Tag Archives: Paris


What I will talk about mainly is the recent events and what they mean for the struggle against racism. The attack in Paris was, particularly for Dutch anti-racist activists, a quite bizarre experience. I was very active in the Dutch anti-racist movement when [?1:05] came up firstly after 9/11 in 2001 and then Theo Van Gogh was killed two years later. Watching Paris was like being thrown back 10 years, with some similarities and differences that I want to going into because I think they are important for our analysis in how we deal with the current form of Islamophobia and how we understand also how it changed.

charlie-hebdo-2What is interesting is, everything you hear about Paris, similarly what we heard about Van Gogh in the Netherlands, is that it’s very unique and that it’s “unprecedented” and “historical.” All the news framings are giving us the idea that this is a historic phenomena. The only reason why it’s unique is the sense that terrible things happen in the world but they happen in the periphery, or they are proxy wars elsewhere, in which Europe or the West is involved, but they don’t happen in the centre. This is the “unique” element used in framing this as a “shocking” event. For those of us who know people in other parts of the world, who are in solidarity with other struggles, it doesn’t quite feel that way. Of course it’s unique for other reasons but we sort of have an ability to internationalise and frame these events in a different light. But an identical narrative was given when [?3:06] was killed: it was the first political assassination in 300 years in the Netherlands.

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Thousands of these posters were stuck on walls and phoneboxes around Paris. Via:

At the SWP party council on June 2nd, a few of the speakers talked about the weakness of antifascism in France, evidenced by the relative freedom that the Front Nationale have to march around and by the huge right-wing protests against the recent same-sex marriage victory. This serves as an answer to the argument against the stupid idea that if we don’t counter-protest, the EDL etc. will expose themselves as ridiculous. I was in Paris the past weekend and on Sunday, a huge antifascist and anti-capitalist rally marched against the FN and Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, and in memory of the murder of left-wing activist Clement Meric. This should leave anti-racists around the world feeling more optimistic about the role of France while bearing in mind the work they have ahead. The anti-immigrant FN typically achieves 10% or higher in elections and polling. They are not considered extreme by most: after being treated respectfully but moderate parties, their views are merely viewed as a part of valuable discourse. Anti-fascism in France is further complicated by the excessive presence of armed police and military at peaceful protests, and use of police brutality. Among the protesters was the Front de Gauche with their various groups, the Communist Student Union, Venezuela supporters, LGBT campaigners, and some anarchists and syndicalists with their ambiguous flags. It was great to hear L’Internationale sung in full in its original language, but the lack of trade union banners seemed odd.

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