CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
Reclaiming the Ground: Lawful Expropriation and Land Justice in South Africa
Colonialism rarely dies; it mutates. Its uniforms change—from khaki to suits, from passbooks to policy papers—but the arrangement it protects remains the same: some live on the land, others live off it. Post-apartheid South Africa knows this intimately. Political rights were won; material power was not. Three decades on, the democratic state is asked to perform a contradiction: celebrate equality while administering an economic geography built to deny it. The debate over land reform—especially over compensation below market value, and in narrow cases at nil—turns on whether we still seek permission from the very market that grew fat on dispossession. Frantz Fanon warned that colonialism is not only a system of force; it is a pedagogy that trains the colonized to accept the master’s ledger as the measure of justice.[1] If decolonization begins with unlearning that pedagogy, then the first act is conceptual: stop asking the market to ratify the undoing of the market’s crimes. The...
ARTICLES
The Irish Crisis: Don’t mourn, organise
My dad died 31 years ago this week. My mom, who has taken up web-development in her mid-70s, went looking for an obscure picture of him to scan into an anniversary email to her children and grandchildren, but instead turned up this beautiful piece of organising...
The Irish Crisis
In recent months the Irish crisis has disappeared from the international news. But that has not stopped the crushing cuts. Last sunday night the Taoiseach (the leader of the executive) addressed the nation. On monday and tuesday, an exceptional two-day budget was...
Occupy Utrecht Statement
This statement expresses the vision and goals set by Occupy Utrecht (The Netherlands) in solidarity with all Occupy movements across the globe. Occupy The global Occupy movement consists of people who have spontaneously come into action for worldwide economical and...
Owning Up: Academic Responsibility in a Polarised Political Landscape
A Sigh of Relief There was a sigh of relief when, after a farcical legal process, befitting an Ally McBeal-type scenario of the bizarre and surreal, Wilders (the anti-Islam/Muslim politician) was acquitted from incitement to hatred and criminal insult. The acquittal...
Image as Interest: Occupy & the Pepper Spray Cop
In his Times column this morning, David Carr wonders about the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement and, specifically, its fate as an ongoing topic of mass-media conversation. “Occupy Wall Street left many all revved up with no place to go,” he writes. Which is a...
Occupy Wall Street as a Node of Resonance
The North American insurrection began when a handful of people occupied public space and began producing resonance. This is the material force that toppled three political regimes in North Africa and can only be produced by multitudes coming together on the streets....
Fiscal Crisis or the Neo-liberal Assault on Democracy
Of course, it is always possible, and very often the case, that the dominant media claims that a “fiscal crisis” has precipitated mass demonstrations, strikes, and new forms of political mobilization in Greece. Although it is true that there is fiscal crisis, it...
A Dictionary of Policing Protest
This is the second installment of the dictionary. I felt we needed new terms to help us describe the increasing intimidation of protesters in the UK. Kettle of First Resort: The use of ‘containment’ – holding people against their will and without intention to charge...
Be Unrealistic, Demand the Possible
There is a specter haunting Wall St, the specter of a people. We've got them spooked—that unholy alliance of closet fascists and pseudo-liberals who deny we exist: Bloomberg and Fox News, David Brooks and Larry Summers. Its high time that we speak for ourselves, that...
The Final Blackmail of Baron Papandreou
The unexpected announcement by Greek PM Papandreou yesterday that he is to call a referendum and ask people to vote about the October 24 agreement is the opening salvo in the endgame of the Greek tragedy. Is this extraordinary gambit a genuine request for a popular...
The Right to Protest
On 27 October the case against me for breeching Section 4 of the Public Order Act was dismissed less than half way through the hearing. The case arose out of the protest against David Willetts back in June. In total four people were arrested at that protest. The...
The Afterlife of a Sovereign Corpse: Gaddafi
The global circulation of the images of Gaddafi’s corpse and the long lines of people eager to see it in person reveal, rather than a generic fascination with gore, that this cadaver embodied a state that had been destroyed. The power of Gaddafi’s corpse to affect...
Race, Civility & A Good Cup of Tea: Tottenham
This is an exerpt; Full text available at Canadian Dimension ... In response [to the summer's riots], many observers tried to comment on the situation, drawing out grand theories of the political, social, and economic context behind the events. Some blamed social...
Heirs of Marx
The 1996 book The End of Capitalism (as we knew it): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy authored by the duo (as one) of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham (J.K. Gibson-Graham) spelt out the ways in which certain types of thinking have warped our thoughts on...
The Indictment
The workers of a small bakery and corner shop in central Athens announced yesterday (Weds) that while they would not close because they are serving many vulnerable people they are joining the 2-day general strike by charging all products at cost. It must have been an...
Letter to Occupy Together Movement
I wish I could start with the ritual "I love you" which the Occupy Movement is supposed to inspire. To be honest, it has been a space of turmoil. But also, virulent optimism. What I outline below are not criticisms of the Occupy movement. I am inspired that the...
Occupying Uncertainty
There is a clear link between the coffee I drink in the morning and the opportunity of the daughter (or son) of the coffee farmer of being able to go to school or being left to work the fields for subsistence. It makes me wonder whether I should drink coffee or rather...
The Occupy protests, #GlobalDemocracy and … Cosmopolitanism?
October 15th saw more than 950 protests in more than 80 countries take place against the injustices of the global financial system. This may be just the beginning. Drawing inspiration from Tahrir Square, Puerta del Sol and Occupy Wall Street, people around the world...
United for Global Democracy: A Manifesto
On 15 October 2011, united in our diversity, united for global change, we demand global democracy: global governance by the people, for the people. Inspired by our sisters and brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, New York, Palestine-Israel, Spain and...
Reflections on 9/11
Presentation at “The Other 9/11,” Pace University, September 9, 2011. In my remarks tonight, I want to reflect on the significance of 9/11 for us today, and by “us” I do not simply mean the citizens of the United States, although they will be the focus of my address....
The Pakistani Left is Re-Grouping
A consistent and contested debate reappears like weeds in a garden. Does the Pakistani Left actually exist? Some say no. These folks tend to belong to the Pakistani diaspora, disillusioned by the decline of the Left globally. Others say that it exists, but is...
KEY CONCEPTS
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SERIES / SYMPOSIA
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