Reclaiming the American Dream?

 Jean Smith of the NY Salon lead a discussion around the US elections and the Obama phenomenon. Before opening up the discussion, Jean provided some context to the  elections. She talked about the excitement, people staying up late to watch the TV debates. Likening the atmosphere to a big sporting event, Jean suggested that, where there is a shortage of big political ideas, voting become the 'be all and end all' of the political process. 

One of the big stories of the election has been the absence of politics. Not so much a battle of ideas, more about lifestyle and values. While Obama is often criticized as elitist - characterized in terms of the Latte drinking elite- Sarah Pallin's image relates to everyday  Mid West folk. The burning questions of the 1990s Culture Wars replayed as lifestyle choices. He is pro choice and pro gun control. She stands for family values but her anti abortion and pro gun positions may be more an expression of personal values than robust political  policies. Again, in the absence of big ideas, interest is focused on the candidates personalities and personal values. But 'lifestyle politics' presents a major problem for Democracy, for if we do not know their ideological position, how do we hold our politicians accountable for their actions? How can we even predict what their actions may be? Being passive spectators throughout the election process, the US electorate, crudely characterized as 'Red State' and 'Blue State' , are open to manipulation by the PR people. Passivity will quickly turn to cynicism. 

The discussion that followed considered the impact of the economic crisis, in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Would the economic downturn mark a shift towards a more robust politics- a move away from 'life style towards 'bread and butter' issues? Or, outside of a clear ideological framework, would responses to the economic crisis simply take on a chaotic  character. Was there a liklihood of consensus between Republicans and Democrats and a further blurring of the boundaries between the two parties? The group also considered, where power is located, asking how much authority politicians actually exercise in a globalized economy. However,  does the alienation of our democratic control over the political process and the disconnection between politicians and social forces actually represent a far more serious problem than globalization? Are we seeing a political system which is empty of ideologies becoming managerial, with power located outside of the electorate? If this is the case, it is important that people start asking 'how did we get here?' and 'where do we want to go?'

the Belfast film premier of  The More the Merrier

a WORLDwrite and Chew on it production/ London Behind the Scenes film.

Monday 2nd June 7.00pm.

Black Box Café  18-22 Hill Street  Belfast
Door tax:  £4 (unwaged £2)

The More the Merrier documents the history of immigration in London’s East End, alongside the contemporary experience of one young Indian woman’s desire to stay in the UK. Interweaving archive photography, film and music, the documentary, made by a young, international film crew, makes a powerful case for freedom to travel for all, asking us to open our minds, and our borders.

The film begins at St Katharine Docks in London’s East End, the historical landing and departure point for immigrants settling in the UK and emigrants heading off to the New World. Historically, immigration and emigration represented people’s striving for a better world, yet from the 1905 Aliens Act onwards, the UK began to shut its borders. The film suggests that although attitudes to immigration have become de-racialised, there has been more closure than ever before. Instead, today’s anti-immigrant sentiment is situated within a culture of limits and fear.

WORLDwrite Director Ceri Dingle will join us at the event to respond to questions from the audience and engage in discussion:  “Our volunteers have researched and developed an excellent and positive pro-immigration film. This is not a tragic story, not an exceptional case, but a fresh appraisal of the immigration debate with a much needed historical perspective. Cutting through the depressing low expectations we have for what is possible today, the title of the film says it all.”

Citizenship Test meets Pub Quiz

The Belfast Salon presents:

The UK Citizenship Test Pub Quiz

 
Tuesday May 6th 7.30pm
Upstairs at White’s Tavern  2-4 Winecellar Entry  Belfast
Door Tax: £3

Politicians are searching for ways of building a sense of citizenship, identified in terms of shared values and reaching across differences of race, religion and culture. Taught within the school curriculum, incorporated into English teaching for speakers of other languages and endlessly explored in policy documents, what it means to be a UK citizen is somehow becoming more and more problematic and unclear.

 
The Home Office devised UK Citizenship Test represents a typically bureaucratic response, reducing complex questions of identity and attachment, to a multiple choice questionnaire, in which applicants are required to tick the right boxes against lists of officially agreed ‘common values’.

·                     What does Guy Fawkes night commemorate?

·                     What proportion of young adults in the UK have used illegal drugs at one time or the

              other?

·                     What year did women in the UK get the right to divorce their husbands?

·                     Do women have equal rights and has this always been the case?

The UK Citizenship Test must seem like a strange way of proving integration and loyalty to those (often long term) UK residents who are required to make the grade before being granted full citizenship. Citizenship in Ireland remains a site of contestation. People born in Northern Ireland are entitled to claim both British and Irish citizenship, but the Test remains compulsory for immigrants wishing to permanently settle here. The Republic of Ireland, like the UK places many limitations on the right to freedom of movement, but does not impose a citizenship test….yet.

Which brings us to the Belfast Salon event, where Citizenship Test meets Pub Quiz. Our main focus will be on the Test itself. Is it a meaningful way of assessing someone’s suitability for citizenship? Is what the Test sets as necessary for immigrants to learn from UK history and society entirely relevant, not to mention uncontested?  And anyway, if the test really is about cultural awareness, wouldn’t candidates be better off going to a Cathedral Quarter Festival event or taking a trip to the pub, rather than trawling through the official ‘Life in the UK Handbook’?

Who will pass and fail?  If you are currently facing the Official Test, then why not come along for an evening’s revision and, more importantly, to enjoy an opportunity of learning more about the reality of local attitudes towards ideas of citizenship. If on the other hand, by accident of birth, you are not facing the Official Test, but are slightly concerned you may fail this evening, don’t worry; no passports will be confiscated in the final citizenship ceremony. However, we will be sharing the outcomes from this evening with the Home Office and asking for their response.

From Civil Rights to Human Rights
- where did the radicalism of ‘68 lead?

Tuesday 1st April  7.00pm
Belfast Exposed Gallery  Donegall Street  Belfast

In 1968 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association brought thousands onto the streets, demanding one man one vote, repeal of the Special Powers Act and an end to discrimination against the Catholic minority.  Forty years on, ‘the right to enjoy equal treatment and a life free of discrimination’ is enshrined in law and protected by the Equality Commission and NI Human Rights Commission, official bodies committed to creating ‘a society at ease with diversity’. The discussion continues last month’s exploration of multiculturalism by exploring the meaning of civil rights and identity politics in the Northern Ireland context and asking what happened to the radicalism of ‘68?

Dividing lines. How is multiculturalism playing out in Northern Ireland?

Tuesday 19th February  7.00pm

Front Page  106-110 Donegall Street  Belfast

As part of the Belfast Salon’s series of discussions around race, identity and multiculturalism, sociologist Chris Gilligan explores the rise and rise of identity politics in contemporary Northern Ireland

Chris Gilligan opened the discussion with a short presentation on the forms and impacts of identity politics in post  agreement NI. Chris began with a short description of the government structures in place since the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), particularly the requirement for political parties to declare themselves as nationalist, unionist or other for the purposes of voting in the Assembly. The GFA has undoubtedly institutionalised sectarian politics. While acknowledging this, defenders of the GFA arrangements argue that the new parliamentary arrangements are in place to prevent a return to majority domination, which was a major contributing factor to inequality and conflict in NI. 

There have been criticisms that these new political arrangements exclude other identities (women, ethnic minorities, gay people, disabled etc), which sit outside the Green/ Orange camp. More often than not this criticism acknowledges a need for more categories of identity, in other words an extension of identity politics.

Often ignored in discussions around post GFA political arrangements, are the sub sets of law and policy, existing outside government structures, which have become part of the fabric of NI’s social and economic life. Section 75 of the NI act created categories of difference around race, gender, sexuality, marital status and disability. Bodies like the Equality Commission scrutinise and regulate social and economic life and enforce Good Relations and equality impacts. The proliferation of these legislative and policy sub sets is contributing to a process of social fragmentation as different identities compete for recognition, protection and support, while increasingly opening up informal relationships to formal scrutiny.

Chris went on to examine a particular area of social experience, which has been affected by the rise of multiculturalism in NI: The formalisation of informal spheres of community life.

Chris took the Twelfth night Loyalist Bonfires as a starting point. The bonfires, he argued, were an important part of Loyalist ritual, a means of reaffirming identity, supporting a sense of continuity and tradition and a sense of belonging or attachment to place, based upon a differentiation from others. They were undoubtedly sectarian, but the violence they expressed had become symbolic. The political meaning of the bonfires being shaped by their political context, NI, Loyalist bonfires in post 1998 NI, express a very different political meaning than in 1967 or 1977. Being deliberately excessive they can be read in the tradition of carnival- a dramatisation or an inversion of the everyday. Of course the bonfires send a signal to Catholics, but also to the protestant middle and political classes. They are an expression of (a residual) social power- causing offence to respectable people from all sections of society, but seemingly beyond regulation by the police or the authorities. Moves to regulate the bonfires, creating more sanitised, less offensive rituals, are an attempt to formalise spontaneous social relations. On this basis, Chris argued in support of the Loyalist bonfires to continue free from regulation.

The discussion that followed raised questions around the role of the state in mediating between conflicting political interests and identities:

Catholics (and many Protestants) who find the bonfires offensive may well be reassured that the state would intervene to regulate and prevent some of the more ugly manifestations of sectarianism It is not so long ago that Loyalist bonfires were more than symbolic and represented a threat to catholic communities. A few sparklers on Guy Fawkes night might not be so visually exciting, but if the energy of the bonfires is derived from their sectarian purpose, then isn’t it better that they are allowed to (encouraged to) die out?

Countering this argument, however, involves looking at the bonfires as rituals, where their power derives not so much from political meaning as emotional pull. In a sense, excitement about the bonfires may be ‘in the blood’ precisely because it no longer relates to a viable political project. Outside of politics, the bonfires simply reaffirm a sense of belonging – and working class protestant identity and solidarity. Parallels were drawn between the denigration of British white working class culture (white trash, football hooligans) and the ‘lumpen loyalists’ dancing round bonfires.

The romanticisation of working class communities and references to some kind of golden age of working class freedom and tolerance was challenged. External regulation of behaviour, through law and policy, had at least protected gay people and others who stepped out of line. Communities in the past had been pretty conservative and intolerant towards difference- this should not be glossed over. On the other hand, the idea of the ‘worker’ as some sort of universal ‘social unit’ was reductive and denigrating.  However it was acknowledged that more politically correct attitudes towards race and diversity had tended to lead to more regulation and lectures from on high, rather than a relaxation of (essentially racist) immigration controls. Perhaps full on support for individual liberty opened up greater possibilities for people to exercise freedom outside the conformity of either class, community or cultural identity.

Another point was raised around the increase in segregated living that had followed the GFA. As peace walls had increased, however, work places and commercial/ retail spaces were becoming increasingly mixed. It was observed that the ’mixing up’ was going on in more or less regulated areas of life (the work place/ commercial life) and areas where interactions were more superficial. As the solidarities of the work place receded, it was becoming much easier for Protestant and Catholic workers to mix. But residential areas remained segregated.

Another strand of the discussion looked at identity politics (and prior to this the constitutional politics around nationality) as a substitute for ‘real politics’ or ‘bread and butter issues”. In this sense, the focus on identity/ nationality was a distraction from hard economic issues. But the question was raised, does identity politics step into the political vacuum or does it create it?

Responding to the question around bread and butter politics versus constitutional politics, it was suggested that the two were much more closely linked. In the NI context, the attempt to address bread and butter issues had brought about the near collapse of the state. There is a difference between arguing for one man one vote and little groups trying to pull people into support for their cause around single issues. The single issue character of identity politics reflected low expectations – just getting a few more resources was enough. The growing number of scandals in political life (in UK and Ireland) seemed to demonstrate a collapse in political confidence and trust in authority. Political life appears to be fragmenting right across society, both among the political elites and among the public at large. What is filling the vacuum?

The discussion ended with consideration of future topics, including:

This year is the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland. Should we be considering the differences between civil rights and identity/group rights or human rights? What happened to the radicalism of ’68? Why are our horizons so much lower in 2008?

There was a suggestion for a return to the arguments around Open Borders- we should try to take on arguments for open borders and consider how w would do this outside a discussion group but in the street and in the face of strong opposing arguments or simply disbelief. What arguments are fundamental to the case for open borders? The moral argument? The appeal to protection of individual liberties (immigration law threatens us all). Can we argue through an appeal to universal or common interests? In the context of an irreformable state, the civil rights movement was arguing for the unthinkable and they began as a handful of people round a table.

Pauline Hadaway

Feb 21 2008

Download Pdf File  Gilligan 2007 Identity & the Irish Question Nations & Nationalism

Why, at a time when multiculturalism/ respect for diversity is increasingly the norm, do fears of open borders persist?

Tuesday 22 January  7.00pm

Front Page  106-110 Donegall Street  Belfast

Summary: The evening began with a look at three positions on multiculturalism:

1.         Kenan Malik’s attack on multiculturalism. -Making a difference: culture, race and social policy (December 2005) - argues that the term 'multicultural' does not simply define a society that is racially and culturally diverse, but also references the policies necessary to manage such diversity. “The concept of multiculturalism, in other words, has come to embody both a description of a society and a prescription for controlling that society.” Unfortunately, Malik argues, the multiculturalist prescription takes what is valuable about cultural diversity– the clash of different ways of life, different experiences, different outlooks- and makes an issue out of them, more often than not giving rise to the very problems it is meant to solve. It does this by encouraging ways of thinking about difference- as something fixed and essential- that are rooted in racial theory.

2          Tariq Mahood’s defence of multiculturalism (Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity 16-05-07) sees it as an important element of building shared citizenship and even nation- building. For Mahood, multiculturalism recognises that while citizens may be individuals with individual rights, these rights are not uniform, and “citizenship contours itself around groups of people with specific cultures and histories.” Mahood also argues that ‘the nation state is not the exclusive site for citizenship”. It is possible, Mahood argues, to act as a concerned citizen “in a trade-union meeting or a mosque or in reading a novel or watching a television documentary in the privacy of one's home. It is the concern for the civic condition that is the issue - not the how and where.” Multiculturalism allows people to embrace multiple identities, free of the restrictions of a prescribed national identity.

3          Finally Slavoj Žižek’s take on the problems of finding common ground between different identities in contemporary society- The one measure of true love is: you can insult the other' (Nov 2001), in which he rejects the idea that “each of us inhabits his or her particular universe”, affirming that ‘the only true universality we have access to is political universality. “Which is not solidarity in some abstract idealist sense, but solidarity in struggle”. But as ideas of political solidarity between different interest groups and across cultural difference grow more and more remote, contemporary political movements are increasingly informed by the ‘politics of merely negotiating compromises between different positions’.

The group looked at multiculturalist policy in relation to immigration controls and growing anxieties around the threat of terrorism. There was acknowledgement of the tendency of multicultural politics to focus on speech, behaviour and cultural nuances, while ignoring big problems like detention without trial and restrictions on freedom of movement and speech. Even in the context of Gutanamo and the extension of administrative detention for terrorist suspects, (largely directed towards the Muslim minority), ideas of civil liberties appear to be off the multiculturalist radar, while people agonise instead over satirical cartoons or attitudes to the Veil.Is this a direct consequence of multiculturalism or is multiculturalism simply a product of the lowering of political horizons?

While Mahood focused on contested relationships between British and Muslim identities, the group tended to draw analogies from recent and contemporary Irish politics: The structuring of cultural identity into formal the political process; the d’Hondt system of government; competition for resources between different interest groups etc.

The problems of multiculturalism were generally acknowledged, but less was said in its defence, apart the need to protect minorities from ‘monolithic citizenship’ and the ‘tyranny of the majority’. In this sense multiculturalism was not ideal, but was a necessary evil for as long as society failed to address economic and social inequality, which gave rise to conflict.

Finally the group agreed to return one more time to consider the rise of identity politics and the problems of multiculturalism, either in the context of economic migration or as a feature of contemporary Irish politics.

Pauline Hadaway

6^th Feb 2008

Open Borders - common sense or wishful thinking?

Tuesday 27 November  7.00pm
Front Page  106-110 Donegall Street  Belfast.


The evening began with a short examination of Philippe Le Grain's "Immigrants Your Country Needs Them", which proposes ending immigration controls on the basis that immigrants enrich the host society, stimulate economic growth and in any case, the right to travel is a moral and inalienable right.

Although generally sympathetic to Legrain's thesis, the group acknowledged that his ideas go against the grain of most mainstream political thinking, raising the question, why do people remain concerned about levels of immigration? Not enough space- strains on public services, housing, transport, etc? Loss of national/ local identity? Threat to community cohesion? Do these concerns have any legitimacy? Or do they simply provide a cover for racism?

What sections of society feel most threatened or demonstrate anti immigration attitudes? The wealthy or the poorer sections of society? The politically powerful or the disenfranchised?

And why, at a time when more and more people enjoy greater opportunities for travel, is it generally considered acceptable to restrict the right to travel for millions of people in the developing world? Who or what is driving fear of immigration? Government? Media? Opportunistic politicians?

The group considered a range of media, political and grass roots responses to immigration. It was also noted that Legrain’s position belonged within a ‘right of centre’ political framework, informed by support for the free market, prompting the question, is there a Left position on immigration and if so, what (where) is it?

EAT DRINK AND ARGUE!


Whatever happened to the campaigning journalist?
Has news reporting become more of a morality play than telling it like it is?

Tuesday 6^th November  7.30pm
The Potthouse  Hill Street  Belfast

Siobhan O'Dwyer and myself are setting up a discussion group to open up much needed social space for people to get together for intelligent, open ended conversation, whether in pubs, restaurants or coffee bars around the city. Serious politics, but entertaining and open to many points of view.

Come along to enjoy a drink, a snack or a meal, but most of all an argument and a chance to share ideas. We look forward to the beginning of this interesting new departure.