Yeah Nah Pasaran! #218 w Aurelien Mondon on race riots in the UK : August 8, 2024

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Aurelien Mondon [X/Twitter] about racist rioting in the UK and Belfast in the wake of the murders in Southport. Daniel Trilling:

The racist riots across much of England and in Northern Ireland stand out for their geographical reach, for their viciousness and because they involve a far wider range of participants than the small groups of committed fascists who helped instigate the violence. Football hooligans, sympathisers with the anti-Islam and anti-immigration messages that have circulated online since the murders, bored kids who want to fight the police or engage in looting and curious onlookers have all joined in. Muslims, refugees and people from visible ethnic minorities have been the targets: beyond the attempts to attack mosques and set fire to hotels housing asylum-seekers – and in Belfast, the firebombing of immigrant-owned businesses – there has been a stream of smaller incidents of violence and intimidation, such as the attack on a group of Eastern European men while they were driving through Hull.

We spoke to Aurelien about the broader political and social context in which the riots have taken place, how anti-immigrant and racist sentiment has been cultivated by the political mainstream, and how the (far) right has profited. See, for example : Creating a crisis: Immigration, racism and the 2024 general election, Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter, Runnymede Trust, 2024.

We last spoke to Aurelien in June when we talked about ethics, research and the (far) right.

See also : This time it’s worse, Daniel Trilling, London Review of Books, August 6, 2024 | UK Communities Mobilize to Defend Themselves as Police Fail to Stop Far-Right Attacks Spurred by Viral Misinformation, It’s Going Down, August 6, 2024 | Reactionary Politics Research Network.

4.30pm, Thursday, August 8, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

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