Ben Gidley
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bengidley.bsky.social
Ben Gidley
@bengidley.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.1K following 690 posts
Sociologist, dad, attenuated Jew, nervous anti-fascist, rootless cosmopolitan, drum and bass fan, out of practice salsa dancer, asphalt botaniser, glutton, insomniac, hearing impaired, union member, living in London
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bengidley.bsky.social
Also of note from @jprdata.bsky.social October report: Reform are deeply un-trusted by British Jews (Labour and Tories remain quite well trusted).
November 20, 2025 at 10:21 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
…I haven’t yet seen the voting report but here’s the data on the growth of anti-Zionist and declining Zionist identity among younger Jews:
November 20, 2025 at 10:19 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Surprisingly good editorial in the FT. What makes these evil policies even more evil is (a) they’re cynical (most Labour politicians know the measures are morally wrong), but (b) they’re stupid, in that they’re never going to help Labour win back racists and will only boost the hard right (see pic).
November 19, 2025 at 3:35 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Packed house at @bisa-bkk.bsky.social for a brilliant lecture by @kenanmalik.bsky.social on the deep roots of the re-emergence of white identity and mainstreaming of racism
November 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Been going through the Communist-affiliated Left Review from the mid-1930s Popular Front period. John Boswell’s modernist anti-fascist cartoons are a real standout.
November 13, 2025 at 6:22 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Exciting that Birkbeck is hosting this event celebrating twinning between UK and Ukrainian universities (including our own twinning with K. D. Ushinsky South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University in Odessa) and the Global Coalition for Ukrainian Studies.
November 13, 2025 at 1:24 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Hannah Arendt in Syria, by the great Yassin al-Haj Saleh, has been published in German. It would be amazing if there was an English edition.

www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/produkt/hann...
As a political thinker, Hannah Arendt grappled with evil based on the experiences of her time. She initially found the Nazis' unimaginable atrocities incomprehensible because, from a military perspective, the mass killing of women, men, and children simply seemed unnecessary. Similarly, the violence and horror of the Assad regime, which transformed Syria into a prison for its inhabitants over several decades, often seemed unimaginable. One person who experienced and survived this firsthand is Yassin Al-Haj Saleh. In his four essays, presented here for the first time in German, he critically engages with Hannah Arendt's thought in order to develop concepts of a philosophy situated in the Syrian experience: thinking as an undogmatic form of co-thinking, the absent as a third element that transcends dialogue, state and time as a relationship that unites in totalitarianism, and finally an elaboration of the concept of evil, which here is not only conceived as banal, but also as physically intimate, as in the torture prisons of Syria, and as normalized, as in the war on terror.
November 6, 2025 at 9:11 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Have you seen his attacks on @wienerlibrary.bsky.social as “genocidaires”? — not because of some imagined complicity post-2023 or even post-Nakba but from its very inception in 1940 [sic], which has the jaw-dropping implication that he thinks the ones fighting the Nazis were the bad guys in WWII.
November 1, 2025 at 12:56 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Solidarity to family and friends in Exeter counterprotesting the far right today.
October 25, 2025 at 9:46 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Also that account is one of many hardcore fascist accounts on “X” that poses as an informative history account. Most of them have classical statues or WWII images as avatars. This one is about rehabilitating Hitler.
October 20, 2025 at 12:52 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
(A bit weird to read this today, as this period of his life is the focus of my current research project as part of @liminalwater.bsky.social. I’m in Marseille discussing that now. Here’s the alley in Marseille named after McKay
October 16, 2025 at 6:53 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Our next event: Events
Migration Scholars’ Global Solidarity and Resistance Network: Global Teach-Ins/Outs, 11 November 1-5 pm Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square ssahe.net/2025/10/13/m...
October 14, 2025 at 11:48 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
However, we do know attacks on mosques are common, and rising. These are very recent examples:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

religionmediacentre.org.uk/news/we-belo...

tellmamauk.org/june-to-sept...
October 5, 2025 at 11:53 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Statement by University and College Union @ucu.org.uk on yesterday’s attack in Manchester

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1421...
UCU General Secretary Jo Grady said: "UCU is horrified by the appalling car and knife attack at the Heaton Park synagogue in Greater Manchester during Yom Kippur. Our deepest condolences go to the loved ones of those killed, and our thoughts are with all who have been injured or traumatised by this shocking act of antisemitic violence. "This attack is a brutal reminder of the dangers we face when hatred is allowed to take root in society. As educators and trade unionists, we know that the greatest weapon against ignorance and prejudice is education. Colleges and universities are at the heart of building understanding, tolerance and solidarity. "We also recognise the terrible shock and distress this will cause for many of our own members, especially those of Jewish faith. Jewish people and all communities must be able to worship, study and live free from fear. UCU stands with the Jewish community and with the people of Manchester, as we recommit ourselves to challenging antisemitism and all forms of hatred wherever they appear."
October 3, 2025 at 5:46 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Statement from Syrian NGOs on yesterday’s attack, including Manchester-based Rethink Rebuild Society.

www.rrsoc.org/node/1746

syrianbritish.org/statement-fr...

Cc @sundersays.bsky.social @syrianotes.bsky.social
Statement from the Syrian Community in the UK on the Tragic Attack in Crumpsall 3rd October 2025 The Syrian community in the United Kingdom extends its deepest condolences to the Jewish community in Manchester and across the UK following today's tragic stabbing at a synagogue in Crumpsall. We are horrified by this attack, and we stand in full solidarity with our Jewish neighbours as they grieve. That such violence was carried out in a sacred place of worship, and on Yom Kippur-the holiest day of the Jewish year—makes this tragedy all the more painful. We stress unequivocally that houses of worship must remain places of peace, safety, and sanctity, never targets of hate or violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the Jewish community during this most difficult time. As Syrians, we know this pain all too well. For over 15 years, Syrians of all faiths have endured devastating attacks on mosques, churches, and sacred spaces. We have buried loved ones, mourned in silence, and lived with the scars. Violence against innocent people especially in places of worship—is something we stand firmly against, wherever it happens. At this stage, no one within our Syrian community networks—neither within nor beyond Manchester-has been able to identify the individual involved in this attack or confirm knowing him personally. We appeal to our wider society not to allow this tragedy to give rise to racist incidents directed at Syrians, Muslims, or migrants. Violence must not be met with further division or hatred. At the same time, we hope this incident will not be misused to impose restrictions on freedom of expression—particularly the right to peacefully protest and speak out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Syrian community stands alongside the Jewish community in rejecting violence, and we recommit ourselves to building a society where every community can live in dignity, security, and mutual trust.
October 3, 2025 at 10:47 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
The @bisa-bkk.bsky.social @runnymedetrust.bsky.social report on antisemitism quoted in the NYT.

@dmf101.bsky.social @brendanmcgeever.bsky.social @shabna.bsky.social

archive.is/tnICz
The Runnymede Trust, a British think tank that focuses on social justice issues, said in a recent report that the current approach to protecting Jews from hate crimes in Britain was not working, and might even have worsened the problem by creating a perception among other groups that they were not as zealously protected. "The significant funding given by governments to protect Jewish people specifically makes Jewish communities feel safer in the short term but has given rise to perceptions that there is a hierarchy of racisms in the U.K.," wrote David Feldman, director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, which produced the report with the Runnymede Trust. "These divisions have been made worse by the conflation of anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism when this is not justified," Mr. Feldman wrote in an introduction to the report. "At the same time, the left has too often failed to recognize antisemitism, let alone address it."
October 3, 2025 at 7:46 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
PS adding credit to the other fab conveners of this seminar series @julietatkinson.bsky.social, @selenadaly.bsky.social,
@historysunny.bsky.social, and Christopher Zembe
October 1, 2025 at 7:41 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
Enjoyed first seminar of @ihr.bsky.social Migration + Mobility seminar series led by the fantastic @kabcommons.bsky.social, starring legend @profpanayi.bsky.social and great presentations by @endeeekay.bsky.social (see pic for book out soon w/ @punctumbooks.bsky.social) & @marcloureiro.bsky.social
September 30, 2025 at 7:24 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
“When peace dies,
embrace it.
It will live again”

Palestinian artist Malak Mattar, seen in a bar in Deptford over the weekend.
September 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Concluding words from Jacqueline Rose and Lisa Baraitser at the Birkbeck psychosocial postgraduate conference. Jacqueline says “We need to hold on to psychoanalysis as an anti-fascist tradition of thought.”
September 23, 2025 at 3:47 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Bit blown away by how sophisticated, accomplished and articulate our MA students are (not least in comparison to what I was like as an MA or even PhD student!)
September 23, 2025 at 12:49 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
Looking forward to this afternoon conference organised by the amazing
Psychosocial postgraduate students at Birkbeck
September 23, 2025 at 10:55 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
If you’re following the insane medical claims made last night by Trump, RFK and Dr Oz, and are curious about how alternative health faddism got entangled with far right ideology, you may want to read my recent essay on diagonalism:

leftrenewal.org/webinars/gid...
A few months into Donald Trump's presidency, widely considered to be the most right-wing administration the US has yet seen. And yet: Robert F Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaxxer, alternative medicine enthusiast and long-term environmental activist, scion of liberal aristocracy, is the Health Secretary. Tulsi Gabbard, who grew up on surfing and yoga, a former Sandernista (a Fellow of the Bernie Sanders Institute!), is director of national intelligence. Kash Patel, from a Gujarati immigrant background, a former guest on Aaron Mate's "anti-imperialist" Grayzone YouTube channel, is now the head of the FBI. His director Dan Bongino was a regular guest on Infowars. JD Vance, once a recommended author in every highbrow liberal outlet in America, who compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, is the Vice President. And of course Elon Musk, a long-time Democratic Party donor, who has previously endorsed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Andrew Yang (and his proposal for a universal basic income), and Robert F Kennedy (as well as Kanye West) for president, is... well who knows exactly what his job is. The image of the rabbit hole or the pipeline works well for two reasons. Like the concept of "diagonalism" or "tendril theory” ( @nberlat.bsky.social ), it captures the sense in which politics is not a neat linear left-right spectrum, but that fascism pulls people towards it from various places. The image also works well because it captures the way that diagonalism works as a process. Many analysts have looked at how internet culture generates dynamics that move people politically deeper into the hole or further along the pipe, as they stop trusting their previous sources of information, "do their own research" and find increasingly radical icanc confirmed by new information sources. The pipeline (or perhaps network of pipelines) which Callison and Slobodian focus on is Covid conspiracism and alternative health, the "crunchy to far right" pipeline that many commentators belatedly noticed since 2022 (although it has a far longer history.). Mike Small @bellacaledonia.bsky.social has analysed how this plays out in the UK, focusing on the conspiracy theorists of the British right-wing TV network GBNews, many of whom come from a New Age background. “These new forms of populism have taken all of the counter-culture of the 1960s 70s and 80s and moulded it into some new form, a grotesque caricature of anti-establishment, denuded of any political analysis, and leaning heavily into critiques of state power and media power with no conception of capital. This is a Hippy Grotesque, Dead Heads in a post-truth fever-dream.” The term "conspirituality", the fusion of conspiracy theories with new spiritual movements, also captures this.
September 23, 2025 at 6:41 AM
bengidley.bsky.social
A gut yor, and Mabon blessings. 5785 (and 5784) were grim. May 5786 bring the world a little closer to something better. A time to renew our commitment to making it so.
September 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
bengidley.bsky.social
I think the total emigration 2019 to 2024 is something like 3.5 million, half a million a year. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...
September 22, 2025 at 9:16 AM