great!. But I just wanted to share with you a couple of things that were said at this amazing conference I was at that have got me thinking.

"Men, feminists are your best friends. We're the ones who don't think your born rapists, we're the ones who don't think you're born murderers. We're the ones who think your fully human."

I know a lot of men who don't feel like this, they feel that feminists hate them, are man eaters, want to castrate them and lock them up. Feminism is a broad group but from my experience this could not be further from the truth, we are talking about a group of people actively opposing violence and de-humanisation it would be a little hypocritical to want to do that to men. The problem lies I think in the fact that mostly there is little conversation between men in general and feminist discourse and what does happen is mediated by the press so that what people fear when they hear 'feminist' (and I have huge numbers of female friends who run from that label) is not feminism but a phantom created by the powers that be because actually they don't want men to realise what feminism is actually saying.

Why? because Patriarchy though it privileges all men all of the time it benefits some men some of the time and harms most men most of the time. Patriarchy is just hierarchy where only men get to be at the top, and only one type of man at that.

The second thing that was said that I wanted to share was this:

"Feminists are the ones who don't think your a life support machine for your penis"

That's what the porn industry thinks of you, it thinks you are a life support machine for your penis and your wallet, and it capitalises on that dark side of all of us that is capable and able to oppress.

It's time to get mad at how the porn industry manipulates and de-humanises you whatever your gender. This is the other thing you should know feminists don't want men to feel rubbish about being a man, we want you to feel good about it, we want you to get mad with us, mad at the dehumanising forces that squeeze us all into little boxes, so that,  in our current context, they can squeeze money out of us.

Men if your mad here's a couple of place you can go:  http://www.antipornmen.org/
http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/

Free Speech

One of the things I have been in turmoil about recently is what I think of free speech. I haven't come to an answer, but here are my rambling thoughts.


As an undergraduate a certain debating union invited Jean Marie La Pen to speak. There was outcry about this, opinions, anger and long words I didn't understand were thrown around. The repeated argument for, was that free speech was important. I couldn't help feeling that inviting someone to speak was slightly different to allowing people to say what they wanted. The other argument sited was that he would get torn apart by the audience, with overtones of 'Where else will he get so well scrutinised?'. Which I had a suspicion at the time and am now certain is just a touch arrogant.  


I couldn't quiet make up my mind what I felt, which is not something I felt I could admit (proving that speech isn't free!) as your meant to know everything when your 19 and headed off not sure whether I would go in or stand outside with the protesters. In the end I got there late so the decision was made for me, doors were closed and I was stuck with protesters, engaged in heated debate with other late students. I was repeatedly given a socialist workers party paper, asked to pay 50p, explained I had no money on me and gave paper back. This honestly happened about 3 times in a row. Was told by a woman wearing an anarchist bag that people who didn't believe in democracy shouldn't be allowed to engage in political debate and overall came away no more clear. 


It sounded from reports like it had been a bit of a farce inside with the translator clearly miss-translating and getting very angry when students replied in French. 


My thoughts about what extent we should allow free speech went on the back burner till last year and the whole ridiculous Terry Jones Koran burning thing. Watching the Americans with their hands tied unable to act because of an absolute commitment to free speech made me quiet glad to be European and have curbs on 'free speech'. 

But whether or not people are officially free to say what they like, speech is very very rarely free. The guardians 'comment is free' thing is not really true, it's a nice prophetic statement a hope of what could be but really we are very rarely free to say what we want, there are so many ways discourses are silenced. Inviting Strauss-Khan to the above mentioned institution may "provide a neutral platform for free speech" but what does it do for free speech on other platforms, what does it do for free true real narrative, how does it help people take back control of their own stories? How does it help us hear those stories that are true? 

The thing is you can talk but your speech is only free if its given permission to fly, to transform the world with all the power you gave it, much that is spoken is not free it is silenced, squashed, entrapped, belittled, mocked. And typically the powerful tend to be the ones with the power to determine which speech is freed and re-freed and repeated ad-nauseam so that no one can remember when it wasn't 'true' and it is the disempowered who's shouts become whispers by the ever squashing of the controllers of truth.  

If the Cambridge Union want to really 'provide a neutral platform for free speech' then they need to put a lot more effort into making their platform neutral and free.

I was incredibly moved by these honest and real words (link bellow, blog entry carries trigger warnings), that in no way were free they cost many people much to give but they gave them to the world, they gave them for free. Lets keep this speech free, don't let them silence and imprison this:   http://feministactioncambridge.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/i-am-still-shaking/comment-page-1/