The Sleepwalk of the West

Algeria took a step towards qualifying for next year’s World Cup with a 3-1 win over Rwanda. Ergo, Paris must be smashed up. I shot this about 50 metres from our flat: All in all, it was a very pleasant Sunday evening in the locality. Ruined only by the concurrent Montmartre grape harvest festival – [...]

An anti-racist stance has to be consistent, otherwise it’s just… more racism. When I went on Anti-Nazi League marches with my schoolmates, the hope (as I understood it in my hormonally left-wing state) was for a colour-blind world of equal treatment and opportunity. All racial differentiation was bad. That was before Diversity(TM). Now, race – [...]

During the same Paris demonstration, placards were handed out showing historical icons of resistance to oppression. Mohamed Ali, Arafat, ML King, Sitting Bull… though the accompanying chants were only about contemporary objects of love/hate. Love: Hamas. Hate: Sarkozy. Strangely, Obama wasn’t mentioned. On a nearby wall was this (unrelated) sticker: I do not dispute the [...]

Strangely, some national anthems (e.g. European ones) are taboo – the mark of supremacist colonialism etcetera, whereas others are encouraged – noble expressions of cultural identity that we should all join in with. Here is the Algerian national anthem being sung during a demonstration at the end of my street in Paris. It contains lines [...]