activism
The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization – review
In The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization, Eviane Leidig examines the phenomenon of far-right women influencers who seek new recruits for white nationalism through carefully constructed online presences. Drawing on three years of digital ethnographic research, Leidig paints a captivating and concerning picture of how these influencers create networked intimacy through social media platforms, writes Nadia Karizat.
The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization. Eviane Leidig. Columbia University Press. 2023.
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“…Far-right women are marketing themselves in their most authentic and accessible form while promoting a hateful ideology…A central component of this success lies in the visibility afforded to these far-right women influencers on social media platforms…” (15).
The networked nature of social media platforms has been used by many social movements over the years, such as those that aim to spread content and raise awareness for social justice through hashtags, retweets and links to direct action (eg, Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Zionist Jewish and Black Lives Matter activists). Through the sharing of videos, text and images on social media, efforts are made to bring ideological shifts in the ways society thinks about issues such as police brutality, settler-colonialism, etc. On the flip side, social media platforms are also used by nefarious actors who aim to recruit members and disseminate information for the goals of white supremacy and preservation of so-called Western exceptionalism. In The Woman of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization, Eviane Leidig describes the behaviours and practices of far-right women influencers on social media platforms (eg, Instagram, YouTube), observed over three years of digital ethnographic research where Leidig fully immersed herself into the online worlds of these women and their followers.
Eviane Leidig describes the behaviours and practices of far-right women influencers on social media platforms (eg, Instagram, YouTube), observed over three years of digital ethnographic research
Early on, Leidig distinguishes the terms alt-right and far right (although the application is inconsistent throughout the book); she states she uses the term alt-right to refer to a specific political scene in terms of time and place within the broader far-right movement (ie, North America between 2016 and 2019), or in reference to an individual infamous for their leadership within the alt-right (eg, Richard Spencer). Alternatively, the term far right is used to signal “ideological beliefs and practices that remain constant” within this broader movement and context.
The Far-Right movement is characterised by a preoccupation with nativism, extreme nationalism, and authoritarianism with a growing trend of organising around antifeminism and anti-Islam in the hopes of protecting the “good” (white) family
The Far-Right movement is characterised by a preoccupation with nativism, extreme nationalism, and authoritarianism with a growing trend of organising around antifeminism and anti-Islam in the hopes of protecting the “good” (white) family in a “good” heterosexual marriage with children that practice “good” traditional (white) western values. What makes the alt-right unique to other movements within the far right, according to Leidig, is how integral technology has been to its development. This motivated her investigation into alt-right American and Canadian social media influencers to understand how they use social media and its affordances for the promotion of and recruitment into a hateful ideology.
Leidig positions far-right women influencers as the “exception” within a more male-dominated movement.
But, why the focus on women? Leidig positions far-right women influencers as the “exception” within a more male-dominated movement. Yet, she is careful to situate their existence as part of a sustained history where women have been both subjugated within the far-right world view – where whiteness and maleness hold power – while also contributing to the dissemination of its ideology and propaganda. For example, she discusses Lauren Chen, a biracial woman, as a far-right influencer of colour who “supports structures such as white supremacy if it promotes their self-interest.” And so, we see through examples such as these how those with identities that would hold positions with little power in a far-right utopia take advantage of the visibility and microcelebrity-based power accessible within the movement through strategic use of social media.
Instagram stories – posts that do not appear on one’s main Instagram feed and disappear after 24 hours – allow for an influencer’s audience to send direct messages, participate in polls, respond to Q&As or send reactions (eg, a heart icon) and creates a sense of closeness between audience and influencer.
In Chapters Two through Five, Leidig discusses these practices by far-right women influencers through the lens of “networked intimacy”, referring to techniques (eg, social media behaviours, self-presentation strategies) that help to establish a sense of connection between an influencer and their audience with an aura of authenticity and relatability. An example of this Leidig describes is how ephemeral Instagram stories – posts that do not appear on one’s main Instagram feed and disappear after 24 hours – allow for an influencer’s audience to send direct messages, participate in polls, respond to Q&As or send reactions (eg, a heart icon) and creates a sense of closeness between audience and influencer. Leidig argues that this is a strategy of networked intimacy where the possibilities for “direct interaction…offers unfiltered radicalization and recruitment possibilities between far-right women influencers and their followers.” Similarly, far-right women influencers may share curated ‘vulnerable’ content related to seemingly non-political experiences, such as dating experiences or financial advice, that are embedded with subtle far-right messaging but ultimately work to draw-in an unsuspecting audience who then witness the influencers’ political content posted alongside the “not (blatantly) political.” In this way, through strategies of networked intimacy and taking advantage of the visibility and potential for reaching new audiences on mainstream social media, far-right women influencers rely on mainstream social media platforms to retain notoriety and normalise far-right ideologies.
Leidig envisions coordinated responses from governments, civil society and tech business – both online and offline – that may help to counter the far-right movement and prevent the dissemination and uptake of its ideology.
Towards the end of the book, in Chapter Seven, Leidig envisions coordinated responses from governments, civil society and tech business – both online and offline – that may help to counter the far-right movement and prevent the dissemination and uptake of its ideology. For example, in her discussion on efforts from tech companies to counter the far-right, Leidig discusses content moderation approaches with what she refers to as the “Four D’s of content moderation”: deplatforming, demonetization, deranking, and detection.” Leidig argues that deplatforming, which is when a social media platform shuts down an account associated with a certain user, is “an effective strategy that places priorities of victims over that of perpetrators while significantly limiting the influencers’ reach.” Through deplatforming, far-right influencers lose their ability to network intimacy with a receptive audience on a given platform.
Leidig briefly discusses offline efforts, such as civil society and governments working to provide social support that addresses issues such as income inequality, that can help make people less susceptible to buying into the propaganda of these influencers. However, she does not delve into many specifics beyond calls for countering far-right narratives (eg, via counter-influencers online) and valuing the grievances of those who do feel left behind by society. Rather than be prescriptive with solutions, in this last chapter, Leidig imagines many different stakeholders and organisations coordinating responses to reduce the influence, and thus power, of the far-right. It is for us readers and those with positions in power to decide what we do next.
Leidig paints a captivating picture of how far-right women influencers spread and recruit individuals to their movement, with complex messaging around antifeminism, islamophobia, a white racial identity and “western” values.
All in all, in The Women of the Far Right, Leidig paints a captivating picture of how far-right women influencers spread and recruit individuals to their movement, with complex messaging around antifeminism, islamophobia, a white racial identity and “western” values. By keeping her analysis grounded within social media platforms, we understand how the goals of these influencers are made achievable thanks to the features and visibility afforded to them by technology. And as a result, we – the everyday tech user, scholars, designers – are forced to grapple with the many potentials of technology for spreading hate, as well as calls for justice.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Roman Samborskyi on Shutterstock.
Scholars Call for an End to the Violence in Israel and Palestine
We write as scholars and educators in the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, for the immediate lifting of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and for the immediate release of all hostages. This war must end now!...
Strikes by Ambulance and Border Force Staff now ‘Effectively Banned’ After Minimum Service Levels Pass By Government Diktat
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Legislation which came into force today has essentially banned strike action by ambulance staff and those working on border enforcement, according to a new briefing.
Ahead of the TUC’s Special Congress this Saturday, the Institute of Employment Rights (IER), alongside the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom (CTUF), Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC have analysed the worrying implications of the new anti-strikes Minimum Service Levels legislation.
Professor Ewing and Lord Hendy, President and Chair of the IER respectively, are long-standing and well-respected experts in the field of employment rights and labour law and have written extensively on the new anti-trade union legislation.
When workers now vote to strike in the health, education, fire, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning sectors, they could be forced to attend work by order of a ‘work notice’ - and potentially be sacked if they don’t comply. The legislation allows for unions who do not comply to be sued, up to a maximum of £1 million.
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Hardest hit so far are ambulance and border force staff. The briefing states that in health, the minimum service level demands that emergency calls are answered , ‘triaged’, and responded to “in respect of conditions which are life-threatening or require clinical assistance at the scene or transport to a healthcare facility” - at a level they “would be if the strike were not taking place on that day”.
The authors note: “It is not possible to read this as anything other than requiring normal service on strike days. Hence these ambulance and patient-transport workers are effectively banned from taking strike action.”
And in border security (which includes passport services), the examination of people and goods coming in or going out of the UK, the patrol of ports and coastal waters, as well as the collection and dissemination of intelligence, are required on a strike day to be “no less effective than they would be if the strike were not taking place on that day”.
“Again, this can only be seen as a virtually total ban on these workers’ right to strike,” the IER report states.
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The government estimates that only 70-75% of Border Force would be required to provide this service, although the figure is higher for smaller ports and airports where staffing levels are lower. “Depriving 70% of the workforce of the right to strike appears to be serious enough to us,” the authors write.
The minimum service levels both for passenger rail services demands “the equivalent of 40% of the timetabled services during the strike” should be able to run.
“The effect will be that those required to work the 40% service will lose their right to strike,” according to the IER. The total staffing numbers are “likely to be well in excess of 40% of normal staffing” due to the need for additional staff to cope with the danger of overcrowding on platforms under a reduced service, and “because it will often be the case that the complement of staff required for a 40% service may, in any event, not be much short of that required for a 100% service.”
For those in ‘infrastructure’ rail roles, such as signalling, “staff on the relevant routes can only strike after ten o’clock at night and before six the next day.”
Strike-hit employers are not obliged to serve a work notice (outlining which staff must come to work during a strike).
Many unions are seeking agreement with employers that they will not do so, something the Scottish government has committed to.
However, these public bodies potentially face being pursued in the courts by service users who demand that minimum service levels set out in law are met,
The legislation only applies to strikes, not ‘action short of a strike’ – such as overtime-bans.
This means unions may choose to engage in disruptive ‘action short of a strike’, which could be more disruptive in the long run than one or two day strikes.
Westminster Attacks on Workers’ Rights Sees UK’s Global Rating Tumble
Thousands of workers face being sacked for not crossing their own picket lines if new Westminster legislation passes
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The government’s own Impact Assessment on the new law points out that ‘the issuing of work notices would be challenging and time-consuming’ due to the need for consultation with unions. Union officials are not immune from work orders, meaning reps will be forced to cross the very picket lines they organised.
And individual employees named in a work notice must - unless sick or on leave - work during the strike. If they do not work, the Act removes their automatic protection from unfair dismissal. In other words, they can be summarily fired.
The briefing continues: “From the union’s perspective, once served with a work notice the Act requires it ‘to take reasonable steps to ensure that all members of the union who are identified in the work notice comply with the notice.’ This is a heavy administrative burden, which is potentially incapable of fulfilment…
“The union will receive a list of names of the workers who are required to work, a list which will include both members and non-members, as well as workers who are members of other unions. In the case of a big strike the list may include thousands of workers. Sifting these lists for members will be a formidable administrative task to be performed in a very short time.”
There is also new guidance on picketing with major ramifications for union freedoms. “In a national rail strike involving tens of thousands of workers and hundreds of picket lines, a single picket supervisor who can be shown to have failed to use reasonable endeavours to ensure that picketers avoid, so far as reasonably practicable, trying to persuade members who are identified on the work notice not to cross the picket line may cause the membership nationally to be deprived of the right to strike.”
Failure to take the reasonable steps outlined in the Code of Practice to ensure that its members comply with a work notice means the whole strike becomes unlawful. In other words, one picketer could collapse a national dispute.
Union may be sued for an injunction to stop the strike and damages (up to £1,000,000 for the biggest unions) for any ensuing loss if the strike is deemed unlawful.
“Failure to comply with an injunction may result in proceedings by the employer for contempt of court with sanctions including fines (and theoretically, imprisonment) and, ultimately, sequestration (seizure) of the union’s assets.
“And if the strike becomes unlawful because the union fails to take these reasonable steps, all strikers (not just those specified in a work notice) will then cease to have automatic unfair-dismissal protection,” the briefing adds.
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The authors conclude: “Never before have our unions been obliged to act as enforcers on behalf of employers and the State, as is now required by the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023…
“[Unions will] be considering other ways of exerting industrial pressure, for example by taking forms of industrial action other than strikes. Industrial action is unlikely to decline, but its form may radically change as a result of this Act.”
Commenting on the new rail strike limits, transport minister Lord Davies told the Lords this week: “Tackling strikes in transport was a 2019 manifesto commitment. As we are seeing now, when the rail trade unions choose to strike, people, including doctors, nurses and teachers, experience disruption in accessing their places of work, schools and vital medical appointments. In some cases, they are unable to travel at all.”
Kevin Hollinrake, Minister for Enterprise, Markets, and Small Business, added in the new Code of Conduct: “The Government is focused on making the hard but necessary long-term decisions to deliver the change that the country needs to put the UK on the right path for the future. That is why earlier this year, Parliament passed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The Act seeks to balance the ability of workers to strike with the rights and freedoms of the public to go about their daily lives, including getting to work and accessing key services.”
It is rare for the TUC to convene the whole trade union movement for a special Congress outside of the TUC’s annual Congress event, which takes place in September.
A special Congress last took place over 40 years ago in 1982, to fight Margaret Thatcher’s anti-union legislation. The TUC have talked about the fact that these are exceptional circumstances given the “unprecedented attack on the right to strike”.
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Questioning Art in a Time of War
Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah is nominally addressed to Jewish teens in the United States who are preparing for their B’nai Mitzvahs (a gender-neutral rendering of Bat or Bar Mitzvah). It was published in an edition of 3,000 by Wendy’s Subway, an independent Brooklyn publisher, with support from Harvard University and VCU, which places the book squarely within an art-world context. What, if anything, can this politically-oriented book accomplish in an art context that direct activism in organizations like JVP cannot?...
‘Emmnon’ Revealed: New Anti-Immigration Pressure Group Emerges at 55 Tufton Street
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A new entity has established itself at 55 Tufton St – home to many of the free-market, pro-Brexit, climate denial-linked think tanks comprising the right-wing lobbying scene – with the aim of “moving the Overton window” and operating as a “focal point” for anti-immigration sentiment in Britain.
End Mass Migration (EMM) was incorporated on 17 October and has links to other groups operating out of the same address – the New Culture Forum and Migration Watch, as well as Reform UK.
It describes itself as “a campaign organisation that has been set up by a group of immigration experts from academia, think tanks, politics and the media” to challenge “the myth that mass immigration is beneficial to the UK when it is actually causing enormous economic, social, cultural and political damage to our country”.
The organisation, which accepts donations on its website, blames migration for putting pressure on public services and the economy and plans on demanding a referendum on “limiting the number of immigrants who can come to the UK every year” – as well as claiming that the “political establishment, mainstream media [and] academia” are ignoring the public.
It sets out five key aims as a call to action: “a massive reduction in immigration"; "a referendum on legally limiting the number of immigrants who can come to the UK every year", the UK's "withdrawal from the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Refugee Convention and the UN Migration Compact"; “establishing an open and honest conversation about immigration"; and “exposing the pro-mass immigration lobby”.
This “lobby”, the group claims, “have no interest in the wellbeing of you and your family, your locality, or the country as a whole” – claiming some are motivated by narrow economic interests, while others “are just twisted ideologues who despise our country and Western civilisation generally”.
The “facts” page of the organisation's website argues that “we are not, and never have been, a nation of immigrants” and that “you are told diversity makes us strong. The opposite is true”. It also claims “mass immigration has a negative impact on every aspect of life in the UK" and that "it is destroying your future”.
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The project was launched at an 'Immigration Conference' event run by the New Culture Forum, at which its only director – Neil Philip Anderson – gave a speech entitled “Five Years Left to Save Britain: A Call to Action”.
During the event, Anderson described how “we have to move the Overton window to make immigration and diversity a topic that we refuse to be coerced by” and that the right “need to create a separate ecosystem, or counterculture, through which our ideas can be promulgated”.
Formally introducing End Mass Migration, he described it as the means by which this new anti-immigration ecosystem could flourish, by creating “a grass-roots presence throughout the country by setting up local chapters and coordinating and messaging our activities centrally". He added: “End Mass Migration wants to become that focal point. It needs to become that focal point."
Anderson explained how the current lack of public trust in Parliament and politicians could be seen as “an opportunity” to apply pressure on parliamentarians, suggesting people might want to instead reject both Labour and the Conservatives at the ballot box, “lending their votes to a smaller party that opposes mass immigration”. End Mass Migration did not respond to a request for comment asking which "smaller party" it was referring to.
Anderson revealed “we have grand plans for this campaign” and that it will "evolve over the coming weeks, months, and years”.
EMM also has links to other groups taking a hardline stance on immigration.
Anderson, for example, previously stood as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Brexit Party (now Reform UK) in Ilford North in 2019, where he secured just 1.9% of the vote. Reform UK campaigns on a platform of “net zero immigration” and has recently faced scrutiny for allegedly offering money to Conservative MPs on the right of the party to defect ahead of the next general election. Leader Richard Tice has denied the claims while admitting he has engaged in “numerous discussions with Tory MPs”.
Many 'Red Wall' Conservatives now reportedly risk losing their seats to Reform, with senior Conservatives calling it a “battle for the soul of the party”. One former minister claimed, after two disastrous Tory by-election losses, that “it shows that the failure to deliver on migration means they [Reform UK] alone could hand Labour the Red Wall”.
Anderson was also previously a director at the Migration Watch UK think tank, founded in 2001 by Lord Green of Deddington. It has historically led Tufton Street’s call for lower net migration and previously been criticised for presenting misleading figures to stoke anti-asylum seeker sentiment.
EMM’s website also states that ‘End Mass Migration’ is the trading name of Emmnon Ltd’, which has its own Companies House listing and was established in February. Both companies feature Anderson as a director, but Emmnon also previously featured among its controlling directors Peter Robin Whittle.
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Whittle is the former 2016 UKIP London Mayoral candidate and Deputy Leader of the party, under Paul Nuttall. He is also the founder and director of the New Culture Forum (which hosted EMM’s launch).
The New Culture Forum states that its aims at “challenging the orthodoxies dominant in our institutions, public life and wider culture” to combat what it perceives as a “left-wing bias” and “woke ideology” in the media and academia. It has previously been described as part of the "infrastructure" of the broader conservative movement.
After initially being approached by Byline Times for comment for this newspaper's first report on Emmnon, the company suddenly changed its registered offices to 71-75 Shelton Street in London's Covent Garden – an address which houses organisations providing for-hire director and company addresses. The newly registered iteration of the company has, however, renewed its open affiliation with the Tufton Street address. EMM did not respond to a request for comment on the change of address.
It appears that End Mass Migration will operate as a pressure group. On the website, it encourages individuals to “form a local chapter of EMM and arrange regular meetings” and to “provide information to EMM about how immigration impacts your locality in areas such as schooling, healthcare, housing, the use of hotels to accommodate migrants, local government policy favouring immigrants etc.”.
“We are not trying to replicate the work of others, most notably Migration Watch UK," Anderson said at the group's launch event. "We are not a think tank, nor a political party, and neither do we advocate a political party… but we are determined to ensure that immigration policy works for the people of this country.”
Anderson added: “We don’t know where this is going to go, but there’s nothing out there doing this; there’s nothing offering this course of action.
“If we can emulate UKIP’s achievements, I’d be quite glad about that. If we can pull the conversation that way. If we can, even if it does take a decade or 20 years to force this onto the agenda of the political parties… we need action on the streets, we need grassroots local action.”
Responding to the emergence of EMM, Naomi Smith, chief executive of Best for Britain, said: “This is a new outfit in bed with the same old people. The people who championed a hard Brexit, leaving our economy in tatters, and household costs hiked, who were poster boys for the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng budget, from which ordinary Brits will be paying the price for years to come, and who choose to ignore every leading scientists when it comes to saving the planet.
"Given their heritage, it is clear that these are not serious people but their funding makes them dangerous."
End Mass Migration did not specify to Byline Times whether it was going to primarily target Labour or the Conservatives.
This article was published in partnership with Good Law Project. Read its version of this story here. Additional reporting by Josiah Mortimer
Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community – review
In Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community, Katherine Millar analyses “support the troops” discourses in the US and UK during the early years of the global war on terror (2001-2010). Millar’s is a nuanced and powerful study of shifting civilian-military relations – and more broadly, of political community and belonging – in liberal democracies, writes Amy Gaeta.
Read an interview with Katherine Millar about the book published on LSE Review of Books in March 2023.
Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community. Katherine Millar. Oxford University Press. 2022.
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Katherine Millar’s Support the Troops identifies the emergence of calls to “support the troops” in the US and UK and asks what this discourse not only represents about political community and gender relations, but how this call mobilises public support for wars they may also oppose.
Millar contextualises “support the troops” within the normative construction of civilian-military relations in liberal democracies, and in doing so, challenges what she calls “the good story of liberalism” by tracing how liberalism has feigned moral superiority and structure by distancing itself from the military violence upon which it relies for maintenance (xx).
Millar contextualises ‘support the troops’ within the normative construction of civilian-military relations in liberal democracies, and in doing so, challenges what she calls ‘the good story of liberalism’
Across eight chapters, Millar assembles an impressive and varied archive of calls to support the troops, including speeches, media reports, government press releases, bumper stickers, adverts, and more. The book is guided by the feminist methodological impulse to confront uncertainty and partiality in our objects of study. In other words, it is refreshing that Millar admits this impressively researched book is guided by a series of unanswered questions that emerged in her personal experience of living in Canada during the Iraq War. These questions include, “can you oppose a war while still living in community” (x) and “why do we think we have to [support the troops]?” (xi). Also impressive is Millar’s choice to not focus on individuals’ reasons for why they do or do not support the troops. By focusing on the larger patterns in discourse, Support the Troops offers a more applicable and comparative work that enables readers to appreciate the slight, yet telling difference in US and UK civil-military relations and their formation.
Millar refuses easy equations and assumptions, namely the notion that “support the troops” is yet another site of militarism.
In this exploration, Millar refuses easy equations and assumptions, namely the notion that “support the troops” is yet another site of militarism. Rather than providing an answer, Millar instead demonstrates that militarism is simply not a productive analytical framing. Using the analytic of “discursive martiality,” she treats the military as a “discourse of gendered obligation and socially generative violence” and aims to follow how it moves and what it forecloses (35).
The idea that serving and thereby being willing to go to war and possibly die or become disabled for one’s country, is a key quality of what it meant to be a ‘good citizen,’ a deeply masculinised and racialised ideal.
Central to her investigation of support the troops discourse is the liberal military contract, a binding element of modern-day liberal democracies. Namely, the contract is the idea that serving and thereby being willing to go to war and possibly die or become disabled for one’s country, is a key quality of what it meant to be a “good citizen,” a deeply masculinised and racialised ideal. In earlier 20th-century wars, namely the World Wars, attacks on the domestic front, such as the aerial bombing of civilian areas in the UK, cultivated a shared sense of vulnerability among publics with the military and therefore obligation to sacrifice something in service of the war, Millar argues. As such, by World War Two, the expectation that everyone should do one’s part for the war – no matter the war – became domesticated, “experientially, affectively, and ideologically within the US and UK” (52). Structurally then, this further sedimented the feminisation of the domestic front – providing charity and care labour and making sacrifices at home – and the masculinisation of the war front – being willing to die to protect their nation and the feminised home front.
Particularly illuminating about Millar’s project is her tracing of how different wars produced different discursive formations of military personnel and therefore civilian-military relations. A memorable example is the refrain of “our boys” during the Vietnam War which framed soldiers as innocent, emphasising their youth and pre-empting how the experience of war would rush them into “manhood” (55). The innocent angle also firmly contrasts the horrors of the Vietnam War enacted by US soldiers.
The pluralised and more passive formation of the “troops” still requires the support of the public, posing important questions about what the troops need support for, and what support the military and government are failing to provide them that the public must supplement.
Once again, today, civilian-military relations are in flux for civilians living in liberal democracies. War is something that happens “over there,” and no longer do eager citizens enlist in hoards and go to war overseas, nor are they drafted, although military recruitment campaigns are still going strong. In tandem, many military service jobs appear as rather mundane, and this may impact the social importance and status of soldiers and soldiering to classed, racialised, and gendered ideas of civilised and ultimately “good” citizenship. Millar argues that these changes contribute to a shift in the gendered structure of the liberal military contract’s relationship to normalising violence. Whereas in past wars, where killing and dying for the state were key to masculinised normative citizenship, now “violence is presented as incidental to war, something that ‘happens’ to the vulnerable, structurally feminized troops” (102). The pluralised and more passive formation of the “troops” still requires the support of the public, posing important questions about what the troops need support for, and what support the military and government are failing to provide them that the public must supplement.
Millar’s text is extremely pertinent in a political era of cyberwar, drone warfare, and other forms of warfare that do not require the same degree of physical and geographical mobilising of troops.
Millar’s text is extremely pertinent in a political era of cyberwar, drone warfare, and other forms of warfare that do not require the same degree of physical and geographical mobilising of troops. As an academic working across questions of disability, gender, and contemporary US militarisation, I found Millar’s project to offer generative questions about how political community emerges differently when the ready-to-die cisgender-heterosexual-male idea of a solider and the violence inflicted by war is moved out of the view of the domestic front, especially when that figure is not even physically present in geographically defined spaces of conflict and war.
The book did leave me wanting a more robust analysis of the relationship between “good citizenship,” Whiteness, and masculinity, all of which are deeply shaped by the violence that underpins the “good” story of liberalism and civilian-military relations – although Millar certainly does not ignore or deny those connections. Yet, this may also be read as an opportunity for scholars to examine how changes in military service expectations and roles affect the ways that racial structures shift in accordance.
Millar’s investigation of the discursive patterns around “support the troops” begs questions about what happens when a minority or a wider segment of the public refuses to give such support.
Support the Troops is a powerful text that invites readers to think carefully about the present-day formation of political community and belonging in liberal democracies. Millar’s investigation of the discursive patterns around “support the troops” begs questions about what happens when a minority or a wider segment of the public refuses to give such support. As large waves of state-critical activism and civil protests continue to sweep across the US and UK, among other parts of the world, Support the Troops is a crucial touchpoint for understanding the “good story of liberalism” and the types of social contracts it relies upon for cohesion between the state, the military, and citizens.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
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Milo Miller introduces Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group
In an excerpt from the preface to Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group, editor Milo Miller shares context about the group and the impetus for the book which brings together, for the first time, the writings of one of Britain’s pioneering Black radical organisations of the 1970s.
Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group. Brixton Black Women’s Group; Milo Miller (ed.). Verso. 2023.
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The Brixton Black Women’s Group (BBWG), which formed in 1973 and lasted until 1989, was a Black socialist feminist organisation based in Brixton, south London. It is thought to be the first autonomous Black women’s group of its kind to be established in London, and to be among the first in Britain more broadly (indeed, it was initially known simply as ‘the Black Women’s Group’).
The [Brixton Black Women’s Group] was central to radical struggles against racism, fascism, sexism and class oppression in London and beyond
The group was central to radical struggles against racism, fascism, sexism and class oppression in London and beyond, organising extensively around the policing and criminalisation of Black people, reproductive justice, housing, labour, legislation on immigration and nationality, education and more. The BBWG worked closely with other community groups and organisations; it was also actively part of networks of women’s groups nationally and internationally. It was instrumental in establishing the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD), which existed between 1978 and 1983 and was the first national Black women’s organisation in the UK.
Political Blackness […] was understood as encompassing all those exploited in Britain through historical and modern forms of colonialism, imperialism and racism. “Blackness”, in this sense, functioned as a site of active and relational re/articulation; as a site of resistance, of solidarity and of coalition.
Crucially, the BBWG organised on the grounds of political Blackness. “Blackness”, in this formulation, was not understood as a descriptive category referring, for example, to “race” or skin colour; rather, it was understood as encompassing all those exploited in Britain through historical and modern forms of colonialism, imperialism and racism. “Blackness”, in this sense, functioned as a site of active and relational re/articulation; as a site of resistance, of solidarity and of coalition. This conceptualisation of Blackness was prevalent (though far from settled or uncontested) in Britain’s Black Power movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and the BBWG’s members, accordingly, included women from and with ties to the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. This approach was central to – and further developed by the BBWG’s critical involvement in – OWAAD, which explicitly marked it by referring to women of Asian and African descent in its name.
Along with the Mary Seacole Craft Group, the BBWG established the Mary Seacole House, later renamed the Black Women’s Centre, in 1979. For much of its existence, the centre was managed by the BBWG. It became a focal point for the meeting of women’s groups and political organisations working across London. The centre hosted a regular legal and welfare rights information and referral service; a craft workshop; a health group providing, among other services, advice on contraception and pregnancy; a crèche; children’s activities during school holidays; and a library and resource centre specialising in women’s literature and Black history. In the aftermath of the April 1981 Brixton Uprising, the centre also functioned as the headquarters of the Brixton Defence Campaign’s Legal Defence Group.
The BBWG’s newsletter, Speak Out […] contained reports on the BBWG and other grassroots groups’ work on a variety of fronts, in-depth political position statements, analyses of proposed legislation, explainers on health issues and accounts of liberation struggles across the Global South.
The BBWG’s newsletter, Speak Out, detailed all of this. It contained reports on the BBWG and other grassroots groups’ work on a variety of fronts, in-depth political position statements, analyses of proposed legislation, explainers on health issues and accounts of liberation struggles across the Global South. Alongside these, there were poems and illustrations by BBWG members, as well as reviews of plays, films and novels – emphasising the group’s understanding of culture and political struggle as inseparable, and of art and self-expression as integral to movements for liberation. Collectively written pieces – on, for example, the issues the group organised around, the coalitions the group was part of, and the group’s political positions – appeared in publications such as Race Today, Spare Rib, Red Rag and Feminist Review.
This book brings together, for the first time, all of the issues of Speak Out as well as statements, articles and book chapters written by the Brixton Black Women’s Group.
Over the years, many individuals and groups have devoted a considerable amount of effort to honouring the BBWG’s work – not least the writers of the landmark 1985 book The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain. The first sustained account of Black women’s history in Britain written by Black women, The Heart of the Race was written by BBWG members Beverley Bryan and Suzanne Scafe with OWAAD co-founder Stella Dadzie, and features an extended section on the BBWG. Elsewhere, Dadzie’s personal papers, held at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, have long included the most comprehensive collection of BBWG documents available. Despite efforts by a great many people, however, the wealth of writing produced by the BBWG has remained scattered and often difficult to access. This book brings together, for the first time, all of the issues of Speak Out as well as statements, articles and book chapters written by the Brixton Black Women’s Group. It also contains other hard-to-access archival material essential to understanding the group’s work and trajectory.
Why wasn’t the group’s trailblazing work as celebrated as it deserved to be and available as a resource in combatting current, seemingly intractable and ever-intensifying crises?
The research culminating in this book began in 2016, as part of my work on my PhD thesis, which focused on squatting in Brixton from the 1970s to the 2010s. During my PhD, I began compiling as much of the BBWG’s writings as I could find, in addition to writing by individual members of the group. I visited archives and typed up issues of Speak Out, as well as leaflets produced by the group; I tracked down out-of-print books and journals, typing up chapters and articles written by the group or by individual members. Initially, this was solely so I could easily revisit this writing and quote from it as needed in my thesis; over time, however, this gathering of the BBWG’s writing became a project in its own right, as the group’s visionary work speaks urgently to the conditions we face in the present. I began to share the material I was collecting with friends, whose excitement was palpable. Many of them had never heard of the group; some had but had never encountered the group’s writings. My own excitement was beginning to be mixed with frustration: Why wasn’t this material more widely known and accessible? Why was the Brixton Black Women’s Group so absent from accounts of any number of key political issues, campaigns and events in 1970s and 1980s Britain to which they were central? Why wasn’t the group’s trailblazing work as celebrated as it deserved to be and available as a resource in combatting current, seemingly intractable and ever-intensifying crises? It became very clear: the collected writings of the Brixton Black Women’s Group had to be published.
With this in mind, from 2017 onwards I worked on this collection whenever I could. I continued typing up articles and chapters; I tracked down an elusive Speak Out issue; I found photos of the Black Women’s Centre; I carefully removed photocopier static from images in issues of Speak Out. In November 2020 I contacted members of the BBWG and sent them what I had put together, with the offer to take this forward should they be willing. Meticulous discussions then took place between us: What should the scope of the book be? What material was perhaps beyond that scope, and what material had yet to be included? Members looked to their personal archives and sent me more material to include, from leaflets and statements to photographs.
The year of this book’s publication – 2023 – marks fifty years since the Brixton Black Women’s Group was founded.
The year of this book’s publication – 2023 – marks fifty years since the Brixton Black Women’s Group was founded. As fascism sees a resurgence around the world, as the struggle against police brutality and racism must continue unabated, as attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy rage on and as border regimes and capitalism continue to exact their deadly toll, the work and legacy of the Brixton Black Women’s Group remain as vital and necessary as ever. This book is offered in the hope that it might provide tools to not only understand and confront this current conjuncture but also prefigure and enact practices of mutual aid, solidarity and resistance so urgently needed to overcome it. It is offered in the hope that it might provide tools to imagine a radically different world; a world beyond the brutal entanglement of conquest and empire.
Note: This excerpt from the introduction to Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group by the Brixton Black Women’s Group, edited by Milo Miller, is copyrighted to Verso Books, and is reproduced here with their permission.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Some members of the BBWG in 1979, courtesy of Milo Miller/Verso.
Government Faces Court Action Over Arms Sales to Israel Amid Claims of Gaza “Genocide”
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Human rights groups are taking the UK Government to the High Court over arms exports to Israel.
Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) announced the launch of legal proceedings earlier this week.
The legal filing comes amid claims Israel's policies explicitly call for collective punishment and forced displacement of Gaza’s trapped population, along with increasingly aggressive settlement activity in the West Bank.
The legal action was taken after written requests to suspend arms sales to Israel due to grave breaches of international law and UK rules were “repeatedly ignored”, the groups say.
The filed papers detail indiscriminate attacks on civilians, destruction of infrastructure critical for their survival, starvation, forced displacement, and the risk of genocide.
The action is supported by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, and the briefing will also have contributions from other UK organisations, including the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).
Since 7 October, more than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel according to the health ministry, around half of whom are children. It comes as Israel continues to respond to Hamas' terror attacks six weeks ago.
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Under the UK Government’s 'strategic licensing criteria', weapons may not be exported where there is a clear risk that they might be used in serious violations of international law.
Israel’s policies and actions have resulted in widespread indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians, killing thousands and levelling entire neighbourhoods to the ground, Al Haq and GLAN argue.
Protected sites such as hospitals, schools, and food sources have been repeatedly and, in the eyes of human rights observers, targeted by airstrikes. Israel has also ordered the forced displacement of more than a million Gazans from north to south Gaza. The UN stated this transfer would have "devastating humanitarian consequences".
Earlier this month, UK health workers protested to demand an immediate end to UK arms sales to Israel.
The UK Government has authorised nearly £500 million worth of arms exports to Israel in the past eight years, according to MedAct, a non-profit for social-justice focused health workers.
In the statement by Health Workers for a Free Palestine, the group said: “As health workers, we are responding to the call from our colleagues in Palestine for us to stand with them in solidarity.”
Elizabeth, a foundation doctor, told the protest: “We are horrified at the attacks on hospitals, the thousands of deaths, the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, and how politicians are justifying this. As health workers in the UK, it is our responsibility to demand the UK ends its support for genocide.”
Recent statements by Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, strongly suggest that the military is conducting reprisal attacks against civilians, with Gallant ordering a "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip.
"There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly". In the context of ordering the evacuation of northern Gaza, he also stated on 9 October that the aim is "to change the face of reality in Gaza 50 years ahead".
An IDF spokesperson has admitted that, in the large-scale bombardment of Gaza, Israel’s "emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy", and an unnamed Israeli official told local media that Gaza would be reduced to a "city of tents" by the end of the campaign.
Legal experts have even suggested that these statements demonstrate “genocidal intent” to destroy Palestinians as a national group.
On 16 November, UN experts made a statement calling on the international community to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people, saying "grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians in the aftermath of 7 October, particularly in Gaza, point to a genocide in the making".
The Israeli regime violates most of the fundamental human rights of Palestinians.
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More than 800 scholars recently signed a letter aiming to “sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide”.
The backers of the UK legal claim over arms sales say that Israel imposes a comprehensive system of “apartheid in occupied territory”, including constructing a separation barrier (or 'Apartheid Wall') which the International Court of Justice has declared illegal.
“Its soldiers regularly shoot unarmed civilians with live ammunition; it constantly monitors the Palestinian population and impedes their movement through dozens of checkpoints and advanced technology; it destroys Palestinian property and moves its own population into occupied territory," the groups said in a statement. "This brutality against Palestinians in the West Bank has only worsened since 7 October."
The UK Government has granted licences for the sale of British weapons to Israel under a wide range of categories in recent years. For example, since 2015, there has been £472 million in limited value ‘standard’ licence grants, and 58 unlimited value ‘open’ licences.
The categories include: body armour, military communications equipment, military electronic equipment, components for military radars and targeting equipment, components for military aircraft displays and unmanned air vehicles, components for military support and combat aircraft, naval vessel components, and much more.
Given that these items are all capable of being used in Israel’s actions against Palestinians, many of which are criminal acts under international criminal law, some legal experts argue there is a "clear risk" of human rights abuses under the strategic licensing criteria, meaning the Government should not be issuing these licences.
Dearbhla Minogue, GLAN senior lawyer, said: “No self-respecting state should allow its weapons anywhere near the atrocities that Israel is currently committing against the entire population of Gaza. These licences are outrageous, and I am curious to see how the UK Government will defend itself before the High Court.”
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Dr Gearóid Ó Cuinn, director of the Global Legal Action Network, argued that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is the result of “numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed over time”.
“Recent statements by Israeli military leaders now obligate states to review their transfer of arms," Dr Ó Cuinn said. "There should be no doubt that these weapons are at acute risk of being used to commit further criminal acts and, possibly genocide."
Other experts say that it is not possible to prove Israel’s actions meet the legal threshold for genocide so far.
“I don’t think it’s genocidal yet – I think it can easily be,” Ernesto Verdeja, an associate professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, told the US outlet Vox. “At this point, it’s a little hard to put all the pieces together."
Israel has vociferously rejected claims of genocide in Gaza.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on 17 November: "Israel rejects all allegations made by the [UN] Special Rapporteurs. Those who signed the statement insult the victims of genocide throughout history… Israel is committed to international humanitarian law and will continue to take measures to prevent civilian harm in Gaza."
Under the UN Genocide Convention – which came into force in 1951 and has been ratified by 153 states – genocide means acts to specifically destroy a "national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, [or] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.
Israel and Hamas have agreed a four-day ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into the conflict zone, which began on Friday (24 November) morning.
A Conservative bill to ban council boycotts of countries like Israel on political grounds is currently making its way through Parliament and will soon head to the House of Lords.
GLAN has launched a crowdfunder to support its legal challenge.
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