As the old adage goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Despite being within living memory of the Second World War, people are arguing that we should once again be giving a platform to ethnonationalists, white supremacists and racists. Let me remind you, we’ve already been fooled once.
The latest instance is the sorry case of the New Yorker Festival, which announced Steve Bannon as its headline speaker and within 24 hours had disinvited him after an outcry from its staff and negative feedback from the public. A host of celebrities pulled out of the festival, saying they would not appear if Mr Bannon was on the roster, including Judd Apatow, Jimmy Fallon and Jim Carrey. Apatow tweeted: "I will not take part in an event that normalises hate."
The New Yorker's editor David Remnick released a mealy-mouthed statement that both disinvited him and justified the original invitation: "We are hardly pulling him out of obscurity," he said, adding: "We'd be taking the opportunity to question someone who helped assemble Trumpism." But he has now changed his mind. Nonetheless, he said, he'd still want to interview him in a "more traditionally journalistic setting".
When Mr Bannon was invited, that was his first victory, garnering him attention, access to a mainstream platform and ultimately legitimisation. It added his rhetoric to general public discourse. Being disinvited was his second victory, giving him a chance to claim his opponents fear his ideas, to claim censorship of free speech and victim status.
This is anything but. People like Mr Bannon are hardly victims when they are the ones doing the victimising. And they have power; after all, Mr Bannon is the architect of Donald Trump. He and his cabal are behind the recent rise of American right-wing nationalism and have now founded the alt-right The Movement group in Europe.
Mr Bannon called the disinvitation "gutless". To accuse someone of being afraid when they refuse to give you space for your odiousness is what bullies do.
This is an architect of the alt-right, the man who says people should wear racism as a badge of honour – a man who believes the state should be dismantled and who has mocked mainstream media for giving platform to extremist voices like his, telling ABC's Four Corners programme: "Racists are] an infinitesimal percentage of people and they're only made important because the left media gives them a microphone".
Inviting such a man was either the work of a naive Peter Pan who is living in a fantasy world or people who simply don’t see the consequences of rising hatred and mainstreaming of exactly the kind of horrific views that had catastrophic consequences in the last century.
I simply cannot give a free pass to the editors of publications like The New Yorker, The Economist – which has invited him to speak at its Open Future festival this month – or organisers of the Munk Debates in Toronto, which will give him a platform in November to defend the rise of populism.
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Read more from Shelina Janmohamed:
[ It's time to take back control from the xenophobes ]
[ Jamie Oliver's jerk rice debate is far more insidious than it seems ]
[ It is none of Boris Johnson's business what any woman wears ]
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We already know from history how this debate goes. It didn’t go well then and it’s proving a failure now. The far right is on the rise across the US and Europe. Neo-Nazis are marching in Germany.
People who argue that we need to debate the ideas of white supremacism and racism need to remember lives were lost to defeat Nazism, fascism, apartheid and segregation. We don’t need to debate these ideas. We need to put them where they belong, in the dustbin of history. And when their embers continue to burn, we don’t fan them with oxygen.
The defence is that free speech is sacrosanct. But those who claim it as such also refuse to accept that it has consequences. If you believe that speech is free, so we must also defend the right of those who are targeted by speech and prevented from living freely and safely. Those rights are sacrosanct too.
If Mr Bannon and his ilk are on stage, so should be those who bear the scars of the real-life results of those ideas. Let’s see those consequences side by side on stage.
For many, this is a game. Mr Bannon has the respectable veneer afforded to white males. Some believe white nationalism doesn't affect them but it is an existential threat for all of us.
Of course, the question persists about who gets to decide what ideas are dangerous. But on this occasion, we already know these ideas are dangerous. This is not theory. This is about ensuring survival. And the way to survive is to ensure we are not fooled a second time.
Shelina Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Klipit
Started: 2022
Founders: Venkat Reddy, Mohammed Al Bulooki, Bilal Merchant, Asif Ahmed, Ovais Merchant
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Digital receipts, finance, blockchain
Funding: $4 million
Investors: Privately/self-funded
Stree
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Movies
Director: Amar Kaushik
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
Rating: 2/5
The specs
Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder
Transmission: 7-speed auto
0-100kmh 2.3 seconds
0-200kmh 5.5 seconds
0-300kmh 11.6 seconds
Power: 1500hp
Torque: 1600Nm
Price: Dh13,400,000
On sale: now
Panipat
Director Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment
Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman
Rating 3 /5 stars
KEY DATES IN AMAZON'S HISTORY
July 5, 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Cadabra Inc, which would later be renamed to Amazon.com, because his lawyer misheard the name as 'cadaver'. In its earliest days, the bookstore operated out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington
July 16, 1995: Amazon formally opens as an online bookseller. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought becomes the first item sold on Amazon
1997: Amazon goes public at $18 a share, which has grown about 1,000 per cent at present. Its highest closing price was $197.85 on June 27, 2024
1998: Amazon acquires IMDb, its first major acquisition. It also starts selling CDs and DVDs
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens, allowing people to sell items on the website
2002: Amazon forms what would become Amazon Web Services, opening the Amazon.com platform to all developers. The cloud unit would follow in 2006
2003: Amazon turns in an annual profit of $75 million, the first time it ended a year in the black
2005: Amazon Prime is introduced, its first-ever subscription service that offered US customers free two-day shipping for $79 a year
2006: Amazon Unbox is unveiled, the company's video service that would later morph into Amazon Instant Video and, ultimately, Amazon Video
2007: Amazon's first hardware product, the Kindle e-reader, is introduced; the Fire TV and Fire Phone would come in 2014. Grocery service Amazon Fresh is also started
2009: Amazon introduces Amazon Basics, its in-house label for a variety of products
2010: The foundations for Amazon Studios were laid. Its first original streaming content debuted in 2013
2011: The Amazon Appstore for Google's Android is launched. It is still unavailable on Apple's iOS
2014: The Amazon Echo is launched, a speaker that acts as a personal digital assistant powered by Alexa
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, its biggest acquisition
2018: Amazon's market cap briefly crosses the $1 trillion mark, making it, at the time, only the third company to achieve that milestone
The Limehouse Golem
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth
Three stars
Know your camel milk:
Flavour: Similar to goat’s milk, although less pungent. Vaguely sweet with a subtle, salty aftertaste.
Texture: Smooth and creamy, with a slightly thinner consistency than cow’s milk.
Use it: In your morning coffee, to add flavour to homemade ice cream and milk-heavy desserts, smoothies, spiced camel-milk hot chocolate.
Goes well with: chocolate and caramel, saffron, cardamom and cloves. Also works well with honey and dates.
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
Roll of honour
Who has won what so far in the West Asia Premiership season?
Western Clubs Champions League - Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins; Runners up: Bahrain
Dubai Rugby Sevens - Winners: Dubai Exiles; Runners up: Jebel Ali Dragons
West Asia Premiership - Winners: Jebel Ali Dragons; Runners up: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
UAE Premiership Cup - Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins; Runners up: Dubai Exiles
West Asia Cup - Winners: Bahrain; Runners up: Dubai Exiles
West Asia Trophy - Winners: Dubai Hurricanes; Runners up: DSC Eagles
Final West Asia Premiership standings - 1. Jebel Ali Dragons; 2. Abu Dhabi Harlequins; 3. Bahrain; 4. Dubai Exiles; 5. Dubai Hurricanes; 6. DSC Eagles; 7. Abu Dhabi Saracens
Fixture (UAE Premiership final) - Friday, April 13, Al Ain – Dubai Exiles v Abu Dhabi Harlequins
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
Company Profile
Company name: Namara
Started: June 2022
Founder: Mohammed Alnamara
Based: Dubai
Sector: Microfinance
Current number of staff: 16
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Family offices
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
RACE CARD AND SELECTIONS
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,200m
5,30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,200m
6pm: The President’s Cup Listed (TB) Dh380,000 1,400m
6.30pm: The President’s Cup Group One (PA) Dh2,500,000 2,200m
7pm: Arabian Triple Crown Listed (PA) Dh230,000 1,600m
7.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 1,400m
The National selections
5pm: RB Hot Spot
5.30pm: Dahess D’Arabie
6pm: Taamol
6.30pm: Rmmas
7pm: RB Seqondtonone
7.30pm: AF Mouthirah
India cancels school-leaving examinations