darkmatter

Review of: Infidel: My Life (2007), Free Press.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has hurled herself violently into the eye of the storm with her polemical pronouncements on the threat of political Islam, the dangers of multi-culturalism and the need for tight immigration control. She came to international prominence in 2004 after the murder of Theo van Gogh, her collaborator on a short film about Islam, was murdered by a religious extremist. Her memoir, Infidel, covers her upbringing as the daughter of a rebel leader during Siad Barre’s regime in Somalia, the family’s moves to Saudi Arabia and Kenya amid civil war and her ruthless self-reinvention from bogus asylum-seeker and devout Muslim to Dutch MP and Infidel.

A brief update of recent developments on darkmatter:

a) Forthcoming Journal Issue: The Race/Matter call for papers generated excellent interest, and the next special Issue is planned to be on-line Dec 07.

b) Site Stats:

• we are 4 months old;
• averaging over 1000 visits/month;
• over 80 people have subscribed to the weekly newsletter;
• around 25% of our traffic is from google;
• 40% of visitors are not from the UK or USA;
• 35% of visitors have returned to the site;

I was about to comment on this US print advert for a new Intel computer chip, when after complaints of racism, Intel have apologized and pulled the offending ad.

This is Intel’s statement on their blog:

1. Seminar I: Etienne Balibar and Sandro Mezzadra in Conversation [Audio-English] - 25 May 2007

With Chetan Bhatt and Manuela Bojadzijev (Goldsmiths, London University)

Hosted by Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP), Dept of Sociology, Goldsmiths.

2. Seminar II - 26 May 2007 [Audio-English]

Presentation: Tony Jefferson (Keele University) - ‘Policing the Crisis’ Revisited: the state, masculinity and racism. (Introduction by Alberto Toscano)
Discussants: Etienne Balibar & Sandro Mezzadra

Film Screening: Ghosts (Dir: Nick Broomfield 2006)
Presentation/Interventions: Parvati Raghuram (Open University) & Sandro
Mezzadra (University of Bologna)

Before rehearsing those wonderfully myopic arguments about the internet as a space of unlimited freedoms beyond censorship, it’s worth bearing in mind the corporate nature of social networking sites like Facebook. Though you might not consider the ethics of corporate responsibility to be at the cutting edge of anti-racist politics today, surely it’s essential to take a clear position in these new media culture wars. There’s an email petition here.