I was going to say a little something about the appalling cover of this morning’s Independent, but Lenin’s Tomb got there first:

This cover is an attempt by The Independent on Sunday to be cutting edge, by which I mean racist and alarmist. The story that it links to is actually a rather glib piece of work that trivialises domestic violence, and while it does externalise such violence, it doesn’t at any point make the explicit equation “Honour Killings = Muslims”. But then most communication is not verbal, and the cover says everything. It makes the formula quite explicit through its selected image, and it is inserted into the context of hysterical overreaction to Rowan Williams’ musings in such a way as to provoke a chain of further hysterical overreaction. The offended secular liberal would be instantly aflame, seething with a potent and toxic mixture of resentment and sanctimony: “What is the Archbishop thinking, and doesn’t he realise that this is what Sharia law will mean, and why must we let them get away with everything, and isn’t this just Political Correctness Gone Mad, and why do we always have to apologise for our own culture, it’s just not fair, and isn’t it about time we just stopped being sorry and said to Muslims enough is enough…”

The reaction to Williams’ statement adequately expresses the three basic coordinates of contemporary Islamophobia, veering between burning resentment about Them getting ’special treatment’, fear and loathing of the ‘Muslim threat’, and finally a vague ‘humanitarianism’ in which whitey rescues Asian Babes from their non-white male captors. The first two being the usual racist discourse, and the latter being a staple of colonial ideology. Incidentally, these reactions are being blended in roughly the same measure in both the crude right-wing tabloids and in the broadsheets.

…

The Independent’s alarmism involves a particular kind of misogyny. In the first instance, by its omissions, it seriously understates the real level of violence against women in this country. Secondly, by its distortions, it transfers the blame for it onto a spotlit minority. Thirdly, in its hateful depiction of Muslim women (especially those wearing the niqab), it contributes to a battery of imagery and claims that has actually resulted in several instances of violence against Muslim women, such as this and this.

I fear we are in for a spell. Every time the media goes on another Muslim-hunt, it is almost inevitable that the politicians will find something to say about it that makes it worse. Gordon Brown has attempted to distinguish his government by attenuating the naked provocations of the Blair era. He will not risk another humiliation in a Labour heartland, if he can avoid it. But he is also an opportunist and it would not be at all out of character for Mr “British Jobs For British Workers” to join the offensive. And if he doesn’t, his silence will surely be remarked upon by David Cameron, who is almost as repellent a charlatan as Blair was. The logic of parliamentary politics almost dictates that the two main party leaders have to compete for the lowest common denominator on this question. In Autumn 2006, the Blair government was sputtering to its dismal end, and in its decrepitude launched one attack after another on Muslims. Cameron joined in, and the newspaper editors collectively creamed their pants. Jonathan Freedland wrote: “If this onslaught was about Jews, I would be looking for my passport”. A pre-pogrom atmosphere about Muslims is being cultivated in this country. The liberal press bears a great deal of responsibility for that.

For what it’s worth, the Archbishop’s suggestion of allowing for certain disputes to be mediated by Sharia law has nothing that should be particularly controversial in and of itself. There has long existed an equivalent possibility for Her Majesty’s Jewish subjects to use Beth Din courts, and more or less limited parallel legal structures do exist in many countries. It’s never totally unproblematic – in Malaysia the interdiction of apostasy binds Malays to a stricter code than ethnic Chinese whether they like it or not, in Israel the seperate legal structures reinforce the racist logic of seperation upon which the state is founded, and in India there’s a certain type of Hindu male offended by the legal protections that his wife enjoys but his Muslim neighbour’s wife does not – but it’s fairly timid multiculturalism coming from your friendly neighbourhood left-liberal theocrat. Nothing to set the blood boiling, even if you don’t fully approve.

Although Brown has attempted to distance himself from his terrormongering predecessor, with guidelines reminding ministers that the word “Muslim” is not synonymous with “terrorist”, it hasn’t stopped one environment minister from voicing “concern” about how the Pakis are all inbred, and that’s without getting onto the racist scapegoating with which the government whitewashes its sub-Tory provision of council housing.

Then there’s the world of academia, where Manchester University have hired Martin Amis, the thinking man’s vicious bigot, and let go Terry Eagleton, one of few public figures to challenge him, and where Oxford reinforced the BNP’s veneer of legitimacy by engaging them in a public debate. And, unbelievably, now Facebook has decided to co-sponsor The War Against Terror (I’m sufficiently reliant on the site to want to double- and triple-check the story before deleting my account, but it might need doing).

We may also recall the other side of the coin; the burial, last year, of the story of the white fascist would-be terrorist with a stockpile of weapons to put most brown-skinned terrorisssuspects in the shade, and of the Europol report revealing that the former (invisible) kind of terrorist are vastly more prevalent across the continent than the latter.

If talk of pogroms sounds hysterical, well, it hopefully is, but we are reliving the kind of circumstances in which fascism thrives. As fewer and fewer voters turn out to choose between three ever-less-distinguishable parties, and as the economy hits its gloomiest point in decades, there’s a definite smell of impending crisis. And, come the crucial shit-meets-fan moment, there’s a lot of powerful people would much prefer to see us baying for minority blood than organising in unions and left parties. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before.

Oh, the Tomb post has some useful statistics on the real distribution and scale of domestic violence, but to anyone who really thinks “honour killings” are a Muslim problem I’ll just dedicate the following song (h/t Fanonite). Lyrics after the fold.

Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe

Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand
Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand

I’m going down to shoot my old lady
You know, I’ve caught her messin’ around with another man
I’m going down to shoot my old lady
You know, I’ve caught her messin’ around with another man
And that ain’t too cool

Hey Joe, I’ve heard you shot your woman down,
shot her down, now
I said I’ve heard you shot your old lady down,
You shot her down to the ground

Yes I did, I shot her
You know, I caught her messin’ round, messin’ round town
Yes I did, I shot her
You know, I caught my old lady messin’ around town
And I gave her the gun
I SHOT HER!

Hey Joe, alright
Shoot her one more time, baby

Hey Joe, said now
Where you gonna run to now?
Where you gonna run to?
Hey Joe, I said where you gonna run to now?
Where you, where you gonna go?
Well, dig it

I’m goin’ way down south,
Way down to Mexico way
Alright!
I’m goin’ way down south,
Way down where I can be free
Ain’t no one gonna find me

Ain’t no hangman gonna,
He ain’t gonna put a rope around me
You better believe it right now
I gotta go now
Hey Joe, you better run on down
Good by everybody
Hey Joe, uhh
Run on down