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The controversy over the People of Colour exhibition at Mercy Pictures shows how alt-right ideas can thrive in irony-steeped artistic environments, writes Amal Samaha.

On Saturday, a gallery show in Auckland ended. The exhibition featured rows upon rows of flags, each on a relatively uniform rectangular frame, set in neat rows.

All apparently normal, except for something that became increasingly obvious.

All photos: Tash van Schaardenburg

There seemed to be a lot of swastikas.

Really, a lot of swastikas. Of 150 or so flags, 20 were Nazi symbols, and others represented more obscure hateful ideologies. Each wall had at least a few swastikas, many positioned provocatively as if to ask are these not the same as the flags beside them?

In each case, I hope the audiences answer was no, one of these is a fucking swastika.

The People of Colour show created by artists Jerome Ngan-Kee, Jonny Prasad and Teghan Burt, also the co-directors of Mercy Pictures, the gallery where it was shown was clearly out to court controversy. And they got it: on the first night the show was vandalised, and the Mercy Pictures Instagram was quickly inundated with criticism.

Ngan-Kee issued an apology soon after the exhibition ended, only for the other gallery staff to turn on him and ridicule the apology in a now-deleted post.

On Tuesday, Mercy Pictures other directors issued a statement which stopped short of an apology. It noted that Mercy Pictures wider family contains many people of marginalised identities, and called allegations of fascism offensive and untrue.

So what caused such outrage? Lets go back to the exhibition itself, where among the many, many swastikas were other far right symbols: some obvious, such as a sign saying its okay to be white, and others more obscure, such as the Sonnenkreuz, Sonnenrad, Vichy French and Spanish Falangist flags. In fact, it was hard to think of a fascist flag that wasnt there. Worse, these were displayed alongside the tino rangatiratanga flag, the United Tribes flag and Thoes mana motuhake, all apparently without permission from tangata whenua.

But such easy shocks are a dime a dozen for gallery shows. A swastika is a guarantee of controversy, though usually audience fears are allayed by an artist statement or write-up making some banal point about how nationalism is bad.

This, however, wasnt the case, with People of Colour. The shows artistic statement was anything but banal, since it was supplied by one Nina Power.

Power is a UK philosopher and former academic, and a bizarre figure in the wider ecology of the alt-right, being something of a convert from the post-modern, leftist intellectualism that the alt-right often derides. Once a committed feminist activist and scholar of philosophers like Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben, it seems that by gradually becoming involved in anti-transgender feminist activism, she found herself associating with progressively more right-wing figures.

Former friend and fellow academic Linda Stupart says that these days, Nina Power is openly aligning herself with violent edgelord alt-right men [and] transphobes, and has definitively divested herself of contemporary feminist thought.

Many took Powers exhibition text to mean she was directly involved in the project, but this isnt necessarily the case. Ngan-Kee, Prasad and Burt are graduates of the University of Aucklands Elam Art School and have no apparent relationship with Power; its unclear exactly how much she knew about the content of the show.

But Power is only a small part of this story. Perhaps the more interesting aspect is what the show revealed about the contemporary art world.

With their obsession with shock value, censorship and political correctness, some of the cool kids of art can be surprisingly reactionary. Before knowing the back story, it would have been easy to assume the whole People of Colour drama was a case of a clueless gallery accidentally giving space to the alt-right. In fact it was actually a case of edgy gallery kids flirting with fascistic concepts from the start, with little help needed from their associates in the UK.

Its in this environment of plausible deniability that alt-right ideas and flirtations with fascism can thrive. The People of Colour story shows how fascism can creep into academia and the art world alike, simply because both allow for extreme detachment between an author and their body of work, and convoluted, wordy justifications are par for the course.

Its normal practice in academia to quote the works of people who were Nazis (for example, philosopher Martin Heidegger or jurist Carl Schmitt) despite their Nazism. Its considered perfectly fine to appreciate their ideas, so long as that appreciation of their ideas doesnt stray into admiration for their Nazism.

Similarly, in the art world it is normal to be fascinated by fascist iconography, to find its visual language useful, to use it to shock or provoke dialogue (for example, see the art of NZ-Tongan artist Benjamin Work). Too easily, though, this interest in the visual signifiers of fascism can stray into admiration often without opposition, so long as the artist can provide a sufficiently long-winded justification. Had Mercy Pictures just done this and not made the mistake of drawing attention to themselves further by involving Power, they might well have gotten away with the whole thing.

Because fascist ideas creep into public life under a veil of plausible deniability, and because they often preempt and provoke controversy, it is very easy to characterise the outrage over events like the People of Colour show as overblown, conspiratorial or out of touch. After all, it is just art. Theyre just flags. Theyre just colours and shapes.

The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once suggested that fascism is partly about making politics into an artform: rendering politics as simply a game of colours and symbols. Modern internet fascists do this extremely well, from turning Pepe the frog into a Nazi meme, to flooding the internet with StoneToss comics, to making ironic use of alt-right hand gestures.

It seems Mercy Pictures did this by taking the most intensely political images on earth and putting them all together, as if to say theyre just colours and symbols, do you cucks really care about this?

Perhaps the best way to counteract situations in which fascist ideas hide behind art world bullshit is to put the politics back into art.

By challenging artworks like these we take what is held to be apolitical and re-politicise it. In doing so, we remove the plausible deniability that allows fascists to find a footing.

In 2020, it might not be good enough for edgy art to explore concepts: your art might actually have to say something worthwhile about them. It might not be enough to provoke dialogue you might have to contribute to it.

The Bulletin is The Spinoffs acclaimed daily digest of New Zealands most important stories, delivered directly to your inbox each morning.

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Swastikas off K Road: How the worst art show in New Zealand came to be - The Spinoff

Spontaneous celebrations broke out across Madison this weekend as Joe Biden was announced the projected winner in the 2020 presidential race. Not everyone, of course, was excited about those results. Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters turned out for a pair of Stop the Steal rallies at the state Capitol. Included among the attendees were supporters of far-right movements, extremist media, and militia groups.

Were gonna recount, were gonna revote. I think thats what were fighting for here, is a revote, Alex Bruesewitz, a political consultant from Washington, D.C., told several hundred people gathered in front of the Capitol doors on Saturday.

I do organizing work, most recently with For Our Future, a super PAC that focuses on environmental and educational issues and that did electoral work in support of Joe Biden's campaign for president. My specialty is in relational organizing in rural areas, meaning that I spend time training people on how to have conversations with family members who disagree with them politically. It's what drew me to the state Capitol this weekend, where a Biden celebration and Trump rally were happening at the same time on opposite corners of the Square.

Though the pro-Trump rally was somewhat dwarfed by the thousands of Biden's supporters celebrating their victory just down the street, the energy among the Trump crowd remained high. Protesters flew a variety of pro-Trump flags and brought cardboard cutouts of Pelosi and Biden, the latter with the word Pedo written across its forehead a nod to the QAnon conspiracy that high-ranking Democrats are involved in a satanic, secretive pedophile ring that Trump is actively fighting to expose.

On the edges of the Stop the Steal rally where protesters and counter-protesters argued, those signs and flags drew the most attention. Easier to miss were flags that hinted at further extremism. On the western edge of the protest, a woman stood holding a flag with a large Roman numeral three, the year 1776, and the motto When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

This flag represents the Three Percenters, sometimes referred to as 3%ers or Threepers online. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Three Percenters as an anti-government militia movement. Theyve been connected with several domestic terror plots in recent years, most notably the plot to kidnap and execute Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The second in command of Wisconsins Three Percenter chapter provided space and training to several of the people who were arrested in October for being involved in the plot, though he claims he had no knowledge of their plans at the time.

Bruesewitz was adamant that there were no militia members present. So the medias gonna twist it... ...theyre gonna see some great guys out here with guns, right? Theyre gonna go Oh my God thats a militia, taking on the [Capitol]. Thats not a militia. Were all peaceful protesters out here fighting for the country we love.

Undercutting this message was the tropical shirt worn by one of the men openly carrying a firearm at the protest; the shirt is a well-known sign in activist spaces for members of the Boogaloo movement.

The Anti-Defamation League calls the boogaloo movement an anti-government extremist movement. Its adherents, referred to as boogaloo boys or boogaloo bois, identify themselves with tropical shirts under military fatigues or by the use of igloo patches (big luau and big igloo sound similar to boogaloo and can help avoid social media keyword-based crackdowns). Boogaloo bois desire a second civil war and seek to apply pressure where they can to help start it. Over 31 members of the movement have been arrested in the past two years for crimes ranging from possession of unregistered firearms to murder. The movement is linked to at least five deaths and was also connected to the failed plot to kidnap and execute Whitmer.

After Bruesewitz finished speaking, he handed the megaphone to Ashley St. Clair, a social media personality based in New York who flew down for the occasion. In the midst of the crowd, a large flag prominently featuring the letters AF was present. Though perhaps unfamiliar to the average Madison resident, it has significant connections to St. Clair.

The AF logo is from the America First podcast, a white nationalist production of Nick Fuentes. Fuentes attended the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and frames his followers (referred to as the Groyper Army) as Christian conservatives concerned with multiculturalism. The Anti-Defamation League maintains an exhaustive list of racist and anti-Semitic statements by Fuentes, as well as his followers, and their connections to openly white supremacist groups.

St. Clair was fired as a brand ambassador for Turning Point USA in 2019 after photos surfaced of her at a dinner event with Fuentes and other alt-right figureheads. Though she has never voiced support for Fuentes or the America First podcast on the record, she also made no comment about the flag being present at this weeks event.

The Stop the Steal rally featured many familiar alt-right talking points demonization of the media and claims that Democrats hate conservative voters. Republicans were not free from their ire, either.

Paul Ryans basically a Democrat, Bruesewitz lamented about the former U.S. House speaker from Wisconsin. If youre a Paul Ryan Republican and youre watching this? Screw you on behalf of the American people. Politicians were also warned that if they dont demonstrate loyalty and show up to rallies to publicly stand by the president, well vote them out.

This rally was part of a larger organizing effort in several swing states across the country, all of which centered around similar grievances. Black Lives Matter activists in Madison responded to the presence of the pro-Trump rally by creating a car barricade around the Biden celebration which at one point was manned by armed activists openly carrying firearms of their own.

While militias and anti-government extremist groups are not new in America, their rapid expansion and increasing levels of activity in the past few years is cause for concern. We all knew that no matter who won the election, there would be protests. Clashes between protesters seem almost inevitable, although Madison was spared the violence seen in other cities. A fist fight at the Biden celebration and a pro-Trump UW employee driving his motorcycle through protesters were the only widely reported confrontations.

In a year of escalated civil unrest, where cars running through protesters is so frequent it rarely tops national news and people are hospitalized or killed during clashes, its become more important than ever that we recognize the signs of extremism when they come to town. The flags and symbols that were at this Trump rally are easy to miss, especially for your everyday conservative or liberal voter. But like an iceberg, they hint at something much larger and more dangerous below.

No one can predict what comes next. One thing has been stated very clearly: Regardless of the election results, these militias and extremist movements arent going anywhere. The least we can do now is enter the new year with our eyes wide open.

Bryan Boland is a Madison-based organizer and writer. He can be found on Twitter @RedheadBryan.

Continued here:
Proceed with eyes open - Isthmus

The US presidential election result called over the weekend has been met with typical lack of decorum on the incumbents part a spectacle onlookers have grown used to. What could be in prospect going forward? The answer that anything is better anything at all has left some idealists dissatisfied. Quite understandably, such observers have been left underwhelmed, in policy terms, by the allegedly rudimentary package on offer, and equally non-enthused by the failure of the Democratic party to capture the Senate. But, in the immediate aftermath, perhaps it is worth focusing for a moment on the promise of decency. Decency was mentioned in many assessments of Biden's appeal in journalistic coverage in the run-up. For the American electorate (so both opinion pieces and news reports in this country told us), Joe Biden was asking for a return to decency, was emphasising decency in a battle for the national soul, was being perceived personally as fundamentally decent, and would return it to both political and global discourse.

Bidens decency stands at sharp odds with what we might call with a nod to Susan Sontag Donald Trumps alt-Right-influenced inverted camp. In other words, the message by tweet, by announcement, and occasionally by alleged physical act is thoroughly indecent; but surely he cant mean it, can he? The attraction lies in the transgression the permission to act out (in the place of dress-up) with the get-out clause that nobody, not really, is being serious. And yet, all the while, the centre of political gravity moves has moved ever farther away from what is amiable and congenial.

Decency, in attribution to Biden, has another edge, too. Bidens nomination to the Democratic presidential candidacy was acrimonious. He was fought closely by more radical candidates, including Bernie Sanders, who had amassed behind him a vocal and fervent army of supporters. Decency, from this angle, is Bidens offer to the electorate from the centre as opposed to from the putative radical left (slightly histrionic in view of the national political culture): decency as sober; decency as pragmatic; decency that wont have anybody raising up the barricades.

However, the promise of decency on the left is far richer than this simple split suggests. Partly the richness is in the covert history. Partly it is in the words ambiguity.

In the period after the Second World War and with its lessons in mind an influential strand of American political philosophy, following Judith Shklar, proposed that an elemental choice was decent politics versus deadly politics. That is decency in a first sense of the word: in essence, as an indicator of sufficiency (with a hint of the scary bogeyman thrown in). This works in application to Bidens presumed edge over Sanders, i.e. Sanders vision might be more to ones liking because it is more reformist, but Bidens politics will do (meaning: is up to reasonable standards). Some thesaurus synonyms point to this meaning too: adequate, acceptable.

But it could be suggested that there is a second important sense of the word decency for politics. This is where the centre or soft left has something to recommend itself by positively (and not by the default of what is and isnt feasible): it knows, as it were, a secret that the hard or ultra- left doesn't know. But this is the catch. If so, decency in the positive sense is the standard to which Biden in office should now expect to be held, both by his own citizens and the watching world.

Thorough investigation of ideological history would likely show that decencys covert history is on the social democratic left: in the twentieth century, poised between the far left and the Anglo-American liberalism of those resembling Shklar; and passing in notable encomiums through George Orwell, Albert Camus, and Michael Walzer.

But, pushing partisanship aside, the key point is what it might do at the present moment. Decency is not only refraining from the unconscionable (Trump and Trump supporters under the cover of camp). Nor is it just pragmatic sufficiency. Decency can also be compatible with a wide range of positive acts (acts of the kind that ethicists tend to call supererogatory). The most ambitious thought would be that decency is generative: that is, capable of passing from person to person, of being reproduced by example, emulation and reciprocity, in an ever-expanding circle. At this point, the meaning borders on the meanings of kindness and generosity: concern for the well-being of others in senses both material and otherwise.

If we are to move out of an era of bigoted reactionary authoritarianism, then decency is important to re-capture because what, in Britain, seemed like the start of this era was marked by so-called national populists claiming it for their own. Nigel Farage, on the day after the Brexit referendum, made a victory speech celebrating the triumph of real people, ordinary people, decent people. Decency needs claiming back. It relates to what is best in people; it deserves better than misappropriation by who would practice politics without the kind of human warmth that matters. However, where the populists were right was in supposing that political language needs to freshen up its egalitarianism. Decency is readily intelligible. That is why newspapers converged on it as a descriptor of Bidens offer.

Richard Shorten has just finished writing a book on the reactionary right provisionally titled The Ideology of Political Reactionaries. In 2019-20 he was Leverhulme Research Fellow. His latest article on reactionaries is Why bad books matter and his new project investigates aspects of voice partly in relation to decency in the political writings of George Orwell, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt.

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Joe Biden and the promise of decency - University of Birmingham

WELL, that was a lovely few days at least if youre not an extremist, conspiracy theorist, or any of the other modern varieties of lunatic whove come to populate the planet in recent years.

Donald Trump the alt-right Wotsit in the White House got his comeuppance via the ballot box, and it looks like theres a credible vaccine for the Great Plague of 2020. Hallelujah, let the bells ring out.

Of course, those extremists and conspiracy theorists arent singing hosannahs or getting their campanology on theyre far from happy. Your average white nationalist is deeply upset that their orange avatar on Pennsylvania Avenue turned out to be a massive loser, and the hard left a band so miserable theyd find a downside to the birth of their own child immediately began painting Joe Biden as some democratic version of Ivan the Terrible.

Over in QAnon-land, the vaccine, which offers us a glimmer of hope, is, of course, a high grade plot by the Illuminati to pump microchips into our veins and addict us all to 5G broadband so the Queen, Tom Hanks, and their Satanic minions can continue drinking the blood of children.

Nobody likes to stomp on the chance of a reasonably happy Christmas more than a good old fashioned political zealot or the owner of the latest in tin-foil headwear. In fact, theyre both the same really folk youd jump out of a ten storey window to avoid.

Of course, theres some legitimate shadows hanging over the recent good news. Trump, as expected, isnt just throwing a gigantasaurus-sized tantrum and embarrassing himself and everyone else in the world, hes also trying desperately to ramp up his crazy militia-loving base with nonsensical drivel about rigged elections and dodgy ballots which his supporters want both counted and not counted simultaneously.

Will he trigger civil unrest? Hopefully not, it looks like political power, even after the last four years, really does drain away like dirty water from a bathtub.

It was right to worry and fret over democracy during the Trump presidency he really was, and remains, a threat to the rule of law. But good old democracy has shown itself to be the trusty punchbag we always hoped itd be. You can kick it in the head, it seems, and democracy just keeps getting up again. For my money, thats among the best news of the last few days that our system of government in the Western world really is robust enough to withstand even the predations of the Idiot-in-Chief.

Whats more worrying is the final weeks of the Trump presidency. Hell attempt to smash what remains of the democratic crockery before hes dragged kicking and screaming (I hope) from the Oval Office. Hes currently sacking the hard-working staff needed to keep America running. The Pentagon has suffered near total decapitation of civilian leadership in the last 24 hours.

Instead of leaving a good luck, Joe note in his desk on departure, you can imagine Trump defecating in the drawer, or writing F**k you, Biden on the wall with his favourite sharpie.

Then we come to the virus. The agony of this vaccine turning out to be a false hope isnt something any one of us wishes to contemplate. Unfortunately, we have to trust our incompetent politicians to pull off the roll out of any immunisation programme efficiently. Of course, the incompetency is to varying degrees north and south of the border. Here, its the incompetency of the self-assured middle manager, down south its the incompetency of a drunk baby whos just fallen out of their pram.

But lets be optimistic lets believe Trump will leave office without toppling the Statue of Liberty, and lets believe the vaccine will work and sooner rather than later our political class will manage to get us all a jag.

It really does feel good, doesnt it. That hope. And what makes it even better is that most of the world shares the optimism with us.

The only problem, though, is that this joy unbridled may not last very long for us here at home in our divided islands because, whos that peeping their scary faces in through the window? Why, its Brexit and independence, of course. The ghosts at the feast.

While Biden and the vaccine may have temporarily raised optimism levels here, once Christmas is over weve got our super-free-fall-no-parachute Brexit on December 31 (Happy New Year!), and then Mays Scottish elections which will inevitably trigger a constitutional crisis with demands for a second referendum from a UK government which has all the tact and grace of a two tonne bull in DM boots.

The vaccine and the defeat of Trump may mean that the fever of despair which gripped the world is starting to break, but at home, were still very sick.

Pain will go on here for some time. Sorry to rain or rather monsoon on the parade. In fact, some of the positives of the last few days will be negatives for us. For me, its great that the Democrats won and Biden, rightly, views Brexit as a threat to peace in Ireland. But that could threaten any future trade agreement. Europhiles, like me, may think good, get it right up ye, Boris but in truth bad trade deals mean all of us suffer, businesses go under, families get poorer. Nobody wants that.

Although Im a Yes voter, the thought of replaying that hate-fest from 2014 fills me with dread. Like many, Im weary of division, and angry at a political class which foists conflict upon us a convenient blind for their failures, and a means to extend their lucrative careers in political office.

Most of all, though once these political upheavals and the horror of a global pandemic finally end what will have substantially changed? Weve spent this last dreadful year pondering a better tomorrow, but we all know that once Trump has gone and the virus is beaten nothing will really be different. The political class will ensure we return to the old normal, at home as well as abroad and it was the old normal which brought us to this sorry pass in the first place.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald

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Opinion: Neil Mackay: Trump gone, a vaccine discovered, now we've got to deal with Brexit and independence - HeraldScotland

Caolan Robertson explains how, though Donald Trump lost last weeks presidential race, his brand of nativist populism is still spreading, particularly in the UK

Its a grey and unusually misty day in the tiny rural village of Pentre, nestled in the hills of South Wales. As the most globally important election of a decade unfolds all the way across the Atlantic, this small town couldnt be further from the chaos.

A small takeaway sits on the towns sleepy high street. The owner is a 62-year-old local, Norma Hemming. Shes working the till when a grey-haired man walks into her shop, brazenly refusing to wear a mask. When the delivery driver confronts him, asking him to put on a mask, he pulls a gun and begins ranting to Norma and the delivery driver, spewing all too familiar conspiracies about Bill Gates, microchips and submission. Armed police are called and the man with the gun is arrested.

At the same time in Goodison Park, one hundred miles to the north, Liverpool is hosting Everton versus Manchester United. Suddenly, a huge banner is flown across the sky above reading World knows Trump won, followed by the hashtag #MAGA (Make America Great Again). Even in the UK the COVID-19 conspiracies and Trumps baseless election fraud allegations have taken root.

How on earth did this happen?

Raheem Kassam, a British Alt-right activist who was Nigel Farages aide de camp and ran for the UKIP leadership, has spent the last four years working in the US with as an assistant to Trumps former campaign manager, Steve Bannon. He has been one of the loudest voices suggesting Joe Bidens election win was illegitimate and promoting the idea of resistance against the incoming Marxist administration.

This kind of propaganda, presented as fact, reaches huge audiences not just in the US but also in the UK. Tommy Robinson another British friend and ally of Kassams has been perpetually pushing MAGA content in the run-up to the US elections, content which now includes sharing the Liverpool banner, with his 150,000 Parler followers. Meanwhile, the Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has been appearing alongside Trump at his rallies while broadcasting the same conspiracies about the election to his 1 million Facebook followers.

Its not just intentionally disingenuous activists we ought to consider; Boris Johnsons inept COVID-19 response and lack of clear and reasoned guidance has for months been creating a climate of distrust in government that creates a breeding ground for extreme, toxic ideas to spread.

During my time in the alternative media, I worked with Alex Jones InfoWars, arguably the Mecca for online conspiracy theorists. Increasingly over time, Infowars content, followed by the rest of the alt-right, became obsessed with Britain.

The oppression of Tommy Robinson, grooming gangs, online hate crime hubs and police arresting people for tweets became some of the most popular memes on the right. Oi mate, have you got a licence for that butter knife became the go-to joke whenever the UK was mentioned, a reference to our perceived lack of freedoms and national cuckoldry in the eyes of Trumpian strongmen.

In 2018, I made a feature film for Alex Jones about tech censorship which featured the biggest names in the US online right at the time: people like Gavin McInnes and Laura Loomer. Before I left the right to blow the whistle on many of its practices, the movie had been watched hundreds of thousands of times, and promotional clips had been viewed millions of times, with a fifth of viewers being in the UK.

A recent poll by Hope Not Hate found a staggering one in four British people now believe in the QAnon-linked conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is secretly fighting a battle against a deep state run by paedophiles. As the Scamdemic, anti-mask, anti-vaccination movement continues to pick up pace during the Coronavirus crisis in the UK, disinformation remains largely unchallenged by mainstream media in any particularly meaningful way.

The US might have just voted for Biden in a historic election, but a margin of 5 million votes out of 148 million is hardly a landslide. The truth is that even when Trump is no longer in office the political movement he gave birth to is going to prove much harder to defeat than the man himself. More people voted for Trump than in 2016 and according to exit polls, he actually increased his margins with all non-white demographics. While we should all be sure to celebrate his defeat as a moment of light against a backdrop of four years of darkness, we would do well to remember that near enough 50% of voting Americans will be thinking the same way today as they did three days ago.

Bidens win, while a victory, is not a solution.

Norma the shopkeeper in South Wales, is still shaken. You hear about this stuff on the news but you never expect it to happen to you. You dont expect anything like this, she told reporters. But the sad reality is that even with Trump finally ousted from office, we should all expect a lot more of this in the future.

Read more:
US Election 2020: Trumpism Is Here To Stay and Nowhere Is Sacred - Byline Times