Author: Ophelia Benson

A kind reader sent me such an interesting announcement – which included the injunction at the top ‘Please Circulate Widely’ – so I will! Nobody’s ever said I’m not obliging. (That’s an arrant falsehood, of course, but never mind.)

I should warn you though – this adventure took place October 20 – so that was last week – so it’s over. So you can’t go. So don’t get all excited, because you can’t go.

You’ll really wish you could, though, when I tell you where it was held. In the ‘Namaste Lounge’ – that’s where. I’m not making it up.

There was a ‘panel on the questions surrounding racialized sexualized politics within
the neoliberal political economy through an understanding of empire.’
Professor X’s work on ‘geographies and migrations aims to make
visible the relations of power within the production of knowledge, in
its disciplinary and interdisciplinary forms. It aims to locate these
processes with the larger geopolitical contexts of the production and
reproduction of empire.’ Professor X drew on a book in progress: Seductions
of Empire: Complicity, Desire, and the Insecurity in Contemporary World
Politics.

Complicity – there’s that word again. It must be hot right now. I’ll have to remember to say it more often.

Of course, seduction(s), empire, desire, production of knowledge, and locate aren’t exactly stone-cold either. But complicity has that kind of shimmer to it…

The ‘colloquium utilize[d] a transnational feminist Marxist
analysis to examine the role that desire and desire industries have come
to play within the re-structuring of the neoliberal political economy,
with particular focus on racialized, sexualized formations within
“peripheral states.”’ The discussion aimed ‘to pose broad questions about the politics of
exploitation, violence and desire, and the role of transnational
feminist praxis, feminist International Relations, and cross bordered
social movements challenging the racialized, gendered violences of
transnational capitalism, neocolonialism and empire.’

Professor X ‘has published numerous articles on issues
of migration, reproduction and formal/informal economies, transnational
desire industries, decolonizing feminist methodologies, security and
militarization, and cross-bordered feminist interventions into the
neoliberal political economy. Her work engages in debates within the
fields of feminist and cultural studies, international relations,
international political economy and sexuality, human rights and trauma
studies.’

There we have that omnicompetence thing again, that broad sweep, that modest willingness to take on – I mean, to ‘engage in debates within the
fields of’ – ten or twenty fields that other people spend whole lifetimes trying to learn about and contribute a little to just one of, or a fraction of one of. What is it about these exciting people in Complicity studies, Desire studies, Circulation studies, Knowledge production studies, Decolonizing Feminist methodologies studies, Transnational Desire Industries studies, and the like, that enables them to understand, engage in debates with, intervene in, write books about, and just generally get a grip on so much more stuff than the slow timid havering lily-livered people in the old-fashioned boring dreary disciplines? Is it like a secret pill or a tonic or an incantation? Or what? And why don’t they all just take over everything? Since they have this magical ability – wouldn’t you think they would want to use it to do more than take part in discussions in Namaste Lounges?

They’re probably just biding their time, until the moment is right.

Well, this is where communalism and communal thinking and identity politics and endless repetition of words like ‘community’ get you.

A fourteen year old girl was alleged to have been raped ‘in an Asian hair shop, Birmingham, Perry Barr.’ Therefore –

The shop thought to be part of a chain called ‘Beauty Queens’ was one of many which were closed down in anticipation of the peaceful mass protest. The campaign was designed to raise awareness of the issue and expose the tendency of national media institutions to marginalise or ignore crimes perpetrated against the African British community. At one point many advocated boycotting all Asian businesses to place pressure on the community into breaking the wall of silence it had erected when asked for any information to confirm or denounce the allegations.

Boycotting all Asian businesses, because a rape was alleged to have happened in one Asian business. So – if a rape were alleged to have occurred in an African British business, would a boycott of all African British businesses be a good, or fair, or rational, or just, or useful, or sane idea? If the advocacy of a boycott of all Asian businesses were coming from the BNP, would Ligali think it was a good, or fair, or rational, or just, or useful, or sane idea? Would it have misgivings? Would it stop to wonder why an African British business in, say, Peckham was being boycotted because of an alleged rape in an African British business in, say, Inverness? Would it take a moment to ponder whether that might be a little unfair or not? Would it pause to think that idea smacked a little of lumping all people in ‘the African British community’ into one homogenous mass and then pretending that an action by one atom of the mass is an action by every atom of the mass? Would it hesitate long enough to notice that actually that kind of thinking sounds quite a lot more like Hitler and Streicher foaming about the Jews than it does like a progressive multicultural helpful way to proceed?

Calls for the boycott have now been limited to Asian hair shops where the alleged incident took place.

Ah – the alleged incident took place in several ‘Asian hair shops’ then? It’s one incident, but it took place in several – or perhaps all? – ‘Asian hair shops’? No, probably that’s not what’s being suggested. Probably what is meant is: because the alleged incident is alleged to have taken place in one ‘Asian hair shop,’ therefore there are now calls for a boycott of Asian hair shops in general, of Asian hair shops qua Asian hair shops. And these are ‘limited’ calls. Yes indeed, moderation itself. Again – if a rape were alleged to have occurred in one ‘African British’ hair shop, would calls to boycott all African British hair shops seem like a sensible idea?

Organisers in both Birmingham and London have repeatedly stressed that this is not about stoking the fires of a ‘race war’ between African and Asian communities. The principle focus of the Campaign is to acertain the truth behind the allegations and seek justice. However there is an additional focus on cultivating enough national support regardless of ethnicity, gender and social status…

Well organizers can repeatedly stress whatever they like, but calling for a boycott of all Asian businesses because of an alleged rape in one – repeat, one – Asian business is a pretty odd way of damping down any fires. And then the smug resort to the right-on phrase ‘regardless of ethnicity, gender and social status’ – is a bad joke.

That’s where communalism gets you.