CANADA

Hundreds rally outside Indian consulate in solidarity with protesting farmers

© Talia Ricci/CBC Demonstrators hold signs in solidarity with farmers in India, who say new agriculture laws will slash their crop prices and result in their exploitation.

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Indian consulate in downtown Toronto on Saturday to show their support for farmers in India who are protesting new laws they say will destroy their livelihoods.

Those who organized at the consulate are Canadians in the Sikh community who say the farmers work tirelessly to feed India and the world — and that the farmers need support now more than ever as their right to peacefully protest has been blocked by police who've used methods like tear gas, batons and water cannons against them.

"Our farmers are the backbone of our nation. This issue has hit close to home ... their lives matter to us, " protester Mansi Kaur said over the sound of dozens of car horns sounding off at the rally.

Kaur gathered with hundreds of others who were wearing masks and holding signs in support of the farmers, with slogans like "Justice for Farmers" and "No Farmers, No Food." Others remained in their cars at the demonstration.

She said she was there with others to protest three new laws in India that they say will see crop prices slashed and farmers exploited by large corporations.

Thousands of farmers in India have been camping out on the outskirts of the capital for the past 10 days until the new agriculture laws are withdrawn. They are heading towards New Delhi as they continue their calls.

Farmers had also been protesting the laws for nearly two months in Punjab and Haryana states.

India's government failed to break a deadlock with farmers on Saturday and will meet again on Wednesday, the agriculture minister and union leaders said.

Farmers have long been considered the heart and soul of India, where agriculture supports more than half of the country's 1.3 billion people, but the farmers have also seen their economic clout diminish over the last three decades.

The Indian government said the purpose of the legislation is to bring reform that will allow farmers to market their produce and boost production through private investment.

© Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

Farmers have been camping along at least five major highways on the outskirts of the India's capital and have said they won't leave until the government rolls back new agricultural laws.

Farmers fear the legislation will eventually dismantle India's regulated markets and stop the government from buying wheat and rice at guaranteed prices, leaving them to negotiate with private buyers. The are calling for the government to repeal the laws and retain mandatory government purchases, among other demands.

"It would be like if we went to work, and there was no longer a minimum wage," said Nanki Kaur, who was also at the rally in Toronto. "They feed us. It's up to us to stand up for them."
Solidarity from the Sikh diaspora in Canada

Jaskaran Sandhu, director of administration at the World Sikh Organization of Canada, said the protests happening in India are "historic" and images from the protests have deeply affected those in the Sikh disapora in Canada.

"For all of us here, we have family and friends back home. So when we watch the images of police brutality, when we watch the images and the videos from on the ground of water cannons and tear gasses and charges from the police with sticks, it really hurts us," he said.

But Sandhu said it's also been inspiring to see the perseverance of the farmers who are continuing to assert their right to peacefully protest, despite the actions from police.

© Michael Charles Cole/CBC 

Supporters hold a sign that reads 'No Farmers, No Food' outside the Indian consulate in Toronto.

Sandhu added that many of those at the Toronto rally have family that are at the protests in India, including seniors, which has made the situation scary to watch from afar.

"As Canadians, as Sikhs and Punjabis living here in the diaspora, we want to ensure that our people are safe and the right to peaceful protest is protected," Sandhu said, adding that those in the community across Canada are having these same conversations in their households.

Car rallies have also been organized in cities like Vancouver and Ottawa to show solidarity, Sandhu said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's comments earlier this week that called the Indian government's response to protesters "concerning" was a large help as well, he said.

Those comments led to a swift reaction from officials in India who said the Trudeau was "ill-informed." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers have also framed the farmers as "anti-national"— a term the government has long used against its critics.

"We need folks to stand up and speak out so the Indian government knows they're being watched," Sandhu said.
Blankets, menstruation kits among supplies sent by fundraising group

Along with rallying, Sikh communities in Canada have been supporting the protesters in India by sending them supplies to continue their efforts, said Gurpartap Singh Toor, a volunteer with Khalsa Aid Canada.

"There's been an overwhelming amount of support," he said.

© Michael Charles Cole/CBC 

'This issue has hit close to home ... their lives matter to us,' one demonstrator in Toronto said.

The fundraising group is focusing on bolstering the health and safety of the demonstrating farmers, Toor said. Khalsa Aid Canada has sent fire extinguishers — as the farmers are cooking on the ground as they camp out — as well as devices to spray down the campsites to prevent mosquito bites that can sometimes cause illnesses.

Toor said menstruation kits have also been sent due to an "unprecedented" number of women at the protests, along with portable washrooms to provide safe and private spaces for women to use the bathroom. The cold weather at night has also been an issue, so Toor said the organization has sent blankets and shelters for the farmers, particularly for the seniors who are protesting.

"I would say a lot of people from Canada have family that are at the protests right now ... safety is the biggest concern," he said, adding that the fear of continued police violence remains high.

Toor said the farmers have asked him and others to create as much public awareness about the issue as possible. "It brings a lot of global eyes on India, so the government knows if they act with a bad intent, then the world is watching," he said.

Arab Spring: How the West missed a date with history

Ten years ago, as protests flared across the Arab world, Western governments failed to meet a date with destiny and help nurture dreams of democracy, missing an unprecedented chance to shape real reform.

© ODD ANDERSEN As protests flared across the Arab world, Western nations failed to seize the moment to support the cries for freedom

History will not judge them kindly, said about 20 Western officials, activists and analysts, who talked to AFP on the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring.

"This was a lost opportunity for the Middle East to modernise and take the first steps on the road to freedom and democracy," said Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former leading figure of the Egyptian opposition, Mohamed ElBaradei.

© Bertrand GUAY

 French former foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie (R) with her Tunisian counterpart Ahmed Abderraouf Ounais

"The West opted to be a silent observer rather than an active supporter... This did not help the Arab Spring."

On December 17, 2010 an impoverished Tunisian street vendor unwittingly ignited a chain of uprisings which ricocheted across the region, leaving upheaval and chaos in their wake.

© Mahmud Hams Former leading figure of the Egyptian opposition and ex-head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei (C) joins protests in Cairo's Tahrir square

Brought down by grinding poverty and petty police harassment, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and so lit the touch paper of simmering anger at decades of autocratic leadership in Tunisia.

The Tunisian protests swept like a contagion, ultimately toppling several of the region's iron-fisted rulers in a generational geo-political earthquake.

But, caught by surprise, Western nations such as the United States and France failed to seize the moment to support the cries for freedom.

ElBaradei, who had returned to Egypt in 2010 after many years at the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), voiced bitter regret at the lack of planning from the international community.

© LOUAI BESHARA Arms were funneled to opposition groups in Syria but not a coveted anti-aircraft system

"We knew what we did not want, but we did not have time to even discuss what the day after should look like. We were in kindergarten, but had to move to university," he told AFP.

© Brendan SMIALOWSKI On her July 2012 visit to Egypt, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's hotel in Cairo was besieged by protesters

"We did not have the tools nor the institutions," said the former top diplomat, who has repeatedly denied accusations that he was little more than a puppet of the West.

"You can't just jump from 60 years of  authoritarianism into a full-fledged democracy," he argued

.

© MOHAMMED ABED Experts suggest the West was blind to what was happening as uprisings spread through the Middle East and North Africa and lacked courage to seize the initiative

"The absence of a balanced vision and a long-term policy (from the West) has come back to haunt us."

© KHALED DESOUKI Several of the region's iron-fisted rulers were toppled, including Libya's Moamer Kadhafi (L)

- Manipulation fears -

But it was not through want of trying on the part of some.

Even before the Arab Spring, a host of international non-governmental organisations and semi-official associations had set up in the region in a bid to help nurture a desire for democracy.

© Gillian HANDYSIDE The rulers of the Arab Spring countries, their terms in power and what happened to them

NGOs such as the US organisations Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute found themselves rubbing shoulders on the ground along with German foundations.

Funded partly through public finances, with agendas often coloured by political platforms, they tried to teach the ways of peaceful activism, from the use of social networks to dreaming up slogans which would capture the imagination of the crowds.

© Delil SOULEIMAN More than 380,000 have now died in Syria's conflict and much of the country lies in ruins

Such moves did not go down well with the dictators in power.

In late 2011, some 43 local and international staff working for NGOs were accused by Egyptian authorities of interference in domestic affairs. The foreigners, mostly Americans, were expelled, while the local staff were jailed.

© FETHI BELAID Only Tunisia has emerged from the Arab Spring with a fragile democracy

When the then US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, travelled to the Syrian rebel city of Hama in July 2011 in support of the protesters, they showered him with red roses.

But the visit enraged the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which accused Washington of being directly implicated in the events and trying to increase tensions which "damage Syria's security and stability."

Observers doubt however that foreign governments had a direct hand in fomenting the protests.

"If they are to succeed, such battles have to come from within. The vision, the leadership, the numbers, the ideas have to be national," said Srdja Popovic, co-founder of the Serbian organisation Canvas, which supports pro-democracy movements.

Researcher Stephane Lacroix, from the Paris Institute of Political Studies, also dismissed the foreign conspiracy theory.

"Those who see imperialism everywhere fail to believe that individuals are capable of organising themselves because they have had enough," he said.

Experts appear united in their assessment that the West was blind to what was happening, and lacked courage to seize the initiative.

"They took several months to think about it, and then very quickly closed the door on this experience of democratic change," said Nadim Houry, from the Paris-based think tank Arab Reform Initiative.

"In 2012 to 2013, we saw them return with a vision based purely on regional security."

- Tunisia -

In the long, difficult months of 2011, each country was to go through its own particular tumult.

In Tunisia, former colonial power France failed to step up in support of the protesters as anger against long-time autocratic leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali grew.

Then foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie resigned in February 2011, only weeks after offering Paris's help in resolving Tunisia's "security situation", which by then had already cost 35 lives, according to NGOs.

She was also lambasted for holidaying in Tunisia at the end of 2010 despite the protests.

The French foreign ministry "was perfectly aware of the fragility of the Tunisian system," said Francois Nicoullaud, former French ambassador to Tehran.

But government decision-makers, lulled by cosy ties with Tunis, "refused to listen to them (the French foreign ministry)".

Paris had also long ignored opposition leaders in exile, believing Ben Ali's rule was set in stone.

"We thought these dictatorships would go on forever. There was little point in talking to the opposition, which was not taken seriously," said Lacroix.

Moncef Marzouki, the north African country's first democratically elected president who had spent time in Paris and was a leading member of the Tunisian human rights movement, was just not on French radars, he added.

As for the Islamist Ennahdha party, which won the first post-revolution elections, Paris sought to keep its distance from its leader Rached Ghannouchi.

When Ben Ali was forced to flee after 23 years in power -- the first of the region's long-time dictators to cede to pressure from the street -- France was left without any interlocutors in Tunisia.

- Egypt -

The next country to catch fire was Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak had been in power since 1981.

A close ally of the United States, it enjoyed some $1.3 billion a year in US military aid -- amounting to a staggering $58 billion since 1979, according to US think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The demonstrations which erupted in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011 captured the interest of the US administration of then president Barack Obama.

But his secretary of state Hillary Clinton remained sceptical, despite her history-making stroll through the square in March that year.

"She was not convinced," said Egyptian activist Sherif Mansour, then a member of the Freedom House group.

Clinton was concerned about reactions to the events among America's key Gulf partners, some of whom were wary both of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Washington dropping its longtime ally, Cairo, observers said.

Indeed, in June 2012 after Mubarak stepped down, the Brotherhood's candidate Mohammed Morsi became Egypt's first ever democratically elected president.

His election placed Washington in an awkward position -- the US administration had championed free and democratic elections, only to be confronted with an Islamist leader as the new president.

On the streets, Morsi's victory was immediately contested and the US accused of having helped the Islamists "steal the election" by not having opposed him, betraying the democratic hopes of the Egyptian people.

When Clinton visited Egypt again and met Morsi in July 2012, her hotel in Cairo was besieged by protesters, and demonstrators in Alexandria pelted her convoy with tomatoes and shoes.

Less than a year later, Morsi was ousted by the military led by then general Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi.

The move found support among the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as Sisi ordered a bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

But relations with the US were plunged into a war of semantics -- when is a coup not a coup?

Under US law, US military aid is automatically suspended if there has been a coup d'etat, so while Washington initially froze a portion of its aid, the Obama administration never went as far as to qualify the events in Egypt as a coup.

Even though Cairo failed to heed calls from the US to improve human rights, US aid to Egypt was restored in 2015, mainly because the Egyptian military had become a key ally in the fight against jihadist groups in the Sinai, whose rise had alarmed Israel.

"It was a time of turmoil," said Frank Wisner, Obama's special envoy to Egypt at the time, highlighting what he said was the Egyptians' overwhelming desire for stability and democracy.

"Could the United States have changed the fundamental shift in historical circumstances? I certainly believe we couldn't have. Could we have sent a different signal? Sure."

- Libya -

Next door in Libya, another drama was playing out after protests against long-time leader Moamer Kadhafi erupted in February 2011.

France pushed for an armed intervention in support of the demonstrators, and UN resolution 1973 agreed the use of force to protect civilians from the fierce regime backlash.

NATO-led air strikes began in March but went beyond the UN resolution, drawing criticism from Russia and China.

And as the conflict dragged on, it became clear how fragile the state's institutions had become under Kadhafi's autocratic rule.

For four decades, he had "governed without a state, leaning on the security apparatus and a system of tribes," said Lacroix.

"The country never had a political life, no parties, no civil society, no associations."

Kadhafi was eventually cornered while on the run and killed in October 2011.

But without its "brotherly leader and guide of the revolution" as Kadhafi had dubbed himself, the country was headless, allowing tribal rivalries to quickly flare up.

"What we hadn't seen sufficiently, was how much it would take... to rebuild the state," said former French president Francois Hollande, who was in the political opposition in Paris at the time.

There was a growing idea in Europe that "democracy can implant itself without the need to defend or nurture it," Hollande said.

Foreign governments should refrain "from imposing a political system... We should not be choosing the leaders. They are for the people to elect," he insisted.

- Syria -

And then into the mayhem, came Syria.

Protests erupted on March 15, 2011 against Assad, who took over in 2000 on the death of his father, Hafez, following almost 30 years in power.

But the demonstrations were soon met by a brutal regime crackdown.

"When we began the revolt, it was like we were walking through a dark forest," said Syrian activist Ibrahim al-Idlebi.

When the EU and the US "issued statements supporting us, and calling on the regime to refrain from the use of force against civilians, to us these felt like flashlights to follow."

Such support was like "a salvation," added Idlebi, who fled his home in northwestern Idlib and now lives in Turkey.

More than 380,000 have now died, much of Syria lies in ruins, and almost a decade later, Assad remains in place, having -- with the help of allies Russia and Iran -- recovered two-thirds of the territory he lost.

"There just wasn't a plan," said Idlebi, of the Western intervention. "A lot of money was being handed out to groups and people who just didn't know what to do with it."

Arms were also funnelled to opposition groups in Syria, but not a coveted anti-aircraft system which handed Assad's forces dominion in the skies.

The US administration refused opposition pleas to be allowed to protect themselves from bombs dropped from the air, fearing the weapons could be turned against Israel, or fall into the hands of jihadists.

In the end, Western aid failed to change the military balance, said Haid Haid, a senior researcher for the London-based think tank Chatham House.

"No Western power took measures that could actually make a difference on the ground. If they had eliminated Assad's air power, that would not just have tipped the military balance, but also saved the lives of tens of thousands of people," he said.

Divided and weakened, the political opposition was wracked by internecine quarrels and rapidly became consumed by radical Islamists.

"There was a disconnect between the activists and the armed groups. Building bridges between those people was a major focus of US diplomacy for many years. I don't think that was ultimately successful," admitted Alex Bick, Syria director at the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

Hollande, too, acknowledged failure, saying he warned his European allies of what was to come: "Refugees and terrorism. We have had both of them".

- Thin red line -

But the final death knell to Western influence in the region was when Obama drew back at the last minute from striking at Assad's regime for its use of chemical weapons against rebel areas.

In August 2012, Obama said any use of toxic arms by the Syrian army against civilians would be a "red line" and warned it "would change my calculus" about using US military force in the country.

In August 2013, a large-scale attack was launched on Ghouta, in the suburbs of Damascus. A declassified French intelligence assessment determined in early September that sarin gas had been unleashed on civilians. Activists put the reported death toll at about 1,000.

But despite Obama's earlier stand, no US air strike came until 2018 when his successor President Donald Trump joined forces with France and Britain after an alleged chemical weapons attack on the then rebel-held town of Douma.

"The United States never wanted to attack," said former Dutch diplomat to Iraq, Nikolaos Van Dam.

And setting a red line was always "a weak position," he argued.

"It suggests: you can use cluster bombs, barrel bombs, phosphorus, all kinds of weapons. But not chemical weapons. It is a kind of indirect permission, condoning the use of everything else."

Hollande argues that Obama, in the end, refused to take military action as he had made an election promise to withdraw American troops from conflicts in the Middle East and because European leaders, such as Britain and Germany, were against it.

"I had agreed an operation with him. The militaries were working on it, the diplomats were preparing to legitimise it at the UN Security Council. Everything was ready," said Hollande.

"The next day he said, 'I'm going to ask Congress to authorise it.' That's when I knew it was over."

With a sigh, the former French leader acknowledged: "It was a strategic error."

Seven years on, only Tunisia has emerged from the Arab Spring with a fragile democracy.

Sisi still rules over a repressive regime in Egypt, with newly-emboldened Assad still in power in Syria.

And after a decade of conflict, Libya has just agreed to hold elections in December 2021, but remains torn between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli and the forces of Kadhafi loyalist and strongman Khalifa Haftar in the east.

Paris-based expert Houry doesn't lay all the blame for today's outcome at the feet of Western countries, saying it was "not meant to end up this way".

"But in this huge failure and waste, this human tragedy, they failed to make their date with destiny."

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Firms reaping profits from Covid crisis should be taxed UK government told

Businesses that made fortunes selling PPE during the Covid-19 crisis should be taxed to fund a £500 bonus for frontline workers who are facing burnout, a thinktank has said.

“Pandemic profiteers”, including the online retailer Amazon which saw sales soar in lockdown, should pay a 0.5% sales levy, according to the RSA, which is warning that 49% of frontline staff think they will soon burn out, including 63% of NHS staff.

The thinktank’s suggestion of a “new deal” for key workers, including a £500 thank you bonus, extended sick pay and paying the real living wage, follows the lead of the US president-elect, Joe Biden, who has promised to give workers – from hospitals to supermarkets – an emergency pay boost. Last week, the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced £500 a head bonuses for Scotland’s 300,000 health and social care workers.

© Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

 Almost a quarter of NHS staff surveyed for the RSA report said burnout was ‘very likely’.

“It’s only right that those who’ve profited from the pandemic – including online sales giants like Amazon, and those selling PPE – should help support the heroes who’ve kept us safe and fed,” said Anthony Painter, chief research officer at the RSA.

“Our survey shows key workers feel deeply let down by the government, with its approval rating falling to just three points among key workers who voted Conservative in 2019. But they feel let down by the public too, with supermarket workers especially feeling unsupported.”

Some businesses have made substantial profits selling masks, gowns and other equipment to the government as prices rose, in some cases more than tenfold. Between February and July 2020, the government spent £12.5bn on 32bn items of PPE which, if bought at pre-pandemic prices would have cost just £2.5bn.

The owner of one Gloucestershire company, Platform-14, was reportedly able to buy a £1.5m house in the Cotswolds and two other properties with the profits from contracts worth £276m.

Alex Bourne, a former neighbour of Matt Hancock was awarded about £30m-worth of work making tubes for NHS Covid-19 tests despite having had no previous experience of producing medical supplies.

Amazon’s profits globally tripled to $6.3bn(£4.7bn) in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2019, thanks to the boom in online shopping during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, UK the chancellor, last month announced a public sector pay freeze, albeit with exceptions for NHS workers. The measure will hit council workers and some care workers.

A YouGov poll of key workers carried out early last month for the RSA report found 58% of social carers thought it was “likely” or “very likely” they would burn out this winter. Almost a quarter of NHS staff said burnout was “very likely”. Women were feeling the worst effects in terms of mental health: 67% said the pandemic had made maintaining their mental health more difficult, versus 47% of men.

“It is not right that our health and security during the pandemic is built on the backs of low-paid workers who themselves lack the same protection,” said Manny Hothi, director of policy at Trust for London, an anti-poverty charity which helped fund the research.

The RSA wants the government to commit to enforcing the real living wage for all key workers – currently £9.50 outside London and £10.85 in the capital. The thinktank said 37% of social carers earn less than the real living wage.

The RSA’s chief executive, Matthew Taylor, is the government’s acting director of labour market enforcement and advised Theresa May’s administration on reforming working practices for gig workers and millions of others in precarious jobs. He was not involved in writing the report.

Amazon and the British Chamber of Commerce declined to comment.

Family of children's author Roald Dahl apologise for anti-Semitic remarks

WHAT ABOUT HIS ANTI WITCH MISOGYNISTIC STEREOTYPE


LONDON (Reuters) - The family of Roald Dahl, late author of children’s classics such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, has apologised for anti-Semitic remarks he made, saying the comments were “incomprehensible to us”.

The British author, who died in 1990 aged 74, remains popular with young readers around the world and several of his books such as “The BFG”, “Matilda”, “Fantastic Mr Fox” and most recently “The Witches”, have been turned into movies and stage shows.

However, controversy has occasionally flared up over anti-Semitic comments, particularly those made in a 1983 interview with Britain’s New Statesman magazine.

“There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews,” he said, adding that “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason”.

In a statement on the official website of the organisations that manage his legacy, copyrights and trademarks and a museum dedicated to him, the Dahl family apologised for what they said was the lasting and understandable hurt his remarks had caused.

“Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations,” they said.

“We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”

The director Steven Spielberg was asked about Dahl’s anti-Semitic comments in 2016, when he was at the Cannes film festival promoting his adaptation of The BFG.


Spielberg said he had been unaware of the comments when he took on the project, adding the book was about embracing differences and that was the value he had sought to impart in telling the story.

Other high-profile adaptations of Dahl’s works have included two big-budget movie versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of Fantastic Mr Fox, and a stage musical version of Matilda that has been a hit in London and on Broadway.

A new movie version of Dahl’s The Witches, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch, was recently released on HBO Max by studio Warner Brothers.

Ronald Dahl's family and story company apologizes for the writer's past antisemitic comments

The family of Roald Dahl and the company that manages his copyrights and licenses issued an apology for antisemitic comments Dahl made across his lifetime.

© Ronald Dumont/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

 Dahl's family calls his antisemitic remarks hurtful, saying they "can help remind us of the lasting impact of words."

The famous writer who penned classics like "James and the Giant Peach," "Matilda," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" died in 1990 at the age of 76, but his family now wants to apologize on his behalf.

"The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologize for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl's statements," they said in a statement on Dahl's website.

"Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words."

Most of his comments were recorded by interviews including one in 1983, a year after Israel had invaded Lebanon, when he told the New Statesman:

"There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason."

He used the same situation for other antisemitic comments made in 1990 to the Independent.

His views have come back to haunt his legacy several times through the years, especially in the United Kingdom.

In 2018, it was revealed by The Guardian that the Royal Mint rejected creating a commemorative coin for Dahl based on these comments.

A year earlier, Jewish comedian David Baddiel refused to celebrate Roald Dahl day for the same views, tweeting an image of part of Dahl's comments to the New Statesman with the caption: "Though a massive fan of his work, I won't be celebrating #RoaldDahlDay."

They aren't just names': Survivors, activists remember women killed at Polytechnique


MONTREAL — Scaled-back ceremonies and pandemic-muted tributes did little to mask the raw emotion of those who gathered on Sunday to commemorate the 31st anniversary of a misogyny-motivated shooting at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Survivors and activists held sombre, physically distanced events to mark the occasion and redouble their calls for more urgent action on the long-standing issue of violence against women.

Nathalie Provost remembers holding classmate Nathalie Croteau's hand that day when a gunman motivated by a hatred of feminists opened fire on campus, killing 14 women and injuring a dozen other people.

“When it happened, we were there, side-by-side. Barbara [Klucznik-Widajewicz], too,” said Provost, who was shot four times in the attack on December 6, 1989.

Croteau and Klucznik-Widajewicz were among the day's victims, many of them engineering students, who were killed during the massacre.

“For me, they aren't just names," Provost said on Sunday during a small gathering to remember the women in a Montreal park named in their honour.

Even 31 years after they were killed, Provost said there can be no quiet mourning for the dead while the fight to prevent violence against women takes on increasing urgency.

"As a society, we still have struggles to lead that are too important," she said.

The Polytechnique killings are commemorated annually, but this year's events have been scaled down significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event in the park was streamed online.

Canada has designated Dec. 6 as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, a chance to mourn and demand concrete policies to protect women across the country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement describing the Polytechnique massacre as "a tragic and senseless act of violence" that cut short the promising lives of "daughters, sisters and friends."

"We still have a lot of work to do to ensure that they can live without injustice, without misogyny, and without fear," he said.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said all Quebecers remembered the tragedy.

"We have a duty to remember, but also a duty to act," he tweeted.

Sunday's events marked the culmination of 12 days of action organized by Quebec-based activists and community groups bent on combatting violence against women.

At Sunday afternoon's event, Sue Montgomery, the mayor of the Montreal borough where the park is located, said she had to fight to have the Polytechnique attack recognized as an act of femicide.

Last year, the language of a commemorative plaque in the park, known as Place du 6-decembre-1989, was changed to describe the events as an "antifeminist attack."

"These 14 human beings, these 14 women, were killed because they’re women," Montgomery said. "Because they had dreams, because they dared to dream to have careers and to make a difference in this world."

Several speakers also stressed the importance of combatting violence against marginalized women, including those identifying as Indigenous, disabled or as members of the LGBTQ community.

Jessica Quijano of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal said she could not name all the Indigenous women who have died in the city because the list is so long.

"My heart is so broken," she said.

Quijano called for government action to address the high rates of violence and systemic racism in provincial institutions that she said Indigenous women face as a matter of course.

"What is it going to take for our politicians to actually listen to the voices of Indigenous women and women … who have been talking about these issues for decades?" she said.

Marlihan Lopez, vice-president of the Federation des femmes du Quebec, echoed the sentiment and called for deeper understanding of how systemic racism contributes to gender-based violence.

"If we can't recognize what it is, we can't combat it," she said. "If we can't combat it, we won't be able to move forward in the fight against violence against women."

The sober, early-afternoon ceremony was not the only commemorative event set to honour the anniversary.

Fourteen beams of light, representing each of the Polytechnique victims, were projected into the sky from a lookout on Mount Royal on Sunday evening.

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante, Polytechnique director Philippe Tanguy, and the sister of one of the victims, Catherine Bergeron, planned to lay a wreath of roses. Plante also encouraged local residents to light a candle in memory of the victims.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2020.

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, The Canadian Press

Supreme Court's scientifically illiterate decision will cost lives

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. 

Fri November 27, 2020

(CNN) Last month, I wrote that Amy Coney Barrett would help to usher in a new post-truth jurisprudence on the Supreme Court. While I had cited her anti-science statements on climate change, her arrival on the court has created a new 5-4 majority against public-health science at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When it ruled this week against New York state's decision to limit religious gatherings in a few high-incidence parts of New York City, the court proved the dangers of scientifically illiterate judges overturning government decisions that were based on scientific evidence.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The immediate effect on New York City is moot because the state had already lifted the particular orders under review. The grave, imminent danger lies in the rest of the country, where public health authorities will feel hamstrung to restrict religious gatherings even when the virus is spreading out of control.

The two cases under review were brought by two religious bodies: the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group. Both objected to stringent limits on religious gatherings in particularly hard-hit neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The court's five conservative justices, a new majority with Barrett now on the bench, argued that the state's limits on religious gatherings violated "the minimum requirement of neutrality" to religion under the First Amendment.

The court majority characterized the violation of neutrality this way:

"In a red zone, while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as 'essential' may admit as many people as they wish. And the list of 'essential' businesses includes things such as acupuncture facilities, camp grounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities."

In his concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch opines as follows:

"So, at least according to the Governor, it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pick up another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians. Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience? ... The only explanation for treating religious places differently seems to be a judgment that what happens there just isn't as 'essential' as what happens in secular spaces. Indeed, the Governor is remarkably frank about this: In his judgment laundry and liquor, travel and tools, are all 'essential' while traditional religious exercises are not. That is exactly the kind of discrimination the First Amendment forbids."


Bishop backs SCOTUS ruling: Spiritual health is important 06:55

Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued similarly:

"The State argues that it has not impermissibly discriminated against religion because some secular businesses such as movie theaters must remain closed and are thus treated less favorably than houses of worship. But under this Court's precedents, it does not suffice for a State to point out that, as compared to houses of worship, some secular businesses are subject to similarly severe or even more severe restrictions ... Rather, once a State creates a favored class of businesses, as New York has done in this case, the State must justify why houses of worship are excluded from that favored class."

The problem is that the apparently scientifically illiterate majority on the court missed the entire point of the restriction on religious services. Gorsuch mistakenly claims that New York state deems laundry and liquor as essential but religious services as not essential. That is false. Kavanaugh mistakenly claims that New York state failed to justify why houses of worship are excluded from the "favored class" of businesses with lesser restrictions. This too is false.


Sen. Dick Durbin: Republicans made this pillar of justice a shell of its former self

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, writing in the minority, explained the basic scientific facts that were completely overlooked by the majority:

"But JUSTICE GORSUCH does not even try to square his examples with the conditions medical experts tell us facilitate the spread of COVID-19: large groups of people gathering, speaking, and singing in close proximity indoors for extended periods of time ... Unlike religious services, which 'have every one of th(ose) risk factors,' ... bike repair shops and liquor stores generally do not feature customers gathering inside to sing and speak together for an hour or more at a time. ('Epidemiologists and physicians generally agree that religious services are among the riskiest activities'). Justices of this Court play a deadly game in second guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily."

In fact, the great risks for transmission are indoor places like religious services, restaurants, concert halls and theaters where large groups are together for a considerable period of time, typically an hour or more. As Justices Sotomayor and Kagan point out, "New York treats houses of worship far more favorably than their secular comparators," by "requiring movie theaters, concert venues, and sporting arenas subject to New York's regulation to close entirely, but allowing houses of worship to open subject to capacity restrictions."

A recent study by Stanford University researchers published in Nature Magazine made the same point regarding the highest risks of viral transmission: "on average across metro areas, full-service restaurants, gyms, hotels, cafes, religious organizations, and limited-service restaurants produced the largest predicted increases in infections when reopened."

What is especially disappointing in the Supreme Court decision is that the lower court had made the correct points very clearly in a decision that was brazenly overlooked by the majority decision. The Federal District Court had noted that: "Among the other problematic features of religious gatherings, congregants arrive and leave at the same time, physically greet one another, sit or stand close together, share or pass objects, and sing or chant in a way that allows for airborne transmission of the virus."

None of this is to argue that New York state's regulations were perfectly drawn. That is not the point. The point is that the Supreme Court should be on the side of saving lives and urging rational, science-based behavior by all, especially at this moment of maximum peril to the population. Even more than the Supreme Court, religious groups should also be siding actively and energetically with public health authorities, both to protect their own congregants and all of society. Pope Francis succored Catholics around the world by shifting to an online Mass in response to the quarantine. His recent New York Times op-ed eloquently makes the point that the common good takes precedence over simplistic appeals to "personal freedom" in protests against justified public health measures.

Our religious faiths are the great teachers of the supreme value of human life, and they can be great healers for those in mental distress during the pandemic. The message to the American people should be a united one, with the nation's faith leaders, public health specialists, the politicians and, yes, Supreme Court justices using scientific knowledge combined with compassion to end the pandemic with the maximum speed and the least further suffering and loss of life.

 

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A portrait of Queen Victoria's ex-slave goddaughter is going on display in historic English mansion


Written by
Eoin McSweeney, CNNLondon

A painting of an African ex-slave who became Queen Victoria's goddaughter has been unveiled at Osborne, the seaside home of the former British monarch.
The work, by Hannah Uzor, is part of a series of portraits detailing the lives of previously overlooked Black figures that will be commissioned by the charity English Heritage.

The painting of Bonetta by artist Hannah Uzor (pictured with painting) is on display at Osborne throughout October during Black History Month. Credit: Christopher Ison/English Heritage

It depicts Sarah Forbes Bonetta in her wedding dress and is based on a photograph in the National Portrait Gallery in London. It will be on display in Osborne throughout October, which is Black History Month in the UK.

Bonetta was the daughter of an African ruler who was orphaned and sold into slavery at the age of five, according to English Heritage, which cares for more than 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites.

Originally named Omoba Aina, she was presented as a "diplomatic gift" to a captain of the British navy, Frederick Forbes, and brought to England.

Some months after her arrival in England, Forbes presented Bonetta to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The UK's second longest-serving monarch wrote in her journal in 1851 that Bonetta was "really an intelligent little thing." Forbes described her in the ship's diary as "a perfect genius" with "a great talent for music."

The Queen paid for her education and became her godmother. Bonetta married a Sierra Leone-born merchant, James Davies, in 1862 and their first daughter was named after the monarch, who became her godmother as well.

They remained close throughout Bonetta's life and Victoria continued to follow the progress of her children, whom she met several times. In an 1873 journal entry, Victoria wrote: "Saw Sally Davis' little girl, Victoria who is now 8, & wonderfully like her mother, very black, & with fine eyes."

The grim truth behind Britain's stately homes

When Bonetta died in 1880, the younger Victoria sought comfort from the Queen in Osborne, English Heritage said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Through my art, I'm interested in exploring those forgotten black people in British history, people such as Sarah," said Uzor. "What I find interesting about Sarah is that she challenges our assumptions about the status of black women in Victorian Britain. I was also drawn to her because of the parallels with my own family and my children, who share Sarah's Nigerian heritage."

English Heritage said it plans to display more portraits next spring of other Black figures with links to some of the historic sites under its care. These include Rome's African-born emperor Septimius Severus, who reinforced Hadrian's Wall, and James Chappell, a servant at Kirby Hall, who saved the owner's life.

"These stories reach far back and we're keen to represent their voices too," Anna Eavis, English Heritage's curatorial director, told CNN on Wednesday. "It's important and possible to have visual images act as a vehicle to the many instances in which this island has welcomed or received different cultures."

'Price of blood': Financial London's grim history revealed in new tour

Black history is "part of English history" she added and English Heritage's portrait series is part of research into links between the slave trade and the sites in the charity's care. From 2021, new interpretation at certain sites will emphasize those links.

The news comes after another charity, National Trust, admitted in an interim report in September that 93 historic places in its care have links with colonialism and slavery. Some 26 of English Heritage's properties have links to the slave trade, a 2007 report commissioned by the charity showed.

"The black history of Britain is by its nature a global history," said British historian David Olusoga in his book "Black and British: A Forgotten History," adding: "Yet too often it is seen as being only the history of migration, settlement and community formation in Britain itself."

In an essay he presented on BBC radio last year, he said Bonetta's story was "so remarkable" that he "found it difficult to believe when he first came across it."

Published 7th October 2020

'We can be the swing vote': Asian Americans are key part in Georgia runoff strategy

By Caroline Kenny, Kyung Lah and Kim Berryman,

(CNN)The homeowner in Duluth, Georgia, opened her screen door and softly said, "I'm not good at English." The two volunteers, clutching clipboards and political fliers, were on the Korean woman's porch to talk about the January 5 Senate runoffs.

Volunteers Grace Pai and Syed Hussain go door to door to inform AAPI voters about Georgia's January runoff election.

"I speak some Korean," said Grace Pai, in Korean. "It's terrible," Pai added in broken Korean. Pai explained how she and her fellow volunteer, Syed Hussain, were canvassing houses for the Asian American Advocacy Fund to talk to Asian American voters for Democratic challengers in the runoffs.

"My mother immigrated to the US from Korea as a girl," explained Pai. The homeowner, delighted to hear her native language, explained to the canvassers how much affordable health care meant to her family.

Pai pressed the woman to send her absentee ballot in by mail for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.

As Pai and Hussain left the woman's porch, the homeowner pumped her fist in the air, promising she would.

Conversations like these are key for volunteers who believe the only chance to flip the two Republican Senate seats in Georgia to the Democrats is through broad based coalitions, which includes Asian Americans. In the state where President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump by just 12,284 votes in November, activists say there's little question the surge in Asian American voters helped flip the state in November.

They just have to reach them.

"There are so many people like that woman, Asian American voters who have never been asked about their political beliefs, who have never been asked why voting is important to them," Pai said. "I think this tailored outreach means a lot."

"It's counties like this, at least in my view, that gave Joe Biden that win," said Hussain, 21. The college student grew up in Gwinnett County, which has seen Korean immigrants drive the growth of Asian Americans in the Atlanta suburbs.

Across the entire Atlanta metro area, the Asian American and Pacific Islander electorate has grown significantly in recent years -- mirroring the trend of the increasing and diversifying population across the state -- specifically in and around the capital city of Atlanta. While AAPIs are a small share of the electorate in Georgia, the number of Asian American voters grew seven times as much as other racial and ethnic groups combined.

"I'm so happy to say it made a huge difference," said Stephanie Cho, executive director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. "I'm so proud to say we had over 30,000 new voters, Asian American voters, for the first time," Cho said.

Cho has spent years on the ground in Georgia, organizing the AAPI community on civil rights and voting issues on shoestring budgets, often in noodle shops where volunteers paid for events and fliers with their own money. Often seen as too small a minority group to matter, Cho says demographics and community organizing are beginning to pay off at the ballot box.

"Asian Americans vote. Asians Americans care about the elections here," said Cho, emphatically. "Asian Americans are not a monolith. I think that there was always a myth that Asian Americans care more about what was happening in their home countries than the elections in the US."

Cho boils down beliefs like that to ignorance and assumptions and hopes November's results teach

FRED PERRY, PROUD BOYS, AND THE SEMIOTICS OF FASHION


Society & Culture, Social Movement Studies


By Anya Simonian JULY 2017


[Pictured: Traditional style influenced by Jamaicans, Italians, and Ivy League Americans from the 60s.]


Over the past week the Proud Boys, a self-described "Western chauvinist" organization whose members are tired of apologizing for "creating the modern world", have garnered media attention. Along with the disruption of an Aboriginal ceremony in Halifax by Proud Boy servicemen, the group is gaining notoriety for clashes with anti-fascist (Antifa) activists. Additionally, the Proud Boys have been involved with so-called anti-Sharia rallies . In New York, two Proud Boys and one "Proud Boys Girl" recently parted ways with their employers after their involvement with the alt-right group came to light and a social media campaign demanded the businesses take action. Proud Boys have degrees of membership. To become a "Fourth Degree" Proud Boy, aspiring members take part in "a major fight for the cause." Founder Gavin McInnes explained: "You get beat up, kick the crap out of an antifa [anti-fascist activists]," to rise through the ranks.

Much Proud Boy media coverage has mentioned, in passing, the group's "uniform": a black Fred Perry polo shirt with bright yellow trim. The Washington Post's recent article, "The alt-right's Proud Boys love Fred Perry polo shirts. The feeling is not mutual" went further in its attempts to explain why Proud Boys have adopted a shirt that, at first glance, seems best suited for white middle-class dads out for a round of golf or game of tennis, quoting Zoë Beery's piece in The Outline, " How Fred Perry Came to Symbolize Hate ". While both articles offer an overview of the shirt's popularity among Mod and traditional Skinhead subculturists and its eventual cooptation by racist skinheads and neo-Nazis, neither emphasizes the degree to which the brand has long served as a site of political contest between the radical left and the far-right. Since the early 1980s, attempts to associate the brand with right-wing politics have been met with resistance from two main camps: 1.) anti-racist skinheads and 2.) "traditional" (non-racist) skinheads -- both of whom refuse to cede the meaning of the Fred Perry brand to the far-right in the same way that one might fight for the liberation of an occupied space.

The word skinhead most often conjures up images of white hooligans, or a particular aesthetic adopted by neo-Nazis. Yet, what it means to be a skinhead has changed over time. Periodizing skinhead culture is challenging but, broadly speaking, it can be broken down into three eras: the middle to late 1960s period of apolitical, multi-racial working class youth; the 1980s period of White Nationalist cooptation of the skinhead aesthetic and overtly anti-racist and left-wing skinhead political responses to that cooptation; and the period from the late 1980s to the present, in which the meaning of the skinhead culture and aesthetic is continually contested.


Skinhead Origins




1960s skinheads


In the late 1960s, the first skinhead subculturists were born of multiculturalism: the fusion of Jamaican "rude boy" styles and music brought to England by Jamaican immigrants in the post-war years, and the working class culture of the English Mods (short for Modernists) who decked themselves out in fine Italian suits and shoes, listened to American soul, jazz, and R&B, and rode Vespa scooters. Mod women sported miniskirts, flats, and sometimes men's clothing. Skinhead style emerged in Britain in the late 1960s as a simplified version of the Mod aesthetic that placed greater emphasis on projecting working class masculinity and a love of Jamaican reggae and ska.


Interpretations

Social scientists took note of these subcultures and worked to explain their meaning in relation to a changing post-war Britain. The seminal work on subculture studies to which all later studies pay homage, or attempt to refute, is Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, edited by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. Published in 1976, Resistance Through Rituals, as well as the Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) from which the work emerged, understood youth subculture in Marxian terms as a manifestation of social, political, and economic change. The historical context for the CCCS interpretation was the post-war period of the 1950s that saw the rise of commercial television, age specific schools, and extended education that brought youth together for longer, more isolated periods of time. Adding to these challenges were the recent violence of war and more fatherless children as a result of war deaths. These factors contributed to the making of an isolated, and later unique subculture of resistance.

Drawing from Italian Marxist theorist Antionio Gramsci, a driving foundational assumption of Resistance Through Rituals is that one or more dominant groups in society hold "cultural capital" and subordinate groups or classes find ways to express or challenge their subordinate experience in their own culture. This dominant culture, according to the CCCS, exists solely within the framework of capitalism, whereas the struggle for "cultural capital" becomes a struggle between those with capital versus those who labor. The dominant culture acts as a hegemon and attempts to define and contain all other cultures, giving birth to opposition from less dominant cultures against this cultural hegemony. Although the less dominant culture (i.e. the subculture) enters into resistance against the dominant culture, the subculture is in fact derived from the "parent," or hegemonic culture, and will inevitably share many of its attributes. For example, working-class culture is considered by the editors of Resistance Through Rituals to be a "parent culture," yet the youth subcultures that arose from it have their own values, uses of material culture (which are often derived from the parent culture but are re-appropriated and given new meaning), as well as territorial spaces. The Fred Perry represents both an appropriation of the parent culture and a territorial "space" where politics play out.

The editors of Resistance Through Rituals write:


Sub-cultures, then, must first be related to the 'parent cultures' of which they are a sub-set. But, subcultures must also be analysed in terms of their relation to the dominant culture - the overall disposition of cultural power in the society as a whole. Thus, we may distinguish respectable, 'rough', delinquent and the criminal subcultures within working class culture: but we may also say that, though they differ amongst themselves, they all derive in the first instance from a 'working class parent culture': hence, they are all subordinate subcultures, in relation to the dominant middle-class or bourgeois culture. [1]




1960s Mod style from the 1979 film, Quadrophenia


From this angle, Resistance Through Ritual examines the predecessors of the skinheads -- the Mod subculture of the 1960s which, in its most basic terms, consisted of dressing sharp in the latest high fashion (but only wearing particular high fashion brands, often stemming from styles of those involved in organized crime in 1950s and 60s Britain), hairstyles, soul and rock n' roll music, all-night clubs, riding Vespa scooters, and taking amphetamines. The Mod was all about style, and this sharp style, combined with the "uppers" they took, were cast by the CCCS in terms of opposition to the hippie culture of the day that to many Mods seemed to spell a slow, do-nothing death. This seemingly odd combination of interests was explained in terms of working-class resistance by Dick Hebdige in his contribution to Resistance Through Rituals, "The Meaning of Mod":


The importance of style to the mods can never be overstressed - Mod was pure, unadulterated STYLE, the essence of style. In order to project style it became necessary first to appropriate the commodity, then to redefine its use and value and finally to relocate its meaning within a totally different context. This pattern, which amounted to the semantic rearrangement of those components of the objective world which the mod style required, was repeated at every level of the mod experience and served to preserve a part at least of the mod's private dimension against the passive consumer role it seemed in its later phases ready to adopt...

Thus the scooter, a formerly ultra-respectable means of transport was appropriated and converted into a weapon and a symbol of solidarity. Thus pills, medically diagnosed for the treatment of neuroses, were appropriated and used as an end-in-themselves, and the negative evaluations of their capabilities imposed by school and work were substituted by a positive assessment of their personal credentials in the world of play (i.e. the same qualities which were assessed negatively by their daytime controllers - e.g. laziness, arrogance, vanity etc. - were positively defined by themselves and their peers in leisure time). [2]

As mentioned above, the skinheads were born from a combination of Jamaican immigrant "rude boy" culture and Mod subculture. Originating in the middle to late 1960s, the skinheads were of solidly working-class origin and resented authority and social pretensions. The skinhead community developed at a time of worsening conditions for working-class youth, and the CCCS interpreted this subculture as an attempt to recreate a traditional working-class community. Although the skinheads came from the working class, fewer opportunities meant that they almost acted out or performed working-class values rather than lived them. The early skinheads were intensely aware of their self-image and played up their exaggerated working-class style. They wore Doc Marten work boots, suspenders and blue jeans or Levis Sta-Prest jeans as a way to identify with this style and lifestyle in decline. Yet, they coupled this look with Ben Sherman button down dress shirts and Fred Perry tennis shirts -- a scaled down Mod look -- in an appropriation of neat middle-class style that turned middle-class values on their heads. This tennis shirt, worn by working-class skinheads, became a symbol of solidarity and a new kind of "class."




At clubs in the evenings the skinheads would often wear suits like those of the Jamaica "rude boys" and dance alongside Jamaicans to Rock Steady and ska music. Anti-racist and traditional skinheads -- sometimes dubbed Trojan Skinheads for their love of Trojan Records, producers of Jamaican music -- look back on this period as a golden age for their subculture. The phrase "Spirit of 69'" which originated in the 1980s is used by traditional/Trojan skinheads as a reference point for what skinhead culture can and should be about: inclusion, racial harmony, and a multicultural celebration of working class culture. Naturally, the CCCS interpreted skinhead solidarity as an act of resistance to a hegemonic order and its particular characteristics felt by working-class kids coming of age in the post-war years. By the 1970s, however, this variety of the skinhead subculture had largely faded away, but elements of it would be revived, in bastardized form, in the following decade.

Within the early skinhead subculture there had always existed a focus on masculinity, or acting "hard" in order project an "authentic" working-class ethos. This masculinity was expressed in the skinhead interest in soccer and the joining of "firms," or soccer clubs that rooted for their favorite teams and often used violence against opposing firms. The "firm" was also an expression of the desire to protect territory and, most importantly, an expression of collective solidarity. With the introduction and quick commodification of punk rock in the late 1970s, a second wave of skinheads was born. These skinheads, connected to the punk scene rather than the ska, Rock Steady, or reggae scenes of their predecessors, still aped working-class style while sporting the Fred Perry brand, yet their music was Oi -- a more aggressive, simplified version of punk that could never go mainstream. Non-racist bands like Cock Sparrer, The 4-Skins, The Last Resort, Sham69, and The Cockney Rejects led the way.

While this second wave of skinheads was at first largely apolitical, their penchant for soccer hooliganism made them prime recruits for England's far-right National Front. The Young National Front (YNF) began to recruit second wave skinheads at soccer matches, appealing to skinhead working-class sensibilities by scapegoating immigrants for the decline of the white working class. By 1979, the YNF had established Rock Against Communism, a music festival featuring white nationalist bands. In subsequent years neo-Nazi bands like Skrewdriver would bring hundreds of disaffected youth into the National Front. Along with this came the adoption of a new skinhead aesthetic that included the traditional Fred Perry or Ben Sherman shirt and Doc Marten boots, but added to it a paramilitary edge that included flight jackets, larger boots, more closely cropped hair, and symbols of white nationalism. This bastardization of the aesthetic and its coupling with far-right politics made its way to the United States in the 1980s.

Anti-racist and traditionalist responses to the aesthetic and political hijacking of the original "Spirit of 69'" skinhead subculture were swift. As historian Timothy S. Brown put it:


Reacting against this trend-which they considered a bastardization of the original skinhead style-numbers of skins began to stress the cultivation of the "original" look, making fashion, like music, a litmus test for authenticity. Violators of the proper codes were not skinheads, but "bald punks," a category to which racists-who, in the eyes of purists, failed completely to understand what the subculture was about-were likely to belong. The connection between right-wing politics and "inauthentic" modes of dress was personified in the figure of the "bone head," a glue-sniffing, bald-headed supporter of the extreme right, sporting facial tattoos, a union-jack T-shirt, and "the highest boots possible." Although the emphasis on correct style was not explicitly political, it grew-like insistence on the subculture's black musical roots-out of a concern with the authentic sources of skinhead identity. As such, it was heavily associated with the attempts of left-wing and so-called "unpolitical" skins to "take back" the subculture from the radical right in the early 1980s. [3]






In an effort to "take back" the subculture and its symbols from the radical right, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) was founded in New York City in 1987. Although anti-racist skinheads and left-wing anti-racist skinhead bands like England's The Oppressed had challenged the far right through song and protest, SHARP represented the first attempt to organize skinheads as a multiracial movement against racist, right-wing "boneheads." SHARP's logo was, in part, the logo for Trojan Records, producers of the Rock Steady and ska music so beloved by those first wave British skinheads. In fashion, SHARP emphasized a return to the early styles of skinhead dress, and sought to reclaim the Fred Perry brand (among others) as a symbol of multiculturalism, working-class pride, and the early skinhead subculture in general. As SHARP spread throughout Europe its growth, at times, led to violent clashes with white nationalist skinheads. The Oppressed led the charge in Great Britain, performing confrontational Oi music that pitted the group and its followers firmly against their racist opposition. For example, in their simple four chord song "I Don't Wanna," singer Roddy Moreno belts:


I don't need no bigotry

I know where I'm from

I don't need no racial hate

To help me sing my song

I don't wanna make a stand

But what else can I do?

I don't wanna be like you

Don't wanna fight your race war

Don't wanna bang your drum

I don't wanna be like you

Don't wanna live like scum

The Oppressed associated themselves with groups like Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) and wrote anthems like "The AFA Song" meant to inspire the skinhead left in its fight against the right -- a fight that often resulted in street battles between rival skinhead factions in Europe:


We don't carry shotguns

We don't carry chains

We only carry hatchets

To bury in your brains

So come on

Let's go

So come on

Let's go

A.F.A.

In addition to overtly anti-racist organizations like SHARP, "traditional" or "Trojan" skinheads in the 1980s and 1990s avoided the political question altogether and instead simply decided to live the inclusive values found in the first wave skinhead movement while celebrating working-class pride coupled, at times, with an occasional soft patriotism. Other smaller groups like Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH) formed alongside SHARP that added a heavier dose of left-wing politics to SHARP's anti-racist stance.

Both groups have worn the Fred Perry and both have incorporated the laurel wreath symbol associated with the brand into album covers and traditional and anti-racist skinhead tattoos. The Fred Perry polo then, for them, is an object reclaimed, re-sanctified, and restored to its original meaning.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, echoes of these conflicts between left, traditional, and right-wing skinheads continued, though never quite reached the fever pitch the conflict had reached in the 1980s.




The Templars (1996), an Oi band from Long Island, NY


As we move further into this period of political and ideological polarization, brought on by capitalist crisis, we are seeing old partisan battles reignite. It is no surprise then that the Proud Boys have adopted such a politically-charged piece of clothing for their unofficial uniform. For those with an insiders' view of this decades-old culture war, the Proud Boys' adoption of the Fred Perry polo makes an unequivocal statement: we identify with the far-right uses of this brand. The adoption of the Fred Perry is not lost on Antifa, the Proud Boys' primary political opponents. Fashion, as one variety of symbol system, projects a clear political orientation for those able to "read" the language of what is signified by the brand. As anthropologist Edward Sapir pointed out: "The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries is the lack of exact knowledge of the … symbolisms attaching to forms, colors, textures, postures, and other expressive elements of a given cultures. The difficulty is appreciably increased by the fact that some of the expressive elements tend to have quite different symbolic references in different areas."

For those who have adopted or who understand the skinhead subculture in all its variegated forms, the Fred Perry, viewed in certain contexts, sends one of three messages: that one espouses white nationalist politics, far-left politics, or that one is a traditional skinhead who celebrates multiculturalism. For those in the latter two camps there has been a long-standing contest to wrest the symbols of the "Spirit of 69'" from the hands of those who would corrupt them. While "ownership" of a brand may seem trivial or ill conceived, this "ownership" embodies a struggle for agency, space, and the dominance of an ideology through appropriation of contested material culture.


Notes

[1] John Clarke, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts, "Subcultures, Class and Culture," inResistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (London: Routledge, 1993), 7.

[2] Ibid, 76.

[3] Timothy S. Brown, "Subcultures, Pop Music and Politics: Skinheads and "Nazi Rock" in England and Germany." Journal of Social History 38, no. 1 (2004): 157-78.