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'Pig-whistle politics' and the Far Right

'Pig-whistle politics' and the Far Right

Categories: Latest News

Tuesday April 15 2014

In a comment piece in the Guardian newspaper today Gavin Titley, author of The Crises of multiculturalism: Racism in a Neo-liberal Age, reflects on the use of ‘pork’ in European culture wars waged by the far right.

Noting the remarks of French National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, following the party’s electoral success in the local elections last month, that municipalities under FN rule would cease to offer pupils non-pork based alternatives in the school menu, Titley observes that the far right leader has conveniently adopted a “rightwing defence of secularism…based on the realisation that the supposedly universal values of the republic can be appropriated as a productive front in the struggle for national identity”.

“The prime reason for this conversion, of course, is that it provides a fertile opportunity for consistently reproducing public controversies regarding the “Muslim problem” and its threat to national identity,” he adds.

Noting interventions by political leaders across Europe in dietary issues, from the FN ban on school menu alternatives to food festivals celebrating sausages as intrinsic to national identity, Titley observes:

“Pork has become a racist meme, endlessly adapted through practices of harassment: mosques in Europe have had pig’s heads nailed to their doors, pork-filled envelopes sent in the mail, slices of ham rubbed on door handles, bacon slices slipped in the shoes of worshippers as they prayed.”

This ‘pig-whistle’ politics employed by parties on the left and right of the political spectrum is designed to problematize Muslims through the creation of “symbolic problems that can be politically addressed through cost-free symbolic action”.

The very real impact on Muslim communities appears lost as far right parties with deep seated anti-Muslim prejudices adopt racist-cum-patriot posturing and vie for popular endorsement of their ‘new found’ political ideals.

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