The Propagandist has been running a political podcast for a while now, interviewing authors, human rights advocates and assorted pundits about our favorite topics. Here are a few of our favorites from 2011:
As Islamists in Europe call for Canadian Muslim lesbian author Irshad Manji to be murdered for her views on radical Islam, the question of how immigration impacts culture and politics is once more drawn out in the open.
Political blogger Walker Morrow was interviewed recently by The Propagandist magazine editor Jonathon Narvey about immigration and cultural clashed in Europe, Geert Wilders and the fallout from Anders Breivik.
A series of scandals has rocked Geert Wilders' Freedom Party ( PVV ) in the Netherlands, putting the entire government coalition of Holland at risk of destabilization.
The first scandal centers around Eric Lucassen, a Freedom Party Member of Parliament who, it was recently revealed, was disciplined during his stay with the military for having sexual relations with two of his subordinates, and whose neighbors have laid allegations of intimidation and assault against him.
That this is coming up now means that Lucassen must have, er...neglected to mention these past indiscretions to the PVV during the party's candidate selection process - with these black marks on his record, he would have surely not been allowed to run for the PVV otherwise.
Say what you will about the charges, they don't look good for a sitting Member of Parliament. And this meant trouble for Geert Wilders - who was expected to mete out discipline in wake of these revelations about Lucassen's past - since firing him from his post was, unfortunately, on the table.
"A ban on the burka, and other full-face veils will take effect in France from next spring after an unexpected ruling by the country's highest legal authority last night.
In a decision that will divide the country, and may spark fears of Islamic fundamentalist reprisals, the Conseil Constitutionnel removed the final legal obstacle to the ban, by ruling that a so-called "anti-burka" law passed by both houses of the French parliament did not infringe fundamental liberties."
As I've argued before, such blanket bans have a tendency to skip around the real problem. In this case, the real problem is fundamentalist Islam. But the French parliament can't be seen actively targeting one religion or group of people in particular with such legislation - although they'll apparently make an exception for the Roma - so it has to be everyone. France's new law, making it a criminal act to "conceal...More >>
"The spectacle, like modern society itself, is at once united and divided," wrote Guy Debord in the foundational text of Situationism, The Society of the Spectacle. Debord's point was that, in turning everyone into passive consumers, capitalism deliberately masks the core truths of social relations.
As a diagnosis of the market economy, that now seems almost quaint. And yet, as the furore around the commemoration of the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities becomes a veritable spectacle, I can't help wondering if there is a kernel of validity in Debord's wider method.
I say that because you might draw two conclusions about the various groups and individuals who've tried to hijack the commemoration. Firstly, that they regard themselves as the bearers of truths which the rest of us are too deadened or complacent to realize, as anyone who has condemned himself to a session surfing wingnut websites knows painfully. Secondly, that the camps which promote these truths are mutually exclusive; you cannot both fulminate against the "Islamization" of America and insist that 9/11 was a message to U.S. imperialism...More >>
A series of scandals has rocked Geert Wilders' Freedom Party ( PVV ) in the Netherlands, putting the entire government coalition of Holland at risk of destabilization.
Is Europe finally growing tired of multiculturalism and lax immigration laws?
"The spectacle, like modern society itself, is at once united and divided," wrote Guy Debord in the foundational text of Situationism, The Society of the Spectacle. Debord's point was that, in turning everyone into passive consumers, capitalism deliberately masks the core truths of social relations.
