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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

6 Dec 20

Re the IHRA definition of antisemitism: I have reservations too. But in the end, one of the lessons of the Labour antisemitism crisis is that definitions matter less than who interprets them and how they are used.

In fact, it's ironic that one of IHRA's major weaknesses is that it doesn't fully address structural issues of organisational culture. For example, Manchester United adopted IHRA this week - but is this just a cost-free gesture or part of wider organisational accountability?

There is all sorts of potential in IHRA for tendentious interpretation - but there is in any definition of racism. Anti-racist practice requires culture change and soul-searching. Without that you have very little.

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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

10 Aug 20

Thread: I'm starting to find western tankie discourse more chilling than the propaganda of the regimes they defend. In states like Belarus, figures like an 80% electoral victory free of rigging, are not meant to be literally believed 1/

In dictatorships the absurdity of the lie is precisely the point - it is an expression of dominance. Citizens of such countries become adept at living with multiple truths simultaneously. Even regime supporters show bravura discursive skills. 2/

Western tankies miss the point. They behave as if propaganda from dictatorships was actually supposed to be believed. Ironically, they are so imbued with western democratic norms that they have no ability to engage vin cynical doublethink. 3/

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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

16 Apr 20

[Thread]
I am becoming concerned that the future of the NHS is imperilled by fundamental misunderstandings about what it is as an institution. This has disturbing parallels to threats to democracy across the world. 1/

There is, as far as I can tell, v little public support for 'privatising' the NHS and certainly almost none for abolishing it. However, if you understand the NHS simply as an institution that provides free healthcare, then you might misunderstand what privatisation means 2/

A privatised NHS would not necessarily be one in which healthcare is no longer free. Rather, it would be an NHS run by a constellation of private companies that would need to extract a surplus from their fees in order to pay shareholders. 3/

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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

6 Dec 19

Thread: One of the reasons why the Labour Party antisemitism crisis arose is because some left anti-racists have shared platforms with those who have racist views, favouring one type of anti-racism over another. In calling this out, it's vital not to mirror that behaviour 1/

@TAAntisemitism

This weekend's demonstration by the @TAAntisemitism @antisemitism is a classic example of falling into this trap, providing a mirror image of that which they are opposing. 2/

@TAAntisemitism

@TAAntisemitism @antisemitism The presence on the bill of @COLRICHARDKEMP is the main problem. He not only has a history of Islamophobia, he is also a climate change denialist. His defence of Jews is not part of a wider anti-racism and he doesn't share UK Jewry's predominant liberalism. 3/

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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

5 Sep 19

Although the last couple of days have been a bit more hopeful, one of the things that has struck me about my reaction to the whole #Brexit process is how personally vulnerable and precarious it has made me feel. And this has taught me something... [Thread]

Part of what it means to be middle class, male, white(ish in my case) and educated in the UK, is to feel that, while you may be horrified by what a government might do, ultimately you will be all right. As a leftist, I've been disgusted by most governments in my lifetime BUT..

...this was mainly because it was horrible to witness what they were doing to others, not to me. Now though, since no-deal Brexit became the goal of most of the Leave movement, I've felt a personal vulnerability I've never felt before...

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Keith Kahn-Harris

@KeithKahnHarris

17 Oct 18

Here is what I am struggling to understand about Brexit: The Conservatives are risking what are supposed to be core commitments - the union and supporting British businesses. Why have they found it so easy to do this? [Thread]

One way of seeing the risk to the union is that pro-Brexit Tories are retreating from British to English nationalism. The risk to the economy has been explained as part of an attempt to turn England/UK into a deregulated offshore annex to US.

While these explanations do hold water, I don't think they are sufficient on their own. What seems to be happening is that for a hardcore of the right, Brexit is becoming a goal towards which everything can be sacrificed, yet simultaneously evacuated of meaning.

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