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Security Services on hunt for "clean-skin" women
If you were in a city centre or on the train over the weekend you might have noticed a much larger police presence than usual.
This follows the Home Office announcing the latest bout of the “don’t-be-worried-but-we-should-all-be-scared-shitless-game” with the raising of the government’s terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, meaning the government apparently believes an attack is “highly likely.”
Home Secretary Alan Johnson demonstrates the Government's raised state of alert
Telling people they shouldn’t be worried, whilst also telling them there’s a pretty fair chance they might get blown up, unfortunately for the government, loses quite a lot of its impact after 9 odd years of similar “scares”, and people just seemed to be ignoring the high police presence.
But if you weren’t worried about the imminent threat of exploding underwear, the security services have a new terrifying development in the world of ingenious terrorism – the “clean-skins”.
According to an article in the Sunday Telegraph, the wannabe-Jack Bauers are worried that al-Qaeda have been training women who may not be Arabs. These are what they call “clean-skin” agents.
The Telegraph's image of a "female terrorist". The balaclava kinda defeats the purpose though
“There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins – that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al-Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House Chief Couter-Terrorism Adviser.
The term “clean-skin” has its origins in the War On Drugs that came before the War On Terrorism, in relation to people bringing drugs into the US from Latin America or elsewhere who did not fit their pre-conceived profile of what a smuggler looks like. Dictionary entries for the term offer “lilywhite” as an alternative, showing that, although officially about criminal records, immigration processes always were driven by a fair dose of racial profiling.
Now the term has transferred to the ongoing process of classifying people undertaken as part of the “War On Terror”. So, according to British government analysts, the London bombers, who were British citizens, would be classified as “clean-skins”.
Now apparently, security sources have said that it was “inevitable” that al-Qaeda would eventually turn to using women with a “western appearance” to carry out suicide attacks. The fact that such a blatantly racist term as “clean-skin” is reinforced here as meaning “white” without blushing really shows how much racism underlies most of what we get told about what the secret agencies we all fund get up to.
Whats the point of terror updates – they should stick them on twitter/facebook, its not like theres anything you can or are meant to do when they are raised like.
Seems to be more concerned with supposed state racism than with the imperialism and wars of occupation that should really concern socialists.
Of course I’m concerned about imperialism and it’s wars of conquest. Don’t you think that the way imperialism and racism operates with in the UK, and the racist classification of the population into varying levels of “threat” is important as well? The point obviously isn’t just that it’s an unpleasant term-it indicates the underlying racist mindset of the massive “anti-terrorist” state operations that have been mobilised on streets throughout Scotland and the UK in the past few days.
fiannana – we are allowed to be concerned about more than one issue, you know!
Racism is as much of a problem in the world as imperialism and wars of occupation, and it needs to be pointed out! You can’t do something about a problem unless you actually notice it and talk about it.
A short article on a blog saying ‘hey, did you notice how racist this thing is?’ can be just as important as the other anti-war and anti-imperialist work that SSY are engaged in.
People who read this blog are at all levels of political consciousness – there will be some people like you who react to this article like ‘yeah, whatever, where’s the serious politics?’ and some people whose eyes would be opened by this article.
Also: “supposed” state racism?!? wtf.
The British state has embraced and promoted multi-culturalism and official anti-racism for many years now- just have a look at the roll call of supporters of something like UAF or the CRE, for evidence of this official state position.
All this becomes problematic for British imperialism and the state when it conducts imperialist wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan because in order to kill someone its usually necessary to inculcate a degree of hatred for them and that means racist and supremacist ideas are necessary in the killers- ie working class British volunteer soldiers and their middle class officer corps. On top of this there is a significant internal population of muslims and indeed Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists and a smaller number of socialists etc who are opposed to the British states imperialism and the imperialist/colonialist British state itself. Therefore their is a degree of blowback fear in the British ruling class, but this can be harnessed and exaggerated to whip up chauvinism and British loyalism and patriotism. Nevertheless there are radicalised muslims within the disUK and in a globalised world plenty of Islamist militants who would dearly like to strike physical blows at the British state and indeed the peoples. These terror alerts are partially an orchestrated charade but they are based as well on a tangible threat. The Brits should be glad that Afghanistan or Iraq are not a few miles offshore as their Resistance would be striking hammer blows within Britland.
Shark Attack racism is a by product of imperialism and is not the same as imperialism and occupation/war, you have a very muddled idea of priorities if you think they are on a par with each other.
I’m gonnae guess you’re a white guy, or you wouldn’t say that being concerned about racism is “a muddled idea of priorities”.
Guess what – white guys don’t get to decide.
So who does? Only non whites or is it possible to take a class- that is working class position on racism? Do you disagree with me on the root cause of racism- as promoted by Empire, colonialism and imperialism? Is the British state institutionally racist still? Is class more important a factor in oppression than race?
@fiannanahalba: I’m sorry, I find it very confusing why you think it’s important to come on a socialist website and condemn an article for being too concerned about “supposed state racism.” The idea that because government policies officially embrace multi culturalism the British state isn’t institutionally racist and a daily perpetrator of racism is foolish, although you don’t quite follow through logically, admitting some measure of oppression within the UK. If you recognise it’s going on, just what is the relevance to what the government has officially signed up to? The state is still institutionally racist, and this term “clean-skin” which I highlighted is just a small bit of evidence for that.
Just what are you proposing here? That racism is put off as a priority until we have sorted everything else out, i.e. the old catch all “well under socialism everything will be all right”? I think the point that Shark Attack was making is that people who suffer racism day in day out put it considerably higher up their list of political priorities than you seem to do. People who suffer from racism need allies, not to be told their problems aren’t a priority for us just now.
I also don’t agree that the only root cause of racism is imperialism. The process by which different groups of people become socially constructed as racialised groups is a complex one, and has as much to do with class and economic grievances misdirected at the wrong target as it does with the state’s need for troops who will kill their enemies. Modern racism has it’s origins in the ideological justification of the Atlantic slave trade, before many parts of the world had been colonised and the full global imperial system had completely taken shape.
I can have an abstract position that racism ultimately is caused by class hierarchical control of society and the economy, and serves as a confusion and cloak for the exploitation of everybody. That doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t have real material consequences for people, that can concretely affect your life as much as your class position. As someone who has never experienced racism first hand I just wouldn’t presume to lecture those who have on what is the most “important” factor. But until people suffering the impact of racism see that socialists are consistent allies, take racism seriously, and don’t treat it as an add-on to make sure we’re covered, as your interpretation seems to, then I doubt very much whether they’ll have any interest in socialism. (Incidentally allowing a vacuum for politicised young people that could be filled by Islamists.)
IWCA position and their website would give you an idea where im coming from Jack.
For those who don’t know what IWCA stands for it’s an organisation called the Independent Working Class Association, and its website is here: http://www.iwca.info
I had a read of the article “Multiculturalism & identity politics – the reactionary consequences and how they can be challenged” (http://www.iwca.info/?p=10146) on the IWCA site and I think I have a few problems with it’s approach. To some extent I definitely agree that the multiculturalism as policy as practiced by UK governments from Thatcher onwards is problematic. State policy has relied on a policy of divide and rule, not just between “black” and “white” communities, but also within the movement against as racism, as different ethnic communities are pitted against each other in a deliberately fostered competition for public funds, influence etc.
However, I think a glaring omission in the article is consideration of the ongoing institutionally racist practices of the British state. This particularly applies to how state policies are deployed as part of “anti-terrorism”, which is what I was trying to highlight originally. The reason the state has used divide and rule policies is mainly of course towards limiting the possibility of united working class politics, but it’s also a racist policy of containment that the state perceived new populations in the UK and their unwillingness to be subjected to racism.
To some extent the article seems to be articulating a French approach to cultural integration, where, theoretically, anyone living in France is French and is guaranteed equality as citizens of the Republic. Of course, this is not actually the case. Ethnic minorities in France face huge and debilitating discrimination in housing, economic opportunities and how they are treated by the police and the state. In France the MIR (Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic) I think has quite an interesting approach that I think is maybe more fruitful than the way the IWCA put it in that piece. They are a movement that aims to unite all people who have come to France from the former French colonies in an attempt to bring the de-colonisation struggle to France itself and gain the right to have a real say in the re-defintion of French society. There’s a couple of good interviews with their activists here:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/bouteldja281009.html
http://indymedia.org.au/2010/01/27/the-left-and-racial-domination-in-france-an-interview-with-sadri-khiari-mir
This is the other thing that seemed to be missing from the article I read. There was a real absence of non-”white” people’s perspectives from struggling against racism. There’s a lot of decrying the liberal left for supposedly guilt tripping the working class and being reflexively “anti-western”, and claims that we idealise the identities of other communities. Not something that I can recognise much from my own experience on these issues in Scotland, but let’s leave that to one side. Where is the place in this picture for the decades of struggles waged by working class immigrants to the UK against racial discrimination at work, in housing, for fair pay or for the re-assessment of the history taught children in schools? The main people I would be guided on by anti-racist strategy would be those that actually suffer it and therefore see the struggle against it as a higher priority. That’s far from incompatible from class politics, and need not be based around particularising different communities-but it must be done on the basis of people’s right to self-determination and autonomy. The article seems to make out that communities are prisons for people in them, filled with people desperate to integrate into an enlightenment united society where their origins are irrelevant “leaving the past behind” as it puts it.
I think things are quite a bit more complex than that. Of course I think it’s vitally important to support people in being able to live freely and as they want to, e.g. supporting women subject to reactionary marriage practices, or opposing the homophobia of islamism. The articles on this blog about islam4uk or the SDL have always made clear that SSY opposes Islamist ideology, and we don’t advocate any kind of status for unofficial sharia courts or anything like that. But you can’t ignore the fact that many people adopt certain ideological or identity positions because of their experience of racism, both unofficial and institutional, as evidenced by the racial profiling of anti terror operations. And just as it’s wrong to reject everything that’s ever come out of the west, I think the article goes too far the other way, implying that if you move to the UK holding on to parts of your culture you brought from where you before is almost reactionary. Although it may be uncomfortable for many people, including working class people, who want to see “more integration”, people have a right to their culture in the form they want to express it. And before anyone says it, of course this does not justify abhorrent practices like female genital mutilation or honour killings. But it does mean that the right to cultural autonomy if desired should be defended. One of the main reasons why unpleasant practices are highlighted so much in the media is to justify much wider racist oppression that has nothing to do with human rights.
At the end of the day, I don’t see a conflict between this kind of position and a politics based around uniting the working class around common interests. The article talks about the left retreating from class into “identity politics around race, sexuality and gender.” I really disagree with this-the left in fact still has a huge way to go in establishing consistent engagement in the struggles against racism, patriarchy and homophobia, including within its own organisations. People can be more than thing at once, and fighting discrimination and oppression in all its forms doesn’t blunt our commitment to abolishing class society. Our organisations and politics should fight for all the working class, including the gay black people in the working class!
Cleanskins and lillywhites were terms first used by British intelligence and the British security services to describe Irish Republican resistance fighters who were unknown to them or had no record. First used in the late 70s. Its not a racist term.
Class is always more important to socialists than race. A black/Asian etc working class person has more in common with a white working class person than they have with a black/Asian etc Lord, Capitalist, middle class, bourgeois etc person.
This is not serious politics. It’s theory abstracted from social reality. I DO believe that class is the driving force of history and the most important factor in individual lives. I don’t believe, in fact, that “races” objectively exist. However, racism is a real social formation that is still institutionally supported by European states, including the British one. It is part and parcel of the way that capitalism operates, and relegating to a lesser importance or priority will not bring about the kind of socialist society we want to live in, or make people who suffer racism likely to see the left as in any way relevant to their lives. I posted a big response to the position you seem to be taking here, and your latest short response is more of a slogan than an argument. I’ll ask the same question again-where do the people who have for decades in the UK engaged in anti racist struggle, including against brutal working class racism, fit into your schema for the future of the left? What about their perspectives? What you are saying is that it’s time they woke up to the much better idea of their oppression that your theoretical position provides them, and re-orientate their activity accordingly. The left can have great theoretical insights as much as it wants, they will only be relevant to working class people when they see the link between them and their concrete experience and day to day, everyday life oppression. For the victims of racism this means that we are seen to take racism seriously.
The working class can never be completely united as long as some sections of it discriminate others on the basis of a fictional idea. Working class organisations have an absolute duty to make this a high priority.
Your last post poses a difference between capitalism and class inequality on the one hand, and racism on the other. Ultimately I don’t think this is correct. They are interpentrating aspects of a generalised system of exploitation that we are fighting to abolish. Racism and capitalism developed together in the same historical period, and the full realisation of a world without racism is incompatible with a world of continued class hierarchy.
I support the working class organisations combatting racism at every level, whither in our organisations, workplaces and communities or the poison spewed by the capitalists in relation to their imperialism or any scapegoating of minority groups in society. Im for maximising unity of working class people while respecting their different ethnic/religous/national or cultural backgrounds- that maximisation of unity starts with rejecting the capitalists divide and rule strategy of playing impoverished communities off one another through official multiculturalism.
Deal at all times with the root of racism/sectarianism and promote an inclusive working class socialism in the communities etc
Well I can’t really disagree with much of what you said in your last post. Seems reasonable enough. I’m just concerned that that some groups seem to view assimilationism ala France as in some way superior to the approach of Britain’s elite, when in fact they’re both flawed by ongoing racism at the heart of state institutions. I don’t know if you had a chance to read about the movement in France that I posted links about, but I think their perspective is really interesting.