Media Diversified
Analysis. Stories. Aesthetics. By and from the diaspora.
By Ali Meghji Easter celebrates the resurrection of Christ. But Theresa May’s Easter message displayed another type of resurrection, that of a nationalism which reeks of Empire, colonialism, and religious superiority. The Prime Minister spoke of the role that Christian values have to play in British society. Yet, Christian values, just like any other… Read More
by Guilaine Kinouani Content warning: contains detailed descriptions of sexual abuse On 2 February, a 22-year-old black French man named Theo was allegedly violently raped with a police truncheon, gang assaulted and racially abused by four French police officers in the Parisian suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois. So severe were the anal injuries sustained by Theo that… Read More
by Karen Williams While little attention is paid to black and Asian prisoners transported during the colonisation of Australia, there is even less information about local Aboriginal people and the neighbouring Maori fighters who were exiled to or within Australia. Their exile happened as part of their wider experiences of organised resistance against colonisation and… Read More
by Rajeev Balasubramanyam George Orwell called Rudyard Kipling ‘the prophet of British imperialism… morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.’ And yet eighty years after Kipling’s death, Disney’s adaption of his Jungle Books (itself a remake of the 1967 original) has become a global success and the second highest grossing film of this month. Have we really progressed… Read More
by Danika Parikh By now you’ve probably seen Zac Goldsmith’s election material aimed specifically at various South Asian communities in London. The fliers, delivered last week to people’s homes and aimed at British Indians, Tamils, and Sikhs list Goldsmith’s support for controversial Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his “record of engagement with the… Read More
by Iman Amrani This week the French National Assembly voted to back Hollande’s proposal to strip convicted binational terrorists of their French nationality. The debate has become so divisive that two weeks ago, French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned after publicly disagreeing with the President and it continues to dominate the French headlines as it looks… Read More
by Zarina Muhammad Institutions can never satisfactorily deal with confronting colonialism’s past and present. That is a fact. They never go far enough. There is never any real denouncement, never any sincere apology, or rather, confrontation of the subject. I went to see Artist and Empire with some brown friends and we were loud and… Read More
by Rachel Décoste Thirty years ago Pope John Paul II chose Cameroon as the location to apologise to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. This time, it is Pope Francis who uses Sub-Saharan Africa as a backdrop to speak out against colonialism. Last week in his inaugural trip to… Read More
by Marcus Stow India would like some of the British Empire’s spoils back, and have made it known with a campaign to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond, worth £105m and currently set in the Queen Mother’s crown. It’s not of course a unique situation, as campaigns for the return of the Parthenon Marbles and other loot… Read More
by Maya Goodfellow A statue of Sir Charles Napier stands in Trafalgar Square. Napier looks out over one of London’s most famous tourist sites and is, quite benignly, described as a ‘General’. He was more than that. This man, commemorated in statue-form, was responsible for conquering Sindh in 1843, a province in what was then… Read More
