TALK: Art as a Protest - Fundraiser for Gaza

"Art as a Protest" at the Artery Studios in Worcester, England on Friday 6th December 2024

This is a brief write up of the notes I used for my talk at the launch of the “Art as a Protest” exhibition.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening – thank you to Yasmin for organising this event and exhibition. Thanks also to Worcester Palestine Solidarity Campaign and for the humanitarian support Medical Aid for Palestine provide.

My name is Chris Allen and I’m an Associate Professor at the University of Leicester who for the past two and half decades has been researching hate, extremism and terrorism, much of which has focused on the hate targeted towards Muslim communities and the unprecedented rise of the far-right.

And as part of this, I have been vociferous in my criticism of how the government has sought to use counter-terrorism and counter-extremism legislation to strip away at our fundamental human rights and civil liberties, and how the media and others have disproportionately vilified certain minority groups, to blame them for a vast array of different social and political issues.

It is, as Malcolm X put it:

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”

And that is absolutely what is happening as regards the situation in Gaza and the response to it, whether in the UK or elsewhere.

Since 7th October 2023, all of the legacy media – the BBC, Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Sky, ITN and more – have not only denied and dismissed the genocide that is happening in front of our very eyes but so too have they sought to derogate those who have called out the violence for what it is.

We have seen headlines emblazoned with lies about beheaded babies. So too have we seen media outlets justify the bombing of schools, hospitals, mosques and more with the tired excuse that Hamas were hiding in them, using their own people as ‘human shields’. So too questioning the number of people killed in Gaza: the constant reminder the figures are from the Gaza Health Ministry constantly sowing the seed of doubt in people’s minds.

For me, this was no more evident that in the use of language – the BBC referring to children being ‘killed’ in Israel while simultaneously referring to children in Gaza as ‘dying’. It is despicable that the killing of children whoever they are is trivialised in such a way.

But this is only one part of a much greater whole.

So for example, Instagram in the past few days has removed the account of the ‘Mothers Against Genocide’ – an Irish based group made up of women, of mothers campaigning for an end to the mass killing of people – for apparently violating its community guidelines.

Elsewhere, pro-Palestinian voices are regularly and routinely removed and restricted from a whole host of different social media platforms – from Meta to Microsoft, Google to YouTube – those expressing their support for the plight of the Palestinians are being censored, silenced and shadow-banned.

Earlier today, I was told about how the UK’s counter-terror authorities have demanded the online game ‘The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque’ be removed from all platforms on the basis it addresses the Israel-Palestine conflict from a Palestinian perspective.

Even in universities, those expressing support for the people of Gaza are being targeted and attacked [the rest of this sentence has been withdrawn due to an ongoing matter].

But it is at the level of the British Government that it becomes readily apparent.

As regards those in Gaza, we have a Parliament - not just a Government - that is filled by those who happily parrot that Israel has the right to defend itself while staying silent on whether those in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen have similar.

We have a Prime Minister who believes that Israel has the right to withhold water and power to Gaza. The same applies to the UK’s Foreign Secretary.

But it’s not just about them ‘over there’ when it comes to our Government, it’s also about those of us here who have the sheer audacity of speaking out against genocide..

As soon as people started protesting against Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the Government first responded by trying to criminalise waving the Palestinian flag and participating in the chant, ‘from the river to the sea’.

From there, it sought to bring in new legislation to limit where we are able to protest and how we are able to protest. This was challenged by Liberty through the courts and while the challenge was upheld, the current Labour Government (as opposed the Conservative Government that introduced the legislation) has failed to respond given it is apparently continuing to consider what it intends to do next.

Even more worrying however was how the previous Government sought to introduce a new definition of extremism in an attempt to derogate pro-Palestinian protestors as ‘extremists’.

Despite the Government now having multiple definitions of extremism, none have any legal basis: all are non-statutory. Which might sound bizarre but it is in fact political genius. By having multiple non-statutory definitions, so the attribution of who are and who are not extremists can be made solely on the basis of ministerial decree. Despite being wholly subjective, that ministerial decree is then repeated and regurgitated by a wholly complicit media to a wholly unquestioning and uncritical public.

The result?

You have a general public that hate the people who are being oppressed and love the people who are doing the oppressing.

That is where we are today.

Thank you for listening to me this evening.”