More Pantomime Terror

More Pantomime Terror – always on the case, protecting the Security of the Homeland near and far, the CIA seem to have found a pair of hot knickers in Yemen. They found no bomber, no plane, no ticket, they have no idea who built the panty-bomb… and there is no threat to the public. So [...]

Terror as Usual

‘Terror as Usual’ – Media cultures in an age of terror Symposium Media@LSE and Birkbeck College with London Screen Studies Group Friday 25 May 2012 Venue: Clore Management Centre, Torrington Sq, Birkbeck, University of London Map: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/maps/interactive 10.00 Arrive 10.15 Introduction to the day Session One 10.30-12.00 John Hutnyk, Goldsmiths – ‘Sexy Sammy and Red [...]

Born Free – MIA’s Poetry After Guantanamo

A piece written before this week’s release of Bad Girls, coming out soon in Social Identities. Abstract: The recent work of the Sri-Lankan-British musician and sonic ‘curator’ known as M.I.A. (real name: Mathangi Arulpragasam) is considered as a commentary on atrocity and read alongside the well known essay ‘The Storyteller’ by Walter Benjamin and comments [...]

Pantomime Terror Lecture 30.9.2008

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmoidd_pantomime-terror_news This, here, for the gnawing criticism of the mice, is my inaugural Professorial lecture at Goldsmiths September 30 2008. Details: presented by Professor John Hutnyk of the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths. Title: ‘Pantomime Terror: the paranoid commuter and the danger of music’. Introduced by Professor Geoffrey Crossick. Please note there is a [...]

Pantomime Terror Lecture (last 5 mins)

http://www.facebook.com/v/10150407353425211 Here, for obscure in-joke reasons, is the last part of my inaugural lecture in 2008, where I had been discussing pantomime terror, paranoid suspicions on the tube, and the ur-story of the 1001 nights updated to Guantanamo … this is meant not only as a wind up – and I will post the entire [...]

Popular Music and Human Rights

Pantomime Terror in print (see downloads page for the pdf). This is the flyer for the set: Popular Music and Human Rights 2-vol set

Undercover Transports

click on the page to download a pdf of this text (now with all the images).

Graphic Novels of different stripes

— On Wed, 22/6/11, jon sack <jsaanum[at]yahoo.com> wrote: Dear friends,I’d like to ‘officially’ share with you my latest graphic novel, ‘Prisoners of Love’, which chronicles Ewa Jasiewicz’s experience on the Freedom Flotila last year (it has been ‘unofficially’ making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter this week).  This is a chapter in a larger project I’ve been (slowly) [...]

Pantomime Paranoia in London, or, ‘Look Out, He’s Behind You’

The book version of a commentary on various things Fun^da^mental (plus stuff on the Kumars at No. 42, Jean Charles de Menezes, Forest Gate, and the general mayhem of war-on-terror culture) is now out in a volume edited by Ian Peddie. Some of this material first appeared in various places across this blog, and was my inaugural lecture. [...]

For those that hounded Hasan Elahi

I offer you this documentation of last night’s dinner. I do this in solidarity with Hasan Elahi who, as I read in Amitava Kumar’s excellent new book (mentioned below in the Ruthless post), was detained for questioning after visiting an Artist’s Residency program in Senegal and subsequently became subject of a 6 month FBI investigation [...]

Universities UK and the hidden hand of terror/freedom of speech

In a convulsive act of responsive policy and positioning, a new publication on freedom of speech in Universities has hit the shelves. This, I suspect, is going to be interesting reading – it is from the Vice-Chancellor’s cabal we know and love as ‘Universities UK’ – a name for the infinite escalation of ego and salary combined. http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/Publications/Pages/Freedomofspeechoncampus.aspx I’m [...]

A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise by Richard Francis Burton

Note to self:  Four years before the “Indian Mutiny” (first all India war of Independence), Richard F Burton published “A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise”, writing: “The Sepoy has not learned to trust to his musket as a European soldier does. The former, being inferior in physical strength, finds the firelock a cumbrous weapon, and [...]

Afzal farce in Delhi

Gadkari not sorry about ‘son-in-law’ remark on Afzal Guru Press Trust of India, Updated: July 09, 2010 13:04 IST Dehra Dun/New Delhi: Taunting the Congress over the delay in hanging Afzal Guru, BJP President Nitin Gadkari asked the party whether the Parliament attack death row convict was its “son-in-law”. In comments that could stoke a [...]

offenders are using public transport

Criminals on our buses. So we better check their tickets cos we want them to pay full fare right! (Far Right – from the lovely people who brought you points based immigration, endless queuing, lost passports, deportations to Iraq, and the generalized cretinization that is the UK Border Agency). Worse than Homeland Security I think. The [...]

Literature and Film Go Wild in the Streets: from Burning Books to the War on Terror.

Abstract for Joel (to be written up by March) Literature and Film Go Wild in the Streets: from Burning Books to the War on Terror. Book burning is something close to the heart of novelist Salman Rushdie, whose work, The Satanic Majesties was famously burnt in Bradford  twenty years back (and in India six months [...]

This Much is True

I will be attending this important bit of theatre: THIS MUCH IS TRUE By Paul Unwin and Sarah Beck On 22 July 2005 Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by the Metropolitan Police at Stockwell tube station. It was a defining moment in London’s history yet too many questions are left unanswered. Award-winning writer [...]

The theoretical framework.

Prank, trick, fool, contrive, coquette, flirt, dodge, incite, bewitch, plot, conspire, deceive, trump, strategy, tactic, scheme, racket, intrigue, spin, frame, brew, plan, act, stage – the pantomime of politics, the theatre of power, the double-plays of deception. There is something of the gambler and something of elegance in every stratagem of war. Better we know [...]

Warm It Up Moloko-plus my little droogies – I could teach you, but I’d have to charge

In another fine mess, the University of East London contributes to the escalation of madness that also saw Will Hutton foolishly pontificating against G20 protesters on the BBC two nights ago as part of a series of suits trotted out to do defensive work in anticipation of the coming protest. Lovely of the press to [...]

Jean Charles de Menezes

You can read the verdict and see the press conference by the family campaign on the website at the end of this press release: Press statement from the family: Friday, 12 December 2008 Press statement by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the campaign and their lawyers Birnberg Peirce following the jury’s verdict “Today [...]

Lookout, he’s Behind you.

He’s behind you – we are all terrorists when we nod in approval at the belated contrition of MI5 acknowledging no specific terrorist, but generalized terror. He’s behind you – we are all terrorists when, listening to the security announcements to leave no bag untended we accept that some higher authority is watching out for [...]