Vogue: don't mention the human rights abuses

Vogue magazine's website has a sycophantic portrait of the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad ("elected president", Vogue informs us, "with a startling 97 per cent vote"). Published very recently - 25 February - it is (somewhat nauseatingly) called 'Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert'.

It includes this gem:

'The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls “active citizenship.” “It’s about everyone taking shared responsibility in moving this country forward, about empowerment in a civil society. We all have a stake in this country; it will be what we make it.”'

I strongly recommend reading Joseph Daher's 'Syria protests: breaking the wall of fear' as an antidote. Among other things, it indicates that some Syrian youth are indeed discovering 'active citizenship' and 'empowerment'.   

Tip off: Owen Jones on Twitter

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Semiotically confused

Have a look at this feature: 'Riot girls, literally'.

OK, I admit to being confused by this. Is it proof that capitalism can absorb anything, including radical protest, in its commodification of everything ('turning rebellion into money')? Is it sanitising and depoliticising the student protests?

Is it a symptom of the radical student movement making an impact on mainstream consciousness? Is it a cheekily subversive, witty and clever way of combining protest with fashion? Is it just a bit of fun? Or what?!

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Bash the fash?

'Dismiss fashion as trivial and you dismiss the issues of workers rights, globalisation, the environment, cultural representation, identity construction and body image to name but a few.

From anti-Bush t-shirts to £10,000 dresses, the bits of cloth we put on our bodies all have history and meaning. Wear a hijab or the niqab and you’ll be attacked by Jack Straw and outlawed by the French Government. Wear a miniskirt and some courts will say that you are to blame for being raped. Since polyester is made from oil, fashion has even taken us to war.'

So begins an excellent article, the first installment in a wide-ranging 5-part series on the politics and economics of fashion by Tansy Hoskins. The remaining contributions are to be published weekly on Counterfire, concluding in London Fashion Week in late September.

Tansy is one of the organisers of 'Fashion on Trial', a political event in east London on 29 September. It will be a chance to further explore the issues discussed in the Counterfire series.  


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Mutiny puts the fashion industry on trial

'Fashion faces trial by the kangaroo court which is Mutiny as the revolutionary collective examines how the rag trade makes its riches.

Fashion on Trial is a fancy dress event and will open at 6pm on Wednesday, September 29 at the avant garde Resistance Gallery in east London's Bethnal Green with speed debating followed by discussion, entertainment and general mayhem.

The bi-monthly "on trial" events are organised by a rag-tag of socialists, anarchists, environmentalists, LGBT campaigners including trade unionists, students, campaigners and general troublemakers.

Mutiny is a mutlimedia event with film showings, art exhibitions and live streaming. Footage of the most recent event, The Media on Trial is now online. A 5-minute short introducing the Mutiny project is now in production.'

Read more at The Sauce

Click HERE to book your tickets online

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