Blog and website by Ronit Lentin, a political sociologist, writer and an antiracist activist.
-
Race counting and the Irish census
CONTINUE READING: Race counting and the Irish censusThe Irish census of population is upon us again, asking us to divulge information about home ownership, room numbers, employment, transport to work, age, birth place, gender, children, and so on. But what are census statistics about? According to the French theorist Michel Foucault, the collection and analysis of statistics, also known as ‘science of…
-
Race and the lessons of 1916
CONTINUE READING: Race and the lessons of 1916At the end of Easter 2016 week I feel somewhat 1916-ed out. I spent the week watching Insurrection, the wonderful day by day series about the 1916 Rising produced and directed by my late husband Louis for RTE in 1966 and which was re-broadcast for the first time only this year, fifty years after it…
-
Not a self-hating Jew
CONTINUE READING: Not a self-hating JewIn early March 2016 an Israeli bombardment of Gaza murdered two little children. According to Middle East Eye Yasin Abu Hussa, aged ten, died in a raid targeting a base of the Hamas movement military wing in Beit Lahia in the North of the Gaza Srip, one of four strikes the Israeli military said it…
-
No foothold for racists
CONTINUE READING: No foothold for racistsI was thrilled to stand on O’Connell Street on Saturday 6 February as part of a large coalition of people, Irish and migrants, who congregated in front of the GPO to say no to racism and Islamophobia and to counter Pegida Ireland’s plans to hold its inaugural meeting. Pegida stands for ‘Patriotic Europeans against the…
-
Holocaust denial and Israel’s ongoing war against the Palestinians
CONTINUE READING: Holocaust denial and Israel’s ongoing war against the PalestiniansAs if things in Palestine are not bad enough, with summary executions by trigger happy Israeli security forces of Palestinians suspected of violence against Israeli Jews and even of a migrant worker whose identity was mistaken for Palestinian, and with Israelis fearful of acts of violence to which, I believe, Palestinians are fully entitled in…
-
Israel’s war against the Palestinians, and Palestinian right of resistance
CONTINUE READING: Israel’s war against the Palestinians, and Palestinian right of resistanceIn a letter to The Examiner, a Dr Kevin McCarthy from UCC stated, regarding the killing of Jewish settlers Eiran and Naama Henkin in the occupied West Bank on 1 October, that ‘there is nothing heroic about murdering parents in front of their children’. However, the Israeli occupation forces are being neither heroic nor moral…
-
Refugee crisis: From solidarity to political response
CONTINUE READING: Refugee crisis: From solidarity to political responseThe responses to what is being dubbed as Europe’s ‘worst refugee crisis’ since World War II, have been both overwhelming and perplexing, ironic and at times contradictory. As millions of refugees pour out of Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea, to mention but three so-called ‘sending countries’, towards the fences, walls and shores of the Fortress Europe…
-
Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’: Still not letting them in…
CONTINUE READING: Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’: Still not letting them in…Louis Lentin’s documentary ‘No More Blooms’ was broadcast on RTE on International Human Rights Day, 10 December 1997. Based on scrupulous archival research, the film documented Ireland’s consistent refusal to give refuge to more than 60 Jewish people fleeing Nazism between 1933 and 1946. Prior to the screening, Lentin told The Irish Times, ‘If you…
-
We asked for workers and people came
CONTINUE READING: We asked for workers and people cameLast week we have again helplessly watched people drowning in the Mediterranean as they attempt to cross the sea to the safety of Europe. Migration NGOs say that more than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died in 2015 so far. However, the very use of the term ‘migrants’ by European governments and NGOs dehumanises their…
You must be logged in to post a comment.