Statement on the Islamophobic hate being mainstreamed by the NZ Chief Human Rights Commissioner

I read with profound sadness the statement made by the NZ Chief Human Rights Commissioner Dr. Stephen Rainbow about "the increase in Muslim immigration as threat to Jewish community."

The sentiment expressed in the statement reflects the Islamophobia being circulated across Far-Right platforms globally targeting Muslim communities.

In the US for instance, the networked infrastructure of the Far-Right has continually produced the image of the terrorist Muslim threatening Western civilization to stoke up fear and hatred. The Trump administration has mainstreamed this Far-Right extremism in the form of Islamophobia scripted into policies that have been dressed up as addressing antisemitism. Consider the targeting of international students, particularly Muslim international students, and international students expressing solidarity with Palestine and speaking out against the genocide being carried out by Israel.

Similarly in the UK, Far-Right groups such as the English Defense League (EDL) have built their base through the production of the fear of the Muslim migrant. One expects such rhetoric around Muslim immigrants as threats from Far-Right actors such as Tommy Robinson.

Closer in Australia and in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Islamophobic hate in far-right discourse led to the extremism witnessed in the Christchurch terror attack.

The statement by the Chief Human Rights Commissioner portraying Muslim immigration as a threat to the Jewish community mainstreams the Islamophobia that is being amplified across digital infrastructures globally. It poses critical threats to social cohesion, democracy, and safety of Muslim communities. The Christchurch terror attack teaches us that mainstreaming of extremist hate rhetoric is a key ingredient in the amplification of extremist violence.

It is important that this mainstreaming of Islamophobia in Aotearoa New Zealand is challenged vigorously, and that the Islamophobic hate voiced by the NZ Chief Human Rights Commissioner is countered.

The whiteness of binaries that erase the Global South: On Communicative Inversions and the invitation to Vijay Prashad in Aotearoa

When I learned through my activist networks that the public intellectual Vijay Prashad was coming to Aotearoa, I was filled with joy. In my early years in the U.S., when learning the basics of the struggle against the fascist forces of Hindutva, I came in conversation with Vijay's work. Two of his critical interventions, the book, The Karma of Brown Folk , and the journal article " The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva " co-authored with Biju Matthew and published in Ethnic and Racial Studies shaped my early activism. These pieces of work are core readings in understanding the workings of Hindutva fascism and how it mobilizes cultural tropes to serve fascist agendas. Much later, I felt overjoyed learning about his West Bengal roots and his actual commitment to the politics of the Left, reflected in the organising of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political register that shaped much of my earliest lessons around Global South resistance, collectivization, and orga...

Upper caste Indian women in the diaspora, DEI, and the politics of hate

Figure 1: Trump, Vance and their partners responding to the remarks by Mariann Edgar Budde Emergent from the struggles of the civil rights movement , led by African Americans , organized against the oppressive history of settler colonialism and slavery that forms the backbone of US society, structures around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) formed an integral role in forging spaces for diverse recognition and representation. These struggles around affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion were at the heart of the changes to white only immigration policies, building pathways for migration of diverse peoples from the Global South. The changes to the immigration policies created opportunities for Indians to migrate to the US, with a rise of Indian immigration into the US since the 1970s into educational institutions, research and development infrastructures, and technology-finance infrastructures. These migratory structures into the US were leveraged by l...

Whiteness, NCA, and Distinguished Scholars

In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit...

Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

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