darkmatter

On stage at a recent gig in New York, Gil Scott-Heron complained that the designation of February as Black History Month (BHM) was just another example of black people getting short changed: having oppressed them for centuries through slavery and exploitation, the system now conspires to cut short their heritage celebrations by consigning them to the shortest month of the year. Though only half-serious, Scott-Heron’s rye musings are indicative of a certain scepticism with which some have come to regard ‘minority’ history months.

In his plenary talk at the Law and Critique Conference (2007)¹ Slavoj Žižek repeatedly asserted that liberal multiculturalism – and its ‘politically correct’ premise of respecting the other’s difference – is hegemonic. When asked questions about this position from the floor, he stated insistently that it was an ‘empirical fact’ that liberal multiculturalism was hegemonic, and challenged anyone to prove otherwise. I am writing this response as a way of taking up his challenge.

An exclusive interview conducted by Sara Wajid with the author and activist Nawal El Saadawi

Less than a minute in, Nawal El Saadawi, the ideological godmother of Muslim feminists, flouts author interview protocol rather fabulously, by pretending she’s not really doing one. I’m at a sunny breakfast table in Edinburgh on the last day of her UK book tour, to discuss the republication of her seminal 1970s books, but the 76-year-old Egyptian psychiatrist and 2005 presidential candidate is, apparently, slightly baffled by the reissues.